Hello! Welcome to my set review of Wilds of Eldraine, where I will pick cards of each colour and discuss my five favourite cards from them. Yes, there will be and artifact and lands review as well as a multicoloured review.
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article. The set booster and Jumpstart exclusive cards from this set will be in their respective colour reviews.
Without further ado, here are my favourite Blue cards!
I cannot tell you enough just how much I love this card in blue enchantress decks.
For four mana, you can trigger constellation as many times as your opponents have creatures. Picture playing Asinine Antics and getting even 10 Auras out of it. Eidolon of Blossoms and Setessan Champion gives you a card per trigger. Partner this with Doomwake Giant and Femeref Enchantress (or Ashiok’s Reaper, which we’ll see in the black review) not only do you board wipe your opponents but you also get a bunch of cards.
You don’t even need to be playing enchantress, you can have an Altar of the Brood and mill a ton for each of your opponents. Really use that token player’s momentum against them.
As if that wasn’t good enough, you can pay two more mana to get away with this at instant speed. What an incredible card!
This is probably the best Virtue of the bunch. I think we’re going to hear this a lot considering Wilds of Eldraine is an enchantment sense – this absolutely rips in enchantress decks.
Landfall decks with blue, Clone decks based around ETB effects, Artifact decks, and enchantress decks will also love this. Altar. Of. The. Brood. It all works great. Easy to slot in!
Virtue of Knowledge is Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines without the stax with an extra bit of utility in the Adventure. Pay two mana after cracking a fetch land and you’ve got blue Farseek. There are plenty of great abilities to copy. It’s a one time Strionic Resonator activation.
Two mythics in the top of blue cards makes sense.
Another entry into the Court cycle and it’s amazing. Like all the Courts, you become the monarch upon ETB. The upkeep effect is either becoming another copy of your best artifact or enchantment while keeping the ability or making a token of it. Did anybody say Paradox Haze?
Got a Smothering Tithe? Now you’ve got two. Get Parallel Lives and whenever you make tokens, you’ll get more and more… and more. And more. There are so many ways to get the monarch, especially when it’s built around like in an Aragorn, King of Gondor deck.
This is a great target for Estrid’s Invocation or Copy Enchantment. Keep an eye on this cycle.
Perfect for Zaxara, the Exemplary, Magus Lucea Kane, and Unbound Flourishing decks. Mizzix of the Izmagnus – does anybody still play her? – can make this a big time temporary exile. Making your opponents pay for creatures twice might get them double ETBs, but at least you get a card out of it. That’s if you want to pay into the X!
Imagine paying two mana for an enchantment that rewards you once every turn when a creature enters play from exile. Doesn’t that sound great? Blink decks get an extra bit of value but if you’ve got a few decks in your playgroup that blink or play cards from exile, you’ll have more cards than you would have. It’s a meta call, but I think this is a cool card!
Divination has been outclassed.
Are there ways to draw two cards at instant speed for less mana? Yeah, but with more drawbacks – like Perilous Research.
Quick Study is the cleanest way to draw two cards at instant speed now. Three mana isn’t a bad rate for two new cards. This makes the cut because Divination was printed in 2009 in M10 and it’s taken 14 years to be power crept so directly.
Honorable Mentions
- Chancellor of Tales – A new Lucky Clover on a creature. Double up on your Gorion, Wise Mentor triggers.
- Faerie Slumber Party – We have better bounce wipe bounces. This can get you six flyers though which is pretty sweet. Consuming Tide is two mana less and does permanents and not just creatures. But more importantly, for one more mana, you can bounce all your opponents’ nonland permanents while you keep your whole board. Flavourfully, include in Faerie decks, but otherwise, I’m out.
- Farsight Ritual – The closest comparisons for this card are Dig Through Time, Drawn from Dreams, and Memory Deluge. There are quite a few differences between all of these, but what’s key is that these are all good spells to run. Being able to dig into the top of your deck and snagging the best two cards is solid as hell. I would put this above Drawn from Dreams in the ranking for sure.
- Galvanic Giant – This is a great seed for tapping decks (Hylda, we’re getting there).
- Horned Loch-Whale – This has limited play written all over it. Sea creature decks might want to slot this in. I’m not in on this one.
- Ingenious Prodigy – Making this creature smaller every upkeep to draw a card is pretty niche. Phyrexian Arena does this without the fragility of being a creature. Although, this is a Wizard, this has an X in its cost – it’ll find its homes. Ezuri, Claw of Progress decks, I think might be the best home for this.
- Mocking Sprite – Goblin Electromancer is finally monocoloured! And has flying!
- Rowdy Research – Six creatures attack and you get Ancestral Recall. Not to mention Vial Smasher the Fierce and Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow decks get to have a little extra fun.
- Sleep-Cursed Faerie – A one-drop Faerie Wizard, both types worth noting, but nothing to write home about.
- Spell Stutter – If you’ve got a Faerie deck and don’t want to run straight Counterspell, make sure to pack Spell Stutter.
- Storyteller Pixie – Once again, Gorion, Wise Mentor gets a solid new include. Turning every Adventure you cast into a cantrip is pretty amazing.
- Talion’s Messenger – This is Faerie card and announces this to you immediately. Looting when a Faerie attacks is pretty solid and getting to pump a Faerie is sweet. This guy looks like the Dark Elves from the latest God of War.
That does it for white, check back in soon for black!
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