When Wizards of the Coast announced Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, they stated that they were really wanting to lean into the “digital only” aspect of the set and Historic as a format. They announced 3 new digital only mechanics that really only can operate in the digital space, and also some digital only, Arena only cards that push how Magic games are played into all new territory. We have a few of those cards previewed right now, but one just dropped on the mothership site that takes a favorite Magic Online format and brings it to constructed.
Enter Pool of Vigorous Growth. The format that I referenced earlier was Momir Basic. This format is a format where you essentially have a 60 card deck that’s all basic lands, and an emblem that says “X, Discard a Card: Create a token that’s a copy of a random creature with converted mana cost X. Activate only as a sorcery and only once per turn.” We’ve seen this format make its way to Magic Arena as well, but the limited card pool makes that format a bit less fun. With the influx of new cards coming to Arena in Historic Horizons, the card pool of potential creatures opens up quite a bit.
With Pool of Vigorous Growth, we get to play with this effect now in Historic. The benefit of having this as a card in the format in comparison to actual Momir, is that we can play real cards in our deck. The downside is that it takes up a slot in our deck. Unless you’re a deck that’s geared to abuse this effect, it’s a card that should be strictly relegated to brawl.
What Mana Cost Is Good?
Normally in Momir, there’s generally a mana value that you’re trying to get to that gives you the best odds to put a creature in play that will win you the game. In old Arena Momir, that number was 9 to get Zacama, Primal Calamity. Barring some crazy additions to the game in Historic Horizons, the number you’re looking to hit is 10 mana. What can you hit at 10 mana you ask? Well, there’s only 3 outcomes:
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is the big bad eldrazi in the format, and can very quickly end a game. Same goes for Impervious Greatworm, as a 16/16 indestructible is pretty hard to deal with. Jin-Gitaxiais, Core Augur isn’t quite as strong as the other two stats wise, but it’s effect can be devastating to our opponent. As for our 9 cost hits, the only good ones are Zacama, and The Tarrasque out of 5 possible hits, so while its not a bad shout to go for 9, 10 is really the sweet spot.
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There’s probably a few different decks that we could use to build around “Pool of Vigorous Growth”, but we’ll have to wait and see what else is in the set to know exactly how to go about it. What are your thoughts on this card? Let us know in the comments!
Jumpstart: Historic Horizons is a Magic Arena only set. The set will be only legal for the Historic Format. It releases on August 12, 2021 on Magic Arena and contains 782 cards, comprised of 31 new Arena Only cards, and 751 reprints from Modern Horizons, Modern Horizons 2 and more. You can check out our preview gallery to stay up to date with all the cards!
