This may be a one drop, but believe me-- you
don't actually want to drop it on turn one. If
you do, all you can do with it on turn two is
attack with a 1/2. You can't start Outlasting
until you get to three mana, which means you'd
rather play this in the mid or late game, when
you can immediately start pumping it up and
pumping out Warrior tokens. On the other hand,
the longer this stays out, the more benefit you
get out of it both in size and in amount of
tokens, so it makes sense that you'd want to get
it out early. But back on the first hand,
getting this to stay on the board long enough to
properly milk it means you need to be able to
protect it, which is very difficult to do in the
early turns, especially when you need to have
something else on the board that you actually
want to attack and block with. Herald of
Anafenza is effectively an enchantment until
you've grown it big enough to do some serious
damage, and/or have no further need for Warrior
tokens. But it's an enchantment that dies to
creature kill, and any savvy player should
recognize the importance of getting it off the
board ASAP.
I almost misread this card's mana cost as 1W,
in which case this review would have been quite
different and probably not very relevant. As
it's actually printed, it has a strong and
efficient cost for aggressive white strategies,
and a way to become more relevant later in the
game. The fact that the Herald seems to be
giving you an extra creature to make up for not
being able to attack or block with the Herald
itself for a whole turn cycle seems to be a
blatant encouragement to use it this exact way;
yet, this whole process is quite slow and as
such is likely to be a turn-off to some players.
I do like, though, that it can be used as either
an ever-growing combat creature, a repeatable
token generator, or some combination of the two
- cards that flexible can be hard for opponents
to address, and can be quite the advantage.
Today's card of the day is Herald of Anafenza
which is a one mana White
1/2 with Outlast at a cost of three mana that
gives it a +1/+1 counter and puts a 1/1 White
warrior token into play. A one mana 1/2
with the supported types of soldier and human is
decent, so the dual benefits of the effect will
make this a very frequent inclusion in White
swarm and soldier decks.
In Limited this is useful early and late game
for using any excess mana as even one 1/1 each
turn is valuable while later on two per turn can
be a serious advantage and it increases the
threat plus survivability of the Herald.
The single White mana for the casting and effect
are easily managed in even a three color deck,
so this is an easy first pick in Booster plus a
great reason to at least splash White in Sealed.
Having a solid one-drop creature is a big
benefit to most decks. His two toughness means
he survives combat against most other one drops.
As soon as becomes outclassed on the
battlefield, however, you can start pumping him
up and making little tokens for three mana a
turn.
I'm not sure how often a constructed deck is
going to have three spare mana sitting around to
put +1/+1 counters and make token creatures, but
it does provide a useful outlet in a longer
game. In limited, as I learned the hard way,
Outlast is a very potent mechanic. As slow as
the games often go, you will be able to get a
lot of use out of this guy and the other ones
that give creatures with +1/+1 counters other
abilities such as lifelink, flying, or
deathtouch. While the opponent is topdecking
land, you are making your guy bigger and he's
making little friends.
