"Terra Ravager: Drawn to Land"

"Terra Ravager: Drawn to Land"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

When playing EDH there are certain cards that are considered to be pain magnets. Cards like Luminarch Ascension assures that all the players on the board would want to damage you and damage you as often as they could so that the enchantment would not reach the specified counters in order for it to go on online.

With the 2nd batch of Commander products coming out this November I find myself looking at Terra Ravager and whistling. This is probably the first time that a player would be targeted by a creature because he or she has the most lands. And it does make sense because the 4 mana casting creature gets an +X/O until end of turn for each of the lands that the opponent you attacked has on his side of the board. Green mages or anyone who plays any splash of green for mana ramp is in particular trouble here because they are the ones who usually double or triple their rate of land drops in EDH games.

Terra Ravager then punishes them for this mana advantage by being the beneficiary of the +X/0. If they have 10 lands then a 10/4 Terra Ravager would kill them off in 4 or less turns. And 4 mana is comparatively easy casting in EDH games.

"Hesitation...When a Terra Ravager is in play."

All of the other colors especially blue rely on a lot of artifacts to accelerate mana so in the eyes of the Terra Ravager they are not high priority targets. I expect people to put in some sort of spot removal in decks because of this one card.If they don't have some form of it already.

All in all I expect Terra Ravager to make quite a splash when it is released. Almost any deck with Red would want it because it is a potential finisher in an environment that does not normally pack a lot of spot removal.