April 17, 1998
The Card of the Day is...
Farmstead
1a, 1b, 2E, 3E Rare
WWW Enchant Land
"WW: Enchanted land's controller gains 1 life. Use this ability only during your upkeep and only once each turn."
If Farmstead only didn't say "only once each turn", it would be a great card. Sadly, this stinker costs three white mana to bestow upon you the semi-conditional ability to gain one life every turn for two mana. Fountain of Youth not only costs nothing to cast (letting it fit in any deck), but the activation cost of two generic is easier to come up with than two white. Yes, artifacts are easier to dispose of than just enchantments, but Farmstead relies on your opponent not being able to trash neither your lands nor enchantments. Even after saying all of that, Farmstead isn't useless, just outclassed by several other life-gainers. Here are a few situations that Farmstead can be better than meets the eye:
- Verduran Enchantress
Turning Farmstead into a cantrip with Verduran Enchantress helps improve it's overall effectiveness.
- Consecrate Land
Since you're going to be sinking a tidy sum of mana into enchanting a land, why not protect that land from most of harm's way with Consecrate Land? At least Consecrate Land is a modest one white mana to cast.
- Power Surge
Power Surge can be a really nasty card to build a deck around. You usually should include many ways of tapping all of your lands before your next upkeep while using Power Surge, or else you'll be taking some serious damage too (one damage for each untapped land). Farmstead is a fair way of eating up mana every turn.
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