In each case, the permanent [in question in each scenario] would be a land from that moment (because the continuous effect of Life and Limb "already exist(s) and would apply to the permanent" [C.R. 614.17d]), so it can't enter the battlefield under Worms of the Earth's effect. Therefore, if Worms of the Earth were involved:
- The token would not be created (C.R. 111.6; see also C.R. 101.3).
- Taurean Mauler would be put into its owner's graveyard (C.R. 608.3b).
- Taurean Mauler would remain in its previous zone (C.R. 101.3).
EDIT (Oct. 4): Correctness edit.
EDIT (Jul. 26, 3018): Added rule citation.
EDIT (Nov. 11, 2021): One rule was renumbered in the meantime.
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First and foremost, I'm fairly convinced that Tooth and Nail is a dead card now. Ikoria just released a smattering of new cards that all threaten to do the same thing as Tooth and Nail, only better, so there seems to be little reason to pursue ramping into Tooth and Nail at this point. I'm not sure which card has the most merit yet since I haven't gotten the chance to actually sit down and test any of them, but their applicability on paper is plain as day. One or more of these cards will just straight up be better.
Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast — This is a Polymorph that you can ramp into. Polymorph has always been a powerful card, but the setup required to get Polymorph to work has always made the card seemingly unviable. You have to be able to build a reasonable deck without any creatures, save one or two for Polymorph itself. Then, you have to be able to produce a creature somehow, be it either a creature token or a card that can somehow turn itself into a creature, like man-lands for example. Finally, you have to cast and resolve Polymorph. If the opponent kills the creature in response, the spell fizzles, and you get nothing.
While Lukka doesn't address that last issue, he does make enormous ground on the other two. Because Lukka always cascades upwards, if your deck only contains creatures with the same converted mana cost save for one of them, Lukka will always find that one target 100% of the time. This allows you to build a Polymorph deck with actual creature cards, and mana dorks are seemingly perfect for this; they increase the speed by which you can cast Lukka while simultaneously being the targets that Lukka needs. Not to mention, without Lukka, mana dorks are still independently going to be useful on their own. They'll ramp you into whatever other valuable cards make up the rest of your curve.
Now, that isn't to say that Lukka isn't without his faults. Generally speaking, Lukka's other two abilities suck. If you're only playing 1-drops, you don't particularly care if you exile any for you to cast later, but you would care a great deal if you happened to remove the only remaining card that's eligible for Lukka's -2 ability. As such, Lukka's first ability can be a significant liability. His ultimate, in turn, is also sucks. If all you intend to do is cheat a spaghetti monster into play, not only will you not activate his first ability to generate loyalty in the first place, but you also won't have much of any power on the battlefield with which to capitalize off of Lukka's third ability even if you could activate it. Lukka also costs more than his Polymorph counterparts at five instead of four.
On another note, I do think it's worth mentioning that Lukka can activate his minus ability back to back. Say the Emrakul you pull out with Lukka gets bounced by T3feri. Next turn, you can activate Lukka's minus ability again and pull out another Emrakul, provided you have another copy anyway.
Emergent Ultimatum — This is Tooth and Nail, but for seven mana instead of nine. Granted, the color requirements are certainly more difficult, but seven mana is also substantially easier to get to than nine. Not to mention, even if you didn't have the right combination of colors to cast this at seven mana, you almost assuredly would by the time you hit nine. Anywho, here are some piles I cooked up:
- Worldfire
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- Restoration Angel
Any two card combo will work here in place of Kiki-Jiki and Resto Angel; they just need the capacity to deal damage on their own. If the opponent chooses Worldfire and either one of the other cards, you cast Worldfire first, exiling everything, then put your creature onto the battlefield. At that point, there's nothing the opponent can draw on their next turn that can possibly kill you, and you attack them for lethal next turn. The only vulnerability here is if the opponent controls something very unusual like Thragtusk since that ability triggers when the card leaves the battlefield rather than when it dies. Of course, if the opponent opts for the two-card combo, you can just proceed to go infinite and kill them with that. There will be times when the opponent has an out to that though and can stop your combo with whatever interaction they happen to have in their hand.- Omniscience
- Enter the Infinite
- Tooth and Nail
How ironic that Tooth and Nail itself is a combo piece here. The opponent can't give you both Omniscience and Enter the Infinite together since that would be suicide, so they have to give you one of those two plus Tooth and Nail instead. Tooth and Nail, of course, lets you win with either setup, no entwine required. If the opponent gives you Omniscience, you choose to find two creatures with Tooth and Nail and then cast them for free afterwards. If the opponent gives you Enter the Infinite, you draw your library and then have Tooth and Nail put two creatures from your hand onto the battlefield. What sucks about this three-card pile is that Tooth and Nail also requires you to play an additional two-card combo somewhere else in your deck, so there are a lot of slots occupied by otherwise dead cards; you won't realistically ever hardcast an Omniscience across the course of a game.- Exquisite Blood
- Sanguine Bond
- Enduring Ideal
Baby's first combo actually works pretty well here. If the opponent chooses to put both Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond onto the battlefield, they die from the two-card combo. If they go for Enduring Ideal plus one of the other two cards instead, Emergent Ultimatum will shuffle the third card back into your library, and Enduring Ideal will pull it right back out, so there's no way for the opponent to stop you from getting your combo. The downside here is that you still need a way to either gain life or to make the opponent lose life, so if you don't have any way to do that already then the opponent will have ample opportunity to turn the game around.Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy — On the surface, this might not look like a replacement for Tooth and Nail, but it most assuredly is.
The reason why Leyline of Abundance sucks (and the reason why I have never bothered giving it the time of day) is because it lacks redundancy, and it doesn't play well with other ramp cards. If you play Leyline, that means you're not playing the best ramp spells in Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl, and you are playing objectively worse mana dorks instead. That wouldn't be so bad if you had other cards that could support said dorks, but with Leyline as your only supporting card you instead run into the issue where every game you don't draw a Leyline is one where you're operating as a worse ramp deck than you could otherwise be. Worse yet, drawing Leyline outside of your opening hand is also terrible since there's no opportunity to play the card before turn 3 at which point you should be slamming haymakers. Hell, if all of that wasn't bad enough, Leyline is still problematic even when you do begin the game with it since, if the opponent is able to kill whatever dork you happen to play turn one, they effectively two-for-one you because now your Leyline isn't doing anything until you play and untap a second dork.
With the printing of Kinnan, Leyline of Abundance gets a lot better, as you now have additional redundancy which ensures you won't be that "same ramp deck but worse" in the instances where you don't draw a Leyline. And because Kinnan only costs two, he's easy to weave into turns, enabling lines like:
- Land —> Cast Birds of Paradise
- Land —> Cast Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, tap Birds to cast any other 2-drop
Or- Land —> Cast Noble Hierarch
- Land —> Cast Llanowar Tribe
- Land —> Cast Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, tap Hierarch, Llanowar Tribe, and your third land to activate Kinnan
What makes Kinnan so crazy is that he's a powerful ramp spell with an insane win condition stapled onto him. Paying seven mana to effectively cast Summoning Trap is absurd. It can be done at instant speed, and it skirts around countermagic because the creature is put straight into play. You don't even need to play with otherwise uncastable creatures like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to make this guy good. It may just be that finding six mana or seven mana threats that you would otherwise be able to cast is better than trying to high-roll some unplayable Eldrazi. And as long as Kinnan is in play, this can be done turn after turn. It's repeatable! That's way better than Leyline's weaksauce "spend my entire turn to put a +1/+1 counter on each of my three creatures." A repeatable, instant-speed, uncounterable, cost-efficient way to win the game that comes attached to an otherwise playable ramp spell is about the best thing a ramp deck could hope to ask for.1
1.) Leyline of Abundance doesn't work with Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, or Overgrowth, and those three cards are some of the best, if not the best, at making mana in Modern. As such, if I want to support Leyline of Abundance, I'll need to play with objectively worse cards. Granted, that may be okay. If the synergy is powerful enough, then there's nothing wrong with playing worse cards; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts after all. I just suspect that this may not be the case with Leyline of Abundance.
2.) There's no way to make Leyline of Abundance redundant. Sure, the games I have it, a 1-drop, and two lands make getting to 4 relatively easy, but I'm not always going to have Leyline of Abundance, and in the games where I don't I'm effectively playing a much worse ramp deck. If there were other cards that could supplement Leyline of Abundance, this wouldn't be so bad, but the next most effective way to reach 4 turn 2 is by playing something like Simian Spirit Guide or Gemstone Caverns, neither of which are very appealing.
3.) Leyline of Abundance is risky. Not only do I need it in my opening hand to be effective, but it also makes me more vulnerable to disruption. In a regular ramp deck, if an opponent Bolts my Bird, that sucks, but at the end of the day it's still a 1-for-1. In a deck with Leyline, when an opponent Bolts my Bird, not only is my Bird dead, but they've also invalidated my Leyline until I manage to stick something. That can turn Bolt into a 2-for-1 or better depending on the circumstances, so not only will I need to play worse cards to support Leyline of Abundance, but the consequences of having these worse cards destroyed are even more disastrous than they would normally be.
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I'm definitely excited to see a new mythic green walker.
On the topic of Chandra, I can't help but roll my eyes. Chandra, Novice Pyromancer will be great in Limited but not anywhere else. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame looks like a steaming pile of garbage. Her 0 abilities are two of the most ineffectual things I've ever seen on a planeswalker to date, and her minus ability is like a slower, disruptable, more restrictive Pull from the Deep. She's not Tibalt levels of bad, but she's a real stinker.
Chandra, Awakened Inferno is the most interesting of the three versions, but she isn't without her fair share of problems either. Her plus ability, while really cool, is painfully slow, so slow in fact that it might not even matter in stalemates. Her having a +2 ability combined with her 6 starting loyalty makes her really difficult to kill, which is excellent, but that incredible amount of loyalty is wasted by not having any worthwhile minus abilities; they're just all so underwhelming. Yes, Firespout is fine. If I'm facing down a board that consists exactly of a bunch of relevant but tiny creatures, her -3 will shine. In too many cases it just won't matter though. And her -X is even worse. One damage for one loyalty is an abysmal rate; Chandra Nalaar taught us that centuries ago. Sure, Awakened Inferno is certainly better at gaining loyalty than Chandra Nalaar is, but that doesn't change the fact that it isn't that valuable as a loyalty sink even if it can hit other planeswalkers. Now, if she could damage players directly, THAT would be amazing. But as she currently stands, this version of Chandra is super ignorable. Even if my opponent casts her during a stalemate where I have no way to deal with her, she's too slow to kill and often lacks ways to use her loyalty meaningfully.
Well, I'd be happy to learn what you think of him once you've gotten the chance to test him thoroughly. From my perspective, he looks pretty bad. His 4 starting loyalty makes him fairly vulnerable, and his minus ability only affecting green creatures means he seriously restricts what I can cheat into play off of him. Not to mention, its usefulness is reliant on me actually having something valuable to put into play, and that's something I won't always have even in the instances where doing so would otherwise be good. I suppose Garruk's most redeeming element is his plus ability. I could generate quite a lot of value with it, and if I hit something expensive, I might be able to play it for free next turn. Even so, I think there are better alternatives. If I want to cheat creatures into play, for the same amount of mana I'd be better off casting See the Unwritten or Summoning Trap. Those cards dig deeper than one activation of Garruk, and they don't limit me to green creatures either.
Sorry it took me so long to respond to this, but I want to let you know that I sympathize with you. I lost a masterpiece Mana Crypt a few months ago, and while I thankfully got it back, the whole debacle was seriously depressing. I hope things ultimately work out for you in the end.
It's also an instant for whatever that's worth. Regardless, I think you make some compelling points. It's a card I think I glossed over, and I should have given it some more thought.
At the moment, I think my biggest fear with Eladamri's Call is that spending 2 additional mana is too disruptive. If I'm curving out into some expensive spell, Eladamri's Call limits what I can cast in the same turn, and I'm not sure the increased flexibility is worth very much in a deck that doesn't care about finding any one specific creature and creating redundant draws of it. Had Wild Growth been printed, I'm sure Eladamri's Call would have been even better than it is now since Arbor Elf would have skyrocketed in value. But to make one concession, I do think Eladamri's Call is a better choice than Finale of Devastation. The white cost may cause some complications, but the instances where spending 2 leftover mana to find a creature to play next turn greatly outweighs the instances where Finale of Devastation gets cast for X equals 10.
I don't see the appeal to this card. It's not that it's bad or anything. It's just... why would I want it?
I'm not sure what to think of Collector Ouphe yet. I'm going to give it a try since I can tutor for it with Woodland Bellower, but the Ouphe being a creature makes it a lot more vulnerable than Stony Silence. For that reason, maybe Stony Silence is still a better sideboard card. Or maybe both cards aren't as important with Karn at our disposal.
I find it helpful to frame Llanowar Tribe this way:
Say I play Wistful Selkie. When I do, I get a 2/2, and I draw a card. Now say I play Llanowar Tribe. When I do, I get a 3/3, and I also draw a card. The card Llanowar Tribe draws me isn't a random card like the card Wistful Selkie draws me though. Instead, the card Llanowar Tribe draws me is always a Gilded Lotus. And not only does Llanowar Tribe always draw me a Gilded Lotus, but it also casts that Gilded Lotus for free.
Obviously, this isn't a perfect analogy. (I don't get the mana immediately. I have to tap Tribe to get the mana. Etc. etc.) Still, you get the idea. When I frame it this way, doesn't Llanowar Tribe sound a million times better than Wistful Selkie?
I'm not even sure Ruric Thar is worth running in the first place. If you do want to play with him though, a single Stomping Ground would give you so much more mileage. Even without fetches, your three Oath of Nissa and four Primeval Titan could find it. Hell, you run so many Forest already, you could even get away with playing one Cinder Glade as a serious budget option.
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Provided the venue the MTGS staff is creating isn't completely terrible (and I have no reason to believe it will be), the closing of MTGS meant forum-goers had a very clear direction. They could either migrate over to the new place, or they could find someplace else entirely, be that Reddit, Facebook groups, whatever. Now that the figures that be have announced MTGS will stay open, it isn't clear what folks will do. Some people will migrate. Some people won't. ****. This community is small enough as it is. We don't need an even greater schism. I mean, yes, some folks were inevitably going to break away, but they didn't have to make a decision between "do nothing" and "move." Now the new site won't have nearly as many users as it might have had.
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Leading Arbor Elf:
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land
Leading Birds of Paradise:
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Overgrowth
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
Leading Utopia Sprawl:
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Arbor Elf
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Overgrowth
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Birds of Paradise, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Birds of Paradise —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
These are all the lines involving Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl, and Overgrowth that get to 5 mana turn 3 with five or fewer cards that don't get to 6. Admittedly, many of these lines are redundant, but I decided to include every possible sequence this time because topdecks will sometimes affect the order in which I play cards despite the cards themselves all still being the same. I also added an Overgrowth line I overlooked the previous time. (Oops!)
From this information, it looks to me that getting to 5 on turn 3 usually involves drawing no 3-drops, two lands, two 1-drops, and either a third land or a third 1-drop. Clearly, this is not always the case. There are lines that get to 5 with one land. There are lines that get to 5 with Overgrowth. There are lines that get to 5 with four cards. But generally speaking, getting to 5 on turn 3 usually means having no 3-drops, two lands, two 1-drops, and then a third land or third 1-drop. Birds of Paradise noticeably has the most lines that get to 5 since, for all intents and purposes, it's effectively always +1 mana. Utopia Sprawl is similar, but since it and Overgrowth interact with Arbor Elf in ways that make more than 5 by turn 3, not as many lines involve them. And Llanowar Tribe is nowhere to be seen since, if I cast Llanowar Tribe turn 2, I'm guaranteed to make it to 6 mana turn 3 barring shenanigans.
Anywho, I took a look at all the 5-drops available, and this is everything I thought was notable:
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
1 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Sarkhan Unbroken
1 Vivien Reid
Life Gain
1 Batterskull
1 Primal Command
1 Thragtusk
1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
1 Trostani Discordant
Multiple Bodies
1 Biogenic Ooze
1 Deep Forest Hermit
1 Fated Intervention
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Tendershoot Dryad
1 Thragtusk
1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
1 Trostani Discordant
1 Whisperwood Elemental
1 Batterskull
1 Oversoul of Dusk
1 Thornling
1 Underrealm Lich
1 Vorapede
Big Chungus
1 Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi
1 Gigantosaurus
1 Heroes' Bane
Removal
1 Acidic Slime
1 Primal Command
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
Additional Mana
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
1 Nikya of the Old Ways
1 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Rude Awakening
1 Deus of Calamity
1 Plow Under
1 Primal Command
Card Draw
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 The Mending of Dominaria
1 Urban Evolution
Other
1 Genesis
1 Primal Command
1 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Roalesk, Apex Hybrid
1 Rude Awakening
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
1 Surrak Dragonclaw
1 Whisperwood Elemental
Additional Mana — Not a fan of any of these. Once I reach the upper half of my curve, I want to be casting spells that meaningfully impact the game, not spells that don't do anything significant aside from make even more mana. That's what the less expensive cards are for.
Big Chungus — These suck. If all I'm getting for 5 is a body, I may as well get a resilient one. Their increase in size doesn't make up for their vulnerability.
Card Draw — The only card I'd consider here is Urban Evolution as the others are all too fragile. Is the ability to make an extra land drop worth an additional blue? Maybe. I'm not sure. With the Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl line, it's possible to get to 4 turn 2, and Harmonize turn 2 is big game. But in every other case, Urban Evolution is going to be better since the land it puts into play still leaves me with the same amount of mana as Harmonize.
Land Destruction — Deus of Calamity is salient in that it takes over games better than any other card. As a whole, I think it's still worse than a card like Primeval Titan though. There are just so many ways to take over the game while still getting some kind of value in the event my card is destroyed before it gets started. Plow Under is another brutal 5-drop. It works best with pressure, and that's something I can't provide alongside it most of the time, but it may be worth playing just as a way to stall for more turns/mana. Losing two lands/draw steps is no joke.
Life Gain — There are a few different ways to gain life, but it's hard to beat Thragtusk and Primal Command. Batterskull is interesting in that it provides recurring life gain as well as a resilient/flexible body, but the fact that it doesn't immediately gain me life when it comes into play makes me sour to it. Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves can gain life and kill an aggressive creature at the same time. I'm not sure it will be better than Thragtusk against a deck like burn though. The raw amount of life a card initially gains matters quite a lot.
Multiple Bodies — There are a lot of cards in this category but not too many I'm especially fond of. Thragtusk and Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves are both solid. Deep Forest Hermit provides the most effective bodies the turn it comes into play. Biogenic Ooze provides a useful mana sink, but it falters a lot like Deep Forest Hermit if it's removed the turn it's played. I don't think I care much for any of these.
Other — This is a mixed bag. Not a lot to say here. None of these cards look like especially great options.
Planeswalker — I like planeswalkers A LOT. They do something relevant the moment I play them, so even if they're removed I still got something out of them. They threaten to take over the game by repeating some action each turn they remain on the battlefield. That makes it so they frequently can't be ignored. They're also less prone to removal; fewer cards outright kill planeswalkers than do creatures. And if they're ignored long enough, their ultimates can win the game on their own. Hell, about the only thing planeswalkers have going against them is that they're soft to on-board threats if I don't have a way to protect them. As such, I might not get enough out of them if they happen to die prematurely. Still, having said all of that, planeswalker is an awesome card type. It provides exactly what a ramp deck wants in an expensive card.
Looking over the walkers I listed, it's unfortunate that none have any +2 abilities. Of the bunch, I'm only giving any kind of real consideration to the ones with five starting loyalty. While it's possible that a planeswalker's abilities can compensate for their lack of initial loyalty, four starting loyalty is pretty underwhelming for a 5-drop, and three is downright insulting. That's just way too fragile.
Recently, I've experimented with Nissa, Who Shakes the World thinking her static paired with her +1 might be great both at ramping and at breaking a stalemate. What I didn't consider is just how few lands I usually have in play. The extra mana she makes, while nice, just isn't worth the price of the card, and her ability to spit out 3/3s wasn't impressive enough to make me want her in the absence of ludicrous mana.
Nissa, Vital Force is another card I have experience playing albeit not in modern. What I least like about Vital Force is her +1 ability. When I play a planeswalker, what I want is a minus ability that strongly impacts the game and a plus ability that I can feel great about using turn after turn in the event that I don't need to use the minus ability. Untapping a land and making a temporary 5/5 isn't something I can really get behind though. Her Horn of Greed, while not too hard to reach, is too slow in this style of deck, and her Nature's Spiral can't return some of my most powerful cards which are sorceries. Overall, her two minus abilities don't compensate for her lackluster plus ability.
That leaves Vivien Reid. She's the best of the lot in my opinion. Her minus ability is both impactful and provides interaction. Her plus ability is stellar, certainly better than drawing a card each turn. Sure, she only Impulses for creatures, so Vivien can't find other planeswalkers, but as long as I play enough creature cards both in my top end and overall, I'm sure I'll get enough mileage out of her even if sometimes she does brick on a land. When I'm seriously far behind and not facing down something Vivien can specifically destroy, Vivien's likely a dead card. Nevertheless, I think she's a strong consideration. There will be instances where digging four cards and redirecting six damage is still a worthwhile play at 5 mana.
Removal — Not a lot to consider here. Acidic Slime is reasonable, but likely worse than Vivien Reid in most cases. We see Tolsimir here again as he sort of dips into every category. He's not exceptionally great at killing creatures though. Probably best at dealing with Lavinias and Gaddock Teegs.
Resilient — Thornling and Vorapede both look terrible. Oversoul of Dusk is interesting, but I don't think I want a 5-drop that's an evasive, resilient beater and nothing else. Underrealm Lich seems promising. While still vulnerable to effects like Path to Exile, the Lich is generally difficult to get rid of. That, and it helps find additional threats (or whatever else I might need) to play on subsequent turns. Possibly one of the better 5-drops I could play.
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- Ertai's Meddling can never be cast if X would equal 0. For example, if I cast Bloodbraid Elf and Bloodbraid Elf cascades into Ertai's Meddling, the cascade "bricks" and Ertai's Meddling isn't cast. Pretty straightforward.
- "The player puts it onto the stack as a copy of the original spell." is an extremely misleading sentence. Ertai's Meddling doesn't create a copy of the exiled spell and then cast it like Isochron Scepter. Ertai's Meddling literally puts whatever physical card it exiled back onto the stack from exile. Only now, the card Ertai's Meddling returns isn't itself anymore. Oh no. That card is instead a copy of whatever it happened to be whenever Ertai's Meddling first exiled it. In many cases, there won't be any difference. If I cast Grizzly Bears, and it gets exiled by Ertai's Meddling, that Grizzly Bears is going to be a regular Grizzly Bears when it returns from exile. But if I controlled a Conspiracy naming Sliver whenever I cast Grizzly Bears, Grizzly Bears will still be a Sliver when it's put back onto the stack even if Conspiracy is no longer on the battlefield.
- In tune with my second bullet, if you use Ertai's Meddling to exile a spell that targets something, when you remove the last delay counter and put the exiled spell back onto the stack, you don't change any of the spell's targets; the spell will have exactly the same targets as when it first got exiled. This is because, despite the exiled card being a new spell, the exiled card still becomes identical to whatever it was whenever it first got exiled, and that includes what it targeted. As a result, spells returning from exile are sometimes going to fizzle; if none of the things an exiled spell initially targeted are still hanging around, the exiled spell will have no effect and will be put into its owner's graveyard once it resolves.
- Unlike Delay, if you exile an X spell with Ertai's Meddling, the exiled spell will remember its X value when it returns from exile. This is because, again, the exiled spell becomes an exact copy of whatever it happened to be when it got exiled.
- Something else I thought was worth mentioning: when you remove the last delay counter from a card exiled by Ertai's Meddling, you don't actually cast the exiled card. You just put it onto the stack. In most cases, this is exactly the same as casting a spell; a spell put onto the stack (like with Twincast) resolves the same whether you cast it or not. The only difference is that stuff which cares about players casting spells won't take effect. For example, Forgotten Ancient won't get a +1/+1 counter when a spell exiled with Ertai's Meddling is put onto the stack. Iona, Shield of Emeria also won't stop cards of the named color from returning since nothing is being cast. As far as I'm aware, Ertai's Meddling is the only card in all of Magic that puts spells onto the stack from another zone without ever actually casting them. (And, on an unrelated note, that may have implications for Mr. Bones.)
- Finally, if you exile a spell with Ertai's Meddling and you lose the game before that spell returns, the exiled spell will stay in exile forever. This is because the player who cast Ertai's Meddling is the one who controls the delayed trigger that removes delay counters. And once that player has lost the game, they're out. They won't continue creating triggered abilities.
Is that everything? I think that's everything. About the only thing I'm unsure of is whether or not a Commander exiled by Ertai's Meddling will still get delay counters if it's put into the command zone instead of into exile. Intuition tells me no, but nothing about Ertai's Meddling is all that intuitive, and there was a relatively recent response to a rules question stating that commanders exiled by Ertai's Meddling would in fact get delay counters despite those counters not doing anything. It being the only answer of its kind makes me skeptical though.(I don't know if Grizzly Bears will continue being a Sliver once it hits the battlefield. Text changing effects like Artificial Evolution make it so that creatures that have their text changed while they are on the stack continue having their text changed once they enter the battlefield. Conspiracy isn't a text changing effect though, so it may work differently. Grizzly Bears is for sure still a Sliver while it is on the stack though.)
Spells that target other spells on the stack like Counterspell are almost guaranteed to do this. Spells that target cards on the battlefield (like Doom Blade) might also fizzle. It just depends on whether the creature Doom Blade targeted is still on the battlefield or not.
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I haven't gotten a chance to play with Karn much, but I suspect he will be amazing. Not only can I play Karn, Lattice on 10 to seal the game then and there, but I can also curve Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl, Karn —> Land, Lattice to win the game turn 3. That's an extremely powerful sequence, especially if I'm on the play where it's even less likely that an opponent has developed a creature with which to attack Karn, and it only requires three nonland cards. (The third land is even replaceable with a second copy of Utopia Sprawl.) Granted, turn 3 kills were always possible with Tooth and Nail, but getting to 9 by turn 3 requires a very specific (read: unlikely) combination of cards, so those sorts of wins really only happen once in a blue moon. With Karn, turn 3 wins are much more likely than they were before.
Something else I like about Karn is that my deck is so tight as it is that I really benefit from having a wishboard seeing as I can't ordinarily afford to side out that many cards anyway. My biggest concern is that Karn won't have much impact the turn I play him (especially if I'm behind on board as I often am) if the opponent isn't already playing some artifact focused strategy. I know I can always -2 him the turn I play him and cast whatever I find with the rest of my mana, but there are only so many artifacts I can play in the same turn after sinking 4 mana. Figuring out which will be the best ones is going to be a fun exercise though. For now, I'm testing two copies and will adjust that number accordingly once I receive more firsthand experience. He seems nuts.
Come on, man. Be a little more charitable than that. I know I'm a stranger, and you don't know if you can trust me because your experiences don't align with mine, but you have no idea how long I've played with Garruk either. I would have never gone out of my way to write an absolute diatribe about his faults if I wasn't speaking from experience. Not that I'm claiming to be the foremost expert on Garruk Wildspeaker or anything because, yeah, I could totally be wrong about him. It's entirely possible that, despite all of the problems I listed, maybe Garruk is still worth playing. The least you could do is give me some credit though. It isn't like I'm some anti-Garruk ideologue or something. I've played the card. If my experiences with it were positive, then that's what I'd be writing about. My experiences with Garruk weren't positive though. They were profoundly negative as evidenced from my post.
Now, I'm not saying other players can't (or shouldn't) have positive experiences with the card. That would be ridiculous. No two players will ever play the same Garruk. We're each operating under different variables: different decks, different play skill, different opponents, different luck. Just, when I say the card didn't work out for me, take my word for it; it didn't work out for me. It was awful.
Well, she's still super new, having only been out for a month, and even if it turns out she's better than other untappers (and that may not even be the case), I wouldn't be surprised if it took a while for people to catch on. Non-Tron ramp strategies aren't exactly the most popular decks in Modern, so innovation will naturally occur at a slower pace, let alone innovation that yields positive results. Hell, I've never tried Kiora myself yet. Right now she just isn't a card I'm particularly interested in playing.
Didn't read through everything?
Right now the only cards I'm playing that find other creatures are Primal Command and Tooth and Nail, and seldom will I ever find a Primeval Titan with Tooth and Nail, so that really just leaves Primal Command which I don't even play four copies of. I certainly see merit in making my 6-drops creatures so that Primal Command can possibly find them whenever the situation calls for that, but I'm not sure that reason alone would justify playing something that may be objectively worse. That isn't to say Primeval Titan is objectively worse. It might not be. If that isn't the case though, I'm not certain being searchable is enough of a redeeming factor to want to play it instead of some alternative.
Well, I don't know what I'd qualify as "done." I'm the kind of person who plays with one deck for a very long period of time, learning its intricacies and tinkering with it until it enters a space where there's no possible way I can refine it any further. That entire process takes months, frequently years, so if you're waiting until my journey's finished (and it's barely only begun), then you'll be waiting a long time. In the meantime, here's where I'm at right now:
7 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Arbor Elf
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Overgrowth
4 Llanowar Tribe
Payoff: (8)
3 Woodland Bellower
3 Vraska, Relic Seeker
2 Karn, the Great Creator
3 Tooth and Nail
1 Xenagos, God of Revels
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Bellower Package: (4)
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of Autumn
As for the remaining five cards, there's a lot that could fill that space. Birds of Paradise, Voyaging Satyr, Harmonize, Primal Command, and Primeval Titan are all different things I'm considering, though I am starting to learn towards Birds. I'm open to suggestions.
As of now, I've also been pleased with the three Madcap Experiment and two Platinum Emperion my deck is currently playing, but I'm not sure if those five cards are the best way to use my remaining space. Several of my opponents have mistakenly sideboarded Grafdigger's Cage against Tooth and Nail thinking that would stop it only to actually have Madcap Experiment (and I suppose now possibly Woodland Bellower) inadvertently hit in the crossfire, so incentivizing my opponents to bring those in even more may not be something I want to encourage. Not to mention I find myself siding out the package enough of the time to perhaps retire it there completely. And speaking of sideboards, this is where I'm at:
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Spellskite
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vivien's Arkbow
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Agreed.
Yeah, your deck seems primed to make much better use of Garruk. I'm not playing any of the cards you'd find only fueling devotion strategies like Burning-Tree Emissary or Elvish Visionary, so Garruk's ultimate loses almost all its utility for me.
I'm glad you mentioned Wolfbriar Elemental because it didn't appear in my search. I'm not sure I prefer it to Woodland Bellower as a 6-drop. A 4/4 and two 2/2s is probably worse than a 6/5 and the 3-drop of my choice? Still, there's certainly merit to the card since it scales the same way as an X spell.
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5 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
5 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
So basically for this to happen you need to have a bunch of the same kind of 1-drop, be it Arbor Elf or Utopia Sprawl, and no 3-drops because if you cast a 3-drop on turn 2, you're going to make it to 6 provided that none of your stuff gets blown up with one exception. (Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Overgrowth doesn't get to 6 on turn 3 if you don't have a 3rd land.) Alternatively, if you have exactly two lands, exactly one Arbor Elf, and exactly one Utopia Sprawl, that also only gets you to 5, but one additional land, one additional Arbor Elf, or one additional Utopia Sprawl would each still get you to 6 provided that the additional Arbor Elf was cast turn 2.
This really demonstrates the importance of the 3-drop ramp spells. Not only do they make more mana, but they typically do so with fewer cards and with fewer redundant copies of cards, so they're more likely to happen. Ironically, that makes 6-drops easier to cast on turn 3 than 5-drops.
Yeah, I'm kind of at a crossroads. I've peeked at all the 6-drops, and I'm really unsure which I should be playing. Primeval Titan is the obvious frontrunner. He enables your more expensive cards even if he's killed, and in the event that he isn't he runs away with the game. My biggest fear is that, despite Llanowar Tribe making it easier than ever to land a turn 3 Primeval Titan, Llanowar Tribe might just reduce the number of meaningful lands Primeval Titan can fetch by encouraging you to run only untapped green sources. Maybe you don't need more than two good lands to make Primeval Titan worthwhile (I'm thinking Nykthos and Kessig Wolf Run), but I'm leery nonetheless.
My next three considerations (in no particular order) are Carnage Tyrant, Ravager Wurm, and Hydroid Krasis. Carnage Tyrant is sweet in that it's virtually unkillable. It doesn't do anything other than be a big idiot, but it also applies a lot of pressure, and if your opponent doesn't have exactly a sweeper, then they're not going to get rid of it unless they also have enough power to block it. Ravager Wurm is perhaps the most devastating card. The dream is to cast this turn 3 on the play and destroy one of your opponent's lands, setting them back to the stone age. The Wurm boasts a less than stellar body though, and it's entirely possible there aren't any cards in play that it can kill if you play it too early, so I'm wary this is the right call. Hydroid Krasis isn't the most impressive monster at x equals 4, but a 4/4 flample that refunds you two cards is tolerable enough that it may be worth playing anyway. I generally hate X spells in general, but the flexibility here might make this one of the best choices.
Another card I'm looking at is Karn, the Great Creator. At 6 mana turn 3, you can cast Karn for 4, -2 him, and then cast whatever relevant 2-drop artifact you want with the rest of your mana (Spellskite, Sorcerous Spyglass, Defense Grid, Torpor Orb, Vivien's Arkbow). Then, on the following turn, provided the coast is still clear, you just -2 Karn again, find Mycosynth Lattice, and win the game. While there will certainly be instances where he isn't very good (like if you're staring down a board full of creatures), he's incredibly flexible. You can play him turn 2 with the right opener, and with 10 mana you can even throw down Lattice immediately.
EDIT2: Something I just realized is that, if you want to cast a multicolor 6-drop off the back of a Llanowar Tribe opener, you're 100% going to need a shockland because both Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl have to make G in order to cast Llanowar Tribe turn 2. That isn't the end of the world, mind you. With enough fetches, you can likely find a shockland the first two turns of the game anyway. It just constrains what 6-drops you probably want to cast since, unless you fill your deck to the brim with fetchlands, not every opener with two lands, a 1-drop, and Llanowar Tribe will have fetches and shocks. Sometimes those two lands are just going to be basic Forests, and it's really going to suck if you can make 6 turn 3 but can't cast your 6-drop because you can only make GGGGGG. Not to mention, if you only have shocks and neither fetches nor basics, then Utopia Sprawl is going to have to enchant a shock, making it much more vulnerable to stuff like Field of Ruin. For these reasons, I suspect multicolor 6-drops are probably undesirable.
As someone who wasn't already playing Elvish Visionary, I'm not sure how excited I should be about this.
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1
7 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Overgrowth
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Llanowar Tribe
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Llanowar Tribe
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Overgrowth —> Land
That's SO MANY. And now you don't need exactly Overgrowth or some ludicrous number of Arbor Elves and Utopia Sprawls to get there. You can just play Llanowar Tribe in conjunction with two lands and any 1-drop. And sure, you could have always made 6 by turn 3 with something like Greenweaver Druid, but those lines always required 5 cards: a 1-drop, a 3-drop, and 3 lands. Llanowar Tribe now makes those same lines one card shorter, significantly increasing the odds you'll assemble them.