by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 24, 2009

Green has always been good at turning lands into creatures and so it is hardly surprising that there would be a treefolk which would be able to turn land into creatures, but that treefolk is not green and the land that it changes isn't swamps. This is not a major point, but it is not a small one either since it gives you the option of playing this is an all black deck.

Fendeep Summoner is a rare 3/5 treafolk from the morningtide expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs one black and four colorless to put into play, and has an ability that reads "Up to two target Swamps each become 3/5 Treefolk Warrior creatures in addition to their other types until end of turn."

There is some risk of course in turning your lands into creatures, but less so in this than in many cases. Many black cards limit their removal to cards that are not black, while most red cards are direct damage that won't do 5 points of damage with a single card. This means that you can be reasonably safe in assuming that if your opponent is going to use removal it will be on the Fendeep Summoner and not the swamps. Another valuable point limited the weakness of being able to use this on one swamp rather than two. This means that if you simply need to block one creature, and don't want to risk the Fendeep Summoner itself you can tap it to turn one swamp into a creature.

Also worth noting are that these count as tree folk for the sake of any card that checks for tree folks, as well as warriors. For example Dauntless Dourbark which has a power and toughness equal to the number of forests and number of treefolks would get an additional +2/+2.

In limited the ability to use every swamp as a creature is quite powerful and the lack of removal would make this even better. That this costs five mana and so is unlikely to have any real effect until at least turn six is also not a major problem in limited since the games go much longer than this and so when drafting it is worth picking high if you see this card though as a rare card that is not overly likely.

This is a card that works well in treefolk decks, not only because it can create extra creatures for attacking and blocking, but because this single card has the possibility of counting as three treefolk for cards that need them.

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