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Daniel Clayton - January 17, 2015

Top Cards from Commander 2014

Feldon of the Third Path - Commander 2014

Tip of the Spuzzem – Top Cards from Commander 2014 

By Daniel Clayton – the Will of the Floral Spuzzem

Rating Commander and other pre-built products is a little bit different than rating other Magic sets, to do one of these, there’s no need to look at the cards in terms of power relating to their draftability, just whether a card is good in its own set, its own format and other formats in general. Since this is a different way of grading cards than usual, it requires a different break-down:

5: Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire: At this level you get the amazing cards that can improve almost any deck and are extremely either powerful or broken.

4: Brainstorm, Sensei’s Divining Top, Tarmogoyf: Extremely powerful cards that have either been format defining or format warping. These cards will typically see play in many formats.

3: Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Rampaging Baloths: Solid hardworking cards that are some of the most balanced in the game. These cards typically see a lot of play.

2: Darksteel Citadel, Lightning Strike, Searing Blaze: Solid hardworking cards in their own right that are used to make decks functional when the optimal choice is not an option.

1: Deflecting Palm, Kheru Dreadmaw, Briber’s Purse: Bad cards that don’t ever really find a home.

0: Storm Crow: Why Wizards? Just why?

Before we dive into the cards, I want to take a second to review the pre-constructed decks themselves and talk about some of the concepts introduced by the sets as well. The decks themselves are actually pretty competent EDH/Commander decks as they are; just needing a few cards to push them over the edge to tournament victory. They are fun and interactive and can be a serious contender straight out of the box. As for the concepts introduced by the set, the first is the story implications that sets such as this can have on the game, whether it’s Nahiri’s role as the Lithomancer or Ob Nixilis’s human form. I think that following Fate Reforged, we can look forward to having these stories fleshed out. The other concept that was brought about from this set is that things besides creatures can become EDH commanders. Now, it might not be that far from Legendary Creatures to Planeswalkers, but this means that other card types might be able to become commanders in the future. I’m waiting on plain artifacts. I’m not going to be reviewing the whole set, just the cards that I found interesting or there was a lot of talk about.

 

Angel of the Dire Hour (2): This card is far too expensive for what it is… still, this card feels awesome to top deck on the turn that you are going to lose to your opponent’s aggro plan.

 

Containment Priest (3): This is an interesting card that has a real chance of breaking out of the format into Legacy at least if not all the way into Vintage. It fits the theme of Death and Taxes pretty well, and fights well against some decks in the formats, such as Sneak and Show, Dredge, and Oath. That being said, I’m not too sure the card will catch on, especially with cards like Grafdigger’s Cage already in print.

 

Creeperhulk (3): Sitting at 5 mana, I don’t know how much play this card will see outside of EDH, but still a fun card that does well when you’re running a ton of small creatures like Goblins or Elves, and the trample is the icing on the cake.

 

Daretti, Scrap Savant (3): If there are any long-time readers of my work out there, you’ll know that I absolutely love artifacts, so when I saw this card I knew that I just had to get it. His plus ability is a great combination of filtering and graveyard filling for his minus ability, allowing you to toss some of your most powerful cards to the yard to draw into even more power. His minus just does the job of Goblin Welder (also in the set), a powerful ability that I almost wish cost Daretti less to use. His emblem is the real cherry on top of the card, with the powerful ability to keep taking back all artifacts that went to the graveyard each turn. On paper, this seems like an awesome card, maybe even a format defining one, but in play, he’s too slow and hard to defend and typically gets knocked out the turn after you play him.

 

Dualcaster Mage (2): There has been a lot of talk about how powerful this card is, but I don’t see it. I would much rather have Reverberate or Fork over this card, but that’s just me. Overall, it feels like a more expensive form of these cards, but I digress. I don’t expect this card to find a home in Legacy or Vintage, but maybe some play in EDH.

 

Feldon of the Third Path (4): Acceptance, Despair and Refusal, those are the three paths in my opinion and it’s obvious that Feldon has chosen refusal as his way of coping with his woman’s death. The card is much more aggressively costed than its opponents, and lets you not only take back a copy of a creature in your graveyard, but gives it haste, makes it an artifact, and has you sacrifice it versus exile it at the end of turn. Altogether, the card allows for a lot of shenanigans especially in the deck that it sits in. While this card is pretty outstanding in commander, I’m not sure it will see play in Legacy or Vintage.

 

Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury (3): Out of all the planeswalker commanders in this set, I don’t know if I would call this the best planeswalker in the set, but I would definitely call her the most versatile. Acting as a solution to most of the problems you see in games. She has no abilities that scream bomb or game-ending, but all of her abilities feel like you’re getting value out of them, and in supporting a deck she is probably without equal. Her plus ability acts as creature horde/swarm, mana acceleration, and defense for her. Her minus ability deals with all of the artifacts and enchantments that you’re having trouble with, and her final is aggressively costed and gives you more resources in the form of card draw. Overall, this card probably isn’t good enough for Legacy or Vintage, but definitely a contender for solid commander material.

 

Ghoulcaller Gisa (3): This is one of the more powerful Alternate commanders in the set. I just don’t know why you would want to build up zombies in this way, if you were aiming for an agro strategy it’s terribly slow, and if you were doing things differently, I’m not really sure why I don’t want the big creature.

 

Jazal Goldmane (1): We’ve seen this ability before, it wasn’t impressive then, and it’s not now.

 

Lieutenant Cycle (2): These cards just feel lackluster and forced in EDH and even less impressive in a Legacy or Vintage deck. The idea of Lieutenant seems cool and it’s something that EDH needed a lot earlier, but these cards don’t do a very good job of showing off the ability.

 

Loreseeker’s Stone (2): Loreseeker’s Stone is almost a pretty good card, but a high mana cost combined with a tentatively bad effect makes the card hard to play in any format. With a mana cost as high as it is, it doesn’t help you solve mana delays, and with its ability it doesn’t really help decks that already draw a lot of cards. It’s just a card that wants to do a lot, but isn’t willing to dedicate itself to 1 path to get there.

 

Masterwork of Ingenuity (3): An interesting card that is aggressively costed at 1, but I can’t help but feel that it sits in your hands most games.

 

Nahiri, the Lithomancer (3): I just love the flavor of this card. When you first look at the card, most people who are fairly experienced respond with “Oh look, it’s Stoneforge Mystic as a planeswalker”, and that’s just what this card is. Her story is that she’s the founder of the Stoneforge Order, and has had some major effects on the story, especially the Zendikar storyline. Her plus ability gives her the ability to protect herself by generating a token and putting all of your equipment on it. Her minus ability lets you cheat equipment into play from your hand or graveyard, allowing you the ability to defend her defenders. Her final puts a powerful equipment into play that is indestructible, and gives its creature +5/+5 and double strike. Overall, while it’s a pretty cool card, there’s no deck in Legacy or Vintage that can really make use of her at a mana cost of 5, it’s just too slow. On the other side of things, this card isn’t that bad of a match for EDH, where it was designed for originally.

 

Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath (3): Ob Nixilis and his deck are uniquely positioned among the pre-constructed deck in that they get worse the fewer players that are in the game. His plus ability is a way to keep ahead of your opponents and while may not be all that good in 1-on-1, it can be a significant force in a 3 or 4 player game. His minus ability allows you to create a demon for some of your life, and feels very flavorful for black. His final creates a powerful emblem that lets you sacrifice creatures to gain life and cards. This card does feel a little heavy at 5 to be playable in Legacy or Vintage, but in a Commander game with multiple opponents this card feels pretty good and definitely playable.

 

Reef Worm (3): This is an efficient creature… in a few turns… if someone kills it… and its other forms… maybe it’s not so efficient, but it is a pretty cool combo with board wipes. Maybe someone will figure that out. Plus, it’s a pretty good blocker so that’s a plus.

 

Scrap Mastery (4): This card is flat-out awesome. If someone could figure out Living Death, then I don’t see why someone couldn’t figure this card out. It brings back all of the artifacts from the graveyard and puts them onto the battlefield, and puts all artifacts from the battlefield into the grave.

 

Song of the Dryads (3): Removal in green isn’t that big of a deal, and this card gives your opponent an extra land. Even though it caused a huge uproar, at least in the Magic circles I hang out in, it feels like a powered down black spell. I don’t expect it to make too many waves, but isn’t a bad addition to your green EDH decks.

 

Stitcher Geralf (2): I feel like this card is pretty much a glass cannon, a high propensity to completely blow out your opponent, but just as likely to completely wiff time after time. The card might almost be playable if the Zombie also had the abilities of those creatures as well, but as the card stands now, I don’t really think this card has a place in any format.

 

Teferi, Temporal Archmage (2): A very lukewarm card with abilities that also feel lukewarm especially for its mana cost. His plus ability is just peek, look at the top 2 cards put 1 in your hand and the other on the bottom. His minus ability is the best part of the card, he untaps 4 permanents, and his final allows you to play planeswalker abilities any time you could play instants, but overall I’d rather have Jace in any format where Teferi’s legal. As for him as a commander, I don’t really see why he’s a good choice so I’d probably just make a different choice.

 

Titania, Protector of Argoth (3): This card has already made its presence known in a few EDH decks. I have a friend that picked up the Green deck just for this card. The card fits well into decks that discard a lot of lands, such as Borborygmos EDH. The card doesn’t seem like much of a player for Legacy or Vintage, but I expect it to see play in EDH for a while.

 

Wave of Vitriol (3): While 7 mana is a steep cost, and I don’t expect this card to see play in Vintage or Legacy for this reason; this card is uniquely positioned to wreck whole decks in EDH. The card is targeted at those players that have picked up as many powerful lands as they can and can be ruining to a deck that traded up all of its basic lands for fancier ones.

 

Well of Ideas (2): This cards okay, but I’d still much rather have Howling Mine, and even that’s not run that much. More than the card itself, I like the ideas behind it and hope Wizards prints more like it.

 

Overall, the sets are pretty neat and if you’re looking to have fun playing some pre-constructed decks with a friend I would definitely consider picking these up. Besides that the decks are slightly over-costed and gives many players filler they don’t really need or already have (It’s sad to call Sol Ring filler). Pick them up if you want to play the decks with your friends or just buy the singles if you need the individual cards would be my suggestion on this set of cards.

 

Full Commander 2014 spoilers

By Daniel Clayton – the Will of the Floral Spuzzem

@DC4VP on Twitter

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Daniel Clayton - September 25, 2014

Live by the Night, Die by the Night as Olivia Voldaren EDH

Olivia Voldaren edh

Live by the Night, Die by the Night as Olivia Voldaren EDH

 By Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem

Vampires have always been one of my favorite creatures in the game of Magic, I still remember back in the day playing with my brother’s cards and thinking that there was not a whole lot that was better than Soul Collector, a 3/4 from Scourge that cost 5 to play and when a creature dies the same turn that it was dealt damage by Soul Collector it comes back into play under your control. You can imagine my disappointment when I found out that Tribal Vampire decks were not exactly competitive decklists. There was a few very short times during Zendikar, Innistrad and then towards the end of the Return to Ravnica set that Vampires entered the standard mindset, but the place that Vampires have really had a chance in my opinion is in the realm of Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH, as it’s also known. EDH is a format I play pretty regularly even if it’s almost impossible to find tournaments for it, since I live in Delaware most of the time.

 

Night Life by Daniel Clayton 

Olivia Voldaren EDH / Commander 

 

Olivia Voldaren EDH deck borrows heavily from another deck that was posted by Cassidy Silver on the 7th of October 2011, you can find it here. While my decklist “Night Life” does borrow heavily from his, I have added a few cards to the list, taken some out, and directly subbed others to make the decklist mine. The commander of my deck is of course Olivia Voldaren, a strong creature with all of the abilities you’d want in a vampire, Flying, the ability to deal damage to other things and get bigger, and most importantly, it has the ability to take control of opponent’s creatures. There are quite a few interesting lands in this deck and some of them are potentially very expensive cards; on a less expensive note, the deck does run almost 20 basic lands in Swamps and Mountains. The deck also runs quite a few fetch lands, from Bloodstained Mire to Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. Following up the fetches, the deck does run a compliment of dual lands, in Badlands, Blood Crypt, Command Tower, and Dragonskull Summit. The deck also contains various lands that can be used in conjunction with other cards for combos, such as an infinite mana combo with Cabal Coffers or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.  These lands can sometimes tap for lots of mana, first black mana equal to the amount of Swamps for Cabal Coffers and the other Nykthos can tap for any one mana equal to your devotion to that color. Deserted Temple for one mana and taping it you can untap a land, such as these big mana producers I just mentioned. Then Rings of Brighthearth for two mana can copy any spell or ability, this card not only works into this combo, but works well with quite a few cards in the deck making their powerful abilities even more powerful. Another smaller combo built into the deck is Strip Mine and Wasteland with Crucible of Worlds to shut down your opponent’s ability to keep lands on the field. The deck also contains various forms of mana fixing and acceleration in Graven Cairns, Phyrexian Tower, and the two cards we named before Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The rest of the lands in the deck have unique effects that in many cases is not sufficiently covered by the rest of the deck. The first of these is Bojuka Bog, a Swamp replacement that enters play tapped, but makes up for it by exiling a graveyard from the game. There’s Reliquary tower, which removes your hand limit. Shizo, Death’s Storehouse, a replacement for a Swamp that can give a legendary creature fear until end of turn. Spinerock Knoll is a replacement for a Mountain with hideaway that you can activate when an opponent takes 7 damage in a turn. Stensia Bloodhall is a land that taps for two damage to target player for four mana. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a land that makes all lands Swamps in addition to their other types, that can boost up Cabal CoffersVolrath’s Stronghold is a land card that returns a creature from your graveyard to the top of your deck. As well as  Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep a replacement for a Mountain that can give a legendary creature first strike until end of turn. The creatures in the deck largely contribute to the tribal theme of the deck being vampires for the most part. There are many creatures in the deck that are not vampires, but the cool thing about having Olivia as your general means that you can turn any creature into a vampire. Additionally, the card Conspiracy allows you to turn all your creatures into a specific creature type, both in and out of play. There is also  Mephidross Vampire from Fifth Dawn that not only turns all your creatures in play into vampires, but he also gives them the ability that when they send another creature to the grave they get a +1/+1 counter. The first vampire in the list Anowan the Ruin Sage, is one  that I almost made my general, it’s an outstanding Vampire that makes each player sacrifice a creature during your upkeep. Baron Sengir is an outstanding addition to any vampire tribal deck with two strong abilities and flying, his first ability is that he gets larger by two +1/+1 counters each time a creature it deals damage to dies, secondly you can tap him to regenerate a vampire. As an additional reach against opponents, Blood Artist gives you both more life and takes life away from your opponent each time a creature dies. Bloodghast is one of those creatures that you don’t find on a lot of EDH decklists, but it just feels worth it for a 2/1 that comes back from the grave each time a land enters play. As mentioned before, there are several non-Vampire creatures in the deck like several demons. Two such demons are Bloodgift Demon, a creature that makes a player pay 1 life and draw a card and Charmbreaker Devils, a big flyer that gets bigger when you cast an instant or sorcery and them brings back from the grave each upkeep. Kicker and multikicker are mechanics that when activated they give their spells a more powerful effect, a few cards in this deck take advantage of these kick abilities. Urza’s Rage deals ten damage when kicked and four when it is not. Blood Tribute is a card that takes away half of an opponent’s life, but lets you gain it when it is kicked. And finally Bloodhusk Ritualist a vampire with a multikicker that makes the opponent discard equal to the number of times you kicked it. The set Rise of the Eldrazi gave us many powerful creatures, but for the vampire tribal deck there are few that are more powerful than Nirkana Revenant. She Acts like a “black” Mana Flare for all your swamps and pumping herself for every black mana you spend. Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief acting as both removal and a pump up for this flying vampire. This deck also comes with two token producers in Bloodline Keeper which produces tokens, then if you control five vampires you can flip him to turn him into a lord for vampires. And Kiki-Jiki, I know he’s not a vampire, but it lets you produce token copies of all of your most powerful creatures until end of turn. Vampire Nighthawk is in the deck, because it didn’t feel right to run a vampire deck without it. And the last three vampires all have powerful effects, Bloodlord of Vaasgoth gives all of your Vampire creature spells bloodthirst 3, giving vampires +3/+3 if an opponent was dealt damage on the same turn you cast them. Butcher of Malakir and Grave Pact make your opponent’s sacrifice a creature each time one of your creatures die, and Captivating Vampire takes control of a creature and makes it a vampire if you tap five vampires. The deck contains its three indestructible Gods for their powerful abilities, Mogis, God of Slaughter which makes opponent’s have to sacrifice a creature on there upkeeps or take 2 damage. Erebos, God of the Dead let’s you draw cards in exchange for life and stopping your opponent’s from gaining life. Lastly Purphorous, God of the Forge deals damage each time a creature enters the field under your control. The last three creatures have useful enter the battlefield abilities, there is Duplicant with the ability to make himself a copy of any creature on the battlefield and exiling it from the game as well. Godo, Bandit Warlord let’s you search your library for an equipment card when he enters the battlefield and then each turn he gives himself and all samurai an extra combat phase after the first time he attacks. Solemn Simulacrum searches for a land when it enters the battlefield and draws you a card when it leaves play. There are only eleven instants and sorceries in the deck, but they are some great ones and allow my Charmbreaker Devils to get me exactly what I want almost every time. The deck runs a whooping six tutors in the deck, we already went over Godo, so the others are Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Beseech the Queen, and Planar Portal to search up anything in your deck and then Expedition Map to search up one of any land. The instants and sorceries also contain most of the decks removal suite, whether it’s Hero’s Downfall to kill a creature or planeswalker, Shattering Pulse a recurring artifact hate or Damnation which is one of the best creature mass removal spells in the game. The removal may be scarce, but it gets the job done in most cases. Exsanguinate is a pretty big win condition in the deck, with the amount of black mana that this deck can generate. The last two sorceries in the deck are Yawgmoth’s Will which can be extremely broken if you’re able to generate a tremendous amount of mana. It allows you to play out every card from your graveyard, the only problem is that any cards sent to your graveyard this turn are exiled instead. The second to last sorcery is Temporal Extortion which either takes away half of an opponent’s life total or gives you an extra turn. It can be a pretty hefty sum of life or accelerate your board position especially with the deadly combination of Charmbreaker Devils. The enchantments in this deck may be the strongest categories of cards if for nothing else than their sheer abilities of card advantage or mana ramp with only one exception.  The remaining enchantments either generate mana like Black Market, Braid of Fire, or in the pseudo fashion of Heatrless Summoning by making creatures cheaper to play or they generate card draw like Phyrexian Arena and Dark Prophecy at the expense of life. I understand how the power of Braid of Fire can be overlooked, but this is an outstanding ability for Olivia’s first ability and potentially lets you ping down your opponent’s field all the while making Olivia larger. The last powerful enchantment is Stranglehold which shuts down a ton of cards by preventing your opponent from searching their library and from taking extra turns. The artifacts in the deck help to make things easier for you with their powerful effects. The first set of artifacts aim to make your general even better than she already is, whether it’s making her a 1-ping kill with Basilisk Collar, or making her hexproof with Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves. The next few artifact aim to improve your mana cost such as Urza’s Incubator making all of your vampires cheaper to cast or mana acceleration through Rakdos Signet and Sol Ring. The last artifact in the deck, Relic of Progenitus is a powerful artifact that gives you a way to not only deal with your opponent’s graveyard recursion, but also a pretty solid way to filter cards out of your own graveyard to make Charmbreaker Devils better. The planeswalkers in the deck basically act as curveballs for the deck that your opponent has to have answers for or they begin to take over the game. The first planeswalker on our list is Chandra, the Firebrand, her plus 1 ability can ping  for one an opponent or a creature, her -2 makes all of your instants or sorceries twice as good by copying them and finally her -6 can decimate both your opponents and creatures on the field by dealing 6 damage up to 6 targets. Karn Liberated is probably the second biggest planeswalker in the deck by price and probably the most powerful of all the planeswalkers in the deck. His +4, that’s right +4, exiles a card from your opponent’s hand, then his -4 exiles a permanent from the field while his ultimate at -14, restarts the game with all permanents exiled under him being put under your control. The next three walkers are Lilianas, the most famous of all of them is Liliana of the Veil, a three mana walker that has the ability to make an opponent sacrifice a creature, another makes each player discard a card, and then ultimately make your opponent sacrifice potentially a lot of permanents. The second is Liliana of the Dark Realms that can fetch a swamp for plus one loyalty, as well as a mutilate for minus three and her ultimate creates an emblem that makes all of your swamps tap for four mana. The final is the most expensive of the three Lilis: Liliana Vess, but her abilities are top notch. For starters her plus ability makes target opponent discard a card, then her minus acts as a tutor that puts a card of your choice on top of your library and her ultimate brings back a substantial amount of creatures from the grave to the battlefield all under your control. Overall, I feel that these planeswalkers add a healthy degree of randomness and power to the deck that opponent’s must find an answer to.

Today, we looked at Olivia Voldaren EDH as tribal vampires, a great deck at least in my opinion. EDH is a great format that I feel is under-appreciated by a lot of players because they feel that it’s too weird of a format, or it’s too hard to learn, while these are the types of players that would be most acclimated to join the format as most of the time these players are casual players with too many cards on their hands.

By Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem
@Dc4Vp on Twitter
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Three Kings Loot - September 24, 2014

Fatesealing Khans of Tarkir: Filtering Through Magic’s Future

Khans of Tarkir

Fatesealing Khans of Tarkir

Filtering Through Magic’s Future

By Bruce Gray and Daniel Clayton – The bag of loot

                There is no doubt what went through my mind and many others’ like me  when they heard about Magic returning to an Asian themed plane for their newest set: Kamigawa of course. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this set felt as much like Feudal China in theme as Kamigawa felt like Feudal Japan. Flavor-wise, the set feels like a country in a constant state of war which feels pretty cool as far as sets are concerned. Let me please note that at this point I write about my thoughts as they were when the first card of the set was first released, and all of the subsequent updates in this paragraph were my thoughts as more and more cards in the set were released. I do this to track sort of the feeling of the newly released cards. My first thoughts on the set were we are finally going to go back to shard colors and I hope, but doubt that fetch lands are going to be in this set. A huge slew of releases has been going on recently and as such I thought it was time to update my article a little bit. First things first, it turns out that fetch lands are going to be released, SWEET!!!! We’ll get to them later. The theme of the set has evolved into sort of what I felt when I first saw Zurgo Helmsmasher. If any of you have ever played Dynasty Warriors (Literally any of them) you’ll know who I’m talking about when I say Lu Bu cause that’s who I think of when I look at old Zurgo. The whole set really does feel like something out of those games and needless to say, I love it. Now that the whole set’s been released I feel as though they’ve balanced the set pretty well and look forward to seeing how this draft and standard season are going to play out, It seems as if R&D has done a pretty bang-up job of putting together a very balanced set that has a lot of fun and interactive cards in it. Also, the inclusion of the Delve and Morph keywords seem really fun and interesting in this set and I am looking forward to playing Morph in my draft decks, it adds another whole level to the game that just seems fun. As for the rating system, I will score all cards out of ten, and give a brief description of why I felt that card deserved that rating. One big change since last time is that I’ll give my rating and opinion on each and then Bruce Gray will give his on each as well. I’ll give an example of each rating to show you what I mean:

10: Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire: A card that can fit into almost any deck and is so powerful that it has earned either a banning or restriction in any format it’s in

9: Skull Clamp, JTMS: A card that has earned bannings in multiple formats for its power

8: Tarmogoyf, Force of Will: A card that skates just under the power window of banning and is a staple in multiple formats

7: Mox Opal, Snapcaster Mage: A powerful staple in its own right skates just under crossing over to another format

6: Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm: A great versatile, work horse card that you can find 4 of in many formats without the card ever being considered broken. Even if a card breaks a deck, that doesn’t necessarily make the card broken.

5: Creeping Corrosion, Abrupt Decay: A powerful card that isn’t quite a workhorse, but is run enough of to take significant note of. This is the area for sideboard staples.

4: Goblin Grenade, Gray Merchant of Asphodel: A powerful card in the right deck, used right, might have been considered a staple at one point

3: Darksteel Citadel, Elvish Mystic: Solid filler, draft bombs that don’t really see play outside the format

2: Razorfoot Griffin, Jace’s Ingenuity: Okay filler, may see some play in Draft, EDH or Casual, but mostly lost to almost every other format.  Ratings 2 and 3 are most of the cards in Magic.

1: Charging Badger, Staff of the ____ Mage: Bad cards, okay filler. Not run almost ever outside of Draft, these cards would have a tough time having someone defend it, even on the Internet.

0: Storm Crow, Search the City: While opening most cards give you a sort of meh feeling; these cards make you feel legitimately bad pulling them from a pack. People hate pulling them so much so that they complain on the Internet about it.

 

New Mechanics for Khans of Tarkir

Ferocious: This ability activates when your creature attacks if you control a creature with power 4 or greater and does something cool.

Outlast: Pay mana and tap the creature to put a +1/+1 counter on the activating creature and do cool stuff in a lot of cases.

Prowess: Creatures with this ability get larger each time you cast a non-creature spell for that turn.

Raid: This ability activates and does cool stuff if you swung with a creature before the spell with Raid resolves.

Delve: Spells with this ability can get 1 colorless mana per card exiled from your graveyard in order to cast it.

 

 

The Meat and Potatoes

Abomination of Gudul

Daniel (2): This is a very mana intensive card for what you wind up getting and long story short, it’s not really worth it.  The card might be worth a 3 if it read draw a card each time he hits, but by making you discard when you draw it just gets worse. I can’t see this card in constructed, but might see some play in draft just because it is a big flyer.

Abzan Ascendancy

Bruce (4): When this enchantment enters the battlefield all creatures you control get a +1/+1 counter?! Sweet deal. Add with it the mighty Ivorytusk Fortress and they now all effectively have vigilance! Sweeter deal.  Oh, and when things die I get flying spirits too, can anyone say VALUE! I like this but I’m not sure quite where it will fit in.  Likely in draft it will be quite good and pump your team to swing combat in your favor.  In Constructed I doubt it will get much play.  Maybe a one of in an Abzan deck, but this is a late game card because dropping it turn three seems silly.  I think can safely be called a 3, but I’ll give it upside to maybe eek out a 4 before we are all said and done.

Abzan Battle Priest

Daniel (3): Giving lifelink to all of your creatures with +1/+1 counters on them is going to be a big deal in draft. Plus with a tap and 1 white mana he can grow each turn. He is still a 4 mana card and for that reason I’m not sure if we’ll see him in too many decks in the next season. As such I’m not sure how much play he’ll see in standard or other constructed formats, but I expect to see it be a pretty solid card in draft.

Abzan Charm

Daniel (3): Oh Khans charms cycle, well before you read into my article any further let me warn you, the charms are weak (not quite bad) at worst and lukewarm at best. Overall, compared to the charms from Return to Ravnica, they’re mostly just disappointing. 3 colors for 1 of 3 effects makes the cards clunky and hard to cast, and they sit in this weird limbo where almost all of them have 1 powerful effect and 2 others that are almost not worth it. Abzan Charm’s exile effect feels pretty good, but the other two not so much. I expect this card to not see a tremendous amount of play in standard or draft.

Abzan Guide

Daniel (3): A solid creature in draft that doesn’t necessarily need to be a 1st or 2nd round pick, but definitely not a problem to pick up a little bit later in a pack if it’s in your colors. In constructed formats its good stats mixed with lifelink may make it semi-playable, but it’s doubtful for 6 mana.

Ainok Bond-Kin

Daniel (3): This creature sits as a 2/1 for 2 at its worst, at its best it can “outlast” for a tremendous amount and give a whole bunch of your creatures with +1/+1 counters first strike. He should be a consideration for just about any deck looking for a simple, efficient 2 drop with the ability to get better; I expect this card to see mixed amounts of draft and standard play.

Bruce (3): This is a pretty sweet Draft card. A 2/1 for 2 mana makes it a very solid pick when quick two drops usually are the order of the day.  The fact that this also can put counters on itself (with an investment of course) AND gives creatures with a counter First Strike is very powerful and will routinely tip combat in your favour as you opponent is just unable to block profitably.  This looks and feels like a solid 3, but sadly is unlikely to see play in a Constructed environment.

Ainok Tracker

Daniel (1): First strike is a powerful and cool ability, but it shouldn’t double the mana cost of a card that it sits on. This card is an okay card stats wise, but the mana cost makes this card almost unplayable for what you get out of it.

Alabaster Kirin

Daniel (3): Now I’m not really sure what a Kirin is, but I do know that we haven’t actually seen 1 before this set since Kamigawa. Anyway, a 2/3 Flyer with Vigilance feels pretty good in draft, because it can get in there for damage and be ready to block to save you some life on your opponent’s turn. I don’t really see a future for this card outside of draft though, because it’s just not mana efficient at 4 mana.

Alpine Grizzly

Daniel (3): At least this bear is vanilla, a 4/2 for 3 is a pretty good deal; just keep him away from any small guys. This is a pretty solid card in draft that may have a tough time finding a home in standard.

Altar of the Brood

Daniel (3): This is 1 of those cards that gets worse the longer that it takes you to land on the field, because health becomes more and more relevant than deck size as the game drags on. I’m not really sure how the effect of this card fits flavor-wise with your opponent losing his mind not really having anything to do with the flavor of the card. While this card will probably have a tough time finding a place in Standard, it can be a bomb in draft if you manage to get it out turn 1, besides that the usefulness of this card is probably pretty limited.

Bruce (2): This is suitably cheap that it could enable a Mill strategy and the fact that it triggers on ANY permanent is neat.  It could leave a healthy dent in a  Limited deck where you pool of cards is a little reduced, but I feel like this is pretty clearly an EDH card.  I figure this is a 2 and will migrate to EDH  as part of Mill decks as a passive way to keep the Mill strategy up.

Anafenza, the Foremost

Daniel (4): As you’ll probably read later in the pack or come to your own conclusion, this set is filled with powerful creatures that may make great commanders or commander support for EDH, and you can definitely count this one among them. This card makes it hard not to give it a 5, but for its high mana demand I unfortunately see it struggling to break out of Standard play. I don’t want you to get me wrong however, I think this card can definitely be a huge staple in Standard and a definite winner in both EDH and draft play but following this season I see the card struggling to do much more than that.

Bruce (4): Ok…I can only describe this one as being awesome. A 4/4 for 3 mana (sure…A black, a white, and a green) but that hardly seems like a poor tradeoff.  Her abilities make her very appealing because when she attacks you can put a +1/+1 counter on another tapped creature (read ATTACKING) boosting your impact.  THEN, as if this wasn’t enough, your opponents don’t put creature  cards in their graveyard…oh no…they get EXILED.  Like really folks…this is huge.  How huge?  Goodbye graveyard strategies…they just get shut off from that..and EARLY too.  She’s 3 mana! One Llanowar Waste, an Elvish Mystic, and Plains and you have 4/4 on turn 2.  If that doesn’t seem SLIGHTLY unfair, let me know.  She synergizes something crazy with Soul Warden to give you a 4/4 (although since it has vigilance it may never profit from her +1/+1 counter ability).  In limited I can’t imagine she’d be bad.  Even if you stumble a little with the mana, she’s still a 4/4 and can start to tilt the board in your favour. However, based on the fact that her colour combo limits the number of viable deck options, she’s likely coming in at around a 4.

Ankle Shanker

Daniel (3): I almost feel like tribal goblins are trying way too hard in all of the wrong ways to be a thing again and I think that this card proves that more wholeheartedly than anything else. Don’t get me wrong the card feels awesome, all of your creatures attacking with it gaining first strike and deathtouch, but the only real problem is that the card feels that it fits into a mono-red goblin build but with its 3 colors and its mana cost of 5 the card feels like a hard sell for this type of deck. The card can be a bomb in draft so definitely consider picking him up if you see him and aiming for the token plan, but with his colors and his mana cost I’m not sure how much play he’ll see outside of this format.

Bruce (3): 2/2 Goblins for 5 mana is not usually where you want to start…BUT…this guy is pretty boss with the first strike and death touch combo it grants your team when it attacks.  Zurgo really wants this guy as his sidekick.  This is a mean Limited Bomb.  I think 5 mana for a 2/2 likely pushes it out of the realm of constructed, but it would be a sick critter to see hit the battlefield in a creature heavy game. Once again, a solid 3.

Archers’ Parapet

Daniel (3): I personally am a fan of walls, back when I started in Mirrodin, 1 of my best cards was a wall (Steel Wall to be exact) and I can’t tell you how many games I won off this little guy stalling the board for me. The card feels pretty good and the fact that I can ping my opinion every turn also feels pretty good. Overall, I think this card will find some homes in draft, but as standard usually doesn’t care about walls too much.

Armament Corps

Daniel (3): Efficiency goes pretty hand-in-hand with this card putting 6 power on the field for 5 mana, but it seems pretty lukewarm for the mana investment that you have to put into getting this card out there. I don’t see it making a splash in constructed, but I wouldn’t mind picking 1 up late in draft.

Arrow Storm

Daniel (3): 5 mana for 5 potential damage is pretty good in draft. For that reason the card will probably see at least limited play in this format, but may not make its debut in standard. There is almost definitely no chance of this card showing up in higher formats though, simply because there are better choices.

Ascendancy Cycle (Abzan Ascendancy, Jeskai Ascendancy, Mardu Ascendancy, Sultai Ascendancy, and Temur Ascendancy)

Daniel (3-5): The Ascendancy cycle really is a mixed bunch that range from the marginally playable to the seems pretty awesome. The first card in this cycle alphabetically is the Abzan Ascendancy. This is a pretty cool card and shares one of its themes token generation with another of the Ascendancy cards that we’ll get to a little later. This card really ramps up with outlast and the outlast “captains” that give all creatures that have a +1/+1 counter on them neat abilities like flying or first strike. The card’s 2nd ability puts spirits with flying into play each time one of your nontoken creatures die, this goes well with the theme of the Abzan, a group of nomads whose ancestors protect the still living. Overall, the card feels very good flavor-wise and is worth it to play in draft as well as a constructed outlast deck if you build one in standard. Jeskai Ascendancy has two powerful abilities that combo very well with the prowess. Its 1st is a neat trick that untaps all your creatures and gives them +1/+1 whenever you cast a noncreature spell. This is a cool ability that might even make it out of standard and might help storm if they can stomach adding white to their deck. Its 2nd ability allows you to cantrip yourself by giving you the option to draw and discard a card whenever you play a noncreature spell. This is a great combo that adds to any noncreature strategy including Storm. Overall, if you’re playing the prowess strategy in any format I would suggest at least trying to add this card. Mardu Ascendancy is the premiere way to do tokens in this set by putting a 1/1 goblin token into play and attacking each time you attack with a nontoken creature. This can mean a gigantic blowout against an opponent in a quick way. The 2nd ability also works well with this aggro plan by giving them more toughness until end of turn if you sacrifice Mardu Ascendancy. This card probably won’t take off this season because of its steep mana cost, but I definitely expect it to be a force to be reckoned with in both standard and draft. Sultai Ascendancy is the weakest of all of this cycle in my opinion, but it does offer you a way to turn on Delve in a big way and dig through your deck. Not a terrible card in draft if you’re careful about not decking yourself, it’s probably not going to show up in standard. Finally, Temur Ascendancy is another card that works pretty well with the overall theme of its colors, it allows you to draw a card each time a big creature enters the battlefield under your control and gives all your creatures haste. Looking at just the card advantage alone this is a great card to have in draft, and while I’m not sure that Temur will get off the ground in standard, I expect this card to be played if it does.

Bruce (3-4): These are a cycle of 3 mana enchantments, 1 for each clan, that are all quite playable in Limited and could be quite powerful.  They all give considerable upside and seem to play to the strengths of their clan quite nicely.  Clearly, they are strong limited cards.  The real question is if they cut the mustard for Standard.  I suspect no, although the Temur Ascendancy seems to be closest in that it draws you extra cards.  I feel like these are 3’s across the board, but a few could see fringe play at Standard and creep up a little towards a 4, but others won’t even see the light of day in a Constructed deck.

Ashclound Phoenix

Daniel (3): This card is pretty cool and just based off of the fact that the card is a 4/1 flyer for 4 makes it a potentially playable card in Red, but that fact that it has 2 devotion for red means that it may have a hard time finding a home in Standard. Its Morph abilities and its return to the battlefield ability is pretty cool, but its Morph cost may be too high for it to be cost effective. I see this card being playable in Standard if it can find the right deck and I would definitely be willing to pick one up in draft, but outside of these formats I don’t see it as having high playability.

Bruce (3): This is merely a Limited card.  Yes, we all love our Phoenixes and the Morph trigger is hilarious, but a 4/1 without haste won’t cut it for Constructed.  Limited Bomb and will just keep on coming back.  This is a 3.

Avalanche Tusker

Daniel (3): As far as vanilla stats this card is lacking a little bit as a 4/4 for 5 mana. The card’s ability is almost like a strictly worse provoke and it doesn’t make up for the high mana cost of the card because it is so mana intensive. If you see this card in draft, a 4/4 is still a 4/4 so he might be worth it just for that, but in constructed I don’t see him making too much of a splash.

Awaken the Bear

Daniel (3): 3 mana for 3 more power and toughness and trample on a creature is a pretty nice effect, so nice I really only have one problem against it being a great card, and that is the fact that it’s not an enchantment. The problem is amended by the fact that it’s at instant speed, but it still doesn’t make up for the fact entirely. I might not mind picking this card up in draft, but I don’t know if I’d try to run it in my standard deck.

Banner Cycle (Abzan Banner, Jeskai Banner, Mardu Banner, Sultai Banner, and Temur Banner)

Daniel(2): Not a bad filler and mana fixer for Draft, but 3 mana for 3 different types of mana feels a lot like the cluestones out of the last set. I don’t believe these are going to make an impact on any of the constructed formats though.

Barrage of Boulders

Daniel (4): A board sweep and a functional reprint of Falter that’s been burning up Vintage Masters on Magic the Gathering: Online recently. This card is all about the tokens, you can play it against the tokens in the format to take out almost all of the cards you’re up against. In the token deck, it doesn’t hit your creatures and stops your opponent from being able to block, potentially winning you the game. I expect this card to be played in both draft and standard, but not make it past this because of the fact that there are better choices than this card in higher formats.

Bear’s Companion

Daniel (3): A 2/2 and a 4/4 for 5 isn’t absolutely abysmal, but it’s not really great either when you consider how color intensive the card is. If you see one in draft, I would pick it up just don’t expect it to really do much for you outside of this format.

Become Immense

Daniel (3): Delve is such an interesting mechanic and it really does make this card hard to place, but still, by the time you need to use this card your graveyard should have at least a few cards in it. I think it’s probably better than it would be without Delve, but I’m not hugely sold on the card.  I still feel as though it’ll probably see its time in the sun in draft before it falls off into ambiguity.

Bellowing Saddlebrute

Daniel (3): This card comes down a 4/5 for 4 mana and for those two reasons alone this card isn’t bad and definitely earns itself a place in draft. The downside to the card is the fact that you may lose 4 life when it enters play. That is easily avoided however by attacking before it comes into play, which is looking to be pretty easy for black in this format and as such, this card could very well find its way into an aggro deck in standard.

Bitter Revelation

Daniel (2): Bitter Revelation doesn’t really feel like an effective card. Coming down at 4 mana and with lukewarm effects that were better finished in the previous block I don’t expect this card to have an impact on Standard, but card advantage is card advantage in draft so while not a first round draft pick, definitely a consideration in draft.

Bruce (2): This is a strict downgrade from Read the Bones from Theros.  It’s 4 mana (not 3), it’s sorcery speed (not an instant) and just is generally not as good because you dump your cards in the graveyard instead of scrying them to the bottom.  It will see play in Limited for sure, but it won’t excite anyone and most certainly will not see play in Constructed. This is  a 2.

Blinding Spray

Daniel (4): Blinding Spray bcan be better than a regular fog effect, I really like this card. The fact that it not only works so well against tokens but also draws you a card means that I’ll be trying my hardest to pick up one late in draft if I’m in blue. It might see some sideboard action in standard, but I wouldn’t expect much more than this on this front.

Bloodfire Expert

Daniel (3): A 3/1 for 2 that gets bigger each time you cast a non-creature spell feels pretty good. I wouldn’t mind running this card in standard or draft, but I don’t expect more than that.

Bloodfire Mentor

Daniel (2): Filtering seems to be a theme for red in this set, and while it is better than nothing, it doesn’t really give red the chance to gain card advantage over your opponents which is one of the things you typically want draw for. Besides the effect being over-costed on this card, the card itself isn’t efficient for its mana cost (3 mana for a 0/5). The card probably won’t see much play in either standard or draft.

Bloodsoaked Champion

Daniel (4): A 2/1 for 1 that can perpetually bring itself back is pretty solid of a card. Add to that the fact that it sits in a color that’s going to be a great token rush type strategy and we’re looking at a card that’s probably going to be a pretty big deal in the next season. The fact that it can’t block is bad, but I don’t know If you’d even want to block with this guy. If you see this guy in draft I’d pick him up and if you’re wondering if he’s going to be played next season, my money would be on yes. He might even see some play outside of Standard, but time will tell.

Bruce (4): Wow…black Aggro just got another sweet treat.  Who cares if it can’t block…you weren’t blocking with it anyway.  The fact that you can essentially buy it back with the Raid trigger on this is bananas because what else is Black Aggro doing apart from attacking ALL THE TIME…not much else…that’s what. A solid 1 drop in Limited and very likely will see play in Constructed in the right Aggro shell I’ll give this a 4…but don’t be mistaken…this card alone will not crush your opponent because a 2/1 for 1 is good, but not format defining or ridiculously overpowered.  It is a useful card, plenty playable, but needs support to get the job done.

Brave the Sands

Daniel(3): I’m not really sure what braving sands has to do with vigilance or why this specific group of people can do it with no drawbacks, but excusing the flavor, the card’s not too terrible. Vigilance and being able to block multiple creatures is really good for decks that run larger creatures and so I expect this card to at least have a small spot in draft even if its prospects in constructed don’t look so hot.

Bruce (2): I feel like the Abzan could really use the Vigilance ability and the defensive nature of this spell to block an extra creature might enable  the Abzan deck to hold off getting blownout by using some of its larger creatures to take out a pair of creatures and really dictate the terms of combat.  This is still likely a 2 because you need to have the board state to really enable this card, but it could most certainly be a valuable card.

Briber’s Purse

Daniel (3): I’m not sure how much I get behind the flavor of this card, I can imagine I guess being able to bribe certain creatures in the set but others are more like zealots than hired hands who could be paid off. I guess there are others you could bribe to stop someone from attacking or blocking if you really wanted to though… From a game aspect the card isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t do a tremendous amount. Still in the right situation it could be the difference between a win or a loss though so not too terrible overall. I still don’t expect to see this card run too frequently.

Bring Low

Daniel (3): Instant speed is extremely important for removal, because it allows you to pull off some combat tricks on both players’ turns. There are a lot of cards in the format that either gains +1/+1 counters or put them on creatures you control, which means that this card can deal 5 damage in a lot of cases. I expect this card to see a little play in draft and less in standard.

Burn Away

Daniel (3): Removal is a big deal in draft. The reason it’s such a big deal is that there are many creatures that your deck may just not be able to deal with. Additionally, it helps you get in for that extra damage you need to get in by removing your opponent’s blockers. I expect this card to be played loosely in draft and not so much in Standard.

Butcher of the Horde

Daniel (4): A flying 5/4 for 4 is a pretty strong card; add to it the fact that it’s got its ability to give itself trample, lifelink and vigilance for the sacrifice of a creature. The card is also going to be in the colors for a token deck in the next standard season and so you’ve got plenty of cards to sacrifice to him. I think this card is a bomb in draft and will definitely find a place in a deck this standard season, but I don’t see the card doing much more than that.

Bruce (5): This is ridiculous.  4 mana for 5/4 with Flying and the sacrifice ability is nuts.  I have read that sacrificing a creature is perhaps the most powerful ability in the game of Magic and this guy sort of makes that rule stand up. This will be a monster in Draft, for sure, but I could see this be relevant in Constructed because it is so aggressively costed.  The Mana fixing is there and decks are always looking for a menacing finisher…so…yeah…this is a thing.  Likely a 4 or a 5 for sure.

Canyon Lurkers

Daniel (1): A 5/2 for 5 mana is an okay card unless your opponent has blockers than the card becomes a very bad card that trades with a 2/2 and doesn’t give you anything else when it dies. If the card had trample then it might score a 2, but as a vanilla 5/2 the card is pretty terrible. I don’t expect this card to be run much in anything.

Charm cycle (Abzan Charm, Jeskai Charm, Mardu Charm, Sultai Charm, Temur Charm)

Bruce (4-5): These are terrific cards.  All three modes for each of the charms are extremely powerful and very useful.  These will do awesome work in Limited and will absolutely see play in Constructed.  They are more expensive than the Charms from RTR, but by having fewer charms (and thus fewer modes to consider) they’ve consolidated many of the most powerful effects on to these cards making them highly sought after uncommon and very useful.  Strong 4’s or maybe even 5’s. Oh, and the new clearer template is terrific and very jazzy.

Clever Impersonator

Daniel (5): I really like this card and it pretty much feels like sideboard gold for blue, dealing with almost any board problem by just copying a vital card. I expect this card to at least be tried if not find a permanent place in every format.

Bruce (5): This is gross.  Copy any non-land permanent! Shut up.  I hate you.  This is really, really, really good and will be a bomb in Draft and Constructed because it can copy a Planeswalker…like…I don’t know…maybe their Elsbeth…or…their Garruk…and then kills their Garruk…and you still have the freaking Garruk.  The options are endless and this card is stupid good. I have no doubt this is a 4 but I feel like this will creep up towards being a 5.

Crackling Doom

Daniel (5): Crackling Doom is 1 of those cards that has a tremendous amount of potential, but has the potential to be killed by the fact that it has so many colors. I feel that the card is a solution to the biggest and baddest creatures in the game. I feel that if it can overcome this color barrier however, it may find itself a home in Legacy. This card is an easy pick up for draft and will almost definitely see some play in Standard.

Bruce (4): This is a terrific spell for all environments for the sole reason that it forces an opponent to sacrifice their biggest creature. That’s awesome because that creature is likely the reason you are up a creek…and now it’s gone for 3 mana…and it gets around hexproof and protection shenanigans.  The damage is also appealing but not the prime feature of this card.  EDH, Constructed, Limited, every one wants this card and it will do very good work.  This is a 4 and could see a 5 at the upward end of the scale.

Cranial Archive

Daniel (2): The whole shuffle your library into your deck thing is old, and it never really amounted to anything in its better form (Exilir of Immortality), and I don’t expect anything from this card either.

Crater’s Claws

Daniel (3): Short, simple and to the point, this is an improved Fireball. This is just my opinion of course, Fireball isn’t played much anymore but variants of it have found their way into various decks over the years. I’m not sure how much constructed play this will see, but it can be a very helpful card in draft.

Bruce (3): Well, hello my old Friend…Fireball…I’ve missed you.  This will be disgusting in Limited and just totally enabled another round of Burn decks for Constructed.  Who doesn’t love Red X spells?  Heck, pack in a big fatty in your deck and burninate for some more! Sigh…if only it were an instant it would be totally broken.  Yeah…this is 3 for sure with a chance to hit as high as a 4.

Dazzling Ramparts

Daniel (1): This is a defender with a pretty cool effect, but 5 mana for a 0/7 defender is too much, I don’t expect this card to see any real play.

Bruce (2): Yes, 0/7 walls for 5 mana are hardly exciting, but the ability to tap something down is very relevant if you are committed to playing the long game.  Couple this with Brave the Sands and this wall could easily block two creatures without much fear of losing the combat.  This will be perfectly playable and will no doubt do good work.  This is a 2.

Dead Drop

Daniel (4): There was a card called Chainer’s Edict that Magic printed way back in the day and It also earned itself a reprint in From the Vault: 20. Chainer’s Edict was and still is considered one of the best removal cards in the game and this card does what Chainer’s had a hard time doing for right around the same mana cost and its flashback. When you throw Delve on this card it makes it even better. I don’t know about Standard play just for its high casting cost and late game utilization, but draft will probably really like it and it might even make its way into a constructed format.

Death Frenzy

Daniel (4): There are definitely better choices in standard than this card such as Drown in Sorrow for example, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a better solution against the token plan in draft than this card. It will definitely be a force to be reckoned with against Token strategies in limited and the life gain just makes it that much better.

Debilitating Injury

Daniel (3): This is a pretty simple card that gives a creature-2/-2 for 2, but that doesn’t make it a bad card. I wouldn’t mind picking one up in draft, but even as good as it is in limited I’m not sure it makes the cut in constructed.

Defiant Strike

Daniel (2): This card is basically a draw card with a bonus +1/+0 until end of turn. It’s a cantrip and that’s about it. I don’t think this card will have too much success in Limited or Standard.

Deflecting Palm

Daniel (2): This is a very situational card that may see a little bit of play this upcoming season in a Boros Burn type of deck. The card does seem very good against a big threat as a good way to solve that problem for a turn or switch a situation on its head. I don’t think the card will be hugely effective in anything but a mirror match, because of its limited applications. I believe this card may find a home in a few sideboards this upcoming Standard season, but don’t think it’s that impressive of a card in Limited or outside of Standard.

Bruce (1): This card has a lot of text.  All that text may as well read “This card will basically do nothing. Don’t bother with it.”  Sure, there will be situations where it COULD be good…but in most situations this card will be terrible.  You need to keep the mana up, pray they don’t have a counter, and after you fire this spell off you had better hope that they either they are dead or that you have a way to finish them off because you have had no significant impact on the board.  This is likely a 1 and something no one will be keen to play.

Dig Through Time

Daniel (4): Digging through 7 cards can be a pretty big deal, drawing two of them and moving the rest out of the way may make this card a serious contender. I’m still not a huge Delve fan, but it does keep powerful cards from becoming broken and this card is an example of that. I expect people to at least try this card out in standard and play it when they can in draft.

Bruce (3): I have heard people say that this is Constructed playable, but I’m not so sure.  The mana cost is super expensive and even with the Delve I’m a little taken aback.  I’ll give it a 3 and resign it for Limited for now but will acknowledge that the ability to dig for 7 cards and find 2 spells at Instant speed could be absolutely crazy because control decks will usually have cards to burn in their graveyard and gobble this thing up. I want to revisit this one in a few weeks to see how it has fared.

Disdainful Stroke

Daniel (3): Counterspells are a funky bit of business, the first thing to consider with them is the fact that cheaper is almost always better unless they have a strong restriction on them. This is one of those restrictions that could go either way. By targeting a higher mana cost spell, it means that you’re targeting a lot of your opponent’s bomb spells. It is usually more important that you target lower mana costs though, so that’s why this card is potentially a bad card. In Limited as I always mention, running a counterspell is a risky bit of business.  In standard this card may find a home as it protects you from the larger cards in the format.

Disowned Ancestor

Daniel (3): A 0/4 for 1 that can power up himself every turn is a great card in this format. While a lot of the set has been late game stuff, this card can be played turn 1 then pumped up every turn until you find something else to do. This has the potential to give you a powerful creature in exchange for your plays on less useful early turns. I definitely expect to see this card in Limited and if outlast becomes a thing in standard this card will probably be there.

Dragon Grip

Daniel (3): Enchantments are a dangerous game to play, especially when you’re not casting a bestow enchantment. They’re so dangerous because the instants in the game give your opponents the chance to get a 2-for-1. However this card has flash so as long as you have a powerful creature it makes this card better. This card isn’t that bad in Limited and can make your lower costing creatures easier to play and keep them competitive later in the game. I don’t expect this card to be played in Standard too much though.

Dragon-Style Twins

Daniel (3): Dragon-Style Twins feels just sort of lukewarm for its mana cost. The card is cool for a double-striker that grows by 1 every time you cast a non-creature spell which  can be very painful for your opponents. The card is very prohibitive both with the double red in its mana and its high casting cost of 5. This isn’t to say that it won’t see any play or that you should definitely pass one up in a draft, I just don’t expect that much from it. Remember that it is an expensive card and isn’t necessarily a game finisher.

Bruce (3): This is Limited bomb…a 3/3 with double strike is almost like having a 6/3 with First strike…meaning it wins combat almost all the time.  The Prowess makes this crazy powerful if you can trick it out with a few non-creature spells to tip combat in your favour.  A 3 for sure, but won’t see Constructed play.

Dragon Throne of Tarkir

Daniel (3): This card may be rather costly mana-wise and I know that everyone will get tired of me saying it by the end of the article, but I feel that this card would fit very well into the token game plan. That being said, it’s a tricky card for both Standard and Limited.

Bruce (3): Well…this could be messy one at Limited and tip combat your way more often than not.  The +x/+x bonus is pretty absurb.  Even equipping this to a Bear of some sort gives your team a +2/+2 bonus, which is pretty sizeable.  At Constructed we’ve seen that unless 4 mana artefacts are crazy good they’ll get passed over, and this one is no different.  This will be a 3 for its relevance in Limited.

Dragonscale Boon

Daniel (2): +1/+1 counters are pretty cool and so is the ability to untap a creature, but 4 mana to do it with only these effects is unimpressive. Considering what else you can do for 4 mana in this set, this card might see some Limited success, but don’t expect much more than that.

Duneblast

Daniel (4): This is the new world we’ve arrived in and we pretty much have to accept that mass removal for 6 or 7 is the way that R&D has decided to push it; if the card had come out a set ago, I would have given it a 2, but because of the lack of good mass removal in the block, this card has a very real chance to see a good amount of play in the next season.

Bruce (2): And once again we get 7 mana mass removal.  Super sweet card, but borderline unplayable in almost any format except EDH.  Limited will be unlikely to see you hit 7 mana in time for this to matter…Constructed most certainly not…so this will be resigned to a lifetime of EDH play.  This can safely take up residence as the coolest board wipe I’ve seen in ages…but is still a 2 at best.

Dutiful Return

Daniel (1): This card is basically just a worse reprint of the card Urborg Uprising. Long story short it didn’t work before and it won’t work now. I don’t expect this card to find much play in any format.

Efreet Weaponmaster

Daniel (3): A first strike 4/3 for 6 is not really worth it especially when you throw in the fact that the card is so mana-intensive. Its Morph ability isn’t really all that good compared to how much you have to pay for it. Overall it’s a pretty solid draft pick but I don’t see it doing much more than that.

Embodiment of Spring

Daniel (3): Two of my favorite cards to draft in Theros block were Burnished Hart and Opaline Unicorn. Needless to say I consider mana fixing to be a very important aspect of the game. While Embodiment of Spring might not be a substitution for Burnished Hart, it still feels pretty good in this set and is almost certainly going to be a pick-up in draft. It certainly will not be played much outside Limited.

Empty the Pits

Daniel (4): This card is definitely a bomb in Limited if you play it late in the game. The format does seem to cater to late game strategies over faster, earlier game strategies. For these reasons if nothing else, I expect the card to make an impact on standard play and to see a good amount of play in draft.

Bruce (3): Ahh, zombies…how I haven’t missed you.  This is kind of a ridiculous spell because at Instant speed (and with Delve) you could flood the board with zombies.  I don’t feel like this is going to be an awesome constructed card because the quad black and double X of the casting cost makes it too tough to cast. In Limited this could be a ridiculous bomb if you find it late game with a full board.  Cast it on the end step of your opponent and then untap a swarm of zombies for the win…sounds good to me.  I feel like this is a 3 but once again it is a Mythic  and tough to find.

End Hostilities

Daniel (4): The big news at the beginning of this block was that there weren’t going to be any cheap and easy sweepers in this set. They have gone out of their way to realize quite a few sweepers however, and while they have kept their promise about them not being quite so cheap we are bound to see quite a few of them. A mass removal spell is always a solid pick in draft and this one is fairly cheap compared to the others. If this is as good as it gets in the terms of cheap removal, I would totally expect to see it run this Standard season.

Bruce (6): Can I say “I told you so?” A few weeks ago (before WoTC wrote their article) I called the no 4 mana sweeper in Khans…and I was right!  This one is just fine.  A 5 mana sweeper doesn’t feel overpowered  but it does certainly put the screws to Bestow creatures.  I like that little twist.  Because control decks will run it, it will be a staple, I’m sure.  That bounces it up the table and makes this about a 6, but I doubt we’ll ever see it creep into modern or another format.

Feat of Resistance

Daniel (3): This card looks to be the premiere creature protection for the upcoming season. While it may not keep up with Ajani’s Presence, it is poised to at least give it a run for its money. This card will pump up your team, allow you to avoid blockers and have a way to protect your important creatures for a pretty low cost. I feel that this card has a possibility to be run both in Limited and Standard.

Feed the Clan

Daniel (2): Life gain spells are almost never worth it, unless they have another cool ability or are recurring in some way. Being able to set your life back 10 points is kind of a big deal though and that may just pull this card through to being playable in Limited. The jury’s still out on this one and I’m not sure whether this is a good or terrible card. It might get some play in Limited, but probably not in standard this season.

Firehoof Cavalry

Daniel (2): As a 1/1 for 1 that can pump for 4 and gain trample, this card is okay, but I don’t feel that it really keeps up with the format in the long run. This card might see a little bit of play in Limited , but I don’t expect much more than that out of it.

Flying Crane Technique

Daniel (2): Feeling just as gimmicky as it looks and sounds, this card does not pass as a good card in my book. Clocking in at 6 mana and only really being able to utilize half of its abilities on any given casting makes this card not so good in my opinion. The future for this card seems pretty bleak, but with a late game token deck the card might have a future in the game. I would have serious reservations against even picking the card in draft as most of the time the card won’t either be playable or useful in most situations.

Bruce (3): I read this the first time and largely dismissed it.  Then I stopped and Re-read this.  This is a Jeskai Overrun spell.  Think about it…everything gets flying, double strike, triggers Prowess and makes your team go nuts.  The mana cost is even just fine for an Overrun type effect.  If you are in Jeskai in Limited you want one of these in your deck as a finisher to break open the board state or to close out a game.  This is a solid 3.

Force Away

Daniel (3): 2 mana to bounce an opponent’s creature is a pretty good deal. It can answer a problem for a few turns and can also set them up to get countered later. When you add the fact that if you’ve got a big creature you get to filter your hand, then the card is definitely solid enough to see some play in Limited. My only problem with the card is its flavor, but I feel only people like me will understand that. As a pretty vanilla bounce spell with good stats this may also find itself a home in standard.

Gain Lands (Bloodfell Caves, Blossoming Sands, Dismal Backwater, Jungle Hollow, Rugged Highland, Scoured Barrens, Swiftwater Cliffs, Thornwood Falls, Tranquil Cove, and Wind-Scarred Crag)

Daniel (3): Lands like this are going to be vital in this set as they allow you extra chances to draw your dual lands. Decks will probably contain multiple copies of these withthe Shard lands, Fetch Lands and Pain Lands this Standard season. These lands help you make a playable 3-color deck in both Standard and draft. The lands are not as good as many of the other choices that are available in other formats, so I don’t expect these lands to break out of Standard.

Ghostfire Blade

Daniel (3): I think this card is cool, but it is definitely in the wrong set. The only colorless artifact creature in the set being Witness of the Ages.  I still love equipment in Limited, they just make things better. I don’t expect this card to find much play unless it is somehow coupled with a good amount of powerful artifact creatures in the next few sets.

Bruce (2): This is cheap,  equips for a reasonable cost, and is even better for colourless creatures.  Here’s the deal…we don’t have a lot of colourless creatures in this set.  There’s a couple…but not enough to really warrant this being super relevant.  This feels more like a harbinger for things to come.  We’ve seen that Ugin is here on Tarkir, Sorin who helped Ugin imprison the Eldrazi is also here, Sarkhan let the Eldrazi out is kicking around as well…could we see some sort of Eldrazi crawl into Tarkir and faceoff off with the Clans in the later sets?  Who knows.  This seems pretty neat and I want to see where it goes, but the actual card is about a 2.

Glacial Stalker

Daniel (3): A vanilla 4/5 for 6 mana that can unmorph for 5 isn’t terrible. It has 4 power so it may see play in draft, but I feel as though it will have a hard time moving into the constructed formats.

Goblinslide

Daniel (4): I may be a little biased when it comes to goblins… I suppose I should just admit to it now before I’m accused of it by someone. Most goblin cards just feel really good, and I would definitely include this card in their numbers. Following the token theme of the whole deck, this card can be responsible for dispatching a tremendous amount of goblin tokens onto your side of the field throughout the course of a game. Additionally, the added bonus of falling into the Prowess strategy makes this card feel awesome in at least this Standard and Limited season. I personally plan to pick up a playset of this card and am going to try to make it work in Modern. On the negative, the card does seem expensive in a Goblin deck at 3 mana, as well as needing non-creature spells to activate, which you might be a little short of in a true Goblin deck.

Grim Haruspex

Daniel (4): Since Magic printed Bob (Dark Confidant), it has been looking for a way to fix and reprint him. This card comes down as one of my “favorite” fixes for Bob like Dark Prophecy. While I am a bigger fan of Prophecy, the fact that it doesn’t cost your life is an important part about this card that hasn’t been explored before. Still the fact that you have to have 3 mana versus Bob’s 2 makes this card a harder sell than usual. Still all things considered I definitely wouldn’t mind running this card in a deck or pulling one in Limited.

Bruce (3): This is going to be stellar in Draft or Constructed.  The card advantage generated from having non-creature tokens die is extremely relevant in any format.  Also, a 3/2 for 3 mana is suitably aggressively costed that it can’t be ignored.  I feel like this is ideally suited for the same sort of Black Aggro strategy that Bloadsoaked Champion fits in (and can be abused somewhat by buying the Champion back) but it could be equally relevant to draw you extra cards in a Limited game. This feels like a 3 and with a chance to slide up into the 4 spot with the right strategy.

Gurmag Swiftwing

Daniel (3): While this card isn’t going to break any decks, a 1/2 Flyer with haste and first strike for 2 is pretty good. I still wish it had 2 power even if it cost 2 mana. The card is still probably going to see a respectable amount of play in Limited, but not so much in Standard.

Hardened Scales

Daniel (4): If this card was any more than 1 mana I wouldn’t be that excited, but it’s one of those enchantment that has the potential to flip the game on its head and get its own deck built around it in different formats. Hardened Scales feels really good in this set with a whole bunch of cards being able to put +1/+1 counters on things. The deck falls into various strategies that are typically covered by Doubling Season and this card does it much faster than that card. I think it has definite potential for Limited and it would be a shock not to see it run in standard and tons of other formats as well.

Bruce (2): This is exclusively a Limited card and frankly is a pretty marginal one unless you are rocking the Abzan in a large degree. It impacts the board very little initially and takes some investment to enact it with the Outlast mechanic or spells that impact the power and toughness of creatures through counters.   Otherwise, I don’t think this will be impactful enough at Constructed and pretty fringe at best.  This is likely a 2 and unlikely to be much more.

Heart-Piercer Bow

Daniel (3): What’s faster than first strike? That’s right, it’s damage before combat. The card is competitively costed and has a pretty cool ability, but it just doesn’t seem worth it in either Limited or Standard.

Heir of the Wilds

Daniel (3): A 2/2 deathtouch for 2 is a very good “Bear“. Add to that the fact that with Ferocious he gets +1/+1  when he attacks then you have a very effective beater that I expect to be run in most of the Green decks of the next standard season. Almost worth first picking cause it’s so good in Draft.

Herald of Anafenza

Daniel (5): A 1/2 for 1 is a pretty good vanilla creature, but add the fact that the card generates a 1/1 warrior tokens when using Outlast and you’ve got a creature that is playable at any point in a game. The card feels really good and efficient, I think that it will find its home in just about any token deck in about any format you want it to. It’s a great card in Limited definitely worth picking up.

Bruce (3): So, 1 mana 1/2 creatures are good.  They outclass many other 1 drops, but sadly are often outclassed themselves by the time turn two rolls around.  However, with the Outlast ability this can remain relevant well into the long game and can be an ample supply of tokens to plug up the ground or to put pressure on your opponent. This is doubtless a Draft all star and a strong 3, but perhaps it could see fringe play in a Constructed deck looking to pump a bunch of tokens to exploit with Purphorous or something.  I might go back to the drawing board with this guy and see what I can do.

High Sentinels of Arashin

Daniel (4): Acting as the strategy for Outlast, this is the card that officially changes this strategy from being very hard to pull together to very possible. This is a huge bomb in Limited capable of pumping up all of your creatures and just pushing your deck out of the range of your opponent over time. Even from just an efficient creature standpoint a 3/4 flyer for 4 that gets bigger for every other creature with a counter on it  makes him potentially playable in standard. Adding +1/+1 counters to other creatures and pumping himself at the same time is also useful late game. As long as 4 mana doesn’t turn out to be too expensive in the constructed format, it will still see play in Limited.

Bruce (3): This is a very strong Limited card that rewards you for packing your deck full of Abzan Outlast abilities.  Think about it, if you have even a pair of creatures with +1/+1 counters this is a 5/6 and can fly.  That’s crazy bomb-y!  Not likely Constructed playable, but still nuts in Limited.  This is likely a 3.

Highland Game

Daniel (3): 2 mana for a 2/1 that gains you 2 life when it dies. Short, sweet and to the point this card is a solid play in Limited that can probably get you in there for a few damage early, but I don’t see it doing much outside of this.

Highspire Mantis

Daniel (3): Highspire MantisMantis Rider… maybe there’s some similarities there… This card is a weaker form of Mantis Rider, that is uncommon instead of rare. Overall the card is not terrible as a 3/3 flyer with trample for 4, I don’t know if you really need trample on a 3/3. There are certainly worse cards to pick in draft and Mantis Rider requires a more intensive color base, so sometimes it may even be better to pick Highspire Mantis over Mantis Rider. I’m not too sure how well it’ll do in standard, but probably not well enough all things considered.

Hooded Hydra

Daniel (4): Hydras are pretty simple and good and this one feels like that. This card is a definitive bomb in Limited for its sheer power and the fact that when it’s gone it makes tokens to replace itself. It’s interesting to see how they incorporated Morph into the card, and the only problem really  is the fact that it doesn’t have trample. Even though the card does feel good and it’s a definite pick in draft, I’m not sure how big of a deal it is in Standard or the other formats, but time will tell.

Bruce (3): More Green Hydras?  Ok.  This is kind of neat because it packs Morph, spits out Tokens and is just generally another big fat creature monster. This is a Limited Bomb, but could sneak into a Mono-Green Devotion or Monsters build in Constructed as a possibility.  I think this will likely be a sleeper and 3 to start but could creep up if it finds a home in Constructed somewhere.

Hooting Mandrills

Daniel (3): If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a 100 times, when creatures get to a certain power level (namely 4) it needs trample or it’s immediately worse in my book. I am happy to report that this card has trample, and as such even with its higher mana cost of 6 it’s still a really solid card in Limited. On its mana cost, delve does help, but it still feels a little bit high for its cost. Overall, I expect to see this card in Limited a little bit, but don’t expect more than that out of it.

Hordeling Outburst

Daniel (2): Even if I do love the bum-rush with Goblins strategy in this set, this card just seems too flimsy to make an impact on standard, but in Limited it is card advantage.

Howl of the Horde

Daniel (3): My explanation for this card is short and biter, if Reverberate and fork didn’t have a huge impact on the game it’s unlikely that a sorcery speed version of them will.

Bruce (2): This should really read “Fork…but slower”.  It is pretty conditional and if you don’t have a good target then it pretty well sits as a dead card in your hand.  It could be super powerful, but I suspect it will be mostly a dud.  Constructed I think is a far outside shot with this but I could prove wrong.  This is likely a 2 and perhaps a 3.

Icefeather Aven

Daniel (3): A 2/2 flyer for 2 is pretty good, but the fact that you need Simic colors to cast is not so good. Wrap it up and put a bow on it and it still stacks up better than most other uncommons in Limited. The card’s second ability to bounce when it morphs can just be counted as the icing on the cake for a pretty solid card. I think Icefeather Aven has some real potential to play at least a little in the upcoming Standard season as well as in Limited.

Icy Blast

Daniel (3): Tapping (Freezing) and bouncing seems likes blues two favorite abilities in almost any set. If there is anyone that remembers back in the days of Titans, they’ll remember how damning Frost Titan’s ability to tap down your opponent’s creatures and keep them tapped can be. This effect may not be recurring like TORMOD’S CRYPT, but it does potentially hit a lot more targets and come out earlier. I think this card is a pretty cool in Limited and might make it into Standard, but I don’t expect it to do much more than that.

Bruce (3): This is a Limited Bomb.  Tapping down your opponent’s team on their end step, untap and then Alpha strike for the win makes this ridiculous.  The Ferocious trigger is also 100% nuts because they then STAY tapped.  Like…that’s bonkers and will lead to blow outs of unbelievable proportions.  In Constructed the impact will be somewhat reduced by virtue of the fact that the board is usually somewhat less strewn with creatures, but as a singleton or a pair of to force through damage it could useful.  I figure this is a 3 with some wiggle room to creep up to a 4 if it finds a home in Constructed somewhere.

Ivorytusk Fortress

Daniel (4): This is going to be a tough set. If I’ve learned anything from it, it is that this set is going to be difficult for anyone but some of the most experienced deck builders to really get their head wrapped around it. This being said I have my reservations with this card, fair enough. Another partially functional reprint of Seedborn Muse feels pretty good, especially with this card coming so soon after Prophet of Kruphix being powerful from Theros. I’m just not sure that the card does enough, but I suppose time will tell. If nothing else, I suppose it is a 5/7 for 5 mana even though it is a little color intensive.

Bruce (4): Clearly the Abzan have got a bunch of overpowered, undercosted bulldozers in this set.  This is a 5/7 for a paltry 5 mana.  That’s pretty good value and the fact that it untaps all your creatures with a +1/+1 counter on it is bananas.  Think about it…Heroic is still a thing.  Most Heroic creatures (or at least the good ones) are in White.  What could be more fun than a Dawnbringer Charioteer or a Fabled Hero with Vigilance?  Not much.  I could see a mid-range Abzan deck take shape and just pack a wicked punch and this Fortress is just the icing on the cake.  In Draft, there is no good reason to NOT take this.  It’s a huge beat stick that immediately sures up the board and likely outclasses anything they control.  This is the real deal in limited, even if tough to cast with the triple mana cost.  I could see being an easy 3, but perhaps creep up as far as a 4 if the right conditions emerge.

Jeering Instigator

Daniel (5): I feel like I’ve given a lot of 5’s out to this set, but it really does feel like they’ve released a whole bunch of sideboard gold in this set, and this card is an outstanding addition to that group. 3 mana for a steal spell is pretty awesome, I think it’s a great card that will make an impact.

Bruce (4): Oh boy…Threaten effects are super fun and this guy is awesome.  Threaten on a stick?  Hell yes! This will be a 3 for sure because it is just value and perhaps even a 4 if it creeps into the right deck.  I’m just a big fan for the surprise value of Morphing this guy and then smashing your opponent with his own critter.  Oh the fun I will have.

Jeskai Charm

Daniel (3): Setting charms as uncommon makes them better than if they were rares because in that case they would be very disappointing. As it is an uncommon though this card feels pretty good and I love its versatility. It comes with three abilities, sending a creature to the top of the library, can deal 4 damage to an opponent or it gives your creatures +1/+1 and lifelink until end of turn. However I still don’t necessarily like its mana cost, it just feels expensive to pay three different colors to play it. I still feel that the card is very playable both in Standard and Limited, but not much more than that.

Jeskai Elder

Daniel (3): I’m still not completely sold on the Prowess mechanic, but if it’s going to work anywhere I suppose blue is where it’s at. This card not only offers a way to get bigger, but also gives you a fair amount of filtering each time it hits your opponent. I think this card is a definite pick in Draft and I feel that if blue is still a thing next season then this card will at least see a little bit of play.

Bruce (2): A 1/2 for 2 mana with Prowess is pretty solid.  The fact that if it deals combat damage to a player scores you the chance to loot is pretty sweet as well. My problem with the Jeskai is that there is a tension between their creatures  and the Prowess ability. In Draft you want to play creatures, but Prowess wants you to play noncreature spells resulting in you being torn as to what direction you want to take your Draft deck.  There is little chance this will see play in a Constructed format, but that doesn’t make it an interesting card and a solid draft addition as a 2.

Jeskai Student

Daniel (3): A 1/3 with prowess for 2 is pretty solid, so I expect it to see an okay amount of play in Draft and maybe some in Standard.

Jeskai Windscout

Daniel (3): A 2/1 flyer for 3 in Draft is a pretty solid pick almost all of the time. Throw in Prowess on top of it and you’ve got a great pick that will get in there and deal some quick damage to your opponent. I think it’s playability in Standard is going to be contingent upon the amount of blue decks there are in the format.

Bruce (2): This is just a serviceable flier in blue for the Limited environment. The fact that it packs Prowess is a nice addition and could allow this to get a little tricky and win combat with a couple of non creature spell, but it is hardly a menace. This is yet another 2 and unlikely to ever amount to much more.

Kheru Bloodsucker

Daniel (3): This card is kind of like a powered up but worse Blood Artist. First, this card only cares when your big creatures die, taking 2 life from your opponent and giving it to you. Then you can sacrifice creatures to this card to give him +1/+1 counters. Stat-wise this is a 2/2 for 3, which means that you should be able to get it online before you have to worry about your big creatures. I expect this card to see limited success in Draft and maybe even find its way into a Standard deck or two, but any more than that would be pushing it.

Kheru Dreadmaw

Daniel (2): I’m not too sure what’s this card’s flavor. My first question is why is this a Defender? My next is why do you gain life when you feed him creatures? I’m not sure who got to make the creative decisions on this card, but I don’t think I like it. Besides the two problems I already mentioned, it just doesn’t feel that useful. I guess sacrificing a creature that’s about to die for life can be useful. However 5 mana for a 4/4 blocker, then I would much rather the sacrifice ability take away defender for the turn and say that you have to lure the beast out of its pit with a bit of meat to get him to do stuff for you. Overall, I’m not really expecting much from this guy in standard or draft.

Kheru Lich Lord

Daniel (3): A 4/4 for 6 is too much for this card even with its powerful ability to bring back creatures every turn. I think this card could be some pretty good card advantage in Draft, but I don’t expect it to see too much play in any constructed format.

Bruce (3): This one smells like Whip of Erebos on a stick…but I would rather play the Whip over this almost any day of the week.  This will be perfectly fine in Limited, but 6 mana 4/4’s with an activation ability that costs an additional 3 mana is just not going to cut it at Standard most days. Even in Limited this will be a bit of a dice roll to cast it and then use it on anything truly good.  Cool card, but this feels like an EDH special to me and will likely be a 2 or 3 on our scale.

Kheru Spellsnatcher

Daniel (2): This card feels bad for a Rare. It either enters the battlefield as a 3/3 for 4 or it can be a sort of pseudo counterspell for 3 up-front and 6 later. Realistically to get value out of this card, it requires you to leave up 6 mana just in case your opponent casts a spell you want to steal. The card might be a one of in a couple of decklists, but might be too expensive to run and keep up multiple copies in a deck. Additionally, I’m not too sure of its effectiveness in Limited only because it doesn’t seem that consistent of a card for an already potentially unstable deck.

Bruce (3): This is super fun because who doesn’t love to steal your opponent’s spells and hit them with them?  Yes, it is expensive and a 3/3 is hardly overwhelming, but it will be hilarious in a Limited environment and even better in EDH where craziness can occur with regularity.  This is a 3 simply for the high ceiling level of the spell (and I love stealing my opponent’s spells!) but is most certainly not good enough for constructed.

Kill Shot

Daniel (3): I’m very confused about the flavor of this card, just like some of the other cards in the set. The card says that supposedly Mardu archers are trained to such a high level that they score kill shots on all of their targets. Now maybe there are special archers that can do this, but there are Mardu archers in the set and they don’t have all that impressive abilities. Additionally, how do they kill anything with one shot, I mean there are demons and angels in the game, and they can be killed with one arrow…Anyway, Limited loves removal and this is better than a lot of it in this set. It will probably see some Limited play, but I don’t think it’ll do that well in constructed.

Kin-Tree Invocation

Daniel (3): There are cards that scale pretty well throughout the course of the game and this is one of those cards that does just that in my opinion. It is aggressively costed enough to come down early enough in the game to be a strong beater and its effect can make it aggressive enough to be a big deal late game. My only two problems with the card are what separates it from scoring a 4 versus a 3, that is the fact that the creature doesn’t have trample and it it has two different colors in its casting cost. This means that the card doesn’t come out quite as soon as you want it and when it pops down late it may not get in for the damage you need. I still expect this card to play in quite a few Standard decks and I would not be surprised if it’s a pretty big deal in Limited.

Kin-Tree Warden

Daniel (3): A 1/1 for 1 that can regenerate is a pretty rare find for this set that is so devoted to big and expensive cards. I don’t think this card will be anything huge, but as a blocker it’s not a bad addition to any Limited deck. As for standard, he just feels too small to have any real impact.

Krumar Bond-Kin

Daniel (3): This card is a pretty vanilla 5/3 for 5. That’s pretty much it. It feels too overcosted to see any real notable level of play. Additionally, it dies pretty easily to blockers so it doesn’t even get in for that much damage most of the time. It might see a little play in Limited, but I don’t expect it at all in Standard.

Leaping Master

Daniel (3): This is a 2/1 for 2 that you can give flying to for 3 mana. Two-drops in this set are going to be a pretty big deal for Limited because there are so few of them, but with Theros in Standard I don’t expect this card to be that big of a deal.

Lens of Clarity

Daniel (3): They say that information is power, if that’s true then this card may be one of the most powerful cards in the game for its mana cost. I believe this card has a few great combos with cards that have already been printed and it does take care of the surprise out of morphs sails. If you come up with a combo with it or you are worried about the surprise factor of morph put it in, but besides that I can’t see it seeing much play.

Longshot Squad

Daniel (3): A 3/3 that can outlast for 2 and gains reach feels amazing in Limited. The fact that it gives all of your creatures with +1/+1 counters reach definitely gives your outlast deck a way to deal with flying. I see this card being a pretty big factor in Limited, but not so much in constructed.

Mantis Rider

Daniel (4): A 3/3 flying, vigilance and haste for 3 is pretty awesome. All of those abilities on a card with 3 different colors makes the card very intensive, but still extremely good in Limited. If Red White Blue is a thing in Standard, this card probably won’t be far behind.

Bruce (4): Well, to start, the art on this is nuts.  That’s a sweet piece of art, and while the Jeskai aren’t my favorite clan, that may be the best art of the set.  The card is very solid as well.  A 3/3 flier for 3 mana makes this quite playable and it packs Flying, Vigilance and Haste making it have all the key words for each of its colours. This is a Limited All-Star for sure and is exactly the sort of efficient, evasive creature that could see play in a Standard deck down the road.  I feel like this is a 3 and could emerge as a sleeper for a Constructed deck and make a splash as a potential 4.

Mardu Blazebringer

Daniel (2): A 4/4 for 3 that would definitely be playable if you didn’t have to sacrifice it at the end of combat. I don’t expect this card to be played much in any format.

Mardu Hateblade

Daniel (3): Later on in my review you’ll probably hear me talk about how important two-drops are in this set for their rarity, and one drops are even scarcer. It is for that reason and the fact that this card can take down pretty much any creature it wants with its deathtouch, that I feel like this card is going to be a big deal in Limited. I don’t think this card will find a home in Standard though because there are just better options.

Mardu Heart-Piercer

Daniel (3): Sitting at four mana for marginally bad abilities and stats this card feels almost strictly worse than Flametongue Kavu. Mardu Heart-Piercer is still pretty cool removal in Limited and may see a little play in Standard.

Mardu Hordechief

Daniel (3): The name of the game for the Mardu forces in this set seems to be tokens and that’s all this card pretty much does. There are better options, but I still feel he’ll have his place in Limited if nothing else.

Mardu Roughrider

Daniel (3): I want this card to be Snowhorn Rider, as a 5/4 without the Morph ability basically that’s my whole review. You can refer to Snowhorn Rider for the rest of the details about my fixed version, and make this card a little worse.

Mardu Skullhunter

Daniel (3): At 2 mana for a 2/1 that enters the battlefield tapped doesn’t feel very strong. Add to it a discard effect and the card feels just a little more worth it. I expect this card to at least see limited play in Standard and is well worth picking up in Limited.

Mardu Warshrieker

Daniel (3): 4 mana for a 3/3 is okay. Add to it the fact that it gives you RWB mana when it enters if you attacked this turn and you’ve got yourself a pretty good filler for Limited. In constructed, however, I’m not sure how useful the card is.

Master the Way

Daniel (1): I gave this card a 1 because I don’t feel it’s right in a lot of ways and I think it kind of goes against some of the strongest strategies in Red/Blue in this set. I feel that the card would better be suited either for a lower mana cost or just a more efficient draw card for much less mana. Long story short, the set isn’t really set up for much draw and that’s really the way this card works in my opinion. I don’t expect to see it in standard, maybe in draft once or twice though.

Master of Pearls

Daniel (3): A 2/2 for 2 isn’t terrible and this card can flip up for a pump to all of your creatures. This card is pretty solid, but its high Morph cost may hamper its ability to appear in a lot of decks this season.  I still expect tokens to be pretty big this set so I wouldn’t be surprised if the card found its way into a couple of decks in Standard this rotation. Overall, while I’m not so sure how well it’ll do in constructed, it is not the worst card in the world to pick round 1 in Draft assuming you’re playing white.

Bruce (2): This feels underpowered and over-costed  There must be a reason that this is a rare and can only  assume that in testing the +2/+2 granted when it Morphs is backbreaking in Limited, butit seems super expensive and only nets me a 2/2.  That’s hardly exciting…and the Morph cost is steep.  This is likely a 2 but if it proves to be solid in Limited and do some powerful things to blow out the board state I could see this creeping up a little further.

Meandering Towershell

Bruce (1): This is just bizarre.  The delay on the attack makes it pretty crazy.  If this were part of the Evolve mechanic type of tricks from Gatecrash I could see some of the appeal, but having it leave play, delay the attack, and then come back in is really undesirable.  The islandwalk is neat, but I’m going out to find this on account of that.  The only real value is as a huge wall but that hardly seems appealingf. This feels like it is a 2 at best and could easily slide back into the situation where it is 1.

Mindswipe

Daniel (3): Not a terrible counterspell that dual functions as a damage spell. Counters are typically not very good in Limited, but this card may see play in Standard during the coming up season.

Bruce (4): This one is cool.  This is Syncopate crossed with a Fireball.  I know that really isn’t the best comparison, but it isn’t far off.  The part I like best is that the damage portion of this spell  resolves regardless if they match the X cost they are using to counter the spell. Great, resolve your big fatty, but in the process eat and additional 4 damage! HA! I like this. I think this could be good enough for Constructed and will certainly be played in Limited pretty steadily. This feels like a 4.

Mistfire Weaver

Daniel (3): This card almost feels like it deserves 2 different ratings, the first rating is for its morphed form and the second for its regular casting. No matter which we’re talking about though, the card still comes down as a 3/1 flyer on your 4th turn. Being cast the regular way doesn’t feel that good, but it is still a flyer with 3 power for 4 mana and that feels ok in Limited. On the other side its Morph costs one less to unmorph and gives one of your creatures hexprooof until end of turn, which feels pretty good to dodge a spell. This card could go either way in Standard, but I believe that it will see play this season.

Molting Snakeskin (3): I’m not really sure how molting saves you from regeneration or gives you extra attack, but overall this is a fairly straightforward regeneration/pump enchantment that’s pretty solid in draft and probably won’t see much play outside the format.

Monastery Flock

Daniel (1): The Morph on this card is pretty neat, but that’s about where the cool parts of this card end. First of all for 3 mana a card that has largely been considered unplayable is Wall of Frost, a defender that also costs 3, comes down as a 0/7 and keeps anything it blocks tapped down for an extra turn is way better than Monastery Flock, at least in my opinion. I don’t believe we’ll see this card played too frequently in the next season in Limited or Standard.

Monastery Swiftspear

Daniel (3): 1 mana for a 1/2 with haste and prowess is a pretty strong card. It’s almost better than Goblin Guide and paces itself pretty well by powering up each time you cast a non-creature spell. The fact that it isn’t a Goblin though deals a serious blow to this cards usability though. If there is a red deck in Standard or Limited, I expect this card to be there if it can.

Murderous Cut

Daniel (3): Delve is a very under-utilized ability in the game that utilizes the most under-utilized resource in all of Magic, the graveyard. That being said, on a card like this it just feels too expensive. I mean sure, it might come out as a kill spell for 1, but it also costs 5 if you don’t have any in your yard. Long story short, the card is expensive, but is probably going to see a good amount of play in Standard and Limited.

Bruce (4): Instant creature removal?  Nice. 5 mana? BOOO! Even with Delve it costs too much.  The Delve could be nice to help reduce the casting cost, but every time I Delve I rob my deck of the resources I want to do busted things like…oh…I don’t know…Empty the Pits.  Yes, if I need it, it’s there, but this will usually be a 5 mana instant removal spell.  You’ll Draft this and it is a staple in any Limited game and with reduced options will see play in Standard as well.  I figure this is a little better than a 3 but a bit poor on being a 4.

Mystic of the Hidden Way

Daniel (2): 5 mana for a 3/2 unblockable isn’t terrible, but I’m not really sure where they’re aiming the printing of this card at in the set. I don’t expect to see much play out of this card in the upcoming season.

Narset, Enlightened Master

Daniel (5): Out of the cycle of commanders in this set, I feel that this is the creature best posed to break out of the confines of Standard and into one of the higher formats. I’ve already seen a few mash ups of the card in some pretty interesting decklists and it seems that people like the idea of it most in American Super Friends (Big Planeswalker in Modern every once in a while). I personally think the card works best in a dual functioning equipment and planeswalkers, she practically screams pump me out and pump me up with equipment and I’ll hit in for big damage every turn. Expect a big impact in Standard, EDH, Limited and potentially even higher formats if someone figures out this powerful creature.

Bruce (2) 6 mana for a 3/2?  I’m skeptical already.  First Strike and Hexproof help this girl, but the real seller is her ability. Whenever she ATTACKS (notice, not deal damage to an opponent like Prophetic Flamespeaker who shares some similarities with her) you can exile the top four cards and cast non-creature spells without paying their mana cost.  I love getting free spells, and this works really nicely with the Jeskai Prowess ability to pump your team.  However, 6 mana is a lot for 3/2.  Her triggered ability is cool…but it feels like it goes in a very narrow deck in any sort of constructed environment.  I can also conclude that I am highly unlikely to be keen to play her in Limited because I would rather run more CREATURES over spells.  She might be a star in EDH, I hope so because she seems neat and in a cool design space. I still think she’s a bust.

Necropolis Fiend

Daniel (2): This card is expensive and clunky. It feels almost like it’s a finisher for a very long game and drawing it at any other point up is probably not a good thing in the least. I guess the counterpoint to this card is that the Delve makes up for it and the graveyard is an under-utilized resource, but the card just feels expensive for a 4/5 with flying. I don’t expect the card to make too large of an impact in anything.

Bruce (2): 9 mana?! Pardon my language…but ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?  Even WITH Delve this is borderline unplayable. It’s neat…don’t get me wrong…but it costs SOOOOO much that it hurts me to look at it…and it’s ONLY a 4/5.  Yes, a 4/5 is big…but I want my 9 mana to be redonkulous, not just acceptable.  Then, once I cast this thing (likely using Delve because it is so bloody expensive), how do you propose I use the secondary ability?  How many cards am I going to have in my yard to use this if this costs 9 mana?  Not nearly as many as I would like. Again, this is likely a pretty beefy bomb that you’ll dump all your resources into to make it work and will do work in Limited, but I highly doubt this will see anything like Constructed play (BUT…EDH will undoubtedly love this guy with a sound graveyard deck!)

Outlast Captain “Cycle” (Mer-Ek Nightblade, Abzan Falconer, Tuskguard Captain, and I know I already did his review, but Abzan Battle Priest)

Daniel (3): Overall I like the idea, but the cards just don’t seem efficient compared to most of the other set. If you pull enough of these cards together you could build yourself a pretty solid Limited deck. I don’t think that these have too much of a future in standard, but only time will tell I suppose.

Bruce (3): The Abzan put off a “Sliver” like feeling in that they have a number of “Lord-ish” type cards like this  that make Limited play  against them kind of unpleasant.  It’s hard to fight creatures that all get relevant bonuses and feed off each other because it can be difficult to unravel that sort of synergy without an optimal removal package.  These feel like a very solid 3 for their Limited playability, but probably  not suitable for Constructed.

Pearl Lake Ancient

Daniel (3): I like this card, but like so many other cards I like I’m not exactly sure that it’s all that good. He feels good in blue for the counter match-up, but more than one or two in any deck feels a little excessive especially in a counter deck. He’ll offer you protection for himself through the cost of returning a few lands to your hand, he can’t be countered and he has a big power and toughness being a 6/7. Plus it also has flash to surprise block the cards your opponent may not want to lose or to play it at the end of their turn. Still though, the flash helps a lot, but 7 mana is still a tremendously large mana cost for a blue deck. While I don’t expect this card in any decks outside of this Standard season, I expect it to be run in a few blue decks this season. I wouldn’t mind picking up one in Draft, even round one.

Bruce (3): 6/7 for 7 mana with flash and can’t be countered…hmmm…this is one BIG BLUE FATTY.  However, he is totally unplayable in any form of constructed.  The fact that you can return it to your hand is interesting, but you will likely be setting yourself so far behind that it is unlikely to be a relevant ability as well.  No, this is just a big fatty to crush your opponent with at Limited.  The fact that it is mythic means that it is going to be rarely seen, but when you see it, you grab it for the tremendous power and flexibility it offers.  This is a 3 whether you like to admit it or not.

Pine Walker

Daniel (3): A 5/5 for 5 with a little bonus but no Trample is pretty straight-forward and solid. His 2nd ability to untap flipped up cards is cool, but the flavor doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t really know how it helps. I think this card is definitely solid in Limited and might even find its way into Standard given enough time even though it’s going to be a little hard.

Ponyback Brigade

Daniel (2): This card is another fun Goblin card, but it’s not very good. It has the flaw of being 3 different colors and 6 mana whether you are unmorphing it or straight up playing it. In Standard with tokens it is a big deal to put four cards into play, but only if you can make it this late.

Quiet Contemplation

Daniel (4): This card looks like an outstanding pairing for all of those Prowess decks out there. I really think it was a neat idea to put together prowess and to match it up in a deck against such a strong token presence in the set. It really does feel like a war between mages and a horde, brute force versus technique. The ice-breathing ability to tap down a creature for two turns feels very good and suited in this match-up. Overall, I feel that this card shuts down the big creature strategy and will be an outstanding addition to both the Standard and Limited decks that are using prowess this season.  Although it might be too clunky for any other formats except maybe EDH.

Raiders’ Spoils

Daniel (2): This card works very well into the token deck. The card does just about everything you could ask for in a card for a token deck, it draws cards and makes your tokens bigger and combines well with Wingmate Roc and Herald of Anafenza. The downsides of the card are the facts that it only triggers draw when a warrior hits,  it costs you life and it’s a little bit on the expensive side to cast. It is a very situational card I would definitely consider running if you have the right cards both in your Standard and Limited decks.

Rakshasa Deathdealer

Bruce (4): What is NOT to like about this? It’s a nasty 2 drop that does an early impression of a Bear…but can be pumped to ensure that it remains relevant later in the game as well.  And the pump ability is HUGE…+2/+2 is a big boost in power and toughness.  Dear LORD.  And if you can’t pump it enough, you can always just regenerate this guy continuing to make this guy relevant.  This is suitably costed and packs enough punch that it will likely see Constructed play and will be a very powerful Limited card.  This is quite certainly at least a 4.

Rakshasa Vizier

Daniel (3): This card is interesting, but I need to see more of the next few sets to give a fair interpretation. At this point the set only really has delve to exile cards from your graveyard for any beneficial effects, there could be more effects added in later, but right now it feels like the card missed its set by one rotation. I don’t expect this card to be too big of a deal in Standard or Limited  just because of the lack of interactability with the rest of the set.

Bruce (3): A CAT DEMON! Shut up! And a 4/4?! That is the meanest looking kitty I’ve ever seen…and it gets counters for exiled cards?  Well…HELLO TORMOD’S CRYPT! That could be pretty sick…drop this guy, then exile their whole yard with the crypt and watch the already huge kitty get bigger! This is a bomb in Limited play but I doubt seriously that anyone other than casual brewers will take a stab to play this guy.  This is another solid 3.

Rakshasa’s Secret

Daniel (3): Making your opponent discard cards is a pretty powerful effect, but it just feels forced in this set. Honestly I’m not really sure why they’re trying to force discard so much, they already have a pretty solid set without it. This card doesn’t feel terrible, but I don’t expect it to do too much outside of Limited.

Rattleclaw Mystic

Daniel (4): A 2/1 for 2 is pretty good. Add to that the fact that it is mana acceleration both when it morphs or when it sits on the field for 3 colors and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid creature. I expect this card to see some amount of play in Limited, EDH and constructed, but I feel that it may have trouble going past this Standard season.

Bruce (5): Ok, we have seen that Burning Tree Emissary is good.  It has been a Constructed all-star since day one when it arrived and this draws a lot of parallels.  It mana ramps you.  It can lead to explosive starts off the Morph bonus.  It can even double as a very reasonable “Bear” if you need to get on the beat down plan.  In limited we’ve seen that Golden Hind was a very high pick, and so is Elvish Mystic,so logic would dictate that this would be key as well.  This is good in Limited, very good in Constructed and is a solid 5 and I could even see it keep creeping up.

Retribution of the Ancients

Daniel (2): As a rare I think this card is undoubtedly bad. I do like the fact that it plays well into the sets +1/+1 theme with outlast, but that’s about it. The card mostly feels not worth it and weak. You might see a little bit of this card, but I don’t expect too much.

Reveal Cycle (Dragon’s Eye Savants, Horde Ambusher, Ruthless Ripper, Temur Charger, and Watcher of the Roost)

Daniel (2): This cycle of creatures feels basically like a set of value creatures with a Morph ability that makes them marginally better. I don’t expect these cards to make any real showing outside of Limited and their power  to be pretty low in of itself.

Bruce (2): This cycle is a very playable Limited cycle where all the creatures have morph, so they can come down as a 2/2 and then when you Morph them back you get a nice bonus.  In my mind the White and the Green ones are clearly the best of the cycle with the Blue one largely being a dud, but they will all be played in draft and help fill out your deck nicely. These guys are all a 2.

Ride Down

Daniel (3): I just realized what this set was missing, Horsemanship. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to print any cards with that keyword, but it is a very powerful ability that feels as if it really does fit in. Additionally, the only time they’ve ever printed Horsemanship was back in Portal 3 Kingdoms, which always went along with the idea of Feudal China. Regardless, this card and Horsemanship seem to go hand-in-hand. It’s a pretty solid kill spell for 2 color that typically doesn’t get them, but red has been leaning towards this strategy of killing the blocker for a while so flavor makes sense on this card. Overall, I think this card is great solid filler in Limited to get through the defense, but I don’t expect it to find much play in Standard due to the prevalence of better options.

Rite of the Serpent

Daniel (3): Being one of the few removal cards in the set, this card has the possibility to be a pretty strong factor in Limited. The token producing isn’t all that relevant, and for not too much more mana you actually have access to In Garruk’s Wake which wipes all of your opponent’s creatures and planeswalkers from the field. I don’t know why you’d run this card in Standard when there are better choices available, so for that reason I doubt that this card will see much constructed play.

Riverwheel Aerialists

Daniel (3): Prowess is a pretty neat mechanic in the set, and this card really does feel posed to best take advantage of it. Sitting as one of the creatures with the best protection in the set and being one of the strongest flyers this season definitely doesn’t hurt this creature’s cause. 6 mana is a little bit of a steep cost, but I still expect to see one or two in Prowess decks this season and see players playing them in Limited quite a little bit.

Roar of Challenge

Daniel (3): It’s good to see them reprinting lure effects, and this card is a fresh look at the whole idea of them. This card may just be good enough to win the game in Limited and Standard sometimes, by luring all of the blocks to your weakest attacker and getting the rest of the team in. Also combining this card with deathtouch on a powerful creature can almost be a board wipe. The indestructible on top of everything is just the icing on the cake for this card and makes an already good card even better than it already is. Overall, I expect great things from this card in Limited as it’s a great way to surprise your opponent with something they weren’t expecting, but I don’t see it doing much in Standard because of its sorcery speed.

Rotting Mastodon

Daniel (3): A 2/8 is going to be a tough customer to deal with, with this set being the way it is. I still don’t expect this card to really win you the game or anything, just to make it that much harder for your opponent to win, which is good in its own way. This card is a great way to slow down your opponents in Limited but at 5 mana I doubt any Combo/Control deck in Standard will opt for it over card’s like Nyx-Fleece Ram.

Ruthless Ripper

Bruce (3): This, THIS I can get behind. My good friend Typhoid Rats are back…and better than ever because it packs Morph PLUS a sweet bonus when you morph it back.  Limited All-star and it might sneak into the odd aggro strategy at Constructed…so I’ll give it a 3 with room to move up.

Rush of Battle 

Daniel (4): This may be the best common in the set… Pumping up all of your creatures by 2 power is a pretty big deal even if it is expensive in this set. This is a great combo piece with all of the token makers in the set, and will probably lead to a few blow-outs in a few games. The lifelink for Warriors is just icing on the cake of this already great card. I think this card is a bomb in Limited token decks, but don’t think it’ll play in Standard.

Sage-Eye Harrier

Daniel (2): Long story, short, 5 mana for a 1/5 doesn’t feel good even if it has fly. I don’t think this card will play too much in standard or Limited.

Sage of the Inward Eye

Daniel (4): The ability to give all of your creatures lifelink is going to be a huge deal if your opponent can’t find a way to deal with this powerful Flyer. I look forward to seeing a whole deck built around this card and I would definitely consider using it in Limited.

Bruce (3): A 3/4 flying Djinn Wizard for 5 mana that has the ability of giving your team Lifelink whenever you cast a non-creature spell. I’ll be honest, this is a Draft only card.  It is an underpowered Air Elemental with an ability.  The ability is cute and relevant in a Limited game, and the 4 toughness in the air seems to be where you want to be at with this set, but I doubt very highly that this will see any sort of Constructed play.  This is a solid 3.

Sagu Archer

Daniel (3): Reach and flying are typically pretty big deals in Limited, the flying because it gets around most of the cards in the set and the reach just because it can deal with this work around. 5 mana for a 2/5 is pretty bad, but when you look at a late game set like this, it might be a significant player in Limited. In constructed play, my original thoughts on the card do stand, it’s just too costly to be playable.

Sagu Mauler

Daniel (4): I love this card and it just goes to show that tokens aren’t the only way to go in the next season. I’m not a huge fan of this card just being straight green, but a 6/6 with trample and hexproof for 6 is pretty nice. His morph abilities feel pretty amazing too. He doesn’t do anything special, but surprising your opponent with him is enough. I don’t know if he’ll see play in standard next season, but I want him to be. When I see him in a draft pack I’ll try to take him.

Bruce (3): 6/6 for 6 mana…trample and Hexproof. Wow. Yes please.  The nice part is that you can actually play it earlier than turn six on account of the Morph cost.  This is a solid Limited Bomb that can protect itself and the trample just brings extra beats.  I doubt it will ever see the light of Constructed play, but that’s fine.  This is a 3.

Salt Road Patrol

Daniel (3): A 2/5 for 4 that has the potential to grow and work with the outlast strategies in the deck. This card feels like some solid filler that has the potential to hold off your opponent and still be a threat late game if left alone long enough. I don’t think this card will play in Standard, but it has the chance to do some good things in Limited.

Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Daniel (5): I really like this planeswalker. His plus ability turns him into a 4/4 dragon with Flying, Haste and Indestructibility for a turn. His minus ability is a Flametongue Kavu on a stick dealing 4 damage to target creature and his ultimate lets you draw more cards each turn. My one discrepancy with the card is the fact that it costs 5 mana, a little bit high for your typical red deck but still at the top of the curve. This card is definitely playable in Limited and will probably find a home in Big Red in the upcoming Standard season. I personally plan to pick up two of these cards for my Modern Goblin deck.

Bruce (5): Oh boy…New Planewalkers are sweet and this guy is spicy. 5 mana is pricey, but his +1 is petty crazy.  Let’s turn into a dragon and Burninate everything! The fact that he becomes a creature means he can get bounced or exiled easily enough, but survives most of combat is a pretty huge bomb.  His -3 is just devastating to crush a creature.  Hell Yeah!  His ultimate is a continuation on the neat design space to give Red more card draw…but they need to use it right NOW!  I like this, it feels pretty balanced and not unfair while being very flavorful and fun.  This feels like a 5, but could even creep up a bit.

Savage Knuckleblade

Daniel (4): This is a really strong creature that seems to be based off of older great multicolored creatures to take advantage of all its colors. For starters, the creature is a 4/4 for 3 mana, each of a different color. While that does seem like a little much, its effects more than make up for this intensive casting cost. It’s first ability reminds me heavily of Basking Rootwala which was a huge card back in the days of madness, it pumps our 4/4 up to a 6/6 for a turn making it deadly against a lot of cards. Its second ability adds the type of protection which was afforded to Morphling and more recently Aetherling, it deters its destruction by your opponent’s spells by returning him to your hand. Savage Knuckleblade is obviously great in Limited, but might even see play in Standard if RUG decks (Temur) starts seeing play again.

Bruce (4): This is a bomb in almost any metric you can find.  3 mana.  4/4. Packs loads of abilities. Can pump.  Have haste. Evade kill spells and board wipes.  The only thing better would be if this could make me sandwich.  This will be a staple in Temur Monster style decks for sure because it is too good to pass up and will be a ridiculous bomb in Limited.  This is likely a 4.

Savage Punch

Daniel (3): Fighting has been a mechanic that’s been almost overplayed since Innistrad Block. This card feels almost stale if nothing else, still, the combination of fighting and big creatures really does feel good. And just because something is overused doesn’t mean that the ability isn’t good, I mean there must be a reason they keep printing it so much. I still feel like the card can be good in the right deck, but it’s one you have to be careful about using because there are so many tricks that can lose you your creature once you cast it. Still, in the right deck this can be an important card in a Limited deck, but I feel as though Domri Rade might be the better choice in Standard if you’re running red.

Scaldkin

Daniel (2): 4 mana for a 2/2 flyer is too much, even if that flyer can blow itself up to deal some extra damage to a creature or player. This is a flyer so it might see a little bit of play in Limited, but I don’t think it will do much more than this.

Scion of Glaciers

Daniel (3): 4 mana for a 2/5 that can rearrange his stats isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible. If you swing in and he gets blocked just leave his stats where they are to protect him or move them around to take down his blocker. But if he gets through then pump him as much as you can to get in for some extra damage. It’s a neat little card that can get in for some good damage when you need him to and has a good amount of variability to deal with different situations. Overall this card is pretty good,  I could imagine it being run in Limited and maybe even in Standard for a little while.

Scout the Borders

Daniel (2): I don’t really know what was wrong with Grisly Salvage, but now we have Scout the Borders. It doesn’t do anything different, but it does cost 3 mana versus costing 2 different colors of mana. It’s a pretty nice bit of filtering by going through your top five cards and giving you one. But mostly just like its predecessor, the card doesn’t do a whole lot except fill your yard. This card might see a little bit of play in Limited through a Delve deck, but I don’t see it as very effective in constructed play.

Secret Plans

Daniel (4): Between this and Trail of Mystery that you’ll read about in a little while, Blue/Green/X Morph is looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun in the next Limited and Standard season. While I’m still not entirely sure that it’ll be competitive, it looks fun nonetheless. Secret plans is great, it makes all of your Morph creatures 2/3 and gives you card advantage when you flip them up, by drawing you a card. If no one else does it, I’m going to try to build a Standard deck around Morph (look forward to an article about it) so you can expect at least one deck that is going to run it in the next season. If you’ve got it in your head to try to do neat things with Morph I’d pick it up for draft pretty early. I don’t really see much of a future otherwise for this card sadly, as Morph isn’t really a thing in any format.

See the Unwritten

Daniel (3): If any of you have been following my writing for a good amount of time then you probably know that I love big creatures, and I also love ways to cheat them into play. This is a pleasant fairly costed card that has the ability to do just that and when combined with something like worldly tutor, the card basically gets the creature you want into play. I still have a hard time believing that this card will find is way out of Standard as long as cards like Tooth and Nail exist, but a fun card nonetheless. Just like a few other cards in the set be careful of decking yourself if you do decide to play this in Limited.

Bruce (4): Ok…This 6 mana sorcery reveals 8 cards and you get to put a creature from among those cards on the battlefield without paying its mana cost.  Now 6 is a pretty steep mana cost…usually…but not for Green in a world with Nykthos exists.  With Devotion powered Monster decks you could see something truly degenerate being spewed out with this card.  What makes it even more disgusting is if you can trigger the Ferocious trigger (and honestly…that SHOULD be easy…you’re in Green…everything is a fatty!) and you get to dump two creatures.  What would make this card just perfect is if there was just some devastating Green death machine in one of these sets prior to Theros rotating out. Now as for Limited, you could run it, but you’re liable to flip over some 1/1 with your 6 mana, so I might not be too keen to try it.  Based on the potential upside this has to be a 4, but only in the right deck.

Seeker of the Way

Daniel (3): 2/2’s for 2 being so rare in this set, all of them have the potentially to be really good in Limited. This one more than the others is probably going to be a great card in the format, because he’s also got the ability to get +1/+1 and lifelink each time you cast a noncreature spell. This keeps him relevant for a little while, pumping himself up and gaining you some life each time he swings if you cast a noncreature spell. I expect this card to be well-suited in Limited and to have play in at least a few competitive Standard decks.

Bruce (2): A Bear with prowess and it gets lifelink?  This will be playable but you can likely do better. This will be a 2.

Set Adrift

Daniel (3): Delve again, this is one ability R&D’s obviously brought back in a big way for this set. Bounce spells are typically an important part of the blue strategy, and if the traditional control strategy comes into Standard this season, then we’ll probably see this card. Set Adrift is also a pretty solid bit of filler for Limited.

Shambling Attendants

Daniel (3): This is an okay card, coming down for 8 mana at worst or 1 mana and 7cards from the graveyard. Shambling Attendants feels expensive even when it isn’t. Its stats feel pretty good, a 3/5 with Deathtouch. But for what feels like a relatively large investment, you get something that kind of just feels like a lukewarm creature.

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

Daniel (3): Recently this has become an on-going theme with a lot of the cards that Magic has been printing, especially with the way that Commander 2014 is shaping up. The style that they’ve started printing so much of are cards that deck you and give you creatures in exchange. I feel like this card could be good even great in the right deck, but I just feel that it’s effects are just too narrow to have any lasting impact. That said I almost fell in love with it when I first saw it, but after looking at its effects and its mana cost it just may have a tough time finding a home in any deck at all. If you do decide to use this card in Limited, it may just wind up milling you instead so use it with caution.

Bruce (4) 3/3…4 mana…self mill…MAKES ZOMBIES!Ok…Sultai just got a little off the hook here.  Sure, this guy is totally thwarted by Anafenza, but whatever.  He’s SPICY.  I like the 3/3 for 4 mana.  That feels very reasonable and totally something I can get behind.  The more I play, the more I love the self milling strategies to speed up your access to resources.  The ability to make Zombies is just broken…and it isn’t just if creatures are milled…it is creatures from ANYWHERE.  That makes this a token factory.  Particularly when most of the ridiculous removal from Theros is in Black (ummm…Hero’s Downfall anyone).  This seems cool and an avenue Sultai players might want. In limited I’d be leary of the self mill aspect a touch, mainly because of the smaller library, but the free tokens off the second triggered ability could totally offset that loss in an environment laden with creatures. In the right deck, this could be a monster Constructed card and a very scary Limited card.

Sidisi’s Pet

Daniel (2): A 1/4 with lifelink for 4 is pretty terrible. I get that you can cast it for 3 with morph and then flip it up for 2, but this means that you’re going to have to spend almost half of your 4th turn just flipping this card up. It just doesn’t feel  like it’s worth it. I don’t expect this to see much Standard play, but with token decks still being a potential strategy in Limited, this might not be the worst pick in Draft.

Siege Rhino

Daniel (4): A 4/5 with trample for 4 is going to be a huge bomb in Limited. The card sits at a unique position where it’s a solid card that may not be good enough for Standard.  Its stats combined with its ability to gain you life and take away from your opponent’s mean it might see play in Standard. I am almost sure that it won’t find a place outside these formats though.

Bruce (3): 4/5 for 4 mana and I can drain 3 life from each opponent?  Hell  yes!  This is a huge fatty and is undercosted.  The fact that comes in with a powerful enter the battlefield trigger is just gravy and makes this eminently playable as a powerful bomb.  The 6 point life swing will be big in Limited I’m sure.  I don’t think it does enough to warrant a spot in a Constructed strategy because it lacks evasion (although does come with trample) but is on that borderline in my opinion.  This is probably a 3.

Siegecraft

Daniel (2): I love how this card references War Beast in its flavor and they’ve done it a couple times in this set. Siegecraft’s stats aren’t that good though, especially when compared to the last set’s enchantments. This card will probably see some limited success in Draft, but can’t really stack up to the last set’s enchantments so I don’t see it being run in Standard.

Singing Bell Strike

Daniel (3): Acting as a good way to slow down your opponent’s creatures is Singing Bell Strike. This card feels like a remake of the old-school Paralyze, which cost one less mana, was in black and your opponents needed 4 mana to untap their creature. I feel like this card will almost definitely be run in Limited and may also find a place in Standard.

Smoke Teller

Daniel (3): A 2/2 for 2 that can peek at morphed creatures for 2. This card isn’t going to break any formats, but it will probably be a pretty big deal in Limited for being one of the few two-drop creatures in the set. I don’t believe this card will have too much of an impact on Standard.

Snowhorn Rider

Daniel (3): A simple 5/5 with trample for 6 that can morph to go down to 5 cost is pretty solid. This is probably not Standard material, because it’s so slow. This card is great in Limited and curves out face-down for an intimidating surprise on turn 4 or 5.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Daniel (4): So after writing reviews on so many cards between the last set and now I’ve come to the conclusion that writing on Planeswalkers are the hardest of all card types. They take longer to write than other card types because they have more abilities than other cards and their powers are very hard to compare to other card types. His first ability makes your creatures stronger and gives them lifelink for a turn, his minus creates a Vampire token and his ultimate makes your opponents sacrifice creatures during their upkeeps. As was mentioned before if you see a planeswalker in a draft, you always pick it up. If this card has a future, it’s really more of an open-question. The one hope I do have for this card is a red, black and white tokens deck and they seem to have printed a lot of cards in this set that work well with this strategy. After this season I can’t see this card really being a major player, but if this token deck exists in Standard, It should be there.

Bruce (4): Whoa! New Sorin! Good deal.  So, from the outset, I like this guy.  4 mana is very reasonable and makes him ultimately very playable.  His +1 is perfectly reasonable and is very flavourful. It isn’t oppressive and you aren’t playing him for this +1 ability (unlike Sarkhan whom you are likely ONLY playing for his +1 ability).  The -2 ability is very solid because everyone loves to make a flying 2/2.  It impacts the board, is suitably evasive to help bring the pain, and is a solid blocker.  His ultimate is the Abyss on an emblem and it impacts ONLY your opponents.  That’s solid and will quickly tilt the board in your favour.  Yes, getting him there is the tough part, but in the right strategy it is very achievable.  He won’t warp the Constructed format, but he will see play.  He will be terrific in Limited environments for sure.  I expect him to be a solid 4.

Stubborn Denial

Daniel (5): Acting sometimes as a better Spell Pierce, I expect great things from this card. For those of you who don’t know, Spell Pierce is a card that has been played in just about every format it’s been legal in since its first printing. The card is great, but the reason it didn’t earn a 6 is because most of the decks won’t get the chance to use the 2nd part of the spell: the straight up counter that makes it better than Spell Pierce. If a new set of decks can find a home for it then it might be a great card. Maybe even something like Sneak and Show, we’ll see. I like this card a lot and think it can easily find a home in Standard, but Limited is always hard for counterspells to be good in. They will need to find a deck for it in higher formats.

Sultai Charm

Daniel (4): I almost want to give this card a 5 for how much play I think it’s going to receive this season, but I don’t think that’s fair because I don’t expect it to break out of Standard. The card is great acting as removal for creatures, artifacts and enchantments, or drawing you two cards as long as you discard two cards afterwards. The mana cost is pretty fair with it being 3, but the mana intensiveness of the card makes it almost unplayable outside of this format.

Sultai Flayer

Daniel (3): A 3/4 for 4 that gives you life every time something big dies doesn’t feel so good, but not terrible either. The card will probably see mixed amounts of play in Limited, with it not really being a factor in constructed formats.

Sultai Scavenger

Daniel (3): A 3/3 flyer for 6 with Delve. This card is pretty much like most 4 drop comparable flyers and will probably fit into decks in their spot if you decide to run it. This card will probably see some Limited play, but not do much more than that.

Sultai Soothsayer

Daniel (2): A card with mediocre abilities and stats for a high and intensive amount of mana is not worth it in most cases. I don’t expect this card in standard. It’s not the worst card in Limited so if it comes late I wouldn’t mind picking it.

Summit Prowler

Daniel (3): A vanilla 4/3 for 4 isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible. You might see some of these cards in Limited formats, but don’t expect much more than that.

Surrak Dragonclaw

Bruce (4): Well, there goes the neighbourhood.  Surrak is a ridiculous 6/6 for 5 mana and basically makes your Monster deck totally unmanageable.  One of the big draw backs to all the Monster decks is that they are susceptible to counterspells and denial strategies.  Surrak totally crushes those strategies because your Polukranos or your Stormbreath Dragon can’t be countered any more.  Oh…and those same critters now ALSO have trample.  Back this guy with a Rattleclaw Mystic and Sylvan Caryatid or two and you can ramp up to this guy quickly and then go nuts.  So long Jund Monsters…hello TEMUR Monsters backed by Surrak. A bomb in either Standard or Limited, I can see this hitting as high as a 5…but I’ll hedge my bets based on the colour restrictions being pretty high and make him a 4.

Suspension Field

Daniel (4): Removing a creature has always been a powerful effect. The ability to deal with an opponent’s creature for a little mana is what makes spells like this great. Sitting at 2 mana I feel that this card is a great Limited and Constructed card. However based on the fact that there are many other better options in higher formats, I don’t expect this card to survive past this season.

Surrak Dragonclaw

Daniel (4): I don’t know why this set has so much about bears in it… I guess they were a big deal when all the dragons were gone… Anyway, a 6/6 uncounterable for 5 that makes all of your creatures uncounterable and gives them trample is a pretty solid card that is a Limited bomb if you’re running enough big creatures. On the standard front, I’m not so sure that you can build a deck around big creatures, but if you were, you would probably want to include this card in the deck.

Swarm of Bloodflies

Daniel (3): Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is a card that’s been released recently that I love. Swarm of Bloodflies is a card that is worse than Ob Nixilis in almost every way, but beats it in mana cost by one. The efficiency of this card in relation to its mana cost is pretty terrible, but will probably still see play in Limited for its powerful ability. This card won’t see much play in Constructed because there are just better options.

Swift Kick

Daniel (2): I’m not so sure about the flavor of this card, why is a card that’s so defensively themed such an offensive card? The card is too expensive for what it is, and the flavor, color, and abilities of the card don’t really match. Overall, fight cards are okay in Limited formats, but don’t expect it to show up in Standard.

Taigam’s Scheming

Daniel (3): This card is a strong filter for 5 cards in your deck, this card fixes your draw so that you can find the answers to the problems you might come across. Sitting at only 2 mana this card can come down early and that’s when it’s most important. Limited formats will probably like this card for the amount of digging you can do with it. Since it doesn’t really provide you any card advantage then I don’t really see Standard or any other constructed format trying to take advantage of this card.

Take Up Arms

Daniel (2): With so many choices in just this set alone to make a ton of tokens, this card just doesn’t feel worth it. 5 mana for 3 tokens isn’t great and this card just doesn’t do it for me. This card might finds some very limited success in Draft, but I don’t believe it’ll find a home in Standard or any other Constructed format.

Temur Charm

Daniel (3): It makes creatures fight, it counters spells, or it stops creatures from blocking. This is a powerful card that is only really pulled down by the fact that it costs 3 mana of three different colors. This is a pretty big pull down, but I still don’t have a problem with this card finding a home in Standard. In Limited formats this card is a pretty solid uncommon to pull, but I don’t expect this card to have too much of an impact outside of these formats.

Thousand Winds

Daniel (3): Acting as a solid bit of removal if your opponent swings all of their creatures at you and entering the battlefield as a 5/6 flyer this is a great card to pull in Limited if you can play it As long as Aetherspouts exists in Standard I don’t expect this card to make too much of a splash in constructed.

Bruce (3): This IS a menace.  5/6 flier gives it the stats of a Mahamoti Djinn and then packs a Morph making it even more versatile. However, it is the ability to Flip it back for it’s Morph cost and return tapped creatures to their owners hands that just makes this deadly.  Your opponent in a Draft will have no way of knowing, will attack with  two or three creatures and you return them to their hand effectively getting a 3 for 1 and you STILL KEEP THE 5/6 blocker.  This is  an absolute bomb in Limited but will be unlikely to see play much beyond that, making this yet another strong 3.

Throttle

Daniel (3): Being an instant is both a positive and a negative for this card. It doesn’t permanently keep a creature down, but it does allow you to goad your opponent into attacking and then moving your opponent’s creature into a range where you can kill it. It is removal so it will probably see a good amount of play in Limited formats, but won’t see play in Standard because of all the better options available.

Timely Hordemate

Daniel (3): I like this card, but I feel like it’s just not his format. Coming down at 4 mana and returning from the grave a two or less casting cost creature with Raid. I just feel like there aren’t that many good two-drops and  in this set and for that reason a pretty solid card may have a tough time finding a home in Standard and Limited.

Tomb of the Spirit Dragon

Daniel (2): This card raises a few questions, first why isn’t it legendary? Is there more than one spirit dragon? Then why is a tomb such a big deal? And most importantly, where are all the colorless creatures? I almost feel like they’re going to do a big colorless creature cycle in the next set, but that just means that they should have waited on these cards till then. Seems like another Eye of Ugin style of situation. As the card stands right now, it doesn’t really have a purpose and doesn’t feel good in Standard or Limited formats.

Tormenting Voice

Daniel (3): Card draw in red is a big deal, they don’t get many at all and when they do, it’s typically pretty bad. This card is one of those bad draw cards in red all things considered, doing more to filter your cards than really earn you card advantage. One of the larger downsides to the card is that you have to discard a card to cast it meaning that you may wind up with a worse card than you started with by casting this card. Still, draw in red is rare and good when you get it, so this card will probably see some limited play in Red decks that aren’t running Blue.

Trail of Mystery

Daniel (4): Make your creatures bigger? Check. Accelerate your mana? Check. Is mana efficient without being broken? Check. This card is just about as good as it could be without being broken. I like the mana cost at 2, it comes down as early as you need it to. You play this turn two and follow it up next turn with a morph creature to score a land off of it, which lets you build towards turning it face up. It feels like it’s in the right color by being green (It pumps and ramps) and with this being a Wedge set that means that you can play it in a lot of the decks in the format. I think this is easily a top pick in Draft and will definitely find a deck to play in in Standard, but morph isn’t really a thing so I don’t really expect it outside of this.

Trap Essence

Daniel (3): Three different colors on a counterspell… really Magic? Three colors !?!? I can’t say that it’s a great counterspell. There are definitely better counterspells even just in this set, but I guess it does fall into the theme of the set. The second ability on the card just doesn’t feel like its worth it. As there are better choices everywhere and I feel that counterspells are tough in Limited, I don’t expect much out of this card in Draft or Standard.

Bruce (4): Yet another crazy example of the Temur and its increasing abilities to disrupt to protect its massive fatties rolling around the battlefield.  3 mana and counter the spell and THEN spit out +1/+1 counters for a creature? Sure.  Dear Lord.  Super solid at Limited, and fringe playable at Constructed this is probably  a 3 with a chance to hit a 4.

Treasure Cruise

Daniel (3): Drawing three cards for potentially 1 mana is a huge deal especially when you consider that the only card in the game that does this is Ancestral Recall, one of the power 9. I usually don’t like Delve, but on this card it feels really good and the Delve makes it very powerful without being broken. The only real questionable part of the card is the fact that in order for it to cost one is by removing the equivalent to your opening hand from the grave. I would definitely try to play this card in any deck that could afford it. You should consider this card in Standard and Limited if nothing else.

Tusked Colossodon

Daniel (3): A 6/5 for 6 without trample, might see some play in Limited just for the fact that it’s a 6/5, but don’t expect more than that.

Ugin’s Nexus

Daniel (3): I’m not really sure what the point of this card was as I don’t see extra turn cards in this set… the only thing I can see is that maybe this card isn’t in the set for Standard or Limited, but for a higher or different format like EDH. Nonetheless, I’m planning on picking one up for my EDH deck, because I found a combo for it and I really like the card. It should go without saying, but I don’t expect to see this card much in Standard or Draft.

Bruce (1): This is a fun little artifact that no one will play. 5 mana do-nothing cards won’t see play even if the ability is pretty crazy. I can think of very few applications for this card can’t say I’m keen to play it.  Sure, it’s cute from a flavour perspective for Sarkhan, but the card itself is not relevant for me.  This is about a 1.

Unyielding Krumar

Daniel (2): The sad part about this card is that if it came with First Strike as just a static ability on the card, it would be a fairly good card. As it stands right now, the card is pretty bad and overcosted at 4 mana for a pretty much do nothing card. I don’t expect to see much of this card in Standard or Limited formats.

Utter End

Daniel (4): This is a powerful piece of removal for white and black with Hero’s Downfall proving that a little bit of extra mana for a better removal spell is worth it. I like this card a lot, it’s simple and as I’ve mentioned a few times, I like big Red, Black, White tokens in the next Standard season. I think this card will definitely see play in a good amount of Constructed decks and is a great card in Limited as well.

Bruce (5): And here we have premium removal…and among the best answers I’ve seen to just about anything.  This is the ultimate swiss army knife of removal…God? Done. Aura? Toast. Critter…adios Amigo.  Yup…this will be a sweet one and will be a staple in Constructed and a Limited Bomb.  Can we say…this is a 5?

Valley Dasher

Daniel  (3): In a set of mostly high mana costs, this card comes down early and hopefully gets in for a pretty solid amount of damage. As a 2/2 for 2 this card hopefully comes down turn 2 and gets in for 4 damage before trading to another card. On the more negative side, if you draw this card late, don’t expect it to do much but die. If you’re going to go in on the early game plan in Draft, pick this guy up, but don’t expect him to much outside of early game in Limited formats.

Venerable Lammasu

Daniel (3): This is a big card with an even bigger mana cost. 7 mana might be a lot, but to put your opponent on a hard-to-dodge 4 turn clock will probably be enough for this card to find a home in at least a couple Limited decks. With the consistency of constructed play, I don’t expect this card to find too much though.

Villainous Wealth

Daniel (3): This one of those cards that I really like even if it’s probably going to have a very hard time finding a home. It actually reminds me of another card Genesis Wave, except it’s opposite. What I mean by opposite is that where Genesis Wave says permanent, Villainous Wealth says nonland, where Genesis Wave says yours, Villainous Wealth says target opponent. The only real similarity in the 2 cards is the fact that both only let you use the cards that cost X or less to cast. To reiterate, I’m not sure how much play this card will see in any format, it feels too bulky for Limited Formats and  for constructed. If you do manage to make a way to make it work, you’ve got yourself a pretty solid card.

Bruce (2): This wins my prize for coolest card of the set, but I can’t see it having much of an effect on Constructed.  Mill strategies rarely cut it and you are unlikely to ever have enough mana in your 3 colour Standard deck to pull this off and really have a meaningful impact. At Limited this might be ok, but it feels like a card you only want to see at the end of the game and you are hoping and praying to find their bomb and then wreck them with it.  That sort of high risk/high reward game plan probably won’t fly…so this is likely a 2 but could have ridiculous upside in the right Limited build.

War Behemoth

Daniel (3): This card is a vanilla 3/6 for 6 that may see some play in Limited, but I don’t expect to be play in Constructed formats at all.

War-Name Aspirant

Daniel (3): A solid 2/1 that can potentially come down as a 3/2 for 2 and can’t be blocked by any small guys and most walls. This is a great card that personifies the idea of efficient creature play, I expect this card to see a place in both Limited, Standard and potentially even higher level decks.

Warden of the Eye

Daniel (3): A long time ago there was a card called Scrivener, this was a huge deal even though his effect was a little more limited than this card’s. Personally, out of the two I’d probably pick old Scrivener over this card because of his mana cost consisting of only blue and colorless mana. In this set Warden of the Eye feels good to combo with Prowess type decks if it finds its way into Standard then it will probably be in t. On the Limited  side of things, if you can handle his casting cost he’s probably going to be one of the better creatures you’re going to find out there, so I would pick him up.

Warrior Chief “Cycle” (Chief of the Edge and Chief of the Scale)

Daniel (3): I admit that two cards does not make a cycle, but I really feel that there’s no way to review these cards separately. So I decided to toss the two together and see what came out of it. Let me preface by saying that the two creatures really should have been a 3/3 for 3 that gave all of your warriors +1/+1, then that would have been one great card versus two good cards. Don’t get me wrong a 2/3 or 3/2 for 2 that pumps your stuff is a solid bit of filler for Limited, but it’s that difference between good and great that will probably stop these cards from seeing any Standard play.

Waterwhirl

Daniel (3): Coming in the block directly after the printing of Sea God’s Revenge, this card feels pretty terrible. I guess I’ve just been spoiled by good bounce spells and then to get this feels like a slap.  Sea God’s Revenge was still pretty awesome in Limited formats and I expect good things from this card as well. Being worse than Sea God’s Revenge which didn’t see any play yet in Standard leads me to believe that this card will also receive no love this upcoming season.

Weave Fate

Daniel (3): Card advantage is a pretty important factor in Limited formats. The ability to trade this one card for two makes Weave Fate very interesting. However being more expensive than other accessible cards like Divination means that it probably won’t find a home in Constructed formats.

Wedge lands cycle (Frontier BivouacMystic MonasteryNomad OutpostOpulent PalaceSandsteppe Citadel)

Daniel (4): The introduction of Khans of Tarkir brings with it the fading out of Return to Ravnica and with that comes the fading out of the Shock Lands cycle. As it stands right now, this land cycle combined with the fetch lands and Pain lands are probably going to fill the hole left from the sets rotation. That being said this is a very mana intensive set and I expect these cards to see play in Standard, EDH, and Limited. Once they rotate out though, I don’t see this cycle having any effect just as their predecessors Shard lands.

Wetland Sambar

Daniel (2): A vanilla 2/1 for 2 that will probably see some play in Limited, but not much more than that.

Whirlwind Adept

Daniel (3): Whirlwind Adept is a 4/2 creature for 5 that has prowess and hexproof. It’s a pretty big card with a pretty big mana cost. The hexproof is pretty important on this card as it protects it from dying to a quick bit of burn and the prowess ability can push it out of the range of a lot of creatures. I expect this card to see a good amount of play in Limited, but not so much in Standard.

Wingmate Roc

Daniel (4): I feel like I’ve said this a lot in this set, but yet again I almost find myself wanting to give this card a 5. The only problem is how much playability the card will see outside of this Standard season or even other constructed formats. The card comes down as essentially 3/4 creatures with flying for 5, but only if the Raid condition is met. It also gets a bit better by gaining you 1 life for every other creature that attacks with Wingmate Roc. It’s a nice gain if you swing with an army of tokens.

Bruce (3): 5 mana for a 3/4 flying bird with Raid and if it triggers gets you ANOTHER 3/4 flying bird.  Oh…and it gains you LIFE TOO! This is a ridiculous limited bomb that is a snap first pick every single time.  In terms of constructed playability, I don’t think there will many decks looking to rock this guy, but I can totally dream up an Ajani Pridemate/Wingmate Roc deck that will be hilarious for the kitchen table (or a tier 2 or 3 standard environment). This is likely a 3.

Winterflame

Daniel (2): Long story short, the mana cost is too high for something that taps and Shocks for 2 damage strictly creatures. It’s removal so It will see some play in Limited, but don’t expect much more than that.

Witness of the Ages

Daniel (2): A simple bit of filler, a 4/4 is okay in Limited even with a mana cost of 6. This is the sole colorless artifact creature in the set. I don’t expect this card to see too much play even in Limited formats.

Woolly Loxodon

Daniel (3): This card is simple and efficient as a 6/7 for 7 that can be unmorphed for 6. I can see it being played in a few Draft decks, but there are hopefully better creatures to pick first.  It’s clunky and doesn’t have trample so I don’t see this card entering Constructed play in any competitive way.

Zurgo Helmsmasher

Daniel (4): Zurgo definitely comes down almost at the top of the pack. This is one of those cards that I absolutely love the flavor. He is the commander of a berserker horde with the name Helmsmasher and he grows bigger each time he kills a creature. All this plays well into the idea that he is a giant ripping people limb from limb. He feels like the correct colors as a very violent Mardu horde commander and is appropriately-costed so he won’t come down early. When you do cast him he rushes into battle with haste to deliver the beats. This card is a definite bomb in Limited with indestructibility on your turn, your opponent almost has to block thus making Zurgo grow larger and more dangerous. I feel that this card may have a future as a pretty popular commander in EDH. Possibly in other constructed formats as soon as people can figure him out, because he is a 3-turn clock that gets larger, protects himself and has to be answered.

Bruce (4): The stats on this thing seem ponderous.  7/2 for 5 mana?  Ok…if you say so.  The real trick is with the abilities and with three of them (all of them being very relevant) this guy could very easily get out of control.  In limited, this is a ridiculous bomb, mainly because removal is significantly much less common…and you can’t profitably block him because he’s a freaking bulldozer with indestructibility.  In Constructed…I’m not sure there is a deck for him yet, but I can certainly envision such a deck with this guy as a center piece to clean up the mess (or make a little more).  I figure he’s better than a 3…but maybe not quite a 4…but I’m leaning towards a 4 .

Notable Reprints:

Ally Colored Fetch Lands Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Windswept Heath, Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills 

Daniel: Fetch lands are some of the best mana fixing in the game. Rumors had been running about fetch lands being released in Khans of Tarkir for a long time, so pick them up if you’ve got the money because they are undoubtedly going to go up a lot after rotation.

Bruce (6): This will be the key to Constructed decks splashing all sorts of ridiculous colours once rotation hits in about a week.  Seriously.  We’ve seen all sorts of funky coloured decks pop up and this will just enable full on silliness and you can now quite seriously fetch whatever further “splash” colour you want easy as pie.  They will be terrific at Limited, Staples at Standard and are now all relevant in Modern too…and that’s just freaking amaze-balls.  This will just enable so much flexibility that it is nuts and the possibilities are almost endless.  I want to see what the best builders in the world dream up with these in the fold.  These are clearly about a 6…and that may be on the conservative end of things.

Erase

I mentioned it in the last M15 set review and I’ll mention it again. Cheap and good removal for enchantments is going to be important in the upcoming standard season and this card can exile Gods for 1!

By the Will of the Floral Spuzzem

Khans of Tarkir - PRE-ORDER

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Daniel Clayton - September 4, 2014

The Pinnacle: Designing Monstrosities (Part 2)

Progenitus - Top creatures in Magic the Gathering

The Pinnacle: Designing Monstrosities (Part 2)

Top creatures in Magic the Gathering

By: Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem
(Link to part 1)

Today I want to talk about some of the most utilized creatures in the game as a whole and what makes them good. I’ll also try to pull some decks in and show just how good they are with their performance throughout time since their printing. Some of the cards on this list are a part of the most expensive cards in the game club while others are not quite as flashy. My requirement is that they are creatures and they have had some type of impact on the game at some point. While I will try my best to put the best creatures in the game on my list I am only human and as such make mistakes so I apologize in advance if your favorite did not make it on my list. As this is a type of card versus a specific card I figured I would drop them out in a top 6 list going from number 6 to number 1. I’ll also be pulling in some honorable mentions from throughout the years. In the previous article we started talking about creatures numbers 6 through 4 and some decks that they exist in that have done fairly well in over the years. To give a little review, at number 6 we had our super mana-producing creatures Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Metalworker with a spotlight on a powerful and fast deck: Metalworker (MUD). Sitting at number 5 we went over our unique creatures Arcbound Ravager and True-Name Nemesis, as well as the uniquely difficult decks that they exist in. Finally, sitting at number 4 is our combo creatures Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Stoneforge Mystic, along with the powerful modern creation Kiki-Angel deck (My name for it… I think). In this article we’ll hit numbers 3 through 1 and try to find out what the best creature in the game is… well the best one in my opinion anyway.

 

Honorable Mention

Progenitus

In the early days of Magic they printed a card called Oath of Druids and a whole deck was designed around it. The deck became a huge contender long after it was printed, the major idea of the deck was your opponent put out one creature then you could cheat the most powerful creature in your deck into play. This card and others like it made the deck a huge challenge for its time. One of the major fuels for the deck was Forbidden Orchard, a Legendary Land from Kamigawa that tapped for one mana of any color and put a 1/1 colorless spirit token into play under your opponent’s control. This card exists as part of a triumvirate of the most powerful creatures in the game. With protection from everything and the creature being a 10/10 it’s almost always an unstoppable 2 turn clock.

 

Deck:

 

So the major idea for this deck is to get Oath online and then win by taking infinite turns with Time Vault, and swinging for victory with the Progenitus. This deck is almost card for card the same deck that was created by Starcity games a while ago, with a couple differences to suit my own tastes; the two differences are the adding in of Progenitus and the adding of Tezzeret. Tezzeret combined with Time Vault is basically a win condition on its own; it acts as a replacement for Voltaic Key and even does it better than Voltaic Key sometimes; it can be put into exile to activate Force of Will; and his final creates attackers if you don’t have any others. I put in Progenitus, because if I can get it online on my turn and I’ve got infinite turns it’s almost impossible to stop. If you do decide to get into Vintage and build this deck there just note that it typically gets beaten out by more true to name control decks for their ability to counter spells and abilities.

 

 

Number 3

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Blightsteel Colossus

Clocking in at number 3 are the other members of the triumvirate, and also the 2 strongest creatures in the game, these cards are so powerful in fact that many decks that run these two creatures don’t typically run too many other win conditions. Emrakul is so powerful for all of the things that he has; the strongest creature in the game at 15/15, he can’t be countered, he grants you an extra turn when he’s cast, he has flying, protection from colored spells and most importantly he has annihilator 6 (this means your opponent sacrifices 6 permanents every single time he attacks). To show you how good this creature is it is the creature that has replaced Progenitus in almost every deck that Progenitus has held sway over in the past. At 15 power it wins the game in two swings and can take down just about anything that blocks it, and at 15 toughness there aren’t many things that can take it down in a fair fight. Flying gives this card a fair amount of evasion, and the protection from colored spells gives him protection from most of the removal that he has to deal with; the ability to take an extra turn means that this card has an ability which is strictly better than haste. The real ability that wins games is none of these however, Annihilator 6 is the knife that ends the games in most situations; it is typically just too hard to recover from sacrificing 6 permanents and blocking with one for you to fight against this card in most situations. On the other side of the bench is one of the only creatures that has an ability to deal with Emrakul reliably, Blightsteel Colossus; this is the other member of the triumvirate and is my personal favorite. He is big, he is bad and he is the card that ran to replace Darksteel Colossus. He is an 11/11 for 12 with Trample and Infect; he is indestructible and if by some off chance he would be put in a graveyard, he is shuffled back into his owner’s deck instead. This is one of those cards that typically wins the game the first turn he’s out, unless your opponent finds an answer the game is over before they can find one. These are the two most powerful creatures in the entire game based on brute strength. Now if we compared how good cards are by how well they are able to defeat other cards of the same type then these two would be the most powerful cards in the game hands down, but they don’t do much for you early to mid-game if you don’t trick them out leading to their rating of 3 instead of 1As for a deck list for these two look up the last article to see Blightsteel Colossus in the Metalworker deck and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn easily takes over Progenitus’s spot in the Oath of Druids variant.

 

 

Honorable Mention

Dark Confidant and Snapcaster Mage

Now, I’m sure there are some of you wondering why these two cards did not make the list, surely there are cards on this list that are less than these two creatures and the short answer is debatably yes there are worse cards on this list than these 2 cards, but I wanted to show diversity of creatures and different scales on which they could be graded, essentially where the essence of the most powerful creatures in the game fit when compared to the essence of the other most powerful creatures in the game, as for why these 2 cards aren’t taking up the spot for their creature essence type, that will become apparent when I reveal our number 2 card; the overall theme of this card is card advantage. These two cards have become staples in just about every format they are legal in, in just about every deck that has their color, and for good reason.

 

Number 2

Griselbrand

People have been calling for this card to get banned almost since its printing as many people complain that it’s just too powerful. The card is beautiful and simple, but a post-editing R&D pulled the card away from too broken card-hood; it’s a 7/7 Flyer with Lifelink that you can pay 7 life to draw 7 cards, so obviously it costs 7 to go with the theme? Wrong, it costs 8 mana probably to keep it from once again being too broken. But does increasing its mana cost make the card unbroken? According to many of the players who have been faced down by the Demon not by a long shot. With tons of ways to cheat this into play the card may be facing the ban-hammer one day very soon, but for now it sits in a very powerful spot at number 2 on our list. The traditional list for Griselbrand involves ways to cheat it out and runs alongside the ever-powerful Emrakul, and a lot of the time people would much rather have a Griselbrand rather than an Emrakul. The reason for that is the draw ability which lets you draw almost a quarter of your deck in just a turn, it costs you some life, but the trade-off is easily worth it, especially when you consider he regains you the life you lost for drawing 7 cards. This card is so strong it’s not even funny. Plus when you consider the fact that in the 7 cards you draw another Griselbrand shouldn’t be too far off from feasible in just your first try. The flavor text on the card seems fitting for not only his opponents in the story but also for any player who’s had the misfortune of being faced down by this demonic power house. For this deck I look back to 2013 and look at a deck that took 1st place Sneak and Show.

 

Sneak and Show Legacy Decklist

 

The major game plan of the deck is to get a Sneak Attack or Show and Tell online and put an Emrakul onto the field and win the game from there. The deck may pretty much be a one-trick pony, but who needs other tricks if it works? The deck is highly competitive and the inclusion of Griselbrand makes the deck much, much faster. Everything in the deck, Griselbrand included, is used either to get pieces for your combo, to defend your combo or to get your combo out sooner. It is a very aggressive and powerful deck.

 

To Recap

I’m pretty sure at this point just about everyone can think of at least one of the cards at our number one spot, but let’s go through our list one more time in case you missed one. At number 6, we have Rofellos and Metalworker or just mana producing creatures in general, being able to ramp is a powerful ability and these two seem to do it better than anyone else, they may not get you there by themselves but they’ll provide the fuel to do it. At number 5, we have Arcbound Ravager and True-Name Nemesis, these creatures may not be the biggest they may not offer much by themselves, but for their weirdness and uniqueness you have to give it up to these 2 powerhouses, capable of getting in there and pulling out a game for their sheer adaptability as hard to hit and hard to get rid of is the name of the game with these lovable weirdos. At number 4 sits our combo suite, with cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Stoneforge Mystic; these two powerful cards may be almost useless by themselves, but in the right deck these two grow to legendary proportions and can hold their own in any fight. At number 3, are our Heavy Hitters, these are cards that are nearly unparalleled in their power and winning potential, not much needs to be said about these 2 goliaths. Sitting lonely at number 2 is the diabolic Griselbrand, a card which is so powerful it’s being called for a banning in Legacy by some players, a format where Jace, the Mind Sculptor is legal.

 

 

Number 1

Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secrets // Insectile Aberration

I’m sure that the Tarmogoyf might have been expected as it is currently the most expensive creature in the game, but people may find Delver of Secrets a little bit more exciting. If we had to name this category of creatures, it would probably be cheap, efficient beaters. It might be surprising to people to find out that when Tarmogoyf first came out it was actually one of the lower cards in the set. Goyfs with similar abilities had been seen before and none of them had been very good, so people logically thought that Tarmogoyf would follow suit, but he didn’t and has turned himself into a staple in just about every deck that runs green and is allowed to be played in. He didn’t even start off that strong with the inclusion of planeswalkers and fetch lands in Modern buthe’s truly built himself up as a powerhouse. He is mostly commonly run in the current mondern deck Jund:

 

Jund modern decklist:

 

With only a few exceptions the lands in the deck are used to either find or produce mana. The exception to this is Raging Ravine, which is in the deck not only to produce mana, but also to act as a reliable way to get in for some damage. Courser of Kruphix allows for fixing of your draw, lifegain and a slightly more reliable way to get out mana each turn. Scavenging Ooze, while it is sort of a counterpart to Tarmogoyf, acts as both a potential big beater creature for cheap and potential life gain. The Dark Confidant acts as card draw and can be a beater if you need him to. Chandra and Liliana basically act as a mop for anything you miss with the rest of your cards and can even deal a little bit of damage themselves. Almost all of the Instants and Sorceries are aimed at making your opponent discard, dealing damage to them or having a reliable way to deal with any problems you might run into for the most part. Overall, the deck just acts as a get in there type of deck getting in there for quite a little bit of damage between Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze.

More surprising to readers might be my choice of Delver of Secrets, but of course if you’ve been to Legacy, Vintage or Modern tournaments recently you’d probably be less surprised by this choice. There aren’t many flyers in the game that cost 1 to play unless they come with drawbacks or are 1/1’s or less. There is only one flyer in the game that has none of these and is in fact a 3/2. The card is outstanding for control decks, which typically only want to get 1 creature on board and just keep up the clock by slowly wasting your opponent’s life and this card performs this duty heroically. This card just placed first in a Legacy tournament on July 6th of this year in

 

American Delver Legacy decklist (UWR Delver)

 

The lands in this deck are used exclusively to either produce mana or find other lands. I have seen a lot of variants of this deck that run basic lands in the main board just in case the opponent runs Path to Exile. Other variants of this deck run Green instead of White while some stay dual colored with only Red and Blue. This deck, however is an American variant of the Delver deck that runs only Red, White, and Blue mana. The True-Name Nemesis is a card that we went over earlier in the article and you can read about it there, but in this deck it gets in for a hit each turn which can mean a lot especially when equipped with an Umezawa’s Jitte and is exceedingly hard to kill. The Delver of Secrets in this deck mean that you are going to be able to deal 3 damage each turn pretty reliably from turn 2 on. Finally, the Stoneforge Mystic in the deck basically acts as a combo on its own fetching up various equipment from your deck and is able to put them directly onto the battlefield for cheap, and it is the reason that the deck runs the 2 artifacts that it runs. Umezawa’s Jitte is a powerful card that earned a banning when it first came out for just being too good. The card basically does just about everything you’d want a card to do as soon as it gets to hit an opponent, it acts as removal, makes your creatures bigger, and gains you life. Realistically, the only 2 things you could want more of are static abilities (Flying, First Strike, etc) and card draw. On the other side of the artifact spectrum is Batterskull, which acts as a reliable blocker through vigilance, reliable life gain through lifelink, and recursion through its activated ability to return to your hand; when coupled with Stoneforge Mystic, these two cards can be a powerful one-two-punch. The sorceries in the deck act as both knowledge generator, whether that knowledge come in the form of knowing what your opponent has (Gitaxian Probe) or knowing and controlling what you’re going to draw next (Ponder), and card draw (both Gitaxian Probe and Ponder). The instants in the deck either act as removal (Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares), Card Draw/Knowledge Generation/Card Fixing (Brainstorm), or Counterspells (Spell Pierce, Daze, and Force of Will).

By Daniel Clayton – the Will of the Floral Spuzzem
@DC4VP on Twitter
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Daniel Clayton - August 22, 2014

The Pinnacle: Designing Monstrosities (Part 1)

Arcbound Ravager - Top creatures in magic the gathering

The Pinnacle: Designing Monstrosities (Part 1)

Top creatures in magic the gathering

By Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem

 

Today I want to talk about some of the top creatures in magic the gathering as a whole, the most utilized and what makes them good; I’ll also try to pull some decks in and show just how good they are by their performance throughout the time since their printing. Some of the cards on this list are some of the most expensive cards in the game, while others are not quite as flashy. My requirement is that they are creatures and they have had some type of impact on the game at some point; while I will try my best to put the best creatures in the game on my list I am only human and as such make mistakes and I apologize if your favorite doesn’t make my list. As this is a type of card versus a specific card I figured I would drop them out in a top 6 list going from number 6 to number 1; I’ll also be pulling in some honorable mentions from throughout the years.

 

 

Honorable Mention

Noble Hierarch

This card’s price correlates directly with the popularity of the Zoo deck archetype. This card costs only 1 to play, when it swings it gets 1/2 through its ability Exalted; this ability also makes anything else that swings alone grow bigger when it swings. The card is just an efficient mana producer that does a little bit more than just produce mana. This card acts as an outstanding piece of acceleration in general, accelerating both the amount of damage you’re able to get in and the amount of damage that you’re dealing each turn. While there are tons of decks that run this card, we’ll be looking into them a little bit later with a card later on our list. If you consider vanilla 1/1 elves that cost 1 and tap for 1 to be playable in any deck, you can see why this card just barely missed our list of most playable, but let’s keep the idea of mana producers going with the first cards on our list.

 

 

Number 6

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary; and Metalworker

These two cards are some of the most powerful mana-producing creatures in the game, and they came out at about the same time as one another. The block that they came out in is called the Urza’s saga. It’s a saga about a war between 2 brothers and is filled with some of the most powerful mana producers in the entire game, it’s out of this set that you get such cards as Tolarian Academy, the Tron lands (Urza’s Mine, Tower, and Power Plant), and the two cards that we have here are the two best mana-producing creatures in the game. While Metalworker is a staple in Legacy and has seen some limited play in Vintage as well, with Rofellos being banned and restricted it does not have a deck it’s run in very heavily. As for why Rofellos is so good, it’s because the card essentially doubles your mana as soon as it comes down and it essentially doubles all the mana you play for the rest of the game. The card is so powerful that it almost warrants a kill spell the minute it hits play or the game quickly swings in the controller’s favor. The other card at number 6 is Metalworker and this card is so good that an entire deck archetype in legacy is based off of this card. The card is a powerful card coming out turn 2 in most cases and tapping for 6 to 8 mana if it survives to get to tap once. The card is run in Vintage stacks decks once in a while for its powerful mana acceleration turning the deck from a very gradual combo to set up into a much quicker set up for the lock. It’s run predominantly in the deck that carries its namesake, but it’s a powerful addition to any artifact deck. The style of this deck is as follows, this was a Metalworker that took 13th place in a Star City Games Invitational back in 2013.

MUD (Metalworker deck) Legacy decklist

 

The Metalworker deck is one of the most powerful decks in the entire game of Magic: The Gathering being able to stand on its own two feet in Legacy as well as Vintage and crushing decks in others formats easily. The deck works on the premise of getting expensive stuff out quickly and then cheating what’s too expensive to actually play. You typically want to get Metalworker out as quickly as possible with as many cards in hand as possible and then pump out a Lightning Greaves and a Kuldotha Forgemaster to try to get Blightsteel Colossus. You also try to pump up the cost for opponents to play spells through Lodestone Golem and Trinisphere. Additionally, cards like Steel Hellkite, Chalice of the Void, and Sundering Titan help to rip apart your opponents’ decks. Metalworker, Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond are your way to quickly pump up the Mana you need to wreck your opponents quickly. There are two combos that exist in the deck, the first is Staff of Domination, a card which can combo with Metalworker to give you an unlimited supply of card draw, mana, tapping, untapping and life; the second is Kuldotha Forgemaster, which lets you get out the most powerful cards in your deck in exchange for 3 artifacts. The card Lightning Greaves is a card which allows you to use creatures the first turn you play them both for using abilities and for attacking. The Goblin Welder is in your deck to deal with the mirror match and to also act as recursion for the deck. The Blightsteel Colossus acts as the win condition for the deck most of the time swinging in and winning the game usually at most by the second turn he comes out, but he is also the major beater for the deck. All of the lands in the deck serve as either a great mana producer or serve in a dual role doing something else on top of their original function. The Cavern of Souls acts not only as mana, but also to prevent your creatures from being countered. Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors strictly as a mana body, but in doing this they act as some of the best mana producers in the game. Darksteel Citadel and Great Furnace act not only as mana producers, but they are also artifacts meaning that they will add to Metalworker’s count and can be sacrificed for Kuldotha Forgemaster’s ability. Finally, I won’t get into Wasteland just yet (I have another article planned for that). The rest of the creatures, Myr Battlesphere and Wurmcoil Engine, are used as beaters with an edge. The edge for Myr Battlesphere is that he creates fodder for Kuldotha Forgemaster and both of the creatures help you to stabilize against typical agro strategies.

 

Number 5

Arcbound Ravager; True-Name Nemesis

If I were to give these 2 creatures a specific type, it would probably be unique; these are creatures that while they lend themselves to 1 strategy or another, they do not commit themselves fully to a strategy and it’s not the strategy that they lend themselves to that allows them to make this list.  For True-Name Nemesis’s part, this is a true beater card, and through its ability to gain protection from target player this means that not only will the card gain evasion from that player’s creatures but also gains protection from that player’s spells making the creature very hard to kill. With a creature that is exceedingly hard to kill and has exceptional evasion, making it a 3/1 on top of everything else makes the card cream of the crop. It puts your opponent on a long but realistic clock of 7 turns that he can’t block; additionally, when you equip him with a sword or jitte the card’s clock count becomes ridiculously low for such a hard to kill card and you can count on the abilities to activate each turn making it even better. There are tons of True-Name Nemesis decklist on Three Kings Loot. Another of these unique cards is Arcbound Ravager, another of those cards that has a whole deck built around them. This card is again another beater, but it’s so much more than that and while it doesn’t win the game by itself it can be extremely hard to deal with. Its power however comes from its 2 abilities and this is what makes the card unique as well. The abilities that the creature has are the abilities to sacrifice an artifact to put a +1/+1 counter on Arcbound Ravager allowing him to protect himself from dying to spells or in combat. Additionally, if he manages to make it through without any blockers, being able to cash out all of your artifacts for +1/+1 counters can win you the game. On top of everything else, his second Ability, Modular means that you can also trade him to pass all of his +1/+1 counters to a creature that got through and potentially win you the game.

 

Affinity Modern Decklist

Some more Affinity decklists here.

If you are a player who plays in competitive Modern Tournaments at all, then you’ve probably played against this deck before and know that if you don’t have a way to counter it, it will probably cost you the tournament. This is a fast deck that has survived the bannings of 7 cards that I can think of off the top of my head (5 Colored Artifact Lands, Skullclamp, and Disciple of the Vault); even with all of these bannings the deck still remains a serious contender in almost all of the tournaments it makes a splash in. Most of your lands serve a double function whether that be getting blue (Island), Tapping for any color (Glimmervoid), acting as both an artifact and a mana source (Darksteel Citadel, Blinkmoth Nexus, Inkmoth Nexus), or serving as an alternate or additional win condition (Blinkmoth Nexus, and Inkmoth Nexus).  Almost all of your creatures exist to pump up your artifact count and get in for some damage; the exceptions are Etched Champion (Yes, its primary idea is to get in for damage, but it does so reliably and has protection), Signal Pest (Pumping up all of the other cards swinging in), Steel Overseer (Making all of your guys larger), Vault Skirge (Its lifelink makes you able to compete extremely well against most other aggro strategies), and of course Arcbound Ravager himself (see above description). The Cranial Plating in the deck is your primary win condition, as it pumps up whatever it’s equipped to up to epic levels, and with the ability to re-equip at instant speed, the card can almost consistently guarantee that the damage is going to get in. The Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum act as some pretty impressive mana acceleration and can win you a whole game almost without having to worry about drawing lands. The Thoughtcasts typically come down for 1 mana meaning that you get to draw two cards for next to nothing. This deck leads me up to our next honorable mention, however, and that is:

 

Honorable Mention

Disciple of the Vault

A completely broken card when it first came out; it earned itself a banning in both Standard and Modern for a time for its power. This is a 1/1 creature for 1 Black mana that makes an opponent lose life each time an artifact is put into the graveyard, when this card first came out in Mirrodin (a largely artifact block, it warped the game in Standard so heavily that everyone was playing a variant of this deck leading to this card’s banning). This card is still chosen as the card of choice in some Vintage Brews that brag about turn 0 victories (That is to say, winning the game before you take your first turn). While I would post some of these decks up here, they’re not exactly what I would call competitive deck lists and as such I’ll just run through the major strategy of the deck and you can build your own or look it up if you feel so inclined. The deck runs cards such as, Gemstone Caverns; this is a card that allows you to put it directly into play with a luck counter on it if it’s in your opening hand. On top of this it runs Protean Hulks and Flashes (Protean Hulk is a creature that says that when it is put into a graveyard from play you may search through your library for creatures with total converted mana cost 6 or less and put them into play). Finally, the deck runs Disciple of the Vaults and any number of Artifact creatures that enter play with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the X that you spent to cast them (At least 5 of these). Now the strategy typically works like this, on your opponent’s upkeep, you get out Gemstone Caverns and 1 more mana in some way to cast flash on your opponent’s first turn, you cast flash putting out protean hulk and you let it die, allowing you to search through your deck for your 4 Disciple of the Vaults and all of your 0/0 artifact creatures (they become 0/0’s since they have no +1/+1 counters); all of these cards hit the field at the same time, then all of the 0/0’s die and are put into the graveyard resulting in your opponent losing 4 life for each one that does (because of the Disciple of the Vaults). The deck achieves what is considered impossible for most decks, but with the combo being very hard to establish and easily pulled apart by counters the deck is not very playable; still Disciple of the Vault plays into its spot as one of the most powerful combo creatures of all time.

 

 

Number 4

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker; Stoneforge Mystic

These 2 cards come off as incredibly powerful combo creatures… well at least one of them does and depending on your point of view so does the other. Stoneforge Mystic is the card that is left in question when it comes to combo creatures sitting at this number, and while it does indeed contribute itself to other things I like to think of it as a combo card in itself as much as Tooth and Nail could be considered a combo card. Just like the card Tooth and Nail, Stoneforge Mystic will search through your library for you and pull potentially one of the best cards in the entire game from it and add it to your hand, then for an additional cost it offers to put that card onto the field; the kicker to the whole thing is that the card lets you keep effectively “cheating” an equipment into play meaning that the card combos nicely with Batterskull. This card has been a true contender ever since its first appearance earning it a banning in both Modern and at its time Standard. Stoneforge Mystic stills rules the tournament scene however making a powerful appearance in Legacy tournaments. Check out Three Kings Loot for some of the latest Stoneforge Mystic decklist. The other side of this creature combo type is Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, who sits atop every Timmy’s dream of infinite creatures. This card or its mirror in Splinter Twin coupled with enter the battlefield abilities makes this card one of the most combo-able and powerful creatures ever created. The card just screams win and has proved this point through the many prestigious tournaments it has under its belt. Recently there has been a decklist based around this card that has caught my eye, Kiki Angel:

 

Kiki Angel Modern decklist (UWR control)

More kiki-jiki decklists here.

This deck looks really cool and powerful and feels a little bit different from your usual Splinter Twin deck (More powerful? Probably not, but it’s fun to get out there and try new things every once in a while). There are a whole bunch of variations out there and if you’ve got a little bit of extra time and cash you could try putting one together and see how it feels. The lands in this deck pretty much do what there suppose to do, generating mana or searching for other lands. This deck has two combos centered around Kiki-Jiki, the first involves putting him into play then getting Restoration Angel online and using each new copy to blink Kiki-Jiki allowing him to create infinite copies of Restoration Angel. The second involves playing Kiki-Jiki, then Deceiver Exarch and using Kiki-Jiki to create infinite copies of Deceiver Exarch through his enter the battlefield ability. Snapcaster Mage allows you to gain extra resources by giving an instant or sorcery in your graveyard flashback. Finally, Geist of Saint Traft (Actually the weakest card in the deck, it just doesn’t work well with the strategy) just basically acts as a distraction and a beater running in and trying to deal some damage each turn. The instants in the deck fall into 1 of 2 categories, you have the first half which deal with creature destruction giving you more time against more aggro decks and mirror or similar decks (Path to Exile, Izzet Charm, Lightning Bolt, and Lightning Helix), and you have the counter spells to give your combo some protection (Mana Leak, Izzet Charm, and Remand).

In this Article we’ve gone and talked about creatures numbers 6 through 4 and some decks that they exist in that done fairly well in over the years. To give a little review, at number 6 we had our super mana-producing creatures (Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Metalworker) and the deck was a powerful and fast deck, Metalworker (MUD). Sitting at number 5 we went over our unique creatures (Arcbound Ravager and True-Name Nemesis) and the uniquely difficult decks that they exist in. Finally, sitting at number 4 is our combo creatures (Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Stoneforge Mystic) and the powerful creation in Kiki Angel (My name for it… I think) also known as Kiki Control a variation of UWR control in Modern. In the next article, we’ll hit numbers 3 through 1 and try to find out what the best creature in the game is… well the best one in my opinion anyway.

 

Tip of the Spuzzem: Casual Encounters

I do apologize to my fellow and senior writer on this site for borrowing the name of his column (Bruce Gray), but it was just such a brilliant name that I couldn’t pass it up for this sub-article. A lot of times I have ideas for articles that are definitely on the shorter side so I’ve decided to write these articles in a sub-article of my articles called Tip of the Spuzzem. In this article I just want to talk about a problem I see with a lot of players and sort of give my perspective on how to fix the problem. The problem I’m talking about is how a lot of players put the game on a pedestal especially in the lower upper echelon of play and treat it as something more than what it is; that is to say more than a game. Once you reach a certain level of play (or your cards reach a certain value, I should say) it stops becoming a game to some player and becomes something else entirely, I’m not sure quite what… but not a game that’s for sure. This is a bad trend that players need to avoid for a lot of reasons, but the most prominent is the fact that most of these players become really unaccepting of newer players and shun them from real play for one reason or another. You see this all the time, players rushing new players in play or groaning when they make a mistake. You see it when a player loses and blames their loss on luck or bad draws versus throwing up their hands and saying, you know what maybe I screwed up on that last play I should do it this way instead next time, or refusing to look or talk to you after you beat them. Well it comes out as a bit more rambling than I had intended, but yeah it’s a serious problem and it can have a serious impact on driving new players from the game.

The solution to this problem is a really easy one; simply turn the game into a game again, and this isn’t an especially hard feat. It comes with taking the game a little less seriously, playing some tabletop games with your friends every once in a while, but most importantly, designing and playing with a casual deck. Now casual doesn’t mean bad, you can design a pretty powerful casual deck, just make the deck do wacky things that you think are fun (but not necessarily good); for me, my casual deck is a Green Defender deck that gets insane amounts of mana and then goes off and puts most of the cards in my deck into play through Genesis Wave. The deck is powerful, but the choice of cards in the deck makes it illegal for tournament play without a lot of changes and honestly I don’t want to make those changes, I like the deck the way it is. Another solution is avoiding other players/friends with “toxic” personalities; these are the players that get easily fed up when someone doesn’t understand the rules when playing for fun. This also refers to players that would much rather sulk following a loss in a match versus picking back up and shuffling up. To make a long story short, just remember Magic is a game and if you’re using it for any other reason than to have fun, you’re probably doing it wrong, and when you stop doing Magic right typically it’s not too long before you get out of the game altogether.

 
By Daniel Clayton – the Will of the Floral Spuzzem
@Dc4Vp On twitter
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Daniel Clayton - July 25, 2014

The Pinnacle: Lightning Bolt MTG

Lightning Bolt MTG - full textless artwork

The Pinnacle: Lightning Bolt MTG

 By: Daniel Clayton – the Will of the Floral Spuzzem

I’ve decided to start up a new mini-article series in which I will examine some of the best Magic cards that have ever been made; now I realize that best is a very speculative word, but I will try to stick to cards that most people would agree are some of the best cards in the game of Magic. That doesn’t mean I’ll always stick to this idea, but I’ll try to stay close to the belt on most of them. I decided to write my first article about an idea that I wrote about in my last article, which is to say the idea of the power of the number three. This card has been reprinted more heavily than almost any other card in all of history and its origins date all the way back to the dawn of Magic. I am of course talking about arguably the best of the red damage spells in all of existence, the Lightning Bolt. Not that you couldn’t read the title, but I read somewhere you’re supposed to have an introduction that is mysterious so as to draw readers in.

 

History

Now, I think I should begin by telling the history of this card; this card was printed in one of the first “cycles” of Magic that has ever been printed. It was the first cycle of spells, and was printed alongside cards such as the Black Lotus and Time Walk, and cycles such as the Mox cycle of Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited, and the Dual Land cycle. I believe that Richard Garfield (The creator of the game if you don’t know who that is) also recognized the power of the number 3 in the game of Magic and so created the cycle of 3, which contained one extremely powerful spell, one very powerful spell, one balanced spell, one okay spell, and one very weak spell. All of the cards in this cycle cost one mana of a single color and added or did 3 of something; additionally, all of the spells were instants. The broken spell is Ancestral Recall, a card that cost 1 blue mana and allowed you to draw 3 cards or force someone else to draw 3 cards; some even consider this card’s strictly worse versions, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Ancestral Vision too broken for play in some formats and these cards have broken or helped to break several decks leading to their banning in Modern. The very powerful spell is Dark Ritual, a card that received several reprints up until the move to new card design and is still considered a staple in Black Legacy and Vintage decks for its amazing ability to accelerate mana. The balanced spell is Lightning Bolt itself and we’ll get to it in just a minute. The okay spell is Giant Growth, a spell which increases the power and toughness of a target creature by 3; this spell wasn’t terrible, but as it only lasted until end of turn it was almost never as powerful as players wanted and didn’t see too much play not too long after it was printed. The last spell in the cycle was Healing Salve, and just like players of the past, players today figure out not long after they start that spells that only heal are for the most part, just not worth it; as such this card was too weak to see any real play in constructed formats. Now, as for lightning bolt, this is a card that has been reprinted in Beta, Unlimited, 4th Edition, M10, M11, the Beatdown Box set, Masters Edition, and the Premium Deck Series: Fire and Lightning, as well as various promos of the card being printed as well; with an original printing in Alpha. I call this one of the most balanced cards in Magic, because 3 is the golden number for Magic, and cards that are only marginally worse are not considered playable in more constructed formats, and Magic hasn’t dared to go any more powerful than Lightning Bolt since its printing for fear of making a card that was too powerful. It sits in that perfect range of being perfectly playable without reaching out and warping the game too much.

 

Power Level

Since its creation this card has seen play in every format its legal in at least to some extent. Its 3 damage to a player sits at the perfect level to accelerate your game to a winning level, without being unbeatable and its 3 damage to a creature acts as a perfect level of removal for most of your early to mid-game creatures without being able to snipe the highest level of creature. Its level of power as well as versatility has earned it a place in famous decks throughout many formats including Splinter Twin, Tribal Goblins, Legacy Burn, Modern Burn, Delver decks in Modern, Legacy and Vintage, and Control in Vintage. Additionally, it earned itself a place in the 2009 World Championship deck. The evidence of this cards power is evidenced by how many strong decks it has been in and by the fact that it is still played to this day in decks in just about every format, but the question still remains, is it too strong? I believe the answer to this question is no; while a card any stronger than this would undoubtedly be far too powerful, the card sits at a power level that doesn’t make it quite as broken as the broken cards of the game.

 

The Rarity of a Common

There are many reasons that cards become banned or restricted in formats, the card is too expensive, it keeps the amount of variance in different decks that are played in a format from normal levels, or it’s too powerful or hard to get. The fact that this card has been reprinted so many times and it is a common in all of these printings is the major reason that the card has not been banned based on price or being hard to get; as this card is a common it shows that R&D and the creators of Magic agree with the notion that while this card is very powerful it is by no means broken. Additionally, it can retain its common status because it does neither of its effects better than all other cards in the game. In removing creature threats, it is easily outclassed by a wide variety of both white and black spells, such as Path to Exile or even Hand of death ; as far as damage spells are concerned, the card is outclassed by Lightning Axe, Lava Axe, Tyrant’s Choice and Goblin Grenade. None of these cards are considered broken or even run for the most part, because even though they are better cards, lightning bolt puts the cards together in a perfect combination for a powerful card. The question that follows makes perfect sense, if it’s the perfect combination why is it a common? The answer comes in this form, the card’s effects even though they are powerful and in the perfect combination are common effects; if they were any more powerful, they might be uncommon or rare effects, but they aren’t any more powerful meaning the cards common rating is well deserved for this powerful card.

 

The Future of Magic: The Gathering and Lightning Bolt

So what does the future of Magic hold for pinnacles of the game, such as Lightning Bolt? Well Magic’s R&D department has moved in 2 separate directions to try to answer this question it seems. They seem to continually toy with the idea of making a more powerful form of the card, you can see this through their creation of cards such as Searing Blood, Goblin Grenade, or Searing Blaze. These cards strive to push the boundaries of what has limited Lightning Bolt from being maybe too good all these years; that is to say that they push the boundaries of how much damage a spell should be able to deal, but as is also seen from these newer cards it also shows a reluctance on the part of Wizards to commit wholeheartedly to the idea of a strictly better lightning bolt. This idea of reluctance is reinforced by the other shift that Magic has been pushing towards lately which seems to be the idea of weakening the power of burn spells, or making them more situationally weak. It shows this trend through its printing and re-printing of cards like Lightning Strike; which is the same as Lightning Bolt, only it costs 1 more mana to cast. So where does this leave Lightning Bolt? Well it leaves it somewhere in the middle honestly, the card is not likely to get banned any time soon based on Magic’s printing of situationally more powerful cards, but it feels as though Magic’s also not going to be reprinting Lightning Bolt anytime soon based on its reliance on Lightning Strike as of recently.

 

By the Will of the Floral Spuzzem
Twitter @DC4VP
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Daniel Clayton - July 17, 2014

Burning Up or Burning Out: The power of the number three

Red Deck Wins primer - Goblin Guide

Burning Up or Burning Out: The power of the number three

By: Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem

 

Red Deck Wins Primer

Very soon now Magic fans, we will exist in a world without Return to Ravnica and what a different world it’s going to be; the old script of decks and tournament play will be scrapped and we’ll return to the primordial ooze of deck construction. Return to Ravnica was a powerful format and it is responsible for staples spread out throughout standard right now; you’ve got power houses such as Sphinx’s Revelation, Desecration Demon, and Pack Rats (You can probably tell which decks I played and hated based on this list). Now, let me begin by prefacing that I really don’t like this format, and I don’t presume to call myself an expert on it, so I won’t begin to tell you about decks that are going to either become dominant or stay dominant until the end of the tournament season. I have, however been playing in tournaments (Not gigantic tournaments, but mostly local events, a few larger) long enough to notice certain trends. One example of these trends is control typically taking hold or seeing more play towards the end of the first or second set in a block. Another trend you typically notice is at the beginning of a new block is a shift to one of the most powerful decks in the most powerful color. The deck is of course Red Deck Wins (RDW) and it can be seen to some extent in almost every single block in one form or another; today I’m going to talk a little bit about the ideas behind this deck both from a flavor and an actual game play perspective, and then I’m going to examine some of the decks played by various players played throughout Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage and try to apply some of the principles behind each of these cards.

 

 

Burning Up or Burning Out

This is the decidedly nerdy part of the column, so if you’re just looking for deck construction or points about RDW you can skip ahead to the next section. What is a red mage? A red mage is an individual usually of innate talent, who while not unintelligent, is often motivated and powered by their very tempestuous emotions. They do not act based on what may be considered pure or intellectual, but act based on their own personal code of ethics, personality, and mindset at that time. Red mages may be considered individuals who can be quick to anger, quick to appease, and overall very mercurial in their range of emotions; this isn’t to say that they aren’t loyal. Their loyalty belongs to individuals over organizations and they treasure the bonds to those that they are close to over the traditional organizational bonds that people typically give value to. As their power and their actions are based off of their emotions, these individuals are the most likely to “burn” themselves when it comes to their power, often times losing themselves in the throes of their power and succumbing to anger, fear or hatred. As a side note, it is not often that a red mage would tend to spend time in books studying or honing their skill, but tend to just fall back on their natural talent and strong emotion to win the day for them. All of these characteristics are reflected heavily in the game. The very concept of a red mage is fire and just like a fire, if you play red there’s a very good chance that you’re going to burn yourself out of tournament play. If you think about the various resources you have available to you in the game (I’ll explain all of these in greater detail in a later article), but red typically seems to draw its power from your current state of mind (your hand) and thinking about this from a flavor perspective, your emotional state begins by flaring up and giving you a large swathe of power, but you begin to tire quickly from expending too much mental energy from such emotions and your power begins to wane quickly. (burning out) Even the depth of cards in red lends itself to the flavor of the red mage in a very strong way; red mages typically have one or two strategies for solving problems, burn it or break it, and a red mage is not typically going to spend time examining the depths of their power meaning that the depth of things you can do in red is also pretty limited. Even all the way down to how well the decks place in tournaments is very conducive of the flavor or the red element; a very powerful contender, but not a winner over the hard work and diligence of another color except with a few very talented red mages.

 

 

The Most Powerful Color

I may be wrong and I may be biased, but I truly believe this to be the most powerful color in the entire game of Magic. I will say fair enough that decks of this color typically tend to fall flat on their face, but there’s a reason for that; the decks don’t have consistency. The printing of cards for this color is really only missing one thing and that’s the ability to draw or at least order your deck. There are exceptions, but for the most part those are either bad for one reason or another (Faithless Looting or Magma Jet), or they have a ridiculously high mana cost. (Past in flames) Even those these cards are either very expensive to play or have large downsides to them, I’m sure you’ve seen them run in plenty of decks and the reason for that is that they just make red so much better that you can’t not use them. Now let’s all address the 35-ton gorilla in the room, surely even with consistency problems why don’t the decks win more, I mean if they’re that good. Well, consistency is half of the equation, and probably a larger problem than you give it credit for (It’s what gives you games where all you do is draw mana, a death sentence in red), but the other half of the equation is that almost every deck has built in side board options just to deal with red. Red is the reason that Kitchen Finks is run for the most part; siding against RDW is even run in some RDW that runs white. If you don’t believe me then put together one of the decks that I’ve got listed below and run it against one of your own decks and see how you fair without your side board. I know there are special exceptions, decks that just run faster (Tron, Metalworker, Affinity, Monoblack Devotion, etc.) but by and large the basic shell of RDW is equipped to deal with most decks in a straight fight.

 

The Beginner’s Deck

Let’s just make this point clear, yes RDW is extremely easy to run and yes it is used by people who are just getting into the game for reasons we’ll get into in just a second, but that doesn’t mean that it takes no skill to win with one; if you lose to it, it means there was some flaw or error in your play or deck that allowed you to be overrun by the red deck; they exist out there and if as opposed to coming up with a game plan and a side board, you just spend your time whining about how you lost to the deck, then you’ll never overcome your flaws when it comes to playing against red. Now that that’s said, choosing to play red is a very difficult choice, it is a color that will screw you eventually and refuse to play for you some games, just out of the blue. The other thing that you have to understand about red is that it is a mathematician’s deck; while white may have rule-makers, blue may have strategists, green may have conquerors and black may have tyrants, it is actually red that has the mathematicians. The red deck is designed to do more with less and work around a single number, the number 3. This is a deck that revolves around somewhere between 3 to 4 turn wins as consistently as possible by running cards that typically cost 1 to 3 mana, and deal about 3 damage. But why is this 3 so important? Well you might as well call it the Magic number in Magic; with most of the powerful stabilizing spells sitting at 4 to 5 mana, and decks typically taking the same amount of time to stabilize (begin to fight back against aggro strategies) this is the amount of time decks straight aggro decks have to pump in their hits consistently. Now, you’re probably asking yourself why 3 damage or 3 mana? In a typical hand over the course of 4 turns you will see 10 cards; that is the latest average time a straight aggro deck has to win a game, before stabilization can really begin. Taking into account that you want to play 1 mana until you have about 3 mana on field, that leaves you with 7 cards, or 6 if you played 1 mana every turn for 4 turns. In these 4 turns with 7 cards you have to deal 20 damage, meaning that you have to deal 3 damage with 6 cards, at least and 2 damage with your last card to take out the minimum amount of life. Alternatively, if you have 6 cards in hand, you have to deal 3 damage with 4 cards and 4 damage with 2 cards in order to take out the minimum amount of life. Did you know that this is one of the healthiest decks in the game of Magic? With most of your games lasting somewhere between 4 and 5 turns either way, decks like this allow you to do other things while competing in tournaments and can help you keep healthy by giving you time to go get something to eat or hang out with friends between rounds. Not to mention, your typical red burn runs with much cheaper cards than other decks in the same format, allowing newer players a chance to get more accustomed to the basic rules of the game before purchasing an expansive complicated deck that they may not understand.

 

 

Deck construction

There are a few archetypes of RDW that are run, and I will now attempt to explain each one:

  1. Burn: This is the least expensive and usually most aggressive of all RDW strategies. Trading almost all of its board presence for quick hits that deal damage and then go away. The name of the game is to get in there, and deal damage before your opponent can do anything.
  2. Goblins: One of the strongest creature types of all times, this deck tries to set up a strong assault that buffets your opponent and knocks them so far off their feet that by the time they recover, the game is already over. As a side note, this is one of the most powerful archetypes of all time, having one of the only tribal spells in existence on the banned list in Legacy; elves is the other contender for your information. This deck archetype is part of a larger type known as RDW creature agro; a sub-archetype in which you run a creature base supported by instants and sorceries.
  3. Mid-range: This odd deck runs more middle of the road cost Red cards. The deck is aimed to have power houses that don’t cost as much as other formats, just designed to get there and win the game; these cards are oftentimes backed up by a formidable removal suite capable of dealing with most of your adversaries’ cards.

 

 

Burn: Charlie Mitchell

First in our example of decks is a deck which took 4th in a Legacy open in Worchester on 06 July 2014.

The decklist is as follows:

 

As you can probably tell by looking, this is a deck that is designed to knock opponents off their feet and then keep them there, Goblin Guide, a powerhouse in almost every format in Red allows you to almost always get in 4 damage before he’s stopped. Grim Lavamancer acts as extra damage for all of the used up cards in your graveyard. Eidilon of the Great Revel works to punish players for playing cards with some of the most common mana costs in the whole format. One thing you’ll notice about the mana base of almost all red decks is the fact that they don’t run many lands compared to the whole of the deck, and they use fetch lands to try to thin the amount of lands that you will draw throughout the course of your game. Sulfuric Vortex not only deals damage to your opponent each turn, but it also stops your opponent from being able to gain life a powerful advantage over your opponent. Fireblast is a ridiculous spell that at the cost of 2 mountains deals 4 damage to something of your choice, which can mean the end of the game for your opponent in a lot of situations. Price of progress punishes players for playing the best and most commonly run type of lands in the format. Searing Blaze not only acts as outstanding creature removal, clearing a path for your creatures to swing and dealing 3 damage to your opponent at the same time. The rest of the cards main deck are typically used to just get in 3 damage the face to your opponent and push you one step closer to victory. As for the side board, you have Vexing Shusher (Stop your opponent from stopping you), Satyr Firedancer (Damage a creature each time you deal damage to a player), Mindbreak Trap (No more searching), Red Elemental Blast (Blue is a pain), and Smash to Smithereens (Metalworker ends games). Overall, this is a very powerful deck that places very well typically despite its consistency and hate issues, the one change I would issue would be to try to include 4 Vexing Devils in the deck, but I’m not sure where I would squeeze them in.

 

 

Goblins

 

 

This is a goblin deck of my own creation, because Goblins have apparently fallen out of flavor with the game, I still love the deck and it still is competitive with the right side board. This deck like most of the decks of the same type tries to leverage the damage-dealing ability of its creatures to get in for enough damage to win the game before the opponent has the chance to get back on their feet. Ember Hauler is a powerful card, allowing you to swing in for 2 with the option to pop him and deal 2 extra damage to target creature or player. The Goblin Bushwacker appears with the ability to pump up all your red creatures, give them haste and pump up their power by 1. Goblin Chieftain allows you to get in there for as much damage as possible, by giving all your goblins haste and +1/+1. Goblin Guide, Searing Blaze and Lightning Bolt are strong for reasons previously mentioned. Spikeshot Elder is one of those rare hidden gems, being able to deal his power to target creature or player and being able to be used as many times as you want per turn, he has the ability to burn down opposing creatures and players, making him almost always a great play and also giving you a sink for all your extra mana. Legion loyalist further pumps all of your creatures and gives them first strike and trample, stopping your opponent from being able to just chump block and trade for all of your goblins. Then, you have Goblin Rabblemaster which will not only generate board presence for you, but will also swing in for a powerful hit when surrounded by other goblins. After that you have Goblin Grenade, at 5 damage for a goblin and 1 red mana, this card doesn’t really need any more explaining than that. You want to avoid drawing lands in this type of deck and that accounts for the lack of lands in the deck and the filterability of Arid Mesa mixed with the fact previously stated accounts for why there are so few lands in the deck. The last card in the deck, the Teetering Peaks allow you to burst your creatures quickly without having to lose a land spot and the 2 extra damage is a big help; can also boost Spikeshot Elder for a powerful ability enhancer. The sideboard of my deck deals with most of the difficulty that my deck typically ran into; affinity is a huge problem in Modern, so by running Shattering Spree, we attempt to slow them down long enough for us to take the win. Blood Moon or Sowing Salt is my way to deal with Tron and most other decks that are based around non-basic lands. Surgical Extraction is my way to deal with all of the combo decks that I don’t have another plan against yet, such as second sunrise back in the day; the card also helps against decks that base themselves around the graveyard and is a handy tool against Tarmogoyf. Dismember is really my only defense against creatures with protection from red as well as large creatures that goblins can’t really deal with. Finally, Pyrewild Shaman is my one card combo against Control, pumping what needs pumping and being uncounterable and instant speed, being a creature when I need another creature, returning to my hand to do things more than once every time I deal damage to an opponent, and being a goblin forever; working into the overall strategy of my deck. The only card that I left out which warrants inclusion in the main board of the deck is Arc Trail, just a value card with the ability to be heroic in the mirror match as well as a great solution to most of your infect decks.

 

 

By the Will of the Floral Spuzzem
@DC4VP on Twitter 
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Daniel Clayton - July 13, 2014

Scrying M15 MTG: A Look into the Future

M15 Logo

Scrying M15 MTG: A Look into the Future

(Full M15 spoiler Gallery here)

by Daniel Clayton – The Will of the Floral Spuzzem
additional commentary by Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters

If you’ve been asleep or just haven’t cared for the past month in a half you may have missed it, but it’s Spoiler season everyone. As such it is time for the compulsory look into the set and see what’s hot and what’s not; as with most core sets there are about 95 million re-prints, I will not be examining this sets re-prints (they’ve already had their time in the sun) unless the re-print is something worth mentioning and if that’s the case, I will mention it. Now, before we begin I should give my opening thoughts on the set and explain how the rating system will work for me. When I first saw the sets, I was, as most people usually, are pretty impressed with the mythic rares that they’d released up to that point and was waiting for the ball to drop on the big name cards as they’d been doing in previous sets (Most of the mythics of Modern Masters, Thoughtseize in Theros, and Mutavault in M14). The first feeling I got from the set was that it felt very Zendikar, and it is a very Zendikar-ish set, but that’s not all it is, it’s imported things from many different planes of Magic and brought them all together in a sort of “fixed” sense, a few good examples are Ob Nixilis and Avacyn, being brought in and being drastically different from their original counterparts. Another theme in the set, as expressed by their commercial for the set more than anything else is the theme of it being a war between planeswalkers and the set also accomplishes that very well including several different planeswalkers into the overall design of the set. As for the rating system, I will score all cards out of ten, and give a brief description of why I felt that card deserved that rating. I’ll give an example of each rating to show you what I mean:

10: Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire: A card that can fit into almost any deck and is so powerful that it has earned either a banning or restriction in any format it’s in.

9: Skull Clamp, JTMS: A card that has earned bannings in multiple formats for its power.

8: Tarmogoyf, Force of Will: A card that skates just under the power window of banning and is a staple in multiple formats.

7: Mox Opal, Snapcaster Mage: A powerful staple in its own right skates just under crossing over to another format.

6: Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm: A great versatile, work horse card that you can find 4 of in many formats without the card ever being considered broken (Even if a card breaks a deck, that doesn’t necessarily make the card broken).

5: Creeping Corrosion, Abrupt Decay: A powerful card that isn’t quite a workhorse, but is run enough of to take significant note of. This is the area for sideboard staples.

4: Goblin Grenade, Gray Merchant of Asphodel: A powerful card in the right deck, used right, might have been considered a staple at one point.

3: Archetype of Finality, Asphyxiate: Solid filler, draft bombs that don’t really see play outside the format.

2: Razorfoot Griffin, Jace’s Ingenuity: Okay filler, may see some play in Draft, EDH or Casual, but mostly lost to almost every other format. 2 and 3 are most of the cards in Magic.

1: Charging Badger, Staff of the ____ Magus: Bad cards, okay filler. Not run almost ever outside of draft, these cards would have a tough time having someone defend it, even on the Internet.

0: Storm Crow, Search the City: While opening most cards give you a sort of meh feeling; these cards make you feel legitimately bad pulling them from a pack. People hate pulling them so much so that they complain on the Internet about it.

 

The meat and potatoes

Ajani Steadfast: 4

Daniel: To Start things off we have Ajani Steadfast and he continues on the tradition of the long line of Ajani’s before him, namely being interesting and good in the right deck, but leaving you feeling unfulfilled by the end of using him. Let’s talk about the negatives, he costs 4 and comes in with 4 loyalty, not a huge deal unless you consider the fact that he can only give himself +1 and he has no traditional way to defend himself from threats; this means that a lot of the time you’ll get him out only to lose him in a turn or two. That isn’t to say I don’t like the big cat; his +1 is a kind of pseudo protection as you can leave up whatever creature you gave vigilance to block, his -2 is definitely interesting making everything you control more powerful by giving up a little of himself (A theme of Ajani they’ve kind of been going with since Theros). Finally, his final lends itself to Forcefield, one of the most powerful cards ever created in magic’s history. Not to mention, the planeswalker is almost aggressively costed at 4 mana, and with the right deck (I’m thinking a deck that involves a lot of token production, probably working along-side new Elspeth) he could be a powerful card in standard, but past this I don’t see him having a very long life or breaching any format but standard too harshly (maybe Modern for a little while… but we’ll see); even with all of this, not too major of a player, but definitely an interesting card. If you see this card in draft I would definitely pick it up, but in constructed the card doesn’t play too well without the right deck.

Bruce: Holy CRAP…another new Ajani! This one is pretty sweet and at 4 mana is very playable. The +1 ability is strong and will see plenty of use…but it is the -2 ability that is just BROKEN.  Your whole team gets a +1/+1 counter and your OTHER PLANESWALKERS get more loyalty!! That is totally going to be abused.  Think…Bant super friends…Kiora comes down on Turn 3 with some ramp.  She pluses and is now at 3.  Turn 4 Ajani comes down…you plus Kiora so she’s at 4.  Then -2 Ajani and she goes to 5 and is ready to ultimate.  Turn 5 Kraken emblem?! Wow.  Or Speed Elsbeth to her Emblem.  Watch out! The ultimate is ok with Ajani…but that -2 is going to be all the buzz. He will be an automatic first pick slam dunk in draft and absolutely see tons of Standard play.

Act on Impulse: 2

Daniel: I know Ajani comes after these next ones, but I already did the Ajani one and thought that most of these cards were reprints. This is one of those cards you have to re-read before you call it good or bad. Extra playable cards in red is an amazing ability you almost never see. It makes up for making the cards only playable for 1 turn and by turning up the cost of the card to 3 making it unplayable in most red decks. I don’t know if you necessarily play this card in draft, but with a higher mana cost, constructed, red deck I believe you could easily run this card and it be a powerful part of your deck.

Bruce: A 3 mana sorcery that exiles the top 3 cards of your library.  Until the end of the turn you may play cards exiled this way.  This plays on Red’s propensity to take a risk and exile cards that may, or may not, be useful to you this turn.  The fact that you COULD net some good card advantage off this card is pretty impressive.  If you flip over 2 or 3 solid spells that are cheap enough to cast, you are off and running.  If you flip 2 lands and some dud, well, you just burned through your deck all that much faster (although at least you might be able to find some action at the NEXT draw step).  This one is risky business and not usually my style, but there are people out there who love this.  Enjoy it.  It looks spicy.

Aegis Angel: 3

Daniel: A 5/5 flyer for 6 isn’t bad in draft and its ability may make it a great card to pull, but I see its usefulness in constructed being limited by its high mana cost. This card is pretty much the top of your curve in draft and a great bomb at that, but it doesn’t really play too well in constructed at all.

Bruce: A 5/5 angel with Flying for 6 mana (4 and 2 white) that gives another creature indestructible as long as Aegis Angel is on the battlefield.  Let’s be real…5/5 angels for 6 are very playable and won’t get outclassed by much.  The fact that something else gets indestructible is just gravy.  You’ll grab this is a first pick and smash face.

Aeronaut Tinkerer: 3

Daniel: There was a cycle of creatures that were called ____ Splicer’s; they entered the battlefield created a token and gave Golems abilities such as flying or first strike. The Flying Ability on creatures didn’t work then and it won’t work for this card either. Overall, I’m not sure there’s really a place for it in draft with such a limit of artifact creatures in this set, and history speaks for itself about this card in constructed.

Bruce: So, here we have what is effectively an undercosted flier. 2/3 for 3 mana and can have flying if you control an artifact is pretty solid, particularly when there are a fairly high number of artifacts in the set.  Even nicer if you play the Darksteel Citadel and then run this guy out there.  If you want to be on the Blue/Artifact deck this is a must have.

Aetherspouts: 5

Daniel: While 5 mana is a lot, sending all attacking creatures way away is a powerful effect, I believe that this card may make quite a splash in Standard for a while and may be one of the better cards released in the set. The card works as a situationally better evacuation, sending away all opposition sent against you and returning them to their owner’s library either choking out their deck by residing on top of it or removing them almost permanently by sending them to the bottom of their deck. A great addition to constructed and draft decks that run blue, definitely think about including this card if you can afford the mana commitment.

Bruce: A 5 mana instant that says for each attacking creature, its owner must decide to return it to the top of their library or place it on the bottom of their library. Potential mass bounce effects like this are very powerful, but your opponent will only fall for it once because it is pretty easy to telegraph this one. I like it, but I’m a little skeptical of its application in most games.

Aggressive Mining: 5

Daniel: That being said this may be my favorite card in the entire set as well as I believe this card may be one of the most significant releases of the entire set. In the classical red deck by the time you have 4 or 5 mana, you already have too much and you probably just want to burn off mana by this point. Additionally, red has never really had a way to simply draw cards (outside of Wheel of Fortune) and it’s the one thing that it’s kind of always needed. This card works perfectly and should fit into the top of any good red curve (for the most part). The one negative side to this card is it stops you from playing lands and that could cost you the game. The final verdict of this card is be careful about running it in draft, it is dangerous, but in constructed if you run mono-red, I would run 1 or 2 of these in your deck to give you a little card draw.

Bruce: This is an intriguing card.  For 3 mana (2 colourless and a red) you get an enchantment that says you can’t play lands and when you sacrifice a land draw a card but you may only use this ability once per turn.  This is interesting because Red doesn’t usually get card draw because it usually has to discard first and often at random before it can draw.  However, this card allows you to trade your land for cards much like the way Black trade life points for cards when it gets to draw.  That’s a unique twist on things and may be attractive to many players.  I think in draft it will be a little underwhelming, but perhaps in some form of constructed Burn deck where you need extra cards is where this card will turn up and be very powerful.

Altac Bloodseeker: 4

Daniel: I love this card, in red black agro this card may just take over standard for a period of time. Get it onto the field, kill as many of your opponent’s things as possible, then swing in for a lot. Also, with a little instant creature destruction this creature may be a pretty solid defender as well. I think this card is a powerhouse in any red black deck with a lot of creature kill, definitely consider this card if you are planning to make a rakdos deck.

Amphin Pathmage: 2

Daniel: This is a card that would be very powerful if it was a Merfolk, but it isn’t so the card just seems like it’s not worth it. It can be an okay draft choice, but for the most part it’s not really good enough to see any real constructed play.

Bruce: I like this card only because it is a salamander wizard! I think that is awesome.  The fact that it is 3/2 for 4 is reasonable, but I like the ability to make something unblockable…like…I don’t know…my Soul of New Phyrexia or some other gross fatty.  I think this is a suitable mid-round pick.

Avacyn, Guardian Angel: 3

Daniel: A flavorful twist on a not-to-distant classic, this angel feels like the Avacyn that Avacyn should have been, but while original Avacyn was closer to a 5 or a 6 this card squeezes in at a high 3 when actually translated to card form. This card is definitely a draft in bomb and while I love the flavor that fits well in line with the story protecting both players and creatures alike with her activated abilities and the player even more with vigilance, that doesn’t make for too powerful of a card. It would definitely be something serious to consider in draft, but its stats and abilities don’t make it a very good choice for any constructed deck.

Bruce: This one has me super excited.  I loved the original Avacyn, Angel of Hope but she was so difficult to cast at 8 mana.  This one is for 5 mana and is much more reasonable. 5 mana for a 5/4 vigilance flier is pretty amazing.  Serra Angel is 4/4 for 5 mana…and she’s good…this one is better.  The abilities are also pretty relevant and can really help out when combat starts to get harry.  Now , I don’t think she’ll see play in Standard, but EDH for sure and is a limited bomb.  I’ll be getting my playset simply because I think she’s super sweet and fun to play with.

Avarice Amulet: 2

Daniel: 4 mana is a little bit much for this equipment, and then on top of that your opponent may gain control of it; Overall, not worth it. I don’t see this card being very played in either draft or constructed.

Bruce:  When the equipped creature dies your opponent gets the Amulet of Avarice. This is a card in a draft that you need to be all in on.  It gives you +2/+2 to a creature, vigilance, and an extra card meaning it is very powerful.  The drawback of losing it is also very crucial because it basically sinks your whole plan and turns all those resources over to your opponent.  I’m a big fan of this and think it is worth the risk, but you need to watch out.  Believe it or not, I could see this being run as a single in a Hexproof deck where t can allow your Witchstalker or Gladcover Scout to really get a big boost, and then draw you extra cards as you put together the other pieces needed to dismantle your opponent.  I could see this sneak into a Standard deck like that, even if it is a Tier 1.5 deck and not a Tier 1 deck.

Belligerent Sliver: 2

Daniel: I like the fact that they went back to the old sliver art, but this card is not a good card, only making it more likely to lose your slivers. This card is not that playable in either draft or constructed, unless you are running a sliver deck; but even at that, the card is only marginally playable in this type of deck.

Blastfire Bolt: 2

Daniel: The mana cost of 6 on this card compared to the ability to deal five damage to target creature is a pretty bad deal. The card is not worth it in constructed almost at all, but might be playable in draft as removal, but even that would be a stretch.

Blood Host: 2

Daniel: This is a 5 mana 3/3 creature that can grow by sacrificing another creature. It’s bonus do not outweigh the negatives and overall this seems like a pretty terrible and over-costed creature. I do not see this card being played in either in draft or constructed for the most part.

Boonweaver Giant: 3

Daniel: Coming directly after Theros, this card feels very well timed, but while a 1/1 for 4 that searches and equips an aura may have been fun, if not broken, a 4/4 with the same effect for 7 feels far too expensive to be very playable. I would say that in draft it might see a little play, but unless there’s a white deck with a lot of acceleration I can’t see this card being played much in constructed.

Bruce: Ok. Let’s all agree 7 mana is pretty steep for limited and most constructed decks.  So, unless this ability is off the charts…he’s probably a pass most times.  The fact that he goes and gets an aura is cute and fun when paired with Theros…but without some pretty heavy acceleration he’s not going to hit the table to do anything.  I don’t even know if he’ll see play in Commander.  He’s just very lacklustre and I think he’s going to fall by the wayside more often than not.

Brawler’s Plate: 3

Daniel: A little bit expensive to play and to equip, adding 2 to power and toughness and giving out trample makes it a solid draft pick, but very little chance of ever being used in constructed.

Brood Keeper: 3

Daniel: Well coming in-between the enchantment and dragon blocks this card could not be more appropriately timed, but it stills feels too clunky to really be considered a good card. While it may be wrong to use a keyword on only one card in a set, this card really feels like the heroic ability would work well on it.

Bruce: Whenever an aura is attached to Brood Keeper put a 2/2 flying dragon token into play with firebreathing. This is kind of flashy and has some fun synergy with cards in Theros Block.  Suit this guy up with some Auras and reap the benefits of Dragons! It’s kind of cute and could make a fun casual deck. Here’s the problem with it in Limited.  You have no Bestow creatures to suit it up with making this a prime card to get 2 for 1 on. Sure you got the extra Dragon token, so you aren’t totally out of luck, but you never want to set yourself up to get 2 for 1 if you can help it.  Now, will it be played…sure…and it’s a perfectly reasonable card, but I’m not rushing out to grab this first and play the Brood keeper/Aura deck when I draft.  If this is the best red card in my pack and I’m playing red…sure…but this isn’t a reason to play Red yet.  Maybe another card spoiled will change my mind, but that’s my thought.

Burning Anger: 2

Daniel: An over-priced aura that ensures a hit on something or someone each turn at the cost of the creature’s ability to swing, might be cool in draft attached to a deathtoucher, but will almost assuredly not have much of an impact on constructed.

Carnivorous Moss-Beast: 2

Daniel: 6 mana for a 4/5 creature feels over-costed and the cost of its ability proves this fact whole-heatedly. It’s playable in draft if only for a 4/5 body, but I don’t see it making its way into constructed anytime soon.

Carrion Crow: 0

Daniel: It’s hard to find a card worse than Storm Crow, but I think this card is a definite competitor for the title of worst card ever. Please reference previous sentence and don’t play this card.

Bruce:  Hello my old friend “Wind Drake”.  We all know Wind Drake is a very solid limited card and so is this one…even with the drawback.  Really…were you going to block with it anyway?  Probably not.  Get it down early and put down some early pressure.  This will likely make your black deck, but isn’t a high pick because I can imagine that it will likely be available late.

Chasm Skulker: 3

Daniel: This is an interesting card, with the ability to grow very big, very quickly, it has the ability to be a powerhouse in certain decks and when you combine that with the ability to create tokens when the creature dies, it seems like you’re getting a solid card; but the 3 mana cost associated with it being a 1/1 makes this card fall just below the norm. I could see this card being run in a Blue White life gain deck, but its play will be limited at best.

Bruce: This is just value.  We’ve seen that creatures who replace themselves are huge (think Thragtusk…that 3/3 beast token was just crazy extra value)  and this could be bonkers as well.  If it is left unchecked it’s going to be large…think pair this with the Avarice Amulet we just looked at, it’ll get +2/+2 from the amulet and get +2/+2 each turn because you are drawing 2 cards…so in a mere 2 turns you are looking at a 7/7 that when it dies spews out 4 squid tokens! That’s a lot of value, and you can decide if you want to chump with them or swarm with them.  What do people think…Mono-Blue devotion post rotation with Chasm SKulker, Master of Waves, and a Hall of Triumph?  There might be something to that…but we’ll see.

Chief Engineer: 3

Daniel: I struggled between three and four for this card. I love the fact that it’s a 1/3 for 2 in draft. I love its ability to give artifact spells convoke, there are a ton of decks, especially in EDH that will find some way to make this their own and will run with it into a perfect combo. What I don’t see is the rest of the Artifact spells that this is working with in this set. With it being released when it was I believe this will be a waste of an outstanding card. This card may not be playable in draft, but it will almost assuredly be playable in constructed play in multiple formats.

Circle of Flame: 4

Daniel: Acting as a solution to ground pounding agro decks (especially token decks) across the spectrum for a low mana cost and it only protects you meaning you could run it in a mirror match against these decks as well. I expect this card to be run in some of form of constructed and it may be helpful in draft as well. Additionally, I expect it to be run in some sideboards this season.

Constricting Sliver: 4

Daniel:  While Magic has worked hard throughout this set to make it so that they released cards that were fair and balanced (even more so than the originals that they printed), it seems that the R & D had a soft side for slivers. Constricting Slivers is a card that almost feels too powerful for a card. It turns all of your slivers into an oblivion ring for creatures. The only reason that it did not achieve a higher position on my list is for the sheer wall that six mana may pose for various decks and the fact that I want to see how the rulings work for this card. It actually is a huge rules question on cards like these, and the question is what happens if the sliver (Constricting Sliver) leaves play before another sliver that entered after it leaves play? Maybe I’m overthinking it, but with an ability like this if the ruling comes out that the creatures in exile just stay there a combo blinking all of your creatures such as Sudden Dissapearance may make it a blowout games especially when you consider how quickly slivers get strong. By itself in constructed or draft, I don’t believe that this card is playable, but in a sliver deck this card could be a huge bomb in constructed.

Bruce: So, slivers are back, but not a whole lot of them, meaning they likely aren’t overly relevant in Draft.  However, there is a chance that a 3, 4, or 5 colour sliver deck could emerge over the summer while both M14 and M15 are Standard playable.  This sliver has the Banisher Priest ability…and grants it to every sliver as they enter the battlefield.  6 mana is pretty steep, but this ability is super powerful.  It’s the removal that Sliver decks want and need and a 3/3 body to come along with it is also pretty decent. I’m not going to write Slivers off quite yet and I would be pretty pumped to see them emerge over the summer as a force to be reckoned with.

Coral Barrier: 2

Daniel: A vanilla 1/3 wall for 3 that gets an islandwalking token when it enters the battlefield; well, it’s not the worst card in the game and isn’t overly terrible when it comes to drafting, but constructed is a different story and this card just doesn’t make the cut when you’ve got an option like Wall of Frost in the same set. The card is playable in draft for sure (maybe not as a core card of any deck, but still), but doesn’t really hold up when you go over to the constructed formats.

Bruce: Putting 2/4 of power and toughness on the battlefield for 3 mana is actually quite good value and makes this a solid pick in Limited.  I’m not sure Tribal squid is a thing, but t could be a sub theme you want to try out…or not…whatever.  This is will just be a useful card.

Covenant of Blood: 2

Daniel: The card costs 7 mana which in my opinion is far too much for a card that only deals four damage and gains you 4 life even if it does have convoke. I see the card seeing some play in draft, but just about no play in constructed.

Bruce: For a whopping 7 mana you get a sorcery with Convoke that deals 4 damage to target creature or player, and you gain 4 life.  In draft this will see play because removal is removal and you’ll need it.  However, by comparison, Pharika’s Cure deals 2 damage to target  creature or player and gains you 2 life…and costs 2 mana as opposed to 7 here.  No, this will be just playable in Draft but is otherwise pretty mediocre…and verging on being bad.

Crowd’s Favor: 4

Daniel: This is a really solid card +1/+0 and first strike in exchange for potentially only tapping a creature or 1 red mana. I think this card will be played quite a little bit in both draft and constructed.

Cruel Sadist: 2

Daniel: This card is effectively a 1/1 for 1 with the ability to grow if you have any extra mana to spend. The card feels slow and clunky and doesn’t feel that it really ever enters the field at the right time. While the card’s abilities might never be used, a 1/1 for 1 still might be run in the 1 spot in a lot of draft decks just to flesh out their curve, but I see almost no play for this card in constructed.

Bruce: This is effectively a form of repeatable removal or a threat that can grow to apply early pressure.  The fact that this uses your life as a resource is something that you might be totally down with to power out this versatile weapon, so don’t overlook it.  I think this will also see home in Standard as people dabble to find it a home.  I think these abilities are too powerful to overlook and it will settle somewhere.

Diffusion Sliver: 4

Daniel: This card acts almost as the Crystalline Sliver of old as it provides protection for slivers unless your opponents pay 2 extra to affect them. I believe this will be a staple in Sliver decks if they start to become a thing this season.

Bruce: It just got a whole lot harder to destroy Slivers with Spot removal, giving sliver decks more time to flood the board and dismantle you.  This is deceptively powerful.  It may see some play in Limited, but this is a card clearly geared to go into other formats straight away.

Endless Obedience: 2

Daniel: If any of my readers are old enough they may remember the card Reanimate (The card that the deck is named after), the power of that card and Magic’s strong shift to avoid printing cards of the same power ever again; will Reanimator ever be a serious shell in Standard again? Well with Whip of Erebos I thought we might have seen a shying towards more power for this deck archetype. Endless Obedience disproves this notion, giving us high cost Reanimation at 6 with convoke for the typical reanimation at 5. I don’t expect this card to be run in either constructed or draft.

Ensoul Artifact: 4

Daniel: 2 mana for a 5/5 creature seems good even if you have to give up an artifact to do it. I expect this card to be run in both constructed and draft play.

Bruce: An aura that targets artifacts and makes them into 5/5 creatures…all for 2 mana.  I wasn’t aware this was something people wanted to do any more, but it reminds me of animate artifact, but much cheaper, and by far and large an upgrade.  I feel no burning urge to play this…but there could be artifact decks that would love this and enjoy turning their Staff of Mind Magus into a 5/5.

Ephemeral Shields: 3

Daniel: Not quite as good as Gods Willing; this card offers its protection at a slightly higher cost, but with Convoke to make up for this weakness. I expect it to play well in draft, and have almost no showing this season in constructed because of Gods Willing.

Bruce: A 2 mana instant that gives target creature indestructible until end of turn.  This even comes with convoke.  This is perfectly good combat trick or way to preserve your creature from getting killed.  Instant speed.  Cheap. And could very seriously lead to a blow out if you can orchestrate a wonky combat scenario. It is a tad situational, but reasonably powerful.

Eternal Thirst: 3

Daniel: Has the ability to make a creature large later in the game and gives lifelink, but until you can get the creature large it doesn’t really add to the ability of defending the creature. I feel it will find its way into draft for its lifelink abilities and may even find its way into a constructed rakdos creature kill deck.

Feast on the Fallen: 2

Daniel: While the card would be impressive if its effect affected all of your creatures just affecting one makes the card seem just a little under-powered. I suspect this card will see limited play in draft just for the sheer ability to make small things bigger, but do not expect it to make its way into constructed play.

Feral Incarnation: 3

Daniel: Three 3/3 creatures for 9 is good enough to be playable in draft, equip it with convoke and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid draft card swinging field advantage in your favor for a potentially pretty cheap cost. I expect it to be run in draft, but not to make its way over to constructed at all.

First Response: 2

Daniel: Its 4 mana cost makes this card overcosted; its ability only activating when you lose life makes it weak. Still I expect people will play it in draft and attempt to figure out a way to incorporate it into a Standard deck or two.

Flesh to Dust: 2

Daniel: 5 mana for a kill spell is a little bit much; being situationally worse than Hand of Death… This is not that good of a card. Is it worth to pick up in draft? Well, if it comes down to this or a third string creature and you’re black, I’d probably go with this; as for constructed with Hero’s Downfall in constructed I do not expect this creature to be run in almost any deck.

Bruce: 5 mana removal is steep, but it has no limitation like Doom blade or ultimate price. This kills stuff dead.  So, it will see play in draft…no doubt.  Will it make Standard?  Not sure…usually decks aren’t really cool with spending that much mana on removal…but you never know what might happen post-rotation.

Frost Lynx: 3

Daniel: Oh M13, the implications of this set are still felt today… well at least one mechanic is. This was the time that Magic’s R&D fell in love with the idea of Freezing on a creature and this mechanic has appeared on at least one creature in every single block following. Frost Lynx is the next addition to this set of Ice-breathing creatures and it does its job as well as any Dungeon Geist. Do I think the card will have a huge impact like its predecessor Frost Titan? No, I have no illusions about that. Do I think the card may be a solid draft pick as well as a not too terrible addition to a standard blue deck? Yes. I highly expect this card to be run in both draft and constructed, as a side board card, if nothing else.

Bruce: A 2/2 elemental cat that taps target creature and it doesn’t untap during the next untap phase.  This is a solid utility creature that can help to slow an opponent down and gives you a serviceable body.  It will get drafted lots by players in Blue and will see plenty of play.

Garruk, Apex Predator: 6

Daniel: This is the second 4 ability planeswalker that Magic’s R&D has developed; the last one that they developed is Jace, the Mind Sculptor, is arguably the best planeswalker ever, and sits at a price over $100 per card. It’s needless to say that Wizards needed to take great care when they made this card, so as to not create the monstrosity they did last time, how did they do this? Namely through mana cost; they tried to balance the abilities of this planeswalker with the mana cost associated with him, and the question is, did they succeed? That is a question that is more up in the air; they did make him a 7 mana walker, making him the most expensive planeswalker they’ve printed to date, but they made him in green, a color that traditionally hasn’t had any problem producing a tremendous amount of mana. Anyway, let’s examine his abilities to determine if the card is worth its cost. His first ability is the ability to destroy target planeswalker. If we examine a card by its ability to beat out other cards of the same type then he is the best planeswalker of all time; on top of everything else, this is a plus ability. The second ability (also a plus ability) is the ability to create a 3/3 beast with deathtouch, giving him a powerful way to defend himself. On top of this, his third ability just kills a creature and you get to gain life equal to its toughness. His final ability will make the Timmy in all of us happy by turning all of the creatures in your deck into a large if not huge creature with trample that pretty much spells the end of the game for your opponent. On the other hand Garruk only starts out at a 5 and even though he’s only 2 turns away from his ultimate his loyalty abilities only add 1 to his loyalty and his third ability takes away 3 from his loyalty count. Overall, I expect this card to be a huge bomb in draft, but unless a deck comes along that produces a lot of mana I can’t see a future for it in constructed.

Bruce: Hello my friend…is this where you have been hiding?  Last year we had a 6 mana Garruk…now we have a 7 mana Garruk and I think he’s awesome…totally unplayable in competitive environments…but awesome.  +1 destroy a Planeswalker? Sweet! +1 make a beast! Sure. -3 destroy a creature and gain life equal to its toughness…sweet deal. The ultimate just oozes multiplayer non-sense…and the reason I love this version of Garruk…target opponent gets an emblem saying that whenever a creature attacks them it gets +5/+5 and trample until end of turn.  Well, isn’t that a nice little present to leave someone in a multiplayer game! He’s ridiculously unplayable…but terrific all in the same breath.

Geist of the Moors: 2

Daniel: As a card I can only really see this as a card that acts as okay filler in draft and doesn’t really have a future in any other way.

Bruce: You’ll take this because 3 power fliers are solid in draft, but the 1 toughness makes this guy scarce because there are lots of mini-sweepers and -1/-1 effects that will take this guy out.  He’s a solid pick, but be ready to have it killed pretty readily.

Generator Servant: 3

Daniel: A battery with legs that can give haste; not a terrible card and might even affect draft in some way but overall a pretty bland card; might see some play in fast burn decks and draft.

Genesis Hydra: 4

Daniel: This is one of those cards that requires a re-reading, and it falls into the category of “fixing” a broken card for the same reason; so what card am I alluding to? The answer to that question is Genesis Wave and even its name, Genesis Hydra, lends itself heavily to that same card. The card feels very good in terms of flavor, getting more powerful and looking for more powerful cards if you paid enough mana. While this card will probably not have a huge impact on the game (but who knows with how powerful green is starting to look this season), definitely a card worth picking up in draft both as a bomb and just in case.

Glacial Crasher: 1

Daniel: A card that is worse than a vanilla version of itself, this card is bad, very bad. I don’t see a future for it in draft or constructed play.

Goblin Kaboomist: 2

Daniel: I love Goblins as a general rule, they’re fun. Are most of them good? No (Yes I understand that Goblins are one of the most powerful tribal decks of all time, but those decks run a very small portion of the multitude of different goblin cards out there), but fun? Yes; Goblin Kaboomist is a great example of this. A 1/2 for 2 that has the potential to deal a huge amount of damage to other creature’s is great, him blowing up before he ever gets the chance to swing… not so great, but it deals 2 damage one way or the other, which isn’t great, but it’s not terrible. There was a card released a while ago that allowed you to re-flip coin flips, with this the card might be playable in a constructed deck with this, but is it worth it to make such a complicated deck, probably not. In draft this card is not that powerful of a card based on the randomness of the card.

Bruce: Goblins really do appear to be a thing and this one is interesting. 2 mana (1 colourless and 1 red) gets you a 1/2 Goblin Warrior that makes a Landmine token each upkeep.  You may pay 1 red mana to sacrifice a Land mine Token and have it deal 2 damage to target creature without flying.  Then you need to flip a coin and if you lose the coin flip Goblin Kaboomist deals 2 damage to itself.  This is classic red…I blow you up…but I might also blow myself up in the process.  I like this card because of the flavour, and if you are into cards that have a high degree of chance to them you will love this little guy.  I think he’s not something you really want to draft, much the way Goblin Test Pilot was with Dragon’s Maze, but some people surprise me and might roll the dice with this one.

Goblin Rabblemaster: 5

Daniel: As I mentioned before, this set attempts to “improve” a lot of cards that they’ve printed in the past and this is one of the most powerful “fixed” reprints they’ve ever done. As a functional reprint of Goblin Piledriver, it loses Protection from Blue, gets a little bit more expensive and a little weaker, but it gains the ability to put goblin tokens in play and most importantly, it’s now in modern. If there was ever a chance for goblins to take off in Modern, that time may be now with this card. I see this card as a big player in draft and also as the potential to make a huge goblin tribal deck in modern.

Bruce: A 2/2 Goblin Warrior that makes all your goblins attack each turn if able, gives you a 1/1 Goblin token at the beginning of your attack phase, and gives itself +1/0 until end of turn for each other attacking Goblin.  This is going to be a an easy first pick even you don’t get any other Goblins because this just makes free stuff for you.  He makes Goblins, wants to attack lots, gets bigger whenever he attacks…you just to protect him a little to get some major league benefit from this guy.  The other piece is that I hope this is a signal that post-rotation Goblins are going to be a think again.  Tribal Goblin decks are always lots of fun!

Hammerhand: 3

Daniel: This card is solid and aggressively-costed, at 1 mana to give a creature haste, +1/+1 and stop a creature from blocking this card is a powerful draft card, but it will most likely not see play in any of the constructed formats.

Heliod’s Pilgrim: 3

Daniel: This is a pretty vanilla 1/2 for 3 mana. Its effect doesn’t do much but interact with the previous set… which it won’t do much of in draft… overall it feels like a card that missed its mark by a set. I think this card might make a short appearance for a little while in an enchantment based deck.

Hornet Nest: 3

Daniel: I like this card honestly, it has good flavor and the token generation makes this card a very viable draft choice, and may even make itself known very briefly in standard.

Hot Soup: 2

Daniel: The mana cost is right, but the abilities don’t even out for this card. Giving a creature unblockable for a mere 3 is a pretty good deal, but destroying it whenever it gets damaged makes the card fall just short of being a value card in draft. Pretty sure that this card will not see play in constructed formats.

Bruce: An artifact equipment that costs 1 and then equips for 3.  It says target creature can’t be blocked, but when damage is done to destroy the creature.  There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of Hexproof creatures, but that doesn’t change much really.  The drawback is acceptable because you can play around that a bit.  No, the real issue with this card is the name.  My lord…Hot Soup?  That’s a terrible name.  There better be another card in this set called “Ice Cream” or “Frozen Blueberries” because that’s awful.

Hunter’s Ambush: 1.5

Daniel: This is an over-costed, targeted version of fog, and even though there are situations that could make the card better than fog, these are limited and the card becomes worthless in a mirror match. Doubtful to see play in draft. Even though it’s unlikely, this card may seem some sideboard play in the constructed arena this season.

Hushwing Gryff: 4.9

Daniel: Another solid for a set full of solid cards; this is a 2/1 flyer for three that has Torpor Orb Effects. This card just barely skates under my 5 rating as sideboard gold if only it had been colorless, as it stands right now this card shuts down two of the most powerful gods in my opinion (Purphoros and Karametra) as well as Eidilon of Blossoms and Gray Merchant. I expect this card to have an effect on white sideboards throughout standard and maybe even peeking its way into Modern, Legacy or Vintage. As for why to run it over Torpor Orb, well flash quite frankly is a great help. Nonetheless I hardily expect this card to make quite the impact on the game in general.

Bruce: This reminds me kind of Stifle…but on a creature.  True, it is a little more limited in scope, but the effect is very strong and comes on a creature with Flash all at the reasonable cost of 3 mana.  I feel like Control decks can’t wait to get their hands on this to shut people down even further.  I like it…maybe not a first pick in draft…but very strong and likely has a reasonable future in standard.

Hydrosurge: 2

Daniel: This card at one mana makes it a playable card in standard, but being a functional reprint of a card (Shrink) in a different color and seeing the history of that card, I do not expect this card to find its way into the constructed arena this season.

Indulgent Tormentor: 3

Daniel: When this card originally came out I was on the bandwagon for it (Of course I was also on the bandwagon for Pain Seer, and you can tell how well that worked out). After thinking about it and examining it, I began to see that it wasn’t all that I thought it was, a 5/3 Flyer for 5 isn’t great (It isn’t terrible, but it’s not great). Its ability is pretty cool, but not as good as a lot of the other choices available to players at this point. Overall, it’s a pretty cool card that hasn’t found a niche and at this point probably isn’t going to find one; not a bad card in draft, but the card’s going to have a hard time finding a home in constructed play for a long time.

Bruce: I think this is wildly powerful. 5 power fliers are nothing to laugh at, and while his 3 toughness is an issue, this guy must be answered or it will take over the game.  The ability to draw a card, at no cost to you, is super significant.  The fact that it can be countered by 3 life isn’t really an issue for you because you want your opponent to spend that life anyway, so who cares HOW it happens.  No, this will be a huge bomb.  I think this might sneak into Standard paired with Master of the Feast in some sort of B/W mid-rangey sort of deck with an Athreos just for extra good measure.

Inferno Fist: 2

Daniel: Overall, not that impressive of a card, +2/+0 for 2 is bland with the option to deal 2 straight damage for 1 red mana. I don’t expect the card to make a real splash in either draft or constructed play.

Bruce: It gives target creature +2/+2 and can be sacrificed to effectively shock something…but without the mana cost we just aren’t sure how playable this is.  At 5 mana I’d say this will only see play in Limited, if the cost is 2 or 3 it could see play in Standard in the right deck.  We’ll have to wait and see.

In Garruk’s Wake: 2

Daniel: This targeted sweeper seems pretty cool, but at 9 mana it seems very clunky and overall not costed correctly. I can see this card being run in constructed along with its namesake Garruk, Apex Predator, but only if someone can figure out the mana problem. On the other hand, this card may be too expensive of a card to run in a draft deck (well a competitive draft deck that is).

Bruce: The casting cost for this is wild, but this is not intended for a limited environment.  I figure EDH will gobble this guy up because who doesn’t love an asymmetrical wrath effect? Oh…right…everyone else you’re playing against.  Oh well, whatever…this looks fun and just the chance to shoot this one off once is well worth the story.

Invasive Species: 3

Daniel: While the judge is still out on whether effects like these are actually good in the long run, I feel like this card is well-positioned to be a work horse of the Green Enchantment decks. Besides having a cool effect that will give you a 2-for-1 on any Enchantment enter the battlefield you might have, it also works as an effectively-costed beater sitting at the 3 spot in your mana curve. I expect to see this card in constructed worked alongside Eidolon of Blossoms, if that deck takes off, but not played as much in draft as there are not as many good enchantments.

Jace, the Living Guildpact: 3

Daniel: Let it be known that I am not a Jace fan, but I hate this card, it just feels lazy. In an attempt to bring the multiverse into this set, they have brought one of the coolest moments in Magic’s history into the form of a card and just like all of the major events of the Magic multiverse they managed to screw up the card. As I’ve mentioned multiple times before, this feels like the safe version of a previously printed card in Magic, namely the most powerful planeswalker card ever printed, Jace the Mind Sculptor. As an example let’s start with his abilities, only give him a plus one, a negative three and a negative eight versus the plus two, the zero, the minus one and the negative twelve; but we’ll make up by giving him five to start with versus three. For the actual abilities, he trades brainstorm and fate seal for look at the top two take one and the other goes in the graveyard, he trades an unsummon at negative one for a boomerang at negative three and finally he trades a basically game ending final ability for card advantage. Needless to say he’s a huge step down from his old self and may in fact be one of the worst Jaces ever printed. On top of all of this the timing flavor of the card is terrible also showing up so late that he just barely makes it in before Return to Ravnica rotates, and he doesn’t feel like a Ravnica card, he feels like a blue card with no flavor. Finally, on top of having lukewarm abilities, no flavor, and just being pretty much a rip-off of a much better card he has no real sustainable way to defend himself and he need to defend himself. It’s still a planeswalker, so it would still be a good draft pick, but with Jace, Architect of Thought still in standard and hopefully a new blue planeswalker coming out in Khans of Tarkir I can’t see this card making its way into constructed any time soon.

Bruce: ANOTHER new Jace.  This guy gets all sorts of love from Wizards, and why not. The guy is a star.  His +1 allows you to filter your cards so you draw more of what you need.  Who doesn’t want to keep drawing gas?  His -2 returns ANY NON LAND PERMANENT.  Planeswalkers, Enchantments, Artifacts…they all get bounced.  That’s pretty potent, don’t overlook it.  The ultimate is fun, but not really something overly relevant.  This version of Jace does exactly what you want him to do.  He draws you cards.  Anything else relevant is a bonus.  Sure, he’s no JTMS…but he’s perfectly serviceable and will do good work.

Jalira, Master Polymorphist: 4

Daniel: This is one of those cards; one of those weird cards that will find its home and explode into almost every format. This is a card just waiting for a deck that can use it right. It feels like a card that would work outstanding in a deck with enter the battlefield abilities. Regardless, this card feels really good and truly feels like a card that will find its home one day. I don’t know about its playability in draft, but I do feel that this card will make its home in constructed play without a doubt.

Bruce: She is a 4 mana (3 colourless and a blue) for a 2/2 Legendary Human Wizard that allows you to spend 3 mana (2 colourless and 1 blue), tap her, and sacrifice another creature and then reveal cards from your library until you reveal a non legendary creature and place it on the battlefield.  Put the cards revealed back on the bottom of your library.  This will average to slightly below average in draft just because you can’t set your deck up to really take advantage of her ability.  However, in a constructed format you can use her to reveal ANY non legendary creature.  There are no other drawbacks…no limitations…no nothing.  Just flip it over and get the creature. So…Worldspine Wurm anyone?  I think there will be a bunch of people out to break this is a bunch of formats because the ability it grants and I can’t blame them.  Like I said, in draft potentially a little underwhelming but has potential for a constructed format.

Kalonian Twingrove: 3

Daniel: An overall okay card that generates card advantage by generating a token when it enters the battlefield; the only thing that stops this from being a genuinely good card is the fact that both it and its token are missing trample. I don’t expect this card to find its way into constructed play, but draft may find a use for it through the sheer fact that it is card advantage and that it is such a powerful creature in terms of its power and toughness.

Bruce:  Two creatures for six mana is very good and a potential source of significant advantage in a Mono-coloured deck.  Sadly, with no trample, evasion ,or other ability is just the prototypical “big, dumb, green creature”.  I’ll still play it in draft and I think it could be a real bruiser, but I think that is where the long term playability of this card ends.

Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient: 4

Daniel: Duplicating an ability is a very powerful ability itself, it can very easily act as an engine for a very powerful combo and that seems to be the way that most of the cards in this cycle have positioned themselves to take advantage of a powerful ability; will this card make a deck that will be a serious competitor for a while? Who knows, but a powerful card nonetheless that I expect to do well in constructed play even if its play in draft is a little bit underwhelming.

Bruce: So…we all just read The Chain Veil…right?  Pair this guy with Chain veil…copy the activated ability…and you get 2 free activations of your Planeswalkers…right?! That’s how I read this one and it makes my senses tingle because that’s BUSTED.  Wow.  I don’t even WANT to think about the possibilities in other formats…but this seems pretty bananas powerful.  Johnnies…wherever you are out there…someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, break this one wide open and let the artifact craziness start.

Leeching Sliver: 4

Daniel: Turning all Slivers into a pulse tracker this card is cool, but without a sliver deck to run it in, the card just doesn’t seem worth it; in draft this card isn’t terrible as pulse tracker wasn’t a bad draft card, but I can’t see it running in constructed unless its backed up by a sliver deck.

Life’s Legacy: 2

Daniel: This card feels reminiscent of Momentous Fall, and just like that card (which I loved) I’ll say this, I’ve tried to make it work and it just doesn’t. At the end of the day, the cards that you wind up with at the end of the day is almost never as good as the card you have to give up to get it. Still, card advantage in draft is nothing to laugh at and this card can be a great source of that; so I’ll say while it will probably never find its way into constructed, it might be a solid card to pick up for draft purposes.

Living Totem: 2

Daniel: This card is aimed right and with convoke the card costs right, but it’s overall very unimpressive and may see very light play in draft, but not much besides this.

Master of Predicaments: 3

Daniel: This card is very interesting, it can come as either a treat or a punishment and overall I think the card is very well made to keep it from being broken at all. The only thing that keeps it from rising even higher in ranking than 3 is the fact that it’s a random ability (not good to build a deck around), and as such, there is a very real possibility that someone will thwart your plans. Still, it worked for cursed scroll and who knows it might work for this card too; don’t see much chance of it making a splash in constructed or draft play.

Bruce: A 4/4 flying sphinx for 5 mana (3 colourles and 2 blue) that when it deals damage to a player you pick a card from your hand.  They need to guess if the converted mana cost is more or less and than 4.  If they get it wrong you may cast that spell without paying its mana cost.  This will be good in limited, no doubt.  Air elemental is the same 5 mana for a vanilla 4/4.  This has an ability that could be crazy.  Any time you have the chance to pick up a spell and NOT have to pay for it is pretty big.  I’m a big fan.  I don’t know if it is good enough for a constructed format, but it looks like tons of fun for around the kitchen table!

Meditation Puzzle: 1

Daniel: Life gain even this much is almost never worth it to add to a deck, especially if it’s a one-time shot like this. It might see some very light play in draft, but overall I don’t think this card will see much play.

Bruce: 5 mana (3 colourless and 2 white ) for a sorcery with Convoke that gains 8 life.  No, I’ll pass on this.  It does NOTHING to impact the board, is sorcery speed and if you do make use of the Convoke ability to reduce the casting cost you are tapping one of your creatures further hampering yourself.  NO, this is not a card you want to run. I’m struggling even to find an upside for this one. Just pass it and keep moving.

Mercurial Pretender: 1

Daniel: I really don’t like this card, if this card was any worse it would undoubtedly be a 0 as this card still has the ability to be good in a very limited expanse it earned itself half a point, but only just barely. It is almost strictly worse than a card that was printed a year ago and that card (the better version of this one) fell flat on its face. This card is bad from every point of view. If clone couldn’t do it, I don’t see any real hope for this card either in draft or constructed play.

Bruce: I’m usually a little down on a Clone variant, but I really like this one.  Sure, it’s 5 mana  to be a Clone of another creature on the battlefield, but you can return it to your hand.  So, you can change targets, or protect it if you have to.  This makes it a considerable upgrade and gives you more flexibility.  I’m in and really like this card.

Meteorite: 1

Daniel: Dealing 3 damage generally costs 2 mana, tapping for 1 mana of any color typically costs 3 mana but Magic numbers typically are not simple math and this card is a perfect example of that. Separately, at their respective mana costs, the two cards would have been marginally playable, but together they make a 5 mana monstrosity that is nearly unplayable. On a more positive note, I love the flavor of this card, it feels very much like what a meteor should do; still I don’t feel that this card will see much play in either draft or constructed.

Bruce: A 5 mana artifact that when it enters the battlefield deals 3 damage to target creature or player and can then tap to add 1 colourless mana. Ths can’t decide what it is.  Is it a very expensive ‘Bolt or ramp?  Honestly, I look at this as just an expensive bolt spell because by 5 mana you are unlikely to be too hard pressed for the ramp ability this offers.  It’s cute and kind of funny…but if you are relying on this for “acceleration” you might find yourself behind in a lot of races.  This is just a pricey bolt spell.

Might Makes Right: 2

Daniel: With the ability to sweep away defenders or to make a strike more powerful you can see where the theme for this card came from; the card itself feels very well flavored, you’re so strong that others are afraid to go against you and join you. The card itself though is far too highly costed and comes off as one of those cards that if you can use, you probably don’t need it. Stranger things have happened however and it may be more utilized especially in draft to deal with defenders this time around; don’t see much hope of constructed play for it though.

Military Intelligence: 3

Daniel: This is one of those cards that make me mad. This is a great card in literally any color but the one it has chosen to make its home in. Now I understand that the flavor of this card, and it really does feel like a blue card, but it misses its chance to be a great card by not being in literally any other color than the one it’s in. As such and with Bident of Thassa existing in standard I can’t see this being used for anything but draft play.

Bruce: This is pretty sweet but does need the right build to maximize its use.  I could see this being an amazing card draw engine in an aggressive deck in order to pour on the beats.  The casting cost feels cheap and the fact that you get to draw cards is pretty big.  I like it, but I figure this is a mid-round pick in your draft once you’ve started getting yourself set up.

Mind Sculpt: 4

Daniel: A huge bomb in draft taking a sixth of their deck away from them, and it may finally make mill a playable strategy in constructed formats.

Miner’s Bane: 1

Daniel: 6 mana for a 6/3 creature is pretty bad, and his pseudo firebreathing doesn’t really make him any better. I do not expect many players to play this card assuming they have a choice.

Necrogen Scudder: 2

Daniel: Not the worst filler in draft if you have to take it, but there are better choices no matter what you’re playing. As a side note, do not expect this card to come into the constructed formats any time soon.

Necromancer’s Assistant: 2

Daniel: I’m sure there are some situations, where it’s actually beneficial to put cards into your graveyard, but not for me without some bonus. Dredge is not currently a viable strategy in Standard, but maybe it will be at some point this season. A 3/1 creature for 3 isn’t terrible, so overall not the worst draft pick out there. Long story short, this card just doesn’t do it just yet to be considered a good card in either constructed or draft play.

Necromancer’s Stockpile: 3

Daniel: Do the advantages of this card outweigh the negatives? Almost definitely; discard a card to put a creature into play then draw a card to make up for the one you just discarded, it’s essentially getting a creature onto the field without losing any cards from your hand. The real question is, what creature card is worth discarding to play down a vanilla 2/2? The answer may be found in Dredge and Reanimator, but not too much besides that. On the other hand, may be very cool to run in draft.

Bruce: A 2 mana enchantment that allows you spend 1 colourless and a black to discard a card to draw a card.  If you discarded a Zombie you get a 2/2 zombie token that comes into play tapped.  This is a Zombie deck’s dream come true.  I can pitch my zombie, draw MORE zombies, and still get a Zombie Token?! Yes Please! How relevant in draft?  Who knows.  I’m not the guy to find out as I usually avoid the Zombie strategy, but I know some casual players who will gobble this one up!

Netcaster Spider: 3

Daniel: This card is probably a good defense against flying in draft, but not likely to see a whole lot of play in constructed.

Nissa, Worldwaker: 4

Daniel: Just barely holding onto the number 4 slot, just like her predecessor, is Nissa, Worldwaker; an over-costed planeswalker that just doesn’t feel worth the money. Don’t get me wrong, the card’s abilities are pretty awesome and feel well-costed if you can get enough of them off. Her first ability makes a creature to defend her, I like that, and a 4/4 at that. Her second untaps 4 lands making her ability to accelerate your mana base heroic; jumping from 5 mana turn 3 or 4 to 9 or 10 next turn. Her final is definitely heroic and will leave the Timmy in all of you happy to play magic with an army of 4/4 creatures with trample fit to take down any kingdom. It’s a fun card and will almost assuredly be picked up by any Timmy casual players out there, not to mention, all of her abilities are plus abilities with the exception of her ultimate. It may even be run in a few standard decks for a little while; and while I hate to use the adage well it’s not good because blah blah blah dies to blah blah, it is relevant here. She is a 5-drop planeswalker with only plus one abilities that dies to a lightning bolt… a lightning bolt. (Or for you standard players out there, Searing Blood) Her protection is good, and she is a fun card, but she is too much work to get killed off by a lightning bolt.

Bruce: Wow…so for the first time in a long time the Green Planeswalker isn’t Garruk.  Nissa makes a comeback and she looks pretty amazing.  For 5 mana you get a 3 loyalty Planeswalker.  She has two +1 abilities.  The first one turns a land into a 4/4 elemental.  That’s always sweet.  The second one allows you to untap 4 forests.  4 FORESTS! That’s ridiculous and ramps you like nuts.  Her Ultimate just makes you an army of 4/4 land elementals by tutoring up your WHOLE deck worth of lands.  In limited she’ll be out-right amazing and turns those draws where you get a whole slough of lands into 4/4 creatures (which is actually a very good size). I would like to think that she will see play in some sort of Mono-Green Devotion Strategy…but we’ll see.  Still, she’s very solid.

Nissa’s Expedition: 3

Daniel: Fetching up 2 lands is typically a pretty good ability, but this card will have a tough time finding a home with a mana cost of 5, even if it has convoke. I guess this card may splash in draft a little bit, but I don’t see it finding its way into a constructed deck any time soon.

Obelisk of Urd: 2

Daniel: Adding 2 to the power and toughness of all of your creatures is nothing to sneeze at, but doing so for 6 even with Convoke seems a little shaky. Not to mention it can only help creatures of a specific type, it’s interesting and strong if you can get it out, but at the end of the day it doesn’t feel worth it. I can see this card potentially run in draft as well as a few token standard decks, but that’s about all.

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: 4

Daniel: This is another one of those cards that really needs to find a deck to get a higher place on the list. It’s really sad for Avacyn to come out and be overshadowed by her opposite in two separate sets (First it was Griselbrand in Avacyn restored and Ob Nixilis does this handily with his stats and abilities alone). He could have sat at a 4 with just Flying, Trample and his second passive ability and still be more than a match for any creature in any draft match, but it’s his 1 passive ability that his potential may truly lie. A huge punishment for those that decide to use fetch lands or search through their decks for combo pieces; not to mention, with a way to make your opponent search through their library, it’s a fast track to the end of the game. The card definitely has the potential to get there and I can’t wait to see what players do with it. I expect to see this card in draft a lot and to find it in quite a few decks if someone can figure out how to break it.

Bruce: Whoa! Ok, this is a 4/4 flying demon with trample for 6 mana (4 colourless and 2 black) that has some scary abilities.  First off, any time your opponent searches his or her library they must sacrifice a creature and lose 10 life.  Whenever a creature dies it also gets a +1/+1 counter. That first ability is stupid powerful and could be seriously abused…heck…I bet people are already proxying up this guy for all sorts of format just to punish fetchlands, tutoring, or other tricks that let you search through your deck.  The other ability is neat, but much less relevant in constructed…and very relevant in Limited where there are far more creatures and the possibility to pick up a large number of counters. All in all, this is pretty strong in almost any format even at 6 mana and likely a first pick.

Paragon of ______, Kird Chieftan, Sunblade Elf, Nightfire Giant, Jorubai Murk Lurker, Dauntless River Marshall: 3

Daniel: Sitting comfortably at a solid 3 is this cycle of cards that make friends or themselves more powerful based on the lands and colors you control. While I don’t expect any of these cards to make too large of a splash in any format, the best looking of the entire cycle are the Sunblade Elf (Marginally playable in standard GW decks and maybe even a modern deck or two) and Paragon of Open Graves and Paragon of Gathering Mists (which will allow you extra flying or creature destruction in draft). Overall though, the whole cycle seems fairly bland and they almost seem a little forced in the grand scheme of things; on the other side of things I did like the throwback to Kird Ape through Kird Chieftain. With only an exception or two I feel like these cards may be bland filler for any deck, and as such not see much play in either draft or constructed outside of a very limited expanse.

Perilous Vault: 5

Daniel: If I’ve seen anything it’s how much decks love board wipes and this is one of the most powerful ones ever created. I expect this card to find its way into just about every format, the tron decks in most formats, the control decks, and Scapeshift decks. Basically any deck that wants the field clear of just about everything but lands and has the mana to activate this card would be able to use it… might be hard in blue, but it still is a pretty solid card for them too.

Phytotitan: 3

Daniel: I like this card, I really like this card; but one word separates this card from being a truly outstanding if not broken card, and that is the word trample. Without this word, the card just feels weak and easily held off; not capable of scoring a hit almost ever. Still, I would definitely suggest picking this card up in draft, even though it’ll probably never see constructed play.

Bruce: Big Plant elemental huh? The fact that this is pretty tough to kill is kind of fun, but this cards feels like a trap.  Let’s imagine, your opponent attacks and you block with Phytotitan…wait…it’s a 7/2, why are you blocking with this?  Ok, change the scenario…YOU are attacking and your opponent blocks the Plant Elemental and it dies.  It goes to your graveyard where it stays for the rest of this turn, and then for your opponent’s turn, and then you get your turn again.  So, untap your stuff…upkeep…get Phytotitan back tapped…tapped? Aww crap. So, now it’s tapped thoughout your whole next turn and your opponent’s next turn before it can FINALLY untap and be useful. No thanks.  It’s cute and is kind of interesting, but the low toughness means this dies to readily, and then comes back to slowly.  If you see him, grab him and try him out, but I wouldn’t rate this one overly highly.

Pillar of Light: 3

Daniel: A workhorse in draft that won’t be played much outside of it because there are many cards in almost all formats that are better.

Bruce:  This is an inexpensive way to take out their fatty and the nice feature is that it exiles the creature meaning that it just goes away.  Solid and relatively inexpensive makes this very playable and solid mid-round pick up.

Polymorphist’s Jest: 5

Daniel: Acting as a functional reprint of Humility, this card has its advantages and disadvantages over that card. Its advantages come from being a surprise (Instant), and working on only 1 player. The disadvantage comes from being temporary (Instant). I would definitely pick this card up if I was running blue in draft as it has the ability to turn a game into a complete blow out and with its abilities as they are I highly expect this card to be run in formats throughout magic if for nothing else than to deal with Emrakul.

Preeminent Captain: 3

Daniel: I actually struggled to place this card correctly, it’s another of those cards that attempts to card a card previously printed (Hero of Bladehold in this case) and make it more what they meant it to do. In this case, that meant scaling back both the power and mana cost. Did it work? Well if they meant to make it weaker, they succeeded, this card is a shadow of its former self, but they may have taken it too far. Don’t get me wrong in draft this card makes the cut into most white decks, but in constructed this card has just been too weakened to be any type of serious contender.

Bruce: A Kithkin soldier that when it attacks allows you to play soldier cards from your hand for free.  If this is going to be a herald of a Soldier Tribal feel to this set then this will be well poised to take full advantage of it.  I like this for draft…and am intrigued about the future of White weenies soldier decks when this gets mixed in with Theros and such.  There could be some possibilities there.

Profane Memento: 1

Daniel: Just like the staffs in this set, this card just doesn’t feel worth the card spot it plays in; would be interesting to see it play against a token deck though. This card may enjoy limited draft play, but I would be very surprised to see it take on a more dominant role than this.

Quickling: 3

Daniel: Quickling is a solid 2/2 with flying for 2. It has Flash and makes you return a permanent to your hand. Everything I said for evasive species also applies to this card except in your two spot. My one complaint with this card is the fact that it sits in blue versus green, but with Flash and Flying it almost overcomes this complaint. This card will most likely see a fair amount of draft play as well as a fair amount of play in constructed play as both a bounce spell to protect your creatures as well as getting double the effects out of your creature cards.

Bruce: This is another very strong card because a 2/2 flying “Bear” with Flash is very good…even if you have the drawback.  I could see this in Standard in a Mono-blue Devotion or a G/U Flash deck because a 2/2 flier for 2 mana is quite good. In draft he’ll also be very strong and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Radiant Fountain: 1

Bruce: It taps for colourless mana, has incidental life gain and won’t hurt you.  This is playable so long as it doesn’t dilute your land base for your draft deck. It’s a little lackluster but generally quite playable

Reclaimation Sage: 3

Daniel: Overall, this is a pretty cookie cutter creature; a little over-costed for its power and toughness, but with an ability to destroy an enchantment or artifact that may be extremely relevant in this format. I don’t know how much draft play this will see as it isn’t terribly relevant to destroy artifacts or enchantments in this set, but I could see this run as a side board card in both draft and constructed play.

Bruce: This is naturalize on a stick…so…yeah you’ll draft this and you’ll run this all day.  Again, this could creep into standard because with Theros block remaining after rotation there could be a heavy preponderance of enchantments running around and this guy kills them dead. This is just a solid card with value.

Resolute Archangel: 3

Daniel: A solid creature with a powerful ability, but it’s mana cost is too high; might see draft play, but anything beyond that would be a stretch.

Bruce: You’ll draft this as the top of your curve if you are in white and you’ll be ok about it.  4/4 for 7 is steep, but the ability to re-stabilize your life total is actually a pretty big swing. This will never emerge in Standard but I could imagine this seeing play in EDH as well to really put the screws to someone.

Return to the Ranks: 2/3

Daniel: I like cards like this, heck, at one point one of my favorite cards was Death Denied, but I can’t get my head around this card showing up right now. It’s the converted mana cost two or less that really does it for me. The card just feels like it showed up at the wrong time and for that, I don’t like the card, especially when you consider how well the rest of the set is themed and timed. With its high mana cost, I don’t see this as too major a player in either draft or constructed play.

Bruce: It also has convoke in an effort to hep keep the casting cost down and hit this one for cheaper.  The ability to bring back creatures to the battlefield is a powerful ability, but this one is limited with the exception of in the right aggressive strategy.  Creatures with a casting cost of 2 or less means you are going for an aggro approach in your draft to maximize the effectiveness of this card, but in other more mid-range builds it might not have that many legal targets.  All in all, a little limited in terms of the decks that want this, but the ability is unmistakably powerful.

Rogue’s Gloves: 3

Daniel: A solid card to pick up in draft that just feels like it came out at the wrong time. In draft this card will help you get to where you need to be in terms of card advantage, but in constructed, Bident of Thassa feels like the better choice.

Rotfeaster Maggot: 1

Daniel: I thought all Maggots ate rot… so shouldn’t this card be called Maggot then… anyway, this is another card of the set that comes down and just feels altogether too high-costed for what it does. A 3/3 for 5 is very unimpressive and its ability doesn’t do a whole lot either. Overall, it might see a tiny bit of play in draft but anything more than that would be a stretch.

Bruce: Terrible name…urgh.  Ok, this is a playable card but you aren’t going to be thrilled about it.  A 3/3 for 5 is ok and the incidental life gain is nice, but it’s not going to pump itself or gain any extra power or toughness or abilities after consuming the creature…which is a shame…but it is still a perfectly playable card.  So, while being a half step better than a vanilla creature, it’s still nothing to write home about.

Sacred Armory: 1

Daniel: This card costs 2 mana to get out and 2 mana to increase target creature by +1/+0, and the added power doesn’t even stay on, this card is over-costed with an over-costed ability. I don’t expect this card to see just about any play in either draft or constructed play.

Sanctified Charge: 2

Daniel: An interesting card that can be vital to a token draft deck; at 5 mana it will be hard for this card to make it out of draft however without trample.

Scrapyard Mongrel: 2

Daniel: Let’s talk about this card for what it is a vanilla 3/3 for 4 with the ability to become a 5/3 with trample. At 5/3 with trample for 4 it would be a pretty solid draft pull, but as it stands right now it’s only an okay draft card and almost unplayable outside of draft.

Scuttling Doom Engine: 4

Daniel: Strong creature with slight evasion and powerful ability when it dies, may see some standard play and work its way into a few interesting combo decks, but overall limited play I believe. On the other hand, the can be card is a powerhouse in draft and has the power to win you the game all by itself potentially.

Seraph of the Masses: 2

Daniel: 7 mana on this card, enough said; it’s far too much for this card, even if it has Convoke. This card may be run in a token draft deck, but play outside of that would be a stretch.

Bruce: She costs 7 to cast  and carries convoke and flying.  This will be a popular card in white weenie strategies where if you flood the board with cheap creatures and then tap them to reduce to reduce her mana cost with the Convoke ability…and then in turn she could be a powerful bomb particularly at the uncommon slot.  Still, you may not want to tap down your team to get her out early and 7 is steep.  She could close out a game in a hurry…or lead to blow out central.  I’m still pretty in on this one.

Shadowcloak Vampire: 2

Daniel: An over-costed creature at 5 mana for a 4/3 that gains flying if you’re willing to give up half the life that it will take away from your opponent if it hits, as it stands this creature is not really worth the cost to cast it; the card may enjoy some limited play in draft, but anything outside of that would be pushing it.

Bruce: 5 mana  for a 4/3 vampire that can also gain flying if you pay 2 life.  This is the sort of meat and potatoes creature every deck needs.  It has decent stats. It isn’t horrible from a cost perspective.  It could even gain flying for a little evasion.  No, this is a decent pick for Black and will be a useful addition to your deck.

Shield of the Avatar: 3

Daniel: At its mana cost even its basic values are solid for its mana cost. Giving a creature pseudo regenerating toughness the creature is worth the 1 to play and 2 to equip. Will it see much play? Probably not; it doesn’t leave you with any wow factor and it doesn’t do anything too impressive. It’s certainly value for its cost and I would consider picking up one if I saw it round 3 or 4 of a pack. The card has the potential for limited play in both standard and draft.

Bruce: I could see this be a useful card in an aggressive deck looking to flood the board and attack an opponent quickly.  You could equip this on your biggest creature to ensure it stays alive and then attack with near impunity.  This could be a fun card and make combat very tricky to deal with a threat, but I’m not sure it’s constructed worthy.

Siege Dragon: 3

Daniel: Someone, somewhere, one day in R&D decided that there should be a format for certain flying creatures (1-4 mana and 1-3 p/t for birds, etc.), and one of those thing that they decided on was dragons; the format has held true in recent memory for 98% of all dragons, that format is Flying, mana cost between 5 and 7, power and toughness between 4 and 6, with some effect that corresponds to dragons and done. This format turns them from the unique creatures called dragons we used to see into something bland that comes off as a 5th string draft pick sometimes. This is another one of these, its abilities are cool and it even seems fairly well costed for its abilities, power and toughness, but that’s it. A definite play in draft if you see it, as well as a potentially but doubtful play in constructed because of Stormbreath Dragon.

Bruce: OK, I’m not sure, but this seems very powerful in a limited environment.  Walls aren’t usually a big thing and so the wall clause is a little weird.  The second part basically wipes out the whole ground game of your opponent whenever this critter attacks. Notice it doesn’t even need to deal damage, just attack.  This is a first pick bomb because it can totally warp the board in your favour.

Sliver Hive: 5

Daniel: This is a card that has the same ability as Sliver Queen… on a land… it has so much potential as a power house that it may just get banned in Standard if they print too many good Slivers in this set. By and large it reinforces the logic that R&D is trying to bring Slivers back into Modern without having them corrupt Standard, but who knows, I could be very wrong and just like the Slivers printed in M14 this card could fall flat on its face, only time will tell. If you’re planning on running a Sliver deck in either draft or constructed this card is almost a necessity and if Slivers become a thing again this card will see quite a bit of play in constructed.

Sliver Hivelord: 6

Daniel: This card and all of the others like it may just bring tribal slivers back into the competitive zone of play in almost every format. This is an insanely powerful card that basically ends the game once it hits the field in a sliver deck unless your opponent can find an answer in a short period of time. If you’re running a deck that already runs 5 colors or you run Slivers, this is another one of those cards that you almost have to run.

Bruce: 5 colour 5/5 legendary Sliver…and makes them all indestructible.  Yuck! Clearly an EDH  card and will haunt casual and multiplayer meta games with sliver decks.  I see no real appeal for him in draft because there isn’t a critical mass of sliver cards in this set (unless they start popping up soon in the spoilers!).  No, this is for other formats that are supported by Wizards…making this one feel a little out of place.

Soul of _____: 3 or 4 depending on which one you’re talking about.

Daniel: All of these Soul Cards Pretty much fall into the same lot for me, they don’t feel terribly costed and their abilities are not terrible, the cards just don’t give me a lot of feeling dragging me down to a 3. I’ve actually already decided I love the Soul of New Phyrexia and am picking up a foil once they start selling them. They actually remind me a lot of the colossus out of Theros, definitely a bomb in draft, but overall pretty hard to build a deck around in constructed formats; that all being said, I like the idea of flashback effects on creatures and with a lower mana cost they’d probably be something that was run quite a bit. The cards may see their day and not be staples or a prime card in the deck, but a nice component of a standard deck nonetheless.

Spectra Ward: 3

Daniel: Not a bad card giving a target +2/+2 and protection from colors but at 5 mana the card seems bulky; as such a big card to play in draft, but I feel that it’s play in constructed will be limited.

Bruce: I’m usually luke warm on Auras, and this one is not much different.  5 mana for +2/+2 and protection from all colours. Now, I get the fact that protection from all colours ALMOST makes this untouchable, but the real question is…what else could you be doing with 5 mana?  The answer is lots. Maybe with the Boonweaver Giant…I don’t know.  But there are a decent number of artifact creatures and such that just might be able to render this less powerful (Perilous Vault is a thing…just saying).  I’m willing to try it out because I love the protection from all colours, but I’m leery of the 5 casting cost.

Stain the Mind: 3

Daniel: A functional reprint of Memoricide that plays almost identical to the original. The one difference between this and the original is the fact that you add 1 mana to it and add convoke to the mix. As with its predecessor, I do not expect this card to be run too heavily in either draft or constructed play. 

Statute of Denial: 3

Daniel: An okay Counter Spell that comes off as much too expensive; the marginal benefit of drawing and discarding a card does not make up for the added cost. Counter Spells are rarely run in draft and there are better Counter Spells that are better than this in the current meta, so I don’t expect this card to be run too heavily.

Stoke the Flames: 4

Daniel: This feels like one of the best convoke spells in the set, sitting comfortably in red and with potential to be directly adopted into red decks across the board, this feels like the right card at the right time.

Sungrace Pegasus: 3

Daniel: A solid card that gets you value in draft with its lifelink and flying; outside of draft this card will most likely not be played too frequently, if at all.

Bruce: Flyers with Lifelink are pretty key and great targets for augmentation. At 2 mana this is also suitably costed and with 2 toughness means that it avoids MOST (not all) of the mini-sweepers in this set.

The Chain Veil: 5

Daniel: Being able to play a planeswalker’s ability twice a turn is awesome, but for 4 you have to question if it’s good enough for its cost; still a potentially powerful card that may just see its time in the sun and break a few decks (I’m thinking Tron featuring Karn would love this card… maybe). In draft I do not believe that planeswalkers will be drafted heavily enough to really make this card worth playing.

Bruce: Ok, here is the little beauty that has caused all this fuss with Garruk and friends. First, let’s just get this straight…this will likely be terrible in draft.  Enough said.  However, in Constructed this could be SUPER abused. There are tons of Planeswalkers floating around for people to pick from and getting an extra activation off each of them is down right filthy.  I’m not convinced it’s going to make an impact in Standard, but there are going to be a bunch people out there trying their hardest to bust this and make the “Super Friends” deck a real and scary option.

Triplicate Spirits: 2

Daniel: It’s not a terrible card and convoke brings it to a more reasonable level, but 6 mana is a little bit much for a spell like this; might see limited play in both draft and standard for its ability to create card advantage and creatures.

Bruce:  6 mana for 3 spirits is steep but you can reduce the casting cost because it does have convoke meaning it could see play earlier.  I think this pairs nicely with your Seraph of the Masses and can lead to a pretty heavy white weenie deck, but the flying tokens are always useful.  SIGH…I miss Lingering Souls…oh well.

Tyrant’s Machine: 2

Daniel: While the utility of tapping down a creature every turn may not be so useful in constructed, it can be extremely useful in draft. This card in particular may be too expensive to use in draft however, depending on your deck and most likely no play in draft.

Ulcerate: 4

Daniel: -3/-3 for one; the life loss on this card hurts but isn’t that bad. Overall, the card is a pretty solid removal card that will probably see a good amount of play in Standard next season. Removal is a very powerful force in draft so you can be almost sure that it will see quite a bit of play in draft as well.

Bruce: Usually 1 mana removal spells at Instant speed are pretty good.  The trade-off is stiff, but if you’re in black you are likely willing to make that trade.  Solid removal and well worth the early pick in a draft.

Undergrowth Scavenger: 3

Daniel: This card could be extremely powerful and cost-effectively; the only problem is that with its mana cost and its ability it will spend a large portion of the game being a dead card and eating up a spot in your hand, still can be a huge bomb in draft so consider it if you’re running green with a lot of small creatures.

Unmake the Graves: 1

Daniel: A strictly worse card than a card (Urborg Uprising) that was already pretty terrible, enough said. This card is not terribly playable in either draft or constructed play.

Venom Sliver: 4

Daniel: Slivers have been getting some awesome prints in this set and this card just continues to contribute to this tradition. A 1/1 deathtoucher for 2 is already a pretty solid pick in draft, but putting it on a sliver makes the card almost, if not wholeheartedly good enough to run in a constructed deck.

Vine Weft: 3

Daniel: A card that can give +1/+1 for 1 is pretty good, especially if you can recur that card, but the card feels underwhelming at best. It will probably be played in draft if the player is playing green, but play in constructed will be something that’s almost impossible for this card.

Void Snare: 3

Daniel: A lot like Boomerang (except as is the theme with this set a little bit weaker for cheaper), I think this card competes well with Boomerang as a standalone card in many situations. I think the added value of making it more cost effective adds more than you lose to the weakening of the card. I believe this card will be playable in both constructed and draft.

Bruce: The sad part is that this is at sorcery speed and not instant (if this were instant speed it would be amazing).  All the same, this is still a very solid ability and nicely costed at 1.  Blue players will draft this and play it regularly.  However, I don’t think this will see much play in Standard because sorcery speed bounce spells aren’t really in demand.

Wall of Limbs: 3

Daniel: I tend to think that 3 mana for a 0/3 Defender is pretty terrible, but this card works each time you gain life which is a pretty good ability. The second ability is a little bit much but can win you the game if you gain life frequently enough.

Warden of the Beyond: 3

Daniel: For an uncommon, a 2/2 with vigilance isn’t terrible; one that can pump up to a 4/4 with vigilance will not break any decks and probably won’t break out of draft, but still a solid card at a good price.

Bruce: I like the feel of this.  A 2/2 for 3 isn’t bad, and vigilance helps…but if you trigger that bonus you have really got something.  It usually isn’t too hard to exile something so I feel like it could happen more often than not.  A solid pick for a deck playing White.

Waste Not: 4

Daniel: This is the hallmark of the deck and it begs to ask the question, is it strong enough to carry the set? This is the fan created card and it feels cool, it feels right, and it might just make discard work in Modern again. Is this a likely scenario? No, but one can hope; I love the rack decks in Modern and would love for one of them to succeed for once. Is it the set carrier we all hoped for? Probably not… am I gonna try to pick up a full playset if the price is fair? Most definitely; I don’t think this card has a chance in standard, but if someone manages to build a working discard deck in constructed I think the card will be a powerful addition to that deck.

Witch’s Familiar: 2

Daniel: This card is a vanilla 2/3 creature for 3 mana, the way creatures used to be. All things considered I kind of wish magic was still like this sometimes. That being said I can’t see this card being played too much.

Will-Forged Golem: 2

Daniel: A vanilla 4/4 for 6 with convoke makes this card almost strictly worse than a 4/4 for 4; this card won’t see much play in either constructed or draft.

Xathrid Slyblade: 3

Daniel: This is one of my favorite cards in the entire set, it reminds me very much of Bogles for Black. At 3 and 4 mana to activate its ability, I fear that this card may see less play than it deserves. It has a great amount of protection, when sitting, it sits under the shroud of Hexproof and while swinging in if blocked you can switch it over to Death Touch and First Strike (I like to call it Death Strike). This card feels very good and well-defended for its cost without being broken, however the mana cost to play and to activate may be too high for this card to ever really see play.

Bruce: Hmmm…this one is a bit of mixed bag. Hexproof is interesting because I usually assume it is an ability that is Blue or Green…not Black, but it fits in a flavour sense if you think about an assassin. For 3 colourless and a 1 black Slyblade loses Hexproof and gains deathtouch and first strike. So, that pretty much makes it a nasty blocker and just kills stuff dead.  So, in limited this will be a very solid card and can jump out of the shadows and take down all sorts of things.  In constructed I feel like this is just a little frail.  I mean, Bassara Tower Archer has the same 2/1 body with hexproof (and reach too) but isn’t intending to be used extensively as a blocker unless you’ve dressed it up with some “pants”.  However, with Slyblade you aren’t likely to have mana to put pants on it, do anything else, AND keep up the mana to activate the deathtouch and first strike abilities.  So, either it doesn’t block, or it becomes a speed bump for something larger.  Nice.  It’s still pretty sweet, but likely doesn’t cut it for a constructed format.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard: 3

Daniel: This card comes from a cycle of cards that I’ve actually been a huge fan of in this set, it’s the well we made it in the past, but now let’s fix it set. My biggest problem with Yisan is the fact that he feels slow and with as weak as he is, this slowness may cost him his spot as a good card; but let’s take a step back and look at the positives of this card for a second, he is based off of 2 of the best cards in the modern meta (In my opinion), those cards being Aether Vial and Birthing Pod, and for his mana cost he’s overall not a terrible creature (I could ask for better, but I’m just nit-picking). While this card could be turned into a powerhouse in the right deck, just like most of the others of this cycle it feels like more of a stretch for this card, but who knows, he may have his own spot in the Melira Pod modern deck in the future.

Bruce: This is something interesting that might catch the imagination of some “johnnies” out there.  The stats alone aren’t bad, although 3 toughness sets it up to get burned out pretty quick…but I digress. The real interesting part is that for 2 colourless, a green and tap ability.  This has a very “Birthing Pod” feel to it…and if anyone is wondering Birthing Pod is VERY MUCH A THING! So, the options here seem pretty high and the ability to abuse it is pretty sweet…but in a draft environment you may not be able to take full advantage of the ability.  I could see this migrating to a constructed environment and be abused with the high quality cards…so sit tight on this guy. I have only one complaint with this and it is that this feels like it should be an elf and not a human rogue.  It is just a minor complaint, I know, but one that I think makes sense considering cards like Elvish Piper and such exist.

 

Notable Reprints:

Back to Nature Not that valuable of a card, but in a format saturated with enchantments, a card like this with such a low mana cost is an outstanding card),

Chord of Calling A card being a $20 straight out of the gate reprint makes this card definitely worth picking up if you get the chance

Convoke Because it would be the preface to about 90 cards in the set I believe I should address this mechanic here, it feels pretty good in this set and it feels right with token decks seeming to come more into the fold right now, so 10/10 on the timing of bringing back this mechanic Wizards

Juggernaut Just wanted to mention the new art on Juggernaut, it’s amazing

Lightning Strike I guess a theme going for Wizards as seen in the reprint of this card is the printing of a lot of downgraded versions of older cards, changing the classics of the game like lightning bolt into the tamer lightning strike, or maybe I’m over-reacting and this is just Wizards deciding that two lightning bolt look-alikes in Standard is too much

Pain Lands Releasing lands that are marginally worse than the Shock Lands seems to be a new theme with Magic’s R&D Department, in their own way, in some situations, the pain lands may actually be better than the shock lands, but that’s for you to decide

Phyrexian Revoker The reprinting of the fixed Pithing Needle, while not terribly exciting, it is worth noting as the card is sided in many decks

Tormod’s Crypt This card may have been reprinted a few times, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any less good than the original printing. There’s a reason this card is run in just about every format, and that reason is because there aren’t many better graveyard hates than this card 

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Extremely powerful and ran in multiple formats, enough said

Wall of Frost  I know it’s pretty boring compared to the rest of the set, but this is an example of one of the best walls in the entire game

 

 

by The Will of the Floral Spuzzem
Daniel Clayton
Twitter: @DC4VP

 

 

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