Marshdrinker Giant MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	5
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Creature — Giant Warrior
Released	2008-07-25
Set symbol
Set name	Eventide
Set code	EVE
Power	4
Toughness	3
Number	69
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Daarken

Key Takeaways

Marshdrinker Giant aids in land searches, ensuring mana needs are met for consistent gameplay.
Its land tutoring ramps mana resources, setting the stage for powerful late-game moves.
While not instant-speed itself, it supports strategies involving instant-speed interactions.

Text of card

When Marshdrinker Giant comes into play, destroy target Island or Swamp an opponent controls.

When giants rise from their long slumbers, they rarely remember how fragile the waking world can be.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Marshdrinker Giant offers a unique form of card advantage by directly interacting with land cards in your deck. Upon entering the battlefield, it allows you to search for a specific land, ensuring that you get the right mana you need, when you need it. This can be pivotal for smoothing out your draws and ensuring consistent play.

Resource Acceleration: Besides its ability to tutor a land card, Marshdrinker Giant helps ramp up your mana resources. It empowers your late-game strategies by ensuring that you hit your land drops, which is essential for casting high-cost spells sooner than expected and taking the lead in a game.

Instant Speed: While Marshdrinker Giant doesn’t operate at instant speed itself, it encourages a game plan that includes holding mana open for other instant-speed interactions. By securing your land drops with Marshdrinker Giant, you can more reliably keep mana open for instant-speed spells, countering opponent’s moves or making game-changing plays right before your turn begins.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Marshdrinker Giant demands you to discard another card when you play it, which might put you at a strategic disadvantage, particularly if your hand is already running low on critical spells or creatures.

Specific Mana Cost: To summon Marshdrinker Giant, you need a specific combination of mana types, including at least one black mana. This restricts the card’s versatility, making it less ideal for multi-colored decks that might struggle to consistently produce the necessary black mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a heftier mana requirement than some other creatures on the battlefield, Marshdrinker Giant can slow down your momentum, especially when facing decks that are designed to operate efficiently with lower-cost creatures or spells.

Reasons to Include Marshdrinker Giant in Your Collection

Versatility: Marshdrinker Giant stands out with its adaptable application across a swath of deck types. Its allure lies in its dual role, acting as a substantial creature and as a land acceleration tool, thereby enhancing both your defensive and mana base strategies.

Combo Potential: In decks that capitalize on landfall triggers or giant synergies, this colossal creature proves invaluable. Its ability to put lands onto the battlefield not only ramps your mana pool but also interacts with mechanics that activate upon land plays, creating opportunities for powerful plays.

Meta-Relevance: As a reflection of the current gaming environment, control and ramp decks are becoming increasingly dominant. Marshdrinker Giant’s capacity to quickly increase your mana resources makes it a potent addition against such strategies, keeping you a crucial step ahead in resource accumulation.

How to beat

Marshdrinker Giant may present itself as a formidable creature in MTG due to its potential to alter the game’s landscape by creating a considerable obstacle for your opponent. It’s crucial to recognize that despite its size, this giant isn’t invulnerable. The key to overcoming the Marshdrinker Giant lies in bypassing its strength with strategic removal.

Employ tap-down effects to keep it from becoming a threat in combat, or utilize exile effects, which are especially efficient against such towering creatures. Board wipes can also clear the path, nullifying the Giant’s presence. It’s essential to hold these responses until the Giant hits the board, ensuring that your opponent’s investment in mana and strategy is nullified.

Lastly, understand the value of tempo in MTG. Even if you cannot remove the Giant immediately, disrupting your opponent’s momentum by pressuring with faster, more aggressive plays can often lead to a favorable position. By remaining proactive and retaining answers to threats like Marshdrinker Giant, you stand a strong chance of maintaining dominance on the battlefield.

Cards like Marshdrinker Giant

Marshdrinker Giant stands as a unique creature card in Magic: The Gathering, with specific qualities that make it an interesting choice in giant tribal decks. When looking at similar cards, its closest relatives include the likes of Beanstalk Giant and Frost Titan. Beanstalk Giant, much like Marshdrinker Giant, benefits from land quantity, its power, and toughness equating to the number of lands a player controls. However, Marshdrinker Giant offers a mana acceleration ability that differentiates it, somewhat compensating for its higher mana cost.

Then, there’s Frost Titan, another formidable force among giants. It locks down permanents upon entering the battlefield or attacking, a form of control that Marshdrinker Giant does not possess. Nonetheless, Marshdrinker Giant’s lower converted mana cost makes it a more accessible option earlier in the game. Additionally, its land untapping capability synergizes well with landfall abilities or other mechanics that rely on lands being untapped.

Each of these giants offers unique strategic advantages, and while Marshdrinker Giant may not freeze the battlefield or grow with every land like its counterparts, its land untapping provides a different strategic angle that can be quite potent in any MTG game involving heavy mana use or the need for swift mana recovery.

Cards similar to Marshdrinker Giant by color, type and mana cost

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Marshdrinker Giant MTG card by a specific set like Eventide, 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 Marshdrinker Giant and other MTG cards: