Recruiter of the Guard – Conspiracy: Take the Crown
Date Reviewed: June 13, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.50
Casual: 5.00
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 3.88
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Every color needs card advantage, and every player wants to use the things they put in their deck, whether that be in Standard, Modern, draft cube, Jumpstart cube, or 50-card miscellanea. (I really miss that former Instagram personality @50c.mtg ‘s homebrews.) But we should all want every color to do so in a unique and fun way, and as such, we should all be excited that Recruiter of the Guard is on its way to Modern. White has done the whole two creatures in one concept quite a few times, but usually in the form of tokens; this version is obviously stronger and thus slightly more conditional. Even so, Magic has a lot of cards and a lot of them match up with the Recruiter’s requirements, and there’s a clear invitation here to set up a toolbox deck with a bunch of your favorite game-affecting abilities and triggers. But even the card’s “floor”, finding another efficient creature to keep the beatdown going, is pretty good, and I think people are going to find plenty of use for it going forward.
Note that if you’re looking for a lhurgoyf, the lhurgoyf’s stat-defining ability will ask you to make the count of creatures or card types or whatever, so you may not be able to find it with a Recruiter if you don’t time it carefully.
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 5
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Recruiter of the Guard was one of the cards in the second Conspiracy set seemingly meant as a potential plant for Legacy, and it’s a sort of inversion of the infamous Imperial Recruiter. Both are tutors with a condition attached to them, and the condition heavily shapes how they are played. In a sense, so does their color; Imperial Recruiter can find low-power creatures that are combo pieces like the 1/3 Painter’s Servant, while Recruiter of the Guard looks for low-toughness creatures which will tend to be more overtly powerful from a “hit them in the face” angle, like the 3/2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
This being white is also a big deal because of a prominent Legacy force, the Death and Taxes deck, which is mono-white. Given the dearth of tutors in white, Recruiter of the Guard is welcome in that regard, and it can also just fetch a lot of good, effective creatures. It also has a better typeline (arguably), which won’t matter often, but it can on occasion.
Recruiter of the Guard is also going to join Imperial Recruiter in Modern, and while Death and Taxes may not have all the things it does in Legacy, I do think that this may help the white weenies push forward even harder. While this is a 1/1 for three mana, white has plenty of tools to make this count, and it even fetches Solitude. Being a tutor for one of the stronger removal options white has is a good place to be, and while I do not think it’s going to be a star, it’s certainly no dud.
Constructed: 4.5 (has earned its stripes in Legacy, and I think this will get played in Modern)
Casual: 5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Magic the Gathering Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉
Click here to read over 5,000 more MTG Card of the Day Reviews!
Daily Since 2001.