Woodcaller Automaton MTG Card

Card setsReleased in 3 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost10
RarityRare
TypeArtifact Creature — Construct
Abilities Prototype
Power 8
Toughness 8

Key Takeaways

  1. Enables card advantage by fetching specific cards, enhancing deck consistency and momentum.
  2. Accelerates mana resources, aiding players to execute game plans ahead of schedule.
  3. Operates at instant speed, allowing for versatile play and immediate threat response.

Text of card

Prototype — 3/3 (You may cast this spell with different mana cost, color, and size. It keeps its abilities and types.) When Woodcaller Automaton enters the battlefield, if you cast it, untap target land you control. It becomes a Treefolk creature with haste and base power and toughness equal to Woodcaller Automaton's power and toughness. It's still a land.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Woodcaller Automaton offers you the chance to dig deeper into your library. With its ability to search for a card and potentially place that card into your hand, it can swing the momentum of the game by ensuring you have the right tools when you need them.

Resource Acceleration: This resourceful automaton steps up the pace of gameplay. It’s not just about drawing a card – this clever construct might put a land card onto the battlefield, thus ramping up your available mana resources ahead of schedule and giving you a lead in the mana race.

Instant Speed: Flexibility is key, and Woodcaller Automaton operates at instant speed, offering the strategic advantage of acting at the end of your opponent’s turn. This allows you to keep your options open, respond to threats immediately, and optimize the timing of your plays without sacrificing the element of surprise.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: It mandates discarding a card as part of its activation, potentially depleting your hand and reducing options for future plays.

Specific Mana Cost: This artifact creature demands a precise blend of mana types that might not align with all color strategies, potentially creating a bottleneck in mana-fixing.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The Woodcaller Automaton comes with a mana cost that can be on the steeper side when evaluating its utility against other cards at a similar threshold, potentially slowing down your game tempo.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Woodcaller Automaton can easily adapt to multiple playstyles, finding a place in decks that appreciate generating mana of any color, as well as those that capitalize on artifact or creature synergies.

Combo Potential: This card’s ability to search for Forest cards makes it a key component in land-based strategies, setting the stage for powerful plays and enabling combos with other cards that interact with lands or benefit from land ramp.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where land-ramp is crucial for setting up game-winning turns or stabilizing the board against aggressive starts, the Woodcaller Automaton’s capacity to ensure land drops can be incredibly impactful.

How to beat

Woodcaller Automaton presents a unique challenge on the battlefield with its ability to fetch creature cards from your library with a mana cost of 3 or less. To effectively navigate against Woodcaller Automaton, a player should prioritize removal strategies. Spot removal spells are excellent for swiftly taking Woodcaller Automaton out of play before it can generate value through its ability. Cards like Fatal Push or Path to Exile serve this purpose well and come with low mana costs, ensuring you can respond without falling behind.

Another tactic involves applying pressure with swift, aggressive plays that outpace the value Woodcaller Automaton can provide. Decks that focus on putting multiple threats on the board from early turns can overwhelm an opponent before Woodcaller Automaton’s ability becomes relevant. Finally, countering Woodcaller Automaton when it’s cast stops the threat before it starts. Keep your mana open for counterspells such as Negate or Essence Scatter and anticipate the opportunity to neutralize it. Success against Woodcaller Automaton hinges on being proactive and disrupting your opponent’s plays.

Cards like Woodcaller Automaton

Woodcaller Automaton presents MTG fans with a unique spin on artifact creatures that tap for mana. It’s reminiscent of artworks such as Llanowar Elves, sharing the ability to generate mana straightforwardly. Nonetheless, Woodcaller Automaton stands out by being less susceptible to sorcery-speed removal due to its artifact nature, thereby improving its resilience within your deck’s structure.

Comparing it with another similar entity, Rattleclaw Mystic, we observe a slight edge. Rattleclaw also provides mana flexibility, but Woodcaller Automaton does so without the need to expose itself by transforming. Then there’s the venerable Birds of Paradise, an all-star in the mana dork category. While the Birds can produce any color mana, which is undoubtedly advantageous, the Woodcaller Automaton has a sturdier body, potentially offering staying power on the board.

Analyzing these comparisons, it’s evident the Woodcaller Automaton earns its spot in the artifact-heavy synergistic decks of MTG. Its inherent durability combined with mana-generating utility carves a niche that potentially boosts deck consistency and performance over opponents.

Llanowar Elves - MTG Card versions
Rattleclaw Mystic - MTG Card versions
Birds of Paradise - MTG Card versions
Llanowar Elves - MTG Card versions
Rattleclaw Mystic - MTG Card versions
Birds of Paradise - MTG Card versions

Cards similar to Woodcaller Automaton by color, type and mana cost

Rust Goliath - MTG Card versions
Rust Goliath - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Woodcaller Automaton MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and The Brothers' War, 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 Woodcaller Automaton and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Woodcaller Automaton Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2022-11-18 and 2022-11-18. Illustrated by Ryan Pancoast.

#ReleasedNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 1058302015PrototypeBlackRyan Pancoast
22022-11-18The Brothers' WarBRO 2922015PrototypeBlackRyan Pancoast
32022-11-18The Brothers' WarBRO 3772015PrototypeBlackRyan Pancoast

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Woodcaller Automaton has restrictions

FormatLegality
StandardLegal
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
AlchemyLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
FutureLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
BrawlLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

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

Date Text
2022-10-14 A prototype card is a colorless card in every zone except the stack or the battlefield, as well as while on the stack or the battlefield if not cast as a prototyped spell. Ignore its alternative characteristics in those cases. For example, while it's in your graveyard, Blitz Automaton is a colorless creature card with mana value 7. It can't be the target of Recommission, a spell that targets an artifact or creature card with mana value 3 or less in your graveyard.
2022-10-14 Casting a prototyped spell isn't the same as casting it for an alternative cost, and an alternative cost may be applied to a spell cast this way. For example, if an effect allows you to cast an artifact card without paying its mana cost, you could either cast Blitz Automaton normally, or as a prototyped spell.
2022-10-14 If an effect copies a prototyped spell, that copy (as well as the token it becomes on the battlefield) will have the same characteristics as the prototyped spell. Similarly, if an effect creates a token that's a copy of a prototyped permanent or causes another permanent to become a copy of it, the copy would have the same characteristics as the prototyped permanent.
2022-10-14 Regardless of how it was cast, a prototype card always has the same name, abilities, types, and so on. Only the mana cost, mana value, color, power, and toughness change depending on whether the card was cast as a prototyped spell.
2022-10-14 The prototype ability functions in any zone that the spell could be cast from. For example, if an effect allows you to cast artifact spells from your graveyard, you could cast a prototyped Blitz Automaton from your graveyard.
2022-10-14 Use Woodcaller Automaton's power and toughness at the time its triggered ability resolves to determine the base power and toughness of the Treefolk creature land. If Woodcaller Automaton is no longer on the battlefield, use the power and toughness it had the last time it was on the battlefield.
2022-10-14 When cast as a prototyped spell, that spell has the mana cost, power, and toughness characteristics shown in its colored, secondary text box rather than the normal values of those characteristics. Its color and mana value are determined by that mana cost. The permanent that spell becomes as it resolves has the same characteristics. If the spell leaves the stack in any other way, or the permanent it becomes leaves the battlefield, it immediately resumes using its normal characteristics.
2022-10-14 When casting a prototyped spell, use only its prototype characteristics to determine whether it's legal to cast it. For example, if Blitz Automaton is exiled with the last ability of Chandra, Dressed to Kill, you would be able to cast it for (because it's a red spell), even though you wouldn't be able to cast it as a colorless spell for its normal cost.