I loves me some double Soulshift--that's card advantage, after all! Well, provided you have two eligible spirits in your yard, I guess.
GradiustheFox
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(5 votes)
Why is this card rated so low? It's beefy enough to stand on its own, and when it does kick the bucket, you get 8 mana worth of monsters in return. Is there something I'm missing here?
Kryptnyt
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
one of the better soulshifters; it isnt shafted too much in power.
NARFNra
★★★★☆ (4.9/5.0)(4 votes)
Two soulshifts for a card whose P/T is only 1 below it's CMC? In Kamigawa? This is amazing...
This is pretty much the ideal card for sac effects as well.
garbagegatherer
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Orc, orc, orc, garami is eaten with a...
Spoon of course! Or chopsticks.
Axelle
★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Awkward that it was worded "'Soulshift 4, soulshift 4".
Not a bad card by any means.
Pigfish99
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
the double soulshift is actually not that bad. Its sac fodder, but you can do worse in kamigawa. If most of the creatures that had soulshift in kamigawa had double soulshift, I'm sure the block would've had much better ratings.
but alas.
Salient
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
I would love to see an Un-card with "Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4, Soulshift 4."
VDZx
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@GradiustheFox First of all, 8 mana worth of Spirits. Spirits generally aren't the best creatures for attacking. In a dedicated Kamigawa-style Spirit deck (I play one, it includes this), you usually aren't short on cards but are always short on mana, and you want to play as many Spirits as possible to get 'whenever you play a Spirit or Arcane spell' triggers, or just to have more stuff to sacrifice. As such, Forked-Branch Garami's CMC of 5 mana is quite a lot.
For card advantage through returning Spirits from your graveyard, a card like Death Denied is a lot better. It can fetch *any* creature, usually nets more creatures than Garami (at Garami's CMC, it returns 3), and it works even if you don't have a sacrifice outlet. Being an Arcane spell, it also triggers Spirit/Arcane triggers, and it can be returned using Hana Kami (and, funnily enough, Death Denied can then return Hana Kami). If you absolutely need the 4/4 body or don't have black, I'd advise going up one mana and going for Iname, Life Aspect instead (though that one can't be recycled, generally speaking).
I still play Forked-Branch Garami in my soulshift deck, but it's not exactly one of the most useful cards, not nearly as impressive as it seems at first.
Comments (10)
This is pretty much the ideal card for sac effects as well.
Spoon of course! Or chopsticks.
Not a bad card by any means.
but alas.
First of all, 8 mana worth of Spirits. Spirits generally aren't the best creatures for attacking. In a dedicated Kamigawa-style Spirit deck (I play one, it includes this), you usually aren't short on cards but are always short on mana, and you want to play as many Spirits as possible to get 'whenever you play a Spirit or Arcane spell' triggers, or just to have more stuff to sacrifice. As such, Forked-Branch Garami's CMC of 5 mana is quite a lot.
For card advantage through returning Spirits from your graveyard, a card like Death Denied is a lot better. It can fetch *any* creature, usually nets more creatures than Garami (at Garami's CMC, it returns 3), and it works even if you don't have a sacrifice outlet. Being an Arcane spell, it also triggers Spirit/Arcane triggers, and it can be returned using Hana Kami (and, funnily enough, Death Denied can then return Hana Kami). If you absolutely need the 4/4 body or don't have black, I'd advise going up one mana and going for Iname, Life Aspect instead (though that one can't be recycled, generally speaking).
I still play Forked-Branch Garami in my soulshift deck, but it's not exactly one of the most useful cards, not nearly as impressive as it seems at first.