Pojo's Magic The Gathering news, tips, strategies and more!

Pojo's MTG
MTG Home
Message Board
News & Archives
Deck Garage
BMoor Dolf BeJoSe

Columnists
Paul's Perspective
Jeff Zandi
DeQuan Watson
Jordon Kronick
IQ
Aburame Shino
Rare Hunter
Tim Stoltzfus
WiCkEd
Judge Bill's Corner


Trading Card
Game

Card of the Day
Guide for Newbies
Decks to Beat
Featured Articles
Peasant Magic
Fan Tips
Tourney Reports


Other
Color Chart
Book Reviews
Online Play
MTG Links
Staff



This Space
For Rent

Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Root Maze
10th Edition


Reviewed July 13, 2007

Constructed: 2.63
Casual: 2.38
Limited: 1.63

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Jeff Zandi

 7 Time Pro Tour Veteran

Player since 1994

Level II DCI Judge

Member of the Texas Guildmages

Root Maze

Root Maze is a very interesting card with a good opportunity to be useful in constructed decks. Root Maze lets aggressive green decks make slower decks, particularly control decks, EVEN SLOWER. In aggressive green decks, Root Maze is most likely to come from the sideboard, but aggro/control decks with green mana bases may choose to play Root Maze in the main deck.
Unfortunately, Root Maze is not very useful in booster draft or sealed deck play, where it is more difficult to gain an advantage from slowing down the play of lands and artifacts.

CONSTRUCTED: 3.0
CASUAL: 2.5
LIMITED: 1.5

BMoor

Root Maze

Artifacts and lands come into play tapped? What good is that? It'll stop Affinity, sure, but these days? Well, most artifacts that get played today are Signets, Prismatic Lens, and Mind Stone in another few weeks. So this puts a damper on mana. But it's Green. Green doesn't get its mana from artifacts, it gets it from creatures. So this puts a damper on everyone's mana but yours? Well, except for the fact that creatures have summoning sickness. But it does help slow things down all around, except maybe for you and your Elves. Someone'll find a way to break it I'm sure.

Constructed- 2.5
Casual- 2.5
Limited- 1.5

Aethereal

Friday - Root Maze

Mainly useful for the fact that it's cheap and it slows your opponent down. It does slow your mana down too, but in the correct deck (aggro) it will hurt your opponent much more than it will hurt you. Outside of Stompy-type decks I'm not sure where this fits. I do think it will see more play in Extended than in Standard, as Extended has a bigger field of cards to work with in building a deck that uses this. Time will tell if it sees play, but basically this is better than Kismet and Frozen Aether everywhere except casual and in Stasis decks.

In limited, you can't abuse the symmetry of this, so no.

Constructed - 2.5
Casual - 2
Limited - 1.5


David N

Friday - Root Maze

Don't know what to say about this card. Right now I see this card totally messing over solarflare decks which run signets. It slows them down an extra turn. Since it is green you can be fine with your elves and birds to accel.

Constructed: 3
Casual: 2
Limited: 2

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Root Maze

Is this the disruptive effect green usually lacks? Well, it's no Plow Under, and it's not even Tangle Wire, but it is cheaper than both of those, and it slows down control decks pretty nicely. Not only do Signets come into play tapped, they can't even be played on the second turn the way control decks like to play them. It slows down its controller's lands too, but maybe you'll be playing cards like Treetop Village that don't care whether or not they come into play tapped. Root Maze is a solid card that I expect to see play in Standard events. Now, all green needs is a real one-drop creature . . .

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

Arcane
Root Maze

Constructed: This card has the potential to work in an aggro build, potentially adding to the G/W decks already inspired by the TPF block constructed, by keeping your opponent from mounting a defense too early. The problem is that this card doesn’t do anything to win the game on its own, and will affect you just as much ass your opponent so you have to really prepared to work around the turn stumbles on mana. If you want to run this I wouldn’t see any reason not to run the tapped lands like Llanowar reborn or New Benalia, etc. since they come into play tapped already anyway. Doesn’t affect creatures like the better Kismet or Frozen Aether and there aren’t that many problem artifacts that require tapping that I can remember.

Casual/Multi: It’s not going to do much more than aggravate people as it puts them a turn behind where they want to be because they can’t use their mana the turn they play it. And a card that doesn’t win you the game and annoys people is not really a winner in the casual meta. I’m not actually sure yet as to what deck this card is actually supposed to be gold in, if any exists. If you know of one, sound off on the boards or let me know.

Limited: Don’t run it. With only 23-24 spots for cards in your deck, they all have to do something that helps you win. This is going to stay in the sideboard.

Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 1
Limited: 1
The Missing Linc

-Balding for just over 5 years
-Playing MTG for just over 10

Root Maze
I have not ever seen this card played in constructed but it has not been available in a card pool for extended or standard for a while. While green can accelerate mana considerably without artifacts, other colors are not so lucky. This could very well be used as a sideboard card for aggro decks who are looking for just a little more time to beat the opponent down. I am not really sure where to stand on this one, but I think it holds potential.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 3
Limited: 1
PsychoAnime

#1 Magic Noob in Canada since 2002
I think it's pretty hard to break this effect effectively
enough to see play. The only way I can think of is to combine this with
Seedborn Muse to untap your lands, but that's a lot of work just to
keep your opponent's land tapped thev turn they come in.

In limited, this doesn't do anything significant.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 2.5/5
Limited: 1.5/5

Copyright© 1998-2007 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.