Primal Adversary – Midnight Hunt
Date Reviewed: September 17, 2021
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.13
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4.50
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.38
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
David
Fanany
Player
since
1995
I’m not sure what’s most amusing about Primal Adversary: the fact that he has multikicker that’s not referred to as multikicker, the fact that he’d still be a very efficient and borderline constructed-power card without it, or the way his art suggests that someone let him in the house.
This is a card that very clearly encourages you to go big. It’s a very interesting proposition in terms of diversifying your side of the table, since if you do, you’ll go both “wide” and “tall” at the same time. While that still leaves you open to sweepers, there will be times when your opponent will just die if they don’t have one. That makes him a great starting point for any aggressive green decks in Standard and perhaps even some of the larger formats. Plus, green Commander decks are often all about having ridiculous numbers of lands, which sets up a very Commanderish type of play where you turn every land you control into a wolf and then do something with that (probably not attacking, if other Commander combos are any indication).
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander: 3/5
Part of the set’s Constructed-pushed mythic rare cycle, Primal Adversary comes with a sort of pseudo-multikicker, like all of his friends do. By paying a cost repeatedly, you get a nice benefit…and Primal Adversary chooses to bring an army with. Of note is that this can be paid even if you trick him in, so it’s not quite multikicker and it works well with reanimator spells.
On its own, it’s slightly above curve: a 4/3 with trample for 3 is quite nice, especially with light color demands, and it’ll demand answers in short order. For 5 mana, you get a 5/4 with trample and can turn a land permanently into a 3/3…while it’s not a lot, you can turn a surplus of lands into a massive swing, and that alone can be enough to blow a game wide open.
It’s definitely mythic for balance, because this card is quite savage if it gets a chance to go. Even “kicking” it once represents 8/7 in total stats, not a bad return for 5 mana. It’s not particularly subtle, but who cares about subtlety when they’re dead?
Constructed: 4.25
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 5 (I suspect this is a house in Limited)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander: 3.75
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