Elvish Champion Avatar MTG Card

Rarity	Rare
Type	Vanguard
Released	2003-01-01
Set symbol
Set name	Magic Online Avatars
Set code	PMOA
Number	37
Frame	2015
Layout	Vanguard
Border	Black
Illustred by	UDON

Key Takeaways

Elvish Champion Avatar offers card advantage by turning elves into significant threats while maintaining a strong board presence.
Resource acceleration is key, as it amplifies mana production from elves, allowing for quicker and more powerful spell casting.
Exploits instant speed synergy, pairing with elves that can be summoned during an opponent’s turn for unexpected advantages.

Text of card

You begin the game with a 1/1 green Elf creature token on the battlefield that has ": Add to your mana pool."

Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Elvish Champion Avatar card excels at providing card advantage. Its ability to empower your elves can turn each elf played into a potential threat, which pressures your opponents to deal with multiple threats, often leading them to deplete their hand while you maintain a strong board presence.

Resource Acceleration: In adding to the majesty of your elf deck, this avatar epitomizes resource acceleration. By boosting your elves, it’s likely to ensure that your mana-generating elves produce even more resources, enabling you to cast powerful spells earlier than normally possible, and outpace your competition in the crucial mid-game.

Instant Speed: While this card itself may not be an instant, it pairs well with elves that can be cast at instant speed. The ability to swell the ranks of your elves whenever necessary – perhaps even during your opponent’s turn – can catch them off guard and swing the tides of battle in your favor.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: In order to get Elvish Champion Avatar into play, you might face the drawback of having specific prerequisites that trim down your hand. This cost could weaken your position, especially when you’re strategizing for a winning move with a diminishing number of options at your disposal.

Specific Mana Cost: With its allegiance to forests, this card demands green mana, which could pose a challenge when you are crafting a deck with a diverse mana base. Such exclusivity often narrows deckbuilding possibilities, compelling players to commit to mono-green or heavily-green-oriented strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The demand for a sizeable amount of mana to summon the Elvish Champion Avatar can slow down your game, especially when competing against low-curve aggressive decks. In fast-paced matches, the time taken to marshal enough resources for this card could give your opponent the upper hand.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: The Elvish Champion Avatar is adaptable across various deck types that capitalize on Elf synergies. Its ability to enhance other Elf creatures makes it a staple for tribal builds, contributing to both offense and defense strategies.

Combo Potential: With its inherent lord ability, this avatar can be part of powerful combos, particularly in Elf decks that quickly amass a large number of creatures. It amplifies the potency of each Elf on the field, which can quickly turn the tide of a game.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta where Elf decks occur frequently or have a significant presence, Elvish Champion Avatar proves its worth. Its ability to boost Elf creatures’ power and toughness makes it a force multiplier, countering strategies that rely on stalling or overpowering creature-based thrusts.

How to beat

The Elvish Champion Avatar poses a distinctive challenge in Magic: The Gathering. This card capitalizes on the strength of your elf allies, making it a formidable addition to any elf-centric deck. To undermine the Champion’s potential, consider strategies that neutralize elf synergy. Sweepers like Wrath of God or board-clearing spells negate the cumulative power the Champion relies on by removing multiple creatures at once. Spell-based dissection also works wonders; targeted removal such as Swords to Plowshares can dispatch the Champion itself, clipping the wings of the elf army’s boost.

Focusing on cards that impose restrictions on creature abilities can also be an effective tactic. Some spells prevent creatures from being buffed or gaining abilities, which directly counteracts the Champion’s influence. Imagine employing Imposing Sovereign to slowdown your opponent’s strategy by making their elves enter the battlefield tapped, hindering their combat potential and negating the bonuses provided by the Elvish Champion Avatar.

In summary, a well-prepared deck with the right mixture of creature removal and control elements can contain the threat of an Elvish Champion Avatar, ensuring it doesn’t lead a rampant charge of elves across the battlefield.

Cards like Elvish Champion Avatar

The allure of the Elvish Champion Avatar card in Magic: The Gathering lies in its unique ability to bolster your elf tribe, similar to other lords like Elvish Archdruid and Imperious Perfect. Much like Elvish Champion, which gives all other elf creatures you control both a power and toughness increase, Elvish Archdruid also offers an uptick in strength to your elves. However, it parts ways with the Champion by providing a significant mana ramp for each elf in play, which the Avatar does not.

Walking in the same forest, Imperious Perfect gives a more modest boost to elf creature’s power, but it compensates with the advantageous elf token creation ability, distributing elf warriors across the field. Elvish Champion Avatar shines with its additional feature of granting forestwalk to your elves, an ability neither Elvish Archdruid nor Imperious Perfect possess, steering it to be a formidable force against decks heavy in forests.

While assessing the synergy and impact of elf-centric commanders and creatures, Elvish Champion Avatar emerges as an impactful card. Its strengths not only amplify the elves’ might but also navigate through the forests unimpeded, marking its special place in elf tribal decks.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Elvish Champion Avatar MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Avatars, 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 Champion Avatar and other MTG cards: