Tribute to the World Tree – March of the Machine
Date Reviewed: May 16, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.63
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 3.88
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
I like green card-drawing of this style, because it sends a very clear signal or reminder of what green’s philosophy is and what green wants to be doing – and that if you commit to doing that in your deck, you can include this and get a bonus. That’s the same reason that even after twenty years, my favorite green “Ophidians” are Ohran Viper and Hystrodon.
Reducing the bonus threshold from four power to three seems eyebrow-raising at first, since new sets let you get three-power creatures in all colors. But even with the very high level of mana-fixing in Standard right now, you’ll have to be cautious about your lands; Tribute to the World Tree will mainly be for mono-green, or for two-color decks where green is the main color. By the time this goes to press, someone might have invented a crazy deck that uses Fable of the Mirror-Breaker’s treasure tokens to splash it, but I can’t be held responsible for that!
I do have to register one complaint about this card: the only place they 100% confirmed that Kaldheim’s World Tree is regenerating was on Tumblr. I only found that by looking through the notes on articles on that Magic wiki that MTG Salvation used to be linked to. I know the Multiverse is supposed to contain infinite mysteries to investigate, but somehow I don’t think diving through social media was what we had in mind.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Green likes two things: big creatures and drawing cards. Tribute to the World Tree helps with both, though not perfectly. Small creatures come in with more counters, and big creatures replace themselves with a card. I say “replace”, but I should note that Tribute to the World Tree is agnostic about what creatures came in or where it came from, and it plays very well with tokens.
If you have ways to reliably generate more tokens, this gets very scary very quickly, either through an avalanche of card draw or just a massive army. Th constraint of this costing three green mana is a real one, and it does need to be accounted for; it’s not a massive impediment, but this does need to come down early to do its thing. The snowball this enables can be impressive, but this is more of a “push ahead and win bigger” card, and it makes for a dismal top deck.
Constructed: 3.75 (I think your ability to reliably cast this on or before turn 3 will heavily influence how viable this card is)
Casual: 4.5 (I can see this pairing well with something like Rampaging Baloths)
Limited: 4 (makes even small creatures formidable, but demands careful building to even get out)
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4 (again, depends on how well you can support it and resolve it early; Avenger of Zendikar might be especially fun with this, to name an example)
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