Magic the Gathering - Abzan Beastmaster May 2015 Friday Night Magic Promo Card Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Abzan Beastmaster is an interesting creature card from Fate Reforged that helps you fuel your hand. The Beastmaster allows you to draw an extra card at the beginning of your turn if you control the creature with the greatest toughness or tied for the greatest toughness.

Wizards of the Coast seems to love this card a lot because they decided to commission alternate artwork for a Friday Night Magic promo card, which will be handed out as part of the prize packages for May 2015 FNM events. So far it hasn't seen much play outside of sideboards, but it's a card with some potential.

With high-toughness creatures such as Siege Rhino (5) and Wingmate Roc (4) seeing considerable play, it's not hard to see the Beastmaster consistently drawing you a card or two in the course of a game.. It does have a rather fragile body at 2/1, and currently creatures like Courser of Kruphix take up the 3-mana slot in many Standard decks. But at the September 2015 rotation, there will be room for this card to see play.

In Commander, there are plenty of options in Green for card draw.. Garruk's Packleader, which lets you draw a card anytime you play a creature with power 4 or greater, is a bit more consistent at the creature level. If you can pump out a ton of creatures quickly, though, the Beastmaster should be able to draw you at least a couple of cards, but there are better things to put out in Commander on turn 3. Plus, you have Harmonize, which draws you 3 cards for 4 mana (2GG). Beastmaster is a bit slow for that format.

While Abzan Beastmaster isn't the strongest Friday Night Magic promo ever, it's one that should be played a bit at some point, so it's a good one to have around for when it does end up in some top lists.

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