Argothian Elder

Creature — Elf Druid

{T}: Untap two target lands.

Combos

• Argothian Elder + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx + Wirewood Lodge
• Argothian Elder + Jungle Basin + Wirewood Lodge

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

legendofa on Shapes in the Fog

2 weeks ago

I'm going to walk back my last comment a little bit and say that Argothian Elder could easily switch in for Rime Tender, since the only snow permanents that care about being tapped are the Snow-Covered Forests. So the deck doesn't need to focus on Elder combos, but it would add a little bit of utility to what's already there.

Also, I notice I somehow left Sunstone out of the actual decklist. Going to make some small tweaks. Looking at Crop RotationGC -> Birds of Paradise, Rime Tender -> Argothian Elder, Cultivate -> Extraplanar Lens, and maybe Voracious Hydra -> Sunstone.

KongMing on Shapes in the Fog

2 weeks ago

A lot of these suggestions are cool, but like capwner said, they might be better in a version of this deck with slightly different themes. For Argothian Elder, the deck is already light on Instants, and doesn't have many many sinks. If it had more, might be worth it, but right now something like Llanowar Tribe is better in all cases except a few synergies that require a manasink to work.

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is really expensive to get on the field. There might be cheaper manasinks that give +/+ and Trample. Same for Genesis, the deck would really struggle to get it into the grave, and then you're counting on a retrievable instance of fog to make it useful, and still paying 3 mana for it! Another fog or draw power would be better, requires less steps and mana to use.

I don't like the one-sidedness of Glacial ChasmGC unless I'm playing a dedicated control deck. There are so many annoying/useful abilities opponents can use that are triggered by attacking, that won't even care if 0 damage is dealt. Plus, who is going to be dumb enough to attack me and kill their field once they see the setup? I want my opponents to be taking the risk, not closing off any and all attempts. I feel like it's an instance of fog with a nonbo caveat of being unable to attack. It's just hobbling without enough real payoff.

legendofa on Shapes in the Fog

1 month ago

capwner Glad you like it! I put this together as a sort of commission, so I'm not going to adjust it too much. But those look like great additions, especially the Argothian Elder.

capwner on Shapes in the Fog

1 month ago

Awesome, I don't know if I've ever come up against a tribal fog edh deck actually which is surprising considering how beloved the mechanic is! You might consider adding Argothian Elder which is an alright ramp piece, buuuuttt Argothian + Maze of Ith gives you infinite mana/land untaps inside combat. This is one of my favorite sleeper combos in green since each card is pretty good on its own. Helps if you have something like Kamahl, Fist of Krosa to sink the mana into since you lose it all after combat, but your Lair of the Hydra works pretty well here. The only other thing that comes to mind is Genesis+Spore Frog as a classic fog lock but I get omitting these to focus on the more land-based fogs and the aggro plan, plus Genesis would reaaally want you to jam a bunch of additional discard outlets like SoF. Speaking of land-based fog you know there's Glacial ChasmGC sure it's not as synergistic with Questing Beast's quirk, though I think it's still strong enough and worth an include for redundancy and it is good/basically 1-sided with all your crucible effects (or if excluded bc playgroup/strength reasons that's also legit).

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

2 years ago

wallisface First of all, I want to make sure that there aren't any hard feelings here. I'm treating this as a friendly, or at least respectful, debate, and I don't want to come across as provocative or aggressive, only trying to defend my point.

But if I may take issue about your taking issue about what counts as an old card, I asked what extremely old cards you were referring to, and all of your examples were pre-2002. So I don't think I moved any goalposts about anything you said. From my point of view, all of your "extremely old" cards are at least twenty years old, which I would agree with. The "goalpost card" here, as I saw from your examples, was Argothian Elder. So I wasn't expecting you to follow up with cards from as recently as ten years ago being exteremly old. I would definitely call those outdated, but I wouldn't use the word "extremely" for those.

And if you say I'm putting words into your mouth, then I'm also misinterpreting what you mean by

• "this does not take into account the actual percentage of cards printed in any given year."

• "meaning those 2 cards represented a significantly lower percentage of what green represented that year."

• "this effect has been getting an increasingly lower-percentage-share of cards given to it."

My position, which I believe is supported by MaRo's previous statements, is that proportion of cards printed in a given year isn't a relevant measure of color primacy. I'm interpreting those statements as trying to argue that view. Could you please explain this again?

wallisface on Why is Untapping Lands a …

2 years ago

legendofa I have an issue with you contesting my statement of "a large portion of those cards are extremely old" and then deciding yourself what the goalposts should be for my own statement. I never said that only old-bordered cards are old... the current "new" border has still been in use for a ridiculous quantity of time, and the colour pie has shifted numerous times since its creation. For me, anything that was printed 10+ years ago, fits into the "extremely old" category... so if you're going to pull me-up on what's old-or-new, that is the yardstick i'm measuring.

Now, ordering cards by how old they actually are (instead of arbitrary card-frames) yields the following (using only the cards you've already listed):

1993 (31 years ago): Ley Druid

1995 (29 years ago): Juniper Order Druid

1996 (28 years ago): Nature's Chosen, Emerald Charm

1997 (27 years ago): Elder Druid, Earthcraft, Llanowar Druid

1998 (26 years ago): Awakening, Argothian Elder

1999 (25 years ago): Early Harvest

2002 (22 years ago): Krosan Restorer

2004 (20 years ago): Rude Awakening, Nature's Will

2005 (19 years ago): Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Seedborn Muse, Patron of the Orochi

2006 (18 years ago): Magus of the Candelabra

2007 (17 years ago): Woodland Guidance

2009 (15 years ago): Garruk Wildspeaker

2010 (14 years ago): Bear Umbra

2012 (12 years ago): Arbor Elf, Urban Burgeoning

2013 (11 years ago): Voyaging Satyr

2014 (10 years ago): Nissa, Worldwaker

2017 (7 years ago): Initiate's Companion, Hope Tender, Nissa, Genesis Mage, Blossom Dryad

2018 (6 years ago): Ley Weaver, Cacophodon

2019 (5 years ago): Wilderness Reclamation, Rime Tender

2021 (3 years ago): Sculptor of Winter, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, Jorn, God of Winter  ^Flip

2022 (2 years ago): Likeness of the Seeker  ^Flip, Civic Gardener

2023 (last year): Rustvine Cultivator, Portent Tracker

2024 (this year): Innocuous Researcher

Using the above data, the below rant is in defense of my claim "From what i’m seeing, the general trend is that this effect used to be quite prominent in green but something that’s slowly being phased out/down for green over time", which may have been the other thing you were contesting??

Now, at face value this paints a picture that indicates an-eb-and-flow of constant printings of green-land-untap effects, perhaps even slightly favoring those printings in the more recent years. HOWEVER - this does not take into account the actual percentage of cards printed in any given year.

For example, in 1996 2 cards exist in our category, BUT only 468 new cards were printed that year. 2022 also has 2 cards in our category printed, but also had 2004 new cards printed into it, meaning those 2 cards represented a significantly lower percentage of what green represented that year.

With Wotc printing an increasingly large quantity of cards every year, this effect has been getting an increasingly lower-percentage-share of cards given to it. The one anomaly I see is 2017, where 4 cards were printed in a year that made 861 new cards, making it about on-par with our beforementioned 1996 example.

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

2 years ago

wallisface I'm still going to contest that. Scryfall search comes up with 45 mono-green cards with the words "untap" and "land". Ignoring stuff like Blizzard and Choke, there are nine cards in that group with ye olde bordere that untap lands, seven with the Modern border, and fourteen with the 2015 border, skipping those whose primary purpose is to turn lands into creatures like Wakeroot Elemental. Two of them are legal in Standard, and thirteen--about a third of the total, and more than ye olde bordere--are legal in Pioneer. I'm not seeing the dropoff for land untapping in green.

{G} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Ley Druid, Elder Druid, Juniper Order Druid, Nature's Chosen, Early Harvest, Earthcraft, Awakening, Argothian Elder, Krosan Restorer. total 9

{G} Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Rude Awakening, Nature's Will, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Magus of the Candelabra, Garruk Wildspeaker, Bear Umbra, Urban Burgeoning, Voyaging Satyr. total 8

{G} 2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Nissa, Worldwaker, Initiate's Companion, Hope Tender, Nissa, Genesis Mage, Blossom Dryad, Ley Weaver, Wilderness Reclamation, Sculptor of Winter, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, Likeness of the Seeker  ^Flip, Civic Gardener, Rustvine Cultivator, Portent Tracker, Innocuous Researcher. total 14

{G} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Emerald Charm, Seedborn Muse. total 2

{G} Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": none.

{G} 2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Cacophodon, Rime Tender, Jorn, God of Winter  ^Flip. total 3

{G} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Forest": Llanowar Druid. total 1

{G} Modern Border, "untap" + "Forest": Patron of the Orochi, Woodland Guidance, Arbor Elf. total 3

{G} 2015 Border, "untap" + "Forest": none.

So there's 39 green cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 34 of those being more or less land-specific. Again, these counts ignore cards that untap lands by turning lands into creatures, focusing only on those whose main function is the untap. It also ignores Un-cards.

Analysis of blue to follow.

wallisface on Why is Untapping Lands a …

2 years ago

legendofa the extremely old cards i’m seeing are stuff like Argothian Elder, Awakening, Early Harvest, Earthcraft, Elder Druid, Juniper Order Druid, and Nature's Chosen.

From what i’m seeing, the general trend is that this effect used to be quite prominent in green but something that’s slowly being phased out/down for green over time.