This card is the reason that G/W or Naya Aggro
was able to exist as an archetype in Standard in
2013. A 2/2 for two mana is a solid play, and at
worst the Voice will always leave behind a 1/1
when it dies. You might think that you won't
usually get anything more than that. You'd be
wrong. Most decks, not just control, intend to
play SOMETHING during their opponents' turns,
even if it's just a pump spell. Most players
will foolishly assume that a few extra tokens
won't matter much,a s they have no evasion and
they won't be any bigger than 3/3 most of the
time anyway. Then you play Intangible Virtue and
Lingering Souls and Travel Preparations and the
rest of Selesnya's populating tricks, and
suddenly there's an army at your doorstep.
Alternatively, your opponent looks at the Voice
and suddenly he isn't willing to play anything
on your turn, which means all his instants just
got downgraded into sorceries-- if he's even
still willing to play them. Voice is one of
those cards that is good not just for its raw
power, but for the puzzle it forces your
opponent to solve. There is no good answer to a
Voice of Resurgence-- you have to answer it on
your own turn, and not with anything that would
kill it or they still get a token. For a mere
GW, you force opponents to make a bad decision,
and invite them to make far worse ones, and get
an extra creature either way.
It's unfortunate that we didn't end up
reviewing a red and green card near Christmas.
Still, this card is almost as good - certainly,
a lot of you will see this as an early Christmas
present if you happen to get one. Its secondary
market price certainly puts it in that range.
I actually kind of like this style of
self-protection better than stapling four
comes-into-play effects on something: with
something like a Titan, the right play is
generally to Terror it even though the opponent
already got the effect. With something like
this, though, there's a trade-off to doing so
and your opponent actually has to think about
what they want and need to do (since this is a
strategy game). And yes, there are ways to get
around it - Pillar of Flame comes to mind - but
cramming things like that in your deck can
weaken you against certain other kinds of
creatures, which green and white have plenty of.
It's by no means essential for many settings,
and most casual players should feel free to
ignore that $40 price tag or just toss the one
copy they happened to open in a singleton deck.
But a card that can take over a game to such a
degree and influence deck construction to boot
(seriously, I reconsidered basically every card
in my Oros Control Filth Casserole deck when
this came out) definitely belongs on our Top Ten
list.
The number seven card of the year is Voice of
Resurgence which is a two mana White and Green
2/2 that whenever it dies or an opponent plays a
spell during your turn you get a Green and White
token with power and toughness equal to the
number of creatures you control. This is a top
end card that will see play across formats as in
nearly every situation it equals card advantage
with no real drawback. Getting a creature when
it dies is not a unique effect, but getting
creatures for every instant played by an
opponent on your turn changes the flow of the
game.
In Limited this can mitigate many advantages,
such as Cipher, that an opponent may have
available. The low mana cost and gain of a
creature when it dies alone makes it an
automatic inclusion for Selesnya colors and the
added potential puts it into automatic first
pick range regardless of color choices both as a
hate draft and rare draft for value.
