MTG Salvation

Here's a fun poll for everybody...a vote for Magic's all-time best wurm. Without further ado, kindly cast your votes accordingly for the wurm you feel is the all-around winner in terms of casting cost, power, abilities, and fun factor. You may NOT vote for wurms not on the list. The choices are as follows:

Arrogant Wurm (Torment) / Reckless Wurm (Planar Chaos) - 5cc green / red 4/4 trampler, 3cc with madness.

Argothian Wurm (Urza's Saga) - 4cc green 6/6 trampler, when it comes into play any player may sacrifice a land to make its controller put it on top of their library.

Autochthon Wurm (Ravnica) - 15cc, green white 9/14 trampler, convoke. Good as a finisher in saproling decks.

Endless Wurm (Urza's Saga) - 5cc, green 9/9 trampler, during your upkeep you must sacrifice an enchantment or sacrifice Endless Wurm. Great old combo between the wurm and Rancor.

Golgari Rotwurm (Ravnica) - 5cc, black green 5/4, for every black mana you pay you may sacrifice a creature to have an opponent lose 1 life.

Penumbra Wurm (Apocalypse) - 7cc, red/green 6/6 trampler, if it goes to the graveyard, it returns to play as a black 6/6 trampler.

Phantom Wurm (Time Spiral) - 6cc, green 6/4 trampler (2/0 with 4 +1/+1 counters on it), if damage would be done to it, prevent that damage and instead remove a +1/+1 counter.

Shivan Wurm (Planeshift) - 5cc, red/green 7/7 trampler, when it comes into play return a red or green creature you control to its owner's hand, i.e. gating.

Symbiotic Wurm (Onslaught) - 8cc, green 7/7, when it goes to the graveyard put 7 1/1 green insects into play under your control.

Yavimaya Wurm (Urza's Legacy) - 6cc, green 6/4 trampler. Also known as "the card that made Craw Wurm obsolete."

Well, the sig pretty much made a poll like this mandatory.

I'm going with Shivan Wurm. It's okay in most decks, and of course it was one of the famous companions of Flametongue Kavu in fire decks, but this card stands on its own as completely degenerate in red/green beats.

Turn 1: Mountain, Orcish Lumberjack.

Turn 2: Forest, tap for a red and a green, tap the lumberjack to sacrifice the forest for any combination of 3 red or green mana (doesn't matter), play Shivan Wurm, return Orcish Lumberjack to your hand.

It's won me many a game.

You missed the best wurm, but as you're forcing me to vote for cards on that list, Arrogant Wurm is the best one you listed. Don't be fooled by the upper-right corner - Arrogant Wurm is 2G for a 4/4 flash trample, and is very, very good.

What about my good friend Platy?

But from among the choices given, Arrogant/Reckless takes it.

I also voted for Arrogant Wurm.

Endless Wurm all the way. I once built a green white deck that accelerated into Endless Wurm with Instill Energy cast on it.

I wan a lot of free games that way especially in 7 player casual games when I was still in high school.

I think Symbiotic Wurm is designed ingeniously; it's like a Penumbra that makes you change gears significantly when it dies.

Arrogant wurm if you're looking for the best one in a spike sense.

I admit that I goofed by leaving out the Slagwurm. All of the wurms included are unique in some sense, and I've never been a fan of high-cost wurms with no evasion that roll over and die to non-targeted removal. HOWEVER, the slagwurm is a major exception and I simply forgot about him when I did my mental checklist because I haven't used him in years. It is relatively easy to cast Primal Rage or Fist of Ironwood or Rancor to make him a nigh-unkillable, quasi-unblockable beast. And of course most non-targeted removal - like Savage Twister and Inferno can almost never wipe him out.

I am sorry, Plated Slagwurm...you deserved far better than an honorable mention...

I will agree with Chaos Juggler, though. Symbiotic Wurm is a lot better than people give him credit for. Consider having two Gaea's Anthem on the field. The wurm is a 9/9 beater, who in a good mono-green deck probably came out on 5 or 6 at the latest. You cast Lure on him, and you probably just killed most of your opponent's decent creatures. Regardless of the damage dealt, you just bought yourself 7 3/3 insects for next turn.

And that ain't bad at all.

I'm a fan of both the Shivan and Arrogant varieties, but I'll go with Shivan for purposes of this poll.

Autuchthon wurm ftw!!!!!!!

I voted as a joke; really like Argothian Wurm and its wumpus counterpart.

Scaled Wurm!!!!111!111111!1111!!
lol jk i voted for reckless/arrogent

Arrogant Wurm is the most powerful, followed by Roar of the Wurm (which should definitely be on that list). Madness and Flashback were both very strong, and together in aggro/control decks, they were insane. Being able to get vastly underpriced fatties while holding underpriced counterspells is just silly.

Arrogant Wurm. For the fact it is used in madness builds.

Arrogant/Reckless. Most used wurms in all of magic, because a 4/4 trample for 3 is nothing to frown upon.

Quote from mdmunoz

Arrogant Wurm is the most powerful, followed by Roar of the Wurm (which should definitely be on that list). Madness and Flashback were both very strong, and together in aggro/control decks, they were insane. Being able to get vastly underpriced fatties while holding underpriced counterspells is just silly.

Roar of the Wurm is not a wurm in itself. He's talking to actual wurms...not the cards that make them.

Argothian Wurm for being a 6/6 for :3mana::symg: that has a unique punisher/rhystic ability when it comes into play.

'buster

Quote from Flamebuster

Roar of the Wurm is not a wurm in itself. He's talking to actual wurms...not the cards that make them.

Why should that distinction matter for the purposes of this poll? All it can do is put a wurm into play.

Besides, if you want to be technical, the poll said wurms, not wurm cards. "The wurm token from Roar" is a wurm. Why cant the token itself be on the list?

Shivan Wurm is great for bouncing that Eternal Witness or any other red or green CIP card! Not to mention it has an awesome body. It got my vote.
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I 2nd the Shivan Wurm. In terms of sheer power for the cost, SW is a 7/7 trample for a mere 5 mana. Even it's a tough descision because I have made decks with most of the Wurms on the list including the underated Symbiotic Wurm ( reanimated with Nantuko Husk), Shivan is the magical " 3 hit's and yer gone " with minimal drawback that barely edges out the others for me. Great list BTW:) .

Quote from mdmunoz

Why should that distinction matter for the purposes of this poll? All it can do is put a wurm into play.

Besides, if you want to be technical, the poll said wurms, not wurm cards. "The wurm token from Roar" is a wurm. Why cant the token itself be on the list?

Because Roar of the Wurm doesn't say "Creature - Wurm". It says "Sorcery". Big difference. We're talking about wurms ITSELF. If we were talking about best creature MAKER then Roar would be right up there near the top. But we're not.

Compare Roar to something like Shivan Wurm. Roar of the Wurm only puts a 6/6 wurm token into play. No other abilities. Now perhaps if the Roar had put a wurm into play with trample or some other ability, then yes it would be the best. Shivan Wurm, on the other hand, is a 7/7 trampler for :3mana::symr::symg: with a unique and useful combat trick that can create neat and deadly comboes with the right cards (an example would be Eternal Witness). Roar..well...it costs less. That's about it.

so it doesn't really make sense to include cards which make tokens of the creature type being polled on. Point is, the token is merely that: A token. It doesn't have anything else going for it other than being made from a sorcery-speed source that doesn't give it any other additional abilities.

In this case, a 7/7 trampler with an enabler ability is much better than the token maker, regardless of whether it costs :3mana::symg: or otherwise.

'buster

Endless Wurm, for me. There's rancor, Hatching Plans, etc.
Arrogant wurm is good for madness, but i prefer its bigger cousins.

Quote from Flamebuster »

Because Roar of the Wurm doesn't say "Creature - Wurm". It says "Sorcery". Big difference. We're talking about wurms ITSELF. If we were talking about best creature MAKER then Roar would be right up there near the top. But we're not...

so it doesn't really make sense to include cards which make tokens of the creature type being polled on. Point is, the token is merely that: A token. It doesn't have anything else going for it other than being made from a sorcery-speed source that doesn't give it any other additional abilities.
In this case, a 7/7 trampler with an enabler ability is much better than the token maker, regardless of whether it costs or otherwise.

Flamebuster's opinion very much mimicks my own, and it the reason why Roar of the Wurm was not included (although as previously stated, failure to include Plated Slagwurm was inadvertent and regretful). It's the same reason why, if I were to poll the best elephants in Magic (I think almost everyone would vote for Loxodon Hierarch, so it's kinda pointless to poll), I would not include Call of the Herd. These cards are sorceries that make creature tokens, and can be re-used once. They're not wurm creatures in and of themselves, so I don't count them.

But I will give you there is an argument for their inclusion. Technically, the wurm token could be put on the list in this case, but even if I were to concede the point, it's just not a very memorable card.

I voted for the Argothian Wurm and his Shivan buddy of late. Too bad your forgot Elder Land Wurm though as that would have gotten my vote for sure. I loved that card when I was a n00b. "Dont you dare attack or I will get my mad cool 5/5!"

Shivan Wurm is easily the best. Anyone who played during Invasion knows why.

When you can have TONS of synergy with cards like Flametongue Kavu and Blastoderm AND swing for 7 at hasted speed, that's REALLY good. Still, to this day, my absolute FAVORITE deck to play.