Torgaar, Famine Incarnate MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 3 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost8
RarityRare
TypeLegendary Creature — Avatar
Power 7
Toughness 6

Key Takeaways

  1. Resetting opponents’ life to 10 can be a significant shift in game dynamics and a form of card advantage.
  2. Torgaar offers resource acceleration by casting for less mana through creature sacrifices.
  3. Torgaar’s synergy with instant speed cards can protect its presence and disrupt opponents.

Text of card

As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This spell costs less to cast for each creature sacrificed this way. When Torgaar, Famine Incarnate enters the battlefield, up to one target player's life total becomes half their starting life total, rounded down.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Torgaar, Famine Incarnate provides a significant benefit as it lets you reset an opponent’s life total to 10, potentially causing a massive loss of life without depleting your hand. When using Torgaar’s ability, you can leverage the cards you spend, including token creatures, to tilt the life balance in your favor. This alteration can translate into a form of card advantage because it makes each point of damage your other cards deal past this threshold far more impactful.

Resource Acceleration: Torgaar can be cast for less mana by sacrificing creatures. This trait effectively accelerates your resources since you can deploy this formidable threat much sooner than its high mana cost suggests. By utilizing tokens or expendable creatures, Torgaar hits the battlefield early, pressing your advantage and applying pressure right away.

Instant Speed: While Torgaar, Famine Incarnate itself doesn’t operate at instant speed, it pairs exceedingly well with cards that do. You can respond to enemy moves by sacrificing creatures at instant speed to lower Torgaar’s casting cost at a moment’s notice. Furthermore, once Torgaar is on the battlefield, having instant speed interactions becomes even more critical as opponents will be looking to respond to the altered life total. It’s here that the ability to protect Torgaar or disrupt opponents’ plans instantaneously can solidify a lead or swing the game state dramatically.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Playing Torgaar, Famine Incarnate often entails sacrificing two creatures as part of its casting cost. This can deplete your board presence, making it pivotal to evaluate whether the subsequent life total adjustment is worth the immediate creature loss.

Specific Mana Cost: Although the alternative casting cost lessens the burden, the card’s mana requirement includes two black mana. This emphasis on specific mana can potentially restrict deck-building options, favoring decks that can comfortably generate multiple black mana early in the game.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Despite its powerful effect, Torgaar comes with a base mana cost of six black and two of any color, which is substantial. There are scenarios where you might not have the necessary setup of additional creatures to make its alternate casting cost viable, leaving you with a card that’s costly to play compared to other impactful creatures or life-total influencing spells.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Torgaar, Famine Incarnate brings adaptability to the table. It can serve as both an impactful late-game presence or an emergency reset button for your life total, depending on the state of the game. Its ability to scale with the number of creatures you sacrifice makes it a flexible option for a variety of play styles.

Combo Potential: Torgaar’s life-setting ability has significant combo potential, often working hand-in-hand with cards that benefit from life total changes. It can be a formidable component in strategies designed to exploit such synergies, potentially swinging games in your favor unexpectedly.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta that prizes life totals as a resource for aggressive or “pay with life” strategies, Torgaar can act as a powerful counterbalance. By resetting life totals to a specific threshold, it stands as a bulwark against both rapid life loss and strategies that rely on a high life count to dominate the game.


How to beat Torgaar, Famine Incarnate

Torgaar, Famine Incarnate is a unique challenge on the battlefield with the capability to set a player’s life total to 10. Despite its daunting presence, overcoming this creature requires strategic play. Key is maintaining creature control; since Torgaar’s cost reduction depends on sacrificing creatures, removal spells like Fatal Push or Path to Exile, cast in response to sacrifice triggers, can mitigate its impact. Counter spells also serve as an effective blockade, preventing Torgaar from entering the field altogether.

Another approach is disrupting graveyard strategies, hindering the recurrence of this powerful being. Cards like Scavenging Ooze eat away at the graveyard, ensuring Torgaar stays out of play after it’s dealt with the first time. Lastly, it’s crucial to keep your life total above 10 when possible, mitigating Torgaar’s ability, or have alternative win conditions that don’t rely on life totals, such as milling your opponent or using planeswalkers’ ultimate abilities to secure victory.

While Torgaar, Famine Incarnate can be a formidable foe, understanding its mechanics and preparing your deck with appropriate answers ensures you maintain the upper hand during your duels.


BurnMana Recommendations

Mastering the strategic intricacies of MTG involves not only understanding the strengths and weaknesses of individual cards like Torgaar, Famine Incarnate but also recognizing their synergy within the larger game context. Torgaar can potentially turn the tide of a match with its substantial life-altering ability. Considering its power to recalibrate life totals and influence the battlefield, it’s a unique addition to any collection. For those eager to leverage such dynamic plays or counteract opponents’ life-centered strategies, Torgaar is a card to examine further. Explore deeper strategies, advanced deck-building techniques, and creative play concepts with us. Dive into the full potential of Torgaar, Famine Incarnate in your MTG endeavors.


Cards like Torgaar, Famine Incarnate

Torgaar, Famine Incarnate makes a formidable impact in Magic: The Gathering as it joins the ranks of cards offering life total manipulation. Its signature ability to set a player’s life total to 10 is akin to Sorin Markov’s ability which also alters life totals dramatically. However, Torgaar’s benefit, potentially costing as little as two mana thanks to its unique sacrifice mechanic, offers a distinct speed and cost advantage over Sorin’s six mana starting point.

Looking towards Erebos’s Intervention, we see another parallel in terms of life manipulation, though it operates on a different axis. Erebos’s Intervention provides more flexibility by dealing with creatures or graveyards and offers life gain rather than setting life totals. Though not as outright impactful as the sudden shift Torgaar provides, Erebos’s Intervention gives players a more nuanced control option.

Lastly, the comparison with Tree of Perdition is fitting. This tree can also swap life totals, but it requires tapping and doesn’t offer the massive 7/6 body that Torgaar provides immediately. While Tree of Perdition can potentially lower a life total more than Torgaar, it’s more susceptible to removal before effecting the life exchange. The immediacy of Torgaar’s entrance sets it apart in the life total game within Magic: The Gathering.

Sorin Markov - Zendikar (ZEN)
Erebos's Intervention - Theros Beyond Death Promos (PTHB)
Tree of Perdition - Eldritch Moon (EMN)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Torgaar, Famine Incarnate MTG card by a specific set like Dominaria Promos and Dominaria, 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 Torgaar, Famine Incarnate and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Torgaar, Famine Incarnate Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 2018-04-27 and 2019-11-15. Illustrated by Lius Lasahido.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12018-04-27Dominaria PromosPDOM 108s2015normalblackLius Lasahido
22018-04-27DominariaDOM 1082015normalblackLius Lasahido
32019-11-15Game Night 2019GN2 352015normalblackLius Lasahido

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Torgaar, Famine Incarnate has restrictions

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

Rules and information

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

DateText
2018-04-27 For your life total to become half your starting life total (normally 10, half of 20), you gain or lose the appropriate amount of life. For example, if your life total is 4 when Torgaar’s ability resolves targeting you, it will cause you to gain 6 life; alternatively, if your life total is 25 when it resolves, it will cause you to lose 15 life. Other cards that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly.
2018-04-27 In a Two-Headed Giant game, Torgaar’s ability causes the team’s life total to become half the team’s starting life total (normally 15, half of 30), but only the target player actually gains or loses life.
2018-04-27 Torgaar’s first ability can’t reduce its cost below . You can sacrifice any number of creatures, even if they won’t reduce Torgaar’s cost any further.

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