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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Grove of the Burnwillows
Image from Wizards.com

Grove of the Burnwillows
- From the Vault: Realms

Reviewed August 29, 2012

Constructed: 3.80
Casual: 3.80
Limited: 3.13
Multiplayer: 3.10

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 of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Grove of the Burnwillows

I remember back in Time Spiral block, where this was comboed with Kavu Predator. And then again later on where it got comboed with Punishing Fire. That combo probably improved Punishing Fire more than it did this card. I don't think I've ever seen it used as just a straight dual land though. Is it because people were averse to the idea of giving your opponent life every time you cast a spell? I doubt it-- the pain lands pretty much proves that a 1-point life total disadvantage was worth the mana fixing. I think the real flaw was that one half of this card is green, and green has always been the king of mana fixing and acceleration. Red/green decks have never been as big on dual lands as white/blue or blue/black decks have because they can play Rampant Growth or Harrow to sort out their mana troubles. If there had been a whole cycle of lands like this, the W/U and U/B ones would have been widely used. This one, not so much.

Constructed- 3
Casual- 3
Limited- 3.5
Multiplayer- 2.5

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Grove of the Burnwillows
 
Grove of the Burnwillows is my favorite card in the new From the Vault set, although I can't help but think it might have been nice if we'd had the new art but still had the "future-shifted" card frame. The original will always remain as a vision of a future that I long to see, but wonder whether we ever will. What you may not know is how close it came to being a candidate for From the Vault: Exiled, as a result of the time that it, along with Punishing Fire, was in basically every deck in the nascent Modern tournament format. In the end, Punishing Fire was the one exiled, but it's honestly not clear which was the most powerful partner in that combo. There are so many dual land variants in recent sets that we sometimes forget just how special that type of card can actually be. The Grove comes into play untapped, which isn't a given even in the modern age, and most red-green decks have high enough damage output that using it three or four or more times in the early game matters less than you might expect.
 
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 4/5

Paul

Welcome back readers todays card of the day is one of the more beautiful works of art contained in From The Vault Realms the most amazing work of art goes to the new Dryad Arbor. In standard you cant use this and in modern its being utilized in combo decks that don’t care about your opponents life total and allows for a decent amount of mana fixing. In legacy and vintage duel lands exists as well as shocklands so I don’t foresee this card seeing much play but also perhaps in combo oriented decks that really need green or red mana. In casual and multiplayer you still have access to its most powerful combination this card combined with Punishing Fire allowing you to slowly hit a player or control creatures. In limited its unexciting mana fixing with a small price attached for its use. Overall a card that used to be much better combined with Punishing Fire but now sees a fair amount of modern play and can still be used casually with cards like Kavu Predator and Punishing Fire.
 
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 2.0
Multiplayer: 3.0

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Grove of the Burnwillows which is a land that can tap for Green or Red and give all opponents one life or it can tap for one colorless.  Combining this with effects that trigger from or prevent opponent life gain gives this some options other dual lands don't have and have been used successfully in the past. Overall a dual land that doesn't deal damage to you or come into play tapped certainly has value and with the right build even has advantages which make it fairly competitive.
 
In a Limited format this may not have as many combinations, but if using both colors or splashing one an opponent gaining life isn't a large penalty against a dual land like this.  As a rare it should be a first pick, though leaning towards two colors in one card is a risk both Red and Green are good options to splash for removal or acceleration respectively.  In Sealed it depends on the pool, but running two or more colors is almost required and this can be a major benefit.
 
For Multiplayer this gets noticeably less efficient depending on the format rules and how many opponents are in the game, so barring a specific combo that works against every opponent gaining life it is less likely to be an efficient play.  It is also possible that the benefit to other players may make you less of a target as long as you are tapping it for colored mana each turn, though avoiding that when possible is clearly preferable.
 
Constructed: 4.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 3.5

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

      Welcome back to the card of the day section here at Pojo.com! We are looking more at the From The Vault Realms cards today by taking a look at Grove of the Burnwillows. Grove of the Burnwillows is a land that taps for one generic mana or taps for either red or green mana, and then each opponent gains one life.

        I was fortunate enough to pack an original Grove of the Burnwillows from Future Site, and man if only I knew how insane it would become. Before long, there was a deck that a friend of mine ran using a little card called Rain of Gore, and then I never looked at the Grove of the Burnwillows the same way again. Tapping for mana is great when it hurts your opponent, especially when you are able to untap the land and do so repeatedly. Even if you have a single Rain of Gore and four copies of Grove of the Burnwillows, that is four life lost simply for adding mana to your mana pool. Two copies of Rain of Gore means eight life, and so on. Other methods of slowly draining his opponent also made the game end that much sooner. But I will never forget being Fogged and losing a life because he cast the Fog.

       There are plenty of other ways that the Grove of the Burnwillows became such a popular card. But the question really should be how will you use yours?
 
Limited: n/a
Constructed: 5/5
Casual: 5/5
Multiplayer: 4/5


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