I first encountered this card while booster
drafting, and quickly moved past it thinking,
"five colors of mana...yeah, that'll happen!"
But after another weekend of wild Extended
format PTQ action, I think this card could
easily be useful in Extended. Useful but silly.
The problem is, this card makes you go to a lot
more trouble to put a TEMPORARY creature into
play, albeit a BIG SCARY temporary creature. By
the time you get Genju of the Realm onto a land,
much less before you activate it on the next
turn, your opponent may have won the game. This
is a FUN card, but not worth the trouble in
competitve constructed and definately not worth
the HUGE effort necessary in limited formats.
I don't like this card. A big reason is the near
impossibility to cast it against a worthy
player. Granted, there are situations that may
arise where you can, but not often. The effect
is great, but you've likely dedicated multiple
cards, or played some sub-par cards to get this
Genju into play. And on top of that, if it goes
to the graveyard, you have to cast it again.
The only time I can really see this card making
its way into a deck is if the entire deck was
designed on abusing things that require four or
five colors of mana. Think of the Bringers,
Sunburst, etc. Don't get me wrong; if this card
hits play, it is a monster. The only other way I
can really see this card being all that useful
is if you had a way to trick enchantments into
play from hand or graveyard.
In limited, this card is pretty worthless. You
usually will have only two colors in your deck
in draft, three if in sealed. If you have been
forced into five colors in Kamigawa Block
limited, then you have bigger issues than
deciding whether or not to play Genju of the
Realm.
Yowsa...an 8/12 Trampler? And if your land gets
knocked off for some reason, this thing comes
back to you. Nice. While it's casting cost makes
it pretty difficult to play in serious games,
this guy could be a ton of fun in casual. Thanks
to Fifth Dawn, there are a lot of ways to make 5
colors happen. If you get Genju on the board, he
will be extremely difficult to deal with, as he
is colorless (Circle of Protections will not
stop it, nor Story Circle, etc.). In limited, 5
colors of mana are difficult to produce, so it
takes this guy down a notch. If you did manage
to play him, you win.
