Most players will tell you that Auras are a good
way to incur card disadvantage, and they need to
have a major effect on the game immediately to
be worth suiting up your creatures. Others will
tell you that there's just no experience like
that of turning your long-overshadowed 2/2 and
turning it into a real threat out of nowhere.
Forced Adaptation is somewhere in between. It
doesn't do anything right away, so it's just
asking for its target to eat a kill spell before
it can do anything impressive. But at only one
mana, and with an ability that keeps getting
better as turns go by, that's kind of the point.
On turn one you can drop an Ornithopter and put
this on it, and be swinging with a 1/3 flyer on
turn two... and a 5/7 flyer on turn six. By the
time your opponent has the mana to cast his
Dragons and Angels, the Ornithopter will have
grown large enough to compete with them.
Sadly, Ornithopter isn't Standard-legal. But the
idea still works with just about any one-drop
with a decent combat-based ability. Put this on
it, and it'll scale up to match the big threats
in time. With enough time, it'll also outgrow
your opponent's ability to kill it with
toughness-based removal-- if he's got a Searing
Spear, he'd better use it now or he'll lose the
chance. This means your opponent can't hold back
removal as well as he'd like to, and if you
Forced Adaptation an otherwise-unthreatening
creature like a Spirit token he won't be able to
get good value out of his kill spell (and won't
have one left when you drop your good creature).
I have to admit that, even to my long-serving
and well-versed-in-strategy reviewer's eye, this
card is not as exciting as a lot of recent
auras. Still, it passes an occasionally
important test: giving you an advantage that
grows over time and remains if it's removed
(provided it survived to the first upkeep). And
of course, you can also use it as a combo -
Vigean Hydropon is sometimes fun to play around
with, and it lets Simic Manipulator steal 1/1
creatures every turn until time stops.
Today's card of the day is Forced Adaptation
which is a one mana Green aura that adds a +1/+1
counter to the creature at the beginning of your
upkeep. Like most auras it suffers from
the risk of a two for one and it has the added
drawback of minimal benefit until a few upkeeps
have passed. Paired with effects like
Hexproof, evasion, Trample, or cards that work
with +1/+1 counters this has quite a bit of
potential for a one mana card. It can be a
nice addition to theme decks and will likely be
popular in Casual for a while, though it is a
little too slow for more competitive formats.
In Limited this is effective with Trample
Hexproof targets and a serious threat when
combined with stronger forms of evasion.
As a one mana common it can easily be included
in most Sealed builds using Green, though it is
unlikely to enter play until the third turn or
later, and is rarely a good topdeck due to the
wait. Simic also has multiple cards that
can take advantage of an added source of
counters which increases the value for that
guild and after drafting Green/Blue in Booster.
Welcome back to a week of green reviews here
at Pojo.com! We continue by looking at Forced
Adaptation from Gatecrash. Forced Adaptation is
a common green enchant creature that costs one
green mana. Forced Adaptation says at the
beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on
enchanted creature.
Forced Adaptation is amazing. It really is. Now
I'll tell you why. Evolve is a pretty decent
mechanic, but on it's own, it really needs help.
And certain cards are just so much better
gaining steady +1/+1 counters versus gaining
gradual +1/+1 counters. Forced Adaptation allows
for steady counters. Think of how much more you
gain from your Fathom Mage or Simic Manipulator
from a constant flow of +1/+1 counters. Or even
your Gyre Sage for example.
But let's even go a step further, out of
Standard for example. Think of a Forced
Adaptation on a Aura Gnarlid. Just how long
before your opponent is out of answers.
But there are two creatures that truly love
Forced Adaptation. They would be Champion of
Lambholt and CorpseJack Menace. Nothing says fun
like twice the amount of counters on a creature
that once it is jacked up won't allow your
opponents to block.
