[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Samwise the Stouthearted

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

I love Harvester of Souls but often find it better in theory than in practice; I think you need to be pretty deep on the aristrocrat sort of train to get value out of it but in that realm it is facing increasing competition from cards like Morbid Opportunist, Midnight Reaper, Undead Augur, etc. This is notable in that it triggers off any creature's death and it doesn't cost you life, but it's at a hefty cost and that tends to make it a removal magnet. I have generally found its mirror Soul of the Harvest to be more reliable as a draw engine just thanks to green's ramp.

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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Outcryqq wrote:
1 year ago
I missed Enduring Renewal day! "Back in my day", I loved combo'ing it with Aluren with creatures that care about dying. I run it in my Atog tribal deck to pump Atogatog infinitely, and I used it in a terrible legacy deck with those two and any altar for infinite mana.

Regarding today's card, Harvester of Souls, I like it! It's probably a bit power crept these days, but the card is optional unlike some other cards that might deck you from a big board wipe, and it's got relevant power/toughness and a relevant keyword. Solid source of card draw.
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

It's got a very black metal song title type of name, like a lost Dissection song.

The effect is great but at six mana I think it is coming down a bit late probably to really make a scene unless you reanimate it but that's facing some stiff competition. I don't think it's unplayable, but it's something you probably run because you think it is cool/neat as a pet card.

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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

I like the idea of Harvester of Souls, but there has been a lot of power creep since its printing - Dark Prophecy, Morbid Opportunist, Smothering Abomination, Midnight Reaper, and other cards all do a similar thing for less mana, with some of them also having the extremely relevant upside of triggering off tokens. One upside of Harvester of Souls is that it also triggers off your opponents' creatures, but unless you're running a bunch of removal yourself or are planning to cast a board wipe, you may not actually get any of those triggers.

...now I sort of want to test it out in my Kess deck. Making all my Terminates and other spot removal spells cantrip sounds sort of sweet.

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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Tuesday, November 15th, 2022; Fertilid


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Post by materpillar » 1 year ago

Does anyone play this little guy anymore? I miss when he was a format goodstuff staple. Outside of proliferation silly ness he seems pretty bad.

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Post by Igzex » 1 year ago

Even back in the day I never really cared for this card because the first activation is 5 mana for one land. If you're not running a +1/+1 counter strategy you're better off casting Explosive Vegetation. Now, the fact it can target other players for land searching gives it a political niche...

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

I never understood why people thought Fertilid was a BFD. Burnished Hart has a way better ROI, and isn't automatically outstripped by better green ramp.
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

I like the design of Fertilid, but it does need the right deck. 1g to ramp repeatedly is a bargain, but it's less exciting if you can only do it twice. Ideally, you want something like Felidar Retreat to keep the +1/+1 counters flowing. Outside decks that care about +1/+1 counters, I'd lean towards Wood Elves or another, more efficient ramp spell instead.

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Post by Crazy Monkey » 1 year ago

The only place where I still run Fertilid is a Ghave, Guru of Spores deck where it gets very funny with Ob Nixilis, Unshackled. Nobody remembers that fertilid's ability targets a player until it matters. In the interim it's not great ramp, but it is ramp that can use +1/+1 counters as a resource.

Outside of corner cases, it is hard to argue that it's on par with Explosive Vegetation, much less the other ramp options.
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Post by Sinis » 1 year ago

I think Fertilid has gotten better with things like Evolution Sage, Felidar Retreat, Omnath, Locus of the Roil, etc. When I first started playing, none of these things existed and I felt this card was pretty underwhelming (and then, its popularity got it included in the first precons).

I don't run it without any of those 'unlimited Rampant Growth' synergies.

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Post by wildfire393 » 1 year ago

I'm fond of Fertilid. While Explosive Vegetation type cards are stronger for pure ramp, the synergies available to creature-based ramp (flicker/reanimate/mimic vat/clone etc) have always left a window for Fertilid to do interesting things. Sure, Burnished Hart does a lot of those same things slightly more efficiently and in every color, but there's a lot of random +1/+1 counter synergy decks, if you're fueling some extra searches off of Ghave, Marath, Loyal Guardian, etc it's easy to get a lot of value out of him. And these days there's a LOT of ways to have his counters self-refresh on every landfall, as Sinis points out, so it's easy to set up a combo that will let you rampant growth as many times as you can afford (and with enough Landfall mana generators you can pull every basic out of your deck).

And then there's the fact that it can target opponents to make them search/shuffle for some random synergies as well. It's far from a busted card but it's definitely a card with a lot of potential and a fairly high fun/interesting factor, which is better than you can say about many generic ramp spells.

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Post by brainface » 1 year ago

Hawk wrote:
1 year ago
I love Harvester of Souls but often find it better in theory than in practice; I think you need to be pretty deep on the aristrocrat sort of train to get value out of it but in that realm it is facing increasing competition from cards like Morbid Opportunist, Midnight Reaper, Undead Augur, etc. This is notable in that it triggers off any creature's death and it doesn't cost you life, but it's at a hefty cost and that tends to make it a removal magnet. I have generally found its mirror Soul of the Harvest to be more reliable as a draw engine just thanks to green's ramp.
A day late: aristocrats is where I run it, but I feel like it also being a 5/5 deathtouch is a notable reason to run it over the little guys, or at least amongst several of the other little guys. 5 power can definitely help close out a game in the red zone and 2 power... doesn't, really. I would compare him more to something like Kothophed, Soul Hoarder than morbid opportunist.

Anyway, Fertilid! I think it's fine but it does compete with a lot. The high ceiling and potential politics of it do make it more interesting than just another wood elves, and sometimes that's what you want. Blocking something that wants to deal or be dealt damage only for the blocker to disappear into rampland is always a fun trick as well.

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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Wednesday, November 16th, 2022; Avenger of Zendikar


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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Oh wow did you know this card is good if you play lands, then the plants get big?

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

3drinks wrote:
1 year ago
Wednesday, November 16th, 2022; Avenger of Zendikar

I don't care if it's over played, my first magic deck was the battle for zendikar duel decks, and this was the foil for the green deck.

The fact that, after all this time, this card is still amazing, even if it's in a different format, makes me very happy.

Now if you'll excuse me, on your end step I'm going to flicker Avenger of Zendikar twice with Emiel the Blessed, then on my turn flicker Springbloom Druid 5 times.
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Post by wildfire393 » 1 year ago

This is one of those cards that, on paper, ticks all my boxes, but in reality I rarely end up playing it. Probably mostly because it's overused to the point that it feels generic and expected. Not much else to say about it.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Pro tip: Save your land drop until after you play the Avenger for maximum damage.
proer-tip: cascadeinto it with Maelstrom Wanderer then Mystical Tutor a Splendid Reclamation to the top. Fun times had by all.

Having a commander that gives it haste made me fall back in love with this card :P

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Post by materpillar » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Pro tip: Save your land drop until after you play the Avenger for maximum damage.
proer-tip: cascadeinto it with Maelstrom Wanderer then Mystical Tutor a Splendid Reclamation to the top. Fun times had by all.

Having a commander that gives it haste made me fall back in love with this card :P
Pro-tip: slot Rout into your most played deck specifically as tech against hasty Avenger of Zendikar silliness. Play the deck for a decade and then mention this sick tech on an online forum. Then, feel old. XD

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 1 year ago

I haven't played Avenger for years and part of why that is comes down to that its vulnerable to most types of disruption. If an opponent has spot removal they can respond to his ETB cutting his plants off from growing. If they have a board wipe he generally even with mass haste has a hard time representing a real threat until at least a turn later. In short, everyone has incentive to cut him down at the knees and I just don't see him going the distance which is unfortunate because he feels all or nothing to me and my average experience for him is that he does not go the distance.
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 1 year ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
1 year ago
I haven't played Avenger for years and part of why that is comes down to that its vulnerable to most types of disruption. If an opponent has spot removal they can respond to his ETB cutting his plants off from growing. If they have a board wipe he generally even with mass haste has a hard time representing a real threat until at least a turn later. In short, everyone has incentive to cut him down at the knees and I just don't see him going the distance which is unfortunate because he feels all or nothing to me and my average experience for him is that he does not go the distance.
I still like him for all the same reasons. Good fair win condition that is still relatively powerful and has uses other than simple body maker.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

I never liked Avenger all that much. It's strong, especially as a T&N finisher with Craterhoof, but I agree with others that a decade of play has made it seem rather boring. Also, I %$#% hate putting counters on tokens and all the bookkeeping it often entails. One Cathars' Crusade on the battlefield and gameplay lags like Windows Vista trying to update and I hate hate hate it.
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Post by Sinis » 1 year ago

I really like Avenger, and it hasn't felt power-crept out. Appropriately costed, requires some amount of synergy with fetches or more ramp. I am generally okay with it. Solidly 75% EDH.

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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

Avenger of Zendikar has seen play for ages, and I would say at least part of that is due to how many synergies it ties into. Landfall, tokens, +1/+1 counters, flicker... there a ton of strategies that work well with Avenger. It doesn't quite end games on its own, but it does represent a threat that needs to be dealt with before the plants grow too large, and the giant pile of bodies it leaves behind if removed represents a hefty speed bump for any attackers.

I'll call out Phylath, World Sculptor and Rampaging Baloths as two alternatives. I think Avenger is the best of the bunch, but they all tend to work well together. Similar to Grave Titan, I don't think Avenger is a crazy staple or must-include for most decks, but it provides enough raw stats to often be worth consideration for decks looking for some additional board presence.

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