Archdruid’s Charm – Murders at Karlov Manor
Date Reviewed: January 26, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 4.0
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
This one was a bit of a surprise, really. Archmage’s Charm from Modern Horizons was a pretty good little card, a charm with the power cranked up in exchange for a color-intensive casting cost. And despite being Standard-legal, Archdruid’s Charm is very much in a similar vein: it’s a powerful suite of effects with one mode that’s pretty much always good and two modes that are pretty situationally useful (but better as part of the whole package).
The “main attraction” here is the tutor effect, letting you find a creature or just dump a land into play. Any land, mind you…three mana to find a powerful nonbasic is pretty potent, even if it hits play tapped. The flexibility to pivot into a creature is also valuable, and it means that this spell will always have use. The other two modes are the “situational” ones, but they’re good: buff + kill on a creature makes for solid removal, and spot exile for artifacts and enchantments is also quite efficacious when it comes stapled to an already good card.
The one knock against Archdruid’s Charm is that it costs triple green. Triple of nearly any color is a tall ask and makes it a harder spell to splash. Luckily, green’s been a strong color with in-color ramp options, and this can be cast on turn 2 in some formats. I think this is going to be a pretty good card in all; it’s not for every deck, even if its effects are potent for them, but the value of role compression paired with three good modes means there’s rarely a time where you’ll be sad to see this in your hand.
Constructed: 4.5 (maybe not a force in Standard, but I’m optimistic for this in deeper formats)
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4 (the mana cost hurts, but this can either be a tutor or a removal spell, both of which have their merits in Limited)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that Archmage’s Charm from Modern Horizons could or would have been part of a cycle. But for some reason, we didn’t think of it then, possibly because we were interpreting the set as a Future Sight-style product, fragments of a past that would never come and a future that had once been. Instead, this may be the next Sword of X and Y mega-cycle, and I’m honestly on board for it.
Much like the first entry in the cycle, you get some pretty powerful effects for committing to the color. Those effects do fit with the name, giving you a taste of green’s essential and/or greatest hits effects; not only that, they’re effects that you more commonly see at sorcery speed. They’re hard enough for opponents to deal with at that speed, much less when they might not see it coming. And they’re also useful at almost every stage of the game, which is not something you can always say about charms. I should also point out that this instantly becomes one of the most efficient mono-green removal spells on its release: you’ll be in a color that tends to want to have big creatures anyway, and artifacts and enchantments have stayed relevant even as creatures and planeswalkers got the spotlight.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
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