I was a little confused at first when I saw that
cards in Origins referred to Nissa as an
animist, because I kept thinking of Vastwood
Animist and turning lands into creatures. Of
course, there's more than one way to approach
any school of thought (or magic), and similarly,
I think there's more than one use for a card
like this. Superficially, it seems worse than a
straight-up land searching card like Nissa's
Pilgrimage, since it requires you to pay more
mana to get a higher chance of getting land
instead of giving you a reliable shot. But it
wasn't intended just for that - it's also a
combo card, sending your Rubblehulk from huge to
off-the-charts just in time for a game-ending
Fling, and doing ridiculous things when Avenger
of Zendikar is in play.
Today's card of the day is Animist's Awakening
which is a Green and X sorcery that can put
lands into play tapped or untapped with Spell
Mastery. This is a very effective card in
a more land heavy mana acceleration build,
though it is dramatically reduced in potential
with a smaller mana pool. If the top of
the deck can be stacked somewhat with Scry or a
similar effect this becomes far more effective
and overall it has potential in most formats to
be a serious accelerator and deck thinner.
In Limited this can offer a large supply of mana
and reduction of land draws and is always worth
playing in a Green build for Sealed and can be
splashed in most situations. The potential
card advantage this offers in managing mana and
the deck makes this an easy first pick in
Booster as well and should always net at least
some advantage when additional mana is wanted.
Genesis wave for lands. On paper, it seems
redundant. at its worst, you're tapping out to
ramp, hit no lands, sent cards that would've
helped to the bottom and have effectively
skipped your turn except for possible combat. At
its best, you're recouping most of the cost of
admission with spell mastery's trigger, got the
color you were actually looking for and you can
win the turn then and there. It's a gamble card.
And not even a great gamble card like Genesis
wave.
