Foundations (FDN) Limited Review — Green

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Foundations (FDN) has its prerelease events on November 8, 2024, and officially releases a week later on November 15, 2024. Want to know more about how each card rates in Limited, with recommendations? Then check out this series of FDN Limited reviews!

Rating Scale

5.0: Always take it; gives you a near-winning advantage
4.5: Always take it if you’re in the right colors; gives you a huge advantage
4.0: First-pick quality; excellent synergy with the archetype’s theme, and can be the deciding card for splashing, switching colors, or entering a color pair
3.5: Top uncommons and commons of the set, plus other strong cards; good synergy with the archetype’s theme, and a key card for entering a color pair
3.0: Important cards for an archetype’s theme, plus other above-average cards; you’ll want them in your final deck
2.5: Average, usually a decent curve filler
2.0 to 1.0: Below average; you generally prefer not to play them, and can use them as filler if necessary, but not too many
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable; basically never play it, it will only help you lose

Card Ratings

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Flash forces the opponent to be a bit more careful in combat, and a 4-power body has a few small synergies in red-green or with a number of cards.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A 6-mana 6/6 with vigilance is a passing grade, and being able to distribute +1/+1 counters to other creatures gives flexible use in green’s counters theme.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A 3-mana 3/3 that also gives trample is pretty good, but it’s still just an average-bodied card. Trample is quite important in green though, and paired with counters you can deal considerable damage.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: Standing still it may grow bigger and bigger, and it comes with ward 2 so it isn’t easy to kill. Whether you pair it with removal, or send a bunch of small tokens or small creatures off to die, once it grows enough it’s well worth the value.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A 4/2 body is a bit too unfavorable for attacking. It needs to grow at least once with a +1/+1 counter, or be paired with other tricks or Equipment, to earn attacking value more easily. The Food it generates works with quite a few white cards.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A common with nothing to complain about other than its 3 toughness. Standing still it may keep making creatures, and the 1/1s it makes can serve as morbid fuel, or with morbid active on the board, keep stealing the opponent’s life total.

Rating: 3.5
Comment: A recursion creature with a passing body, with a small bonus for being an Elf. In Limited, cards that earn you cards are rarely bad.

Rating: 2.0
Comment: Three mana plus sorcery speed keep its rating from being higher, and it’s easily 2-for-1’d. Still take it when you need removal.

Rating: 4.0
Comment: A 1/4 body isn’t easy to kill, and whenever it can tap, it can keep earning you creatures with mana value 6 or less, even at instant speed. Earn it twice and the opponent will want to concede. A powerful mana sink! But if your deck doesn’t have enough high-cost creatures, it may waste tempo, so pay attention to your creature curve when building.

Rating: 4.0
Comment: When it comes down on time it puts a lot of pressure on the opponent. Paired with other cards that place +1/+1 counters, or with Evolving Wilds, it needs to grow to at least 8/8 to threaten the opponent more easily.

Rating: 3.5
Comment: A powerful engine for morbid, and it doesn’t even have to target yourself. Triggering it once is already a big win.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A card that can swing a stalled board in one shot if your board is strong enough, but if your board isn’t good enough it’s a topdeck that can’t save you. In practice though, as long as you have three creatures or have already lowered the opponent’s life total quite a bit, it can make a great value trade, and it’s strong even when you’re slightly behind.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A huge 6-mana 12/8. Just standing there puts pressure on a number of color pairs, but if the opponent is good at making tokens, it only trades with one 1/1 per attack. If you can get a card that gives trample, the pressure on the opponent will be enormous.

Rating: 4.5
Comment: On the turn you slam it down, if other creatures attack, it can create a very strong snowballing board, and it even has a chance to crawl back and be reused, so when using it be especially careful not to run into the opponent’s counterspells and exile removal.

Rating: 4.0
Comment: Another card that must be dealt with first. It makes your other creatures loot, or even 2-for-1, so the opponent’s creatures will have a hard time moving in combat. Remember it’s for non-token creatures, uwu

Rating: 3.5
Comment: Once you can start spreading out 3/3 Raccoons across the board, the pressure on the opponent will be huge. Enchantment removal is also hard to maindeck in this set, and green even has a 4-power creature at three mana.

Rating: 3.5
Comment: A 1/4 reach deathtouch creature is a powerful defensive creature and even a powerful mana sink, and it’s a common, which is just too much.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A 4-mana 4/4 plus a 2-mana fight bundled together; not a bad option when you lack removal.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Classic green removal, probably the best green removal in the pack, but you still have to watch out for getting 2-for-1’d.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: Its strength depends on how many Forests you have, and it’s marvelous paired with trample creatures.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A utility card that may make your main deck, depending on how well your deck resists flyers.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Early on it fetches a land when you’re short on lands or colors, and later it can remove creatures. Good both early and late.

Rating: 2.0
Comment: On average it’s a 2.0, but if you open it or draw it early in the draft and deliberately build toward it, the ceiling can be very high, and placing counters and making tokens are both very routine actions, so the building cost isn’t too heavy.

Rating: 3.5
Comment: The 4-mana 3/4 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen; the third ability is more of a gift, and unless you’re very tempo-oriented, an Elf body is hard to play proactively. In Limited, life gain is an important ability, and it can help you survive a few more turns and see a few more cards.

Not counting this card, there are 9 other Elves in this set (3 black-green, 6 mono-green).

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A 2-mana 2/2 for filling your curve, with extra benefit if you have enough Elves.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A mana-accelerating Elf lord. If you land an Elf on turn 1 or 2 and this one isn’t removed, you can jump to 6 or 7 mana by turn 4, putting a lot of pressure on the opponent.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: After all that talk earlier about wishing for trample, here it is! An enchantment green badly needs, good for both card draw and evasion.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: You don’t want to draw it early, but it’s a very powerful topdeck late. With this card you’ll badly want to ramp and accelerate mana aggressively.

Rating: 4.0
Comment: Three mana for 3 power, four mana for 4 power, and by turn 5 you have a 12/12 trampler! But this is on the premise of being ahead; when you’re behind on board, this guy might get stuck in your hand. Within expected value, casting it around 7 or 8 mana can still put pressure on the opponent.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Green’s Lightning Bolt!!! The classic Giant Growth. The opponent always has to watch out for your 1 open mana, though of course you might not have it!

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A 2-mana 2/2 or a 5-mana 4/4, and also the mass trample that green’s big beasts badly want, but you need to find a few more cards that place +1/+1 counters to go with it.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: A very common land-fetching accelerator, for those of you who like to greedily play many colors. Remember the land you fetch enters untapped, so you have a chance to play a 2-mana or 3-mana curve play for defense.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Many of green’s themes place counters. If one successfully gets indestructible, you can make a great trade, and this is a rare card-draw effect in green, easily achieving a 2-for-1 or even more.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: Anyone who has been on the receiving end knows how strong turn-one mana acceleration is. Killing a 1/1 is a waste, but if you don’t, the opponent keeps doing things a turn faster than you, which is annoying.

Rating: 2.0
Comment: A 5-mana 3/3 that draws a card isn’t especially enticing, and note it can only be done once.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: It’s not hard for green to have 4-power creatures. A strong 2-mana curve play.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A powerful green finisher, but it can’t help you once you fall behind. Consider it if you’re good at going wide or your creatures are big enough.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: The Reclamation Sage, a 3-mana 2/1. Even being an Elf can’t save it from sideboard duty.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A 2-mana 2/2 that can grow, and it also gains life and disrupts the graveyard.

Rating: 2.5
Comment: Place a counter, with protection for +1 mana. Useful on both offense and defense, and green’s big creatures will want this kind of card, since there’s a lot they want to protect.

Rating: 3.5
Comment: Makes winning even easier when you’re ahead, but can’t save you when you’re behind on board. Play it for five mana, use [+1] or [-3], then get it attacked down, and you lose a lot of tempo; but when the board is even it’s still very strong and can keep drawing you cards.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: A 2-mana 3/1 body is great for trading up with the opponent, and the surveil 1 on entering and dying helps you adjust your library. It’s just gone from a good dog to a good cat.

Rating: 3.0
Comment: Early on it can grow along with other counter-placing creatures, and late it can bring out a huge guy all at once. Feels like green has too many interlinked creatures that need to be removed.

Conclusion

I was in a rush this time and only skimmed through all of green’s creatures and the multicolor themes. I never expected to see the long-lost plain-body creatures in a pack again. I hope everyone drafts more, uwu, and I look forward to seeing you all at the draft table.