Durkwood Baloth MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 6 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost6
RarityCommon
TypeCreature — Beast
Abilities Suspend
Power 5
Toughness 5

Key Takeaways

  1. Can swing board momentum significantly when its suspend condition is met, changing the game state.
  2. Suspend offers strategic mana allocation, allowing for tempo maximization during earlier turns.
  3. Despite a high mana cost, it delivers a substantial 5/5 creature that can alter battlefield presence.

Text of card

Suspend 5— (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay and remove it from the game with five time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When you remove the last, play it without paying its mana cost. It has haste.)


Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Durkwood Baloth’s ability to make an immediate impact when its suspend condition resolves can swing the board in your favor. Its massive presence compensates for the card’s delayed entry, potentially outclassing opponents’ creatures to maintain superiority.

Resource Acceleration: Although this card doesn’t directly contribute to resource acceleration, its suspend allows you to allocate mana elsewhere in the early game. This means by the time the Baloth enters the battlefield, you can have other resources or threats in place, maximizing your tempo.

Instant Speed: While the Baloth itself does not operate at instant speed, the flexibility of the suspend mechanic allows you to plan its arrival strategically. It can create a surprise element as the suspension concludes, essentially working as a delayed instant that provides a formidable creature when the time is right.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Durkwood Baloth does not have a discard requirement, its suspend ability necessitates strategic forethought. Having it enter the battlefield in later turns could be at odds with immediate board demands or an agile playstyle.

Specific Mana Cost: Durkwood Baloth requires a considerable amount of green mana, totaling to five. This cost anchors it firmly in green-centric decks, potentially limiting its integration with more diverse or color-intensive strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Although summoning Durkwood Baloth via suspend may alleviate its initial casting cost, six mana for a 5/5 creature without additional abilities can be steep. In faster-paced games or environments where lower-cost creatures provide similar value, the Baloth might not always be the most mana-efficient play.


Reasons to Include Durkwood Baloth in Your Collection

Versatility: Durkwood Baloth’s flexibility is seen in its suspend ability, allowing it to mesh with decks that benefit from time-based strategies or need effective late-game creature drops.

Combo Potential: As a creature with a solid body, Durkwood Baloth synergizes well with strategies revolving around creature-based combos or those that capitalize on power and toughness for various effects.

Meta-Relevance: In an environment where slower, more controlling decks prevail, Durkwood Baloth offers a cost-effective way to bring a substantial threat to the board, potentially bypassing counter-heavy tactics.


How to beat Durkwood Baloth

Durkwood Baloth presents itself as a solid creature in MTG with its imposing 5/5 stats and the ability to sneak onto the battlefield as early as turn three thanks to its suspend mechanic. To outmaneuver this beast, control decks are a reliable go-to. Cards with exile effects like Path to Exile or Oblivion Ring bypass the Baloth’s hefty size, efficiently removing it from play without triggering any leave-the-battlefield effects.

Moreover, countering Durkwood Baloth before it emerges is also a smart tactic. Spells such as Cancel or Mana Leak work perfectly by targeting the suspended card, thwarting the Baloth’s arrival entirely. Tempo plays prove useful as well; bouncing a suspended Baloth back to the opponent’s hand delays the threat and sets them back on resources. In effect, anything that disrupts the suspend timeline or handles the creature without going toe-to-toe is key to earning the upper hand against Durkwood Baloth in your matches.


Cards like Durkwood Baloth

Durkwood Baloth represents a unique facet in the pantheon of creature cards within MTG. This formidable beast not only boasts a substantial 5/5 in stats but also carries the suspend mechanic, setting it apart from similar creatures. In comparison, creatures like Blastoderm present a similar challenge for opponents with a sturdy 5/5 body. However, Blastoderm lacks the flexibility provided by suspend, thereby committing the player to a full four mana cost upfront without the temporal liberty that Durkwood Baloth offers.

Another competitor in this territory is Thragtusk, a creature that gives immediate value upon entering the battlefield with its life-gain ability and leaving a token behind when it departs. While Thragtusk demands more immediate resources at a five mana cost, it doesn’t match the suspense and potential surprise factor of a suspended Durkwood Baloth that can swoop into play unexpectedly. Additionally, creatures like Leatherback Baloth also share the power and toughness metrics but command a strict green mana commitment, limiting the deck types they can slot into as smoothly as the more flexible Durkwood Baloth.

When weighing their strategic advantages, Durkwood Baloth’s unique blend of power, delayed play, and the element of surprise lends itself a formidable position among green creature staples in the realm of MTG.

Blastoderm - MTG Card versions
Thragtusk - MTG Card versions
Leatherback Baloth - MTG Card versions
Blastoderm - Nemesis (NEM)
Thragtusk - Magic 2013 (M13)
Leatherback Baloth - DCI Promos (PDCI)

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Gang of Elk - Seventh Edition (7ED)
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Giant Warthog - Judgment (JUD)
Rhox - Magic Online Promos (PRM)
Kodama of the East Tree - Commander Legends (CMR)
Terra Stomper - Zendikar (ZEN)
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Brontotherium - Legions (LGN)
Elvish Aberration - Masters 25 (A25)
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Craw Wurm - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Fangren Pathcutter - Salvat 2005 (PSAL)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Durkwood Baloth MTG card by a specific set like Time Spiral and Modern Masters, 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 Durkwood Baloth and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Durkwood Baloth Magic the Gathering card was released in 6 different sets between 2006-10-06 and 2021-03-19. Illustrated by Dan Frazier.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12006-10-06Time SpiralTSP 1932003normalblackDan Frazier
22013-06-07Modern MastersMMA 1422003normalblackDan Frazier
32017-11-17Iconic MastersIMA 1602015normalblackDan Frazier
42019-11-07Mystery BoosterMB1 11882015normalblackDan Frazier
52020-09-26The ListPLST IMA-1602015normalblackDan Frazier
62021-03-19Time Spiral RemasteredTSR 2002015normalblackDan Frazier

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Durkwood Baloth has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PauperLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2021-06-18 A creature cast using suspend will enter the battlefield with haste. It will have haste until another player gains control of it. (In some rare cases, another player may gain control of the creature spell itself. If this happens, the creature won’t enter the battlefield with haste.)
2021-06-18 As the second triggered ability resolves, you must cast the card if able. You must do so even if it requires targets and the only legal targets are ones that you really don’t want to target. Timing permissions based on the card’s type are ignored.
2021-06-18 Cards exiled with suspend are exiled face up.
2021-06-18 Exiling a card with suspend isn’t casting that card. This action doesn’t use the stack and can’t be responded to.
2021-06-18 If an effect refers to a “suspended card,” that means a card that (1) has suspend, (2) is in exile, and (3) has one or more time counters on it.
2021-06-18 If the card has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.
2021-06-18 If the first triggered ability of suspend (the one that removes time counters) is countered, no time counter is removed. The ability will trigger again at the beginning of the card’s owner’s next upkeep.
2021-06-18 If the second triggered ability is countered, the card can’t be cast. It remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18 If the spell requires any targets, those targets are chosen when the spell is finally cast, not when it’s exiled.
2021-06-18 If you can’t cast the card, perhaps because there are no legal targets available, it remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18 If you cast a card “without paying its mana cost,” such as with suspend, you can’t choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, you must pay those if you want to cast the card.
2021-06-18 Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that allows you to exile the card from your hand with the specified number of time counters (the number before the dash) on it by paying its suspend cost (listed after the dash). The second is a triggered ability that removes a time counter from the suspended card at the beginning of each of your upkeeps. The third is a triggered ability that causes you to cast the card when the last time counter is removed. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of that creature (or, in rare cases, you lose control of the creature spell while it’s on the stack).
2021-06-18 The mana value of a spell cast without paying its mana cost is determined by its mana cost, even though that cost wasn’t paid.
2021-06-18 When the last time counter is removed, the second triggered ability of suspend (the one that lets you cast the card) triggers. It doesn’t matter why the last time counter was removed or what effect removed it.
2021-06-18 You are never forced to activate mana abilities to pay costs, so if there is a mandatory additional mana cost (such as from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben), you can decline to activate mana abilities to pay for it and hence fail to cast the suspended card, leaving it in exile.
2021-06-18 You can exile a card in your hand using suspend any time you could cast that card. Consider its card type, any effects that modify when you could cast it (such as flash) and any other effects that stop you from casting it (such as from Meddling Mage’s ability) to determine if and when you can do this. Whether you could actually complete all steps in casting the card is irrelevant. For example, you can exile a card with suspend that has no mana cost or that requires a target even if no legal targets are available at that time.

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