Hero of Leina Tower - Magic the Gathering

She's tougher than she looks.

Currently doing random cards from Born of the Gods, using a random generator to pick a number from 1-165 and doing whatever it lands on.

Name: Hero of Leina Tower. Hero is spot on, this card sporting the heroic mechanic and all. My only complaint is the Leina Tower bit. There is no bloody tower in the artwork. Admittedly, adding tower to the province name is much more impressive than saying Hero of Leina, plus the word gives the impression of something you build up into something massive. I just would have preferred if there was some sort of art cue, then again though the name and the art probably weren't decided at the same time.

Art: Despite being towerless, the art is actually pretty good. Composition wise, you have a strong heroic figure in the foreground, with a huge, hulking beast lying dead in the background. The viewer is able to fill in the gaps, creating a little narrative. This gets across both the small size of the figure, compared to the beast in back, along with the potential power of it.

Flavor: Heroic is a very difficult mechanic to show and explain flavor wise. The flavor text on this card though captures the feeling perfectly. Your creature is only potentially great. You still need that extra card in order to bring that strength to fruition. The text nicely ties the mechanic to the flavor.

Aesthetic: To be honest, this is not a very exciting rare to me. Why? Pay X. Having a mechanic that triggers an effect can be awesome, such as landfall. Having a mechanic that triggers a payment you can or can not pay to get the effect feels much less so. I'm certain the card is more powerful than she looks, that being the whole flavor of the card, but it doesn't get me as excited as automatically giving a +1/+1 counter would. This card is more about making you think how to make it work, as opposed to something that automatically comes across as sexy. In terms of player psyches, my guess would be Johnny.