Why Koth, Fire of Resistance May Be Better Than It Looks

Hello everyone!

So we’ve been able to review Lukka, Bound to Ruin, Nahiri, the Unforgiving, Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting, Nissa, Ascended Animist, and Jace, the Perfected Mind as compleated walkers, and Kaya, Intangible Slayer and The Eternal Wanderer as our heroes, and we have another hero to analyze – Koth, Fire of Resistance!

So we have a four mana planeswalker with four loyalty, so the planeswalker equivalent of square stats which is fine.

The +2 is simple, find a basic Mountain from your deck, put it into your hand.

The -3 synergizes well with the +2 as you get to deal damage to target creature equal to the number of Mountains you control, but unlike the first ability, it counts all Mountains, not just basic ones.

Finally, you have the ultimate as a -7 that you get an emblem where with each Mountain you play, you get 4 damage to wherever you want it.

So this is a relatively straight forward planeswalker that doesn’t look particularly special on the surface. So what’s the rating?

VERDICT

A lot of people have been low on Koth, and I do understand why, but I think it’s much better than it looks.

First off, Koth has two good abilities on entry – one where you draw a card for a +2 and one where you can kill a creature. Sure, the card you draw is a Mountain and the creature you kill is limited by the number of Mountains you have, but those are both quite powerful abilities. I think that many players underestimate the impact of drawing any card for free, even a Mountain can be. Furthermore, in a Mono Red deck, the -3 is going to kill nearly anything you need it to, then if the opponent doesn’t kill it, you get a land, then threaten to kill something else! That’s quite reasonable for a four mana planeswalker.

Of course, one of the major issues with Koth is that you have to play it in Mono Red, and that hasn’t been good recently, right?

Mono Red Midrange

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Standard

Midrange

best of 3

11 mythic

12 rare

14 uncommon

23 common

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

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Planeswalkers (5)

2

Chandra, Dressed to Kill

$23.98

3

Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

$2.97

Creatures (13)

2

Shivan Devastator

$10.98

4

Monastery Swiftspear

$2.76

4

Bloodthirsty Adversary

$11.96

3

Feldon, Ronom Excavator

$1.47

Instants (10)

4

Play with Fire

$15.96

4

Lightning Strike

$1.40

2

Rending Flame

$0.70

Enchantments (8)

4

Kumano Faces Kakkazan

$2.36

4

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

$79.96

Lands (24)

19

Mountain

$6.65

4

Mishra’s Foundry

$7.16

1

Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

$5.99

60 Cards
$174.3

Sideboard

3

Abrade

$1.05

2

Rending Flame

$0.70

4

Obliterating Bolt

$1.40

3

Reckoner Bankbuster

$5.97

3

The Elder Dragon War

$1.47

15 Cards
$10.59

This just top 4d the most recent Standard challenge with two other copies of Mono Red also occupying the top 4, one of those winning the whole challenge! Both of those were lower to the ground aggressive decks, but Mono Red clearly has some legs. While the look of this list may be kind of weird, just playing good Red cards so you have strong threats and cheap removal is a really strong combination. In a deck like this, Koth can really shine. It helps you find lands as, since you’re a slower deck, the games are going to go longer and they’ll have more utility. As the games go longer, you’ll have more lands to work with thus the -3 will be more impactful and can kill big creatures like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Finally, I didn’t say much about it before, but the ultimate is really good. This is no Chandra, Torch of Defiance emblem, but like Chandra’s emblem, this can kill very quickly once you reach it, and considering you can activate it on the third turn Koth is in play, that’s quite powerful.

So while nothing about Koth stands out as amazing, this seems like a very solid planeswalker that will have its place in a deck that’s looking to get established. You’ll always get something useful off of it, it’ll always put you up on cards, and like other planeswalkers, can win the game if left to its own devices. This isn’t the flashiest walker I’ve seen recently, but it definitely seems solid.

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