[Spoiler][KHM] Arni Slays the Troll

Finally, a way to make Bonecrusher Giant fight something without losing life. This is firmly in the category of removal spells that are not removal spells on turn 2. The earliest you'd play it is turn 3 or 4, and by then, the ritual isn't super valuable and you're going to want your P/T on the board now. Doesn't seem very versatile.

I could see this maybe being a sideboardable card in some specific matchups. It feels like it has similar potential value as Elspeth's Nightmare, where it is very strong with certain specific play patterns, but very underwhelming if only one or no chapters hit. Killing a creature, buffing one, getting a refund, and gaining a bunch of life is very powerful if it all works out the way you want.

This one's hard to evaluate because the effects are sequenced real weird. Playing this t2 as a ramp spell pretty well wastes the fight effect and creature pump, but playing it later on diminishes the value of the ramp. The fight effect happens before you get +1/+1 counters, and you'd clearly rather have the counters first. Fight and pump effects are good with big creatures, but the way this is set up, you have to fight/pump with creatures other than the one that you're ramping into.

The ceiling seems pretty high for this card, but it also seems nigh-impossible to sequence such that you maximize the value you can get out of it. Maybe you play it midgame to ramp into a 'walker or finisher-type creature?

This is literally the green inscription as a saga. The order is a bit whacky and it’s super slow though

Feels like a worse Domri's Ambush on the whole and that card was just ok. I guess if you had a way to blink/rebuy it then that could be cool but that's not really in R/G's wheelhouse. I'm sure it will be quite strong in limited though.

Reminds me of Elspeth’s Nightmare. Has both the potential to be very good, and very useless. Heavily meta- and matchup-dependant.

This seems like it could be used by gruul in some matchups. Against rogues you could trade a human token from lovestruck for a thieves guild enforcer and then turn 3 put down two 2 drops so one might survive the inevitable drown in the loch/eliminate or whatever your ramp desires may be. Also could be useful in turns 4 and on against aggro for using a Lovestruck Beast with no 1/1 to kill most creatures and then possibly gain 7 or pump up another creature to be impactful after the earlier turns

Now that I said that to justify making this post besides the obvious Icelandic Saga connection does anyone keep reading this Saga names and keep thinking one could be "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" or something from that TNG episode and no one would know?

This is a crazy bomb in limited at uncommon. Draft a few of these and go to town.

This is potentially quite decent in historic gruul in some match ups. [[Burning Tree Emissary]] works nicely with this, being able to fight a bit better than a 1-drop.

I get the distinct impression this card was too powerful in playtesting, but instead of increasing the CMC or effect of the verses, they just made the sequencing all... clumsy.

I absolutely don’t think you want to play this T2 as a future ramp.

You only want to play this if it’s to fight something IMO. After that the other parts are a bonus.

T2 any fights going to be 2:1 against yourself and then you have nothing for the counters.

I think this is something you probably play T3 to kill a 1 or 2 drop with your larger 2 drop.

This is a kicked [[inscription of abundance]] for two mana over three turns.

Interesting, could be playable.

I feel like this would be better in Gruul Midrange instead of Aggro. A higher number of mana dorks would let you play a cheap powerhouse like Bonecrusher before slamming this down.

And if [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]] is on the field, the two +1 counters can affect cards like [[Paradise Druid]] so you can you can go on the offense with them. Either that or you can put the tokens on Questing Beast to make him even deadlier when attacking with Goreclaw.