Grove of the Burnwillows
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Grove of the Burnwillows

Land

: Add .

: Add or . Each opponent gains 1 life.

StopShot on Two rules change suggestions to …

3 weeks ago

[My EDH Background]

I used to be an avid EDH player until my old playgroup dissolved. It was only until recently that I built an EDH deck after more than half a decade and felt lost after two recent commander nights. I had dropped off after Hour of Devestation only to find the present-day meta feels like a completely different format than the one I had enjoyed. Seeing the prEDH format caught my attention but given I had gotten into EDH around Fate Reforged, the prEDH card restrictions seemed to dial things too far back for me, and I feel like a lot of players who got into EDH around the same time period as myself might feel the same way. As such, this format may feel just as alien to a good portion of left out players today, but I'd like to discuss if maybe that aspect could be improved upon.

[The New Phyrexia cut-off should not be extended]

I'd like to make two suggestions to adjust the scope of this format. One suggestion I will not ask though, is that the set cutoff point be extended past New Phyrexia. I agree with the rationale for excluding all of MTG that took place during and after the first commander preconstructed products were released. This is in place to make the format 100% organic and extending the cut-off to any other set would be highly arbitrary and subject to much disagreement.

[Issue #1 - OG Duals and Patchy Manabases]

But there are some issues that should be addressed and remedied regarding this format. One being at the time of New Phyrexia's release the monetary cost of OG dual lands were significantly cheaper then than as they are now. Given the best manabases for prEDH would use OG Duals, Fetchlands, and Shocklands, not having easy access to one (or more) of them puts non-legacy players in the rough spot of relying on prEDH's limited and patchy color-fixing options which can leave new decks performing at a more clunky pace than they otherwise would be if built back in New Phyrexia. Now I'm not against players using proxies but I think a format does a lot better at attracting a wider audience if they're not inclined to feel like they have to proxy reserve list cards to fully enjoy the format as intended.

[Rules Change Suggestion to Address Issue #1]

I believe that if there is a land or mana-rock cycle that started before New Phyrexia, but was completed sometime after New Phyrexia, then all cards of that cycle should be made legal in prEDH just so that all color identities have equal access to their colors, because prEDH has a surprising number of incomplete mana cycles. This change would make the following cards and their colorshifted counterparts legal in prEDH despite being printed after New Phyrexia: (Clifftop Retreat), (Inspiring Vantage), (Needle Spires), (Nomad Outpost), (Snow-Covered Wastes), (Stone Quarry), (Sunbaked Canyon), (Sunscorched Divide), (Talisman of Conviction), (Wastes), and (Wind-Scarred Crag). This rule would also still apply to any new cards that would complete any of the cycles that have yet to be completed as well such as if Wizards were to ever complete the cycles for (Crosis's Catacombs), (Grove of the Burnwillows), (Nimbus Maze), (Wildfield Borderpost), etc.

[Issue #2 - Lack of Color Identity Options]

One aspect that made EDH novel is its color restriction on deck-building. From its inception, you would pick any of 5 Elder Dragons to be your Highlander and you would be barred from utilizing whatever 2 colors were not part of that dragon's identity. As the game grew into commander you could pick any legendary creature to be your commander instead and the color restriction carried over to your commander's color identity. The issue is prEDH's list of legal commanders provides a very limited line-up of commanders for any multicolored identity. Some color identities only have 1 commander legal for that color identity, and a vast majority of legal commanders are mono-colored which imposes a much heavier restriction than EDH had first set out to be with its 3-color dragons. This can lead to an over-saturation of players picking the same commander from the limited multicolor roster and more players picking up 5-color commanders, because their favorite color combination is restricted to just Numot, the Devastator, or Oros, the Avenger, or Vorosh, the Hunter. This isn't to say there won't be players playing mono-colored or everyone will be playing Reaper King because their favorite color-combination is underrepresented, but that prEDH restricts cards not just by set, but also much more heavily with color as well which can result in a poorer deck diversity than modern day EDH; (an issue that was not present when Commander was a much smaller and niche format). It's to this end I feel color restrictions could be opened up a bit to counteract the set restriction as a trade-off and that by doing so with the EDH philosophy in mind won't warp or distort the power level or vibe of prEDH.

[Rules Change Suggestion to Address Issue #2]

In order to open up the commander color restriction, prEDH decks would have a land in the command zone in addition to the commander with this land serving as the "Commander's Domain." The color identity or basic land type of the Commander's Domain would set the color restriction on what cards can be included in the deck including the commander instead of it being the commander's color identity that restricts card inclusion. The lands that can be chosen to be your Commander's Domain consist only of: any of the 10 trilands such as Seaside Citadel, any of the 10 match-lands such as Glacial Fortress, or any basic land such as Plains or Wastes. The Commander's Domain would not be subject to the command tax and can be played as your land for turn by either exiling a basic land card from your hand or by exiling a basic land you own on the battlefield. One exception to this rule will be made for all 5-color legendary commanders. 5-color legendary creatures may be used as your commander regardless of your Commander's Domain and if your commander is 5-color you may run any basic land in your deck regardless of your Commander's Domain. Your Commander's Domain will still restrict what spells and non-basic lands you can include in your deck, however. This proposal seeks to expand deck diversity and creativity while still abiding to the original EDH tenant of limiting what colors may be included in your deck as well as provide an additional means of color fixing due to the greater lack of lands that are both decent and affordable in this format.

[Concluding Thoughts - The goal is not to make prEDH more like modern EDH]

The sake of these proposals isn't to make something new and flashy for the sake of making something new and flashy, but to make prEDH feel more like everyone's first EDH experience including for those who got into the format well after New Phyrexia but well before the current meta. That is not to say "make prEDH more like EDH" as that is the furthest thing from this thread's intention. This is more of a belief that a lot more can be gained while sacrificing very little and that much could benefit current prEDH players who would like to see more people play their format. It's possible my proposals may have missed this mark, but I would like to start a discussion on whether there are current shortcomings in this format and if it would be worth it to make changes to mitigate them or not to better the health and/or standing of this format.

legendofa on Modern Banlist

3 months ago

Bookrook By itself, Punishing Fire isn't anything special. If Grove of the Burnwillows is there, it completely eliminates 1- and 2-toughness creatures. Orcish Bowmasters is often brought up as a banworthy card because of how well it kills 1-toughness creatures. PuniFire + Grove expands that range to 2 toughness and adds full control over when it goes off. It's about as close to uncounterable and undiscardable as an instant can get without actually using those words. This combo showed up most in Zoo decks, but any deck that needed a way to kill small creatures used it.

legendofa on Card creation challenge

1 year ago

seshiro_of_the_orochi Getting into some philosophical waters here. I'll dump this, then let the thread continue. (Not that I don't want to have this discussion, but we shouldn't lose track of the challenges.)

The Lorwyn tribal land cycle has all the ally colors except , with and as the only enemy color ones, and Bosk is the only one with a subtype. Plus, Primal Beyond is plonked in there, too. Definitely not any sort of typical cycle--it's not color balanced or type balanced, and two of them have different effects from the others. It's a thematic cycle, but not a cycle by color or mechanics, and I'm not sure there's anything else like that (the Future Sight lands don't count, and they're color balanced anyway).

Idoneity on When Will WotC Finish the …

1 year ago

WOTC is rather capricious as to what land cycles they finish and when.

Typically, they finish land cycles in adjacent set releases, such as the checklands in Dominaria and Ixalan (see Isolated Chapel and Glacial Fortress. But they have also quixotically completed the showland cycle with Strixhaven in 2021 (see Furycalm Snarl), despite it first being introduced on a separate plane in 2016's Shadow's Over Innistrad (see Fortified Village). They do this a lot, starting with the allies then bargaining it over to the enemies:

1995 brought Underground River then 2001 had Shivan Reef, 2010 brought Darkslick Shores then 2016 had Spirebluff Canal. These are rather large gaps, ranging from months to years.

There are plenty of land cycles that haven't been finished or haven't even begun. The five ally-colored lands from Future Sight has partially been officiated, consisting of Horizon Canopy, Grove of the Burnwillows, Graven Cairns, Nimbus Maze, and River of Tears. All of these are rather unique; two have been finished. Kind of. Modern Horizons parlously gave Horizon Canopy an enemy family. The Graven Cairns cycle was completed in Eventide and Shadowmoor. The rest are lonesome.

There's still Amonkhet's cycling cycle to finish up, so who knows when the buddy lands will be tended to.

iPhalanx on Big Doinks

1 year ago

Update May 2023: I stopped playing the Magic for almost 4 years, back now and made some swaps with newer cards as well as some cards that I should've been running in the first place.

IN

OUT

StopShot on Dual Land Cycles that You …

2 years ago

Grove of the Burnwillows 100%.

My infinite combo EDH deck would love a spammable Punishing Fire to use against hate bears and deny planeswalker ultimates.

nbarry223 on Best Fae of Wishes Targets?

2 years ago

If only Punishing Fire got unbanned, I could see some value plays becoming possible with Grove of the Burnwillows. Right now, all I can think of are cards with cheaper unearth or flashback abilities, or something that benefits from specific cards hitting the graveyard like The Gitrog Monster, a reanimation package, or maybe even some wonky control shell with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion.

Thanks for the interesting suggestion, I'll have to keep playing around with the idea.

nbarry223 on [Community Discussion]: Modern Chat

2 years ago

Well, there’s lots of different lands that have lots of different uses in modern. Beyond certain utility lands that are limited to specific colors, there’s various cycles of lands with an equivalent version in most if not all color combinations. There’s some incomplete cycles like the triomes (name may change) which is going to be finished soon, and the draw painlands (not sure what they are called) which started with Horizon Canopy.

Certain cycles are suited to certain uses or needs better than others.

For example, the Horizon Canopy cycle is more suited to aggro decks that end up with more mana than they need as the game goes on.

The filter lands are one of the cycles where you want to limit the number of them in the deck, since they aren’t capable of producing colored mana on their own (I generally only run one for this reason). However, they are some of the best mana-fixing that modern has to offer for greedy manabases. You can take a white mana and make it into 2 blue mana with a Mystic Gate as an example. Reflecting Pool also works similarly to these lands, and is basically a match made in heaven for them, since it only cares about their capability to produce a colored mana source. So you can use a Reflecting Pool to feed a filter land even if those are your only two lands.

For decks that are more minimal colors, basics are better, since they get around a lot of hate. In fact I don’t suggest ever making a deck without at least 2 basics and some ways to find them.

Black and green also have access to urborg and yavimaya which let you tap things for colored mana you couldn’t normally. This helps with painlands and fetches, since you can now tap them without paying life.

There’s plenty of other lands with specific uses, and there isn’t really a right or wrong answer when making a manabase as long as you can consistently have access to the colors you need, and your manabase doesn’t end up killing you with painlands, shocks, fetches, etc. You also want to try to limit the number of lands you’ll have coming into play tapped for obvious reasons.

Also, when using fetches, I generally find that 7 ish fetches is ideal in a generic manabase. If you pick one main color you can basically make it so you can have access to all your color fixing shocks etc no matter what fetch you draw. You can also have two support colors to minimize the number of shocks you actually need to run. Combine with the aforementioned urborg or yavimaya tricks, and you can really minimize the number of shocks needed.

If your manabase isn’t heavily leaning towards a certain color and is basically a main color with a splash of a second you can run a lot more basics and a minimal amount of fetches with basically the same consistency and deck thinning, with less life loss.

There’s also things like Gemstone Caverns or Grove of the Burnwillows which have niche uses. You can’t really have a one answer cure all for what manabase is ideal for what deck, since most decks have different needs.

Also, if running legendary lands, I don’t generally suggest running more than 2 copies of each, unless you can do something with them in multiples like the channel lands.

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