Nahiri's 3rd ability

Nahiri’s ult reads: Give a creature you control Haste and…blah, blah, blah.

What is the point of the haste? You can only use the ability on your turn before you summon creatures, so all creature’s summoning sickness wears off before you can ever use the ability. The only exception I can think of is if you stole a creature using Exert Influence/Welcome to the Fold after a Match-5, but a) that seems like an extreme corner case, and b) those are blue cards and thus not accessible to Nahiri in the first place.

If you summon a creature using a match-5 and get another turn, then haste is useful.

Oh, OK. I didn’t remember that creatures cast after Match-5s.

i prefer they change it to “the creature will surely attack even if it’s disabled”

Originally her 3rd was supposed to pull the next creature from your library and give it haste and buff. Guess they decided to scrap that.

This one is nastier

This obviously was conceived as an offensive ability but I often wish the effect lasted until the beginning of next turn so it could be useful on defense as well. I’ve been playing with Nahiri a lot and I found that if the match is going your way you’ll never need the third. If it’s going south then it’s rather useless since the effect doesn’t last enough to make a defensive stand.

It allows you to rally from an early deficit. Making up 40+ points of damage in one turn is huge.

Right. JC posted about it awhile back. I’ll quote it for those who missed:

"If you want a bit of history, the ability initially was supposed to fetch the next creature in your library, put it on the battlefield, reinforce it 1 to 4 times, give it haste and trample, and at the end of your turn it returned to your library.

The problem was that if the creature you fetched already had a copy on the battlefield, it would reinforce that copy (then due to another problem the additional reinforces wouldn’t work, but that’s another issue) and would return to your library at the end of your turn. Obviously we don’t want to have an ability that bounces your own creatures back to your library, so we changed it to only affect what was already on the battlefield. I left haste on it so that if you did a match-5 you could use it on a creature you just summoned.

That’s the whole story behind that ability icon_e_smile.gif
"

Only if you have a 8/8 creature or better, otherwise the first ability gives you much better value when casted every turn. But even so, I see third abilities as match-defining, not as catch-up tools. icon_razz.gif

You have to factor in triggered abilities as well. IE if Olivia is on the board

Thankfully big creatures aren’t exactly in short supply. Regardless, if you’re facing a deck with heavy removal, the third ability is superior, as you may have limited windows to get chunks of damage in.

Regardless, you may see third abilities as match-defining, but it’s clear that the developers don’t. =p Nahiri being versatile enough to adapt to the situation is a strength, not a weakness.