was excited to have Fecundity as the next card for Single Card Strategy. I've gotten plenty of mileage out of the card since it was originally printed in Urza's Saga; now it returns in Eighth Edition for a whole new batch of players to try out.

Fecundity. Strange little word, ain't it? Kinda rolls off the tongue oddly. It's one of those obscure words that Wizards sometimes digs up for cards that end up fitting perfectly. I decided to look up the word in the dictionary to see just what it meant.

Fe*cun*di*ty, n. [L. fecunditas]

1. The quality or power of producing abundantly; fruitfulness.
2. The power of germinating; as in seeds.
3. The power of bringing forth in abundance; fertility; richness of invention; as, the fecundity of God's creative power. --Bentley.

Yep. Fits the card perfectly!

The key to unlocking the full potential of any card is found by looking deeply into what the card does. Fecundity seems pretty simple: whenever a creature dies, its controller gets to draw a card. Creatures die all the time in Magic, and Fecundity at its most basic is a nice insurance policy against Wrath of God, Starstorm, and Decree of Pain, giving you compensation for the dearly departed. When looking for solutions to these cards in a green-based creature deck, keep Fecundity in mind for your sideboard.

The problem with Fecundity that prevents most people from giving it a chance is the green curse of symmetry: your opponent gets to draw cards when his creatures die too. Why would you invest a card in hand and mana to put this enchantment in play and then watch your opponent draw more cards than you do? Ah, the answers to that question lead to the realm of sweet possibility. Why indeed?

SACRIFICIAL LAMBS

While creatures die through the natural ebb and flow of the game, they often rely on your opponent contributing to their demise. If your adversary senses you want your creatures to die in order to draw cards from Fecundity he or she may not cooperate. Luckily, Magic has tons of ways to kill off your creatures at the most advantageous time for you. Cards like Goblin Bombardment, Keldon Necropolis, Krovikan Horror, and Bloodshot Cyclops can all instantaneously turn creatures into a damage-dealing cantrips. Fecundity turns your Hell's Caretaker and Recurring Nightmare in-play/graveyard dance into a card-drawing engine. The sacrificial costs of Helm of Possession, Gate to Phyrexia, Ritual of the Machine and Hecatomb are easier to bear they when compensate you with cards. You can get even more mileage from Lord of the Pit, Minion of Leshrac, Devouring Strossus and even Kjeldoran Dead and Spined Fluke since they'll draw you a card or more in life and then another when they themselves perish. Mind Slash and Sadistic Hypnotist can really turn up the card-advantage, filling your hand while stripping cards from your opponent.

One nice little forgotten gem is Carrion, an instant from Mirage. The creature you sacrifice not only nets you a card from Fecundity right there on the spot, but also all the 0/1 tokens created from Carrion make a perfect swarm of sacrificial lambs. Perhaps you sacrifice them to Ashnod's Altar for copious quantities of mana, or maybe you feed them to a ravenous Nantuko Husk or Fallen Angel.

Self-sacrificing creatures also work fantastic with Fecundity, cards such as Bottle Gnomes, Spike Feeder, Yavimaya Elder, Brass-Talon Chimera (and his bretheren), Elvish Lyrist and Elvish Scrapper, Ichorid, Lieutenant Kirtar and Llanowar Druid. Saproling Burst can draw you seven cards right on the spot.

PUTTING SYMMETRY TO WORK FOR YOU

As we can see, one way to break a card's symmetry is to prepare your deck to fully take advantage of the symmetrical card, while your opponent is less likely to benefit as much. But another approach is to take advantage of your opponent's card-draws. Multani obviously retains a massive size when both you and your opponent maintain large hands. If your opponent plays a lot of creatures but is unable to play out as many as he draws, he may end up discarding large creatures you can steal with Animate Dead, Reanimate and Dance of the Dead. You can also punish them for drawing the cards with nasty surprises like Stormseeker, Sudden Impact, and Blood Oath. And since the card draw is optional, one way to dissuade your opponent from taking advantage of it is to warn them off with Black Vise, Viseling, and Underworld Dreams.

The deck I present below is based off several group game decks I've played featuring Fecundity. They contain more rares than I usually like to list here, but most of them are pretty inexpensive and fairly easy to obtain, so I hope you'll indulge me this time.

Sappy Fecundity

Main Deck 60 cards
4  Elfhame Palace 15  Forest 5  Plains 24 lands	4  Elvish Farmer 2  Nemata, Grove Guardian 4  Thallid 4  Thallid Devourer 4  Wall of Roots 18 creatures	4  Aura Mutation 4  Fecundity 1  Fungal Bloom 3  Saproling Burst 4  Spontaneous Generation 2  Sterling Grove 18 other spells

The deck opens as an innocent, fun little "Thallid" deck that can hopefully sit unmolested for a while until Fecundity shows up and you start drawing a lot of cards. Elvish Farmer with a few Saprolings out can really kick things off once Fecundity is in play: sacrifice the Saprolings to gain 2 life and draw a full hand, then cast Spontaneous Generation for a bunch more Saprolings. Sacrifice Saprolings, gain life, draw cards, repeat. Aura Mutation is a great utility card that plays into the Saproling theme, and can also turn a used-up Saproling Burst into five 1/1 Saprolings. The lone Fungal Bloom is just for fun and part of the "silly Thallid deck" camouflage while you set up Fecundity!

If you have the rares, Gaea's Cradle obviously works wonders in a deck like this and gives you tons of mana to work with. Savannahs or Brushlands can also help smooth your mana. The deck works best in a small group game setting. Hope you enjoy the deck-- and Fecundity-- as much as I do!