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Spoiler Highlight: Archdruid's Charm in Standard, Pioneer and Modern

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The Murders at Karlov Manor's spoiler season is coming to an end! In today's article, I'll discuss Archdruid's Charm, an extremely versatile card that shows potential for several formats.

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translated by Joey Sticks

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revised by Tabata Marques

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About the Card

Archdruid's Charm is an instant spell with three abilities, of which you can choose one. Two of them are abilities that can count as two, which means this card has, incredibly, five abilities. It is an extremely versatile card.

By paying Magic Symbol GMagic Symbol GMagic Symbol G, you'll be able to choose between: searching for a land in your deck and placing it on the battlefield face down, searching for a creature in your deck and placing it in your hand, placing a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control, and, with it, dealing damage equal to its power to one of your opponent's creatures, exiling an artifact or exiling an enchantment.

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Archdruid’s Charm really reminds me of Archmage's Charm because of its design, but, unlike this and the other charms, this new card brings basically everything its color can do best.

Archdruid's Charm in Standard

In Standard, this card can be very useful in Domain Ramp, considering all its abilities are interesting for this deck.

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With its first ability, you can ramp or look for a creature in your deck, two effects that are essential in Domain's strategy.

As for its second ability, it can be used thoroughly in this list, considering this deck has two creatures with Lifelink, and Atraxa, Grand Unifier also has Deathtouch, which boosts this ability's effect.

The third ability is very useful in mirrors to deal with Leyline Binding.

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Even though it looks for one land less than Invasion of Zendikar, this charm can be cast one turn earlier, and can also search for the Triomes, besides all the versatility it brings. However, I still think this Battle is important in this strategy, and I don't think it will leave Domain lists so soon.

However, there are lists that care less about ramp and can adopt Archdruid's Charm and drop Invasion of Zendikar.

Archdruid's Charm in Pioneer and Explorer

In Pioneer, Green Devotion might see some use for Archdruid's Charm. Mono-Green has fallen out of grace in the metagame since the Karn, the Great Creator ban, and adopted an approach more geared towards creatures, without the toolbox approach it used to have with this planeswalker. It is possible to cast Archdruid's Charm on turn 2 to tutor Nykthos or some creature that can increase Devotion.

However, it is difficult to grasp if it would be a viable option without further testing, after all, it is a card that on its own doesn't add Devotion and has a slightly restrictive mana value even for Mono-Green. In any case, I'll leave down below my initial suggestion to how this deck could incorporate this card.

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Lotus Combo is another deck that could take advantage of this new card. The current version of this deck uses Chandra, Hope's Beacon as a finisher after you set up your combo, killing your opponent with her ult. To set up your combo, you'll need Lotus Field and Thespian's Stage on the board, using Thespian's ability to copy the Lotus and creating, with Hidden Strings, huge amounts of mana to cast your spells.

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With Archdruid's Charm, you'll be able to look for a Lotus Field at instant speed or exile a Damping Sphere in the same way, which might be quite relevant for this deck.

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This deck has several flexible slots and this charm's abilities might go well with this list, be it by looking for one of the lands they need for their combo or dealing with some hate their opponent might bring.

Another one of this card's positives is that it allows you to look for Lier, Disciple of the Drowned with the combo already set up.

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Archdruid’s Charm in Modern

In Modern, this new card's abilities stand out even more, considering The One Ring is present in this format and there are other powerful permanents that can be targeted by the new card's third ability.

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In this case, this card's cost becomes a bit more restrictive, but this format's mana base is quite well-rounded and can support the Magic Symbol G Magic Symbol G Magic Symbol G cost well.

It's worth considering that Archmage's Charm has seen its glory days in this format, and that these two cards have their similarities. Today, Archmage's Charm has practically disappeared from the metagame, and this is a point that can determine if this new green charm will find any space.

Another factor to consider is that Archdruid's Charm's first ability, which would make it more relevant in this format, places this card against other options like Chord of Calling, Summoner’s Pact, Sylvan Scrying and Collected Company, which in this case seem much better and more important.

In Crashing Footfalls, this card could contest a slot with one of the 3 drops, or maybe a slot in the sideboard, but this deck's mana base focuses much more on getting the Temur colors for Cascades, and a Magic Symbol G Magic Symbol G Magic Symbol G-costed card might end up dead in your hand or disrupt your mana base, which is already quite solid in this deck. Amulet Titan would suffer with this same issue, even though it takes a special interest in this card's first ability. As for Tron, it wouldn't even be able to create the mana needed to cast Archdruid's Charm.

Final Words

Archdruid's Charm is a versatile, powerful card in constructed formats. It should see a lot of play in Standard, and has some interesting possibilities in Pioneer. As for Modern, we will need to test it to determine whether it will find some space or not, but the restrictive mana value weighs it down significantly in this case. In any way, I'm anxious to test out this new card.

One more article down, thank you for reading so far. Leave your impressions of this card, suggestions or feedback in the comment section below. I'll try to answer all.

See you next time!