Pointed Discussion

Sacrifice a Saproling, put a +1/+1 counter on Mycoloth. Sounds good to me.

"Fungus Shaman" translates to "Magic Mushroom"

As for the card itself, I can't think of ways to seperate him out from Pentavus except that its just sacrifice ANY creature. And yes, Skullclamp with this is a fair attempt to destroy basic morality.

I can haz tokenz n counterz?

@Splitzer, one way to separate him from Pentavus is the fact that using something like Sigil Captain or Juniper Order Ranger means that you can pay 1 and remove a counter, making a saproling that gets one or two +1/+1 counters, so you can pay 1, remove a counter from the SAPROLING to make another, and pretty much just repeat this until out of mana.

I am making my Saproling deck White, Green, and Black because of this card alone. Pair it up with Utopia Mycon and Doubling Season and you have an infinite mana/saproling combo.

Think about this guy with Sigil Captain. 1: Make a 2/2, assuming you pull the 3/3's counter off to make another 3/3. No other cost. Or try it with Doubling Season too. 1: Make a 4/4 and a 5/5.

The synergies with this guy are unfreakingbelievable. I cannot wait to finish building my deck.

i love MAGIC MUSHROOMS, Hydrophonic no horse stool. str8 dank syringe to fish tank, dig it kids

I had really hoped that he would interact in better ways with fungus creatures (and I don't mean just Mycoloth)

He turns ALL of your creatures into Pentavus and Pentavites simultaneously, at 2 less CMC for the same size as Pentavus, he's an amazing enabler in a token/+1/+1 based deck.

For my combo of the day:
Spike Tiller
2: make a 2/2 land, put a +1/+1 on it; 1, remove the +1/+1: make a saproling; 1, sac the saproling: put a +1/+1 on Spike Tiller.
That condenses down to 4: target land is a 2/2 creature.

Hmm...so its black, green, and white, and what it does is make a bazillion combos based on, take your pick:

a) sacrificing
b) +1/+1 counters
c) saproling tokens

I see.
ok, I predict most players will pick 'd', for 'Doubling Season', and 'e', for 'everyone is dead now because I just made infinity &/& tokens and gained infinite life by saccing infinite permanents to infinte....oh you get the point.

yeah, that sounds about right for a GWB Mythic Rare general. of course it's a Fungus. at least its not a Fungus OOZE.

lmao.

Much of the infinite combos have already been mentioned, but if you don't want to be known as "the-infinite-combo-ass" in your playgroup, safer alternatives would be cards like Mortician Beetle and the notorious Kitchen Finks (the counters do in fact negate). Sac the finks for the counter, finks die and return to play, put the counter on him. Not quite infinite, but very annoying.

He's tailor-made for EDH, and it shows. He is very, very good but does not seem broken in the format, like Animar does. He was clearly designed as a build-around card, but the good part is that what you can build around him is not so well-defined. You can run the token-deck route, the +1/+1 counter route, the heavy sacrifice/death trigger route, and probably a few others. Let's start by listing cards he is ridiculous with:
Sigil Captain: All the Saprolings you can pay for and subsequently huge creatures.
Juniper Order Ranger: Al the Saprolings you can pay for, and no sacrificing before you get a huge creature
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter: Decent since you can pay to kill something with toughness X or less, Vish himself gets huge for cheap, nuts with Juniper Order Ranger and/or Sigil Captain. Potentially -4/-4 for if you've got both.
Skullclamp/Fecundity: Hahahaha. Hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Aura Shards: No one has artifacts/enchantments. EVER
Grave Pact/Martyr's Bond/: No one has creatures. EVER. Also Ghave Pact
Algae Gharial/Scavenger Drake: Become huge.
Forgotten Ancient/Mold Adder: Every spell anyone casts becomes a Saproling/counter.
Phytohydra: Always awesome, here SYNERGISTICALLY awesome.
Nemata, Grove Guardian/Pallid Mycoderm: Attack with everything, sac whatever they block. Win.
Protean Hydra: The way it is worded makes it clear that this guy was meant to be with Ghave.
Psychotrope Thallid/Skullmulcher: Draw your deck. Win.
Any enters/leaves battlefield triggers.

Awesome abilities, a solid and efficient body, a kickass backstory (seriously, look it up. I lol'd), incredible versatility, and great deckbuilding opportunites make Ghave a true general. 5/5. Wizards, you did it.

This is sad, because I truly love this card. It appeals to every part of me as a magic player. In my commander deck he allows me to play GW. The colors that my personality has the most synergy with. Unfortunately, he is also highly outclassed by bleed decks. If someone you are playing against drops even a Blood Seeker then your entire deck becomes completely useless. 1B that reads "Win game." against the Fungus Shaman? It's enough to make me want to cry.

Character Bio:
When monsoons devastated the land of Drakkus, the herds drowned and the harvests washed away. The humans there were forced to the fungal forests to find sustenance, and find it they did—in the form of the mycoids and their saproling offspring. What the humans saw as salvation, the mycoids called genocide, and they declared war on the invading mammals. Mages tore through the sporeborn troops with fire and steel. Only when the mycoid hero Ghave, Guru of Spores emerged did the tide finally turn. Gifted with mystic influence over the sporeborn, Ghave sculpted the fungal matter of his people into an ever-mutating army and reclaimed his forest home.

I think his pre-con deserved Doubling Season.

counterpunch really needed mycoloth

Um, Spike Weaver anybody?

Anyone else noticed the amazing synergy with Protean Hydra. Its token gaining ability triggers upon it losing counters from any source so you can create as good as as many tokens as you have mana plus youll be buffing your hydra to insane levels very easily :D

Type your comment here.Earthcraft + Juniper-Order Ranger + Ghave = infinite saps and an infinitely pumped ranger

To all people who don't see why this is three colours, I think I've got it figured out:

He's Green, White and Black.

He comes into play with five +1/+1 counters. This makes him big and symbolises growth. Which is green.

He can remove counters from some creatures to create others. Those creatures sacrifice personal strength to contribute to the community, or the greater good. Which is white.

He can sacrifice creatures to add to the strength of others. Which is black.

I agree with GrimjawxRULES, if it said spore counters instead of +1/+1 counters it would be much cooler (although probably broken in its current state)

Good yes, but not fungus cool/not really good with fungus decks, I am disappoint. All he can do is buff up your fungus, when I from my own personal experiences hate losing saps for any reason other than fungus abilities or protecting myself.

If I added him to my fungus deck, or as an EDH commander in my EDH fungus deck,

Ability one: completely worthless, other than himself, so what? He is 10 mana into 5 Saprolings? Lame

Ability two: I can sack fungus, which is bad, they do more work the longer they are on the field, turning one into a 2 mana Saproling isn't a good investment, I'm probably losing if I have to do that. I could buff fungus or other Saprolings, but when they start at 1 power... there is a reason it's called Sprout Swarm. Usually its better to have 5 1/1 Saprolings than 1 5/5 Saproling in a fungus deck. It can recycle Saprolings however, making for 2 mana (or 1 and later 1) chump blockers. That is really really good.

As is stands, I can only think of 2 creatures it works with that are also fungal

Mycoloth- If you have read a few other comments of mine, you may know I play with a Time Spiral Standard (TS, Ravinca, and 10th) deck, he can't be in there. When I first made it though, it was extended (had some Alara/Zen too) and he was in there. You may also know that I greatly dislike Mycoloth for fungus decks. Why do you say that? Well, it was like a crutch, I would win every game using Diabolic Tutor and finding him, making a huge unfair army of flying indestructible 2/2s. All the other fungus existed to feed him. It was way too easy to win with a 130 card deck (I started with all the cards I wanted to try and trimmed it down to 60 over time, but at that time, 130 was still winning every game). Basically, Mycoloth would win every game, no contest, and the other fungus wouldn't do crap (other than feed him). Other than no one wanting to play me, when I win every game, its boring and stupid to have a one combo deck thing going. I win same way, next game, I win again, I have the will of the warrior.

However, Mycoloth is extremely fair in non-standard, but when your friends play standard, welllll you get my picture I hope. I like to win, but only with a deck I love, and he wasn't in there because I didn't love him, I ruv all my fungal friends!

There is also Fungal Behemoth, which I have never used (its really like ability 1, it's not that good in a fungus deck, especially mine, which had low mana costs). Fungal Behemoth would work well with this card, but not other fungus...

Ok, sorry Ghave, Guru of Spores, not happening for my fungus deck, not worth the mana, not worth the colors (I play B/G), Thelon of Havenwood is still my man (and EDH commander)

Now, when he's not in a fungus deck, more like a saproling deck, token deck. He is really good. There are many combos to abuse his abilities in the commander set here. So easily a 5/5 for goodness, but I was really hoping for a cool fungus commander.

Please don't say he combos with Doubling Season I have 2 in my fungus deck, and yes he 'combos' with Doubling Season, however, we can all read

Sigil Captain or Juniper Order Ranger + Ashnod's Altar.

1) Tap a land for . Pull a +1/+1 counter off of Ghave to create a 1/1 saproling using Ghave's first activated ability. Saproling comes into play with an additional +1/+1 counter thanks to Sigil Captain or Ranger.

2) Tap a land, pull that +1/+1 counter off of saproling to create another saproling using Ghave's first activated ability. That saproling also comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it because of Captain or Ranger.

3) Sacrifce the first saproling to Ashnod's Altar to add to your mana pool.

4) Return to step 1. Repeat until somebody reaches across the table and smacks you.

I haven't seen Algae Gharial mentioned yet. Works similar to Scavenger Drake and Mortician's Beetle except it has shroud.

Out of all the Precon EDH general's, Ghave is by far my favorite. He's cheap, He boosts your creatures, and he gives you tokens. What's not to love? And because he's a big creepy looking guy, I decided to build around that theme. And what I got was an Infect EDH deck that Reanimates, Spawns, Kills, Life Gain, and literally sucks the life out of you as it grows in power. Just like a Diseased Fungus would do.

"Ghave, guru of spores", plus "utopia mycon", plus "blade of the bloodcheif", and "parallel lives" equals Boom infant saps, mana and +1/+1 counters...equip ghave with blade, use a mana or a sap for mana getting a counter on ghave removing it to put two saprolings in play. Then sack two to get four and four for eight....rinse and repeat. Throw in the draw thallid and haist thallid and even if you wanna be mean deathspore thallid...I've only gotten it of three times...once in arch enemy me being the arch.
Win sixth turn swinging with 10000000 10000000/10000000 saplings and a 9999999999/9999999999 ghave
:):):):):):):):):): ;). They quit before I swing....more like when I said I go infinite....need to fix some things but fungus tribal never been so strong.

"Nail..."
"Yes, lord Guru?"
"There is an albino Namekian standing behind you... kill it like the rest."
"Uhh, actually, sir? I'm from Earth..."
"KILL IT LIKE THE REST."

Might take a second to realize it, but Ghave this is amazing with Cauldron of Souls.

Really fun commander that makes for crazy interactions. Great for anyone that likes strategic combat planning.

@StygianEffigy While yes bleed decks can HURT this deck, it can't STOP it if you built your deck right. You mentioned commander, if you're not playing ANY removal in your deck, you're doing it wrong. If a bloodseeker is what kills you, either you just had really unlucky draws, or you need to take the deck apart and start over.

Scute Mobs into Saproling.

This thing would be so much better if it was G/U/B rather then B/G/W. *sigh* Oh well. it is still a great legend.

@4wolf359

Actually, you can't. Summoning sickness. Life and Limb makes the saprolings into forests, yes, but they're still creatures, they still suffer from summoning sickness.

I'll admit, I did not like Ghave at first. I thought he was so much inferior to Karador that it wasn't even funny. Then I realized that with the way I have my deck set up, I need instant-speed sac engines, and Ghave actually delivers, AND provides some form of pump at the same time, which means some of my other creatures can hit harder. Ghave, alongside the other five sac'ers, allows my deck to get more creatures into my grave for the recursion effects to properly go off (as well as allow last-minute sac's to get Karador out for cheap on my turn).

1. Parallel Lives.
2. Sigil Captain.
3. Leyline of the Meek.

Ghave is crazy with these cards. I managed to churn out massive quantities of saprolings against my brother's Doran Voltron deck. Never have I seen my brother be so frustrated with Sigil Captain.

With Strangleroot Geist from Dark Ascension, Ghave becomes 2: Get a 1/1 Saproling and put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.

With Savra, Queen of the Golgari out, add "Gain 2 life" to that repeatable cycle.

Add sorin to his EDH

The new undying mechanic is cool with this guy.

Pretty much my favorite commander. Heres some tech i've been running with great success in our casual multiplayer games. INN and DA have brought many goodies for ghave. Mentor of the Meek, Mikaeus, the Lunarch and insane lands like Gavony Township, Grim Backwoodsand even Vault of the Archangel. Rings of Brighthearth works with ghave but is mostly so good with other stuff you want to run anyway like any Ajani, Elspeth or Garruk you can fit in. Also stuff like Contagion Engine and those land abilities are pretty cool to copy.

requiem angel

iunno i'm just not into this card any more; believe me he's great and all, art is awesome, abilities are awesome, but just working with counters or comboing out every game gets boring. really boring...

if somebody could find a cool combo with this guy that's abstract and slightly ridiculous let me know

he's now in his retirement home; my casual fungus deck haha poor retired general





also @4wolf359

somebody board sweeps and you feel bad. life and limb is pretty much guaranteed to backfire on you. it's a great jonny card...........for your opponents.

learned by experience unfortunately

This guy just replaced Savra, Queen of the Golgari as the general of my Saproling EDH deck. (Sorry, I refuse to call it Commander.) This allowed me to splash in white. All you naysayers seem to forget how EASY it is to get a stupid amount of +1/+1 counters on your creatures, Mycoloth not withstanding. Juniper Order Ranger and the ultimate powerhouse, Primordial Hydra. The Hydra will start making more +1/+1 counters per turn than you are capable of using!

Also, since I was able to add in Rhys the Redeemed, the shenanigans have just gotten even worse. As long as you have a reliable untap ability, like Patron of the Orochi and Seedborn Muse, Rhys can double your saprolings on EVERY PLAYER'S TURN. With Juniper Order Ranger in play, as well as an excellent mana source like Gaea's Cradle, you can make a massive army in little time at all. Use a card like Psychotrope Thallid to make use of all your newly grown saps.

Although using Ghave as a Commander in a fungus deck might not be extremely effective, it's fun for casual, he creates ridiculous numbers of Saprolings and then the fungi sac them for fun abilities, Regeneration, card draw, direct damage, haste, +/+ abilities. Mycologist or elvish farmer both give life gain.

Oh my...the shenanigans that will come online with the release of Avacyn Restored! Check Cathars' Crusade and Champion of Lambolt.

If you have Ghave, Ashnod's Altar and those two out on the battlefield, you essentially have infinite, infinite/ infinite unblockable saproling tokens.

Also, Mycoloth will like Cathars' Crusade...a lot. So will Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter.

Ghave EDH just got crazy...again.

Paying to trigger undying on a Young Wolf and then another to remove the counter from my undying creature and put a 1/1 on the battlefield is good stuff.

grave pact, butcher of Malakir are great and with Martyr's Bond ,Mycosynth Lattice you have ultimate board control

Want to go infinite? Play a Priest of Gix and Undying Evil it. Then, if you're really nasty, put in a Cathar's Crusade.

In fact, even without the infinite the crusade is nuts with this guy. Just use it either way.

And anything that has undying has quite literally become undying.

waaay better than pentivus in that he's extremely flexible (he can give you blockers buff creatures at instant speed; he works well with many mechanics; the saprolings he produces now have many tribal cards like time spiral fungi) and he costs {2} less, if you're running the right colors.

Cast Undying Evil on an Eldrazi Token and have fun with his first ability!

Eeyup... This guy here has made my playgroup play a biiiiit more carefully..
BECAUSE I AM THE COMBO NOODLER!!!!!!!!!
Ghave + Utopia Mycon/Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar + Doubling Season/Parallel Lives + Lumberknot/Champion of Lambholt/Cathar's Crusade/Mortician Beetle/Sigil Captain = Infinite mana, infinite counters.
And what do I do with that?
Well...
Mentor of the Meek/Psychotrope Thallid/Skullclamp: Draw my deck
Soul Warden: Gain ALL of the life
Aura Shards/Butcher of Malakir/Spike Tiller: Empty the field of everything and ask if they'd like to scoop
(in my defence, I only did that once and swore never to do so again... ya know, mad with power :)

Or if it's time to end it...
Thoughtpicker Witch/Extractor Demon: Mill out, they lose come their draw step
Blasting Station/Triskelion: Death of a thousand stings!

I love going infinite, and all teh ridiculous power that comes with it!
OH! also, because why not, Fertilid + Skullclamp. Give every player all the land he can get, then I kill myself to watch em fight it out :)

I like running Workhorse and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed with Thousand-Year Elixir to enjoy making unlimited mana and saprolings.

Solid 3-Color commander

Combos with:
M13 rings specifically, Ring of Xathrid, Ring of Kalonia, and Ring of Thune.
Doubling Season
and cards with Proliferate like Contagion Engine, Contagion Clasp
or maybe even Plaguemaw Beast or Throne of Geth.

I like it.

It's not the most creative, but he can be a lot of fun in a typical fungus deck. Plus if you get him out with a Sporesower Thallid and a Sporoloth Ancient, you can get him pregnant!

Absolutely insanity with this guy on the field. Just built an EDH around this kid with a Trostani, Selesnya's Voice in the deck. The lolz to be had are many.
But, seriously- this guy with populate is DISGUSTINGLY GOOD. Whether you populate a 1/1 for efficient creature buffing or generate a vigilance/flying token and make it a noncard fatty doesn't matter- cuz this guy can do either single-handed. 5/5

So I'm not sure if this has been stated yet... but Cathar's Crusade + Doubling Season + either Life and Limb orUtopia Mycon = infinite saprolings and infinite +1/+1 counters on all creatures you control.

Use with Mycoloth for complete insanity.

Ghaven.

I love the decks people play with Ghave. Hmm, should I go for infinite tokens or infinite counters? Wait, why not both?

"Hi there, Ghave. This is my friend, Corpsejack Menace. I thought you guys might get along."

Five minutes later...

"Ghave, do you take this... horrid... abomination to be your wife? You do? Well then... I'd say kiss the bride, but I don't know how exactly you would go about doing that..."

He's fast becoming my favorite card to come out of the first Commander product. His colors, White, Black, and Green, have a huge number of cards that interact with and benefit from +1/+1 counters and creature tokens.

Going is infinite is one thing, making busted 2 card combos is slightly better since its more consistant. Not saying going infinite is not doable just seems easier fetching a single card and abusing the synergy out of it than setting up a 3 card combo which is a tad fragile. Ivy Lane Denizen means for 1 mana you produce a 1/1 without loss. My personal favorite is comboing with Vhati il-Dal - they attack, you spam a 1/1 and make the attacking creature a toughness of 1 and just chump... not even just vhati and Deathspore Thallid. The trick with Ghave is not only to include cards that combo with it but make sure those cards can combo with each other.

ENTIRE TEAM IS PENTAVUS

How has no one caught onto incorporating proliferate with this guy? The wording states "choose any number of target permanents or players with counters on them." All of your creatures can be targets for proliferation. It doesn't even limit the kind of counters-- +1/+1, fungus, infect counters on your opponents/ their creatures, whatever. Contagion Engine becomes both offensive and defensive, and it grows your army exponentially.

Combo with Sporesower Thallid and Thelon of Havenwood. Just 'cause you can.

Whenever I attack with this guy, I say "Sailin' away on the Ghave of Mutilation."
And no one gets the joke.

Using this guy in EDH was the only time I ever beat someone to death with a fungus.

Life and Limb turns him into one humungous fungus.

I dropped him on the board with Doubling Season, Corpsejack Menace, and then equipped him with Illusionist's Bracers. This deck is full of ridiculous combos, but I happened to stumble into this insane board state. I had all the mana I could need, so it went like this:
Me: "Yeah, I'm putting in about a thousand saprolings. No, it's not an infinite loop. Yes, I have the mana."
Kaalia/Dragons Player: "Scoop."
Lifegain Player: "Scoop."
Zombie Player: "Rakdos Charm."

Moral of the Story: We need more saproling lords.

Scavenger Drake looks like it'll be fun with this. Sacrifice a saproling to give him a +1/+1 counter, he gets another +1/+1 counter, remove the counters for saprolings and sacrifice again...etc. Protean Hydra is another good one.

I like seeing just how I can convert other things into saprolings and saprolings into other things with this guy as general.

-Unspeakable Symbol / Souldrinker : Life into saprolings
-Nature's Blessing : Discard into saprolings
-Scavenging Ooze (Necrogenesis doesn't need Ghave): Graveyard into saprolings
-Triskelion : Saprolings into damage
-Fertilid : Saprolings into lands (which, with Life and Limb out, can be saprolings again)
-Death's Presence : Besides being insane with Ghave, converts dead creatures into saprolings. And with Utopia Mycon and Suture Priest also in play, you've got infinite lifegain.

Oh, Ghave. You had me at Legendary Fungus Shaman.

Hey whats a ruling for this card in regards to putting a saproling onto the battlefield, i figure since it doesn't actually say needs to be under my control then you can give them to teammates too correct, someone give me a ruling please.