Okay, so, wrapping my mind around this...it's like a combat trick, but it also makes a creature. But you have to already have a token in play. Hmm. Okay. Well, uh, I guess it depends how many tokens are in my pool. If I have a good amount of centaur or knight tokens or whatnot, I'd expect it to be very nice, and if not, it's gotta be bad, right? I'm really not sure. I guess I'd have to see it in action first. Reserving judgement.
And here we see a solid three-drop obviously intended for Limited. I can't imagine it being bad. It's a fine three-power body with relevant lategame upside. Just a random dude for the curve, basically--nothing exciting, but fills a role.
So here we have a card that I would first-pick even if it didn't populate. I'm certainly playing this, and when I do I'll want lots of token-makers around, and beyond that I don't quite know what to say.
See, these "Populate as an extra rider" cards are giving me trouble trying to evaluate them. This is not an unreasonable trick on its own, and the potential upside of getting an extra creature should be good. And I do expect to play these cards, but I also feel like I don't really understand them. I don't get the flavor. Why can I only make more tokens of tokens I already have? That's so...weird. I mean a token is just a creature. It's an ordinary knight or centaur or wurm just like any other. Shouldn't I be able to populate my ordinary nontoken creatures too? What is special about being a token? I am so confused.
Okay, not so confused about this one. It makes two rhinos for eight mana. That I can understand. Uh...mostly. I mean, it's sort of roundabout, isn't it? How often will you be populating something else? Double Rhinos are nice, but it seems hard to get any more value out of it.
Oh hey, how about instead of two 4/4s for 8, we get two 5/5s for 6? That is a lot of power for six mana. Very impressive. Let's see the other guilds top that. And take that, Broodmate Dragon!
Well, it's an efficient creature that works with populate. I dunno, I still feel weird about this new Selesnya theme. It used to be all about making lots of little tokens. Now it's all about making really big tokens. But I liked making lots of little tokens!
I guess I also like beating down with efficient creatures. Trained Armodon with upside is a good one. If you can't beat down with twelve 1/1s, try beating down with four 3/3s?
This should be a good combat trick, but I don't think I have much to say about it. It's pretty mundane as far as these things go. I like it as a throwback to Seeds of Strength, and I like the art. Those sharp angles and the sense of motion are classic Raymond Swanland. Very nice.
The "Make two creatures with one spell" thing is clearly a recurring theme here. Two 3/3s is definitely reasonable at six, and the populate has more potential upside than it does with the double rhinos. I think I like this better than Horncaller's Chant.
Ah, aha, I see what you did there, Wizards. Yes, very clever.
See, this is what I'm talking about! Repeatable token generation. The new guildmage here is probably my favorite Selesnya card revealed so far. It does just what I want to be doing: it sits back and makes an indomitable army, one centaur at a time. Yes, I approve. That's the Selesnya I know and love!
One thing we love at the Conclave: destroying artifacts and enchantments. First it was Sundering Vitae and Seed Spark, and now the tradition of combining Naturalizes with tokens continues! I'd be comfortable maindecking this in Sealed with all those keyrunes and such running around. The fact that it also populates makes me feel better about it.
Hey, speaking of keyrunes, it's a 3/3 mana rock! I like it! In fact, I like this whole cycle. I am a fan of manlands in general, so by extension, I am a fan of man-rocks too. All five of them seem sweet, and I hope the cycle continues in Gatecrash.
And finally, the Guildgate. What a lovely piece of architecture.
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