At five mana, we find ourselves some cards that are extremely powerful. Things that, when they're in your deck, can tangle with Uro, Nissa, and Teferi on raw power. As with all cards, they look amazing when they're on the battlefield, but not amazing when they're in your hand and you don't have the mana to cast them, or when the ability they have to turn the game around is dwindling.
Each of these cards listed is super duper strong, and each with their own set of pros and cons, which is kind of the problem in my eyes. If you're going to be paying this much mana on something, it's gotta be the right one every time, and as it stands, none of the cards are lights out against the whole format. Some of them are lights out against some of the decks, but beatable against others.
Gargaroth is usually just going to end the game when you untap with it. That seems like a quality that you'd want in a card, but for this mana cost, the downside if they do have the answer becomes huge. Unlike something like Chevill that is high floor high ceiling, Gargaroth is super low floor and super high ceiling, just because of the mana investment needed to play the two cards.
I think that there are times when Gargaroth could be better, but right now lots of decks are playing black removal spells or counterspells. When red removal is the most played way to deal with creatures, Gargaroth looks much better. If you think it will live, and you think you will live long enough to cast it, there's nothing better, but it doesn't seem like those two things are happening right now.
Glorybringer is similar to Gargaroth in that it is extremely good against an aggressive deck. If they don't have black removal or counterspells, then you're going to be getting some value out of it. It acts a little like a planeswalker, whever every other turn it casts a 4 damage Searing Blaze, but you can also just turn on the jets and try to close a game quickly.
I think of Glorybringer as an anti-creature huge-drop like Gargaroth but slightly worse against creatures and slightly better against UW Control. If your list has a more aggressive slant to it and the 4/4 haste can finish off an opponent from time to time, Glorybringer gets a little better. Out of all the five drops available to us though, I would say Glorybringer is among the worst options against Sultai, which certainly is public enemy number one. It matches up poorly against Uro, Krasis, Nissa, and Doom Whisperer, it's hard to attack Sultai's life total, and they have answers for it like Maelstrom Pulse and Aether Gust if needed. That said, if the format moves to a place of creature decks where Glorybringer shines, like Gruul, and planeswalker heavy control decks, like Grixis, then Glorybringer starts to look good.
Out of these first three cards on this list, Thragtusk is the one I like the best for a wide open format. It's got immediate value, it's got stats big enough to attack down a Teferi, and it's good against removal, instead of being bad against removal. It's a big enough roadblock against aggro decks that you can usually turn the corner with it.
However, being a Jack of all trades means you're an Ace against nothing, and if we're spending five mana for something big, it needs to have a lot of power. Thragtusk is most playable in a diverse metagame like we're in now, but that a five mana spell isn't too expensive for the speed of the format.
The Eldest Reborn is my favorite five drop if you expect to be playing fair magic and want some value. This thing gives a ton of value and is pretty hard to get off the board. It's one of the best things to be doing against midrange mirrors and control decks, but it lacks so much against aggro decks. Most of the aggro decks in the format go wide, so your opponent might be losing a Soul Warden, a Cauldron Familiar, or a Llanowar Elf.
Eldest Reborn, in my eyes, is more of a maindeckable version of Angrath, but I don't think that's something we're looking for.
Angrath shines against Uro, which as you could imagine is very valuable in this format, but it lines up nicely against other things out of that deck, like Nissa and Hydroid Krasis. It also can pretty nicely square off against Teferi out of U/W Control decks. It disrupts the opponent's hand and makes counterspells pretty weak, it pressures opposing planeswalkers by stealing their stuff and then attacking them with their own creatures. It also has a little bit of inevitability attached, since it Shocks them every turn.
Angrath represents a card advantage engine that also can help itself gain traction, but as long as it resolves, is never able to be answered on a one for one basis. The -3 is a tempo play that can completely change the focus of a game, from both players amassing board presence to your opponent being on the back foot immediately, and having to deal with an engine/clock planeswalker. Similarly to most of these cards, untapping with it in play gives you a huge likelihood to win the game.
I usually play Angrath in the sideboard, and the reason is that, the matchups where it's at its best are matchups where you can expect to get to your fifth turn. At this mana cost, you can play cards like this where they're included to fight a specific card (Uro) but are just strong enough cards to come in for a lot of matchups. Plenty of times when you're playing against another midrange brew, what you're really looking for is a disruptive value threat to try and go a little bigger than the opponent, so Angrath shines there as well.
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These are the five drops that I've considered playing in the last few months here, but there are others that I've tried out. Siege Gang Commander, Biogenic Ooze, both 5 mana Viviens, and Doom Whisperer come to mind, but they don't really seem to have the huge power swings that the cards I've listed here have. I also talked a bit about Battle Mammoth in an earlier post, and I think that one is a contender if, like always, a five mana spell is something we want to be doing. As for going further up the mana curve, Casualties of War is my favorite supermassive value card, but Garruk Cursed Hunstman is a pretty unbeatable force if you can get it into play. I don't think the Historic format lends itself to doing stuff like that but you kind of never know. If Uro gets banned ever, it will definitely shake up a lot of our preconceived notions about card assessment, and I'll probably have to rewrite this whole series. Anyways, I think I'll do two more of these, one on removal spells and one on sideboard cards. Thanks for reading.
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