It's St. Patrick's day, so all your posts have to mention the word green. This creature, though, doesn't have much green about him.
Ice-drake # Hazard # Creature # 1 MP # 15/- # Keyable:
Drake. Two strikes. May be keyed to Elven Shores, Angmar, Gundabad, Grey
Mountain Narrows, and Withered Heath
Of the drakes, this is one of the biggest. It's got high prowes, multiple strikes, and is keyable to quite a few places.
Of the 1 MP creatures, Ice-drake weighs in pretty heavy. It's 15 prowess rocks, and can even give someone like Glorfindel a few worries. It's two strikes mean that you will certainly tap two characters unless he cancels the attack. And the cool thing about Ice-drake as opposed to a dragon is that if it's canceled, you can just pull out another one and then a True Cold-drake, etc., etc. Plus, if your opponent muscles up and actually defeats the drake, he's only gotten 1 MP and will probably be tapped for the site phase. You may have a character step up and sacrifice himself to the Ice-drake, so you might want to play Half an Eye Open, although Ice-drake will probably cause damage whether or not you choose the recipients.
Perhaps the only disadvantage (in inverse of Light-drake) is the somewhat limited playability. Many people notice that a creature is keyable to regions only and then don't pay much attention to it, but Ice-drake can hit a lot of companies. Withered Heath hits companies prepared for dragon attacks, but Ice-drake can still be a good move. Grey Mountain Narrows is also usually traveled by big companies, but in sealed deck it can be useful for The Wind Throne (and what sealed deck comapny is ready for two strikes at 15?). Gundabad is a Dark-domain, so it will probably be traveled by buff companies, but if they're expecting undead or orcs a Drake could be a signficant surprise. Also, if you can use Ice-drake to tap a couple characters, that's a few less MPs mister Indy Jones can get. Angmar is a similar place, even more popular for Indy. Also, this creature can hit Elven Shores, something I forgot to mention in my review of Himring.
So you may want to include this very powerful (but limited) drake in a deck with other creatures in other areas. It might also be a good sideboard or sealed deck choice, and screw with Indy, Coastal, and Dragon decks.
| Ratings for Ice-drake: | |
| Isildur: | 6.9 |
| Samwise: | 5.7 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 7.5 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 7.5 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.5 |
| Beorn: | 6.9 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 6.0 |
| Alatar: | 5.0 |
| Average: | 6.5 |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1997 by Trevor Stone. Permission given to duplicate so long as no profit is made and the copyright notice is kept in tact, blah, blah, blah.