Kamahl’s Druidic Vow – MTG Card of the Day Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

It’s funny how different Genesis Wave and/or Genesis Hydra look when you wrap them in Dominaria’s history. This is interesting because it was originally an off-camera moment in the progression of the Odyssey and Onslaught blocks, where Kamahl, Pit Fighter learned the ways of the druid and became Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. 

While traditional druids like Taliesin or Merlin had portfolios involving music, Magic’s druid sects tend to have a focus on material objects like lands and life-forms such as the creature card type. To be fair, we don’t know that Kamahl and the other Krosan acolytes didn’t sing when we weren’t summoning them in planeswalker duels. This spell’s particular effect is quite heavily dependent on how your deck is put together. Fortunately, Dominaria‘s limited format has enough legendary cards you’ll want to play that waiting for a decent value of X has a good chance of getting you a big advantage, and constructed formats have a wide range of options to choose from. Plus, sooner or later, somebody is going to put together a deck involving a card like Heartbeat of Spring or Mana Reflection that uses this to put their entire deck into play at once – or into their graveyard at once! – so be ready.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 5/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Another legendary sorcery, Kamahl’s Druidic Vow is sort of like Genesis Wave. Maybe not a perfect analog, but it’s a massive mana sink that can put a decent board state into an even better position…if, of course, you have a legendary creature or planeswalker to help you cast it. Being able to hit off of lands can help, since it keeps you from drawing into more lands later, but you’ll want a lot of permanent hits. I feel like this is an amazing Commander card, but its awkward deck-building demands and status as a win-more card make this a very hard sell in any other format.

Constructed: 1.75
Casual: 3
Limited: 1.75
Multiplayer: 2.5
Commander: 4