Elvish Eulogist MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 4 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost1
RarityCommon
TypeCreature — Elf Shaman
Power 1
Toughness 1

Key Takeaways

  1. Converts elf graveyard presence into a competitive edge in life points, aiding in game momentum shifts.
  2. Functions at instant speed, offering strategic flexibility and opportunistic life gain for players.
  3. Though restricted to green mana, it’s a crucial inclusion for elf-centric decks with graveyard interactions.

Text of card

Sacrifice Elvish Eulogist: You gain 1 life for each Elf card in your graveyard.

"No matter how adept our artistic skill, our effigies can never hope to capture the vibrant beauty of a living elf. Perhaps that is truly why we mourn."


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Elvish Eulogist offers the ability to trade in for a card benefit upon activation. This modest creature grants you life points per elf in your graveyard when it’s sacrificed, effectively turning past plays into a current advantage. This could easily sway the game’s momentum in your favor, especially in elf-heavy decks.

Resource Acceleration: Though it doesn’t directly produce mana or tokens, the Elvish Eulogist provides an incremental edge. By converting graveyard contents into life points, it frees up your mana resources to be invested in other capabilities while it passively supports your life total.

Instant Speed: The sacrifice ability of Elvish Eulogist operates at instant speed, making it a flexible component in any strategy. You can optimize timing to disrupt your opponent’s calculations, potentially swinging the match outcome by recovering life points when most impactful.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Elvish Eulogist’s ability relies on having Elf cards in your graveyard to generate gains. This need can be problematic, especially if your gameplay revolves around maintaining a full hand and manipulating the battlefield with numerous Elves.

Specific Mana Cost: While requiring only one green mana to be played, Elvish Eulogist is tied to decks that can produce green mana consistently. This specification constrains the card’s versatility and can complicate deck-building strategies that are not heavily green-oriented.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: For a one-cost creature, the Elvish Eulogist offers a niche ability that’s dependent on a particular race of cards. Other creatures or spells at similar mana cost might provide more immediate board presence or versatile abilities, which can make Elvish Eulogist less appealing in fast-paced or highly competitive settings.


Reasons to Include Elvish Eulogist in Your Collection

Versatility: Elvish Eulogist offers a unique ability to gain life through Elf graveyard synergy, making it a useful card in various Elf-themed decks. Its low mana cost also allows for an early play or an efficient addition to a curve in green-focused decks.

Combo Potential: When combined with cards that proliferate Elf deaths—such as those featuring sacrifice mechanics—Elvish Eulogist can become a source of significant life gain. It can also work well with strategies aimed at recurring creatures from the graveyard, maximizing the utility of its ability.

Meta-Relevance: As graveyard strategies become prevalent or if you’re up against aggressive decks that deal damage quickly, having Elvish Eulogist can provide a crucial life buffer. This enables you to stabilize and outlast opponents, securing a stronger position in games that test endurance and resilience.


How to beat

Elvish Eulogist holds a unique position in Magic: The Gathering as a creature that offers a life gain option upon sacrificing it. Players look to this card when they want to increase their life total while leveraging the death of other Elves. Yet, for all its utility, like many cards in the MTG universe, there are strategies to effectively counter it. To directly counter Elvish Eulogist, timing is everything. Consider using instant-speed removal spells to disrupt your opponent’s plans before they have the chance to utilize the Eulogist’s ability. Graveyard hate cards can also render Elvish Eulogist ineffective by preventing Elves from reaching the graveyard in the first place or by removing creatures from the graveyard in response to the Eulogist’s ability.

Additionally, cards that restrict or negate life gain can significantly hamper the effectiveness of Elvish Eulogist’s strategy. This ensures your opponent can’t pivot their game-plan based on the life buffer that the Eulogist might provide. Remember, focusing on maintaining a strong board presence and disrupting your opponent’s synergy are key tactics to overcome decks that rely on cards like Elvish Eulogist.


Cards like Elvish Eulogist

Elvish Eulogist serves a niche role in Magic: The Gathering’s vast array of creature cards, especially those with graveyard interaction. Comparable cards in this space include the Deathrite Shaman, a versatile creature capable of exiling cards from the graveyard to serve various effects. Though not strictly a graveyard-to-life conversion like Elvish Eulogist, Deathrite Shaman’s flexibility in resource manipulation showcases a different approach.

Another similar card would be Scavenging Ooze, which not only lets you exile cards from the graveyard but also allows you to incrementally strengthen the Ooze in the process. While Elvish Eulogist focuses on a single, potentially powerful life gain event, Scavenging Ooze offers a repeatable way to disrupt graveyard strategies and bolster itself on the battlefield.

Examining these choices, Elvish Eulogist stands out for its potential life swing in decks that encounter numerous creature deaths. In environments thriving on graveyard synergies, this particular Elf can be a simple yet effective foil, marking its place alongside other options within the strategic play of creature-centric and graveyard-utilizing decks in Magic: The Gathering.

Deathrite Shaman - Return to Ravnica (RTR)
Scavenging Ooze - Commander 2011 (CMD)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Elvish Eulogist MTG card by a specific set like Lorwyn and Duel Decks: Elves vs. Goblins, 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 Elvish Eulogist and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Elvish Eulogist Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2007-10-12 and 2014-12-05. Illustrated by Ben Thompson.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12007-10-12LorwynLRW 2052003normalblackBen Thompson
22007-11-16Duel Decks: Elves vs. GoblinsDD1 32003normalblackBen Thompson
32010-06-04Duels of the PlaneswalkersDPA 612003normalblackBen Thompson
42014-12-05Duel Decks Anthology: Elves vs. GoblinsEVG 32015normalblackBen Thompson

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Elvish Eulogist has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PauperLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2007-10-01 By the time this ability resolves, Elvish Eulogist will most likely be in your graveyard, so it will be counted by its own ability.

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