Wrenn and Seven by Heonwha Choe

The Green Review

The Midnight Hunt is upon us. With Day and Night changing the citizens around you, embark on a mission to control time itself, and let's dive into the green cards from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt (other reviews here).

Mythics

Consuming Blob

At first glance, I think Consuming Blob is underwhelming for commander play. Unlike Tarmogoyf, the power and toughness setting ability only tracks the card types in your graveyard. So while Consuming Blob could be as strong as an 8/9, it will usually float around four or five power. Depending on how many enchantments or artifacts you run, lands, creatures, instants, and sorceries will be the main fuel for the blob's power. And even if you do get it up to six or seven power, how often do you see vanilla 6/7's and 7/8's in a game of commander?

But Consuming Blob isn't a vanilla creature. It creates token copies of itself, that won't generate more tokens, on your end step. This is great for Ooze tribal decks, which have gotten a wealth of support in the past few years. Biogenic Ooze and Biowaste Blob both reward you for having a lot of Oozes in play. Consuming Blob is a perfect engine for these decks. It can also fit into non-Ooze decks which care about creature tokens. Ghired, Conclave Exile loves to make four-power tokens, while Moritte of the Frost is both an Ooze and an extra copy of Consuming Blob to double the number of tokens you creature during your end step.

Primal Adversary

At its most basic, Primal Adversary is a three mana creature with four power. That alone may make it worth considering for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds decks. Once you start paying into the triggered ability on Primal Adversary, it starts to look less interesting for Commander. The cost to add +1/+1 counters quickly stops being worth it, and turning lands into creatures isn't usually what you want to do. It's important to note that those lands are now 3/3 Wolves forever. There are some uses for this, as its easier to untap creatures than lands. Jeskai Ascendancy and Intruder Alarm are potent combo pieces. Chulane, Teller of Tales makes it trivial to cast and recast creatures, untapping your lycanthropic lands every time. But there are easier and safer ways to combo with both Chulane and Jeskai Ascendancy, so I'm not sure Primal Adversary has a home in Commander.

Wrenn and Seven

Another day, another dryad host left to die, as they say. Wrenn and Seven is most notable for its first ability, which fills your graveyard while ensuring you hit your land drops. This is great with land-focused commanders like Lord Windgrace, but any graveyard decks can take advantage of this ability. Muldrotha the Gravetide wants a big graveyard, and can take advantage of the non-land cards you mill right away.

The middle ability is less immediately useful. Putting extra lands into play is always powerful, but decks that want that ability already have tons of ways to do it. Exploration, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait all let you play extra lands. Where this ability shines is in decks that aim to use their lands for other abilities. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar and Mina and Denn, Wildborn both put extra lands into your hand, which Wrenn and Seven can then immediately put back into play. Moonfolk, like Uyo, Silent Prophet and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror, also have powerful abilities that require you to return lands to hand. Being able to freely copy spells with Uyo, Silent Prophet is even more satisfying when you have a way to put all of those lands right back into play.

The two minus abilities are less interesting. Creating a token which power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control is a nice mirror to Karn, Scion of Urza's 'Karnstruct' tokens. It also creates a sizeable body in a pinch, but landfall decks would rather continue abusing the +1 and 0 abilities. The -8 is less interesting, as you'll usually want to leave your cards in the graveyard. That's where you can reanimate your big creatures, and continue abusing Slogurk, the Overslime for that sweet, sweet value.

Rares

Augur of Autumn

In the right deck, Augur of Autumn can very easily become a Future Sight. Even without three creatures with different powers, being able to play lands from the top of your library is powerful. If you're playing enough lands, it's almost like drawing a card, and being able to do it multiple times clears dead draws off the top of your library. To be able to then cast creatures from the top of your library as well gives you the potential to look at a lot of cards. This will be very strong in creature decks playing as many versions of Elvish Visionary as possible, especially as white leans into that effect to draw cards.

In order to get that full value, though, you'll need to pick your creatures with coven in mind. It isn't a difficult requirement to meet, either. With Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh in the command zone you can play Elvish Mystic turn one, and have Augur of Autumn fully on line as early as turn two. In Human tribal decks as well you will naturally have a variety of one, two, and three-power creatures. Maja, Bretagard Protector can make excellent use of both halves of Augur of Autumn, while Kenrith, the Returned King has the ability to easily modulate the power of your creatures.

Saryth, the Viper's Fang

Saryth, the Viper's Fang has two powerful abilities that make your defensive creatures harder to get rid of, and your aggressive creatures even more dangerous. Deathtouch is a potent ability that lets your smaller creatures trade up in combat. Or, more likely, actually get through in combat. You can also use Paradise Mantle and Springleaf Drum to give your blocking creature deathtouch during combat. Similarly, untapping a creature once it has been targeted by Swords to Plowshares will cause the spell to fizzle.

This makes Saryth, the Viper's Fang a potent commander on her own, and adds extra power to Fynn, the Fangbearer. Extra sources of deathtouch make infect wins much more achievable. Shes also an upgrade for decks that care about tapping and untapping creatures. Emmara, Soul of the Accord and Samut, Voice of Dissent can take advantage of Saryth's ability to untap creatures, and her protective abilities. Emmara's tokens also become much more threatening with deathtouch.

Tovolar's Huntmaster

Tovolar's Huntmaster is formatted like Grave Titan spread across two sides of the card. The front face creates two 2/2 Wolf tokens as it enters, while the back half creatures two tokens whenever it attacks. If you've ever seen Grave Titan take over a game, you'll recognize the potential Tovolar's Huntmaster has. The problem is the mechanic that lets Tovolar's Huntmaster flip. If you cast it during your turn, it will probably stay untransformed until your next turn. Then you'll have to not cast any spells, and the huntmaster will transform, ready to attack on your second turn after casting it. Its just too slow to be as effective as Grave Titan is. So rather than cast Tovolar's Huntmaster, put it into play with Birthing Pod or Fiend Artisan. Teneb the Harvester can also put the huntmaster into play and have it transform immediately. Abzan and Sultai colors also give you plenty of instants to play spells on other players' turns, to ensure your werewolves flip when you want.

Unnatural Growth

Doubling power and toughness is powerful. Doing it at the beginning of each combat, not just your own, makes you very hard to attack while also making your attacks much harder to block. Combining Unnatural Growth with other power doubling effects, like God-Eternal Rhonas or Xenagos, God of Revels, seems like a great place to start. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma tends to play big creatures already, while Ghalta, Primal Hunger ends games Unnatural Growth in play. I also want to shout out Questing Beast as a great home for this enchantment. Green has plenty of ways to give trample, but Questing Beast prevents a simple Fog from stopping your huge creatures.

Willow Geist

Managorger Hydra can be surprisingly threatening, and I expect Willow Geist to be just as good. Everything from Flashback to Reanimate puts +1/+1 counters on Willow Geist, but it will likely show up in two archetypes more than any other. Aristocrats decks like to recycle creatures over and over, and Land decks like to pull lands out of the graveyard repeatedly. The Gitrog Monster, or any commander partnered with Tormod, the Desecrator can make great use of Willow Geist. The new Slogurk, the Overslime will also add counters quickly.

Uncommons

Deathbonnet Sprout

Deathbonnet Sprout starts as a small self-mill engine and turns into precision graveyard hate that calls back to Scavenging Ooze. It isn't flashy, but I really like how this card is paced. It only flips once you have a graveyard established, meaning it starts exiling cards from graveyards as soon as your opponents start to abuse them. Deathbonnet Sprout is just a solid card that has a home in Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Karador, Ghost Chieftain, or any other deck that wants cards in the graveyard.

Turn the Earth

Turn the Earth strikes me as a strictly better Memory's Journey. Both can target cards in your opponent's graveyard, but Turn the Earth is only one color. It fits into Abzan and Golgari decks. This isn't usually a big deal. They often prefer grave hate on creatures like Scavenging Ooze. But Turn the Earth can target cards in multiple graveyards, letting you reuse creatures with Birthing Pod while also removing combo pieces from other graveyards.

Outland Liberator

Reclamation Sage is often seen as the premier artifact and enchantment removal creature, but Thrashing Brontodon has given it a run for its money. Sacrificing at any time makes it more useful for Meren of Clan Nel Toth, and it doesn't have to worry about Hushbringer shutting off its effect. Outland Liberator is a cheaper Thrashing Brontodon that is easier to recur, and flips into a creature that also destroys any artifact or enchantment when it attacks. This card doesn't have to flip to be good though. Don't sleep on it.

Commons

Eccentric Farmer

Eccentric Farmer joins the proud ranks of Satyr Wayfinder and Stitcher's Supplier among self-mill creatures. The farmer stands out by letting you return any land from your graveyard, not just a land that you milled with its own effect. It can return a spent Evolving Wilds, which makes it more reliable for mana fixing than Satyr Wayfinder. Later in the game it can return a useful utility land, or give you an extra cycle with Tranquil Thicket. Consider this for Lord Windgrace in particular, and any deck that can make use of cards in the graveyard.

Path to the Festival

Path to the Festival is less exciting, but combining ramp with limited card selection is an interesting middle ground between Natural Connection and Cultivate. That scry does require you to have three different basic land types in play, which I like. Path to the Festival is best in three color decks. Green could stand to be more of a support color while the others get the spotlight for a little while.

And that's the end of my Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Green set review for EDH. Now I want to know what you think of the set? What green cards are you looking forward to, and what decks will they go in? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading.