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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

In Garruk's Wake
Image from Wizards.com

 In Garruk's Wake
- M15

Reviewed Aug. 14, 2014

Constructed: 2.00
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 2.50
Multiplayer: 3.62

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale:
1 - Horrible  3 - Average.  5 - Awesome

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Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Deck Garage

In Garruk's Wake

Nine mana just plain doesn't happen in most games. If it does, then this should outright win it for you. Your opponents have nothing left, and you've got everything. I suppose a midrange/ramp deck could try and get this off around turn six or seven. A control deck could easily live to see nine mana, but it does so by keeping it's opponents' boards clear long before Turn Nine.

Casual and multiplayer games like it, because those formats see longer games and bigger armies. Multiplayer especially likes it, as no matter how many people are at the table, you're now the only one with any creatures or 'walkers.

Constructed- 1.5
Casual- 4
Limited- 2
Multiplayer- 4.5


David Fanany

Player since 1995

In Garruk's Wake

I suppose you'd say this is technically an upgrade of Plague Wind - destroying more things is always better, right? Of course, you don't always need to destroy planeswalkers because not everybody plays them, especially in less competitive environments. At the same time, there are other settings where you may find yourself facing three other players, each of whom has a planeswalker, and this is a solid option to fall back on in such circumstances. Your only other likely play in such a situation is Planar Cleansing, and not everybody wants to play white all the time.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is In Garruk's Wake which is a nine mana Black sorcery that destroys all creatures and planeswalkers you don't control.  This is an extremely powerful effect at a perhaps equally extreme mana cost.  It takes acceleration, a very slow setting, or probably both to even consider including this in a deck.  Overall this is unlikely to see any competitive play, but in Multiplayer it is a card that will come very close to ending the game by itself or at least knock one or more opponents out of contention if you are in a position to capitalize on it.
 
In Limited this is one of the few times that the mana cost is actually too high for the format as nine mana is going to be over half of the mana in your deck for most builds.  It is very powerful as it ends stalemates immediately and will win many games when played, but it is terrible in the opening hand or the multiple turns of waiting for enough mana to cast it.  A high mana deck could curve into this, yet the compromise to the early game and deck flexibility is likely not worth it which makes this a poor first pick in Booster.  For Sealed the pool has to be rough to make including this seem reasonable as the deck will need excess mana and fewer options to run at lower mana costs.
 
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 3.0
Multiplayer: 3.5

Mattedesa

Deck Garage

In Garruk's Wake

Yesterday, I mentioned that some cards are easy to review by just looking at them, and some you have to play with to get a better feel for them. This is the first type of card. What it does is very straightforward - it wipes the opponents' boards of creatures and planeswalkers, leaving them open for all of your creatures to come through. Most of the time, if you have very many creatures out at all, this is game over if you're playing a 1 on 1 game. It's one of the most powerful effects in the game - but you have to pay for it.

Nine mana is almost certainly too expensive for a constructed deck. Casual players will love this card, as games go on much longer. Nine mana is even too much for most limited decks unless you were very fortunate with mana accelerators. Multiplayer games might get up to nine, and but it's a little harder to take out multiple opponents before they build back up their board.

Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 2
Multiplayer: 3.5


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