The Hobbit officially released this Friday, and MTG players are busy figuring out the quirks of the game’s latest limited format. While it’s still incredibly early in The Hobbit’s lifespan, and the set is far from ‘solved’, reliable and versatile cards are often identified during these initial stages of play through experimentation and speculation. Let’s talk about Pinecone Strike, and why this arboreal attack seems to be generating so much attention.
To win any game of Limited in MTG, you need to ensure that you have a reliable suite of removal spells, and every color deals with threats slightly differently. Red is famous for blowing up its problems through direct damage. Because of this, almost All MTG Sets feature a two mana spell that deals three damage, or a close equivalent. Pinecone Strike fills this niche for The Hobbit, but some quirks about its effect, as well as about the format more broadly, make it one of the most desirable common cards in the set.
When cast, Pinecone Strike deals three damage to a creature, and then exiles them if it would destroy them. In addition to that, it can also destroy an artifact token controlled by the opponent. Notably, you can activate both of these modes, you don’t have to choose one or the other. This means that you can take out an opponent’s Ravening Warg at the same time as destroying one of their treasure tokens.
Ben Werne, one of the hosts of the Lords of Limited podcast, describes Pinecone Strike as “broken” thanks to The Hobbit containing a “plethora of X/2” creatures ready for it to take out. Marshall Sutcliffe, from Limited Resources, states that it is “great, obviously”.
Is Pinecone Strike going to break into constructed any time soon? Probably not, but in the specific self-contained world of The Hobbit drafts, these pinecones can really pull their weight.
What’s your favorite pack one pick one card? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
