Bushmeat Poacher MTG Card

Allows card and life gain through creature sacrifice, crucial for maintaining lead in games. Instant speed activation provides strategic flexibility during both player’s turns. Mana cost and sacrifice requirement may limit card’s versatility in some decks.
Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost4
RarityCommon
TypeCreature — Human Soldier
Power 2
Toughness 4

Text of card

, , Sacrifice another creature: You gain life equal to the sacrificed creature's toughness. Draw a card.

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Cards like Bushmeat Poacher

Bushmeat Poacher serves as a valuable asset in Magic: The Gathering for players who focus on creature sacrifice and card draw strategies. Its resemblance to cards like Village Rites is notable, with both cards providing the ability to turn creatures into instant card advantage. The distinction arises in the mana cost and the additional life gain Bushmeat Poacher delivers, making it a dual-purpose option in longer games.

Comparatively, Costly Plunder offers a similar sacrifice mechanism, but it stands apart by allowing you to sacrifice an artifact in addition to creatures. With a lower mana cost, Costly Plunder facilitates a quicker play, but it lacks the sustained value that Bushmeat Poacher’s life gain can provide over multiple turns. Altar’s Reap also enters the fray with an identical cost and immediate card draw effect but doesn’t match the ability of Bushmeat Poacher to affect your life total.

While each of these similar cards can fit into various strategies, Bushmeat Poacher presents a unique blending of survival and grinding out card advantage, situating it as a distinctive choice for decks that want to make the most out of their creatures’ final usefulness on the battlefield.

Village Rites - MTG Card versions
Costly Plunder - MTG Card versions
Altar's Reap - MTG Card versions
Village Rites - MTG Card versions
Costly Plunder - MTG Card versions
Altar's Reap - MTG Card versions

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Bushmeat Poacher offers a steady flow of card advantage in the late game, as it enables players to turn creatures into new cards, effectively sustaining the player’s hand and options.

Resource Acceleration: By sacrificing creatures, this card not only accrues card advantage but also facilitates life gain, which can be crucial in stabilizing your board state and staying ahead in life total races.

Instant Speed: The ability to activate Bushmeat Poacher’s ability at instant speed gives players the versatility to adapt during an opponent’s turn, choosing the perfect moment to sacrifice a creature, be it in response to removal or simply to avoid a negative combat outcome.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: One of the drawbacks of Bushmeat Poacher is its need for a creature to be sacrificed in order to draw a card. This requirement can be difficult to meet if you are facing a creature deficit on the battlefield or when the game state doesn’t favor sacrificing your own creatures.

Specific Mana Cost: Bushmeat Poacher enters the battlefield for one colorless and two black mana. This specific mana cost means the card is exclusively dedicated to black mana-based decks, potentially limiting its versatility across the vast array of MTG deck archetypes.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a mana value of three, Bushmeat Poacher may be considered to have a high mana cost for its abilities. When compared to other MTG cards with similar sacrifice effects, players might feel the cost for drawing a single card and gaining one life is not the most mana-efficient use of resources, especially considering that the activation of its ability also requires one black mana and tapping, further investing precious in-game currency for a return that may not always align with the pace of competitive play.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Bushmeat Poacher offers flexible options in deck building. It can serve as an engine for card drawing or life gain, suiting a variety of strategies that require either incremental advantage or a means to leverage creature-based tactics.

Combo Potential: With its ability to sacrifice other creatures, Bushmeat Poacher pairs well with decks that amass tokens or rely on creatures with death triggers. This opens up numerous synergies and combo avenues to explore within various deck archetypes.

Meta-Relevance: In metagames where attrition and resource management is key, Bushmeat Poacher shines by turning creatures into essential resources, making it a savvy pick for players facing grindy matchups or needing to outmaneuver control strategies.

How to beat

The Bushmeat Poacher is a unique creature card that can be a pesky hurdle in a game of Magic: The Gathering due to its lifecycle advantage. The key to defeating this card lies in undermining its ability to generate value. Unlike other creatures that merely sit on the battlefield, Bushmeat Poacher offers strategic depth, allowing a player to draw cards and gain life by sacrificing other creatures.

To counteract this, it is crucial to either remove the Poacher before it can be activated or limit the number of creatures your opponent controls to minimize the Poacher’s potential impact. Cards that can swiftly deal with the Poacher like Fatal Push or that can exile it avoiding graveyard retrieval options are particularly effective here. Managing your removal resources efficiently to negate the advantage provided by the Poacher is your best strategy for overcoming the challenges posed by this card.

Moreover, if the Poacher is part of a combo or an engine in your opponent’s deck, disrupt this synergy. Utilizing hand disruption or countermagic to hinder your opponent’s game plan can also be a robust approach to ensure that Bushmeat Poacher becomes less of a threat during the match.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Bushmeat Poacher MTG card by a specific set like Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Game Night: Free-for-All, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Bushmeat Poacher and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Bushmeat Poacher Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2020-04-24 and 2022-10-14. Illustrated by Randy Vargas.

#ReleasedNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12020-04-24Ikoria: Lair of BehemothsIKO 772015NormalBlackRandy Vargas
22022-10-14Game Night: Free-for-AllGN3 442015NormalBlackRandy Vargas

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Bushmeat Poacher has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
PauperLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Bushmeat Poacher card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date Text
2020-04-17 Use the sacrificed creature’s toughness as it last existed on the battlefield to determine how much life you gain.
2020-04-17 You draw only one card, no matter how much life you gain.