Saproling Burst

Saproling Burst is a green enchantment card in Magic: The Gathering. The card was first released during the Masques block with a rare rarity in the Nemesis set. Carl Critchlow is responsible for the cacophony of art on the card. The card is set in a forest canopy, as we clearly see the branches upon which the imagery is perched upon. The top of the card is dominated by wispy-green bulbs - which we suppose is the alluded to 'saproling', while the bottom of the card seems to show a juvenile Blastoderm at right, and a predatory type of venus fly trap at right. Danger blooming from the pastoral canopy of green's domain is the theme of this card.

Saproling Burst has a converted mana cost of five (4G) for an intriguing permanent with Fading 7. Burst's mechanic is that a fade token may be removed and put into play as a creature with power/toughness equal to the number of fade tokens still on Saproling Burst (further rulings clarified that each token 'remembers' which Saproling Burst borne it, should there be multiple enchantments in play). During that player's next Upkeep phase, a fade token is removed, and all tokens automatically reflect the new power/toughness. If a fade token cannot be removed from Saproling Burst - indicating there are 0 fade tokens left - the enchantment, and all associated creature tokens, are removed from play.

The crux of the enchantment was that it was at the player's responsibility to determine how to deploy the fade tokens into battle. Throughout Masques, it was optimal to create two creature tokens immediately. Once the Invasion block opened, with a set of the same name, global haste was immediately an option and the optimal number shifted to either 2 or 3 tokens - a tie broken by the opponent's deck type, mana situation, and overall tenor of the match at the time Burst dropped.

IronNoder 2018: 09/30