History, Restapled - Tills, We Meet Again
Welcome back for another History, Restapled, a Commander-focused column which attempts to validate a newer card’s status as a staple by looking at how cards that are similar, synergistic, or competing have fared in the past financially.
You won’t find any of this week’s cards gallivanting around Middle Earth. But will this be the final History, Restapled entry to make that claim? Only time will tell. For now, we have Tillers galore worth snagging, and a Story that reads a bit too familiar…
Tiller Engine
The card lacks Amulet’s ability to untap nonland permanents, but adds additional utility to late game land drops by allowing
STATUS: Vigorous staple, vigorously
Staff of the Storyteller
Here’s a recent addition to the format via
In any case, this card draw spell in white also mandates you pay a white each time you use it, adding to the amount of mana you must spend over the course of the game to draw. Plus, it only triggers on the creation of creature tokens.
Meanwhile, you can sacrifice Idol of Oblivion late in the game for a 10/10 Eldrazi token.
It’s hard to justify spending $6 on Staff of the Storyteller when a similar version, superior in nearly every way and able to fit in literally any deck, is less than a dollar after numerous reprints. Start by testing Idol of Oblivion, and if you think there’s more to the story of the poor and oppressed white mana mage simply trying to draw cards, go nuts and purchase the extended edition of the effect even if, like the releases of the original Star Wars trilogy, they added bells and whistles that simply drown out the excellence of the classics. I prefer the one that ends with a beefy 10/10 Sebastian Shaw over the scrawny 1/1 Hayden Christensen.
STATUS: No staple, just an idle threat
Tiller of Flesh
It took me a few reads to fully parse what Tiller of Flesh does, but the keywords here are “spell” and “permanents.” The innocuous 2/4 doesn’t discriminate by type of spell cast, nor who has to control the permanents targeted by the spells. This means it triggers on removal, pump, and preservation spells alike. In the right deck, this effect can get out of hand.
The reward for this targeted behavior is an Incubator token with two +1/+1 counters on it; admittedly, not the strongest of incentives. Think of it as a Clue in a deck that wants to draw cheap creatures or create artifacts en masse. Barring specific synergies and strategies, an Incubator token might be preferable to a Food token.
Is this a barn-busting sleeper hit worthy of Reserved List-caliber buyouts? Only time, or what would be a curious Reserved List inclusion, will tell. But in a world where
STATUS: Don’t knock it: Till. You, try it.
| Tiller Engine | ||
| Tiller Engine (Extended Art) | ||
| Staff of the Storyteller | ||
| Staff of the Storyteller (Extended Art) | ||
| Tiller of Flesh |
Bros Before Goes
Now’s a great time to revisit
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Steve Heisler
Steve Heisler is a writer and pop culture journalist covering comedy, games, television, film and the tech industry. His work has been published in Rolling Stone, GQ, Variety, The AV Club, Fast Company and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began collecting Magic cards during Fourth Edition and plays Commander and Modern primarily. He also enjoys tennis, the Dark Souls family of video games and supporting live comedy. He lives in Chicago with his cat, Rosie.