MTG Salvation

Taking a cue from the Casual Forums, I've decided to start our own random card of the day. The way it will work is that I will go to Gatherer each day and post the first card their random generator displays. I will ignore vanilla creatures (at my own discretion), basic lands, cards that are currently banned (using the official ban list), and cards that have already been chosen. This thread applies to Multiplayer, 1v1, Pauper, and any other variant of Commander.

There will be a few rules though:

1. There is to be no overlap. The only card which should be discussed is the current card.
2. All discussion should be geared Commander only. The card may be the greatest card in another format, but we're building Commander decks.
3. Do not post just to say that a card sucks. It's fine that a card does, and will happen quite frequently, but either say why it sucks or don't say anything at all.
3a. While spammy 'Card sucks' posts are discouraged, amusing anecdotes, stories, and other silliness to make bad card days more entertaining is welcomed.

Direct link to today's card.

So what is your opinion on this card? It works great with Crucible of Worlds and reanimator, but the random effect can hurt. Another good point about this card is that since it doesn't target, your opponents can't respond to it and exile the card you would get back.

Quote from Cheese Sphinx

I like Fengraf in decks that don't have much creature recursion, but can get back the land easily. Mono-U/R could see use of this card. The interaction with Sun Titan and Crucible is pretty nice too.

Being a $0.10 common is also appealing for pauper/extreme budget decks.

It sort of reminds me of its artifact cousin Buried Ruin, but of course, Ruin doesn't have that icky random part attached.

Yes. And of course, in a creature-light deck it's not really all that random of an effect.

I ran it in mono-red chaos/control for a while and it was solid. The deck was almost completely devoid of small dudes, so basically the smallest thing you could get back was Solemn Simulacrum, and usually it was a dragon.

Eventually cut it just because I got better colorless lands and only had room for so many, plus the deck often didn't want to sacrifice a land, even for this effect.

I once was "that guy" and ran a very cutthroat Talrand, Sky Summoner build with around 5 creatures total in the 99+1. Fengraf was probably the best recursion that deck had besides shuffling the cards back and trying to draw them again.

Yeah, in creature-light decks it can be pretty good. Spellslinger decks, for example, or many Glissa and Nekusar decks.

It's potentially a solid card in many decks.

I have always loved Fengraf, I've had great experience with it for a few decks. A lot of purple underestimate it because of the random clause but, as has been mentioned it isLes random than you would expect if you only have a few creatures. Fengraf shines most to me in a red deck where creature recursion us so rare, blue can also make great use of it while black,green and white ask have tricks that are light years ahead of this in quality.

I actually ran this card in Azusa before i dismantled it because it was "too good" for my liking. In the deck, any sort of utility land that gave me an added bonus was slotted. In the deck, all the creatures were "kill me now or die" threats so the randomness didnt matter. All i needed was a threat to bring back to reestablish board position. All in all, it helps prevent running out of gas which is very good for the cost of a colorless land.

I consider to be almost a staple in pauper. Pauper has little recursion (mostly in black), so any help the other colors can get is great.
One of my favorite pauper lands.

I've never seen a need for me to personally run it in normal EDH.

I use it in my slobad deck. I run few creatures and I could always use more recursion. I don't use the ability often, but it's there if I need it.

I enjoy both creature heavy decks and randomness, but this doesn't tend to hit the mark for me. A little too random, a little too "high" a cost (both a land drop and the sac itself), and in the decks that can make use of such an effect I'd sooner just add the fun of Deadbridge Chant.

Quote from klducks

I actually ran this card in Azusa before i dismantled it because it was "too good" for my liking. In the deck, any sort of utility land that gave me an added bonus was slotted. In the deck, all the creatures were "kill me now or die" threats so the randomness didnt matter. All i needed was a threat to bring back to reestablish board position. All in all, it helps prevent running out of gas which is very good for the cost of a colorless land.

I play it in my Azusa as well. Though I think I run too many creatures to really maximize it's use, when you pair it up with Crucible of Worlds and can feasibly activate it three times in a turn, the randomness starts to matter a whole lot less. It's one of my favorite lands in the deck.

In my Kozilek it's a great card, looking past that I don't need colors to actually work, the random isn't as random for me due to me only playing a small amount of creatures and some of them don't even go to the grave. (Blightsteel Colossus and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre).

I wouldn't be playing this in many other decks though, can't think of many ways to actually have usage out of it. Maybe as an "extra" in my creature light decks but it's uncertain if I would replace a color-land for it.

I like it in creature light decks or decks that can abuse it. I've been considering putting it in my shattergang stax deck, because 9/10 even if it is random, getting a creature back can help. I don't think it'll dud much unless it hits a reassembling skeleton or a bloodghast, but that's easily mitigated by making sure they're on board before cracking the fengraf.

In any black deck deck though, I'd probably pass. Unholy grotto and volraths stronghold put this card to shame.

its just a bit too...well... random for my liking. It seems very bad in most decks which don't have a high density of huge-impact creatures, and still not that good in decks that do have them

I'd imagine it's great in pauper but I don't think it's particularly viable in regular lists. As a colorless land I just don't think it's strong enough to make most lists. If you're playing Kozilek then sure otherwise I would rather have a basic.

From MLD, to pitching/looting, to sac effects, there's a lot of reasons you could want to run this card. So how would you use it?

Seems pretty sweet in a Borborygmos Enraged deck. Basically a 2 mana repeatable lightning bolt.

Tech with Dreamscape Artist.

Seems like it could be good in Azusa

Quote from cryogen

From MLD, to pitching/looting, to sac effects, there's a lot of reasons you could want to run this card. So how would you use it?

Has seen some use against me as anti mld tech. The biggest problem it has is it us so fragile, but that's life.

I think it is used well as CA. It is only for basics, which is a downside, but you can use it to loot for benefit, to wreck with BoogeyMoose, to gain some advantage off of wheel effects, and to just increase hand size. I don't think that anything that can give you +1 card in hand (regardless of card type) should be overlooked, especially for a repeatable, low cost. Downside is, though, that it does rely on GY, but usually, in EDH, the first thing we are going to pitch from our hands when it gets too full is basic land.

I think that it is a 1/1 is largely irrelevant. Sometimes with Elesh and Crovax it might be relevant, but usually if you drop this you will try to get some CA out of it as fast as possible.

It could be used in dredge decks that run enough basics.

Works pretty great in a deck that has a lot of landfall triggers, I would think. Playing with the Marath precon last night really seemed to exemplify the need to hit those landfall triggers every turn. I think by the end of the game I had drained the entire deck of all of the basics via cycling. The only thing I don't like is that it says basic land, if it had just been a land card I would have liked it more. Still, if you have any effects that make you dump cards into your graveyard, it can be a nice way to try and recur some of those lands that might have ended up in there, like with dredge effects.