Magic the Gathering

Casual

EDH-Wake!

By Dale Lovelace ⋅ February 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

It’s offi­cial, World­wake should be renamed EDH-wake! Sat­ur­day I was score­keeper for the Phoenix Games regional pre­re­lease in Orlando, FL, and Sun­day I judged a local pre­re­lease at Wiz­ards Cup­board in Semi­nole, FL. Dur­ing two long days of pre­re­leases, I had the oppor­tu­nity to speak with a lot of folks about the best new cards for EDH. There are a ton! So many in fact, I’m going to split this arti­cle into two arti­cles. This week we’ll look at the best crea­tures and crea­tureesque cards, and every­thing else next week. Yes, I made up the word crea­tureesque, sue me. [Ed. Note — Man­a­Na­tion takes no respon­si­bil­ity for the cre­ation of words by our writ­ers. :)]

It cer­tainly would seem those guys at WOTC have been play­ing some EDH. From huge fat­ties to great util­ity crea­tures, World­wake has some­thing for every­one. Let’s dive right in and find out what rocks for EDH in World­wake.

Abyssal Per­se­cu­tor is a 6/6 fly­ing tram­pler for 4. Draw­back, what draw­back? I’m sure you can find a way to get rid of this guy when the time is right! The worst part about this guy is that he will almost cer­tainly be playable in every con­structed for­mat, so his price will almost cer­tainly be outrageous.

Per­se­cu­tor presents an inter­est­ing chal­lenge to deter­min­ing who elim­i­nated a player. What if Joe takes Mike below 0 life, but Mike does not lose because Sam has an Abyssal Per­se­cu­tor? Then Rick destroys the Abyssal Per­se­cu­tor after doing even more dam­age to Mike! We’ll let your play­group work this one out for itself.

Admo­ni­tion Angel is a 6/6 flier for 6. The Land­fall abil­ity may or may not even be rel­e­vant. Leav­ing a fetch on the board ready for that Dark­steel that def­i­nitely won’t be attack­ing you could be a good idea though.

Arbor Elf is a Llanowar Elf, right? Or bet­ter. He untaps dual lands, Dryad Arbor, Mur­mor­ing Bosk, even Sapseep For­est. Now if we only had a For­est that tapped for more than one mana. Over­growth anyone?

Archon of Redemp­tion is a 3/4 flier for 5. That seems good, the life gain is just icing on the cake.

Avenger of Zendikar is a 5/5 for 7 that can give you a lot of 0/1 tokens. Don’t we just love tokens? It can also pump those tokens for every land you play, along with all your other plant crea­tures. I’m look­ing at you Chameleon Colos­sus.

Butcher of Malakir is a 5/4 flier for 7. Butcher makes your oppo­nents think twice before killing your dudes!

Drag­on­mas­ter Out­cast is a 1/1 for 1 that can give you a 5/5 fly­ing dragon every upkeep when you have 6 or more lands. 6 or more lands is a snap in EDH, keep­ing a 1/1 alive until your next turn is not, however.

Kalas­tria High­born is a 2/2 Vam­pire for 2 that allows you to Drain Life an oppo­nent for {b} when a vam­pire goes to the yard.

Loam Lion is a 1/1 for 1 that gets +1/+2 when you con­trol a For­est. Yes, it’s the new white Kird Ape. Seems good.

Lode­stone Golem is an 5/3 Arti­fact Crea­ture for 4. As if that wasn’t good enough, it makes nonar­ti­fact spells cost 1 more to cast. Sharuum and other arti­fact decks every­where rejoice.

Mor­dant Dragon is a 5/5 fly­ing dragon for 6 with fire­breath­ing for 1{R} that has crea­ture removal when you dam­age a player. This is one mean dragon! 5 stars, should be in every deck that packs red, OMGWTF YAY!

Nov­ablast Wurm is a 7/7 for 7 that destroys all other crea­tures when it attacks. Wow. What else can I say, Wow.

Stone­forge Mys­tic is a 1/2 for 2 that lets you search for an equip­ment card when it comes into play, then lets you put an equip­ment card into play for 2 and a tap at instant speed. Jitte’s best friend is a good tutor and great sur­prise factor.

Terastodon is a 9/9 for 8 that lets you destroy three non­crea­ture per­ma­nents when it comes into play, but allows each permanent’s con­troller to put a 3/3 token into play. This gives green a way to get rid of prob­lem per­ma­nents like Planeswalk­ers and/or a way to turn your extra lands into 3/3 ele­phants, not to men­tion giv­ing you a 9/9 beater!

Mul­ti­kicker Creatures

EDH loves X spells. Mul­ti­kick is a big­ger bet­ter X spell. Most of these guys are good early game, and even bet­ter late game. Mul­ti­kick crea­tures really fit EDH well since they are almost always a good play.

Apex Hawks is a 2/2 flier for 3 that has Mul­ti­kicker 1{W} for +1/+1 coun­ters. Fly­ing really makes this Mul­ti­kick crea­ture hot.

Blood­husk Rit­u­al­ist is a 2/2 for 3 with Mul­ti­kicker {B} that forces an oppo­nent to dis­card a card for each time it was kicked. Mind Shat­ter for 1 more, that leaves you with a 2/2!

Enclave Elite is a 2/2 Mer­folk for 3 with Mul­ti­kicker 1{U} to give it +1/+1 coun­ters. While Island­walk is not as good as fly­ing, in EDH it’s pretty darn good. While being a Mer­folk cer­tainly has its advan­tages in the right deck, I still like Apex Hawks over this guy.

Gnarlid Pack is a 2/2 for 2 with Mul­ti­kicker 1{G} for +1/+1 coun­ters. This Mul­ti­kick­able Griz­zly Bears is not ter­ri­bly excit­ing, but still not a bad card. In Green you can find ways to gen­er­ate max­i­mum mana, mak­ing this guy huge.

Jor­aga War­caller is a 1/1 Elf War­rior for 1 with Mul­ti­kicker 1{G} for +1/+1 coun­ters that also pumps other Elfs for each +1/+1 counter. Believe it or not, this is one of the cards I am most excited about in this set. I am a big fan of the Elf. This guy is going in my Rhys, the Redeemed deck imme­di­ately if not sooner. He’s the release promo card, so pick up a nice foily Jor­aga War­caller at your local release this weekend!

Light­keeper of Eme­ria is a 2/4 flier with Mul­ti­kicker {W} to gain 2 life for each time it is kicked. Gain­ing 2 life for each {w} and get­ting a 2/4 flier out of the deal is pretty good bar­gain. I can see this going in every deck I have with white in it!

Quag Vam­pires is a 1/1 Swamp­walk Vam­pire for 2 with Mul­ti­kicker 1{B} for +1/+1 coun­ters. The “least good” +1/+1 counter Mul­ti­kicker crea­ture, but still decent.

Skit­ter of Lizards is a hasty 1/1 for 1 with Mul­ti­kicker 1{R} for +1/+1 coun­ters. Hav­ing haste makes this Lizard a Beast! Soon to be tak­ing those last few life points away from an oppo­nent near you!

Wolf­briar Ele­men­tal is a 4/4 Ele­men­tal for 4 with Mul­ti­kicker {G} that puts a 2/2 Wolf token into play for each time it was kicked. This one gets another great big Wow from me! Token decks every­where are scroung­ing up a Wolf­briar Ele­men­tal. Rhys, the Redeemed is very happy!

Man Lands

They’re almost crea­tures, right? World­wake will have the first set of man lands that pro­duce mul­ti­ple col­ors, and a very nice col­or­less man land. Rather than go through each land, suf­fice to say these guys should be show­ing up in every deck that sup­ports the colors.

New Gen­er­als

With so many great EDH cards in this set, it makes sense that World­wake should have some great new gen­er­als. We still don’t have a sec­ond Blue Black Green gen­eral I’m hop­ing for, but we get 4 awe­some mono color gen­er­als and one very nice Gold gen­eral. Build decks from the 4 mono color Gen­er­als in World­wake and throw in a Iona, Shield of Eme­ria deck for White and have a mono EDH from each color for a great Pen­ta­gram game!

Anowon, the Ruin Sage is a 4/3 Vam­pire Shaman for 5 that forces all play­ers to sac­ri­fice a non Vam­pire crea­ture at the begin­ning of your upkeep. With all of the great Vam­pires we have now I can def­i­nitely see an all Vam­pire EDH deck with Anowon as their leader. An Abyss for every­one except you sounds good.

Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs is a 5/4 Ogre War­rior for 5 with a Ghostly Prison +1 that beats like a Wooly Thoc­tar.

Omnath, Locus of Mana is a 1/1 Ele­men­tal for 3 that lets you leave green mana in your pool between steps and phases, and get +1/+1 for each green mana in your pool. This guy is Vines of Vast­wood’s best friend. I’m busy work­ing on my Omnath deck right now!

Thada Adel, Acquisi­tor is a 2/2 Island­walk Mer­folk Rogue for 3 that lets you Bribery an Arti­fact from a player when you do com­bat dam­age to them. This may be the least inter­est­ing Leg­endary card from World­wake, but I can still see a Thada Adel deck spring­ing up.

Wrex­ial, the Risen Deep is a 5/8 Island­walk Swamp­walk Kraken for 8 that lets you cast an Instant or Sor­cery card from a play­ers grave­yard when you deal com­bat dam­age to them. The only Mul­ti­color Gen­eral from World­wake may also be the most inter­est­ing of the bunch. The col­ors are great for EDH giv­ing you plenty of tutors, removal, coun­ters et. Al.

Well, these are some of the best crea­tures in World­wake for EDH. This set is look­ing really really good for EDH play­ers. Most of the awe­some World­wake crea­tures will see lit­tle play in Stan­dard, and hence should be afford­able. Run, don’t walk, to your local store to pick up some World­wake when it becomes avail­able this Friday!

Next week we’ll fin­ish up the World­wake EDH review with every­thing else in World­wake. Yes, the rest of World­wake is very good as well. See you then!

Dale Lovelace is a DCI judge from Tampa, Florida. He loves casual and "weird" Magic formats, including Elder Dragon Highlander. He'll talk about EDH, those other formats and some seriously cool things you can do in and around Magic the Gathering.

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