While today is the final day of Lorwyn Eclipsed preview season, that doesn’t mean the hype for the set is dying down. On the contrary, it appears that Wizards has saved many of the set’s best cards for last. Yesterday we got to see some new typal goodies and a powerful new creature tutor, for example. On top of that, we also saw Brigid, Clachan’s Heart/Brigid, Doun’s Mind, a flip legend that hearkens back to one of the most busted lands in all of MTG.
Brigid, Clachan’s Heart/Brigid, Doun’s Mind MTG
Most of the new Lorwyn Eclipsed flip legends are pretty underwhelming, but Brigid bucks that trend in a big way. Assuming it survives the turn cycle necessary to transform, this creature gives you access to a new Gaea’s Cradle effect on the back side. This is one of the best lands the game has ever seen, so any effect that emulates it is well worth a look.
Brigid is obviously more vulnerable than Cradle, being a two-toughness creature rather than a land. That said, it’s also more flexible, since it can tap for white mana as well as green. This sets the card apart from Cradle and its retrains, like Evendo, Waking Haven, right away. It’s also well worth noting that this is the only version of this effect we’ve seen on a creature, other than the Defender-specific Axebane Guardian, which opens up interesting avenues for the card.
Brigid is also notable for fueling its own ability. By making a token on entry, it ensures you’ll at least get one mana out of it the next turn. You can also get sneaky with the triggers the turn after that, tapping Brigid before it transforms to get both the mana and another token. You’ll probably prefer to just keep Brigid flipped in most cases, but it’s nice that the option exists.
A New Cradle For Commander
Naturally, Brigid, Clachan’s Heart/Brigid, Doun’s Mind will likely shine the brightest in MTG Commander. Being a legendary creature gets it off to a great start right away, since you can run it as a Commander to gain consistent access to that Cradle effect every game. This makes it easy for Brigid to enable several infinite mana combos, the likes of which we often see at cEDH tables.
With five other creatures in play, for example, you can keep untapping Brigid with Staff of Domination to generate infinite mana. You can then feed that mana back into Staff to draw your whole deck, and win using any outlet you see fit. A similar combo is possible with Gauntlets of Light and four other creatures, though you will need another outlet in that case. Alternatively, you can use creature untappers like Seekers of Skybreak alongside ability doublers like Rings of Brighthearth to the same end.
Combos like this are nothing new for Commander, of course, but it’s important to stress how novel having access to this effect in the command zone is. Very few legends in Magic are capable of tapping for a lot of mana, with only Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary springing to mind. With Rofellos banned and Selvala restricted to Mono-Green, Brigid could very easily become the go-to gal for this effect in the format.
A Serious Shot In Standard
On top of its huge Commander potential, I also believe that Brigid, Clachan’s Heart/Brigid, Doun’s Mind has a very real chance of seeing play in MTG Standard. This is largely down to the big presence of Selesnya Landfall in the current metagame, a deck into which Brigid fits like a glove.
Alongside Badgermole Cub, Brigid is capable of creating truly disgusting amounts of mana early on. Not only does Cub add an extra green onto the final score, it also puts two more bodies in play, which means you’re looking at five extra mana on turn three easily. This make’s the deck’s turn four combo kills much more consistent, since you’ll have ample mana to drop both Mightform Harmonizer and Icetill Explorer.
Brigid’s mana generation potential is so great, in fact, that it opens up new avenues for the deck. Assuming you curve Llanowar Elves into Brigid then Badgermole Cub, a turn four Craterhoof Behemoth will let you push for a whopping 42 Trample damage. Craterhoof isn’t a great fit in current iterations of the deck since you typically need to tap down all your creatures to cast it, but Brigid changes that.
That said, it’s important to be realistic about Brigid’s chances. As a two-toughness creature, it’s vulnerable to a lot of Standard’s best removal, Torch the Tower in particular. This is bad in a vacuum for tempo reasons, but doubly so since Brigid needs to survive a turn to start ramping you. With how popular Izzet decks are in the format right now, this could be enough to kill the card.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew!