Shadowborn Apostle - Magic the Gathering

Well, M14 has now been fully spoiled, it's time to take a look at some cards. Note, I haven't played with the set yet, this is just my thoughts on some of the new cards, my likes, my dislikes, and their future potential. Now, we're starting with this:

I wonder if the text once said "twelve creatures".

This card has a really neat concept, and really neat rules text. The guy that stands out in my memory with similar text is Relentless Rats from Fifth Dawn. Art is neat to. If you look closely, you can see five other robed figures in the background. Oh, and a smoldering corpse on the altar, unsure if he was a member of the Shadow groupies.

My Johnnysenses tingle with this card. I once tried to make a Biovisionary deck that loaded up on guys like Clone so I could copy the guy and activate its text. A similar strategy could work here. Problem is, the Biovisionary deck copied guys to win the game. This would be a lot of work for little reward, spending a bunch of one-cost and four-cost guys to get one big guy. My one idea is using something like Immortal Servitude, summoning all the Apostles from your graveyard. Bloodbond March and Thrumming Stone might be fun too! Regardless, it's going to take a lot of work and effort to make this guy work. This is a good example of a card that excites some players (like me), but others will find utterly useless.