"Nissa,Worldwaker: Land Mass Risen"

"Nissa,Worldwaker: Land Mass Risen"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

It has been awhile since Nissa Worldwaker  first came out and yet she has not received the same kind of love that I would dedicate to the other planeswalkers that came out in M15.Maybe I was not in the mode to go Mono Green or I was too busy being Simic that I ignored her.Today I am here to rectify that with a look at the new Nissa and why she is such a better version than her elf tutoring former self.

Now on to the card , if Nissa , Worldwaker feels like a green Koth of the Hammer that is simply because she shares the similar abilities with the guy. You know , making mountains come alive and providing mana tons of mana. There is a slight difference but Mages who have played with Koth before would instantly recognize the common threads that went into developing this green planeswalker.

First there is the +1 ability that gives you a 4/4 Elemental creature. Just like Koth, only with a Forest. I think I saw Groot smashing that Mardu orc. Something like that.

The second ability which is another +1 allows you to untap up to 4 Forests.So that gives you 4 extra mana that you otherwise did not have.It might also allow you to cast more creatures after casting Nissa , Worldwaker herself.  Now why is there a need to not untap all of your forests? Who doesn't need 4 extra mana just lying around? The answer lies in Artifacts like Mesmeric Orb , a shiny ball that makes you mill cards every time a permanent you control becomes untapped.You could simply minimize the milling effect by choosing to untap less forests. By the way just because it says forest it doesnt mean that Nissa could not be used in Multicolored decks. Please bear in mind that Temple Garden , Overgrown Tomb , Breeding Pool and Stomping Ground are all Forests and could be untapped by Nissas second ability.

Now on to the ultimate ability which is a -7 , an ability that could be activated in 4 turns. It says search your library for any number of basic land cards and put them onto the battlefield , shuffle your library. Those lands become 4/4 creatures with trample.They're still lands. 

At this point in the game , assuming that you did not miss a land drop or did not accelerate Nissa,Worldwaker out by other mana acceleration , you would have 14 available lands(if you were playing a 22 basic land standard deck) or 32 available lands(if you are playing a 40 land card EDH deck and all of them are basic lands). The awesome part is that all these lands that have just arrived on your side of the board are also 4/4 creatures. Permanent creatures. So 14 lands mean 56 points of potential damage and 32 lands mean 128 points of EDH damage. Also you could attack all your opponents for Lethal Damage in EDH should you decide to attack them and they have no creatures to block you.Damage calculation math is probably the only form of math I love doing.

If you did not use the ultimate ability to attack(which is highly doubtful) then you might have used it for another purpose. Mana and lots of it. This would be a great time to use spells like Genesis Wave(Since the deck is also thinned out of lands chances are all the permanents that you have would be dumped into the battlefield as well), A Banefire could also finish off someone or if you are playing Sultai colors a very powerful Villainous Wealth, that allows you to use most of an opponents library and make them your own.

So I would like to apologize to Nissa for ignoring her for too long. You are awesome and I am sure to tell the world about it.