Why Torrential Gearhulk is a Toxic Card That Should Have Never Been Printed

Torrential Gearhulk is a card that makes the current standard meta almost unplayable. It is almost directly responsible for so many people playing red decks because red is the only way to combat the toxic control decks that oppress the format. Many people think Teferi is why control is so good but it isn't, it's Torrential Gearhulk and if you simply look at the value of the card you will see why.

Torrential Gearhulk is a 5/6 creature with flash for 6 mana. When it enters the battlefield, you get to cast an instant from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. Most often the cards you see flashed back are Vraska's Contempt, Disallow, or sometimes card draw like Glimmer of Genius. Let's look at each of those.

Say you flash back a Vraska's Contempt to exile a Hazoret the Fervent, Rekindling Phoenix, or a Lyra Dawnbringer. No only did you get a 5/6 creature but you also exiled an opponent's creature thus two-for-oneing them, and also gained two life. This is 10 mana and 2 cards worth of value for 6 mana and 1 card. Many times you will get even more value because you can flash Gearhulk in during combat and block another attacker, thus THREE-for-oneing your opponent.

If you flash back Glimmer of Genius you get a 5/6 creature with flash, scry 2, draw 2, and gain 2 energy. Once again, 10 mana and 2 cards worth of value for just 6 mana and 1 card.

Similarly, if you were to flashback Disallow this could and often does counter a key spell at a crucial moment. 9 mana and 2 cards of value for just a 6 mana investment.

The problem with Torrential Gearhulk is something that WoTC has had issues with in the past - it lets you cast stuff for free. When players can cast things for free, the game breaks. Just look at the Urza's block. If Torrential Gearhulk was going to allow the caster to cast a spell from their graveyard, it should have either limited the mana cost of its potential targets (perhaps allowing you to only cast an instant costing 3 or less for example) or Gearhulk itself should have been made a worse creature. A 5/6 with flash for 6 already isn't that bad. Maybe they should have taken away the flash, thus allowing players to only cast Torrential Gearhulk on their own turn, during their main phase. This would have avoided the mid-combat shenanigans and also made it so you can't flash back a counter spell. Alternatively they could have just made him slightly smaller, maybe a 4/4. It is silly that he can block a Hazoret indefinitely.

Basically Torrential Gearhulk allows players to skirt the four-of restriction to what cards they can play in their deck. If you have already eaten four Vraska's Contempts, you shouldn't have to worry about dealing with more. And yet with Torrential Gearhulks - you do. You can be contempted six, seven, even eight times.

This is one of the worst standard formats I can remember and the control decks are the reason why. Hopefully once cards like Torrential Gearhulk, Scarab God, and Disallow rotate, it will be enough to knock them down a peg and allow other decks to come into their own. Judging by how many tools WoTC has given current though, I'm pretty sure the new set will just replace them. Settle the Wreckage is a toxic card, there are multiple board sweepers, Teferi, constant draw filtering with Search of Azcanta, and numerous other counters like Negate, Essence Scatter, and Syncopates. Standard decks should not cost $400 - $500 dollars and yet these decks do. There's a reason.