Arboreal Grazer

Creature — Beast

Reach

When Arboreal Grazer enters the battlefield, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped.

Discussion (40)

mobizque on Genju Of The Jank

3 weeks ago

Praise be to the jank. Ever consider adding the indestructible bridge lands? Also, Arboreal Grazer might get you going early on, but it's a dead draw later in a game.

wallisface on mono-green-proliferate-need-help

1 month ago

CloudFrog if you’re wanting to go down the route of running a playset of Nissa, Who Shakes the World, then I would suggest the following changes:

• ditch the other walkers, as well as all your enchants & artifacts.

• go up to 24 lands, and run around 8 mana dorks to accelerate your mana base.

• look to add 3-4 Rishkar, Peema Renegade as your primary way to add counters and bolster the team, while also providing you the ramp needed to get Nissa out early.

• I like your existing creatures of Duskshell Crawler, Evolution Sage, Llanowar Elves and Pollenbright Druid. The other ones i’m unsure on (though they’re not bad). I think Arboreal Grazer could be good as early ramp, as well as a defender for keeping Nissa safe.

• with all that ramp, 2-3 copies of Harmonize might be good. In any case, i wouldn’t bother with card draw outside of that card

lagotripha on

2 months ago

Fires really likes activated abilities and 4 drops, which modern has a lot of options for. You are already trying to cast a blue 6 drop, a Time Warp is a lazy way to improve win rate.

I could see trying to abuse Treasure Mage for Mindslaver locks in a list like this, but its more big mana stuff, and getting to the big mana is the whole challenge.

Another option is Aether Vial and Arboreal Grazer / Elvish Pioneer type effects, trying to build a wide board with a bunch of mana and 1 mana creature synergies.

The big thing it needs is a second bounce effect- something like Paradoxical Outcome that lets you build a more reliable plan.

wallisface on Hornets & Meteorites

2 months ago

free-kolja some replies to your bullet-points. I've also made a list for comparison.

• I agree that Arboreal Grazer is a bad late game draw, but to be fair, this is a combo deck and so being in the late game to begin with is a bad place to be - the game should have already been over. I get that you want card quality, but speed is often important when you're against the clock. You already have a lot of cards that would be "bad" to draw second copies of, for example - but they're in the deck because speed and consistency is valuable (i.e. I can't imagine drawing a second copy of Star of Extinction , Basilisk Collar , or Brash Taunter is ever a good sign).

• It's very interesting that your group doesn't run sideboards, because that will mean that there are going to be lots of various matchups that any deck just doesn't stand a chance against (I imagine anyone playing a dredge build would just be very oppressive). Saying that, i'm still struggling to work out what card Return to Nature actually helps you against... the only card I can think of is Platinum Emperion ? Your deck is in a very safe spot in a sideboardless world, where it just has to do its thing, and its up to other decks to stop you, or out-race you. I just don't get what Return to Nature is helping you against?

• So the one big bonus of Blasphemous Act , is that even if there's only one creature in play, it's still going to cost the same as Star of Extinction . SO, at its absolute worst, you can still get by with it. I do concede, that it obviously doesn't hit walkers, or get the instant kill.

Dealing with non-creature decks better is going to be really hard in a format without sideboards, especially being a combo deck that has to be aiming to win before its beaten down. I have some thoughts, though you're probably not going to like them. It involves changing the deck quite a bit. Below I have a list i've just spun up, which utilizes Karn, the Great Creator . That card will let you fetch up Stuffy Doll to do your combo whenever you need to, but also fetch up whatever hate cards you need at the time (i'm thinking Wurmcoil Engine , Walking Ballista , Ratchet Bomb , Ensnaring Bridge , etc.). Now, obviously i'm not suggesting you change your list to whatever nonsense i've brewed up below, but hopefully it gives you some thoughts for consideration.

• 4x Abundant Harvest
• 2x Harmonize
• 3x Star of Extinction
• 2x Blasphemous Act
• 4x Overgrowth
• 4x Utopia Sprawl
• 4x Arbor Elf
• 2x Brash Taunter
• 2x Courser of Kruphix
• 3x Hornet Nest
• 3x Voyaging Satyr
• 4x Karn, the Great Creator
• 2x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 4x Cragcrown Pathway  ^Flip
• 11x Forest
• 2x Mountain
• 4x Rootbound Crag

The above, as an example, gives you a relatively low bad-draw count. Karn, the Great Creator means you don't have to run Basilisk Collar mainboard, but can still get this card if needed for Brash Taunter . He can also get your combo via Stuffy Doll , and lets you grab specific answers for your opponents decks, so you don't need mainboard Return to Nature . The ramp package changed slightly to allow for a much more explosive path to 4 mana (you can easily have 5 mana to play with turn 2), which allows you to run these higher cmc cards, but also keep the land count low.

free-kolja on Hornets & Meteorites

2 months ago

wallisface Thanks for the suggestions!

• I like the idea of having a turn 2 Cultivate , but Arboreal Grazer is such a bad late game draw that I tend to avoid it.

• Where I play, we don't run any sideboards and I don't like to be helpless against certain types of decks, Return to Nature gives me a chance against most.

• I agree that Basilisk Collar is not the most effective card here, but I like the flavour of the combo and its quite useful on Kazandu Mammoth  ^Flip as well.

• I did look at Blasphemous Act , but its usually only playable against decks I'm already good against and I like the land destruciton with Star of Extinction . The main problem here are noncreature decks where Blasphemous Act doesnt help.

• I really like Abundant Harvest and I'll try it out.

I'm happy to hear more ideas on how to deal against noncreature decks better.

wallisface on Hornets & Meteorites

2 months ago

Some thoughts

• Arboreal Grazer might be strong here, in that its a blocker that can buy you time, while also allowing you to Cultivate on turn 2.

• Return to Nature feels like it doesn’t belong in your mainboard. I don’t think there are many cards that affect your game-plan enough to warrant running this.

• Have you considered Stuffy Doll over Brash Taunter ? I know you’ve got the Basilisk Collar here, but that feels more like a “win-more” card and/or too gimicky.

• have you considered Blasphemous Act ? 13 damage is super high, and its casting cost can end up being really low, making it stronger than both of Star of Extinction and Storm's Wrath , imo.

• i think Abundant Harvest might give you more value than Mazemind Tome here, as it’s less slow/clunky

Oof_Magic on

3 months ago

Had a Bo1 with Amulet Titan. Good lord that was one hell of a slog. It’s hard to keep track of what all they were doing but they got out an early Urza's Saga to follow up my Stoneforge Mystic . I took turn three to pop Saga with Field of Ruin . They quickly follow with another with some Arboreal Grazer action. I got out my Batterskull on an end step and deployed Gideon Blackblade to give the germ double lifelink. I pulled up ahead on line enough to take a hit for 18 from a Primeval Titan . I followed with Gideon of the Trials to pin the Titan. They managed to get another Titan off of Azusa, Lost but Seeking land drops and they had to eat a Gideon. They took out GotT with some Golems and got a second Titan on board to go at me. I deployed Kaldra Compleat with my Stoneforge sitting on the side to block it and take it down. My Batterskull was giving me big life at that point with a Sword of Fire and Ice attached so I could sponge some blows. Some more trading with another Blackblade sponging blows off the emblem and giving Batterskull big boy lifegain. I eventually foretold a Doomskar and that sealed the deal with my planeswalker beats and germ.

That was a real brawl. There was big work done by all contributors. Gideon of the Trials emblem made magnets of our Gideons taking a lot of pressure off our life total while Batterskull with double lifelink with Gideon Blackblade sent our life soaring. We were sitting at around 48-50 by the end? Blacksmith's Skill gave us clutch as a ‘block’ for one of our Gideons getting threatened by a Titan. That bought a turn for another GotT to come in and nullify it. Doomskar has been an all star coming in clutch to close out games. With a log of our threats being resilient to the sweep we could easily follow with a big swing. I was stunned we were able to hold the fight without a single Path to Exile or Solitude . Wow. Those would have been fantastic pulls. The one flaw in my play that I could identify was getting Batterskull instead of Sword of Hearth and Home . That would have been great for blanking Titan hits. So what we pulled performed wonderfully and and we had a lot of live draws that would have helped. This is a real confidence booster for this deck’s viability. I never even bothered attacking with Blackblade and I could have. xD

Phosphonothioic on Advice on tribal deck card …

4 months ago

Mainly, I'm wondering which would be seen as a better fit for my given deck. Quicksilver Amulet or Cryptic Gateway

Also, I'm looking for opinions on where to steer this deck if anywhere. There are so many viable Beasts that it's been hard for me to make card choices. Then you have cards like Fierce Empath which could be useful. So, advice is more than welcome. Thanks! (If someone could guide me in how to format this into a list, that'd also be appreciated. Sorry for the current format.)

4 Arbor Elf 3 Arboreal Grazer 3 Kalonian Tusker 3 Krosan Warchief 3 Leatherback Baloth 2 Ravenous Baloth 3 Elder Gargaroth 3 Garruk's Packleader 2 Thragtusk 1 Rampaging Baloths

4 Wild Growth 3 Beast Within 2 Garruk Wildspeaker

2 Contested Cliffs 4 Fire-Lit Thicket 4 Rootbound Crag 12 Forest