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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Primal Surge
Image from Wizards.com

Primal Surge
Avacyn Restored

Reviewed May 8, 2012

Constructed: 3.33
Casual: 4.13
Limited: 2.67
Multiplayer: 3.50

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

Primal Surge

This reminds me a lot of Genesis Wave. They both require a massive amount of mana, promise the possibility of dumping a whole horde of permanents onto your side of the board, and have the potential to fizzle depending on what's on teh top of your library. Except when this fizzles, it fizzles HARD. Even one non-permanent card will end the streak, so if the top card of your library happens to be, say, another copy of Primal Surge, you'll be in a very bad position. Moreso given that Primal Surge exiles the card it doesn't put onto the field, so you don't even get to draw the second Surge and try again.

For me to feel good about running this card, I'd have to be running a deck where Primal Surge is basically the only card in the deck that isn't a permanent. But that's a whole new restriction. For combat tricks you'd be limited to creature or Auras with flash. You couldn't use Cultivate or Harrow to get up to ten mana-- you need to use various Druids or artifact mana. And you'd never really be safe unless you're only running one copy of Primal Surge... which means you need ways to search your deck or filter it WITHOUT using cards like Foresee, Hunter's Instinct, or Diabolic Tutor, or you'll never actually see that one copy. And by the time you find it, you may have drawn so much of your deck that the game's already over or there aren't enough business permanents left in your deck to actually finish the job. Do note though, that you at least don't ever have to worry about decking yourself with this. Putting the permanent into play is optional, so when you decide that you've Surged enough, you can just exiles the next permanent and be done.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 4.5
Limited- 2.5
Multiplayer- 3.5 

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Primal Surge
 
A spell that wants to be played with lots of permanents is rather unusual, and becomes slightly harder to use - it means you can't use as many spells that let you find it, other than something like Liliana Vess. Still, for this cost, it's really worth giving this card some consideration, considering how huge the potential payoff is. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of questioning why this card costs ten mana. If there is, I have to ask what would be the "correct" cost for a card that potentially lets you put your entire library into play at one time.
 
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Primal Surge which is a ten mana Green sorcery that can potentially play an entire deck in a single turn, allowing multiple win conditions to be triggered or activated.  The drawback of course is the heavy mana cost which is quite high even with Green's acceleration.  Ten mana really is more than a competitive deck can risk working towards and the very dedicated build needed to maximize the effect is another strike against a balanced build.  Overall this is a powerful and mostly unplayable card that is unlikely to see any serious play.
 
For Limited the cost and expectation of playing few non-permanents make it detrimental to run in most builds.  The potential to win is there, but in nearly any scenario this is a dead card in hand or can just wash out on the exiled card.  As a gamble this isn't likely to pay off as a first pick in Booster and a Sealed deck shouldn't skew the mana curve to include this.  The format can technically support an all permanent strategy with this as a finisher it just isn't as effective or efficient when Primal Surge itself is not cast.  Weakening the entire deck for one card is not the best strategy, particularly when the card can only be cast in the late stages of the game.
 
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 1.5
Multiplayer: 3.0

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

      Welcome to another great day of card of the day reviews here at Pojo.com! Today we are taking a look at Primal Surge from Avacyn Restored. Primal Surge is a green mythic rare sorcery that costs eight generic mana and two green mana. Primal Surge says Exile the top card of your library. If it is a permanent card, you may put it onto the battlefield, if you do, repeat this process.

     Primal Surge. Game changer. Simple as that. In a deck comprised of all permanents, you can very well dig down until your side of the field dwarfs your opponent and everything you need to win is in place. A card like this should cost ten mana, especially in green, but who really cares? In green, coming up with massive amounts of mana is almost a given! Ten mana should not be the issue, deciding when you should stop dropping things will be!

      Combo a card like this in a blue/green landfall deck and watch as your opponent cringes everytime something is flipped. They might almost beg for creatures to come out except that your Hedron Crabs continue milling for each land dropped, and you Rampaging Baloth makes more and more 4/4 Beast tokens. Not to mention all the other things you can do with landfall. And that is just in blue/green! Imagine a Warstorm Surge out as you are dropping all of these creatures! Have fun unleashing your Primal Surge!

Limited: 4/5
Constructed: 5/5
Casual: 5/5
Multiplayer: 4/5


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