In Defense of the Baloth

Once upon a time, I was 12. I opened my first starter deck of Magic: The Gathering. In it, was this!!!:

Craw Wurm stole my heart. It was so powerful. But then I played more, and saw more cards. I saw white and black's flying 4/4's for 5 mana. I saw the 'cycle' of elementals. I saw Shivan Dragon, and then I saw Mahamoti Djinn. Despite being a guy who grants wishes, the Mahamoti made me sad. He was blue, the color that was supposed to have the weakest creatures, but here he was, having the exact same cmc and colored mana requirement as my beloved craw wurm, flying, and packing a summed p/t one higher than the crawmeister with no drawbacks!* It wasn't right!

As I learned more, I passed over green for a leaner U/W deck that ran Serra Angels, Air Elementals, Mahamoti Djinn, counterspells, and all that. To play the best creatures, I had to pass over the color that was supposed to be the place where the mightiest beasts could be found.

Many years later, I've been presented with a card that I wish I could send back in time to my 12 year old self:

To me this card represents the correction of the imbalance of power between creatures and spells, and the culmination of the past years of tuning up green's wedge of the color pie. This is a hard card to cast unless your deck is mono green. Why can't mono green ram a Baloth into the opposition turn 3 (with accel?) Nothing a Terror, Counterspell, or Path to Exile can't stop (sorry red, I know you and green are homies. You'll think of something).

I'll start calling this power creep if Wizards takes it any farther. If next year we see a 5/5 for 3 cmc with little to no drawbacks, or a 4/5 for 3 with abilities, it will be our duty to boycott that set.

*I didn't bring Force of Nature into the discussion because of its GGGG upkeep.