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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Sylvan Primordial
Image from Wizards.com

 Sylvan Primordial
- Gatecrash

Reviewed February 14, 2013

Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 3.10
Limited: 3.63
Multiplayer: 4.10

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

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Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Sylvan Primordial

As is tradition, the green one is the biggest of the cycle, weighing in at 6/8, stats that make it well-suited for both pulverizing creatures and surviving whatever combat it finds itself in. Its "combat ability" is reach, instead of trample as you might have guessed. While the first three got vigilance, haste, and intimidate, this is a defensive ability. Swinging with a 6/8 is still doable of course, but you end up feeling like you missed out. Still, traditionally in cycles like these the green one doesn't always even get an extra ability, instead just being bigger than the others. 

The "for each opponent" ability more than makes up for it. Outright destroy one permanent per opponent. Kill planeswalkers, if anyone's got one. Destroy troublesome enchantments like Martial Law or Curse of Exhaustion. Take out Equipment or mana rocks. At the very least they'll have some nifty dual lands to take out-- this is Ravnica after all.

And for every permanent you remove, you get a Forest. At seven mana it's unlikely you still need more lands, but green has never had any trouble finding uses for all that mana, and the deck thinning is always welcome too. Perhaps you have cards that can animate your lands?

Constructed- 3.5
Casual- 4.5
Limited- 4
Multiplayer- 4.75

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Sylvan Primordial

I presume that the Primordials represent the old gods mentioned in Cinder Elemental's flavor text, or are their servants or harbingers - perhaps the Nyarlathotep to Ravnica's equivalent of Azathoth. That does raise the question of what could be bigger or more disruptive than today's card of the day, but one of the two things we learned from Rise of the Eldrazi was that there's always a bigger creature. (The second thing was that I'm not the only person in the Magic sphere who's read "At the Mountains of Madness.")

Sylvan Primordial perhaps attracted the most attention of any of its brethren because of the breadth of its removal ability. Green's been getting a lot more destructive power recently, including the fight keyword to deal with creatures, so this breadth is shocking not in its existence but arguably in its scale. You can easily imagine this card taking out problematic permanents all around a multiplayer table and putting its controller well on top (not to mention into the role of public enemy number one). I daresay it even looks reasonably attractive to one-on-one decks that can reach its mana cost; destroying planeswalkers is never unnecessary, and getting a powerful creature on top is great.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Sylvan Primordial which is a seven mana Green
6/8 with Reach that destroys one target noncreature permanent of each opponent's and puts a Forest from your library into play tapped for each permanent destroyed.  With Green's acceleration this isn't very difficult to get into play and the destruction and filtering effect provides a nice card advantage, mostly in Multiplayer, and does offer a weapon against Planeswalkers.  Reach makes this more defensive, as does the lack of evasion or Trample, so it is unlikely to see much play in one on one settings.  In Multiplayer it makes for a solid deck filter and effective source of removal and will be a popular choice in Green builds.
 
For Limited this is a three for one source of card advantage that is a fair offensive threat, strong defense, and effective topdeck with the removal aspect.  An automatic inclusion in Sealed for Green guilds and worth a first pick in Booster even if it isn't as strong of an impact on the creature side of the battlefield as other similar cards.
 
Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4.0

Scott
Scott
Gerhardt
Host, The Gamer's Dome
Sylvan Primordial
 
Did you expect the green Primordial to be anything other than huge?  It's not THAT good, though.  Don't get me wrong, I play it in limited because it's fat with reach, but the abilities are far from game changing.  I don't see casual players liking this all that much, but like all primordials, the ability is amplified in multiplayer, and might be a legit threat there.  I just don't see how this sees constructed play, though.
 
Constructed: 2
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 3.5
 
Check out The Gamer's Dome, hosted by yours truly, Scott Gerhardt!  New shows every Tuesday night!  www.TheGamersDome.com
 

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