Worm Harvest MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 4 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityRare
TypeSorcery
Abilities Retrace

Key Takeaways

  1. Repeated token generation from graveyard sets Worm Harvest apart as a long-term advantage source.
  2. It thrives in land-rich graveyards, scaling potency with land count for impactful board presence.
  3. Despite a high mana cost, its versatility and synergy make it a worthy deck inclusion.

Text of card

Put a 1/1 black and green Worm creature token into play for each land card in your graveyard. Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Worm Harvest is a standout card offering a repeatable way to create creature tokens. With its retrace ability, you can cast it from the graveyard by discarding a land card, ensuring that it remains a persistent threat and card advantage engine throughout the game.

Resource Acceleration: This card synergizes extremely well with strategies that fill the graveyard with land cards. As lands accumulate in the graveyard, Worm Harvest’s potential grows, allowing for a significant burst in board presence, which translates to accelerated resource utilization especially in the mid to late game.

Instant Speed: While not at instant speed, Worm Harvest’s retrace ability offers a parallel benefit, giving you the flexibility to cast it multiple turns in a row. This allows players to strategically decide the best moment to fill the battlefield with creatures, which can often be as impactful as casting at instant speed.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Worm Harvest necessitates you to have land cards in your graveyard to produce creature tokens, potentially limiting its effectiveness if you’re unable to meet this condition or need to use your graveyard resources for other strategies.

Specific Mana Cost: This card demands a precise blend of black, green, and colorless mana, which may restrict its inclusion to specific multicolored decks and can be challenging to produce consistently, especially in the early game.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Worm Harvest’s initial casting cost can be steep, as five mana is substantial, and could be deemed inefficient when compared to other token-generating options that require less mana and offer immediate board presence without preconditions.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Worm Harvest is a dynamic addition to graveyard-centric decks and functions well across various formats such as Commander and Modern. Not only does it create an army of creatures for defense or offense, but it recirculates back into your deck, ready for another round.

Combo Potential: By generating a large number of Worm tokens, Worm Harvest synergizes effectively with cards that thrive on creature tokens. Pairing it with doublers like Parallel Lives or using sacrifice outlets turns it into a powerful engine for value generation.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where control decks and long games prevail, Worm Harvest excels by providing a consistent threat that demands an answer and continues to leverage value from the graveyard – a resource often untapped by other strategies.


How to beat Worm Harvest

Worm Harvest is a unique formidable card in MTG, offering players the ability to repeatedly create worm creature tokens based on the number of land cards in their graveyard. With its retrace ability, it can keep coming back, making it a resilient foe. To effectively tackle this, graveyard removal spells can be vital. These spells disrupt the strategic accumulation of land cards in the graveyard, weakening Worm Harvest’s impact.

Cards such as Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void can utterly shut down graveyard-based strategies, nullifying Worm Harvest’s advantage right from the start of the game. Alternatively, efficient removal spells that handle multiple creatures, such as Supreme Verdict or Damnation, can clear out the worm tokens. If you maintain a clear board, the worms will have no chance to overrun your defenses.

Knowing when to counter Worm Harvest when it’s cast from the hand is also key. A well-timed counter spell like Dovin’s Veto can prevent Worm Harvest from entering the battlefield initially, preventing any worm tokens from being created and stunting your opponent’s strategy. In sum, proper graveyard management and strategic timing of removals or counters are essential to outplay your opponent’s Worm Harvest.


BurnMana Recommendations

As we delve into the strategic layers of MTG, Worm Harvest emerges as a notable card for players to consider. Its ability to craft an ever-growing army of tokens offers a formidable presence in games that stretch into the late turns. For those intrigued by graveyard mechanics and land strategies, it’s a unique card that can create significant advantages. Additionally, its strong synergies make it an asset in various MTG formats. Intrigued by Worm Harvest’s suite of utilities and want to explore how to best integrate it into your deck? We encourage you to delve deeper with us and uncover strategies to command your matches with this intriguing card. Discover more and harness the power of Worm Harvest in your next duel.


Cards like Worm Harvest

Worm Harvest is a unique spell in MTG that stands out for its ability to create creature tokens based on the number of land cards in its controller’s graveyard. In this vein, we can draw parallels with cards like Life from the Loam, which also interacts with lands in the graveyard, albeit without the token generation. Life from the Loam allows for the retrieval of land cards, setting the stage for a Worm Harvest later in the game.

Another card that echoes the theme of land synergy is Scapeshift. While Scapeshift is known for trading lands from the battlefield for an equal number from the library, it facilitates potent landfall triggers and sets up lucrative graveyard conditions for a Worm Harvest. Additionally, we consider the card Splendid Reclamation. It differs from Worm Harvest by restoring all land cards from the graveyard to the battlefield rather than creating creature tokens, but it strongly aligns with the land-based strategy built around Worm Harvest.

When evaluating Worm Harvest alongside its counterparts, it’s clear that it fits well within the niche of graveyard-land synergy in MTG. Offering both a token strategy and recursion opportunities, Worm Harvest can be a key component in decks built around leveraging the abundance of land cards.

Life from the Loam - MTG Card versions
Scapeshift - MTG Card versions
Splendid Reclamation - MTG Card versions
Life from the Loam - Ravnica: City of Guilds (RAV)
Scapeshift - Morningtide (MOR)
Splendid Reclamation - Eldritch Moon Promos (PEMN)

Cards similar to Worm Harvest by color, type and mana cost

Pestilent Cauldron // Restorative Burst - MTG Card versions
Spider Spawning - MTG Card versions
Death Frenzy - MTG Card versions
Pick Your Poison - MTG Card versions
Diregraf Rebirth - MTG Card versions
Pestilent Cauldron // Restorative Burst - Strixhaven: School of Mages Promos (PSTX)
Spider Spawning - Shadows of the Past (SIS)
Death Frenzy - Khans of Tarkir (KTK)
Pick Your Poison - Mystery Booster Playtest Cards 2021 (CMB2)
Diregraf Rebirth - Innistrad: Double Feature (DBL)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Worm Harvest MTG card by a specific set like Eventide 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 Worm Harvest and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Worm Harvest Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2008-07-25 and 2018-08-09. Illustrated by Chuck Lukacs.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12008-07-25EventideEVE 1312003normalblackChuck Lukacs
22013-06-07Modern MastersMMA 1952003normalblackChuck Lukacs
32016-11-11Commander 2016C16 2382015normalblackChuck Lukacs
42018-08-09Commander 2018C18 1942015normalblackChuck Lukacs

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Worm Harvest has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2008-08-01 A retrace card cast from your graveyard follows the normal timing rules for its card type.
2008-08-01 Casting a card by using its retrace ability works just like casting any other spell, with two exceptions: You’re casting it from your graveyard rather than your hand, and you must discard a land card in addition to any other costs.
2008-08-01 If the active player casts a spell that has retrace, that player may cast that card again after it resolves, before another player can remove the card from the graveyard. The active player has priority after the spell resolves, so they can immediately cast a new spell. Since casting a card with retrace from the graveyard moves that card onto the stack, no one else would have the chance to affect it while it’s still in the graveyard.
2008-08-01 If you cast Worm Harvest from your graveyard by using retrace, the land you discard as an additional cost will be counted by Worm Harvest when it resolves.
2008-08-01 When a retrace card you cast from your graveyard resolves, fails to resolve, or is countered, it’s put back into your graveyard. You may use the retrace ability to cast it again.
2018-07-13 Casting a card with retrace from your graveyard follows the normal timing rules for its card type.
2018-07-13 When a retrace card you cast from your graveyard resolves or is countered, it’s put back into your graveyard. You may use the retrace ability to cast it again. If it’s your turn, you may do so before any other player may take actions to try to remove it from your graveyard.

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