Garruk’s Harbinger – Core Set 2021 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Since Adventurous Impulse has been a card for some time now, it was probably inevitable that we’d see it in creature form at some point. The Harbinger works frighteningly well with power-boosting effects, though you’ll need to do a little work to guarantee he connects. (I know trample is green’s signature keyword, but it’s overused, anyway!) I know he doesn’t entirely match up with Adventurous Impulse, but at the stage of the game he starts attacking, you’ll often want more creatures or Garruks anyway. He can be surprisingly fragile against anything that isn’t black – or even just deathtouch – so he might end up as more of a sideboard card in constructed, for the decks that can’t target him and fear their opponents drawing cards.

I’m also not sure why he’s the only card in M21 with hexproof from a color, now that protection is back.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander: 3/5

A three-mana creature that lets you dig deeper into your library to find other creatures (or Garruk planeswalkers) is nice, and it’s also neat that it can hit planeswalkers to trigger its effect. A 4/3 for three is solid, as is resistance to kill spells (dodging black ones, but not dodging burn spells or white’s suite of effects), though it will tend to trade with a lot of things. And it lacks trample, meaning it has to get through unblocked to get its effect off (and it dislikes chump blockers more than most beasts of its type might). Still, a couple of hits can start a massive rain of card advantage, and a smart opponent will do what they can to keep that from happening.

Constructed: 3.25
Casual: 4
Limited: 4 (great stats for its mana cost, and a very potent effect)
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander: 3