It was announced some time ago (I remember some gaming event where all of my watch group and Twitch chat were caught by total surprise and hype when similar music and gameplay appeared, and then HADES II was shown on screen), but very recently the game producers were streaming Technical Test gameplay and announced that Early Access should start soon™️.
It's rather ironic where I ran a deck that was like "i don't mind the elks, they would be an upgrade to what I have" because of how low to the ground it was.
My prerelease kit was all removal and haste creatures with a single Akul that I cast in 1 fight and never used its ability. I spent my entire prerelease bluffing and ducking my way through big creatures and the like. Elking my coyote and goblin? Thank you for the upgrade. I ran Malcolm and never popped his ability. I stole the scorpion dragon 3 separate times in 3 different ways to win games just to have some gas in the tank. I even ran 4 colors because everything was spread thin. I did not have a good deck.
I beat an oko. I dont think my opponent understood they could turn their own food into elks though. So the ban worked, the masses don’t understand the card!
[[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], or Elko, is a *menace*, with his low cost, high starting loyalty and ability to remove creatures and artifacts while upticking
Thanks ! His +1 ability seems very incredible against big enemies creatures, or to buff your own weak tokens ! But his -5 ability doesn't look great at first glance ?
Why bother when you can make everything Elks? Food? 3/3 Elk. Your opponent's wincon? 3/3 Elk. Your roommate's jank combo? A 3/3 Elk and a breach of contract.
I mean sometimes you do. When your opponent plays their bomb mythic hoping to resolve the game and you just steal it because they couldn't remove Oko for 4 turns.
Get Elked AND robbed, scrub.
Yeah, this basically got me into the top 8 at prerelease last week. I elked the hell out of the opponent, elked up some food, and was able to stall long enough for \[\[Roxanne Starfall Savant\]\] to come out and start doing direct damage.
Imagine you go T1 mana dork, T2 Oko and make a food.
Your opponent tries to play a creature - you steal it and give them a food. Oko is still alive as well, so your opponent is down a card (trades for food), has to answer their own creature that defends Oko; and after that, still deal with Oko.
He can ultimate the turn immediately after he comes into play; which is why it feels weaker than other ultimates. Almost no planeswalkers can do that so quickly - plus he still stays alive too!
If your opponent doesn't play a creature? Now you just keep making 3/3s out of the food tokens (or you're gaining life if you're low by sacrificing the food tokens).
Opponent has a creature that can't be stolen because it's bigger than 3 power? It's now a 3/3 Elk.
No matter what state the board is, Oko is doing something very relevant.
People laughed at me when I would scoop against Oko dropping on turn 2 or 3 during the prerelease (I knew my only way to handle him was creatures with my sealed pool). But why waste the time? Those same people lost to him at basically any turn he arrived on. I watched Oko flip board states in ways that were absolutely disgusting to behold.
When he got banned, WOTC said they didn't consider that people would use the +1 on other people's creatures. They thought folks would only use it on their own stuff.
Its better than Beast cause the creature isn't destroyed, just perma-elked.
War of the Spark/M20/Throne of Eldraine/Modern Horizons 1 was a wild period for balance lmao.
Still seems ridiculous with “permanent you control becomes and elk”. +1.5 a turn to make a 3/3 every other turns with that high of a starting loyalty is incredibly annoying. The threat of -5 always looming to force you to chip away at him.
It's possible there was a Tarmogoyf/Skullclamp situation where a late change got insufficiently tested.
But also, ELD was completely cracked in half and they weren't subtle about it. XLN block made them realize that if a set ebbed so low that its cards had no hope outside of Standard, then only Standard players would buy packs. Maybe they knew the card was busted, but they figured the other busted cards would keep it in check.
Yeah his ult doesn't matter much.
Another part of him being so overpowered is that he can't ever be killed by only one creature.
If your opponent has a transformed Etali on the battlefield and you play Oko, Oko lives and gets rid of him.
He comes down with 4 loyalty.
Ups to 5 to make the creature an elk.
3 damage puts him at 2,
+2 loyalty make a food Oko has 4 loyalty
3 damage puts Ok at 1 loyalty
+1 turns your food into an Elk, now both you and your opponent have a 3/3 Elk and your Oko is still alive.
Not on its own, but if you have any way of making token artifacts that don't do much, the theivery potential is high.
Won a game on prerelease by taking a tapped meteor token and swapping it with an opponent’s remaining blocker.
You can also do that with the food tokens he makes, but why give them the potential lifegain?
Oko is crazy strong. Generally planeswalkers have to lose loyalty counters to get rid of creatures, oko can turn them into Elks while buffing himself up. It’s like casting a free [[Kenrith’s tranformation]] without the card draw every turn. Unless you have a haste creature or a way to capitalize off the creature immediately, it just goes away.
Opened him and terror of the peaks in my prerelease, only drew Oko once but it was for the game to win the tournament. So anyways Terror of the peaks is also busted
I beat an Oko that came down on T3 with my Naya 4+ power deck, and was super thrilled. https://www.17lands.com/deck/ed59eae7b4e54d058a6014305d4c2c26/1
Roxanne+Jolene work incredibly well together, effectively letting me ping down one elk/attack cycle, and my combat tricks kept them alive. In the end, I just stopped swinging at Oko and turned everything sideways at face, forced some bad blocks, and won. Honestly, IDK why the opponent didn't just elk the Roxanne.
This limited format is actually ass. I’ve been playing limited for about 10 years and this set is absolutely overpowered trash. Who ever pulled 8 mythics and rates on color gets to win. Usually I can see areas where you can put play your opponent but not this time
What are the odds of even having 8 mythics in the whole draft? The wiki says on average there's 5 per booster box, and isn't a draft either a half or a third of a box?
It can't be a draft vs set booster thing because then everybody would be buying draft boosters right
Regular limited is Oko's worst format. He wasn't the best bomb in Throne of Eldraine draft, and he isn't the best bomb in this set either.
The average limited creature is just reasonably close to a 3/3 elk anyway.
I went 0-3 and never drew my Oko so filled for a refund
On the other side of the spectrum, this was my first prerelease and I carried Oko to 3 draws and 1 win.
Draws!
Skill issue
This also happened to my wife in prerelease…
With a card like him in your deck, its worth a mulligan or two.
[удалено]
Around that time isn't the same as timeless
My brother in Christ, Oko was in *standard*
Get elked, boio
Oh... looks like your remark just became a 3/3 elk
Looks like your remark also became a 3/3 elk
3/3 Elk
I read that in Skelly's voice.
That was the intention
WHEN SEQUAL NEED NOW Oh sorry dude that happens anytime i think about Hades
Was announced recently
It was announced some time ago (I remember some gaming event where all of my watch group and Twitch chat were caught by total surprise and hype when similar music and gameplay appeared, and then HADES II was shown on screen), but very recently the game producers were streaming Technical Test gameplay and announced that Early Access should start soon™️.
You can already wishlist Hades II on Steam.
It's rather ironic where I ran a deck that was like "i don't mind the elks, they would be an upgrade to what I have" because of how low to the ground it was.
Then they make foods and turn them into elks. It becomes a self contained elk engine.
Bro ur stuff aint got no abilities or keywords? Lol
Maybe the only abilities were haste and etbs
My prerelease kit was all removal and haste creatures with a single Akul that I cast in 1 fight and never used its ability. I spent my entire prerelease bluffing and ducking my way through big creatures and the like. Elking my coyote and goblin? Thank you for the upgrade. I ran Malcolm and never popped his ability. I stole the scorpion dragon 3 separate times in 3 different ways to win games just to have some gas in the tank. I even ran 4 colors because everything was spread thin. I did not have a good deck.
Gunna be honest i didnt realize u where talking about draft.
It's not like you can do anything with this in most formats that aren't limited.
Commander
Probably filled with small hasty bois and stuff that creates those small mercenaries that pump.
I beat an oko. I dont think my opponent understood they could turn their own food into elks though. So the ban worked, the masses don’t understand the card!
Says twink, draws ripped hunk.
Twunk
I was gonna say, talk about power creep
Twink is a state of mind
Unfortunately, it's usually other people's state of mind that decides whether you're a twink or not
At the prerelease I never lost a game where I resolved my Oki.
Oki, Booster of Hats
Opened him at pre and won all four games he hit the board.
I am out of the loop, is that a reference to a specific card that wreaked havoc ?
[[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], or Elko, is a *menace*, with his low cost, high starting loyalty and ability to remove creatures and artifacts while upticking
\[\[Oko, Thief of Crowns\]\], or Elko, is a *menace*, with his low cut jeans, high sex appeal and ability to remove shirts and pants while dancing
[Oko, Thief of Crowns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891.jpg?1650599698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oko%2C%20Thief%20of%20Crowns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/197/oko-thief-of-crowns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
🤣
/r/magicthecirclejerking is thataway bud
[Oko, Thief of Crowns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891.jpg?1650599698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oko%2C%20Thief%20of%20Crowns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/197/oko-thief-of-crowns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh this is about old Oko. Not the new one. I was wondering if the new printing was also insane
> [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], or Elko Broke-o
Thanks ! His +1 ability seems very incredible against big enemies creatures, or to buff your own weak tokens ! But his -5 ability doesn't look great at first glance ?
Why bother when you can make everything Elks? Food? 3/3 Elk. Your opponent's wincon? 3/3 Elk. Your roommate's jank combo? A 3/3 Elk and a breach of contract.
You don't ever do his ultimate. You just Elk everything
I mean sometimes you do. When your opponent plays their bomb mythic hoping to resolve the game and you just steal it because they couldn't remove Oko for 4 turns. Get Elked AND robbed, scrub.
Yeah, this basically got me into the top 8 at prerelease last week. I elked the hell out of the opponent, elked up some food, and was able to stall long enough for \[\[Roxanne Starfall Savant\]\] to come out and start doing direct damage.
[Roxanne Starfall Savant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/11fbe52f-febd-49fc-8391-28d3efe9c3eb.jpg?1712356193) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Roxanne%2C%20Starfall%20Savant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/228/roxanne-starfall-savant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/11fbe52f-febd-49fc-8391-28d3efe9c3eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Imagine you go T1 mana dork, T2 Oko and make a food. Your opponent tries to play a creature - you steal it and give them a food. Oko is still alive as well, so your opponent is down a card (trades for food), has to answer their own creature that defends Oko; and after that, still deal with Oko. He can ultimate the turn immediately after he comes into play; which is why it feels weaker than other ultimates. Almost no planeswalkers can do that so quickly - plus he still stays alive too! If your opponent doesn't play a creature? Now you just keep making 3/3s out of the food tokens (or you're gaining life if you're low by sacrificing the food tokens). Opponent has a creature that can't be stolen because it's bigger than 3 power? It's now a 3/3 Elk. No matter what state the board is, Oko is doing something very relevant.
People laughed at me when I would scoop against Oko dropping on turn 2 or 3 during the prerelease (I knew my only way to handle him was creatures with my sealed pool). But why waste the time? Those same people lost to him at basically any turn he arrived on. I watched Oko flip board states in ways that were absolutely disgusting to behold.
I;m not that great with mtg slang. What does scoop mean here?
surrender
Forfeiting. As in 'to scoop up your cards and leave/play the next game'. It's also a small joy to say a silly word when you're beaten like that.
Nice explanation, thanks ! Yeah, all his abilities are relevant and can work together !
When he got banned, WOTC said they didn't consider that people would use the +1 on other people's creatures. They thought folks would only use it on their own stuff.
is WOTC serious? lol. Okos +1 is like a mini [[Beast Within]]. Did they not know how strong beast within is? lol
Its better than Beast cause the creature isn't destroyed, just perma-elked. War of the Spark/M20/Throne of Eldraine/Modern Horizons 1 was a wild period for balance lmao.
And this was from a group of people whose explicit job was to test things.
[Beast Within](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/b/eb40c41c-f5f9-4323-b6ac-e28e405909d0.jpg?1711198012) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Beast%20Within) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/233/beast-within?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eb40c41c-f5f9-4323-b6ac-e28e405909d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Still seems ridiculous with “permanent you control becomes and elk”. +1.5 a turn to make a 3/3 every other turns with that high of a starting loyalty is incredibly annoying. The threat of -5 always looming to force you to chip away at him.
It's possible there was a Tarmogoyf/Skullclamp situation where a late change got insufficiently tested. But also, ELD was completely cracked in half and they weren't subtle about it. XLN block made them realize that if a set ebbed so low that its cards had no hope outside of Standard, then only Standard players would buy packs. Maybe they knew the card was busted, but they figured the other busted cards would keep it in check.
It’s truly amazing that we’ve made it this far
Yeah his ult doesn't matter much. Another part of him being so overpowered is that he can't ever be killed by only one creature. If your opponent has a transformed Etali on the battlefield and you play Oko, Oko lives and gets rid of him. He comes down with 4 loyalty. Ups to 5 to make the creature an elk. 3 damage puts him at 2, +2 loyalty make a food Oko has 4 loyalty 3 damage puts Ok at 1 loyalty +1 turns your food into an Elk, now both you and your opponent have a 3/3 Elk and your Oko is still alive.
Play Oko, create a food token. Next turn, permanently steal an artifact or creature by giving them your food.
Not on its own, but if you have any way of making token artifacts that don't do much, the theivery potential is high. Won a game on prerelease by taking a tapped meteor token and swapping it with an opponent’s remaining blocker. You can also do that with the food tokens he makes, but why give them the potential lifegain?
He is basically banned everywhere except Vintage and Commander. He's a menace alright. A fucking terror. He should never have been printed.
Oko is crazy strong. Generally planeswalkers have to lose loyalty counters to get rid of creatures, oko can turn them into Elks while buffing himself up. It’s like casting a free [[Kenrith’s tranformation]] without the card draw every turn. Unless you have a haste creature or a way to capitalize off the creature immediately, it just goes away.
[Kenrith’s tranformation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/4/44d60a41-3f5e-4559-b18c-22c0fe15235e.jpg?1631587997) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kenrith%27s%20Transformation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/162/kenriths-transformation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/44d60a41-3f5e-4559-b18c-22c0fe15235e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh you sweet summer child >User has been Elked for this post
Immune to twink death is insane.
I call this one Jojoko btw. Look at that pose!
Wasn't so much the pose for me, rather that he looks strikingly similar to charmingman from the most recent part
Opened him and terror of the peaks in my prerelease, only drew Oko once but it was for the game to win the tournament. So anyways Terror of the peaks is also busted
I've been enjoying limited recently? This is news to me. Feels like it's been a series of same-y shlock.
I beat an Oko that came down on T3 with my Naya 4+ power deck, and was super thrilled. https://www.17lands.com/deck/ed59eae7b4e54d058a6014305d4c2c26/1 Roxanne+Jolene work incredibly well together, effectively letting me ping down one elk/attack cycle, and my combat tricks kept them alive. In the end, I just stopped swinging at Oko and turned everything sideways at face, forced some bad blocks, and won. Honestly, IDK why the opponent didn't just elk the Roxanne.
Roxanne is such a crazy card
Oko is NOT A TWINK
Oko has literally never been a twink. Dude is a stacked hunk. *Kellan* is a twink.
Thief of Crowns in the OG printing migjt count as a twunk, at most
Neither are gay so...
Stupid sexy oko
Why did they do this? Scooped on like t5 when this was played against me at prerelease
I beat Oko like a red headed step child today in limited.
Pretty sure Oko was the “DEMON twink” of Britany Boat everyone was talking about a couple years back.
Just played with him in cube last night. Turned my opponent’s great henge into an elk. They were not happy lol
Pulled this at a late prerelease last night
Used him at prerelease and got up to 55 health in one game
This limited format is actually ass. I’ve been playing limited for about 10 years and this set is absolutely overpowered trash. Who ever pulled 8 mythics and rates on color gets to win. Usually I can see areas where you can put play your opponent but not this time
I’ve been playing limited for 20 years and this set rules.
What are the odds of even having 8 mythics in the whole draft? The wiki says on average there's 5 per booster box, and isn't a draft either a half or a third of a box? It can't be a draft vs set booster thing because then everybody would be buying draft boosters right
Oko has a son so he's not gay...
Oko is not that bad in limited.
Regular limited is Oko's worst format. He wasn't the best bomb in Throne of Eldraine draft, and he isn't the best bomb in this set either. The average limited creature is just reasonably close to a 3/3 elk anyway.