Seven mana is kind of a lot, but of course if
you've got seven lands, you get a 5/5 and seven
creature tokens, which is a lot for one card.
And of course, every land you drop after that
puts +1/+1 counters on every Plant you control,
so suddenly Harrow is looking better than
Overrun. If you ramp it out, you get fewer
Plants, but you get them sooner, and presumably
you have more lands to play out and make them
bigger. It's absolutely crippling if it hits the
table, and if you get to play a land or two
afterwards, but odds are your opponent will kill
the 5/5 (and the ability that pumps the 0/1's),
have a sweeper for the 0/1's, or the game just
doesn't last long enough.
A guy at my pre-release was already excited
about playing this card with Warp World, and I
can see why. Plus it plays nicely with a lot of
older cards like Essence Warden and Doubling
Season (heaven forbid). It's also going to give
me flashbacks to the Poison Ivy sequence in Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Constructed: A 5/5 with friends
looks really good. The landfall ability helps
alot. It could be used in a all green Eldrazi
deck replacing Ant Queen maybe. For a block deck
with mono green Eldrazi it can be a real bear.
Or maybe in the Magical Christmas deck.
Casual & Multiplayer:
Big green gets another fatty.
Limited: This can be real bomb
when it shows up. Drop him and than drop a land
and you have at least 7 1/2 Plant creatures.
He great because if he show up he has all of his
little buddies. So if you kill him you still
have a bunch of plants to deal with. 7 mana is
high, but it is worth it. Really hard to get
more than one in a draft of sealed pool.
Overall a great card for green.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Multiplayer: 3
Limited: 4
Later
Miguel
Paul
Magic The Gathering
Card of The Day: Avenger of Zendikar
Welcome back
readers today’s card of the day is an elemental
creature from Worldwake, Avenger of Zendikar a
5/5 elemental creature for seven mana. When it
enters the battlefield you get a 0/1 plant
creature token for each land you control. With
the additional landfall ability whenever a land
comes into play under your control you may put a
+1/+1 Counter on each plant creature you
control. In standard this card is way to
expensive and has no form of evasion and
produces creature tokens that can be easily
destroyed without dropping a few lands. Possibly
this card could see play as some sort of
creature in a landfall or ramp style deck
possibly as a finisher as all you need to do is
play this creature then a land or two and swing
with the tokens it generated. In extended and
eternal formats no chance as it is to o
expensive. In casual and multiplayer this card
could be a great addition to any plant decks
combine with cards like Doubling Season and Coat
of Arms and make a powerful army of plant tokens
under your command. In limited its an expensive
card but if your dedicated to a landfall theme
and have ways to generate more mana and ramp
into it it could be useful.
Today's card of the day is Avenger of Zendikar
which both creates and pumps up Plant creatures.
Barring non-land sources of mana he'll enter
play alongside seven tokens and the next land
you play, preferably after casting Avenger
itself, will give the tokens +1/+1. For seven
mana in a color that accelerates as quickly as
Green can this certainly has some potential.
Generally a Landfall oriented deck works best
with this to develop extra lands early and play
them aggressively into the middle and late
stages of the game. Other creatures that benefit
from lands are encouraged as well.
For Constructed, Casual, and Multiplayer this
is a solid potential source of swarming that may
be just a little too slow compared to Elfball or
other classic Green designs. Aside from being a
bit slow there aren't many other Plant type
creatures in Magic with only two in Standard
including Worldwake.
With Limited this is absolutely a top pick in
Sealed and first choice in Booster. It is big,
produces tokens, and powers them up and there
isn't much more one can ask from a creature in
this format. Other cards in the set have
Landfall and Green easily can provide options
for speeding up the playing of a seven mana
spell. Keep an eye out for copies of the common
Snapping Creeper as it is both a Plant and has a
Landfall triggered ability of Vigilance which
goes along nicely with the +1/+1 counters.
