This reminds me a lot of Genesis Wave. They both
require a massive amount of mana, promise the
possibility of dumping a whole horde of
permanents onto your side of the board, and have
the potential to fizzle depending on what's on
teh top of your library. Except when this
fizzles, it fizzles HARD. Even one non-permanent
card will end the streak, so if the top card of
your library happens to be, say, another copy of
Primal Surge, you'll be in a very bad position.
Moreso given that Primal Surge exiles the card
it doesn't put onto the field, so you don't even
get to draw the second Surge and try again.
For me to feel good about running this card, I'd
have to be running a deck where Primal Surge is
basically the only card in the deck that isn't a
permanent. But that's a whole new restriction.
For combat tricks you'd be limited to creature
or Auras with flash. You couldn't use Cultivate
or Harrow to get up to ten mana-- you need to
use various Druids or artifact mana. And you'd
never really be safe unless you're only running
one copy of Primal Surge... which means you need
ways to search your deck or filter it WITHOUT
using cards like Foresee, Hunter's Instinct, or
Diabolic Tutor, or you'll never actually see
that one copy. And by the time you find it, you
may have drawn so much of your deck that the
game's already over or there aren't enough
business permanents left in your deck to
actually finish the job. Do note though, that
you at least don't ever have to worry about
decking yourself with this. Putting the
permanent into play is optional, so when you
decide that you've Surged enough, you can just
exiles the next permanent and be done.
A spell that wants to be played with lots of
permanents is rather unusual, and becomes
slightly harder to use - it means you can't use
as many spells that let you find it, other than
something like Liliana Vess. Still, for this
cost, it's really worth giving this card some
consideration, considering how huge the
potential payoff is. I'm sure there's going to
be a lot of questioning why this card costs ten
mana. If there is, I have to ask what would be
the "correct" cost for a card that potentially
lets you put your entire library into play at
one time.
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno
Today's card of the day is Primal Surge which
is a ten mana Green sorcery that can potentially
play an entire deck in a single turn, allowing
multiple win conditions to be triggered or
activated. The drawback of course is the
heavy mana cost which is quite high even with
Green's acceleration. Ten mana really is
more than a competitive deck can risk working
towards and the very dedicated build needed to
maximize the effect is another strike against a
balanced build. Overall this is a powerful
and mostly unplayable card that is unlikely to
see any serious play.
For Limited the cost and expectation of playing
few non-permanents make it detrimental to run in
most builds. The potential to win is
there, but in nearly any scenario this is a dead
card in hand or can just wash out on the exiled
card. As a gamble this isn't likely to pay
off as a first pick in Booster and a Sealed deck
shouldn't skew the mana curve to include this.
The format can technically support an all
permanent strategy with this as a finisher it
just isn't as effective or efficient when Primal
Surge itself is not cast. Weakening the
entire deck for one card is not the best
strategy, particularly when the card can only be
cast in the late stages of the game.
Welcome to another great day of card of
the day reviews here at Pojo.com! Today we are
taking a look at Primal Surge from Avacyn
Restored. Primal Surge is a green mythic rare
sorcery that costs eight generic mana and two
green mana. Primal Surge says Exile the top card
of your library. If it is a permanent card, you
may put it onto the battlefield, if you do,
repeat this process.
Primal Surge. Game changer. Simple as
that. In a deck comprised of all permanents, you
can very well dig down until your side of the
field dwarfs your opponent and everything you
need to win is in place. A card like this should
cost ten mana, especially in green, but who
really cares? In green, coming up with massive
amounts of mana is almost a given! Ten mana
should not be the issue, deciding when you
should stop dropping things will be!
Combo a card like this in a blue/green
landfall deck and watch as your opponent cringes
everytime something is flipped. They might
almost beg for creatures to come out except that
your Hedron Crabs continue milling for each land
dropped, and you Rampaging Baloth makes more and
more 4/4 Beast tokens. Not to mention all the
other things you can do with landfall. And that
is just in blue/green! Imagine a Warstorm Surge
out as you are dropping all of these creatures!
Have fun unleashing your Primal Surge!
