Is Lizard, Connors’s Curse The New Oko, Thief of Crowns?

Spider-Man releases on September 26th, and by now we’ve known all the cards in the set for quite awhile. In this week’s article, I wanted to discuss one card that I think is being overlooked – and it’s a card that I think it would be dangerous to ignore.

Lizard, Connors’s Curse comes with an impressive 4-mana 5/5 trampling body, but it’s his “enters” trigger that I think warrants the most attention. He makes another target creature become a 4/4 Lizard with no abilities.

This immediately reminded me of another card with a similar ability that was largely overlooked during preview season – Oko, Thief of Crowns. A card which is arguably the most powerful planeswalker ever printed. A major part of Oko’s power comes from his +1, which makes a creature or artifact into a 3/3 with no abilities.

In this article, I’m going to discuss what makes Oko and his +1 so good, before discussing whether or not Lizard can be expected to have a similar impact on Magic.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOW A 3/3 ELK

It’s hard to believe today, but people really didn’t understand Oko’s true power when he was revealed during Throne of Eldraine preview season in 2019. This includes myself. I only gave him a “B” in my Throne of Eldraine Limited Set Review, and he of course turned out to be an A+ in that format – and all the others, too.

You can find lots of other incorrect evaluations of Oko all over the internet, even among players more seasoned than myself, like Luis Scott-Vargas and Ryan Overturf. It’s also always amusing to go back and view the thread for the card from preview season on reddit.

Like me, most people didn’t think Oko was a bad card. In fact, most people thought he’d be good. But there really wasn’t anyone who could imagine that he would become the multi-format menace that he was.

It all comes down to underrating his ability to turn creatures or artifacts into 3/3 Elks with no abilities. Before Oko, cards that animated artifacts, and/or change a creature’s base stats did not have a very good track record. So it was easy to write-off that ability as merely solid.

But, it would turn out that ability was incredibly strong. Broken even.

MORE LIKE BROKO, THIEF OF CROWNS, AM I RIGHT?

Evaluating Magic cards is hard when you can’t actually play with them, especially on a card like Oko who had a very unique ability. But as soon as people actually started playing with him, it was very clear he was better than almost anyone had given him credit for.

His +1 was incredibly strong and flexible. You could use it to animate your own Artifacts, and turning a Food token into a 3/3 was a pretty incredible upgrade. It meant Oko could generate a body to protect himself while he continued to use his powerful abilities. It was less exciting to turn one of your own creatures into a vanilla 3/3, but sometimes that was worth doing.

But the part people truly underrated was his ability to make opposing creatures and artifacts into vanilla 3/3s. On paper, it sounds pretty terrible to turn your opponents noncreature artifact or 2/2 creature into a vanilla 3/3, but it turns out doing either of those things was actually quite powerful. Oko was simultaneously a removal spell and a way to generate bodies.

Once Oko’s secrets had been uncovered he began to dominate every 60-card format in Magic: the Gathering. If you’re curious about the levels of dominance in some depth, I advise reading Frank Karsten’s article about Mythic Championship VI, where 70% of the field was playing Oko.

Before 2019 was out, Oko was banned in Standard and Pioneer, in 2020 he got banned in Historic, and in 2021 got the ax in Legacy. These days, the only 60-card format where Oko is legal is Magic’s most powerful format – Vintage, and he’s heavily played there. That’s the one format where the power level can actually keep up with this powerful Planeswalker.

So, I think Oko has definitely earned his crown as the most powerful planeswalker ever printed, and he was overlooked because his ability to Elk was hard to evaluate. We shouldn’t make the same mistake with Lizard.

SO, IS LIZARD GOING TO BE AS GOOD AS OKO?

Lizard definitely won’t be as good as Oko. His ability to Lizard is worse than Oko’s ability to Elk. Lizard costs more mana.  He can only go after creatures, and that means he can’t animate your artifacts or blank your opponents’. Oko’s ability is also easily repeatable, and as a planeswalker he comes with added modality. In addition to Elking things, he can generate Food for you to animate with the +1, or trade your Food for something better.

Also, Oko’s ability to make stuff into 3/3s is kind of the sweet spot. It gives you a significant creature when you need one, but giving your opponent a 3/3 is well worth otherwise nerfing their card. Lizard is going to be less able to do that, as the 4/4 body you give them is substantially more imposing. Of course, the flip side of that is also that you can upgrade your own creatures a little bit more.

In almost every way, Lizard is less impressive than Oko. But this villainous reptile man does have one thing Oko doesn’t – a body. Lizard is a threat in his own right, and his ability to downgrade an opposing creature into a 4/4 means that Lizard can definitely manhandle that creature in a fight, and even trample over it.

That certainly doesn’t make Lizard as good as Oko, but it does help him make up some ground. Casting Lizard is never going to feel bad, and sometimes he’ll be able to turn the game on its head. For that reason, I think it’s likely we see Lizard appear in 60-card formats like Standard or Pioneer because he’s an efficient creature with a flexible and powerful ability. 

He’s never going to dominate any Magic format the way the Thief of Crowns dominated all of them, but I think we can all agree that that’s a good thing.

END STEP

So, what do you think? Is Lizard going to be a multi-format all-star? Or is he just a pale imitation of the most powerful Planeswalker ever printed? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.