Pointed Discussion

(Removed from the old version of Mulch and placed here for relevancy's sake. Man do I miss that Rebecca Guay art though.)

Mulch, despite the rap it gets, really isn't a double-edged sword, statistically speaking (with some fringe exceptions... more on that later*).

It's true that sometimes you really want to see card X (or more likely, card X or card Y or card Z), and Mulch forces you to discard it. Well, that sucks. But played out over enough games, you'll be just as likely for Mulch to get card X/Y/Z out faster as you are to have it take longer. It doesn't always seem that way, because it's a lot easier to notice when Mulch discards the card you needed than it is to notice that Mulch got you four cards closer to the card you needed. Average out how much it's slowed you down by passing a key card vs. how many times it's gotten you one sooner, and it will almost always come out to 50/50 or thereabouts. (Same is true for being milled, but that doesn't stop people who don't quite get it from saying it's overpowered because it can get rid of your good cards.)

Now, that's not enough to warrant paying {1}{G} at sorcery speed. But of course that's not all the card does. It may end up putting all four cards in your graveyard, in which case you get card disadvantage of one, but it may also replicate itself, or give up to card advantage of three.

A card advantage range of -1 to +3 is a risky proposal at this cost, so you need to be careful. But, if your deck has any way of using your graveyard as a resource, this is a grand slam. Dredge loves this card. Threshold loves this card. Reanimator loves this card. Flashback loves this card. Basically, if you can spare a few slots and a couple dual-lands, any graveyard-centric deck will be better with Mulch than without it. This is because if it doesn't give you straight card advantage, it's giving you virtual card advantage, meaning while you don't have extra cards in your hand or on your board, you have more toys to play with either by effectively tutoring with Reanimate/Dredge, by powering up your Threshold cards, or by casting from your graveyard with Flashback.

So that's a long way of saying this: Mulch isn't a 3.7-star card. It's obviously not going in every deck that runs green, but if you run any graveyard mechanic, it's a grand slam on many levels. Sure, it's going to have to compete with Think Twice and Desperate Ravings, but for decks that don't run Red or Blue or that don't mind tapping out, it's a stellar enabler.


*There ARE some decks where you clearly will not want this card even if you have some graveyard shenanigans going on. Most notably in the current meta is in Birthing Pod decks. The deck thrives on being able to select the right creature at the right time and being able to properly ramp up to each consecutive CMC. Accidentally putting the Acidic Slime you desperately need to destroy your opponent's Phyrexian Metamorph before podding into your Sun Titan would be absolutely disastrous. Same goes for any deck that's reliant on tutors to fetch particular answers, since they tend to run only a few of each answer. Also of note are formats like Vintage, where you may discard a precious, essential restricted card that you have 20 ways of searching but no or few ways of retrieving from your graveyard.

Ah, but this time, we can't get it in the same draft format as Forbid. That was a lot of fun!

Great card. Not only will it fetch you land, but it will place what it can't fetch into your graveyard. And in Innistrad, having things in the graveyard is good, because you can tutor for stuff in there with all the graveyard focused abilities in the set.

A reprint I've been waiting for. Not exactly a fan of the new art although it's at least more appropriate for a horror set than Rebecca Guay's version.

Looks fun but really needs to use the milled cards (or combo with some way of ensuring the land's on top of your deck) to be effective. 2 mana for 1-2 land on average with no ramp just isn't worth it when it's unreliable.

Now when the milled cards are powering up lhurgoyfs, being cast via flashback and returning to the battlefield...

T2: Mulch.
T3: Splinterfright
This combo has helped me many a moon.

It's Life from the Loam. I want to Snapcast it.

almost a reversed Treasure Hunt. Or more correctly, the other way around.

This is easy. Zombies.

Turn 2 - Mulch (Grab say, 2 land)
Turn 3 - Ghoulcaller's Chant, pulling the two non-lands back to your hand.
- OR -
Turn 3 - Unbreathing Horde, for 3 counters (provided you dropped Diregraf Ghoul on T1)

Sure, it isn't constructed worthy, but in a deck that likes it's spells in the graveyard as much as it's hand, this looks a lot nicer late game than top decking a Rampant Growth.

@luca_barelli
I don't see it. Yeah, the end results might be similar sometimes (a lot of land in hand) but functionally, they are two entirely different animals. For one, Treasure Hunt gives you a non-land card in hand.

I ran this in my splinterfright deck for a while but i realised it was much better to use forbidden alchemy and splash black for flashback (also allowed me to run spider spawning).

This still has an advantage over forbidden alchemy because it fits right on the curve for splinterfright, but sometimes you'll mill off a 'fright off of this instead of popping it to your hand with the alchemy. Tracker's instincts should be used unless you lack ramp in your deck. It can be flashed back if milled too.

In the right decks (as in, the ones that would use Mulch) your graveyard is like a second hand. Mulch therefore becomes a powerful card, allowing you to fuel your need for lands as well as supply your graveyard for all the shenanigans you're planning. Always an advocate for Mulch. It's a niche card, but it fills that niche role very well

I bought a booster box of Innistrad and somehow literally got only one of these. Fantastic card for reanimator decks though, and pairs really well with Borborygmos Enraged.

fantastic reprint, especially with the Innistrad flavor. One of the reasons Junk Rites and other Unburial decks are so good. 4.5/5

Nobody's mentioned Azusa yet? For shame.

It's similar to life from the loam except you can't dredge it back to use it over and over again. This isn't the one card engine life from the loam is but, they are fairly similar in function. One of the things life from the loam can help to protect you against tactical targeted land destruction like ghost quarter or tectonic edge, and some forms of mass land destruction which this doesn't do at all. Outside of standard there are just better options then this.

Wanna really make this useful? A sprinkle of Gaea's Blessing will make it land search AND graveyard retrieval.

I wanted those dredge and unearth creatures in my graveyard anyways.