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A Complete Review of Judgment (green)Threshold - ~this~ gets +2/+2 When it croaks, so do you. ==> FUN: 2 I misread Anurid Barkstripper's flavor text as rules text and thought: "Wow, what a horrible drawback!" I think I've been working too hard! Anyway, this is a surprisingly mediocre threshold creature for green's standards. -- 105. Anurid Swarmsnapper U, 2G Creature - Beast 1/4 ~this~ may block as though it had flying. 1G: ~this~ may block an additional creature this turn. Anurid have the problem of airborne invaders licked. ==> FUN: 2 Make it a wall for G and Anurid Swarmsnapper would be a good creature. As it is, it suffers from what most defensive creatures suffer from. They're no good on the attack and they're worse than most walls when blocking. -- 106. Battlefield Scrounger C, 3GG Creature - Centaur 3/3 Threshold - Put three cards from your graveyard on the bottom of your library: ~this~ gets +3/+3 until end of turn. Play this ability only once per turn. ==> FUN: 1 For five mana, you get a 3/3 that might become a 6/6 under some very restrictive circumstances. Not only do you need threshold for it, you won't be able to maintain it for long if you use the ability. A good idea for a card, ruined by being massively overcosted. -- 107. Brawn U, 3G Creature - Incarnation 3/3 Trample As long as ~this~ is in your graveyard and you control a Forest, creatures you control have trample. "'I have arrived', bellowed Brawn, and the plane shuddered." - Scroll of Beginnings ==> FUN: 4 Trample is nice, but Brawn is definitely not one of the best Incarnations. On the other hand, Brawn is actually somewhat playable as a creature. Nothing special, but a 3/3 trampler for four mana is just about standard. -- 108. Canopy Claws C, G Instant Target creature loses flying until end of turn. Flashback: G ==> FUN: 1 Canopy Claws helps plug green's weakness against fliers, but it's only a minor variation on the theme, nothing that needs brains to think up. Maybe for the next set I should make a few predictions for possible cards to see how many I guessed right. Anybody want to sponsor me for $10 per correct guess? ... Hmm, I wonder why it suddenly went eerily quiet... -- 109. Centaur Rootcaster C, 3G Creature - Centaur Druid 2/2 Whenever ~this~ deals combat damage to a player, you may search your library for a basic land card and put that card into play tapped. If you do, shuffle your library. ==> FUN: 4 I love cards like this. Sure, Centaur Rootcaster isn't as cheap as Avenging Druid and it's more fragile at two toughness, but I still like the idea behind the card, even if it won't be as easy to use. -- 110. Crush of Wurms R, 6GGG Sorcery Put 3 6/6 green Wurm tokens into play. Flashback: 9GGG ==> FUN: 5 Crush of Wurms is cheap if you look at what it does, but nine mana is still very expensive. I can only dream of scrounging together twelve mana for the flashback, but just the potential of getting six 6/6 wurms is making me drool. With a bit of work and plenty of mana elves, it shouldn't even be _that_ hard to cast. Or just get to six mana and cast Far Wanderings with threshold for three more lands. -- 111. Elephant Guide U, 2G Enchant Creature Enchanted creature gets +3/+3. When enchanted creature is put into a graveyard, put a 3/3 green Elephant token into play. Nature's strength outlives the strong. ==> FUN: 5 Elephant Guide is probably playable just for the +3/+3. After all, Armadillo Cloak is only +2/+2 with two useful abilities. The dangers of using a creature enchantment are allayed because of the second ability. There's still the danger of card disadvantage if your opponent destroys the creature in response to Elephant Guide being cast or removes the creature from the game with Swords to Plowshares, but in the case of the more common types of removal, the Elephant Guide will live on by itself. -- 112. Epic Struggle R, 2GG Enchantment At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control 20 or more creatures, you win he game. "If our foes will not listen to words, perhaps hooves and claws will make them take notice." - Seton, centaur druid ==> FUN: 1 I'm very disappointed by Epic Struggle. In comparison, the white victory condition is much easier to achieve, especially in casual games. Compare Epic Struggle to Mortal Combat as well: twenty creatures in your graveyard or twenty creatures in play. Which is easier to achieve? The first one, of course. The worst part is, that usually, if you manage to get twenty creatures in play, you could just attack with them for the win. It's not like green has a lot of 0/1s. A big thumbs down for Epic Struggle. -- 113. Ernham Djinn R, 3G Creature - Djinn 4/5 At the beginning of your upkeep, target non-Wall creature an opponent controls gains Forestwalk until your next upkeep. He provides a safe path to nowhere. ==> FUN: 1 Another rare that's really a reprint. It's not even all that good compared to some of green's recent creatures, like Blastoderm and Jade Leech. Even Lumbering Satyr has a higher power for 2GG and a drawback that could singlehandedly win you the game against green decks. -- 114. Exoskeletal Armor U, 1G Enchant Creature Enchanted Creature gets +X/+X where X is the number of creatures in all graveyards. "We only use what we need - but in times of strife, our need becomes great." - Centaur warrior ==> FUN: 4 Late in the game, Exoskeletal Armor has the potential to be huge, especially in multiplayer games. Very much like Lhurgoyff. If you want it for the early game, though, you really need to have some kind of threshold deck. As soon as you get about two or three creatures in your graveyard, Exoskeletal Armor becomes worth it. Of course it has the normal risk associated with local enchantments, so I'd stick with Lhurgoyff if at all possible. -- 115. Folk Medicine C, 2G Instant You gain 1 life for each creature you control. Flashback: 1W Sometimes the healers need healing. ==> FUN: 1 Unless you're going for an Epic Struggle victory, Folk Medicine won't get you a lot of life. Folk Medicine also pales compared to Congregate, in spite of the flashback potential. -- 116. Forcemage Advocate U, 1G Creature - Centaur 2/1 T: Return target card in an opponent's graveyard to his or her hand. Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. "Our unity renews our strength." ==> FUN: 3 Using the ability is likely to give your opponent more benefit than you, unless you do it during combat and use it to save one of your creatures. Even if you only pick a land to return to your opponent's hand, in Odyssey block he probably has something useful to discard it to. -- 117. Genesis R, 4G Creature - Incarnation 4/4 At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~this~ is in your graveyard, you may pay 2G, if you do, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. "First through the Riftstone was Genesis - and the world was lifeless no more." -Scroll of Beginnings ==> FUN: 5 It's finally starting to dawn on me. Every color gets an uncommon Incarnation, but white and green also get a rare one and more interesting one. Reanimation effects, even reusable ones like Genesis are a dime a dozen these days, but Genesis is special because it's green. An old deck I used to play had green as a base color with white and black as support. The black was for Phyrexian Reclamations and the white for lifegain creatures (Radiant's Dragoons) and getting lost Reclamations back from my graveyard (Monk Idealist). Green had the meat of the deck: plenty of sacrificial creatures like Spike Feeders, Spike Weavers, Yavimaya Elders etc. With Genesis, I could try to rebuild the deck as mono-green. No need for black reanimation and no enchantments to get back from my graveyard. Green itself has plenty of lifegain and I can always add Bottle Gnomes. All the deck would really lack is Bone Shredders, but they're not vital with a few regenerating blockers and Ticking Gnomes. -- 118. Giant Warthog C, 5G Creature - Beast 5/5 Trample "When the Ancestor saw the cruelty her human children were capable of, Her fury shook the world. From this outburst sprang the warthogs." - Nomad myth ==> FUN: 3 Not particularly cheap or expensive. There are usually better creatures than Giant Warthog available. -- 119. Grizzly Fate U, 3GG Sorcery Put two 2/2 Bear creature tokens into play. Threshold - Instead, put 4 2/2 green Bear creature tokens into play. Flashback: 5GG ==> FUN: 5 Nice name, very punny! It looks like Grizzly Fate is meant as a way to make Epic Struggle an achievable goal, but it doesn't really succeed. Sure, once you get threshold, you can get 8 2/2 bears out of it, but that doesn't even put you halfway yet. And at that point, an Overrun for 40 damage would easily win you the game, if normal attacking wouldn't. Even if it's not very strong, I love Grizzly Fate for the sheer number of creatures you can get with it, more than with Crush of Wurms. With cards like Collective Unconscious, Fecundity or Parallel Evolution you can get a lot of advantage out of your bears. The best part is that Grizzly Fate isn't even a rare, so it shouldn't be too hard to get my greedy little paws on a few of them. -- 120. Harvester Druid C, 1G Creature - Druid 1/1 T: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color that a land you control could produce. In the end, the same soil lies atop the fields, within the mountain, and under the sea. ==> FUN: 2 Harvester Druid is too similar to Quirion Elves for my tastes. Also, it doesn't help you get the color you need, only the colors you already have. That's handy if you need two specific mana for a spell, but otherwise you might as well use Llanowar Elf. Harvester Druid works well with City of Brass, because that gives the Druid access to every color. -- 121. Ironshell Beetle C, 1G Creature - Insect 1/1 When ~this~ comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. "Why waste time creating weapons? Nature provides us with all we need." - Centaur warrior ==> FUN: 4 A nice little combo with Sunken Hope or Stampeding Wildebeests. In a normal green weenie deck it's not much better than a Grizzly Bear, but if you're playing with flying or other evasion creatures, it's more profitable to make those bigger than to have another 2/2. If you can put 1/1 counters to good use somehow, like on Spike Weaver or on one of the Phantom creatures in Judgement, Ironshell Beetle could shine. -- 122. Krosan Reclamation U, 1G Instant Target player shuffles up to two target cards from his or her graveyard into his or her library. Flashback: 1G ==> FUN: 2 Krosan Reclamation is just too similar to Dwell on the Past for my liking. It's more expensive to use and if you include the flashback, you won't be able to keep your library stocked with it, because the Reclamation will be removed from the game. That leaves Krosan Reclamation as a hoser against graveyard strategies, something we've already seen plenty of in Judgement. -- 123. Krosan Wayfarer C, G Creature - Druid 1/1 Sacrifice ~this~: Put a land card from your hand into play. "The Krosan Forest lives, and druids are its seeds." - Seton, centaur druid ==> FUN: 2 I like cards that let me play extra lands, but not if it costs me another card. Krosan Wayfarer could be a good choice in speed weenie decks, especially ones that want to reach threshold, or in combo decks that need a certain number of lands in play before they can go off. But I don't like it much, not for the more laid-back casual games. Diligent Farmhand gets me extra land without costing a card and Skyshroud Ranger allows me to play an extra land every turn. -- 124. Living Wish R, 1G Sorcery Choose a creature or land card you own from outside the game, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Remove ~this~ from the game. He wished for growth, but not for a way to control it. ==> FUN: 5 Why do I prefer Living Wish to any of the other wishes? The casting cost is certainly much better than that of Golden Wish. Living Wish is cheap enough that you can use it on something you need in the early game, like a third land or a Wall of Blossoms to survive an attacking creature. You can't do that with Golden Wish. By the time you can actually cast it, you'll be looking to get a game-winning artifact or enchantment. By the way, if you're playing the wishes as worded, instead of what will be the tournament way to handle them, you use them to get a copy of a card you already have four of in your deck. I don't see anything stopping you at least. That means you can do silly stuff, like getting eight extra Accumulated Knowledges if you have Mirari in play. Or try to get twelve Muscle Slivers in play at the same time. Another reason I like Living Wish a lot is that there are creatures for every situation, especially in green. Is your opponent going nuts with artifacts? Get a Woodripper. Is there a Volrath's Stronghold benefitting your opponent way too much? Get an Avalanche Riders. You should have no trouble casting it, because green has relatively easy access to each color of mana. You can get a Bone Shredder or a Flame Tongue Kavu to get rid of a creature. A Radiant's Dragoons or Spike Feeder can get you extra life when you need it. Etcetera. You get the picture. It's not just that creatures are incredibly versatile, but also that Living Wish is green and a green deck has better access to the other colors, giving you more options when wishing. -- 125. Nantuko Tracer C, 1G Creature - Insect Druid 2/1 When ~this~ comes into play, you may put target card from a graveyard on the bottom of its owner's library. Your past is a map to where you will go - Nantuko teachings. ==> FUN: 3 Sure, Nantuko Tracer is a hoser, but it's a good enough creature to play main deck. Preventing nasty flashback stuff from happening is just a nice bonus, which can potentially save your life. -- 126. Nullmage Advocate C, 2G Creature - Insect Druid 2/3 T: Return two target cards in an opponent's graveyard to his or her hand. Destroy target enchantment or artifact. "Our unity unmasks your deceit." ==> FUN: 4 At 2/3, Nullmage Advocate is an able creature that can occasionally get rid of some very annoying artifact or enchantment. Just like the white Advocates, you have to decide carefully if your goal is worth sacrificing card advantage for, but the beauty of enchantments and artifacts is, that very often they're important parts of your opponent's strategy. Winter Orb, Nevinyrral's Disk, Ensnaring Bridge or any of the card drawers like Jayemdae Tome. For enchantments, consider Opposition, Necropotence, Teferi's Moat, Dueling Grounds etc. Usually it's worth giving up card advantage to get rid of a your opponent's main defense or winning strategy. If you have a way to remove the two target cards from your opponent's graveyard at instant speed, you can even lessen the drawback a bit, by removing them in response to activating your Nullmage Advocate. As a matter of fact, if you have two Nullmage Advocates (or any other combination of Advocates), you can us them in response to eachother, targeting the same cards so your opponent only gets the benefit from one Advocate. -- 127. Phantom Centaur U, 2GG Creature - Centaur Spirit 2/0 Protection from Black ~this~ comes into play with three +1/+1 counters on it. If damage would be dealt to ~this~, prevent that damage. Remove a +1/+1 counter from ~this~. ==> FUN: 4 A 5/3 for four mana is already a very nice creature, but Phantom Centaur is also pretty hard to get rid of. Protection from black protects it from a lot of direct removal, like Terror and Terminate. The damage prevention saves it from a lot of red removal, like Incinerate, Lightning Bolt and Flame Tongue Kavu. Red can still kill it, but it'll have to damage it three times to do it. Phantom Centaur's bane are blockers with a power of one. Three chump blocks in a row will kill it. Ditto for a 1/6 blocker or a regenerator. On the positive side, a 5/3 would normally trade with a 5/5, but Phantom Centaur will survive as a 4/2. -- 128. Phantom Nantuko R, 2G Creature - Insect Spirit 0/0 Trample ~this~ comes into play with two +1/+1 counters on it. If damage would be dealt to ~this~, prevent that damage. Remove a +1/+1 counter from ~this~. T: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~this~. ==> FUN: 3 Basically, this is an upgraded version of Energizer from Tempest. In my experience, Energizer is fun to play with, but while you're busy working on getting a 10/10, your opponent is drawing all kind of removal for it. If, instead of trampling, Phantom Nantuko didn't tap to attack, I'd like it a lot more. -- 129. Phantom Tiger C, 2G Creature - Spirit Cat 1/0 ~this~ comes into play with two +1/+1 counters on it. If damage would be dealt to ~this~, prevent that damage. Remove a +1/+1 counter from ~this~. ==> FUN: 3 A 3/2 for three mana is pretty basic. It's worth considering if you're expecting a lot of 2+/3 creatures, because you'll only lose a +1/+1 counter where you'd normally have traded with them. It's also worth it if you expect a lot of direct damage. -- 130. Seedtime R, 1G Instant Play ~this~ only on your turn. If an opponent played a blue spell this turn, take an extra turn after this one. The hippo grows wings to fight the condor. - Nantuko teaching ==> FUN: 1 I admit it's a nasty surprise if your opponent plays a Fact or Fiction or Whispers of the Muse and you respond with Seedtime. Cardwise you don't get anything out of it, because your extra draw step will only replace the Seedtime you cast. The real power is in the extra untap step, though. An opposing blue deck is likely to be mostly tapped out at the end of your turn, giving you the chance to cast a few big creatures. Still, Seedtime is rare and it's a hoser, so I'm not crazy about it by definition. Because you "only" get an extra turn, it's not worth using Thoughtlace or Sleight of Mind to make Seedtime playable against other colors. -- 131. Serene Sunset U, XG Instant Prevent all combat damage X target creatures would deal this turn. The armies paused, silent, as the warriors reflected on the sunsets of their youth. ==> FUN: 3 Although it can be an expensive Fog, Serene Sunset can act almost as a one-sided Wrath of God under the right circumstances. It takes a big creature battle to make it shine, no pun intended. That means it should be big in sealed decks and worth trying out in casual play if you're playing plenty of creatures. -- 132. Sudden Strength C, 3G Instant Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn. Draw a card. The Mirari's magic transformed the Krosan Forest - and its inhabitants. ==> FUN: 4 I'm in two minds over Sudden Strength. On one hand, I don't see a good reason why it costs four mana instead of three. As a rule a cantrip version of a spell costs two generic mana extra. For four mana, you could also use Might of Oaks to give the creature +7/+7, so sudden strength seems to expensive to me. On the other hand, I just know I'll end up trying Sudden Strength out and loving it. As long as your creature doesn't get killed in response, a Giant Growth effect often makes the difference between losing a creature and your opponent losing his creature instead. Get an extra card out of it as well? Bonus! -- 133. Sylvan Safekeeper R, G Creature - Wizard 1/1 Sacrifice a land: Target creature you control can't be the target of spells or abilities until end of turn. "How could someone so small cause so much trouble?" - Nomad sentry ==> FUN: 4 Cast this little guy and suddenly you're immune from targeted removal until you run out of lands to sacrifice. Trading lands against targeted removal is a good deal, especially for green. I tend to have way more mana available than I need whenever I play green, probably because of all the extra ones that are so easy to get with Diligent Farmhand and Yavimaya Elder. -- 134. Thriss, Nantuko Primus R, 5GG Creature - Insect Druid Legend 5/5 G, T: Target creature gets +5/+5 until end of turn. "When you live for others, you live for yourself." ==> FUN: 1 Tap abilities on big creatures are almost always going to be worthless. You won't be able to kill an opponent any faster if you just attack with Thriss or use its ability. The ability is only worth it if you need a huge creature to get through your opponent's defenses, but that's very uncommon in tournaments and even in casual play. In most other cases, Thriss is just an overcosted 5/5. And its a legend too. The only up side is that it can become a 10/10 blocker, but for seven mana you want more. -- 135. Tunneler Wurm U, 6GG Creature - Wurm 6/6 Discard a card from your hand: Regenerate ~this~. If an anurid's lucky, it'll find a warm tunnel for bedtime. If a wurm's lucky, it'll find a warm anurid for breakfast. ==> FUN: 3 Manaless regeneration is always a good thing to have, but Tunneler Wurm is still too expensive. Eight mana. For only one more mana you can get three 6/6 wurms from Crush of Wurms, with the option of three more. For one less mana, you can get a 6/6 wurm from Roar of the Wurm with an option on a cheap second one. Also keep in mind that a 6/6 isn't going to need regeneration all that badly. It's too big to easily burn down with direct damage and creature combat is usually going to exist of Tunneler Wurm crushing everything that dares to block it. In short, 6G would be a fairer cost for it and at 4GG it'd be good, although still much worse than the likes of Spiritmonger. -- 136. Venomous Vines C, 2GG Sorcery Destroy target enchanted permanent. "True strength comes from within. The false promise of unnatural power only incurs Krosa's wrath." - Seton, centaur druid ==> FUN: 3 Interesting idea for a card, but the actual card doesn't really work. It's still more expensive than Vindicate, yet much more restrictive. Venomous Vines should cost only GG or be a cantrip at 2GG. Enchanted permanents are rare enough that Venomous Vines is only playable in the main deck if the deck uses cards like Steam Vines, Kudzu and Takklemaggot to repeatedly create enchanted permanents. Rancor would work as well, but it's not really worth the trouble to pay 2GG + G for a Desert Twister, instead of the usual 4GG. |
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