Pointed Discussion

Autochthon Wurm

'Play for free' goes great with splice.

I like to think that you're eating the fish that you cast from this spell

Sigh.

Putting +1/+1 counters would have been way cooler than the token 'can't think of something for white or green so lets give them a life gain spell'

I think they made a desing mistake here, shining shoal already prevents damage and deals an amount of damage equal to the damage prevented, so it's not only far superior and gaining life when you cna do it with a more powerfull and flexible cards, makes no sense, I think they should have done something like 1+/1+ counters or untapping creatures.

Nourishing shoal+painter's servant+gleemax

Maybe if it said 3 times the amount it would be worth it but as is...

thought this wasnt too bad, then i saw shining shoal, I can see a small upside of n.shoal can gain 15 life with autochron wurm, where s.shoal will prevent roughly 3 to 5 damage, and deal 3 to 5 damage to an opponent so while N.shoal is not strictly worse than S.shoal in practicality it is. Redirection>Prevention>Lifegain
Edit, Facepalm

Well, if it's not lifegain that costs 1 card to gain no battlefield presence, it's lifegain that costs *2* cards to gain no battlefield presence!

Seriously, this card's a joke, and anyone that plays it... *facepalm*

I actually think this card can have a very powerful ability on your game, in reanimator decks, you can put some big green fat guy in your graveyard and get more health to protect you/pay the price to Reanimate it

Not for the lifegain, nu uh, there are better cards, discarding a card to get the cost to something high, is generally bad, Stream of Life is really bad, but probably better.

Judging strictly by the fact that lifegain control decks (and Felidar Sovereign type modern decks) don't seem to work, and need more support, I can't imagine dropping the serious card advantage for 10 to 15 life maximum. It would be much better to have two times X life instead, bringing it close to something like Martyr of Sands. Considering Shining Shoal basically does this AND redirects damage.

@ ICEFANG13

Except that you can only reanimate creatures creatures in the grave, not the exile zone.

Turn 1: Swamp
Turn 2: Swamp, Dark Ritual pay an extra Swamp to play Lich, then play this exiling Autochthon Wurm gaining 15 life, but instead drawing 15 cards due to Lich. Then, most likely you will draw into another combo of these cards, since a smart person runs 4 for this deck, then do it again, and play Lotus Petal tap sac dark ritual, dark ritual, dark ritual (since you have drawn your deck, and then play Repay in Kind. Win with a bad rare!

So much potential wasted here on the generic life gain spell... I agree +1/+1 counters would have been cool although I think it would have been too overpowered. However in defense of Wizards, the other "typical" {G} options would have been:

1. Putting creatures into play, which would have been insanely powerful, even exiling a {4} cost card would yield massive card advantage.
2. Giving a creature +X/+X, this would have mostly trumped Blazing Shoal and also would have been absolutely broken
3. Untapping / tutoring lands, even putting X / 2 lands into hand / play would be ridiculous.

From a design perspective, the only way any of the above 3 options would have worked would be if there was a restriction on the value of {X} (i.e. "{X} cannot be more than 5") which wouldn't have flowed very well with the rest of the cycle.

Well if you were running Draco in your mono green deck anyway, than I suppose it's cool to get 16 life for 2 mana. But still, this card isn't really top notch.

Not bad for a lifegain deck, needs other cards to turn life gain into winning positions, like Cradle of Vitality, or Sanguine Bond.

A "get out of *** up" for free, in the right situation. Not great, but free lifegain is at the very least helpful.

It wouldn't even work with Draco, he's not green.


I suppose it's a last ditch 'Oh God I don't wanna die' trick that you can spring on people who think you've got no lands untapped for a Fog. Dunno if I would run it though, with green I tend to like throwing down my creatures quickly.

I think opinions on this card will change when people realize they can have a 17/17 on turn two with the upcoming Voracious Wurm.

Free, instant speed, potentially-huge lifegain can be pretty tricky with Ageless Entity. Your opponent likely won't expect it to gain 15 power for zero mana after he declares no blockers!

Shining Shoal: Redirect damage, able to save yourself, kill an opponent or Eliminate a threat on the board.
Disrupting Shoal: Manaless counterspell, often worth losing card advantage to kill a combo. Great against common CMCs like or in legacy.
Sickening Shoal: Kill a creature, even an indestructible one, not the best, but can be solidly helpful.
Blazing Shoal: Power boost, banned in modern, potent damage tool early game by letting you discard an unneeded end game spell.

This is pretty unforgivably bad, so much worse than the rest of the cycle that its amazing. Giving up card advantage for life is never a good idea. Spring of life for one mana more is a pretty terrible option too, but probably the only way you would use this card. If you are losing so badly that you need to spend 2 cards to gain some life, you are probably not going to come back from doing so. Worse, this card is painfully awful if you don't happen to have something huge in hand. Green does have more big things than most colors, but life-gain is such a weak effect that I cannot think of a situation where I would play this without some kind of awkward 3 or 4 card combo.

+1/+1 counters would have been a bad idea, that would have been way too powerful. Blazing shoal is good enough, and it is just a temporary boost to power. What would I have done?

Fallow Shoal
Instant -- Arcane
You may exile a green card with converted mana cost X from your hand rather than pay Fallow Shoal's mana cost.
Put target non-creature permanent with converted mana cost X or less on top of its owner's library.

Is the ability to put a land on top of your opponent's library for too good? It may actually be, the mana cost is cheaper than Fallow Earth, though more green intense. Plus the additional options, might be as cheap as such an effect could go, but that doesn't exactly fit with the cycle, does it?