by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist
Next up on Mages of the Guild are the black/green guildmages of the Golgari. Will the newer brethren’s skills overwhelm the old mage’s abilities? Let’s take a look.
Korozda Guildmage is the newer of the two and has two fairly decent abilities. The first costs 1BG (1 colorless, 1 Black, 1 Green) and gives a target creature +1/+1 and intimidate until end of turn. This evasion can prove useful, and if you have enough mana to pour into this ability, you could get in for a decent amount of damage in one turn. It can also be used defensively, for the extra power and toughness, which is also useful.
The second ability costs 2BG (2 colorless, 1 Black, 1 Green). You sacrifice a nontoken creature (important that you can’t use a token) and you put X 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature’s toughness. This is a pretty decent ability that can be used offensively and defensively. You could sacrifice a creature that will be destroyed by removal anyway, essentially negating that removal and getting Saproling tokens to replace it. It’s an even better ability in Commander where there are some creatures with massive amounts of toughness (Ghoultree, Tree of Redemption, etc.) which you can sacrifice for tons of token shenanigans.
He’s also an Elf, so for fans of green/black Elves, he can be fairly useful, especially since his second ability is even more powerful with how strong Elves can become over the course of a game!
The second ability costs 2BG (2 colorless, 1 Black, 1 Green). You sacrifice a nontoken creature (important that you can’t use a token) and you put X 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature’s toughness. This is a pretty decent ability that can be used offensively and defensively. You could sacrifice a creature that will be destroyed by removal anyway, essentially negating that removal and getting Saproling tokens to replace it. It’s an even better ability in Commander where there are some creatures with massive amounts of toughness (Ghoultree, Tree of Redemption, etc.) which you can sacrifice for tons of token shenanigans.
He’s also an Elf, so for fans of green/black Elves, he can be fairly useful, especially since his second ability is even more powerful with how strong Elves can become over the course of a game!
Golgari Guildmage has two interesting abilities, but each of them cost 5 total mana. The first costs 4B (4 colorless, 1 Black) and allows you to sacrifice a creature and return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. This can be a pretty useful ability, especially when this card was first printed back in the original Ravnica block where Dredge was such an important and powerful mechanic. Five mana is a lot for this sort of ability, but it’s definitely useful in Commander.
The second ability costs 4G (4 colorless, 1 Green) and allows you to put a +1/+1 counters on target creature. There are plenty of far better ways, today at least, that can put these counters on creatures at a far lesser cost.
He is also an Elf Shaman, like his newer counterpart, but the abilities are clearly less powerful than the Korozda version. In Commander, I could see both working together. But he is clearly the weaker of the two here, and the disparity between the two cards’ power levels is not even really close .
Winner: Korozda Guildmage, by a good degree!
The second ability costs 4G (4 colorless, 1 Green) and allows you to put a +1/+1 counters on target creature. There are plenty of far better ways, today at least, that can put these counters on creatures at a far lesser cost.
He is also an Elf Shaman, like his newer counterpart, but the abilities are clearly less powerful than the Korozda version. In Commander, I could see both working together. But he is clearly the weaker of the two here, and the disparity between the two cards’ power levels is not even really close .
Winner: Korozda Guildmage, by a good degree!
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