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Worldwake Green Card Review

By Trick Jarrett ⋅ February 3, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅ Print This Post
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Hello and wel­come to part 5 of our World­wake set review. The review and notes you see here are a col­lec­tion of feed­back from a num­ber of play­ers, rang­ing in skill level from FNM to Semi-Pro play­ers and up to the World of War­craft TCG World Cham­pion. My thanks go to: Billy Postleth­wait, John Dean, Glenn Jones, Jason Brown, Ricky Calarco, Andres Gar­cia, David Sharf­man and the ran­dom other peo­ple who helped col­lect thoughts and dis­cuss this set.

Be sure to see the other reviews:

Rat­ings Explanation:

Con­structed

  1. Unplayable
  2. Might see play, not likely
  3. Side­board card
  4. Main deck staple
  5. Arche­type defining
 Lim­ited

  1. Hor­ri­ble pick
  2. Very weak pick
  3. Fine pick, might make deck
  4. High pick
  5. First pick in pack
 Casual

  1. Not going to be played
  2. Kind of fun
  3. Fun
  4. Really fun
  5. Awe­some casual card

Arbor Elf

Did you know Stan­dard now has 8 Llanowar Elves? Yep, this is our lit­tle elf just in a slightly dif­fer­ent green jacket.

Con­structed: 4
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 4

Avenger of Zendikar

He’s going to be huge for the casual player. And mak­ing tokens that get big­ger with lands can be def­i­nitely abused, pos­si­bly even in con­structed if peo­ple can fig­ure some way to power out the 7 mana fast enough. I must say though, plant tokens are strictly infe­rior to squir­rel tokens.

Con­structed: 3
Lim­ited: 5
Casual: 5

Bes­tial Menace

This thing is amaz­ing in lim­ited, to make three tokens from one card is awe­some card advan­tage. And it will of course be a great casual card. It’s prob­a­bly not quite enough for the big show in con­structed, but we can hope!

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 5

Canopy Cover

This one gen­er­ated a great deal of dis­cus­sion, some liked it, some hated it. The con­sen­sus they reached was that it was “pretty decent” in lim­ited. I’m call­ing it a lim­ited 3, and a 2 elsewhere.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 2

Explore

The key dis­cus­sion this card spurned was, is Explore bet­ter or worse than Ram­pant Growth? It can be, it can net you an extra land and a card, at its worst it draws you a card, and at Ram­pant Growth’s best you net a land, and at its worst you get no lands if there aren’t any in your deck. The dis­cus­sion went on for a while and they finally decided they would rather Ram­pant Growth in con­structed because the main point was for the land, and not to cantrip.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 4

Feral Con­test

This one is just pretty bad all around. Hunt Down wasn’t ever bet­ter than mediocre and this is the same idea.

Con­structed: 1
Lim­ited: 2
Casual: 2

Gnarlid Pack

This is a slightly worse Kavu Titan but it is aver­age to kinda good in lim­ited. It prob­a­bly won’t ever make it to the con­structed stage, but as draft goes it will see play.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 3

Grap­pler Spider

It’s a Reach-ing blocker in a for­mat where it seems like every­thing flies. It will be played for that rea­son, but it is noth­ing amazing.

Con­structed: 1
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 2

Graypelt Hunter

This is one of the best allies in the set. Tram­ple is ridic. That being set, this isn’t a con­structed ally, it’s a casual and lim­ited ally.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 4

Groundswell

It’s either worse or bet­ter than Giant Growth, in Lim­ited it’s pretty damn good. And it could even be con­structed playable in some sort of green stompy deck. Except in com­par­i­son to Vines of Vast­wood or Pri­mal Bel­lows.

Con­structed: 3
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 4

Harabaz Druid

This is another trap card, not trap the abil­ity, but trap in that play­ers think its bet­ter than it is. It’s an ally and it pro­duces mana for how many allies you have, but the fact that it doesn’t pump itself like so many of its brethren is really a weak point. Some of the guys com­pared it to Utopia Tree and noted that it wasn’t any worse than it. We’ll see if it proves bet­ter than I expect.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 4

Jor­aga Warcaller

This guy is really really good. Like ridicu­lous. In lim­ited he is decent, but in con­structed he could be the rea­son Elves comes back with a vengeance. Keep an out for him, and for Elves to return. He’ll also be pop­u­lar in everyone’s elf decks. I know you have one, it’s okay.

Con­structed: 4
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 5

Leatherback Baloth

Another big dude for 3 mana. Triple green is tougher than three dif­fer­ent col­ors, but in lim­ited if he hits the table he’s going to do some dam­age. Liv­ing the dream is a turn two drop and then an unim­peded bash­ing. I just wish he had trample.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 5

Nature’s Claim

This one will see some def­i­nite play in the Eter­nal for­mats, Vin­tage and Legacy. But in Stan­dard and Extended there is no com­pelling rea­son to run it over say Nat­u­ral­ize. Def­i­nitely play it in lim­ited to take down some quests, expe­di­tions or annoy­ing equipment.

Con­structed: 3
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 2

Omnath, Locus of Mana

This was one of the early ones that got hyped, but has fallen a bit flat. He’s a def­i­nite casual heavy hit­ter and will see lots of EDH play. The dis­cus­sions also noted how they felt this was an excel­lent Mythic rare. Lots of fla­vor, a sit­u­a­tion­ally strong card.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 5

Quest for Renewal

This guy is pretty bad. In every for­mat. I stopped at that and moved on but came back to give some more expla­na­tion. Why is untap­ping your guys bad? Well, it isn’t. But the card is bad. Think about what else could be in your deck rather than this card. Sure it has some mul­ti­player impli­ca­tions for untap­ping between turns but oth­er­wise this is, as my old cohost Lee would say, “Poop.”

Con­structed: 1
Lim­ited: 1
Casual: 3

Sling­bow Trap

This is pretty solid in lim­ited since it seems like almost every­thing flies, it’ll be a rarely dead removal spell and it is cheaper against Black to take care of those pesky Vam­pire Nighthawks.

Con­structed: 3
Lim­ited: 4
Casual: 3

Snap­ping Creeper

It’ll be sort of okay in lim­ited but pretty bad else­where. Some abil­i­ties are okay to be non per­ma­nent, but vig­i­lance isn’t one of them. It just isn’t good enough to make the irreg­u­lar­ity of it acceptable.

Con­structed: 1
Lim­ited: 2
Casual: 1

Strength of the Tajuru

This is clearly the same tem­plate as Comet Storm for pump­ing crea­tures. Is it worth it? I guess. For con­structed it seems to be worse than say Over­run but in lim­ited it should do quite well.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 5

Sum­mit Apes

The best thing about this is the hopes of going for a 2-for-1 in lim­ited with it, but at a 2 tough­ness it will be fairly week and die the first time it’s blocked by two crea­tures almost always.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 3

Terastodon

It feels like there are two things this guy is lack­ing, first he really needs tram­ple. How does any­thing over 6 strength not have tram­ple always? And sec­ond, where is the sec­ond R for his name? Shouldn’t it be “Ter­rastodon”? Over­all this guy is a big dude who can in the­ory give you 18 points of power with the destruc­tion of three of your lands, so unless your oppo­nent has a grip of removal, you’ve prob­a­bly got the game on lock­down. Will he see con­structed? I doubt it, but maybe.

Con­structed: 3
Lim­ited: 5
Casual: 4

Vast­wood Animist

Noth­ing excit­ing here, though he’s an ally to make your other allies bet­ter his abil­ity is pretty under­whelm­ing. When you con­sider it, the lands will be prob­a­bly a 5/5 at the max unless you get excep­tion­ally lucky and ahead of the curve. There are prob­a­bly bet­ter choices for your draft decks than this guy.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 2
Casual: 3

Vast­wood Zendikon

When I was first play­ing Magic, I always wished I could attack the turn I cast my Craw Wurm and that’s what this does. If I enchant a land that I played the turn before or ear­lier, I can attack with a sur­pris­ing 6/4. Maybe see con­structed play, but at five mana it’s unlikely.

Con­structed: 2
Lim­ited: 3
Casual: 4

Wolf­briar Elemental

This guy is a def­i­nite bomb in all for­mats, a 4/4 for 4 who also hap­pens to make a 2/2 token for each extra mana you throw its way. This dude will be see­ing lots of love I think.

Con­structed: 4
Lim­ited: 5
Casual: 5
Trick Jarrett is the host and founder of ManaNation.com, he writes, edits, covers, and spoils Magic for a living. Playing it whenever he can manage to find the time. He is engaged to a lovely woman who refuses to learn Magic, and they have a cute cocker-spaniel puppy who is all too eager to play Magic.

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Comments

  1. I’m am going to rework my Wolf deck with Wolf­briar Ele­men­tal and Eldrazi Mon­u­ment from Zendikar. Just the idea of a bunch of fling wolves being lead by this giant ele­men­tal gives me shivers.

    With Quest for Renewal I really want to see what crea­ture tap abil­i­ties can be abused by it other than sim­ply attack­ing. The only thing that comes quickly to mind with be Royal Assas­sin but that is a lit­tle to defen­sive. But like you said, its only worth would be in multiplayer.

    Jangles | February 3, 2010, 1:50 am | #

  2. Once again, you have to go and leave a scratch mark on your oth­er­wise fair and good rat­ings on each card. Why? Any­way, quest for renewal isn’t a superb card but it isn’t as bad as you envi­sion it to be. Think as your crea­tures are all with vig­i­lance. Cun­ning spark­mage deal­ing damge on each turn, lands that attacked are still able to defend or tap for mana, land­fall ability,…etc

    I think you’re rat­ing the card as it is (stand­alone) and not truly in rela­tion with the other cards in its respec­tive for­mats and how it will play out. Not good. Bad.

    Nicholas | February 8, 2010, 11:53 pm | #

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