Pointed Discussion

It's strange that they choose to reprint this dinosaur, rather than just come up with a new design. Sure, it works from a flavor perspective, but they could have printed a new equally-flavorful card that has a more modern take on design. If you give us Spreading Seas, we're going to want an add-on to all these sorts of cards.

with phyrexian mana for example, this wouldn't have been useless.

Enchanted Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a swamp.

Who am I kidding, this is too weak to even sideboard against Valakut decks.

these cards are great in casual . i might wanna go make a deck of this and spreading seas just to get landwalk bonuses. and it's casual , so forget about power level.

When I saw this was getting a reprint it made me want to draft as many of them as I can, and then lose to the player who picked up all the "good" black cards...

pppfffffffffffttttttt!!!!

having standards!

power level doesn't matter when your first 3 spells cast are this sweet guy!!!





but seriously, I did grin a grin when I saw this.

ironically, the evil presence is that of this card

The beauty of this card is that its extremely fast land denial. Early game the color of mana matters a lot more than the amount of it, especially if you're playing more than two colors. Spreading Seas, Convincing Mirage and Contaminated Ground can really lock your opponent down, especially if you play a couple of them early on.

Real Evil....................NOT

Contaminated Ground has won me quite a few games in limited, and unless everyone is drafting black, I don't doubt that this is gonna be a real pain to be up against.
The Phyrexian mana symbols of course makes it easier to play around this, but if that's the case, then your opponents are losing life that they would otherwise not have lost (meaning in short: your 1cmc black enchantment deals 2 points of damage to your opponent for each time your opponent has to pay Phyrexian mana with life).

classic

Not sure why they added this to a set where the whole premise is pretty much, "Don't have the right color mana? Hey, no problem!"

@Chamale: Wrong. Black doesn't have a whole lot of options against the actual land Valakut in standard, and unless cards like Tectonic Edge will be reprinted in M12, they all rotate with Innistrad's release in September. Plenty of cards were printed to target Caw-Blade, but not Valakut. I wouldn't want to have to run this even in a Sideboard, but I also wouldn't want to be seriously hurt against all Valakut matchups or have to leave monoblack for Black/Red just for the land hate.

I would have preferred a Spreading Seas copy that was just black and made it a swamp so you could have the cantrip, but I understand why they would reprint an old card instead.

This was obsoleted by Contaminated Ground.

Because who cares RDW, kuldotha, aggro, even caw-blade and similar non-black decks get slowed down by them not having colored mana to play their stuff, valakut gets an obstacle, duel lands lose their dual color...WHEN YOU LOSE CARD ADVANTAGE!?

Does this chand the name or just the type?? Wana now if it works with the Strata Scythe?

Works well in limited if you happen to pull a Sheoldred.

i guess im the only one whos stoked on this sweet reprint! "good" cards be damned i love gettin this mofo in my opening hand, i might lose but i go down in style..5/5 for spreading the evil

This card isn't game winning, but it can definitely slow opponents down early on. Someone played this on the first land I dropped in a casual game, and I couldn't do anything until turn 3, meanwhile he was picking away at me with swampwalk. I still managed to pull it off, but he had me worried for a while. I'd give it a 3.

Wow, reprint from alpha! Was it ever good?

Good for Swampwalk. If you're playing Sheoldred, Whispering One then this would come in handy.

I'm actually pretty happy that they reprinted this even though it's not a very powerful card.

I dont see why this is so horrid, I mean you could enchant a enemy land and swampwalk, or enchant a non basic land the opponent controls like (forgive me I play legacy) ice floe, now if you dont like it because its a reprint quit your whining and just live with the fact cards get reprinted.

It's a pretty useful card for messing with your opponents special lands. Great control.

It's currently selling for $0.01 on TCG. For one penny you get the following:

Counters one of the strongest Standar decks (Valakut) for 1 mana, giving you 5 turns to play it before Valakut hurts you.
Doesn't rotate out with Innistrad.
Disables dual-mana lands.
Can cripple most other decks when played on turn one.
Sheoldred likes it.
Sweet art.

Seems like it's at LEAST worth a 3.

Not to be confused with Evil Presents
http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/arcana/97_evilpresents.jpg

Sheoldred, is on the flavor text for a reason. She has swampwalk after all.

in EDH, there's the unofficial rule: 'Land Destruction is forbidden'
FINE!
Your Gaea's Cradle is now a swamp :)

Interesting to see here on the site, printed from Alpha all the way to Fifth, then nothing... And suddenly, New Phyrexia. Kinda jarring, really.

Your Dark Depths? It's now a swamp.

Considering all the fancy lands in Innistrad Block, like Kessig Wolf Run, Gavony Township and Vault of the Archangel, this card isn't terrible.

I think it's cool that a card first printed in Alpha, and then largely forgotten, can finds its way into sets today. What other thematically relevant cards from ABU could be reprinted? Frozen Shade seems viable, as do Living Wall and Phantom Monster.

Trust me, i played this on a Jungle Shrine and i've felt like a boss.

Weirdest reprint I've seen in a while.
Not entirely sure what I think of it, but I suppose it isn't too bad.

I dont like maindecking things that have a good chance on being a dead draw, example verse mono color decks. Even verse a 2 color deck this could still end up being useless, or end up screwing them over for the game.

Spreading seas was much less of a risk factor and the way to go.

Haha! Your Cavern of Souls is a swamp!

No, land destruction is not forbidden in Commander as many people run broken lands... If someone is running one of the major power lands then they need to expect it to be destroyed.

I've been looking for a reason to play my old Moor Fiend from Ice Age. Fun times.

This card is so easy to use these days, and since swampwalk is sort-of back with Golgari (Sewer Shambler etc.). Thus:

Filth + Evil Presence + Contaminated Ground + Nighthaze + Leshrac's Rite + any old or new swampwalkers you want, and go to town.

Splash blue and Wrexial, the Risen Deep can bring Cthulhu to your shores!

Need more of this type of stuff if we can't have reasonable land destruction.

The thing is that Evil Presence is probably twice as powerful Spreading Seas before you take into account the card drawn.

I can't ever think of a reason to cast a spell to change your own land into an Island. If you have to do that for some reason, like Domain is the only idea I have off the top of my head, you'd prefer a tapping permanent to do the job instead of a spell.

However, I CAN easily imagine a situation where this card actually provides you mana-ramp in a Grixis deck because Swamps are actually really worth counting and MAYBE you want this as a second "Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth" to cast on your non-Swamp land for some reason.

While that use of it is somewhat narrow, and the odds of trying to run, say, Crypt Ghast and Liliana of the Dark Realms and Mutilate in a Grixis deck seem slim-to-none, it is still true that since the Mountain-changing, Island-changing, and Swamp-changing cards are all able to function as Poorman's Strip Mine, any, even very marginal, added utility on top of that just based on the type of land is enough that they don't want/need a Spreading Seas version of Evil Presence.

All the Basic Land types have cards to support them, but in Green, just playing very Rainbow-y half Forests is fine and dandy to pump out Wooly Thoctars and mess; in White and Blue, just going all in Plains or Islands makes your Armored Ascensions or Sea Serpents playable or good, and Red can actually be very competitive purely on Basic Mountains.
(Actually mono-Plains isn't as good as half-Plains, and mono-Islands has been bad since the death of Counterspells).

Black very often wants to splash with two other colors between Green or Red or Blue to get the rest of the way to it's best power, so even though it has cards like Nightmare and Lashwrithe, of all the colors it's the one that really wants to be playing Urborg, Tomb effects on itself because JUST running Swamps isn't quite enough for it. It's because BUG and Jund and even sometimes Esper are just so much better options for Black than simple Rakdos or Golgari or Dimir that Black really wants to have very wierd Color Bases and Lands.

Other colors rarely need a third color to make two-colored decks very good, but Black is weak against both artifacts and enchantements and thus stands the most to gain by spreading into many colors, and yyet it ALSO has the best quality cards that care about having a lot of Swamps compared to having a lot of Plains or Islands or Forests or Mountains. And Griselbrand, Phyrexian Obliterator, and their ilk just cost a lot of Black Mana, so Black actually might want to cast Evil Presence on itself much MUCH more commonly than Blue would want to cast Spreading Seas on itself.


Evil Presence is one of those Gems that came to us in Alpha, perfect in form and function, and doesn't need anything added to it even now in 2013. :)

Niche, but still nice to have around.
Not to mention the massive art upgrade.

People forget that this can screw up multicolored decks. Yeah, contaminated ground is generally better, but still; this works.

The only 'Evil Presence' this thing has is the space it took in my 'NPH' booster >.<

2.5/5 Stars

This is an awesome card, when played correctly, sadly it loses almost ALL of its power vs black decks.
Run this with Blight, splash a little green for Yavimaya Enchantress... well you get the idea. Super competitive deck? No. Super fun? Yes.

Why is this rated so low? It stops dead all Dual Lands all lands that provide more mana and special effects, and can make Swampwalk amazing ontop of it.

Also can mess up the opponents if they have only 1 of 1 colour and then you turn that into a swamp boooom.