Crocodile vs Crab

[Mystery]

Maybe so, but you forget the epicness of your pet-croc being buffed in the opponents sea! 

Never forget awesomeness in your calculations.

awesomeness is not in particular competetive

And sirenes call can make it quite useless

[Kelanen]

Yeah, I'll take win percentage over 'awesomeness' every time.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I really don't know the cards, but I'm interested. If the Crocodile and the Crab would be applying for a job in your deck, who would you pick and why? 

Depends on the deck, what it's doing, and possibly the training of your mage.

That being said, I love using the croc in beastmaster books. He's a phenomenal pet for straywoods that can also be a sturdy reptile if you run kinships. I also run him in a JBM that I call the bleedmaster too due to grapple being all around awesome and the deathroll having a 5+ bleed chance.

The Crab (multiple, actually) shows up in my siren book as anti-zombie tech. Zombies are notoriously hard to kill due to resilient, so the 2 damage in the upkeep to whatever the crabs have grappled is very effective. The 5 armor of the crab also lets it shrug off otherwise high damage hits from the zombies themselves. Akiro's favor and Iguana regrowth are fantastic accompanying spells for the Crabs too.

At some point, I'm going to try a pet crab out as well. I'm a HUGE fan of both of these creatures because they have the potential to be big, hard to kill threats that can also hold enemy creatures in place for you.

A pet crocodile? just take a pet grizzly and be done with it. The crocodile does of course reduce 2 dice of the grappled creature but first loses 1 die and pierce for the initial move in and later 5 dice vs 7 dice pierce 1 or if the grizzly is your vicitm 5 dice pierce 1 vs 5 dice bleed, the bleeds will stack after some time but initially (until they die and no healing the piercing will give you the same) On top it wastes two of your precious spellbook points.

I am still of same opionion as in playtesting to weak initial dice or at least it should be a 4 spellbooks point creature for either not 6. But the croc has some interaction with the sirene and the deptones, but that takes long set up and the sirene is rather squishy for it. Just the 6 spellbooks points will mean you hardly can afford a back up. It as not a down the road creature but small buffs could have made it a good creature

To the comparison both have the benefits, but for the mana cost you get just better stuff with the crocodile in my pov.

But the bear doesn't do the same job as the croc. The bear's not a reptile, so no armor gain from kinships. The bear can't grapple, so it can't hold a target in place. The bear doesn't cause bleed, which will also add up as you point out. The bear also costs more extra mana (though the difference is minor.) If the pet I wanted was there strictly for damage potential, the bear would be the better choice. Seeing as a pet croc still rolls upwards of 6-7 dice in the same zone as the BM, it's still going to put the hurt out.

Not saying the bear's a bad choice, but it has a different tactical job.

I'm pretty sure that if you use major creatures instead of minor creatures with animal kinship, you are using animal kinship wrong.

[Kelanen]

I'm pretty sure that if you use major creatures instead of minor creatures with animal kinship, you are using animal kinship wrong.

There didn't used to be much choice for some creature types, but there is now for most (not all).

If the point of your book is to spam kinship bonuses, I agree with you. If your point is to play it as a late game card when it does something useful, and ignore it when it doesn't fit, then that can work too. In my experience Kinship is played for an undispellable Elusive trait, with a bunch of side-bonuses when you are lucky. It's okay in that role.

Spamming a bunch of minor creatures is okay as long as they are good creatures, and what you want to play anyway. Playing sub-optimal creatures to work with kinship is a false economy in my view.

[Super Sorcerer]

ב"ה
A crab is possible in a druid book, to keep an enemy in the same zone.

[Mystery]

ב"ה
A crab is possible in a druid book, to keep an enemy in the same zone.

its just less relyable than a tanglevine cause you have to roll grapple and no escape from the creature.

[Kelanen]

ב"ה
A crab is possible in a druid book, to keep an enemy in the same zone.

Tanglevine and Stranglevine do this too though. Thornlasher does this also, and is amazing with a Swamp...