Samwise Gamgee (LTR)

Samwise Gamgee
Casting Cost: {G}{W}
Card Type: Legendary Creature - Halfling Peasant
Power/Toughness: 2/2
Card Text:
Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "2, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.")
Sacrifice three Foods: Return target historic card from your graveyard to your hand. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
Artist: Ekaterina Burmak

Card Strengths and Weaknesses:

• Strengths:
  • Provides consistent value by generating Food tokens.
  • Food tokens offer both life gain and a way to recur historic cards, adding layers of utility.
  • Fits well in historic, life gain, or artifact synergy decks.
• Weaknesses:
  • Requires nontoken creatures to enter the battlefield, which may limit its utility in some decks.
  • The historic recursion requires an investment of three Food tokens, which might be slow in some situations.

Deck Utility:

• Selesnya Midrange: Generates value over time and can fit well in a deck that cares about life gain or historic cards.

• Artifact Synergy Decks: Food tokens are artifacts, so Samwise Gamgee could fit into artifact-centric strategies.

• Commander: Given the singleton and often slower nature of Commander, the ability to recur historic cards can be quite valuable.

Interactions and Combos:

• Witch's Oven: Can convert creatures into Food tokens, speeding up the historic recursion.

• Gilded Goose: Generates Food tokens itself and can use them for mana, synergizing well with Samwise Gamgee.

• Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle: In a deck with historic themes, Teshar can help recur creatures, which in turn generate more Food tokens via Samwise Gamgee.

Samwise Gamgee is a versatile card that offers a lot of long-term value. It's not just a 'win-more' card but can actually help you stabilize and come back into games by gaining life and returning key historic cards to your hand. The card seems especially effective in grindy midrange or control decks that can take advantage of its various synergies.