3drinks wrote: ↑3 years ago
materpillar wrote: ↑3 years ago
3drinks wrote: ↑3 years ago
To-date I still can't find any reason I wouldn't jam this into any
XG deck. I get that
g has gotten millions of toys lately, but there's still nothing wrong with getting a land, and replacing a card at instant speed and under countermagic.
It lines up really poorly when compared to
Cultivate and
Kodama's Reach because it doesn't actually ramp you. As a rule of thumb no one counterspells those cards so that isn't really anything to worry about.
This has a couple of niche applications that those don't, like being good with
Living Death or being a beast for tribal effects. For the average
G deck this is probably just worse though. I also run it in my Golos High CMC deck because that deck runs anything that has a 7+ CMC and can still do something for 2-4 mana.
They don't? Cause dang I'll
Spell Pierce a cultivate/harrow/skyshroud claim all day. And I'm not sorry to do it. People keep hands cause they have a cultivate, if you strip that out their hand just got 100% worse.
3drinks: "I will
Spell Pierce every
Cultivate I see."
Also 3drinks: "How do I multiplayer? Why do I always get focus fired into oblivion?"
Onto today's card, I also adore it. For a long time, it formed my most blessed trinity of "Green cards that feel like blue cards":
Krosan Tusker,
Yavimaya Elder. and
Sakura-Tribe Elder. Especially back in the casual 60 card days of damage on the stack,some amount of this trio was the backbone of a lot of my decks providing tons of fixing, draw, and flexibility. When Commander emerged, these dudes similarly formed the starting base of any green deck I built.
Over time, they've waned some. Sakura-tribe Elder I still play darn near everywhere, of course, but I think I only play Tusker and Elder in Gitrog where they are cheap ways to fill my yard, get a dredge trigger, and keep my hand full of lands. As noted, we've reached a point where Tusker provides technical flexibility but is basically always cycled in practice; the days where a random 6/5 could pick up
Loxodon Warhammer to end things are a distant memory. When comparing him, that makes him line up poorly with other 3 mana ramp spells like
Cultivate,
Kodama's Reach,
Nissa's Pilgrimage,
Wood Elves, and even
Harrow or
Search for Tomorrow, and those in turn are often choked out by 2-mana ramp like the aforementioned Sakura-tribe Elder,
Rampant Growth,
Farseek,
Nature's Lore, and
Three Visits. There's also newcomer
Beanstalk Giant // Fertile Footsteps which, rather than being "spell or creature?" is "Spell AND Creature", and, again, it actually ramps you. People have also pointed out that for just one more,
Shefet Monitor actually ramps you, and can tutor random deserts (mostly
Scavenger Grounds), and even the body is a bit better since it's
G less if you need it. It also sorta obliquely competes with
Solemn Simulacrum in that role. Basically, this was once a staple but there's a ton of thick competition.
I've started being more tempted to run it though, because I think comparing it to all that ramp I just rattled off is a mistake. This is more like a green
Divination or, more appropriately perhaps, a green
Thirst for Knowledge - an instant speed, 3 mana "draw 2". Granted, one of those cards is always a basic land which makes this much better early and mid and probably much worse late, but it is still a draw 2. Now, I never run
Divination but this is green, not blue. I chose Thirst as a better point of comparison even though Thirst usually digs 1 deeper because Thirst is only replacing itself in an artifact-heavy deck; one wouldn't run it everywhere. Same deal with this - it's obviously bad in a basic-lite deck, and it's definitely better if the body in the 'yard has some value to you. At 2000 decks I wouldn't call this "underplayed" but I do think people have swung too far around on it and are comparing it to the wrong cards in analysis and deckbuilding.
. 
