WHO IS PROSSH, SKYRAIDER OF KHER? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
Wizards released Commander 2013 after the huge success of the first Commander set. They released five decks, one to represent each Alara shard color combination. Each box had one legendary creature in their shard that interacted in some way with the command zone, although each deck also had several other legendary creatures you could use as your general if you so wished (largely reprints, but there were some new ones). Prossh is the main general for the Jund shard deck and has burst into the commander scene and quickly established himself as a powerful general, arguably top 10 in the scene. He's a dragon that's quite a force to be reckoned with.
Your opponents will feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days.
So what makes Prossh so powerful? Let's quickly analyze his stats.
6-mana is slightly on the high end for generals - usually 3-4 is a good spot - but it's fine. In fact, Prossh isn't too bad with costing extra mana, including dying and paying for commander tax, because of his major ability, just play a little more ramp in your green deck. As long as nobody messes with your mana, Prossh actually just gets better. As for the colors you get, black and green are two of the three best colors for EDH - sharing the top with blue - and red's usually better to have than not have, so that's cool. His relatively high mana cost means we want extra ramp to get him out in a timely matter, but he also is fine when you flood out for reasons I'll say in a minute.
It's a dragon, it has to have flying.
Now this is one hell of an ability. When you cast (not "enters the battlefield" as many cards would normally say, it is "cast") Prossh, you get 0/1 tokens equal to the mana you spent. This means that if you spend 6 mana on Prossh, you will get an uncounterable 6 token swarm to accompany your 5/5 flying dragon (outside of obvious Stifle effects, but those tend to be a lot more uncommon than regular counterspells, and a single Stifle effect will not stop Prossh himself). It gets around Torpor Orb and somewhat gets around Humility which are in some decks that try to slow down these creature-happy green decks. Basically, for 6 mana, you get a 7-for-1. And that's not all. Since your token generation is equal to your mana spent, killing Prossh to make him cost 8 means he'll now be an 8-mana 9-for-1. Then 10-mana 11-for-1. And so on.
There's an unlimited number of cards that combo with Prossh. Some of them win you the game on the spot (Food Chain gives infinite mana to spend on creatures). Some allow you to stax the board out (Grave Pact is basically Plague Wind with Prossh out). Some allow you to grind the game out (Purphoros, God of the Forge is a difficult-to-kill source of damage). Then you also realize that Prossh IS a 5/5 flier so he can just go on the beatdown himself. The thing is that each of his threats require different answers, making him very difficult to deal with. Prossh can be extremely explosive, but he can also be extremely resilient.
Cards that interact well with tokens are nothing new, but what separates Prossh from many other token generators is that you don't need to spend mana to get the tokens. You cast Prossh and your tokens come along with you. Rhys the Redeemed, for example, requires 3 mana and tapping it to generate a token, which is a heavy mana sink every turn, even if Rhys himself costs only 1 mana. Ghave, Guru of Spores requires mana to create tokens and be a sac outlet. Once you cast Prossh, having anything else of significance out will greatly help you stabilize the board, which helps make up for the fact that Prossh costs 6 mana to start off. This requirement means that Prossh isn't a great reanimation target, but that's minor.
Speaking of sac outlets...
While not nearly as powerful as his first, it has good synergy with it and the general gameplan for a token swarm deck. Sac outlets are always powerful in EDH. It's an easy way to trigger your Grave Pact, let your big stuff dodge certain types of removal/effects, etc. Prossh can't sac himself, but it's usually fine. If he dies, it's usually not a big deal. If he gets mind controlled or enchanted with something like Arrest, you've got enough removal to get him back in your command zone and you still keep the tokens. And despite the power of sac outlets, you never want too many because you need cards to generate creatures in order to sacrifice in the first place, so generally you only want 1 repeatable instant-speed sac outlet on the board at any given time. Since Prossh is his own sac outlet, you can remove some of the cards you'd normally dedicate to sac outlets and use only the premium ones, saving deck space.
So basically, what we have is an extremely resilient 6-mana 7-for-1 that scales with the number of times he dies, giving the deck extremely explosive potential but also strong resilience. Sure sounds like a good thing.
Of course, Prossh does have weaknesses when compared to the other top tier generals. Since the sweet spot for generals tends to hover around 3-4 mana, Prossh does come down a few turns later which is crucial since top tier decks can usually win or lock the board down in ~5 turns very reliably when unharassed. When Prossh will usually first be cast on turn 4 or 5, this puts you on the backfoot for the first few turns and you're relying on Prossh to stabilize the board. While Prossh scales well with his mana cost, preventing the player from casting him will heavily neuter the deck, as Prossh decks are heavily centered around being able to get him out in a timely fashion. Mana denial in general is the most effective way to keep Prossh out of the game (outside of just straight combo-killing a Prossh deck).
Typically, the most powerful EDH decks tend to either combo out the whole table in those ~5 turns, or swipe at everyone's mana to make them not cast anything ever while you grind the game out. In other words, you outrace Prossh with a lower-mana cost general/strategy, or you stop the Prossh player from casting his general. To put this in perspective, if you were to bring a deck and had to sit at a table with a Hermit Druid player, a Zur player, a Derevi prison player, and a Prossh player, and every deck was fine-tuned, the Prossh player might be the weakest threat out of them.
For most casual players, however, they do not like those hardcore strategies. Extremely fast infinite combos (be it Hermit Druid effects or such) and attacking opponents' mana (be it Armageddon effects or what have you) tend to be frowned upon in the casual circles. Most casual groups will not have them, and if someone does bring such a powerful deck to the table, that player will likely get hated out of the game. However, Prossh decks are totally fine if you don't go with the fast infinites or fast lockdowns. When racing Prossh and stopping Prossh from casting anything are not allowed, the only real strategy left is to grind out the game, and Prossh can grind out anyone.
As with several other decks I've made, I decided to try and take a budget-approach. There are multiple primers here that go all-out and so there's no point in making a primer that does the same thing. But budget-constraints breed creativity and you need to go deep in the tank when it comes to card selection and weigh power level with budget. Creating a budget build can allow newer players to jump into a format where monetary concerns could have been a barrier otherwise. There's another big reason why I'm making this a budget-deck but I'll explain that later.
The current budget goal is $100 using the market price on tcgplayer.com.
How I love thee. Too bad you're 50% over the budget by yourself.
You should play this deck if you...
- Love "fair" magic of grinding games out.
- Love attacking opponents' gameplans in different ways.
You should not play this deck if you...
- Like hard control or hard combo. Prossh often has some control elements and some good combos, but it's often not a deck that makes nobody do anything for 10 turns while you slowly kill them, and this particular build isn't centered around consistently killing the entire table in 4-5 turns.
PERSONAL HISTORY
I've been playing magic on and off since Mirrodin, although I didn't start even considering some semblance of competitive play (and by that I mean lofty FNMs and currently nothing higher, so yes, I am not the most skilled player out there) until Zendikar, where after that block finished I again took a break until Return to Ravnica, and have been playing steadily since. I was drawn back to the game at Zendikar largely because I found a new playgroup, and this playgroup quickly introduced me to the EDH format. While I was skeptical about it at first, once I made my first deck I was hooked.
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
Due to Prossh's massive powerlevel, being in a versatile color combination without the backlash of "omg i hate blue and counterspells", and being a massive dragon, he's become a very popular general. I have two friends who each have a Prossh deck, and everytime we sit down to play, the Prossh player is almost always the biggest threat. Now part of it has to do with the fact that we have a purposely watered-down group (no one plays Hermit Druid or Winter Orb for example), but the Prossh player is, all things equal (e.g. no one has the turn 1 sol ring), often the biggest threat due to the explosiveness of the deck.
Our group got into a little discussion about Prossh' power level. Often it's compared to my Maelstrom Wanderer deck as it's otherwise the best deck in our group (albeit my Wanderer deck is purposely not fully-tuned). Friend A says his Prossh deck is "bad" because he uses some controversial/strange cards in it. I told him that "bad" Prossh decks are still better than a vast majority of decks, including my nearly-competitive Wanderer deck. After a few back and forths, I decided that the best way to prove a point is to make a budget Prossh deck and have it stack up against their regular decks. Presumably, if they don't gang up on me for the entire game or use their own Prossh decks (which do not have budget constraints), I will still have the best chances of winning because Prossh' power level makes up for the budget constraints. I may not have the budget to play a Gaea's Cradle and it's very hard to get Food Chain to fit the budget, but he sure as hell can still combo with lower-budget options like Dictate of Erebos.
As of right now I actually don't know what the power level of a budget Prossh deck will be compared to other decks. It'll probably flop around and die against top tier decks. However, I'm fairly certain that budget Prossh should handle lower-tier generals.
The card options will be broken up by card type. I will put * for each card, indicating my personal rating of the card, ranging from 1 to 5.
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck.
Any cards that are also over 1 dollar will be italicized. Anything that is over 5 dollars will instead be bolded. Anything that is over 10 dollars will be highlighted in color.
CREATURES
The creatures listed here will be in converted mana cost order, as there is a Birthing Pod curve.
1
****Joraga Treespeaker - Mana dorks can be awkward in EDH because they get swept away in sweepers so easily, and often a sweeper is the only way to temporarily stop the Prossh player. However, he ramps very hard. Max Budget: $2
***Elves of Deep Shadow - Birds of Paradise is a bit too over the budget for its effect (currently it's around $3.50). This is a bad BoP, but it is chump change, and it gets the nod over Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, and the like because your green drop making something off-color is usually more important than it making green.
***Viscera Seer - Sac outlets are important. Sometimes you can't stick Prossh, and since Prossh can't sac himself, you want an outlet to sac Prossh in an emergency (e.g. if he gets targeted with a Gilded Drake). Seer's sac ability costs 0 mana, he himself is a 1-drop, and he gives reasonable value off his sac.
****Withered Wretch - Good budget graveyard hate. Better than Scavenging Ooze in this build not only because it costs less money, but because Ooze's ability is more color intensive, it will put a bigger strain on the land base, since the land base is very neutered in a budget build.
***Dosan the Falling Leaf - Throw him out to either bait a counterspell or protect you when you are trying to land a finishing blow. The deck doesn't have alot of instant-speed spells so you are hardly affected negatively. It's a useful 1-of effect.
***Ophiomancer - Slow but reliable token maker. Useful when cast extremely early, or when you can't cast Prossh for the extra tokens. Also the snake token(s) having deathtouch means they make good chump blockers.
****Somberwald Sage - This card dies to everything, but it quickly rushes out Prossh, let alone some other big fatties.
***Skullwinder - Usually worse than Eternal Witness, but it's much less expensive. Gotta make some hard cuts.
***Reclamation Sage - Naturalize on a stick. Solid, if unexciting, card.
4
***Nullmage Shepherd - Four untapped creatures does cost a bunch, but basically you have this out, tap a bunch of kobolds who usually do nothing anyway, and blow up something.
***Ogre Battledriver - Haste enabler that also gives the tokens an extra punch.
***Dimir House Guard - Sac outlet if you need it (like if Prossh can't stick), but is mostly a tutor to get 4-CMC cards like birthing pod or purphoros.
5
****Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder - A card that can generate a good amount of tokens as long as you have a sac outlet to stay under 7 thrulls. He fits nicely on a curve of Endrek to Prossh and also doesn't die when Prossh is cast. He himself is easy to kill, but whatever.
****Sadistic Hypnotist - With Prossh, you get 6 disposable bodies to throw around, which makes 12 cards discarded, 14 if you want to sac Prossh with it (you can also sac Hypnotist to itself too). In a 4-man pod, that's double Mind Rot on each opponent, which is close to their whole hand at that point in the game. It's pretty bad if you're behind on the board (you make everyone lose their hands, then they just use whatever's on their board to kill you, particularly since they'll be pissed off that you made them dump their hands), but if you're ahead or about even with everyone, this usually shuts the door. Remember that his ability is only sorcery speed, which means he can be killed in response to his first activation. Max Budget: $4
***Skullmulcher - With Prossh out you draw a bunch of cards. Usually not one of the strongest draw effects, but it's on a creature and it's low budget. You can also sac Prossh to it if needed.
***Puppeteer Clique - Double reanimation spell on a 5-mana creature, good value.
6
***Dragonlair Spider - One of the backup token makers in case Prossh can't stick around.
***Homura, Human Ascendant - It functions as something like a creature version of Beastmaster Ascension in that it makes your token army huge. It's 6 mana compared to the Ascension costing only 3, but it's still a potent card.
7
****Butcher of Malakir - Grave pact on a body. 7-mana hurts it a bit but the effect with Prossh is so powerful we must run it.
****Avenger of Zendikar - Avenger is fairly pricy, but once you play it, you immediately build a very threatening army. Think of it as another copy of Prossh except that if Avenger stays in play and you trigger landfalls, your army gets bigger.
RAMP
Ramp is very important to the deck. 6-mana generals require a good amount of ramp, but because Prossh generates more tokens the more times you cast him, this makes him a safe mana-dump. You can play a couple additional ramp spells and be okay if you flood out. In addition, since it's a budget build in a 3-color deck, your lands will tend to enter the battlefield tapped (since all the ones that don't are usually high budget), and you need ramp to keep up.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. Many of the temporary alliances forged in a standard EDH game are created based on who gets the turn 1 sol rings.
****Explore - A ramp card that is not that bad of a draw lategame. Due to the high number of lands in this deck, you almost always get that extra land drop earlygame.
****Cryptolith Rite - It can be awkward to play early on, and can sometimes not do anything. You also either need a lot of creatures/kobolds already in play and/or give them haste in some way. It's a 2-mana spell that you should not treat as a 2-drop. It's something you play late in the game, much like you would play Mana Reflection.
***Growth Spasm - Uninspiring, but can enable a T4 Prossh.
*****Ashnod's Altar - I knew Phyrexian Altar was very expensive so I just immediately assumed this was a similar price without checking. Until one day I checked and found it it was a common and had multiple printings so it's dirt cheap. TLDR; I am an idiot.
****Cultivate, Kodama's Reach - Good, cheap ramp. Getting the additional basic to your hand is nifty in budget builds as it gives you a land that doesn't ETB tapped.
***Explosive Vegetation - Good, cheap ramp. Going from 4 to 7 mana looks weird in a normal Prossh deck who costs 6, but there are a lot of lands that enter the battlefield tapped, so often this brings you 4 to 6 mana, next turn play Prossh and a tapped land. This isn't as useful in a normal Prossh build though.
DRAW/ENGINES
Prossh is a 7-for-1 and is powerful. But Prossh alone won't cut it. You need draw power to quickly reach the powerful cards that interact with Prossh. Listed here are the noncreature cards solely for drawing additional cards; there are other cards that give powerful card advantage but in a different way.
****Faithless Looting - A simple draw spell that is almost never dead. It helps find lands and ramp spells early, and then pitches lands and ramp spells late. With the new change to mulligans, this helps immensely when it comes to keeping hands. It also pitches anger into the graveyard.
***Evolutionary Leap - It's a sac outlet that requires mana, but it does give some value.
***Painful Truths - Only good when you can converge for 3, but when you do it's a high-floor card.
*****Fecundity - It's a global effect, but nobody else gets nearly as much value from this card as you outside of other token decks and even then most token decks have to work harder to get more tokens. It's more or less a crappier skullclamp.
****Mimic Vat - This card can easily take over games especially when so many potent creatures have ETB effects (or if you have a way to get the token to die during combat or through a sac outlet, you can trigger death effects as well). It is somewhat mana intensive but it has a very high power level.
****Shamanic Revelation - Similar to a card like Skullmuncher where you draw cards for each creature you control, but with this you don't have to sac them. Sorceries are not easy to tutor up or recur from graveyards but it's still a pretty strong effect on paper and you usually only need one or two of these kinds of effects (something that draws you a ton of cards at once) to seal a game. Gaining life is a minor bonus but not irrelevant if you are playing against other grindy and/or aggressive decks, although if you gain more than 8 life I would be quite surprised.
GRAVEYARD
People love fiddling with their graveyards. Since you're black and green, you also love fiddling with your graveyard. You're also given good tools to stop people from doing the same.
***Reap - A good budget option to get key cards back. It only takes one opponent to have one black permanent before this becomes an instant speed Regrowth, and anything beyond that is even better.
***Victimize - A one-time sac that also gives nice reanimation.
REMOVAL/SWEEPERS
Nobody likes playing removal. You just want to advance your own board state. But you need to keep opponent's honest. It's a necessary evil; you can't just goldfish all day.
***Vandalblast - It's worse than Smelt at baseline as it's just a sorcery, but lategame it's a one-sided shatterstorm for 5 mana. There are some good cards to put in this slot for sweeping a bunch of a permanent type, but this is one that I'm trying out.
****Clip Wings - Many people rely on fliers to do important things, particularly flying generals.
****Beast Within - I couldn't believe this card got printed when New Phyrexia came out. An extremely splashable instant-speed vindicate is nuts. It never was insane in constructed because leaving a 3/3 behind is relevant, but in EDH a 3/3 is largely irrelevant.
****Helm of Possession - Not technically a removal spell, but I sure wouldn't mind sacrificing a dumb Kobold token to get the best creature on the table. I can't give it a 5 because everyone and their mother runs Homeward Path and the like.
*****Dictate of Erebos - With Prossh, this basically plague winds your opponents. That's all I have to say about that. Grave Pact would be here, but 1BBB can be hard to get at times, and it is fairly pricy. It's also on curve for 5-mana flash in Dictate, Untap, play land, play Prossh, start saccing, though this card in general is telegraphed pretty easily being 5 mana.
***Terminate - The gold standard that non-white instant speed removal is measured to. Simple and efficient.
****Blasphemous Act - An underrated sweeper, often it just costs 1-mana. Since this deck is mana hungry, it's very nice to have this over other sweepers.
TUTORS
Tutoring is important. It smooths out draws by increasing redundancy to get your best cards out. Black and green are great colors for tutoring. The trick is that many of the best tutors are pricy (like Demonic Tutor) but there are acceptable budget options.
FINISHERS
So I've been saying about how so many cards interact with Prossh. I've already mentioned many cards that have incredibly powerful interactions with Prossh (Sadistic Hypnotist, Skullclamp, etc), but the ones listed here are the noncreature ones that just beat the crap out of your opponents.
*****Beastmaster Ascension - Basically, Prossh and the tokens will automatically trigger it and you immediately get a massive army. At 3-mana.
****Vicious Shadows - Play Prossh, play this, sac your tokens and blast someone for a million damage. Unless nobody has any cards in their hand in which case you win anyway.
*****Warp World - With the big token generation, often you'll have the most permanents on the board, which gives you the biggest chance of getting the best board post-Warp World.
VALUE
Card that don't quite fit into any other category, but they fill important niches.
***Jund Charm - Its last mode of putting two +1/+1 counters on something isn't that important, but it's Tormod's Crypt or Pyroclasm, both of which are things that are hard to stuff into EDH decks since they are fairly narrow, but they are huge blowouts when they shine, especially since this can do it at instant speed. 3-mana is expensive for these effects but manageable since the deck has a lot of ramp.
LANDS
3-color decks on a budget can't break the bank on the landbase. This means many lands enter the battlefield tapped, but it's a necessary evil with the mana requirements. There's also a fairly high land count because you need a few more lands so you don't get color screwed.
****Rakdos Carnarium, Gruul Turf, Golgari Rot Farm - These are actually legit. They're card advantage on lands. They're vulnerable to strip mine and the like, but there will always be better targets on the table, usually controlled by other players. They're a bit slow for cutthroat, but in budget and in casual these are very playable.
****Karplusan Forest, Llanowar Wastes - Painlands are always legit. Llanowar waste is the cheapest of the three due to its numerous recent reprints, while Sulfurous Springs is not here because it's too expensive.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can run this and it's ramp on a land.
6 swamp
4 mountain
7 forest
OTHER OPTIONS
As said earlier in a way, other primers on this site will give you higher-budget options (Sylvan Library, Gaea's Cradle, Earthcraft, etc.). These cards listed here will basically be cards that I'm either interested in, or have tried but they did not pan out.
Puppeteer Clique - Solid card, but over $3, it's efficient but not particularly important for its budget.
Anger - Haste enabler, but you really want some discard outlets (like Fauna Shaman) to get it in the graveyard quickly.
Shared Animosity - It's kinda like Beastmaster Ascension #2 except a little more expensive.
Shivan Harvest - Prossh is good at winning games of attrition. However, this was too mana-intensive and didn't have a significant-enough impact. Restricting mana is better when it doesn't take as much mana from your side to clamp people down.
Craterhoof Behemoth - He's fairly expensive, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he was too good and was often the finisher of choice for the deck. I wanted to experiment with other cards and evaluate how good those cards are, so I cut this guy because I know exactly how good he is.
Fierce Empath - Tutors are playable, but it's a somewhat restricted tutor in what it can get. It was solid before the tuck rule changed because this could get Prossh back out if he got tucked. Without that, I feel like Fierce Empath loses just enough oomph to remove him from the deck.
Food Chain - People thought that Maelstrom Wanderer was insane with Food Chain? You haven't seen nothing. Wanderer's food chains can actually fizzle if you have bad luck. It's impossible to fizzle with Prossh unless your hand/board sucks. This card is $10+ so it's hard to fit in the budget, but it's ridiculously powerful. The reason why it's not in the deck is not that the deck can't afford the price tag, but that the deck is trying to prove a point (that "bad" Prossh decks are still strong).
Hornet Queen - If your playgroup loves their fliers, this clogs up the air pretty well.
Praetor's Counsel - 8-mana is alot for its effect, made worse by the fact that you needed to wait quite awhile to get alot of cards back (in the ballpark of at least 8 cards before it really makes up for the mana cost). In most cases, you want your big mana payoff spells to be playable ASAP, and this doesn't usually do anything until the board gets swept at least once plus your graveyard doesn't get nuked.
Wood Elves - In most green decks this card is pretty good. However, budget builds are hardpressed to afford the ravnica shocklands which is what makes this playable. It's generally only getting basic forests, which is cool but much worse than nonbudget builds.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard - If you don't have proliferate effects to accelerate the verse counters, this card is really slow when he's not the general.
Duplicant - A strong card, but it is over $5, which is a tad much.
Kessig Wolf Run - Powerful land but I'm still tweaking the mana base so I'm not sure how many colorless lands the deck can handle.
GENERAL STRATEGY
GENERAL
This build isn't an explosive deck that can consistently win in the first 2-4 turns. If you run into a top tier deck, try to get the other players on the board to gang up on them. This isn't usually an issue once you play a game or two and everyone on the table gets a general idea of what everyone is doing and who's playing "fair" or "unfair" magic. Sometimes you'll know straight from the start whether they're fair or not.
Once the unfair decks can be held in check by the other players - or if there are no unfair decks on the table - you have a good shot of winning. Again, Prossh is built largely on grinding games out, and fair decks are all about doing that.
EARLYGAME
You're looking for at least 1 ramp spell, preferably 2. Just play whatever you have in your hand. If it's an engine that works with Prossh (such as Fecundity) it's usually okay to throw it out there so that you aren't scrambling to get them out after you cast Prossh. If someone kills it, whatever, the deck has tons of engines that work with Prossh. Normally you want to play Prossh and immediately have an effect on the board, and that requires you to have engines out beforehand.
You want good ramp so that you can get Prossh out maybe 1 turn after (or even the same turn as) your opponents' generals which will usually cost less mana. You can afford to spend the first few turns not doing much because Prossh is a 6-mana 7-for-1. Usually midgame is when your Prossh first hits the board.
One big question is when you reach 6 mana and you have a card that works well with Prossh in hand but wants to be in play first, such as Purphoros, and which card do you want to play first. If someone is exploding on the board, you probably should get Prossh out ASAP to put up some defenses. If the game seems to be progressing fairly slowly, feel free to chuck out your other cards before getting Prossh to maximize your value.
MIDGAME
This part of the game is difficult to judge because Prossh has so many ways to attack opponents' gameplans and it depends on how you build your deck. Don't be afraid of having Prossh die, but be wary of your opponents' gameplans. If they love restricting mana, you generally shouldn't let Prossh die more than once (e.g. don't suicide him into a big blocker). If they attack the tokens (e.g. Curse of Death's Hold), it does slow the deck down quite a bit and you probably will want to kill it ASAP. You'll still get death and enter the battlefield effects from your Kobolds eating it (e.g. playing Prossh into a Curse will still trigger your Fecundity) but you won't be able to do them at will, and cards that require your tokens to stick around get much weaker (e.g. Beastmaster Ascension). Generally, you just throw out whatever engines you have and see what sticks.
This section will be updated as I get more games with this deck.
LATEGAME
If it's the lategame you've probably won. Just be aware of anyone who can instantly win (say with an infinite combo) and you will grind the game out.
COUNTERS TO PROSSH
While Prossh is a 5/5 flier on his own, his real power comes from the tokens he generates. Many of the powerful interactions come from the huge number of disposable bodies you get. Therefore anything that kills your tokens can slow you down a fair amount. A temporary sweeper (Pyroclasm) can be dealt with by simply recasting Prossh or using one of the other token generators in the deck. Anything that's permanent (Curse of Death's Hold) is much more troublesome and you must kill it before recasting Prossh.
Preventing us from casting Prossh at all can be problematic since the deck needs a bunch of tokens to do anything, but that's why there are a handful of other token generators in the deck. They can be used when Prossh can't be casted for whatever reason (he's already in play, he costs too much mana, there's a Nevermore on Prossh, etc.)
Other counters include cutthroat strategies like racing with faster combos (Hermit Druid, etc.) or a powerful stax/mana denial build (winter orb, Armageddon, etc). Against such decks, obviously a neutered version of a deck that already had some problems competing with them even when it was built optimally will not fair well, and so I won't go into detail about how to handle them.
- Xenagos, God of Revels
- Pernicious Deed
- Necromancy
- Song of the Dryads
- Purphoros, God of the Forge
- Solemn Simulacrum
- Eternal Witness
More budget cuts.
Xenagos could one shot an opponent, but it was fairly all in - saccing 6 things to make Prossh an 11/5 could backfire pretty easily and set you back hard. Even if it worked, only one opponent is dead. Given that he was ~$7 when I cut him, those were some nasty drawbacks for that price. I decided to swap it for Dimir House guard; it's a sac outlet if needed, but it mostly goes and tutors for 4-drops like Birthing Pod, and those cards are more useful than Xenagos anyway.
Pernicious Deed is a decent sweeper since you can scale it to what you need, but it is mana intensive. I decided to play a cheap but efficient removal spell in Hull breach. The more removal you play, the less you need to play a sweeper, after all.
Necromancy cost a pretty penny over other normal reanimation spells, and it was over $3. The upside of flashing it in to disrupt an opponent's reanimation effect was nice. I decided to play Puppeteer Clique in its slot; with its reprinting it's currently under $1, and if you have a sac outlet it largely does the same thing as necromancy (reanimate a creature at instant speed - sac it for the persist trigger).
Song of the Dryads is a hilarious card that strands generals in play. However it costs too much for its function now. I just replaced it with another efficient removal spell for now.
Purphoros is an insane card, but its price is starting to get too much. I decided to play nullmage Shepherd for another token payoff card.
Solemn is a cool value card. He ramps you from 4 to 6 mana, and then you can sac to Prossh for a bonus. But his price doesn't justify that effect. I replaced him with kozilek's predator, as you get some "ramp" and disposable bodies for a fraction of the cost.
Eternal witness was too pricy for a deck that didn't really revolve around repeatable graveyard recursion. Replacing her with Skullwinder was for budget concerns. The deck has a fair amount of graveyard hate so you can often make an opponent return nothing, and in some cases you want your opponent to get a key card back if you play politics. All this for a fraction of the cost of E-wit.
I'm putting Terminate back in. Despite costing a little more money, it's worth the efficiency. Murderous Cut was simply too difficult to cast early in the game without fetchlands cheating on the CMC.
Disciple of Bolas was often an awkward card. First, it didn't draw cards very well early in the game. Second, one-shot sorcery-speed sac outlets are not that useful. It's nice to get a creature card you have in play into the graveyard, but several of the big creatures in this deck want to stay in play (even Prossh at times), and one of the big reasons to play sac outlets is the ability to dodge certain things like exile removal. It was basically a mid-lategame durdle card that sometimes was unimpressive. Right now I'm just going to throw mimic vat in, as it's just a universally good card.
Putting in Cryptolith Rite for testing. On paper it sounds like it will generate very good mana, especially if there's a haste outlet out. I cut Sidisi because 5-mana tutor seems a bit slow.
Reap replaces Phyrexian Reclamation as graveyard recursion of choice. Reap on paper is very powerful. If any opponent has a single black permanent out, it becomes an instant speed Regrowth which is already quite good. Reclamation is strong but it can be mana intensive and it only gets creatures back.
Ophiomancer, Carpet of Flowers, Coalition Relic, and Sulfurous Springs were all cut because of budget. In their place I am trying out Clip Wings (deck has some weakness to early fliers, and if Prossh immediately dies it has a weakness to midgame fliers too) and Growth Spasm (weak, but can enable a turn 4 Prossh if all land drops are hit) and one swamp.
Some more budget cuts, and changes to go along with the budget cuts.
The notable ones are Fauna Shaman and Chord of Calling, both breaking $10. Tutors are powerful, but these are too expensive. I'm replacing them with Sidisi for another tutor (also being a sac outlet) and painful truths for some earlygame draw power.
With Fauna Shaman gone, it's harder to get anger into the graveyard, so I'm taking that out. I'm also taking out Jarad's Orders if I'm not going to be dumping anger into the graveyard anymore. To replace anger and orders, I'm putting in fires and battledriver for haste enablers.
With fewer creature tutors, it'll be more difficult to get phyrexian delver out to reanimate to do its bad impersonation of karmic guide. I took it out for another reanimation spell and decided to try victimize.
Tempt with Vengeance is also a couple bucks. I'm trying Ophiomancer as another earlygame token producer.
Chromatic Lantern has taken off in price. I decided that if I want to use an expensive 3-mana rock, I would probably want Coalition Relic instead, as relic can cast Prossh on turn 4 with zero other ramp, provided I hit my land drops. While Coalition Relic may get cut for budget constraints, I might as well make this swap. Lantern color fixes my entire mana base, but most spells in this deck aren't color-intensive.
Increasing Ambition and Baleful force have underperformed tremendously. They are too expensive for their effects. In their place I'm putting in Evolutionary Leap as a sac outlet (albeit one that costs some mana) and value card, and Dragonlair Spider as another token generator. While Prossh makes a lot of tokens, it's good to have some token generators as a backup plan.
Sepulchral Primordial gets cut in an attempt to lower the curve, while Explore helps with that.
Murderous Cut for Terminate is a quick budget swap. Terminate is over $1 while Cut is next to nothing. But because the deck doesn't have fetchlands, it might not be able to get a cheap delve for the earlygame, which could hurt it a bit.
Llanowar Waste is now under $1 due to its numerous recent reprints, so it's very affordable.
Faithless looting is a cheap draw spell that is almost never a dead draw. early on it finds you lands and ramp spells, and later on it pitches those lands and ramp spells. Also, it gets anger into the graveyard faster. Rampant Growth gets axed as Faithless Looting helps draw into the ramp spells earlier, and rampant felt like it was one of the weakest ramp options.
1/27/16
+ Viscera Seer
+ Baleful Force
+ Pernicious Deed
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
- Wickerbough Elder
- Craterhoof Behemoth
- Rune-Scarred Demon
- Awakening Zone
- Tooth and Nail
I noticed that the deck doesn't have alot of sac outlets. A bunch of cards can sac things, but they're one-shot uses, sorcery speed only, etc. and it's relying on Prossh to be the sac outlet. If Prossh can't stick, it's hard to get a sac outlet in play. Having additional sac outlets also means I can sac Prossh if needed, since Prossh can't sac himself. I think Viscera Seer can fill the role well given that it's only 1 mana and scrying is always useful.
I think I can live without Wickerbough Elder.
Craterhoof Behemoth being removed may sound crazy, but again it's to drive a point home. It's not that the deck can't afford the budget ($10-15 is high but not unattainable) but rather that Prossh's high power level means that there are so many cards that interact well with it that you don't need the premium bombs to make a decent deck. Craterhoof is one of the most potent cards with tokens, but it's not the only one, and it's a good opportunity to see what other options exist and how they fare. I decided to replace him with a generic 8-drop to take up a spot in the Birthing Pod curve, and decided to go with Baleful Force.
Rune-scarred demon, awakening zone, and especially tooth and nail were some more budget cuts made. Demon was a good value play but was not exceedingly important. Awakening Zone was fine but was a rather unspectacular ramp spell and only made tokens at a slow pace. Tooth and nail never fetched out an instant kill so it's not that important compared to other big green spells I could play in its place (e.g. Genesis Wave).
Pernicious deed has always been fairly expensive, but now it's pretty chump change; under $2 right now.
Carpet of Flowers is a low CMC ramp spell against blue decks. If there are no blue decks on the table, consider yourself the winner already.
Endrek, on paper, sounds like a good token generator. Also, he doesn't kill himself when you cast Prossh, which is a nice boon, and you can have enough sac outlets to stay under 7 thrulls.
I'm using the prices listed under "low". It sounds like cheating, but my friends at my LGS usually go with the low prices if their friends are paying straight up cash. Also with the really, really cheap cards (like basic lands), either you have them already or you can find some people that will just give them to you for free.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - A 10-mana creature that does double Utter End that can also nuke lands is interesting. Not sure if it's an upgrade to the original Ulamog since Annihilator 4 is also really good, but this Ulamog costs 1 less and exiles 2 permanents instead of destroying 1. Shuffling your graveyard into your library when the old Ulamog hit your graveyard has its ups and downs though. I don't think it'll be in this deck, but he's something to watch out for. Given that it's mythic it'll probably be too expensive though.
Void Winnower - This card is just so goofy it's something to watch out for.
Oblivion Sower - Ingest isn't gonna be a real mechanic for EDH, but Delve will, and if people get greedy with their Delve cards and pack fetchlands, this can be interesting (albeit unreliable) ramp. My guess is that this will see very limited play but it is an interesting effect so you should watch out for it.
Ob Nixilis Reignited - A 5-mana PW that can protect itself and draw you cards. I probably won't play it, but in monoblack, or maybe even 2 or 3 color black decks, this might be worth looking at. Also given that it's mythic, I won't play it unless it really sees zero play.
Smothering Abomination - Depending on its price, I could try this out as a one-sided Fecundity. Obviously, being 1 mana over Fecundity, and being a creature (makes it easier to kill) and always having to sac something every turn (makes it hard to play this without having played Prossh beforehand, while Fecundity can be played before Prossh) will make this tricky, but this is worth consideration, unless I'm missing.
Dragonmaster Outcast - I don't really care about this card, but SERIOUSLY wizards, you're reprinting this as a mythic? get your ***** together and fire the guy who thought this was a good idea. At least Felidar Sovereign is getting reprinted in this set as a rare. Do you know how annoyed people will be when they open this as their mythic?
Zada, Hedron Grinder - This won't be going in any of my decks, but there's a lot of untapped potential in this card, so you should be on the lookout for any decks that use this guy. It's kinda like Precursor Golem except it only triggers on your instants and sorceries and only affects your creatures, so it's easier to control and seems less likely to backfire.
From Beyond - This is worse than Awakening Zone when it comes to generating mana, but this does have a nice upside in that it can sac itself to tutor for an Eldrazi when you don't need the mana. Obviously you'll need useful Eldrazi in the deck, but it's worth noting.
Greenwarden of Murasa - Eternal Witness' big daddy. I definitely will be thinking about this card. It exiles itself if you want the regrowth effect when it dies (for balance issues, thnx wizards) but it is a "may" trigger which is nice. Probably would've been better if it had 2 or less power (hi Reveillark) but a 5/4 isn't awful either. However, because it's mythic, and because I project this to become a green EDH staple, I do not think it'll fit the budget, which is depressing.
Nissa's Renewal - I'm not sure if I'll play this. 6-mana is asking for a lot when there are cards like and Mana Reflection and Boundless Realms hovering around that mana cost. But just keep an eye out for it.
Omnath, Locus of Rage - Play this, play a fetchland, and you get 3 5/5s in play that each bolt something when they die. That can be pretty scary. But again, this is mythic, so it could be too expensive to play, plus you really want fetchlands to maximize its power, which budget builds can't afford.
Hedron Archive - The third of the three little bears and Goldilocks. Mind Stone is tiny, Dreamstone Hedron is huge, this is juuuust right... maybe not, but I just thought it was an appropriate card for wizards to print.
Blighted Woodland - Lands that always ramp are interesting. This is worse than Myriad Landscape and Krosan Verge though, given that they're only 2 mana and sac to crack, while this is 4 mana and sac to crack. Still, it does come into play untapped. I wouldn't write this off.
Mortuary Mire - Lands that give recursion are interesting. However, I already have a lot of lands that ETB tapped.
Sanctum of Ugin - Lands that can tutor for something are interesting. Given that this activates when you cast a 7+ colorless spell, chances are at that point you don't need mana, but you may want a big mana Eldrazi, and it's a "may" so you don't need to crack it anyway.
Just finished my Prossh set review also. You pointed out some stuff I didn't catch, and I believe I've found some things you missed!
Ah yes, I did miss a couple of cards, although the ones you covered that I didn't, most of them you just said "Eh, this card's fine but I probably wouldn't play it." Although Zulaport Cutthroat is an interesting take on Blood Artist, as it only triggers on creatures that you control die (as opposed to Blood Artist caring about any creature dying) but this does hit each opponent instead of only one.
I also just noticed that Smothering Abomination only triggers when you sac something and not dies, which is actually a big deal if you don't have a sac outlet in play. It makes me a little less inclined to play it.
I'm a huge fan of building budget decks (My $$ decks are Mimeo and Sharuum). I've done a $100 Karador and $100 Teysa. I think $100 Prossh is next!
Glad you enjoyed it. Budget builds are always intriguing because MTG has this rep of being an expensive hobby so budget builds can help shed it. It's kinda like how MTG also has the rep of a playerbase consisting mostly of socially awkward people, and having pros like Brian Kibler (who is totally normal and cool) helps combat that stereotype.
Plus, from my experiences with and against Mimeo/Sharuum/Karador (and Prossh for that matter), they're so powerful that you can play budget builds and still compete with relatively casual players using more expensive cards.
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
This is a pretty long review, as basically all of the cards here were designed for EDH and thus worth talking about (as opposed to your standard set where maybe 10% of the new cards have multiplayer applications). Still, I don't actually cover every card as there are pretty obvious ones that have no place in EDH (e.g. Herald of the Host). This review mostly goes over the rares and a few of the uncommons.
**Daxos' Torment - Not a fan of cards that just beat down, but it is a 4-mana 5/5 flier with haste, which is pretty good stats. It might see play in enchantress decks, maybe stax builds, because it's easier to control when this is a creature. It's not a Prossh card though.
**Deadly Tempest - Your standard 6ish CMC black sweeper. Like many of the monoblack sweepers, it's generally inferior to Damnation and Toxic Deluge, so this will only really see play in budget builds and only if the deck also doesn't contain white. Also, this will usually smack you for alot of life loss.
*Dread Summons - Can these zombies stop ETBing tapped? I know it's supposed to be for flavor reasons, but the fact that these zombie creation cards don't allow you to block with them immediately greatly kills their value. Milling enemies is also dangerous as many decks have graveyard recursion, so I'm not sure the card would see much play even if they didn't ETB tapped.
**Scourge of Nel Toth - Not a fan of cards that only beat down, but in token decks with a bit of graveyard theme you can get this guy back into play for cheap, which is noticeable. I still don't think I'd ever play it though.
****Thief of Blood - This card is actually very interesting; it's basically Vampire Hexmage on a grander scale. First, it kills planeswalkers instantly (including yours though). Second, plenty of decks have things that use +1/+1 counters (Avenger of Zendikar), along with any other counter type. Because this effect is fairly uncommon, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets played in some combo deck that abuses this effect. The 6 CMC tag is what hinders this.
***Wretched Confluence - I like how the draw mode is almost strictly worse than the draw mode on the blue one. Seems fine otherwise. You can pick off multiple small creatures or focus fire down something larger, which is cool. Being an instant really helps this card.
*Awaken the Sky Tyrant - See Daxos' Torment, with the drawback that this isn't even that good in enchantress decks (not like red builds lend themselves to enchantress builds in the first place).
**Dream Pillager - This can technically draw you cards when its attack connects with a player, but I feel like there are quite a few dragons in the 6-8 mana slot that have card-advantage mechanics built into them that you don't need this guy to literally draw you cards (Balefire Dragon, Bogardan Hellkite, Ancient Hellkite, Hellkite Charger, etc.). And I rag about P/T not being very relevant, but a 7-mana 4/4 is pretty embarrassing. At least the aforementioned dragons are better at blocking.
**Fiery Confluence - Dealing damage to opponents is irrelevant outside of pinging opposing planeswalkers, so it's a scale-your-own Pyroclasm and can shatter things otherwise. Seems fine.
***Magus of the Wheel - A very slow Wheel of Fortune is still wheel of fortune. In some crazy spell-slinging storm deck I would probably play this, and even in monored I might use this just because red is desperate.
**Meteor Blast - I don't really see the point of this card when Mizzium Mortars is a thing. This can hit players (or more specifically redirect to planeswalkers) but Mortars is simply more efficient. 1R instead of 1RRR to hit 1 target, and 3RRR on Mortars does 4 damage to your opponents' creatures. It's not even an instant, what the hell. I guess if you have like 10 mana you can kill a bunch of creatures and then ping players for the hell of it, but Mortars will be the better card most of the time.
***Rite of the Raging Storm - This can cause quite a bit of chaos. Thankfully the tokens can't attack you (this card would be almost unplayable otherwise), and presumably this will smack people for a lot of damage over the course of the game as people swing in their 5/1 hasty tramplers with no care, and it's not like 5-power is easy to block (1 toughness is easy to ping though).
***Arachnogenesis - Similar card to Mirror Match in that its big function is as a fog. It is a weaker effect obviously as it's 3 mana and not 6. However you keep these spiders around after combat, so I can see this being playable in token decks, especially if you foresee yourself going up against other token decks.
***Bloodspore Thrinax - In token decks this can make things get out of control quickly. However it's awkward in Prossh, as Prossh generally makes the tokens in one big wave and it can be difficult to make a new wave of tokens without recasting Prossh.
**Centaur Vinecrasher - Just a beater. You can get a little value from the recursion, but meh.
**Ezuri's Predation - I'm not sure how I feel about this card. Basically, this card will kill all X/4s and do nothing against X/5s, and if X < 4 you keep the beast that would fight it. I guess monogreen can't be picky when it comes to "sweepers", but 8-mana is so much. Something that could give your creatures even +1 or +2 more power can really hurt opponents as that's when you can start killing dragons and almost anything that isn't indestructible (also a nice note is that this gets around hexproof).
**Great Oak Guardian - Nice combat trick, though 6-mana is a lot. You can play some politics though as you can target any player. Help a player block out of nowhere, or help a player kill out of nowhere.
****Pathbreaker Ibex - It's a smaller, haste-less Craterhoof Behemoth. The cool part about this card is that it pumps power based on the greatest power among creatures you control, not this card's own power, which means this can really get out of control. The only issue with the card, besides being 6-mana, is that it's a horrible blocker, and unlike Cratheroof it doesn't have haste so it is more easily telegraphed.
**Skullwinder - It's Eternal Witness if Witness gained deathtouch but gave an opponent the best card in his graveyard, which is generally a losing trade. I guess if you can keep an opponent without a graveyard then maybe, but that seems like a lot of work. However there are political aspects, maybe you actually want an opponent to get a good card back for whatever reason. Seems tricky to use.
**Verdant Confluence - Not sure how often you'll use the rampant growth effect as you are already at 6-mana when you cast this. Regardless, seems okay, if a bit underwhelming.
***Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest - So black is the color that makes people sac stuff alot (Grave Pact, etc.) and green is the color that can make lots of tokens fast. 5-mana 2/2 is very frail, so it doesn't seem like something that does much if you're behind, which could be a problem. But this can get out of hand quickly.
****Meren of Clan nel Toth - I like this card. First, at the end of your turn, you always get a disentomb effect no matter what. Second, BG are the colors that have tons of expendable creatures and sac outlets so it's extremely easy to build up the experience counters. This means it won't take long before you can just reanimate anything in your graveyard every turn. It's not flashy and not breakable with combos, but it's a solid goodstuff card. Similar to Ezuri though, the question is how does this compare to other BG generals.
***Command Beacon - Interesting card in that if your commander has died several times, this gives you a mana discount, as you don't pay commander tax if you're casting it from your hand. In particular, you usually need to cast Prossh 2-3 times if you're going the "fair" route, and sometimes more, so this can help you squeeze in one more casting of Prossh.
I think Corpse Augur is much more OP that you think, espessially in multiplayer when it should almost always be 4+ for 1 with all this board wipes/survivals etc.
My playgroup tends to have a decent amount of graveyard hate so the ceiling usually is about 4 or so creatures, but the potential to not do anything. My problem with the card is that it doesn't draw the cards immediately and it is not a good earlygame play.
Well I already have a "sac 6 things to Prossh and OHKO someone" in Xenagos, who has the benefit of being able to do it every turn and grants haste. Granted overwhelming stampede is still fine as an overrun type effect which Xenagos can't do and also grants trample. It also cuts about $3 off the budget. My only issue with it is that it's a one-shot thing without recursion. I'll think about it.
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
***Kozilek, the Great Distortion - 10-mana is certainly alot. Regardless, going back up to 7 cards is very good, and being able to counter for 0 mana is nice, and the fact that you go back up to 7 cards synergizes well with that. The menace ability is whatever as by the time he comes down, players will likely have a bunch of creatures they can throw away to block him, plus he's not indestructible so he can actually get killed by twelve 1/1 squirrels. However, the fact that he requires two colorless mana can be an issue for anything that's 3 or 5 color. In addition, he doesn't really have any synergy with Prossh, and being a mythic he could cost a pretty penny.
*Deceiver of Form - It sounds clunky at 7-mana but maybe if you have enough library manipulation it could work. However it would probably only benefit token decks to start with, and at 7-mana and being not even guaranteed to work, there are better options.
**Endbringer - A value card that is legal for all decks, but may not have enough of an impact. It's a 6-mana up-front investment and its useful abilities cost mana. Still it's not unplayable for a top-end of a curve.
*Bearer of Silence - Creatures that carry Diabolic Edict effects have potential. Unfortunately since the effect is only upon casting and requires additional mana, it won't see much play.
**Flaying Tendrils - Mini-sweepers will have some potential if you're in a fast meta with lots of low toughness creatures. Compare to Drown in Sorrow.
???Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - I don't know how to evaluate this card. Neither its triggered or activated abilities are that powerful but they have a decent synergy with each other, and 4-mana is still reasonable. It's kind of a graveyard hate, kind of a token generator, and kind of a sacrifice outlet; it does all of its jobs poorly but does them simultaneously. My initial guess is that it'll be a passable value card.
**Sifter of Skulls - It's basically a 4-mana card that slowly generates mana throughout the game. That's okay but doesn't sound very impressive since the mana sources are temporary.
***Chandra, Flamecaller - It's a 6-mana personal Teferi's Puzzle Box type of effect that can wipe out small creatures. It'll likely pop up in something like Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind or Nekusar, the Mindrazer, and monored will play it for lack of better options. However, I don't foresee it getting much attention outside of that, but it will find a home.
**Fall of the Titans - This card is interesting in that it's the surge card that probably sees the greatest increase if you actually surge it (X is basically twice as large). If you can surge it and double-fireball two things, that's decent.
****Goblin Dark-Dwellers - Bad snapcaster mage is still something close to snapcaster mage (on a scale from 1 to 5, snapcaster mage would be a 6), plus your 3-mana spell gets cast for free as some compensation. There's a long list of good spells to choose from. If you are short on 5-drops and have some space for extra graveyard recursion, think about this guy. You do need to be pretty heavy on spells though and still watch out for graveyard hate.
**Bonds of Mortality - If hexproof and indestructible generals are causing you grief, I imagine this won't be too shabby of a silver bullet. At the very least it replaces itself so it's not like this will be unplayable as a mainstay in the 99, and since there are Swiftfoot Boots and the like everywhere it will always have some value. Too bad it doesn't stop shroud though. However, if you have black, you have access to Edict effects (Diabolic Edict, Grave Pact, etc.) and you are probably better off going that route anyway.
***Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - She's basically only for token decks. Her abilities look weak, but she generates tokens and can pump them up, which is something that doesn't appear on every token-based card (most do one or the other). My guess is that if you just want a simple goodstuff card for your token deck you'll run her, but there may be superior options if you're trying to really streamline your deck since she doesn't do either job extremely well. She also will likely cost some money being a mythic.
*Vile Redeemer - Reminds me of Fresh Meat where it's your "rebuild" card right after a sweeper. While Fresh Meat made a small army, this one gives you a bunch of mana, which means if you still have a few cards in your hand (or ability to recast your general) you can pump out a big threat when you untap. However I believe the real breaker is that this card doesn't count tokens that died on you for the turn while Fresh Meat did, as well as the fact that Fresh Meat costs 1 less for your army. Since both are aimed for token decks, those are pretty important factors.
*World Breaker - People will say this card is awful because it pales in comparison to Sylvan Primordial. Well, it is certainly worse than that broken piece of crap. It's also just not a very exciting card in general. Unlike Primordial, or cards like Brutalizer Exarch or Woodfall Primus, you have to actually cast this bastard, and it can't hit planeswalkers. The fact that it exiles is nice as well as can recur itself from the graveyard, but it's a pretty hefty investment overall if you want this effect more than once. Why it's a mythic is beyond me.
***Zendikar Resurgent - This is actually a very interesting take on Mana Reflection. The biggest problem with Mana Reflection is obviously it does nothing when you have no cards in hand, as generally when you untap with Reflection in play you vomit your hand onto the board. With this, you can stay gassed to an extent. While I don't think this will explode as spending 7-mana just to gain even more mana is questionable, this has potential to replace Mana Reflection for certain builds.
**Mina and Denn, Wildborn - It's a bigger Oracle of Mul Daya but trades off the card advantage of Oracle for making a big creature a little more threatening. That's usually a losing trade. Still, anything that lets you play additional lands is always worth considering.
****Mirrorpool - while 5-color decks basically can't play this due to color requirements, 3-color can manage, and 2-color and mono color should be fine. This is pretty good value on a land that is legal in every deck. Note that because it ETBs tapped, it doesn't produce color, and its value abilities cost quite a bit of mana (one of which has to be colorless), you want this to replace a business spell and not a land in your deck, as this is a lategame card that just so happens to be not completely useless if you draw it early. This card won't have a massive impact and will be too slow for the cutthroat metas, but it's legal for every deck and has a fairly minimal cost.
Obviously in a budget build some cards are out of the question until they drop (like westvale abbey).
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Asylum Visitor - This seems decent in some kind of black aggro deck that dumps its hand quickly. It seems more potent in a stax deck, or a deck where you want to Mindslicer everyone or something like that. Because it has madness it also lends itself towards that kind of stax deck. Sac mindslicer, everyone gets mind twisted but you slam this in and out of nowhere you rebuild much faster than everyone else. Getting one trigger per round makes this a Phyrexian Arena on wheels and 1 less mana, which is very playable, and getting 2 or more per round is value.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, if cards like Mindslicer are added into the deck.
***Behold the Beyond - Triple demonic tutor is very powerful. It's kind of similar to Diabolic Revelation as they're cards that cost huge amounts of mana but tutor up a lot of cards. Discarding your hand sucks but the 7-mana tag is going to be the bigger restriction when it comes to whether or not this card wins you the game. Plus, as a 7-mana spell, you probably have few if any cards left in your hand by the time you're casting this anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, Oloro
**Diregraf Colossus - It's a 3-mana zombie that gets larger for all the zombies in your graveyard and it brings more zombies as you cast zombie spells. With that said, I'm not sure if a zombie-tribal deck exists and if it's any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**From Under the Floorboards - One traditional problem with recent zombie token cards is that the zombies ETB tapped. With the madness cost you can somewhat circumvent that, and flashing in an army of 2/2s is not that bad (White Sun's Zenith). Still I wouldn't bother unless I was some kind of zombie tribal deck with a good amount of discard.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Relentless Dead - Menace means it can strap on equipment decently (I don't know if zombie decks do that though) so it'll be a live card earlygame. Black will have lots of sac outlets so you can trigger its death ability on command. It's a fairly intensive mana requirement to reanimate something, but it's a 2-drop that has lategame power.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Sinister Concoction - So there's a lot of small things you need to pay to crack it, but it's a removal spell. The big cost is discarding a card, so you really want some way to benefit from that before you consider playing this (discard Genesis or something). Being able to sneak this in on turn 1 is quite nice though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, Oloro
**To the Slaughter - 3 mana is a fair bit for an edict effect, but with delirium you might get a 2-for-1, depending on how many planeswalkers are in your playgroup.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro
*Triskaidekaphobia - These cards that have "lose the game" on them are hilarious. With that said, obviously it'll be hard to get someone to exactly 13 life, and could possibly backfire on you. It'll be way more work than it's worth, but games that you kill people with this will be epic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Westvale Abbey///Ormendahl, Profane Prince - It's obviously geared towards token decks, and it does cost a fair bit of mana to generate tokens or transform this, but when you do, you get something that's quite difficult to deal with. Sacrifice effects are not a great answer as this goes into token decks and those have a slew of useless things to sac, so it's mostly exile and tuck that can get rid of this. Also, almost nothing in the air can rumble with this.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Briarbridge Patrol - If you want the Elvish Piper effect then you just play that card instead, so you really want to put this in a deck that cares about making clues.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Clip Wings - You have a 2-mana spell that can kill 2-3 creatures. The fact that it gets around shround/hexproof/indestructible means you have a solid answer to something like Zur the Enchanter or Brago, King Eternal who often wear greaves or boots and if played early is usually that player's only flier. Despite its simple line of text and appearing to be a very narrow card, I think this card is very strong if your playgroup has very potent fliers. If you can kill at least one flying general and one other half-decent card (like a birds of paradise) then this card will be good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck
****Cryptolith Rite - It's basically a 2-mana enchantment version of Gaea's Cradle, albeit if some of your creatures are already mana dorks then it's less potent, as well as if they need to tap to do an ability (e.g. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard). For another comparison, Phyrexian Altar is 1 more mana and you have to sac the creature for the mana (albeit since it's not tapping it can get around summoning sickness, and having a sac outlet is nice). Still, you basically get mana equal to the number of creatures you control, and that has to do good things. This should be very good in tokens. Just remember that this generally doesn't help power out your token makers, but it lets you explode once you have more tokens in play. That sounds like win-more, but it's hard to say that a 2-mana enchantment that has similarities to several other powerful cards (Cradle, Altar) is going to totally flop.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh.
***Duskwatch Recruiter///Krallenhorde Walker - On its human side it's a watered down Lead the Stampede, and transformed it's a Cloud Key that is locked onto creatures. Both sides synergize fairly well with each other, and on a 2-drop it's not that bad. You really want a large mass of creatures and a deck that wants both sides at any time because of how easy it is to transform back and forth. It could be too slow as well as 3 mana for its activation is a fair bit.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck with at least 35-40 creatures.
*Hermit of the Natterknolls///Lone Wolf of the Natterknolls - It's kind of like Dosan the Falling Leaf in that it punishes (or at least tries to) people for trying to play at instant speed, albeit this one is only affecting your turns. Dosan is better if you want to go for a backbreaking combo on your turn as it states that nobody can do anything ever on other turns, because if you're just playing Dosan for value it could backfire on you if someone else wants to go infinite and Dosan would prevent anyfrom from stopping it. The issue is that if you have this guy out (or its transformed side), people are just gonna not cast anything, and only play an instant if whatever you're doing is more degenerate than the card or two you would draw in which case you probably would want Dosan anyway. In essence it's a punisher mechanic. This guy sounds pretty strong but I think he's not going to be as good as he looks.
My decks that I would play him in: None.
**Sage of Ancient Lore///Werewolf of Ancient Hunger - It's a 5 mana creature that draws you a card when it ETBs, and when it flips it will probably be pretty huge with vigilance and trample. Not sure how it will play out but it sounds fine but unexciting.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Seasons Past - It sounds strong on paper but I'm curious to see how well it stacks in reality. The dream is to return, say, 7+ cards with this, but even in EDH mana curves are not ridiculously high. A lot of spells are 3-4 CMC or lower, with not many at 5, 6, 7, etc. How many cards would you need to return before you're happy with this card? As a 6-mana sorcery, I think I would want at least 5 cards, assuming one of them is a land (fetchlands will get into your graveyard very easily, and it'll be even better if an important land got there). You can make this work if you have things that can get to your graveyard quickly and not going out of your way to do so; mill/dredge, evoke, discard outlets, etc. If it's any bonus, this doesn't target, so cards like Scavenging Ooze that are targeted graveyard removal don't hose this as badly as it could. Also it's a question as to whether or not it's worth it when Praetor's Counsel gets everything in your graveyard back, even if it is 2 more mana. It seems too restrictive.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Second Harvest - Somewhat similar to Saproling Symbiosis where if you have a bunch of stuff in play, this makes your board even larger. Seems somewhat winmore, but if you can get, say, at least 5 or so 1/1 tokens from this, it's not bad. It's also a bit more potent if you have larger creature tokens, like wolves, zombies, beasts, etc. The dream of course is to get copies of tokens that are copies of regular cards (e.g. you're playing a UG deck and you made a token copy of Eternal Witness, so this card makes a copy of that Witness token). The instant speed certainly helps the playability.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if more token makers are in the deck
**Silverfur Partisan - It's kind of like Wild Defiance in that when one of your creatures get targeted by an instant or sorcery you get a bonus. Here it's obviously for a wolf or werewolf tribal deck and I'm not sure if that kind of deck exists, but it doesn't seem like a bad card for that deck.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Tireless Tracker - Funny how this card makes Seer's Sundial into a joke, not that sundial was very playable. For another comparison, it's a one-sided but slower Horn of Greed. In any case, it's a 3-drop that generates permanents in a color that loves getting lands into play. You won't draw cards immediately, and this won't do much if you topdeck it late as you may have run out of lands to drop, but this helps ensure that you will never gas out in the early-midgame. There's also some text about it getting larger as you sacrifice clues, but whatever, this will mostly be used as a draw engine for green.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
***Traverse the Ulvenwald - Pretty mediocre without Delirium, but with Delirium it's Eladamri's Call plus Sylvan Scrying stapled together at only 1 mana. However the delirium means it's going to take awhile for this to trigger. Eladamri's call could be used early to get a value creature like Oracle of Mul Daya while this will be more restricted to finding mid-lategame bombs, and earlygame just getting you a basic land. Green decks by default have a lot of creatures to go find, but I would be happy to play this card if there's also a nonbasic land that I really want too (Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.)
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Ulvenwald Hydra - This guy is Primeval Titan and is so clearly worse in every way (finds 1 land instead of 2, and doesn't trigger when it attacks), but somehow still looks playable, which I guess says more about Prime Time than this guy. Regardless, it's a 6-mana "find any land and put it in play tapped" stapled to a respectable body. Obviously since it's finding significantly fewer lands than Prime Time, you want this guy in a deck where you have a very important land to get (e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Arlinn Kord///Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon - Granting vigilance is underrated in EDH as attacking can sometimes invite all other players to swing in at you. Her 0 and her -1 on the flip side seem tricky to use though, as using them will transform her, so you can't always count on having them, but making 2/2 tokens and then bolting things are nice to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if she is <$5.
****The Gitrog Monster - Deathtouch seems somewhat weird on a 5-mana 6/6, but whatever. The exploration effect doesn't actually ramp you because you're sacrificing a land every turn, so you go up 2 land drops and lose 1 (unless you get it out of play before your next upkeep of course). The big boon is that anytime a land card is put into your graveyard from ANYWHERE you draw a card. So cracking a fetchland draws you a card. Milling lands into your graveyard (e.g. Life from the Loam, Forbidden Alchemy, Fact or Fiction, etc.) draws you a card (note that the ability will only trigger once, so if you mill, say, 3 lands from forbidden alchemy, it will only trigger once). Discarding a land card (e.g. Cycling lands) draws you a card. Sacrificing a land every turn can be annoying, but you draw a card since the land goes into the graveyard, and if you can turn that into a benefit (e.g. sacrifice your Flagstones of Trokair, or sacrifice your Bojuka Bog and find a way to get it back into play) then it's almost not even a drawback to begin with. It's a draw engine that requires some work, but if you can make it work I think it will be very strong. It also goes infinite with Dakmor Salvage and any discard outlet, where you dump basically your entire library into your graveyard, and as we all know with Hermit Druid what that can lead to.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus, or a new deck with Gitrog as the general
**Olivia, Mobilized for War - Haste is a powerful mechanic, but requiring that you discard cards for it is a bummer. She can turn them into vampires so maybe if you have a vampire theme, but she still looks underwhelming. You really want the discard to not be a drawback (Reassembling Skeleton or Squee, Goblin Nabob).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
**Decimator of the Provinces - Overrun on a stick. Or in another comparison, a fairer version of Craterhoof Behemoth. Emerge is an interesting mechanic, as it's like the offering mechanic from Kamigawa except you can't flash it in as an instant unless the card says it can (offering allowed you to play it as an instant) but offering required a very specific thing to offer while emerge just lets you sacrifice any creature. In any case, I feel like this guy doesn't do enough unless you have additional ways to give your swarm more power. +2/+2 isn't that much especially if it's only for the turn. The trample is nice, but at such a hefty mana cost it could be problematic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Distended Mindbender - Single-player discard isn't the best in EDH, although you can hit the player that doesn't have a lot of graveyard recursion for some effect. It still seems fairly mediocre.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Dark Salvation - Very mana intensive, but it's a removal spell that doubles as a token generator. If zombie tribal is a thing it could be fine. Doesn't seem very exciting otherwise.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Liliana, the Last Hope - Disentomb isn't that bad of an effect in EDH, but I don't see much space for her, and I'm not talking about comparing her to Liliana of the Veil. -2/-1 is close to nothing in EDH, and it's not worth paying 3 mana for a disentomb with a small bonus. She doesn't pass the doubling season test either.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Noosegraf Mob - There are cards that do things whenever a player casts a spell (e.g. Dragonlair Spider, Rhystic Study). The fact that there's a limited number of times this makes zombies without additional help is a bummer, especially at 6-mana. If you can put +1/+1 counters on this you can get a nice stream of 2/2s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Oath of Liliana - Diabolic Edict that affects each opponent is always handy. Making a single 2/2 is okay for chump blocking but the edict effect is handy for superfriends decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Tree of Perdition - This can be a slow but lower CMC version of Sorin markov and the like. Setting life totals to something low in one huge chunk is always scary, but this can look fairer because it's a creature that needs to tap and it can't really do it again until it leaves the battlefield to reset its toughness. The dream of course is to play it in some Doran deck where you swap this toughness with a 40-life opponent to get a 0/40 creature, and then sac it to like Feed the Pack to get 40 2/2 wolves.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eldritch Evolution - It's a fairer natural order. That's still very solid. Another comparison would be that it's birthing pod that is one shot, but costs slightly less mana and you "jump" up to 2 mana instead of 1. That's all I really need to say.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks
****Splendid Reclamation - This card has the potential to ramp you very hard. Any deck that has mill can quickly get a bunch of lands into the yard. Compare this to other 4-mana ramp spells that get you 2 lands like Explosive Vegetation, and you can see that just getting 3+ lands reliably will pay you off, and this brings back nonbasics too. This also includes lands that get there naturally, like fetchlands, strip mine, things that got destroyed by opposing strip mines, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks with a mill theme, Progenitus
***Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Spider tribal gets a legend. Delirium shouldn't be that hard to reach if you're dedicated to it, and making three 1/2s with reach plus herself being a 3/5 with reach means you buy a lot of time against opposing fliers. The bummer is that the drain effect is so expensive so you're basically playing it to generate tokens, which is actually still not bad for 5 mana. It may be playable in GB decks in general that use their graveyard (e.g. Karador) as having creatures with reach is always handy to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Possible new deck with this as the general
*Ulvenwald Observer - If you have black, Harvester of Souls is close to strictly better. Even then, Soul of the Harvest is usually better than this. And at 6-mana you don't really want multiples of these effects, not to mention the effect is fairly narrow anyway. How many creatures with 4+ toughness will you have out and die on you?
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Grim Flayer - It certainly doesn't feel mythic. It also doesn't seem like it'll do anything in EDH. It's even questionable how much work this will do in standard as long as Sylvan Advocate is around to stonewall it, since standard doesn't have great mill and it takes awhile to reach delirium. Certainly mythic for limited but that's it.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ulrich of the Krallenhorde//Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha - Sounds funny for a RG fight club deck, but it's very hard to get creatures to transform, as it requires nobody to cast anything for a turn, which is very rare. Because of that this guy doesn't seem very playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
****Demon of Dark Schemes - Obviously very similar to Massacre Wurm. Most notably this gives all other creatures -2/-2, including your other creatures, whereas Wurm only hit your opponents' creatures. That does suck, but basically for every 4 creatures that die, you can pay 2B with 4 energy to reanimate a creature, so in that sense killing your X/2s isn't the end of the world. Presumably the energy sticks around even if this dies, so if it comes back you can still use that energy. Wurm can close the game quickly, mostly against enemy token decks, but this seems like it has more value overall because of the reanimation effect. Also being a 5/5 flier is not irrelevant either. Ultimately it's a mini-sweeper stapled with a card-advantage engine all on a respectable body. It's got many qualities for what you want out of your top-end.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
Diabolic Tutor - Don't play this card in EDH. If for whatever reason you do though, get this art. It's hilarious. Also that flavor text can be taken out of context really easily.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Eliminate the Competition - This will be for token decks where you have a ton of disposable creatures to sacrifice, but this generally seems worse than Grave Pact or other similar cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Fortuitous Find - Budget graveyard recursion card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Gonti, Lord of Luxury - Basically when it ETBs you Impulse an opponent's deck, then it's a roadblock for ground creatures thanks to deathtouch. Seems like a decent value card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Marionette Master - It's basically a 6-mana, huge version of Disciple of the Vault. While Disciple is generally better as it's 1-mana and you usually win with infinite combos anyway (thus this card potentially hitting for more life per trigger isn't that relevant), it's still a decent card for artifact decks anyway. Most of the time you'll play Disciple of the Vault as the first copy and only play this as a backup, if even that. Pumping out three 1/1 artifacts isn't irrelevant though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Midnight Oil - Seems like a slow, crappier Phyrexian Arena. in standard it could see play as multiple Oils draw you cards while the last Oil you play is the one that sets your handsize (even though that's durdly as hell and there are very few times where you have the time to play more than one oil), but in EDH you obviously can't play multiple Oils. You could find a way to donate this to an opponent, but they still get the card draw anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Morbid Curiosity - You probably want to sacrifice something that's at least 3-mana before you feel like you get your money's worth. On top of that it has to be something that you don't mind sacrificing (Mulldrifter) or is beneficial for you to sac (Ichor Wellspring). Seems okay but it's quite limited in scope.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Noxious Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, but a creature that is unconditional removal on ETB is nice to have. However compare it to Duplicant. This card is harder to cast and doesn't exile the creature and sometimes it won't be as large in P/T, but this has menace and lifegain. That sounds like a losing trade. It's still a decent ETB value creature but I feel like Duplicant is better unless the lifegain is important.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Underhanded Designs - You have to invest mana into it, so it will be very mana intensive despite being only 2 mana. more often than not it'll just be a slow kill spell.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Architect of the Untamed - That's a lot of energy required to create a 6/6 dude. Landfall isn't hard to meet if you have fetchlands, but the fact that you need a lot of energy is offputting. It just seems too slow. It'll be more useful as an energy generator than actually pumping out 6/6 dudes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Armorcraft Judge - If this can draw you 3-4 cards you'll have gotten your money's worth. The trick is being able to do that reliably. Cards that slowly but surely put +1/+1 counters on a lot of creatures (Abzan Ascendency, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, avenger of Zendikar and all the plant tokens, etc.) will have to do the trick. Because of that, this card is very much a lategame card and not something you can play on turn 4 or 5 and expect to draw some cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cultivator of Blades - Interesting dynamic in that either you can make his pump effect more potent, or you can put more bodies into play to receive his pump effect. That is cool design. It's a decent card overall and is obviously for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
Dubious Challenge - This card is terrible but I have heard some buzz about it, so I shall explain why it's awful. First, you have to reliably hit at least two creatures to choose; if you only choose one then your opponent will usually just take it and leave you with nothing (granted, that's not hard to do in a green deck) and if you choose 0 then your spell literally does nothing. Second, the fact that the opponent chooses the creature first is a huge problem because they'll take the better creature and leave you with the inferior creature, and you arguably LOST mana on the deal (e.g. they take a 5-mana dude and leave you with a 4-mana one). The only way I can think of to make this work is to play cards like Homeward Path to get the creature back, but if the creature the opponent takes has an ETB effect (e.g. Acidic Slime) then it doesn't fully mitigate the problem. Basically you have to hope that the opponent takes a creature and then does something with it that doesn't hinder you (e.g. take the acidic slime and blow up someone else's thing) which is already very tricky to do. Basically you have to be really far behind so the opponent takes the creature and then doesn't target you, and you have to choose creatures that can't negatively affect you (e.g. you probably should not pull out a Vorinclex for your opponent to take). Ultimately it's a lot of work for what is basically a crappier Defense of the Heart, Pattern of Rebirth, etc. type of card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Nissa, Vital Force - I'm actually quite excited for her, moreso than your average planeswalker. Unlike most other walkers, she can ultimate very quickly without relying on doubling season, so you can evaluate her based on cracking said ultimate. Her ultimate comes in one turn if you +1 her immediately, and that emblem is definitely solid value. If you have proliferate effects you could even do it immediately. The +1 even helps protect you by making a 5/5 for a whole round. In a green deck, 5-mana is not that hard to get by turn 3 and it can be difficult to pressure a PW that early in the game especially if you make a 5/5 blocker. Now if you can't ultimate her then she is less exciting (Nature's Spiral is a decent card, but she can't do it twice in a row and isn't worth spending 5-mana for it), but if you can hit the ultimate you will get some nice value. Note that her ultimate is very similar to Tireless Tracker except you don't spend 2 mana per card draw and once you get the ultimate off you never have to worry about it being removed.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter - Similar to Rhys the Redeemed; 1-mana generals with a 3-mana activated ability to make a 1/1 dude. However, this doesn't give you access to white, and its second ability is usually worse (generally in token decks it's better to continue to go wide than making one large creature).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Verdurous Hulk - Not really sure what deck to play this in. Just making some dudes bigger is not a big deal in EDH.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wildest Dreams - Power level errata of Recall anyone? In any case, it's a decent card but it's very mana intensive. It's 1-mana over Regrowth, and X=2 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Seasons Past which will often get you more than 2 cards. At X=3 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Praetor's Council. I mean that is the point of X-cards, but this simply seems too inefficient.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
BLACK
***Cruel Entertainment - On paper it looks like double Mindslaver except your opponents are instead the ones trying to own each other. You likely do not want to let an opponent take control of your turn, but you can likely get two people to kill each other. It's a very tricky card to use though, because they could instead agree to not totally screw each other over. The strength of this card will largely depend on the personalities of the people in your playgroup. Are they spikes who will try to screw with each other the hardest, or are they going to be political? I am rating this high because I think most people will do whatever they can to screw the other player, but again, you must evaluate the players in your playgroup and see whether or not they will do that as well.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Curse of Vengeance - If you want to talk about a card that has a massive amount of variance, this might be the poster boy. You need to cast it early to gain value, and the person has to actually lose the game before it does anything (also assuming it doesn't get destroyed in the meantime). But it ramps up quickly and it could theoretically draw you a lot of cards. Its low floor makes me think this is just flat out unplayable but maybe someone wants to try messing with it.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Curtains' Call - Will usually cost around 4-5 mana. Ashes to ashes is a sorcery and can't get artifact creatures and deals 5 damage to you, but is always only 3 mana and exiles. Not sure if this card will be better than ashes to ashes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Magus of the Will - Anything that's shades of Yawgmoth's Will has to be insane, right? Well, this is really slow, so unless you two need two Wills, probably not. Playable just because of how insane Will is, but not amazing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Parting Thoughts - Sorcery speed is a major issue with the card. It's clunky and narrow since you only get a benefit if it had counters. You can draw a lot of cards (and lose a lot of life) but it has a terrible floor.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
GREEN
****Benefactor's Draught - Simply untapping all creatures (although that includes your opponents') has a lot of potential. It also cantrips and can draw a few more cards. However there will be some intricacies with this card; if an opponent has no untapped creatures and playing this will suddenly give them blockers, this could be a good or bad thing depending on the situation. The cantrip helps this card's floor, but I imagine this will be used in combo decks because of how it untaps your creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Charging Cinderhorn - It starts off doing little damage so it doesn't impact the board early. It can ramp up quickly, but people can just suicide a little dork to avoid the trigger.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Evolutionary escalation - It's 2-mana but you likely won't play this until mid-lategame. In any case, you obviously want to play a creature that wants this huge bonus (like voltron), and most notably you can choose which other creature gets the counters. Put it on a creature with defender, or a creature that normally doesn't attack (like Arcanis the Omnipotent), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Primeval Protector - It can come down for relatively cheap which can make it quite scary. Generally if you run enough creatures/token generators where you would want this card, by the time you want to play this card the board is probably quite cluttered, meaning this can come down for maybe 1-3 mana, anthems your other creatures and leaves a 10/10. Of course if nobody else plays a lot of creatures then it's unplayable, but generally at least one opponent will have a bunch of creatures out and the other opponents usually have at least 1-2 creatures out. It's sort of win more and it is terrible early on or after a sweeper (as are most anthems) though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (budget pending)
**Seeds of Renewal - Restock that requires 2 opponents to be the same card, and 3 opponents makes it slightly better. Restock is a solid card but not really a staple. This card is playable but doesn't jump out to me.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Stonehoof Chieftain - Certainly powerful, but at 8-mana you get what you pay for. Perfect for your usual green stompy decks that want their creatures to force through damage and not die in combat.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(RAKDOS)
*Vial Smasher the Fierce - The damage off its trigger doesn't count towards general damage, and the opponent is chosen at random, so he sucks.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(GRUUL)
**Tana, the Bloodsower - Hard to say how exactly to build this guy. You need help to force through damage (trample does help, but you need ways to buff him because he's a 4-mana 2/2, like Xenagos, God of Revels) and then its bonus is to make a bunch of 1/1s. So basically you would need to put a bunch of your eggs in one basket and then your bonus is to go wide. Those abilities seem to be at ends with each other. Unless there's a card where you can sacrifice 1/1s to pump up a creature, I'm not sure how playable this guy will be.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(GOLGARI)
*Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper - Gaining life is whatever.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Reyhan, Last of the Abzan - Basically it gives your creatures the modular ability (e.g. Arcbound Worker). It doesn't help against sweepers so you may want some indestructible creatures to dump +1/+1 counters on in an emergency. It gives some insurance against spot removal which is nice, but the card doesn't blow me away.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Grave Upheaval - Reanimation that costs more than 5 needs to have more upside than granting haste and having basic landcycling.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Treacherous Terrain - This would be a funny card against many of those green ramp stompy decks. Too bad this thing costs 8 mana and so it's basically unplayable. Paying 8 mana to do 10-15 damage, even in a good scenario, is meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
BLACK
*Battle at the Bridge - Ho-hum removal spell, sorcery speed kills it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Fatal Push - Wizards obviously wanted to name it "THIS IS SPARTA" but they couldn't because something. Regardless, this is actually playable in the right meta (and is very good in modern). If you have a hypercompetitive meta where many of the key creatures are 4 or less mana (Brago, Zur, Arcum, Hermit Druid, etc.), this is basically a 1-mana kill spell. With fetchlands around you can trigger the revolt easily. You may want to have more cards that can leave the battlefield on command so you can get the revolt trigger more reliably, but regardless, any 1-mana kill spell should be on your radar. Pick up your foils because modern is going to love this card and it will cause this to be expensive for a long time.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Machinations - The sac ability is terrible, but it seems like an okay energy generator. Crack a fetchland on a turn you're not damaged to get a free energy, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Herald of Anguish - The discard ability seems kind of tacked on but is good, since it triggers at your endstep which helps it generate value faster than if it triggered at your upkeep. The sac ability is a bit hefty as you need 1B and you only get a Disfigure out of it, but artifact decks have a slew of artifacts to toss away. What's more interesting is that black gets a card that loves artifacts, since it's usually white/blue/red that get the artifact love. Not sure if it'll be good enough for artifact decks since they can combo so quickly though, but it sounds good on paper.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Midnight Entourage - Not sure if there are enough playable Aetherborns.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Perilous Predicament - Almost everyone will have a noncreature artifact, but not everyone will have an artifact creature.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Sly Requisitioner - Depending on how many artifacts you have that sacrifice themselves and/or how many artifact sac outlets you have, this might be a decent value card. Most of the time if you're saccing artifacts you're going for an infinite loop though so this won't really do anything.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Vengeful Rebel - Similar to Fatal Push; decent to good in the right meta, and you need to trigger the revolt reliably.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Yahenni, Undying Partisan - Sac outlets that require no mana investment are always something to be aware of. He can't sac himself but whatever. It can also grow fairly quickly, although you're going to play this more as a sac outlet than anything else. While most sac outlets can't compare to the really good ones like Viscera Seer or Phyrexian Altar, this will still be fine.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Yahenni's Expertise - A mini-sweeper is not always relevant in EDH, but being able to cast a spell for free is always dangerous and worth watching out for. Play this and use the free spell on a removal spell to kill a big threat that the mini-sweeper doesn't catch. You really do want to play this card in a meta where the mini-sweeper matters.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
RED
**Indomitable Creativity - Really huge polymorph-variant must be interesting, right? Well this one seems like it'll be very difficult to abuse. While you can target artifacts or creatures, revealing either one will satisfy the card. For example, if you wanted to kill 4 of your dumb creature tokens, you might end up revealing underwhelming artifacts instead of these huge creatures you wanted to flip over, and vice versa. If you played something like Divergent Transformations instead, which only cares about creatures, you will instead keep flipping until you hit creatures, making it easier to cheat in bombs. This means this card seems more like a multi-kill spell that gives the controller something in return at random, rather than something you can build around and be able to cheat in a fattie with the proper deckbuilding. Given that monored has problems killing large creatures this might still see play, but it's not going to be as good as your normal Polymorph-type card.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Kari Zev, Skyship Raider - She's a lower CMC Geist of Saint Traft who doesn't hit as hard and can be killed with spot removal, but is a little harder to kill in actual combat. She'll be interesting in standard, but it doesn't seem like she'll be enough for EDH as a voltron. She comes down early and is hard to block, but she needs serious equipment/aura to boost her power and she can still be killed with removal spells.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Kari Zev's Expertise - This might be the most interesting of the cycle not because the Threaten effect is bonkers, but the fact that it's the lowest CMC of the cycle, meaning if you want to go out of your way to abuse Ancestral Vision or the like, this is the best of the cycle to do so.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Lightning Runner - Extra attack steps can be strong in the right build, but because you need so much energy for it, there's not many places that can use this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Pia's Revolution - Punisher mechanics are not good in EDH, but this is at a low enough CMC and is repeatable where either choice the opponent makes is generally acceptable. It's similar to Combustible Gearhulk in that you get to target the opponent who has to make the choice, so you can target the guy at a low life total if you want to recur an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Quicksmith Rebel - Granting an artifact an ability while this guy is in play is cool design, although just poking something for 2 damage isn't that useful in EDH.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Release the Gremlins - There are a bunch of cards that destroy multiple artifacts, and I feel like there are enough of them that are more efficient than this card. It's a nice mana sink late in the game, but it is very inefficient early-midgame, so I would rather play Shattering Spree, Vandalblast, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
GREEN
**Aetherwind Basker - If you want to make an energy deck, you can play a token deck and have this in here to create a bunch of energy quickly. outside of that this card doesn't really do anything.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Aid from the Cowl - This triggers at your end step so you are more likely to get at least one trigger when it resolves (as opposed to triggering at your upkeep), which helps the playability of the card. 5-mana is pretty hefty so you want to be almost all permanents or have some library manipulation.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Maelstrom Wanderer
****Heroic Intervention - Basically it's a super Boros Charm/Simic Charm. If you're blue, you should just play a counterspell instead of this so you can counter whatever would be troubling you, but if you're not blue and you're in green this might be your next best option. It stops most traditional removal spells and sweepers.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hidden Herbalists - Most creatures that produced mana upon ETB were red or black or made eldrazi tokens, so I guess it's interesting that monogreen finally gets one that does it, albeit with the revolt restriction. Regardless, the types of decks that cared about Priest of Urabrask and similar cards would care about this, and everything else probably won't.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Maulfist Revolutionary - It proliferates only one target, and since it does target it can't get around shroud/protection/etc. for whatever that's worth.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Monstrous Onslaught - If you have a large creature (e.g. Terastodon) this can pick off multiple creatures. Since it checks the value of X as you cast it, you don't get blown out by a removal spell either. Sorcery speed and 5-mana sucks, but if you can kill 2-3 creatures it could be fine.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Peema Aether-Seer - It can generate a lot of energy on its own if you have recursion/blink.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Ridgescale Tusker - Anthems the rest of your team for 5-mana. Sounds fine but you really want to have a +1/+1 counter theme.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Rishkar, Peema Renegade - He's subtle but I see a lot of utility. Basically he makes two of your creatures slightly bigger and into Llanowar Elves, meaning he's fine early on in a creature-heavy deck to help you mana ramp (especially if the two creatures getting the counters can immediately tap), and he's fine later in the game when you want extra power/toughness on the board. In addition, anything with +1/+1 counter synergies like Doubling Season will be good. On top of that, your creatures can produce mana if they have ANY counters on them, including -1/-1 counters, and any counters that were on them before Rishkar ETB'd. You do want to build around him, and play cards that can put +1/+1 counters on a lot of things quickly (e.g. Oath of Ajani, Cathars' Crusade, etc.) but when built around properly he provides a lot of utility for just 3-mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Prossh with some changes
***Rishkar's Expertise - One of the most interesting cards in the cycle because it lets you cast a larger variety of spells for free. Consider that Garruk, Primal Hunter was a 5-mana planeswalker who let you draw cards (and would kill himself immediately). 6-mana is a lot, but you get what you pay for, and since you draw a bunch of cards before you cast your free spell, you can certainly end up casting something very sweet.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
MULTICOLOR
***Winding Constrictor - Similar to Hardened Scales except for 1 more mana, you get a similar ability on a 2/3 body and it affects counters that you would get too, though right now it's just energy counters, experience counters (from some of the Commander 2015 generals, and given the colors it's probably just for Meren of Clan nel Toth) and poison counters. Still, this should have a home in the right build of creatures with +1/+1 counters.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
ARTIFACT
***Cogwork Assembler - 7-mana for its activation is very hefty, so I imagine it'll be used for infinite combos or something as the ability doesn't require tapping. For example, Krark-Clan ironworks + Myr Battlesphere + this card = infinite colorless mana. Of course artifact decks generally don't have problems generating mana (unless they get hit with a sweeper) and so maybe this being a mana dump will make it good, I don't know.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Crackdown Construct - With any ability that requires no cost to activate and isn't a mana ability, you can get an infinite power and toughness artifact creature, and I'm sure there's a lot of things you can do with that. In standard we get Wandering Fumarole for lulz which is funny as hell, and I know there are other things you can do.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Aether Heart - Seems not bad if you're focused on generating energy. If you want to play this card with the idea of taking an extra turn, you'll probably be disappointed, as you would be better off just playing Time Warp effects or something.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Heart of Kiran - Simple beatsticks in EDH don't cut it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hope of Ghirapur - Legendary version of Xantid Swarm. You need to have this actually connect while Xantid Swarm just needs to attack, and while this does have flying and is only a 1-drop, it's going to be hard for a 1/1 to force through damage, and you need to sacrifice this for the effect, and it only stops noncreature spells. Granted, this does last for a full turn cycle while Xantid Swarm was more like a Grand Abolisher placed on one player for just the rest of the turn. I guess being legendary maybe you can make colorless voltron or something, but I don't know. Xantid Swarm is better when you attack a player with counterspells to help resolve a combo, whereas this is more like a stax piece on the control/storm player, but this is fairly clunky unless you can play it really early and continuously recur it. It is a relatively unique effect so it isn't unplayable, but I wouldn't be excited to test this out.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Inspiring Statuary - Most artifact decks don't have a problem generating mana, especially if this card only helps power out nonartifact spells which an artifact deck won't have a ton of (especially those that cost a lot of mana). Still, it is something to keep your eye on.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Lifecrafter's Bestiary - Essentially it's a bad Glimpse of Nature, but Glimpse of Nature was more like a deck that enabled storm decks/combo and that kind of thing, whereas this is more of a card that just gives all your creature spells "Kicker G, draw a card". Still should be playable in any case. You obviously want a high number of creatures, maybe 30-40 or more, before you should even consider this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Metallic Mimic - If you have a tribal theme this should be fine for just 2-mana, though it's more for weenie decks as I don't think something like Dragon tribal really needs +1/+1 counters on them.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BANNEDParadox Engine - I'm not even going to spend much time talking about this card. It's going to get banned really fast. I would be shocked if the RC doesn't ban it. Prophet of Kruphix got hammered and it isn't nearly as insane as this. It combos with way too many things, namely a bunch of mana rocks and/or mana dorks + some dumb enabler. Buyback cards like Capsize becomes bounce everything you want. Put something stupid like Think twice under an Isochron Scepter and it draws your deck. There are tons of combos, and none of them are good for the game. Play the crap out of this card and have fun with it until it gets banned.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Probably everything pending budget
***Planar Bridge - Obvious parallel to Planar Portal right down to the name. Both are artifacts that cost 6 to hardcast, and this one is 8 mana instead of 6 to find your card and only for permanents but you do put it into play immediately (e.g. sneak in Blightsteel Colossus end of turn). These types of cards are fine in big mana decks that need mana sinks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Scrap Trawler - Artifact recursion for no additional costs at just 3 mana upfront is not bad. There are some restrictions but it is repeatable, and it should do some nice work.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Servo Schematic - Similar to Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring in that they're 2-mana artifacts that do the same thing upon ETB or hitting the graveyard. Here though I think making a 1/1 flier is worse than drawing a card or fetching a basic land to ensure your next land drop.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Treasure Keeper - Similar to Matter Reshaper except you add one mana, remove the colorless requirement, and there are fewer restrictions on the free card you get when it dies (any nonland card that is CMC 3 or less can be cast for free). Seems decent.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Universal Solvent - Decks get another way to deal with problematic permanents that their colors won't allow them to (e.g. black/red vs enchantments), and it's another tool for Trinket Mage, and is another object that can be recurred with Salvaging Station. Unassuming card that most decks won't play because it is overcosted, but if your deck/colors are desperate it should be good, and artifact decks don't really have problems generating the necessary mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Walking Ballista - Functions similarly to Triskelion. Interestingly enough if you pay 6 it ETBs with three +1/+1 counters which is the same as Triskelion. The difference is obviously that Triskelion is better for infinite combos as it always ETBs with the counters while cheating this into play doesn't do anything. It's kind of more like Hangarback walker as they are playable artifact creatures with XX costs.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
LAND
***Spire of Industry - Glimmervoid that requires you to pay 1 life to get the colored mana, but it doesn't disappear if you have zero artifacts in play. It's usually worse than Glimmervoid; 1 life isn't much, but they can add up, and it's not that hard to have at least 1 artifact in play if you are the kind of deck that actually wants to play Glimmervoid. Still, artifact decks likely want to play this anyway, and this could be passable in non-artifact decks although there are usually going to be better options.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
Gonna try something a little different for my set review.
Instead of just copying and pasting my review of the cards that match the deck's colors, I'm just going to link to my Progenitus review (which covers all cards I think will be relevant for EDH) and then put the summary in my respective topics.
WHO IS PROSSH, SKYRAIDER OF KHER? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
Your opponents will feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days.
So what makes Prossh so powerful? Let's quickly analyze his stats.
6-mana is slightly on the high end for generals - usually 3-4 is a good spot - but it's fine. In fact, Prossh isn't too bad with costing extra mana, including dying and paying for commander tax, because of his major ability, just play a little more ramp in your green deck. As long as nobody messes with your mana, Prossh actually just gets better. As for the colors you get, black and green are two of the three best colors for EDH - sharing the top with blue - and red's usually better to have than not have, so that's cool. His relatively high mana cost means we want extra ramp to get him out in a timely matter, but he also is fine when you flood out for reasons I'll say in a minute.
It's a dragon, it has to have flying.
Now this is one hell of an ability. When you cast (not "enters the battlefield" as many cards would normally say, it is "cast") Prossh, you get 0/1 tokens equal to the mana you spent. This means that if you spend 6 mana on Prossh, you will get an uncounterable 6 token swarm to accompany your 5/5 flying dragon (outside of obvious Stifle effects, but those tend to be a lot more uncommon than regular counterspells, and a single Stifle effect will not stop Prossh himself). It gets around Torpor Orb and somewhat gets around Humility which are in some decks that try to slow down these creature-happy green decks. Basically, for 6 mana, you get a 7-for-1. And that's not all. Since your token generation is equal to your mana spent, killing Prossh to make him cost 8 means he'll now be an 8-mana 9-for-1. Then 10-mana 11-for-1. And so on.
There's an unlimited number of cards that combo with Prossh. Some of them win you the game on the spot (Food Chain gives infinite mana to spend on creatures). Some allow you to stax the board out (Grave Pact is basically Plague Wind with Prossh out). Some allow you to grind the game out (Purphoros, God of the Forge is a difficult-to-kill source of damage). Then you also realize that Prossh IS a 5/5 flier so he can just go on the beatdown himself. The thing is that each of his threats require different answers, making him very difficult to deal with. Prossh can be extremely explosive, but he can also be extremely resilient.
Cards that interact well with tokens are nothing new, but what separates Prossh from many other token generators is that you don't need to spend mana to get the tokens. You cast Prossh and your tokens come along with you. Rhys the Redeemed, for example, requires 3 mana and tapping it to generate a token, which is a heavy mana sink every turn, even if Rhys himself costs only 1 mana. Ghave, Guru of Spores requires mana to create tokens and be a sac outlet. Once you cast Prossh, having anything else of significance out will greatly help you stabilize the board, which helps make up for the fact that Prossh costs 6 mana to start off. This requirement means that Prossh isn't a great reanimation target, but that's minor.
Speaking of sac outlets...
While not nearly as powerful as his first, it has good synergy with it and the general gameplan for a token swarm deck. Sac outlets are always powerful in EDH. It's an easy way to trigger your Grave Pact, let your big stuff dodge certain types of removal/effects, etc. Prossh can't sac himself, but it's usually fine. If he dies, it's usually not a big deal. If he gets mind controlled or enchanted with something like Arrest, you've got enough removal to get him back in your command zone and you still keep the tokens. And despite the power of sac outlets, you never want too many because you need cards to generate creatures in order to sacrifice in the first place, so generally you only want 1 repeatable instant-speed sac outlet on the board at any given time. Since Prossh is his own sac outlet, you can remove some of the cards you'd normally dedicate to sac outlets and use only the premium ones, saving deck space.
So basically, what we have is an extremely resilient 6-mana 7-for-1 that scales with the number of times he dies, giving the deck extremely explosive potential but also strong resilience. Sure sounds like a good thing.
Of course, Prossh does have weaknesses when compared to the other top tier generals. Since the sweet spot for generals tends to hover around 3-4 mana, Prossh does come down a few turns later which is crucial since top tier decks can usually win or lock the board down in ~5 turns very reliably when unharassed. When Prossh will usually first be cast on turn 4 or 5, this puts you on the backfoot for the first few turns and you're relying on Prossh to stabilize the board. While Prossh scales well with his mana cost, preventing the player from casting him will heavily neuter the deck, as Prossh decks are heavily centered around being able to get him out in a timely fashion. Mana denial in general is the most effective way to keep Prossh out of the game (outside of just straight combo-killing a Prossh deck).
Typically, the most powerful EDH decks tend to either combo out the whole table in those ~5 turns, or swipe at everyone's mana to make them not cast anything ever while you grind the game out. In other words, you outrace Prossh with a lower-mana cost general/strategy, or you stop the Prossh player from casting his general. To put this in perspective, if you were to bring a deck and had to sit at a table with a Hermit Druid player, a Zur player, a Derevi prison player, and a Prossh player, and every deck was fine-tuned, the Prossh player might be the weakest threat out of them.
For most casual players, however, they do not like those hardcore strategies. Extremely fast infinite combos (be it Hermit Druid effects or such) and attacking opponents' mana (be it Armageddon effects or what have you) tend to be frowned upon in the casual circles. Most casual groups will not have them, and if someone does bring such a powerful deck to the table, that player will likely get hated out of the game. However, Prossh decks are totally fine if you don't go with the fast infinites or fast lockdowns. When racing Prossh and stopping Prossh from casting anything are not allowed, the only real strategy left is to grind out the game, and Prossh can grind out anyone.
As with several other decks I've made, I decided to try and take a budget-approach. There are multiple primers here that go all-out and so there's no point in making a primer that does the same thing. But budget-constraints breed creativity and you need to go deep in the tank when it comes to card selection and weigh power level with budget. Creating a budget build can allow newer players to jump into a format where monetary concerns could have been a barrier otherwise. There's another big reason why I'm making this a budget-deck but I'll explain that later.
The current budget goal is $100 using the market price on tcgplayer.com.
How I love thee. Too bad you're 50% over the budget by yourself.
You should play this deck if you...
- Love "fair" magic of grinding games out.
- Love attacking opponents' gameplans in different ways.
You should not play this deck if you...
- Like hard control or hard combo. Prossh often has some control elements and some good combos, but it's often not a deck that makes nobody do anything for 10 turns while you slowly kill them, and this particular build isn't centered around consistently killing the entire table in 4-5 turns.
PERSONAL HISTORY
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
Our group got into a little discussion about Prossh' power level. Often it's compared to my Maelstrom Wanderer deck as it's otherwise the best deck in our group (albeit my Wanderer deck is purposely not fully-tuned). Friend A says his Prossh deck is "bad" because he uses some controversial/strange cards in it. I told him that "bad" Prossh decks are still better than a vast majority of decks, including my nearly-competitive Wanderer deck. After a few back and forths, I decided that the best way to prove a point is to make a budget Prossh deck and have it stack up against their regular decks. Presumably, if they don't gang up on me for the entire game or use their own Prossh decks (which do not have budget constraints), I will still have the best chances of winning because Prossh' power level makes up for the budget constraints. I may not have the budget to play a Gaea's Cradle and it's very hard to get Food Chain to fit the budget, but he sure as hell can still combo with lower-budget options like Dictate of Erebos.
As of right now I actually don't know what the power level of a budget Prossh deck will be compared to other decks. It'll probably flop around and die against top tier decks. However, I'm fairly certain that budget Prossh should handle lower-tier generals.
DECK LIST
BY CARD TYPE
1x Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Creature (24)
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Butcher of Malakir
1x Dimir House Guard
1x Dragonlair Spider
1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Farhaven Elf
1x Greenwarden of Murasa
1x Homura, Human Ascendant
1x Joraga Treespeaker
1x Ogre Battledriver
1x Ophiomancer
1x Puppeteer Clique
1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Skullmulcher
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Somberwald Sage
1x Viscera Seer
1x Withered Wretch
Instant (5)
1x Beast Within
1x Clip Wings
1x Jund Charm
1x Reap
1x Terminate
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Command Tower
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Exotic Orchard
7x Forest
1x Golgari Rot Farm
1x Gruul Turf
1x Jund Panorama
1x Karplusan Forest
1x Llanowar Wastes
4x Mountain
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Rakdos Carnarium
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Rootbound Crag
1x Savage Lands
6x Swamp
1x Temple of the False God
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Vivid Crag
1x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Marsh
Enchantment (9)
1x Beastmaster Ascension
1x Cryptolith Rite
1x Dictate of Erebos
1x Evolutionary Leap
1x Fecundity
1x Fires of Yavimaya
1x Song of the Dryads
1x Vicious Shadows
1x Victimize
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Cultivate
1x Decimate
1x Explore
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Growth Spasm
1x Harmonize
1x Hull Breach
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Painful Truths
1x Rampant Growth
1x Shamanic Revelation
1x Vandalblast
1x Warp World
Artifact (10)
1x Ashnod's Altar
1x Birthing Pod
1x Golgari Signet
1x Gruul Signet
1x Helm of Possession
1x Mimic Vat
1x Rakdos Signet
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Worn Powerstone
BY CMC
1 elves of deep shadow
1 faithless looting
1 joraga treespeaker
1 phyrexian reclamation
1 skullclamp
1 sol ring
1 vandalblast
1 Viscera Seer
2 CMC (11)
1 clip wings
1 cryptolith rite
1 evolutionary leap
1 explore
1 golgari signet
1 gruul signet
1 hull breach
1 rakdos signet
1 sakura-tribe elder
1 terminate
1 withered wretch
3 CMC (20)
1 ashnod's altar
1 beast within
1 beastmaster ascension
1 cultivate
1 dosan the falling leaf
1 eternal witness
1 farhaven elf
1 fecundity
1 fires of yavimaya
1 growth spasm
1 jund charm
1 kodama's reach
1 mimic vat
1 ophiomancer
1 painful truths
1 reclamation sage
1 somberwald sage
1 song of the dryads
1 victimize
1 worn powerstone
1 birthing pod
1 decimate
1 dimir house guard
1 explosive vegetation
1 harmonize
1 helm of possession
1 ogre battledriver
1 purphoros, god of the forge
1 solemn simulacrum
5 CMC (6)
1 dictate of erebos
1 endrek sahr, master breeder
1 puppeteer clique
1 sadistic hypnotist
1 shamanic revelation
1 skullmulcher
6 CMC (3)
1 dragonlair spider
1 greenwarden of murasa
1 homura, human ascendant
7 CMC (3)
1 avenger of zendikar
1 butcher of malakir
1 vicious shadows
8 CMC (1)
1 warp world
9 CMC (1)
1 blasphemous act
LANDS (37)
1 command tower
6 swamp
4 mountain
6 forest
1 golgari rot farm
1 gruul turf
1 rakdos carnarium
1 exotic orchard
1 sulfurous springs
1 llanowar wastes
1 karplusan forest
1 terramorphic expanse
1 evolving wilds
1 savage lands
1 bojuka bog
1 jund panorama
1 temple of the false god
1 vivid grove
1 vivid crag
1 vivid marsh
1 dragonskull summit
1 rootbound crag
1 reliquary tower
1 myriad landscape
Current budget - ~$100 as of 7/22/17 (using the market price on tcgplayer.com)
Link: http://decks.tcgplayer.com/magic/commander/improgenitus/prossh-edh--100/1273795
CARD OPTIONS
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck.
Any cards that are also over 1 dollar will be italicized. Anything that is over 5 dollars will instead be bolded. Anything that is over 10 dollars will be highlighted in color.
CREATURES
The creatures listed here will be in converted mana cost order, as there is a Birthing Pod curve.
1
****Joraga Treespeaker - Mana dorks can be awkward in EDH because they get swept away in sweepers so easily, and often a sweeper is the only way to temporarily stop the Prossh player. However, he ramps very hard. Max Budget: $2
***Elves of Deep Shadow - Birds of Paradise is a bit too over the budget for its effect (currently it's around $3.50). This is a bad BoP, but it is chump change, and it gets the nod over Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, and the like because your green drop making something off-color is usually more important than it making green.
***Viscera Seer - Sac outlets are important. Sometimes you can't stick Prossh, and since Prossh can't sac himself, you want an outlet to sac Prossh in an emergency (e.g. if he gets targeted with a Gilded Drake). Seer's sac ability costs 0 mana, he himself is a 1-drop, and he gives reasonable value off his sac.
2
****Sakura-tribe Elder - Staple.
****Withered Wretch - Good budget graveyard hate. Better than Scavenging Ooze in this build not only because it costs less money, but because Ooze's ability is more color intensive, it will put a bigger strain on the land base, since the land base is very neutered in a budget build.
3
***Farhaven Elf - Good, reliable card.
***Dosan the Falling Leaf - Throw him out to either bait a counterspell or protect you when you are trying to land a finishing blow. The deck doesn't have alot of instant-speed spells so you are hardly affected negatively. It's a useful 1-of effect.
***Ophiomancer - Slow but reliable token maker. Useful when cast extremely early, or when you can't cast Prossh for the extra tokens. Also the snake token(s) having deathtouch means they make good chump blockers.
****Somberwald Sage - This card dies to everything, but it quickly rushes out Prossh, let alone some other big fatties.
***Skullwinder - Usually worse than Eternal Witness, but it's much less expensive. Gotta make some hard cuts.
***Reclamation Sage - Naturalize on a stick. Solid, if unexciting, card.
4
***Nullmage Shepherd - Four untapped creatures does cost a bunch, but basically you have this out, tap a bunch of kobolds who usually do nothing anyway, and blow up something.
***Ogre Battledriver - Haste enabler that also gives the tokens an extra punch.
***Dimir House Guard - Sac outlet if you need it (like if Prossh can't stick), but is mostly a tutor to get 4-CMC cards like birthing pod or purphoros.
5
****Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder - A card that can generate a good amount of tokens as long as you have a sac outlet to stay under 7 thrulls. He fits nicely on a curve of Endrek to Prossh and also doesn't die when Prossh is cast. He himself is easy to kill, but whatever.
****Sadistic Hypnotist - With Prossh, you get 6 disposable bodies to throw around, which makes 12 cards discarded, 14 if you want to sac Prossh with it (you can also sac Hypnotist to itself too). In a 4-man pod, that's double Mind Rot on each opponent, which is close to their whole hand at that point in the game. It's pretty bad if you're behind on the board (you make everyone lose their hands, then they just use whatever's on their board to kill you, particularly since they'll be pissed off that you made them dump their hands), but if you're ahead or about even with everyone, this usually shuts the door. Remember that his ability is only sorcery speed, which means he can be killed in response to his first activation. Max Budget: $4
***Skullmulcher - With Prossh out you draw a bunch of cards. Usually not one of the strongest draw effects, but it's on a creature and it's low budget. You can also sac Prossh to it if needed.
***Puppeteer Clique - Double reanimation spell on a 5-mana creature, good value.
6
***Dragonlair Spider - One of the backup token makers in case Prossh can't stick around.
***Homura, Human Ascendant - It functions as something like a creature version of Beastmaster Ascension in that it makes your token army huge. It's 6 mana compared to the Ascension costing only 3, but it's still a potent card.
***Greenwarden of Murasa - Eternal Witness' big daddy.
7
****Butcher of Malakir - Grave pact on a body. 7-mana hurts it a bit but the effect with Prossh is so powerful we must run it.
****Avenger of Zendikar - Avenger is fairly pricy, but once you play it, you immediately build a very threatening army. Think of it as another copy of Prossh except that if Avenger stays in play and you trigger landfalls, your army gets bigger.
RAMP
Ramp is very important to the deck. 6-mana generals require a good amount of ramp, but because Prossh generates more tokens the more times you cast him, this makes him a safe mana-dump. You can play a couple additional ramp spells and be okay if you flood out. In addition, since it's a budget build in a 3-color deck, your lands will tend to enter the battlefield tapped (since all the ones that don't are usually high budget), and you need ramp to keep up.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. Many of the temporary alliances forged in a standard EDH game are created based on who gets the turn 1 sol rings.
****Explore - A ramp card that is not that bad of a draw lategame. Due to the high number of lands in this deck, you almost always get that extra land drop earlygame.
***Golgari Signet, Gruul Signet, Rakdos Signet - T2 ramp plays. They're part of the small mana-rock suite so that you don't autoscoop to Armageddon and the like.
****Cryptolith Rite - It can be awkward to play early on, and can sometimes not do anything. You also either need a lot of creatures/kobolds already in play and/or give them haste in some way. It's a 2-mana spell that you should not treat as a 2-drop. It's something you play late in the game, much like you would play Mana Reflection.
***Growth Spasm - Uninspiring, but can enable a T4 Prossh.
****Worn Powerstone - Can enable a T4 Prossh.
*****Ashnod's Altar - I knew Phyrexian Altar was very expensive so I just immediately assumed this was a similar price without checking. Until one day I checked and found it it was a common and had multiple printings so it's dirt cheap. TLDR; I am an idiot.
****Cultivate, Kodama's Reach - Good, cheap ramp. Getting the additional basic to your hand is nifty in budget builds as it gives you a land that doesn't ETB tapped.
***Explosive Vegetation - Good, cheap ramp. Going from 4 to 7 mana looks weird in a normal Prossh deck who costs 6, but there are a lot of lands that enter the battlefield tapped, so often this brings you 4 to 6 mana, next turn play Prossh and a tapped land. This isn't as useful in a normal Prossh build though.
DRAW/ENGINES
Prossh is a 7-for-1 and is powerful. But Prossh alone won't cut it. You need draw power to quickly reach the powerful cards that interact with Prossh. Listed here are the noncreature cards solely for drawing additional cards; there are other cards that give powerful card advantage but in a different way.
*****Skullclamp - lol
****Faithless Looting - A simple draw spell that is almost never dead. It helps find lands and ramp spells early, and then pitches lands and ramp spells late. With the new change to mulligans, this helps immensely when it comes to keeping hands. It also pitches anger into the graveyard.
***Evolutionary Leap - It's a sac outlet that requires mana, but it does give some value.
***Painful Truths - Only good when you can converge for 3, but when you do it's a high-floor card.
*****Fecundity - It's a global effect, but nobody else gets nearly as much value from this card as you outside of other token decks and even then most token decks have to work harder to get more tokens. It's more or less a crappier skullclamp.
****Mimic Vat - This card can easily take over games especially when so many potent creatures have ETB effects (or if you have a way to get the token to die during combat or through a sac outlet, you can trigger death effects as well). It is somewhat mana intensive but it has a very high power level.
***Harmonize - Efficient and low budget.
****Shamanic Revelation - Similar to a card like Skullmuncher where you draw cards for each creature you control, but with this you don't have to sac them. Sorceries are not easy to tutor up or recur from graveyards but it's still a pretty strong effect on paper and you usually only need one or two of these kinds of effects (something that draws you a ton of cards at once) to seal a game. Gaining life is a minor bonus but not irrelevant if you are playing against other grindy and/or aggressive decks, although if you gain more than 8 life I would be quite surprised.
GRAVEYARD
People love fiddling with their graveyards. Since you're black and green, you also love fiddling with your graveyard. You're also given good tools to stop people from doing the same.
***Reap - A good budget option to get key cards back. It only takes one opponent to have one black permanent before this becomes an instant speed Regrowth, and anything beyond that is even better.
***Victimize - A one-time sac that also gives nice reanimation.
REMOVAL/SWEEPERS
Nobody likes playing removal. You just want to advance your own board state. But you need to keep opponent's honest. It's a necessary evil; you can't just goldfish all day.
***Nature's Claim - Extremely efficient at 1 mana.
***Vandalblast - It's worse than Smelt at baseline as it's just a sorcery, but lategame it's a one-sided shatterstorm for 5 mana. There are some good cards to put in this slot for sweeping a bunch of a permanent type, but this is one that I'm trying out.
****Clip Wings - Many people rely on fliers to do important things, particularly flying generals.
***Hull breach - 2-mana 2-for-1, good value.
****Beast Within - I couldn't believe this card got printed when New Phyrexia came out. An extremely splashable instant-speed vindicate is nuts. It never was insane in constructed because leaving a 3/3 behind is relevant, but in EDH a 3/3 is largely irrelevant.
****Decimate - 4-for-1's at 4-mana? Sure thing.
****Helm of Possession - Not technically a removal spell, but I sure wouldn't mind sacrificing a dumb Kobold token to get the best creature on the table. I can't give it a 5 because everyone and their mother runs Homeward Path and the like.
*****Dictate of Erebos - With Prossh, this basically plague winds your opponents. That's all I have to say about that. Grave Pact would be here, but 1BBB can be hard to get at times, and it is fairly pricy. It's also on curve for 5-mana flash in Dictate, Untap, play land, play Prossh, start saccing, though this card in general is telegraphed pretty easily being 5 mana.
***Terminate - The gold standard that non-white instant speed removal is measured to. Simple and efficient.
****Blasphemous Act - An underrated sweeper, often it just costs 1-mana. Since this deck is mana hungry, it's very nice to have this over other sweepers.
TUTORS
Tutoring is important. It smooths out draws by increasing redundancy to get your best cards out. Black and green are great colors for tutoring. The trick is that many of the best tutors are pricy (like Demonic Tutor) but there are acceptable budget options.
*****Birthing Pod - ayy lmao
FINISHERS
So I've been saying about how so many cards interact with Prossh. I've already mentioned many cards that have incredibly powerful interactions with Prossh (Sadistic Hypnotist, Skullclamp, etc), but the ones listed here are the noncreature ones that just beat the crap out of your opponents.
*****Beastmaster Ascension - Basically, Prossh and the tokens will automatically trigger it and you immediately get a massive army. At 3-mana.
****Vicious Shadows - Play Prossh, play this, sac your tokens and blast someone for a million damage. Unless nobody has any cards in their hand in which case you win anyway.
*****Warp World - With the big token generation, often you'll have the most permanents on the board, which gives you the biggest chance of getting the best board post-Warp World.
VALUE
Card that don't quite fit into any other category, but they fill important niches.
***Jund Charm - Its last mode of putting two +1/+1 counters on something isn't that important, but it's Tormod's Crypt or Pyroclasm, both of which are things that are hard to stuff into EDH decks since they are fairly narrow, but they are huge blowouts when they shine, especially since this can do it at instant speed. 3-mana is expensive for these effects but manageable since the deck has a lot of ramp.
***Fires of Yavimaya - Reliable, if unexciting, haste enabler.
LANDS
3-color decks on a budget can't break the bank on the landbase. This means many lands enter the battlefield tapped, but it's a necessary evil with the mana requirements. There's also a fairly high land count because you need a few more lands so you don't get color screwed.
*****Command Tower - Staple.
****Rakdos Carnarium, Gruul Turf, Golgari Rot Farm - These are actually legit. They're card advantage on lands. They're vulnerable to strip mine and the like, but there will always be better targets on the table, usually controlled by other players. They're a bit slow for cutthroat, but in budget and in casual these are very playable.
****Savage Lands - Worth playing, budget or not.
****Karplusan Forest, Llanowar Wastes - Painlands are always legit. Llanowar waste is the cheapest of the three due to its numerous recent reprints, while Sulfurous Springs is not here because it's too expensive.
***Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Jund Panorama - Budget fetches. The Panorama is a little better because it can tap for colorless without cracking it.
***Vivid Marsh, Vivid Crag, vivid Grove - Decent for budget.
****Dragonskull Summit, Rootbound Crag - Decent. Woodland Cemetery isn't here because there's been less printings and so it's a few bucks more right now.
***Exotic Orchard - Usually will tap for at least 2 of the jund colors, so that's okay.
****Temple of the False God - Can get you 6 mana with 5 lands in play, perfect to get Prossh out.
****Bojuka Bog - Nigh-uncounterable graveyard hate is good. It fits in nearly every black deck.
****Reliquary Tower - A feelgood land.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can run this and it's ramp on a land.
6 swamp
4 mountain
7 forest
OTHER OPTIONS
Puppeteer Clique - Solid card, but over $3, it's efficient but not particularly important for its budget.
Anger - Haste enabler, but you really want some discard outlets (like Fauna Shaman) to get it in the graveyard quickly.
Shared Animosity - It's kinda like Beastmaster Ascension #2 except a little more expensive.
Shivan Harvest - Prossh is good at winning games of attrition. However, this was too mana-intensive and didn't have a significant-enough impact. Restricting mana is better when it doesn't take as much mana from your side to clamp people down.
Tempt with Vengeance - Good token maker, but it's slightly higher budget.
Craterhoof Behemoth - He's fairly expensive, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he was too good and was often the finisher of choice for the deck. I wanted to experiment with other cards and evaluate how good those cards are, so I cut this guy because I know exactly how good he is.
Fierce Empath - Tutors are playable, but it's a somewhat restricted tutor in what it can get. It was solid before the tuck rule changed because this could get Prossh back out if he got tucked. Without that, I feel like Fierce Empath loses just enough oomph to remove him from the deck.
Food Chain - People thought that Maelstrom Wanderer was insane with Food Chain? You haven't seen nothing. Wanderer's food chains can actually fizzle if you have bad luck. It's impossible to fizzle with Prossh unless your hand/board sucks. This card is $10+ so it's hard to fit in the budget, but it's ridiculously powerful. The reason why it's not in the deck is not that the deck can't afford the price tag, but that the deck is trying to prove a point (that "bad" Prossh decks are still strong).
Hornet Queen - If your playgroup loves their fliers, this clogs up the air pretty well.
Praetor's Counsel - 8-mana is alot for its effect, made worse by the fact that you needed to wait quite awhile to get alot of cards back (in the ballpark of at least 8 cards before it really makes up for the mana cost). In most cases, you want your big mana payoff spells to be playable ASAP, and this doesn't usually do anything until the board gets swept at least once plus your graveyard doesn't get nuked.
Wood Elves - In most green decks this card is pretty good. However, budget builds are hardpressed to afford the ravnica shocklands which is what makes this playable. It's generally only getting basic forests, which is cool but much worse than nonbudget builds.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard - If you don't have proliferate effects to accelerate the verse counters, this card is really slow when he's not the general.
Duplicant - A strong card, but it is over $5, which is a tad much.
Kessig Wolf Run - Powerful land but I'm still tweaking the mana base so I'm not sure how many colorless lands the deck can handle.
GENERAL STRATEGY
GENERAL
This build isn't an explosive deck that can consistently win in the first 2-4 turns. If you run into a top tier deck, try to get the other players on the board to gang up on them. This isn't usually an issue once you play a game or two and everyone on the table gets a general idea of what everyone is doing and who's playing "fair" or "unfair" magic. Sometimes you'll know straight from the start whether they're fair or not.
Once the unfair decks can be held in check by the other players - or if there are no unfair decks on the table - you have a good shot of winning. Again, Prossh is built largely on grinding games out, and fair decks are all about doing that.
EARLYGAME
You're looking for at least 1 ramp spell, preferably 2. Just play whatever you have in your hand. If it's an engine that works with Prossh (such as Fecundity) it's usually okay to throw it out there so that you aren't scrambling to get them out after you cast Prossh. If someone kills it, whatever, the deck has tons of engines that work with Prossh. Normally you want to play Prossh and immediately have an effect on the board, and that requires you to have engines out beforehand.
You want good ramp so that you can get Prossh out maybe 1 turn after (or even the same turn as) your opponents' generals which will usually cost less mana. You can afford to spend the first few turns not doing much because Prossh is a 6-mana 7-for-1. Usually midgame is when your Prossh first hits the board.
One big question is when you reach 6 mana and you have a card that works well with Prossh in hand but wants to be in play first, such as Purphoros, and which card do you want to play first. If someone is exploding on the board, you probably should get Prossh out ASAP to put up some defenses. If the game seems to be progressing fairly slowly, feel free to chuck out your other cards before getting Prossh to maximize your value.
MIDGAME
This part of the game is difficult to judge because Prossh has so many ways to attack opponents' gameplans and it depends on how you build your deck. Don't be afraid of having Prossh die, but be wary of your opponents' gameplans. If they love restricting mana, you generally shouldn't let Prossh die more than once (e.g. don't suicide him into a big blocker). If they attack the tokens (e.g. Curse of Death's Hold), it does slow the deck down quite a bit and you probably will want to kill it ASAP. You'll still get death and enter the battlefield effects from your Kobolds eating it (e.g. playing Prossh into a Curse will still trigger your Fecundity) but you won't be able to do them at will, and cards that require your tokens to stick around get much weaker (e.g. Beastmaster Ascension). Generally, you just throw out whatever engines you have and see what sticks.
This section will be updated as I get more games with this deck.
LATEGAME
If it's the lategame you've probably won. Just be aware of anyone who can instantly win (say with an infinite combo) and you will grind the game out.
COUNTERS TO PROSSH
While Prossh is a 5/5 flier on his own, his real power comes from the tokens he generates. Many of the powerful interactions come from the huge number of disposable bodies you get. Therefore anything that kills your tokens can slow you down a fair amount. A temporary sweeper (Pyroclasm) can be dealt with by simply recasting Prossh or using one of the other token generators in the deck. Anything that's permanent (Curse of Death's Hold) is much more troublesome and you must kill it before recasting Prossh.
Preventing us from casting Prossh at all can be problematic since the deck needs a bunch of tokens to do anything, but that's why there are a handful of other token generators in the deck. They can be used when Prossh can't be casted for whatever reason (he's already in play, he costs too much mana, there's a Nevermore on Prossh, etc.)
Other counters include cutthroat strategies like racing with faster combos (Hermit Druid, etc.) or a powerful stax/mana denial build (winter orb, Armageddon, etc). Against such decks, obviously a neutered version of a deck that already had some problems competing with them even when it was built optimally will not fair well, and so I won't go into detail about how to handle them.
CHANGELOGS
7/22/17
+ Dimir House Guard
+ Hull Breach
+ Puppeteer Clique
+ Nature's Claim
+ Nullmage Shepherd
+ Kozilek's Predator
+ Skullwinder
- Xenagos, God of Revels
- Pernicious Deed
- Necromancy
- Song of the Dryads
- Purphoros, God of the Forge
- Solemn Simulacrum
- Eternal Witness
More budget cuts.
Xenagos could one shot an opponent, but it was fairly all in - saccing 6 things to make Prossh an 11/5 could backfire pretty easily and set you back hard. Even if it worked, only one opponent is dead. Given that he was ~$7 when I cut him, those were some nasty drawbacks for that price. I decided to swap it for Dimir House guard; it's a sac outlet if needed, but it mostly goes and tutors for 4-drops like Birthing Pod, and those cards are more useful than Xenagos anyway.
Pernicious Deed is a decent sweeper since you can scale it to what you need, but it is mana intensive. I decided to play a cheap but efficient removal spell in Hull breach. The more removal you play, the less you need to play a sweeper, after all.
Necromancy cost a pretty penny over other normal reanimation spells, and it was over $3. The upside of flashing it in to disrupt an opponent's reanimation effect was nice. I decided to play Puppeteer Clique in its slot; with its reprinting it's currently under $1, and if you have a sac outlet it largely does the same thing as necromancy (reanimate a creature at instant speed - sac it for the persist trigger).
Song of the Dryads is a hilarious card that strands generals in play. However it costs too much for its function now. I just replaced it with another efficient removal spell for now.
Purphoros is an insane card, but its price is starting to get too much. I decided to play nullmage Shepherd for another token payoff card.
Solemn is a cool value card. He ramps you from 4 to 6 mana, and then you can sac to Prossh for a bonus. But his price doesn't justify that effect. I replaced him with kozilek's predator, as you get some "ramp" and disposable bodies for a fraction of the cost.
Eternal witness was too pricy for a deck that didn't really revolve around repeatable graveyard recursion. Replacing her with Skullwinder was for budget concerns. The deck has a fair amount of graveyard hate so you can often make an opponent return nothing, and in some cases you want your opponent to get a key card back if you play politics. All this for a fraction of the cost of E-wit.
12/7/16
+ Terminate
+ Mimic Vat
+ Cryptolith Rite
+ Reap
+ 1 swamp
+ Growth spasm
+ Clip Wings
- Murderous Cut
- Disciple of Bolas
- Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- Phyrexian Reclamation
- Ophiomancer
- Carpet of Flowers
- Coalition Relic
- Sulfurous Springs
I'm putting Terminate back in. Despite costing a little more money, it's worth the efficiency. Murderous Cut was simply too difficult to cast early in the game without fetchlands cheating on the CMC.
Disciple of Bolas was often an awkward card. First, it didn't draw cards very well early in the game. Second, one-shot sorcery-speed sac outlets are not that useful. It's nice to get a creature card you have in play into the graveyard, but several of the big creatures in this deck want to stay in play (even Prossh at times), and one of the big reasons to play sac outlets is the ability to dodge certain things like exile removal. It was basically a mid-lategame durdle card that sometimes was unimpressive. Right now I'm just going to throw mimic vat in, as it's just a universally good card.
Putting in Cryptolith Rite for testing. On paper it sounds like it will generate very good mana, especially if there's a haste outlet out. I cut Sidisi because 5-mana tutor seems a bit slow.
Reap replaces Phyrexian Reclamation as graveyard recursion of choice. Reap on paper is very powerful. If any opponent has a single black permanent out, it becomes an instant speed Regrowth which is already quite good. Reclamation is strong but it can be mana intensive and it only gets creatures back.
Ophiomancer, Carpet of Flowers, Coalition Relic, and Sulfurous Springs were all cut because of budget. In their place I am trying out Clip Wings (deck has some weakness to early fliers, and if Prossh immediately dies it has a weakness to midgame fliers too) and Growth Spasm (weak, but can enable a turn 4 Prossh if all land drops are hit) and one swamp.
6/5/16
+ Painful Truths
+ Fires of Yavimaya
+ Sidisi, Undead Vizier
+ Ophiomancer
+ Ogre Battledriver
+ Victimize
+ Reclamation Sage
+ Coalition Relic
+ Evolutionary Leap
+ Dragonlair Spider
- Fauna Shaman
- Chord of Calling
- Anger
- Jarad's Orders
- Tempt with Vengeance
- Phyrexian Delver
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Chromatic Lantern
- Increasing Ambition
- Baleful Force
Some more budget cuts, and changes to go along with the budget cuts.
The notable ones are Fauna Shaman and Chord of Calling, both breaking $10. Tutors are powerful, but these are too expensive. I'm replacing them with Sidisi for another tutor (also being a sac outlet) and painful truths for some earlygame draw power.
With Fauna Shaman gone, it's harder to get anger into the graveyard, so I'm taking that out. I'm also taking out Jarad's Orders if I'm not going to be dumping anger into the graveyard anymore. To replace anger and orders, I'm putting in fires and battledriver for haste enablers.
With fewer creature tutors, it'll be more difficult to get phyrexian delver out to reanimate to do its bad impersonation of karmic guide. I took it out for another reanimation spell and decided to try victimize.
Tempt with Vengeance is also a couple bucks. I'm trying Ophiomancer as another earlygame token producer.
Chromatic Lantern has taken off in price. I decided that if I want to use an expensive 3-mana rock, I would probably want Coalition Relic instead, as relic can cast Prossh on turn 4 with zero other ramp, provided I hit my land drops. While Coalition Relic may get cut for budget constraints, I might as well make this swap. Lantern color fixes my entire mana base, but most spells in this deck aren't color-intensive.
Increasing Ambition and Baleful force have underperformed tremendously. They are too expensive for their effects. In their place I'm putting in Evolutionary Leap as a sac outlet (albeit one that costs some mana) and value card, and Dragonlair Spider as another token generator. While Prossh makes a lot of tokens, it's good to have some token generators as a backup plan.
3/22/16
+ Explore
+ Murderous Cut
+ Llanowar Waste
+ Faithless Looting
- Sepulchral Primordial
- Terminate
- 1 Forest
- Rampant Growth
Sepulchral Primordial gets cut in an attempt to lower the curve, while Explore helps with that.
Murderous Cut for Terminate is a quick budget swap. Terminate is over $1 while Cut is next to nothing. But because the deck doesn't have fetchlands, it might not be able to get a cheap delve for the earlygame, which could hurt it a bit.
Llanowar Waste is now under $1 due to its numerous recent reprints, so it's very affordable.
Faithless looting is a cheap draw spell that is almost never a dead draw. early on it finds you lands and ramp spells, and later on it pitches those lands and ramp spells. Also, it gets anger into the graveyard faster. Rampant Growth gets axed as Faithless Looting helps draw into the ramp spells earlier, and rampant felt like it was one of the weakest ramp options.
1/27/16
+ Viscera Seer
+ Baleful Force
+ Pernicious Deed
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
- Wickerbough Elder
- Craterhoof Behemoth
- Rune-Scarred Demon
- Awakening Zone
- Tooth and Nail
I noticed that the deck doesn't have alot of sac outlets. A bunch of cards can sac things, but they're one-shot uses, sorcery speed only, etc. and it's relying on Prossh to be the sac outlet. If Prossh can't stick, it's hard to get a sac outlet in play. Having additional sac outlets also means I can sac Prossh if needed, since Prossh can't sac himself. I think Viscera Seer can fill the role well given that it's only 1 mana and scrying is always useful.
I think I can live without Wickerbough Elder.
Craterhoof Behemoth being removed may sound crazy, but again it's to drive a point home. It's not that the deck can't afford the budget ($10-15 is high but not unattainable) but rather that Prossh's high power level means that there are so many cards that interact well with it that you don't need the premium bombs to make a decent deck. Craterhoof is one of the most potent cards with tokens, but it's not the only one, and it's a good opportunity to see what other options exist and how they fare. I decided to replace him with a generic 8-drop to take up a spot in the Birthing Pod curve, and decided to go with Baleful Force.
Rune-scarred demon, awakening zone, and especially tooth and nail were some more budget cuts made. Demon was a good value play but was not exceedingly important. Awakening Zone was fine but was a rather unspectacular ramp spell and only made tokens at a slow pace. Tooth and nail never fetched out an instant kill so it's not that important compared to other big green spells I could play in its place (e.g. Genesis Wave).
Pernicious deed has always been fairly expensive, but now it's pretty chump change; under $2 right now.
Carpet of Flowers is a low CMC ramp spell against blue decks. If there are no blue decks on the table, consider yourself the winner already.
Endrek, on paper, sounds like a good token generator. Also, he doesn't kill himself when you cast Prossh, which is a nice boon, and you can have enough sac outlets to stay under 7 thrulls.
3/30/15
Version 1.0
SET REVIEWS
Commander 2015
Oath of the Gatewatch
Shadows over Innistrad
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy Take the Crown
Kaladesh
Commander 2016
Aether Revolt
Amonkhet
Hour of Devastation
Commander 2017
Ixalan
Rivals of Ixalan
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
cards in bold are those that really catch my eye
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - A 10-mana creature that does double Utter End that can also nuke lands is interesting. Not sure if it's an upgrade to the original Ulamog since Annihilator 4 is also really good, but this Ulamog costs 1 less and exiles 2 permanents instead of destroying 1. Shuffling your graveyard into your library when the old Ulamog hit your graveyard has its ups and downs though. I don't think it'll be in this deck, but he's something to watch out for. Given that it's mythic it'll probably be too expensive though.
Void Winnower - This card is just so goofy it's something to watch out for.
Oblivion Sower - Ingest isn't gonna be a real mechanic for EDH, but Delve will, and if people get greedy with their Delve cards and pack fetchlands, this can be interesting (albeit unreliable) ramp. My guess is that this will see very limited play but it is an interesting effect so you should watch out for it.
Ob Nixilis Reignited - A 5-mana PW that can protect itself and draw you cards. I probably won't play it, but in monoblack, or maybe even 2 or 3 color black decks, this might be worth looking at. Also given that it's mythic, I won't play it unless it really sees zero play.
Smothering Abomination - Depending on its price, I could try this out as a one-sided Fecundity. Obviously, being 1 mana over Fecundity, and being a creature (makes it easier to kill) and always having to sac something every turn (makes it hard to play this without having played Prossh beforehand, while Fecundity can be played before Prossh) will make this tricky, but this is worth consideration, unless I'm missing.
Dragonmaster Outcast - I don't really care about this card, but SERIOUSLY wizards, you're reprinting this as a mythic? get your ***** together and fire the guy who thought this was a good idea. At least Felidar Sovereign is getting reprinted in this set as a rare. Do you know how annoyed people will be when they open this as their mythic?
Zada, Hedron Grinder - This won't be going in any of my decks, but there's a lot of untapped potential in this card, so you should be on the lookout for any decks that use this guy. It's kinda like Precursor Golem except it only triggers on your instants and sorceries and only affects your creatures, so it's easier to control and seems less likely to backfire.
From Beyond - This is worse than Awakening Zone when it comes to generating mana, but this does have a nice upside in that it can sac itself to tutor for an Eldrazi when you don't need the mana. Obviously you'll need useful Eldrazi in the deck, but it's worth noting.
Greenwarden of Murasa - Eternal Witness' big daddy. I definitely will be thinking about this card. It exiles itself if you want the regrowth effect when it dies (for balance issues, thnx wizards) but it is a "may" trigger which is nice. Probably would've been better if it had 2 or less power (hi Reveillark) but a 5/4 isn't awful either. However, because it's mythic, and because I project this to become a green EDH staple, I do not think it'll fit the budget, which is depressing.
Nissa's Renewal - I'm not sure if I'll play this. 6-mana is asking for a lot when there are cards like and Mana Reflection and Boundless Realms hovering around that mana cost. But just keep an eye out for it.
Omnath, Locus of Rage - Play this, play a fetchland, and you get 3 5/5s in play that each bolt something when they die. That can be pretty scary. But again, this is mythic, so it could be too expensive to play, plus you really want fetchlands to maximize its power, which budget builds can't afford.
Hedron Archive - The third of the three little bears and Goldilocks. Mind Stone is tiny, Dreamstone Hedron is huge, this is juuuust right... maybe not, but I just thought it was an appropriate card for wizards to print.
Blighted Woodland - Lands that always ramp are interesting. This is worse than Myriad Landscape and Krosan Verge though, given that they're only 2 mana and sac to crack, while this is 4 mana and sac to crack. Still, it does come into play untapped. I wouldn't write this off.
Mortuary Mire - Lands that give recursion are interesting. However, I already have a lot of lands that ETB tapped.
Sanctum of Ugin - Lands that can tutor for something are interesting. Given that this activates when you cast a 7+ colorless spell, chances are at that point you don't need mana, but you may want a big mana Eldrazi, and it's a "may" so you don't need to crack it anyway.
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods - Only colorless decks, or decks that play a ton of colorless spells, will want this card. However, for those that do, this is a second Temple of the False God.
Spawning Bed - This is an interesting effect, albeit at pretty high mana cost. I probably won't play it, but it doesn't seem unplayable.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
I'm a huge fan of building budget decks (My $$ decks are Mimeo and Sharuum). I've done a $100 Karador and $100 Teysa. I think $100 Prossh is next!
LegacyUBRDelverRBU
Ah yes, I did miss a couple of cards, although the ones you covered that I didn't, most of them you just said "Eh, this card's fine but I probably wouldn't play it." Although Zulaport Cutthroat is an interesting take on Blood Artist, as it only triggers on creatures that you control die (as opposed to Blood Artist caring about any creature dying) but this does hit each opponent instead of only one.
I also just noticed that Smothering Abomination only triggers when you sac something and not dies, which is actually a big deal if you don't have a sac outlet in play. It makes me a little less inclined to play it.
Glad you enjoyed it. Budget builds are always intriguing because MTG has this rep of being an expensive hobby so budget builds can help shed it. It's kinda like how MTG also has the rep of a playerbase consisting mostly of socially awkward people, and having pros like Brian Kibler (who is totally normal and cool) helps combat that stereotype.
Plus, from my experiences with and against Mimeo/Sharuum/Karador (and Prossh for that matter), they're so powerful that you can play budget builds and still compete with relatively casual players using more expensive cards.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
This is a pretty long review, as basically all of the cards here were designed for EDH and thus worth talking about (as opposed to your standard set where maybe 10% of the new cards have multiplayer applications). Still, I don't actually cover every card as there are pretty obvious ones that have no place in EDH (e.g. Herald of the Host). This review mostly goes over the rares and a few of the uncommons.
**Corpse Augur - Seems okay for budget builds.
**Daxos' Torment - Not a fan of cards that just beat down, but it is a 4-mana 5/5 flier with haste, which is pretty good stats. It might see play in enchantress decks, maybe stax builds, because it's easier to control when this is a creature. It's not a Prossh card though.
**Deadly Tempest - Your standard 6ish CMC black sweeper. Like many of the monoblack sweepers, it's generally inferior to Damnation and Toxic Deluge, so this will only really see play in budget builds and only if the deck also doesn't contain white. Also, this will usually smack you for alot of life loss.
*Dread Summons - Can these zombies stop ETBing tapped? I know it's supposed to be for flavor reasons, but the fact that these zombie creation cards don't allow you to block with them immediately greatly kills their value. Milling enemies is also dangerous as many decks have graveyard recursion, so I'm not sure the card would see much play even if they didn't ETB tapped.
**Scourge of Nel Toth - Not a fan of cards that only beat down, but in token decks with a bit of graveyard theme you can get this guy back into play for cheap, which is noticeable. I still don't think I'd ever play it though.
****Thief of Blood - This card is actually very interesting; it's basically Vampire Hexmage on a grander scale. First, it kills planeswalkers instantly (including yours though). Second, plenty of decks have things that use +1/+1 counters (Avenger of Zendikar), along with any other counter type. Because this effect is fairly uncommon, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets played in some combo deck that abuses this effect. The 6 CMC tag is what hinders this.
***Wretched Confluence - I like how the draw mode is almost strictly worse than the draw mode on the blue one. Seems fine otherwise. You can pick off multiple small creatures or focus fire down something larger, which is cool. Being an instant really helps this card.
*Awaken the Sky Tyrant - See Daxos' Torment, with the drawback that this isn't even that good in enchantress decks (not like red builds lend themselves to enchantress builds in the first place).
**Dream Pillager - This can technically draw you cards when its attack connects with a player, but I feel like there are quite a few dragons in the 6-8 mana slot that have card-advantage mechanics built into them that you don't need this guy to literally draw you cards (Balefire Dragon, Bogardan Hellkite, Ancient Hellkite, Hellkite Charger, etc.). And I rag about P/T not being very relevant, but a 7-mana 4/4 is pretty embarrassing. At least the aforementioned dragons are better at blocking.
**Fiery Confluence - Dealing damage to opponents is irrelevant outside of pinging opposing planeswalkers, so it's a scale-your-own Pyroclasm and can shatter things otherwise. Seems fine.
***Magus of the Wheel - A very slow Wheel of Fortune is still wheel of fortune. In some crazy spell-slinging storm deck I would probably play this, and even in monored I might use this just because red is desperate.
**Meteor Blast - I don't really see the point of this card when Mizzium Mortars is a thing. This can hit players (or more specifically redirect to planeswalkers) but Mortars is simply more efficient. 1R instead of 1RRR to hit 1 target, and 3RRR on Mortars does 4 damage to your opponents' creatures. It's not even an instant, what the hell. I guess if you have like 10 mana you can kill a bunch of creatures and then ping players for the hell of it, but Mortars will be the better card most of the time.
***Rite of the Raging Storm - This can cause quite a bit of chaos. Thankfully the tokens can't attack you (this card would be almost unplayable otherwise), and presumably this will smack people for a lot of damage over the course of the game as people swing in their 5/1 hasty tramplers with no care, and it's not like 5-power is easy to block (1 toughness is easy to ping though).
***Arachnogenesis - Similar card to Mirror Match in that its big function is as a fog. It is a weaker effect obviously as it's 3 mana and not 6. However you keep these spiders around after combat, so I can see this being playable in token decks, especially if you foresee yourself going up against other token decks.
***Bloodspore Thrinax - In token decks this can make things get out of control quickly. However it's awkward in Prossh, as Prossh generally makes the tokens in one big wave and it can be difficult to make a new wave of tokens without recasting Prossh.
**Centaur Vinecrasher - Just a beater. You can get a little value from the recursion, but meh.
**Ezuri's Predation - I'm not sure how I feel about this card. Basically, this card will kill all X/4s and do nothing against X/5s, and if X < 4 you keep the beast that would fight it. I guess monogreen can't be picky when it comes to "sweepers", but 8-mana is so much. Something that could give your creatures even +1 or +2 more power can really hurt opponents as that's when you can start killing dragons and almost anything that isn't indestructible (also a nice note is that this gets around hexproof).
**Great Oak Guardian - Nice combat trick, though 6-mana is a lot. You can play some politics though as you can target any player. Help a player block out of nowhere, or help a player kill out of nowhere.
****Pathbreaker Ibex - It's a smaller, haste-less Craterhoof Behemoth. The cool part about this card is that it pumps power based on the greatest power among creatures you control, not this card's own power, which means this can really get out of control. The only issue with the card, besides being 6-mana, is that it's a horrible blocker, and unlike Cratheroof it doesn't have haste so it is more easily telegraphed.
**Skullwinder - It's Eternal Witness if Witness gained deathtouch but gave an opponent the best card in his graveyard, which is generally a losing trade. I guess if you can keep an opponent without a graveyard then maybe, but that seems like a lot of work. However there are political aspects, maybe you actually want an opponent to get a good card back for whatever reason. Seems tricky to use.
**Verdant Confluence - Not sure how often you'll use the rampant growth effect as you are already at 6-mana when you cast this. Regardless, seems okay, if a bit underwhelming.
***Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest - So black is the color that makes people sac stuff alot (Grave Pact, etc.) and green is the color that can make lots of tokens fast. 5-mana 2/2 is very frail, so it doesn't seem like something that does much if you're behind, which could be a problem. But this can get out of hand quickly.
****Meren of Clan nel Toth - I like this card. First, at the end of your turn, you always get a disentomb effect no matter what. Second, BG are the colors that have tons of expendable creatures and sac outlets so it's extremely easy to build up the experience counters. This means it won't take long before you can just reanimate anything in your graveyard every turn. It's not flashy and not breakable with combos, but it's a solid goodstuff card. Similar to Ezuri though, the question is how does this compare to other BG generals.
***Command Beacon - Interesting card in that if your commander has died several times, this gives you a mana discount, as you don't pay commander tax if you're casting it from your hand. In particular, you usually need to cast Prossh 2-3 times if you're going the "fair" route, and sometimes more, so this can help you squeeze in one more casting of Prossh.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
***Kozilek, the Great Distortion - 10-mana is certainly alot. Regardless, going back up to 7 cards is very good, and being able to counter for 0 mana is nice, and the fact that you go back up to 7 cards synergizes well with that. The menace ability is whatever as by the time he comes down, players will likely have a bunch of creatures they can throw away to block him, plus he's not indestructible so he can actually get killed
by twelve 1/1 squirrels. However, the fact that he requires two colorless mana can be an issue for anything that's 3 or 5 color. In addition, he doesn't really have any synergy with Prossh, and being a mythic he could cost a pretty penny.*Deceiver of Form - It sounds clunky at 7-mana but maybe if you have enough library manipulation it could work. However it would probably only benefit token decks to start with, and at 7-mana and being not even guaranteed to work, there are better options.
**Endbringer - A value card that is legal for all decks, but may not have enough of an impact. It's a 6-mana up-front investment and its useful abilities cost mana. Still it's not unplayable for a top-end of a curve.
*Bearer of Silence - Creatures that carry Diabolic Edict effects have potential. Unfortunately since the effect is only upon casting and requires additional mana, it won't see much play.
**Flaying Tendrils - Mini-sweepers will have some potential if you're in a fast meta with lots of low toughness creatures. Compare to Drown in Sorrow.
???Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - I don't know how to evaluate this card. Neither its triggered or activated abilities are that powerful but they have a decent synergy with each other, and 4-mana is still reasonable. It's kind of a graveyard hate, kind of a token generator, and kind of a sacrifice outlet; it does all of its jobs poorly but does them simultaneously. My initial guess is that it'll be a passable value card.
**Sifter of Skulls - It's basically a 4-mana card that slowly generates mana throughout the game. That's okay but doesn't sound very impressive since the mana sources are temporary.
***Chandra, Flamecaller - It's a 6-mana personal Teferi's Puzzle Box type of effect that can wipe out small creatures. It'll likely pop up in something like Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind or Nekusar, the Mindrazer, and monored will play it for lack of better options. However, I don't foresee it getting much attention outside of that, but it will find a home.
**Fall of the Titans - This card is interesting in that it's the surge card that probably sees the greatest increase if you actually surge it (X is basically twice as large). If you can surge it and double-fireball two things, that's decent.
****Goblin Dark-Dwellers - Bad snapcaster mage is still something close to snapcaster mage (on a scale from 1 to 5, snapcaster mage would be a 6), plus your 3-mana spell gets cast for free as some compensation. There's a long list of good spells to choose from. If you are short on 5-drops and have some space for extra graveyard recursion, think about this guy. You do need to be pretty heavy on spells though and still watch out for graveyard hate.
**Bonds of Mortality - If hexproof and indestructible generals are causing you grief, I imagine this won't be too shabby of a silver bullet. At the very least it replaces itself so it's not like this will be unplayable as a mainstay in the 99, and since there are Swiftfoot Boots and the like everywhere it will always have some value. Too bad it doesn't stop shroud though. However, if you have black, you have access to Edict effects (Diabolic Edict, Grave Pact, etc.) and you are probably better off going that route anyway.
***Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - She's basically only for token decks. Her abilities look weak, but she generates tokens and can pump them up, which is something that doesn't appear on every token-based card (most do one or the other). My guess is that if you just want a simple goodstuff card for your token deck you'll run her, but there may be superior options if you're trying to really streamline your deck since she doesn't do either job extremely well. She also will likely cost some money being a mythic.
*Vile Redeemer - Reminds me of Fresh Meat where it's your "rebuild" card right after a sweeper. While Fresh Meat made a small army, this one gives you a bunch of mana, which means if you still have a few cards in your hand (or ability to recast your general) you can pump out a big threat when you untap. However I believe the real breaker is that this card doesn't count tokens that died on you for the turn while Fresh Meat did, as well as the fact that Fresh Meat costs 1 less for your army. Since both are aimed for token decks, those are pretty important factors.
*World Breaker - People will say this card is awful because it pales in comparison to Sylvan Primordial. Well, it is certainly worse than that broken piece of crap. It's also just not a very exciting card in general. Unlike Primordial, or cards like Brutalizer Exarch or Woodfall Primus, you have to actually cast this bastard, and it can't hit planeswalkers. The fact that it exiles is nice as well as can recur itself from the graveyard, but it's a pretty hefty investment overall if you want this effect more than once. Why it's a mythic is beyond me.
***Zendikar Resurgent - This is actually a very interesting take on Mana Reflection. The biggest problem with Mana Reflection is obviously it does nothing when you have no cards in hand, as generally when you untap with Reflection in play you vomit your hand onto the board. With this, you can stay gassed to an extent. While I don't think this will explode as spending 7-mana just to gain even more mana is questionable, this has potential to replace Mana Reflection for certain builds.
*Baloth null - Very budget graveyard recursion.
**Mina and Denn, Wildborn - It's a bigger Oracle of Mul Daya but trades off the card advantage of Oracle for making a big creature a little more threatening. That's usually a losing trade. Still, anything that lets you play additional lands is always worth considering.
****Mirrorpool - while 5-color decks basically can't play this due to color requirements, 3-color can manage, and 2-color and mono color should be fine. This is pretty good value on a land that is legal in every deck. Note that because it ETBs tapped, it doesn't produce color, and its value abilities cost quite a bit of mana (one of which has to be colorless), you want this to replace a business spell and not a land in your deck, as this is a lategame card that just so happens to be not completely useless if you draw it early. This card won't have a massive impact and will be too slow for the cutthroat metas, but it's legal for every deck and has a fairly minimal cost.
***Hissing Quagmire - Manlands are always playable.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Viscera Seer
+ Baleful Force
+ Pernicious Deed
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
- Wickerbough Elder
- Craterhoof Behemoth
- Rune-Scarred Demon
- Awakening Zone
- Tooth and Nail
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Explore
+ Murderous Cut
+ Llanowar Waste
+ Faithless Looting
- Sepulchral Primordial
- Terminate
- 1 Forest
- Rampant Growth
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Asylum Visitor
Behold the Beyond
Sinister Concoction
Westvale Abbey///Ormendahl, Profane Prince
Clip Wings
Cryptolith Rite
Second Harvest
Tireless Tracker
Obviously in a budget build some cards are out of the question until they drop (like westvale abbey).
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Asylum Visitor - This seems decent in some kind of black aggro deck that dumps its hand quickly. It seems more potent in a stax deck, or a deck where you want to Mindslicer everyone or something like that. Because it has madness it also lends itself towards that kind of stax deck. Sac mindslicer, everyone gets mind twisted but you slam this in and out of nowhere you rebuild much faster than everyone else. Getting one trigger per round makes this a Phyrexian Arena on wheels and 1 less mana, which is very playable, and getting 2 or more per round is value.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, if cards like Mindslicer are added into the deck.
***Behold the Beyond - Triple demonic tutor is very powerful. It's kind of similar to Diabolic Revelation as they're cards that cost huge amounts of mana but tutor up a lot of cards. Discarding your hand sucks but the 7-mana tag is going to be the bigger restriction when it comes to whether or not this card wins you the game. Plus, as a 7-mana spell, you probably have few if any cards left in your hand by the time you're casting this anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, Oloro
**Diregraf Colossus - It's a 3-mana zombie that gets larger for all the zombies in your graveyard and it brings more zombies as you cast zombie spells. With that said, I'm not sure if a zombie-tribal deck exists and if it's any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**From Under the Floorboards - One traditional problem with recent zombie token cards is that the zombies ETB tapped. With the madness cost you can somewhat circumvent that, and flashing in an army of 2/2s is not that bad (White Sun's Zenith). Still I wouldn't bother unless I was some kind of zombie tribal deck with a good amount of discard.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Relentless Dead - Menace means it can strap on equipment decently (I don't know if zombie decks do that though) so it'll be a live card earlygame. Black will have lots of sac outlets so you can trigger its death ability on command. It's a fairly intensive mana requirement to reanimate something, but it's a 2-drop that has lategame power.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Sinister Concoction - So there's a lot of small things you need to pay to crack it, but it's a removal spell. The big cost is discarding a card, so you really want some way to benefit from that before you consider playing this (discard Genesis or something). Being able to sneak this in on turn 1 is quite nice though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh, Oloro
**To the Slaughter - 3 mana is a fair bit for an edict effect, but with delirium you might get a 2-for-1, depending on how many planeswalkers are in your playgroup.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro
*Triskaidekaphobia - These cards that have "lose the game" on them are hilarious. With that said, obviously it'll be hard to get someone to exactly 13 life, and could possibly backfire on you. It'll be way more work than it's worth, but games that you kill people with this will be epic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Westvale Abbey///Ormendahl, Profane Prince - It's obviously geared towards token decks, and it does cost a fair bit of mana to generate tokens or transform this, but when you do, you get something that's quite difficult to deal with. Sacrifice effects are not a great answer as this goes into token decks and those have a slew of useless things to sac, so it's mostly exile and tuck that can get rid of this. Also, almost nothing in the air can rumble with this.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Briarbridge Patrol - If you want the Elvish Piper effect then you just play that card instead, so you really want to put this in a deck that cares about making clues.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Clip Wings - You have a 2-mana spell that can kill 2-3 creatures. The fact that it gets around shround/hexproof/indestructible means you have a solid answer to something like Zur the Enchanter or Brago, King Eternal who often wear greaves or boots and if played early is usually that player's only flier. Despite its simple line of text and appearing to be a very narrow card, I think this card is very strong if your playgroup has very potent fliers. If you can kill at least one flying general and one other half-decent card (like a birds of paradise) then this card will be good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck
****Cryptolith Rite - It's basically a 2-mana enchantment version of Gaea's Cradle, albeit if some of your creatures are already mana dorks then it's less potent, as well as if they need to tap to do an ability (e.g. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard). For another comparison, Phyrexian Altar is 1 more mana and you have to sac the creature for the mana (albeit since it's not tapping it can get around summoning sickness, and having a sac outlet is nice). Still, you basically get mana equal to the number of creatures you control, and that has to do good things. This should be very good in tokens. Just remember that this generally doesn't help power out your token makers, but it lets you explode once you have more tokens in play. That sounds like win-more, but it's hard to say that a 2-mana enchantment that has similarities to several other powerful cards (Cradle, Altar) is going to totally flop.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh.
***Duskwatch Recruiter///Krallenhorde Walker - On its human side it's a watered down Lead the Stampede, and transformed it's a Cloud Key that is locked onto creatures. Both sides synergize fairly well with each other, and on a 2-drop it's not that bad. You really want a large mass of creatures and a deck that wants both sides at any time because of how easy it is to transform back and forth. It could be too slow as well as 3 mana for its activation is a fair bit.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck with at least 35-40 creatures.
*Hermit of the Natterknolls///Lone Wolf of the Natterknolls - It's kind of like Dosan the Falling Leaf in that it punishes (or at least tries to) people for trying to play at instant speed, albeit this one is only affecting your turns. Dosan is better if you want to go for a backbreaking combo on your turn as it states that nobody can do anything ever on other turns, because if you're just playing Dosan for value it could backfire on you if someone else wants to go infinite and Dosan would prevent anyfrom from stopping it. The issue is that if you have this guy out (or its transformed side), people are just gonna not cast anything, and only play an instant if whatever you're doing is more degenerate than the card or two you would draw in which case you probably would want Dosan anyway. In essence it's a punisher mechanic. This guy sounds pretty strong but I think he's not going to be as good as he looks.
My decks that I would play him in: None.
**Sage of Ancient Lore///Werewolf of Ancient Hunger - It's a 5 mana creature that draws you a card when it ETBs, and when it flips it will probably be pretty huge with vigilance and trample. Not sure how it will play out but it sounds fine but unexciting.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Seasons Past - It sounds strong on paper but I'm curious to see how well it stacks in reality. The dream is to return, say, 7+ cards with this, but even in EDH mana curves are not ridiculously high. A lot of spells are 3-4 CMC or lower, with not many at 5, 6, 7, etc. How many cards would you need to return before you're happy with this card? As a 6-mana sorcery, I think I would want at least 5 cards, assuming one of them is a land (fetchlands will get into your graveyard very easily, and it'll be even better if an important land got there). You can make this work if you have things that can get to your graveyard quickly and not going out of your way to do so; mill/dredge, evoke, discard outlets, etc. If it's any bonus, this doesn't target, so cards like Scavenging Ooze that are targeted graveyard removal don't hose this as badly as it could. Also it's a question as to whether or not it's worth it when Praetor's Counsel gets everything in your graveyard back, even if it is 2 more mana. It seems too restrictive.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Second Harvest - Somewhat similar to Saproling Symbiosis where if you have a bunch of stuff in play, this makes your board even larger. Seems somewhat winmore, but if you can get, say, at least 5 or so 1/1 tokens from this, it's not bad. It's also a bit more potent if you have larger creature tokens, like wolves, zombies, beasts, etc. The dream of course is to get copies of tokens that are copies of regular cards (e.g. you're playing a UG deck and you made a token copy of Eternal Witness, so this card makes a copy of that Witness token). The instant speed certainly helps the playability.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if more token makers are in the deck
**Silverfur Partisan - It's kind of like Wild Defiance in that when one of your creatures get targeted by an instant or sorcery you get a bonus. Here it's obviously for a wolf or werewolf tribal deck and I'm not sure if that kind of deck exists, but it doesn't seem like a bad card for that deck.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Tireless Tracker - Funny how this card makes Seer's Sundial into a joke, not that sundial was very playable. For another comparison, it's a one-sided but slower Horn of Greed. In any case, it's a 3-drop that generates permanents in a color that loves getting lands into play. You won't draw cards immediately, and this won't do much if you topdeck it late as you may have run out of lands to drop, but this helps ensure that you will never gas out in the early-midgame. There's also some text about it getting larger as you sacrifice clues, but whatever, this will mostly be used as a draw engine for green.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
***Traverse the Ulvenwald - Pretty mediocre without Delirium, but with Delirium it's Eladamri's Call plus Sylvan Scrying stapled together at only 1 mana. However the delirium means it's going to take awhile for this to trigger. Eladamri's call could be used early to get a value creature like Oracle of Mul Daya while this will be more restricted to finding mid-lategame bombs, and earlygame just getting you a basic land. Green decks by default have a lot of creatures to go find, but I would be happy to play this card if there's also a nonbasic land that I really want too (Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.)
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Ulvenwald Hydra - This guy is Primeval Titan and is so clearly worse in every way (finds 1 land instead of 2, and doesn't trigger when it attacks), but somehow still looks playable, which I guess says more about Prime Time than this guy. Regardless, it's a 6-mana "find any land and put it in play tapped" stapled to a respectable body. Obviously since it's finding significantly fewer lands than Prime Time, you want this guy in a deck where you have a very important land to get (e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Arlinn Kord///Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon - Granting vigilance is underrated in EDH as attacking can sometimes invite all other players to swing in at you. Her 0 and her -1 on the flip side seem tricky to use though, as using them will transform her, so you can't always count on having them, but making 2/2 tokens and then bolting things are nice to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if she is <$5.
****The Gitrog Monster - Deathtouch seems somewhat weird on a 5-mana 6/6, but whatever. The exploration effect doesn't actually ramp you because you're sacrificing a land every turn, so you go up 2 land drops and lose 1 (unless you get it out of play before your next upkeep of course). The big boon is that anytime a land card is put into your graveyard from ANYWHERE you draw a card. So cracking a fetchland draws you a card. Milling lands into your graveyard (e.g. Life from the Loam, Forbidden Alchemy, Fact or Fiction, etc.) draws you a card (note that the ability will only trigger once, so if you mill, say, 3 lands from forbidden alchemy, it will only trigger once). Discarding a land card (e.g. Cycling lands) draws you a card. Sacrificing a land every turn can be annoying, but you draw a card since the land goes into the graveyard, and if you can turn that into a benefit (e.g. sacrifice your Flagstones of Trokair, or sacrifice your Bojuka Bog and find a way to get it back into play) then it's almost not even a drawback to begin with. It's a draw engine that requires some work, but if you can make it work I think it will be very strong. It also goes infinite with Dakmor Salvage and any discard outlet, where you dump basically your entire library into your graveyard, and as we all know with Hermit Druid what that can lead to.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus, or a new deck with Gitrog as the general
**Olivia, Mobilized for War - Haste is a powerful mechanic, but requiring that you discard cards for it is a bummer. She can turn them into vampires so maybe if you have a vampire theme, but she still looks underwhelming. You really want the discard to not be a drawback (Reassembling Skeleton or Squee, Goblin Nabob).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Fires of Yavimaya
+ Sidisi, Undead Vizier
+ Ophiomancer
+ Ogre Battledriver
+ Victimize
+ Reclamation Sage
+ Coalition Relic
+ Evolutionary Leap
+ Dragonlair Spider
- Fauna Shaman
- Chord of Calling
- Anger
- Jarad's Orders
- Tempt with Vengeance
- Phyrexian Delver
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Chromatic Lantern
- Increasing Ambition
- Baleful Force
Lots of budget cuts (or in some cases budget swaps), and cutting some of the high CMC cards.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Eternal Scourge
Collective Effort
Deploy the Gatewatch
Selfless Spirit
Sigarda's Aid
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Thalia's Lancers
Imprisoned in the Moon
Mausoleum Wanderer
Summary Dismissal
Noosegraf Mob
Tree of Perdition
Shreds of Sanity
Eldritch Evolution
Splendid Reclamation
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Spell Queller
Tamiyo, Field Researcher
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Eldritch Evolution
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
**Decimator of the Provinces - Overrun on a stick. Or in another comparison, a fairer version of Craterhoof Behemoth. Emerge is an interesting mechanic, as it's like the offering mechanic from Kamigawa except you can't flash it in as an instant unless the card says it can (offering allowed you to play it as an instant) but offering required a very specific thing to offer while emerge just lets you sacrifice any creature. In any case, I feel like this guy doesn't do enough unless you have additional ways to give your swarm more power. +2/+2 isn't that much especially if it's only for the turn. The trample is nice, but at such a hefty mana cost it could be problematic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Distended Mindbender - Single-player discard isn't the best in EDH, although you can hit the player that doesn't have a lot of graveyard recursion for some effect. It still seems fairly mediocre.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Dark Salvation - Very mana intensive, but it's a removal spell that doubles as a token generator. If zombie tribal is a thing it could be fine. Doesn't seem very exciting otherwise.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Liliana, the Last Hope - Disentomb isn't that bad of an effect in EDH, but I don't see much space for her, and I'm not talking about comparing her to Liliana of the Veil. -2/-1 is close to nothing in EDH, and it's not worth paying 3 mana for a disentomb with a small bonus. She doesn't pass the doubling season test either.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Noosegraf Mob - There are cards that do things whenever a player casts a spell (e.g. Dragonlair Spider, Rhystic Study). The fact that there's a limited number of times this makes zombies without additional help is a bummer, especially at 6-mana. If you can put +1/+1 counters on this you can get a nice stream of 2/2s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Oath of Liliana - Diabolic Edict that affects each opponent is always handy. Making a single 2/2 is okay for chump blocking but the edict effect is handy for superfriends decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Tree of Perdition - This can be a slow but lower CMC version of Sorin markov and the like. Setting life totals to something low in one huge chunk is always scary, but this can look fairer because it's a creature that needs to tap and it can't really do it again until it leaves the battlefield to reset its toughness. The dream of course is to play it in some Doran deck where you swap this toughness with a 40-life opponent to get a 0/40 creature, and then sac it to like Feed the Pack to get 40 2/2 wolves.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eldritch Evolution - It's a fairer natural order. That's still very solid. Another comparison would be that it's birthing pod that is one shot, but costs slightly less mana and you "jump" up to 2 mana instead of 1. That's all I really need to say.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks
****Splendid Reclamation - This card has the potential to ramp you very hard. Any deck that has mill can quickly get a bunch of lands into the yard. Compare this to other 4-mana ramp spells that get you 2 lands like Explosive Vegetation, and you can see that just getting 3+ lands reliably will pay you off, and this brings back nonbasics too. This also includes lands that get there naturally, like fetchlands, strip mine, things that got destroyed by opposing strip mines, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks with a mill theme, Progenitus
***Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Spider tribal gets a legend. Delirium shouldn't be that hard to reach if you're dedicated to it, and making three 1/2s with reach plus herself being a 3/5 with reach means you buy a lot of time against opposing fliers. The bummer is that the drain effect is so expensive so you're basically playing it to generate tokens, which is actually still not bad for 5 mana. It may be playable in GB decks in general that use their graveyard (e.g. Karador) as having creatures with reach is always handy to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Possible new deck with this as the general
*Ulvenwald Observer - If you have black, Harvester of Souls is close to strictly better. Even then, Soul of the Harvest is usually better than this. And at 6-mana you don't really want multiples of these effects, not to mention the effect is fairly narrow anyway. How many creatures with 4+ toughness will you have out and die on you?
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Grim Flayer - It certainly doesn't feel mythic. It also doesn't seem like it'll do anything in EDH. It's even questionable how much work this will do in standard as long as Sylvan Advocate is around to stonewall it, since standard doesn't have great mill and it takes awhile to reach delirium. Certainly mythic for limited but that's it.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ulrich of the Krallenhorde//Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha - Sounds funny for a RG fight club deck, but it's very hard to get creatures to transform, as it requires nobody to cast anything for a turn, which is very rare. Because of that this guy doesn't seem very playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Geier Reach sanitarium - Similar to Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. Seems nifty for group hug but not very exciting in anything else.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Recruiter of the Guard
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Demon of Dark Schemes
Nissa, Vital Force
Cloudblazer
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
Aetherworks Marvel
Panharmonicon
Inventor's Fair
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Demon of Dark Schemes
Cultivator of Blades
Aetherworks Marvel
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
****Demon of Dark Schemes - Obviously very similar to Massacre Wurm. Most notably this gives all other creatures -2/-2, including your other creatures, whereas Wurm only hit your opponents' creatures. That does suck, but basically for every 4 creatures that die, you can pay 2B with 4 energy to reanimate a creature, so in that sense killing your X/2s isn't the end of the world. Presumably the energy sticks around even if this dies, so if it comes back you can still use that energy. Wurm can close the game quickly, mostly against enemy token decks, but this seems like it has more value overall because of the reanimation effect. Also being a 5/5 flier is not irrelevant either. Ultimately it's a mini-sweeper stapled with a card-advantage engine all on a respectable body. It's got many qualities for what you want out of your top-end.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
Diabolic Tutor - Don't play this card in EDH. If for whatever reason you do though, get this art. It's hilarious. Also that flavor text can be taken out of context really easily.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Eliminate the Competition - This will be for token decks where you have a ton of disposable creatures to sacrifice, but this generally seems worse than Grave Pact or other similar cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Fortuitous Find - Budget graveyard recursion card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Gonti, Lord of Luxury - Basically when it ETBs you Impulse an opponent's deck, then it's a roadblock for ground creatures thanks to deathtouch. Seems like a decent value card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Marionette Master - It's basically a 6-mana, huge version of Disciple of the Vault. While Disciple is generally better as it's 1-mana and you usually win with infinite combos anyway (thus this card potentially hitting for more life per trigger isn't that relevant), it's still a decent card for artifact decks anyway. Most of the time you'll play Disciple of the Vault as the first copy and only play this as a backup, if even that. Pumping out three 1/1 artifacts isn't irrelevant though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Midnight Oil - Seems like a slow, crappier Phyrexian Arena. in standard it could see play as multiple Oils draw you cards while the last Oil you play is the one that sets your handsize (even though that's durdly as hell and there are very few times where you have the time to play more than one oil), but in EDH you obviously can't play multiple Oils. You could find a way to donate this to an opponent, but they still get the card draw anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Morbid Curiosity - You probably want to sacrifice something that's at least 3-mana before you feel like you get your money's worth. On top of that it has to be something that you don't mind sacrificing (Mulldrifter) or is beneficial for you to sac (Ichor Wellspring). Seems okay but it's quite limited in scope.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Noxious Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, but a creature that is unconditional removal on ETB is nice to have. However compare it to Duplicant. This card is harder to cast and doesn't exile the creature and sometimes it won't be as large in P/T, but this has menace and lifegain. That sounds like a losing trade. It's still a decent ETB value creature but I feel like Duplicant is better unless the lifegain is important.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Underhanded Designs - You have to invest mana into it, so it will be very mana intensive despite being only 2 mana. more often than not it'll just be a slow kill spell.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Architect of the Untamed - That's a lot of energy required to create a 6/6 dude. Landfall isn't hard to meet if you have fetchlands, but the fact that you need a lot of energy is offputting. It just seems too slow. It'll be more useful as an energy generator than actually pumping out 6/6 dudes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Armorcraft Judge - If this can draw you 3-4 cards you'll have gotten your money's worth. The trick is being able to do that reliably. Cards that slowly but surely put +1/+1 counters on a lot of creatures (Abzan Ascendency, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, avenger of Zendikar and all the plant tokens, etc.) will have to do the trick. Because of that, this card is very much a lategame card and not something you can play on turn 4 or 5 and expect to draw some cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cultivator of Blades - Interesting dynamic in that either you can make his pump effect more potent, or you can put more bodies into play to receive his pump effect. That is cool design. It's a decent card overall and is obviously for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
Dubious Challenge - This card is terrible but I have heard some buzz about it, so I shall explain why it's awful. First, you have to reliably hit at least two creatures to choose; if you only choose one then your opponent will usually just take it and leave you with nothing (granted, that's not hard to do in a green deck) and if you choose 0 then your spell literally does nothing. Second, the fact that the opponent chooses the creature first is a huge problem because they'll take the better creature and leave you with the inferior creature, and you arguably LOST mana on the deal (e.g. they take a 5-mana dude and leave you with a 4-mana one). The only way I can think of to make this work is to play cards like Homeward Path to get the creature back, but if the creature the opponent takes has an ETB effect (e.g. Acidic Slime) then it doesn't fully mitigate the problem. Basically you have to hope that the opponent takes a creature and then does something with it that doesn't hinder you (e.g. take the acidic slime and blow up someone else's thing) which is already very tricky to do. Basically you have to be really far behind so the opponent takes the creature and then doesn't target you, and you have to choose creatures that can't negatively affect you (e.g. you probably should not pull out a Vorinclex for your opponent to take). Ultimately it's a lot of work for what is basically a crappier Defense of the Heart, Pattern of Rebirth, etc. type of card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Nissa, Vital Force - I'm actually quite excited for her, moreso than your average planeswalker. Unlike most other walkers, she can ultimate very quickly without relying on doubling season, so you can evaluate her based on cracking said ultimate. Her ultimate comes in one turn if you +1 her immediately, and that emblem is definitely solid value. If you have proliferate effects you could even do it immediately. The +1 even helps protect you by making a 5/5 for a whole round. In a green deck, 5-mana is not that hard to get by turn 3 and it can be difficult to pressure a PW that early in the game especially if you make a 5/5 blocker. Now if you can't ultimate her then she is less exciting (Nature's Spiral is a decent card, but she can't do it twice in a row and isn't worth spending 5-mana for it), but if you can hit the ultimate you will get some nice value. Note that her ultimate is very similar to Tireless Tracker except you don't spend 2 mana per card draw and once you get the ultimate off you never have to worry about it being removed.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter - Similar to Rhys the Redeemed; 1-mana generals with a 3-mana activated ability to make a 1/1 dude. However, this doesn't give you access to white, and its second ability is usually worse (generally in token decks it's better to continue to go wide than making one large creature).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Verdurous Hulk - Not really sure what deck to play this in. Just making some dudes bigger is not a big deal in EDH.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wildest Dreams - Power level errata of Recall anyone? In any case, it's a decent card but it's very mana intensive. It's 1-mana over Regrowth, and X=2 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Seasons Past which will often get you more than 2 cards. At X=3 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Praetor's Council. I mean that is the point of X-cards, but this simply seems too inefficient.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Deepglow Skate
Faerie Artisans
Divergent Transformations
Benefactor's Draught
Atraxa, Praetor's voice
Breya, Etherium Shaper
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Armory Automaton
Ash Barrens
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Divergent Transformations (with some major changes)
Primeval Protector
Ash Barrens (for budget)
THIS PAGE COVERS ALL COMBINATIONS OF PAIRS FOR THE PARTNER GENERALS
https://badaro.github.io/edhpartners/partners.html
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
BLACK
***Cruel Entertainment - On paper it looks like double Mindslaver except your opponents are instead the ones trying to own each other. You likely do not want to let an opponent take control of your turn, but you can likely get two people to kill each other. It's a very tricky card to use though, because they could instead agree to not totally screw each other over. The strength of this card will largely depend on the personalities of the people in your playgroup. Are they spikes who will try to screw with each other the hardest, or are they going to be political? I am rating this high because I think most people will do whatever they can to screw the other player, but again, you must evaluate the players in your playgroup and see whether or not they will do that as well.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Curse of Vengeance - If you want to talk about a card that has a massive amount of variance, this might be the poster boy. You need to cast it early to gain value, and the person has to actually lose the game before it does anything (also assuming it doesn't get destroyed in the meantime). But it ramps up quickly and it could theoretically draw you a lot of cards. Its low floor makes me think this is just flat out unplayable but maybe someone wants to try messing with it.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Curtains' Call - Will usually cost around 4-5 mana. Ashes to ashes is a sorcery and can't get artifact creatures and deals 5 damage to you, but is always only 3 mana and exiles. Not sure if this card will be better than ashes to ashes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Magus of the Will - Anything that's shades of Yawgmoth's Will has to be insane, right? Well, this is really slow, so unless you two need two Wills, probably not. Playable just because of how insane Will is, but not amazing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Parting Thoughts - Sorcery speed is a major issue with the card. It's clunky and narrow since you only get a benefit if it had counters. You can draw a lot of cards (and lose a lot of life) but it has a terrible floor.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
GREEN
****Benefactor's Draught - Simply untapping all creatures (although that includes your opponents') has a lot of potential. It also cantrips and can draw a few more cards. However there will be some intricacies with this card; if an opponent has no untapped creatures and playing this will suddenly give them blockers, this could be a good or bad thing depending on the situation. The cantrip helps this card's floor, but I imagine this will be used in combo decks because of how it untaps your creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Charging Cinderhorn - It starts off doing little damage so it doesn't impact the board early. It can ramp up quickly, but people can just suicide a little dork to avoid the trigger.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Evolutionary escalation - It's 2-mana but you likely won't play this until mid-lategame. In any case, you obviously want to play a creature that wants this huge bonus (like voltron), and most notably you can choose which other creature gets the counters. Put it on a creature with defender, or a creature that normally doesn't attack (like Arcanis the Omnipotent), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Primeval Protector - It can come down for relatively cheap which can make it quite scary. Generally if you run enough creatures/token generators where you would want this card, by the time you want to play this card the board is probably quite cluttered, meaning this can come down for maybe 1-3 mana, anthems your other creatures and leaves a 10/10. Of course if nobody else plays a lot of creatures then it's unplayable, but generally at least one opponent will have a bunch of creatures out and the other opponents usually have at least 1-2 creatures out. It's sort of win more and it is terrible early on or after a sweeper (as are most anthems) though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (budget pending)
**Seeds of Renewal - Restock that requires 2 opponents to be the same card, and 3 opponents makes it slightly better. Restock is a solid card but not really a staple. This card is playable but doesn't jump out to me.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Stonehoof Chieftain - Certainly powerful, but at 8-mana you get what you pay for. Perfect for your usual green stompy decks that want their creatures to force through damage and not die in combat.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(RAKDOS)
*Vial Smasher the Fierce - The damage off its trigger doesn't count towards general damage, and the opponent is chosen at random, so he sucks.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(GRUUL)
**Tana, the Bloodsower - Hard to say how exactly to build this guy. You need help to force through damage (trample does help, but you need ways to buff him because he's a 4-mana 2/2, like Xenagos, God of Revels) and then its bonus is to make a bunch of 1/1s. So basically you would need to put a bunch of your eggs in one basket and then your bonus is to go wide. Those abilities seem to be at ends with each other. Unless there's a card where you can sacrifice 1/1s to pump up a creature, I'm not sure how playable this guy will be.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(GOLGARI)
*Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper - Gaining life is whatever.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Reyhan, Last of the Abzan - Basically it gives your creatures the modular ability (e.g. Arcbound Worker). It doesn't help against sweepers so you may want some indestructible creatures to dump +1/+1 counters on in an emergency. It gives some insurance against spot removal which is nice, but the card doesn't blow me away.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Grave Upheaval - Reanimation that costs more than 5 needs to have more upside than granting haste and having basic landcycling.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Treacherous Terrain - This would be a funny card against many of those green ramp stompy decks. Too bad this thing costs 8 mana and so it's basically unplayable. Paying 8 mana to do 10-15 damage, even in a good scenario, is meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Terminate
+ Mimic Vat
+ Cryptolith Rite
+ Reap
+ 1 swamp
+ Growth spasm
+ Clip Wings
- Murderous Cut
- Disciple of Bolas
- Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- Phyrexian Reclamation
- Ophiomancer
- Carpet of Flowers
- Coalition Relic
- Sulfurous Springs
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Restoration Specialist
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Baral's Expertise
Disallow
Trophy Mage
Whir of Invention
Heroic Intervention
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Paradox Engine (will likely get banned)
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
BLACK
*Battle at the Bridge - Ho-hum removal spell, sorcery speed kills it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Fatal Push - Wizards obviously wanted to name it "THIS IS SPARTA" but they couldn't because something. Regardless, this is actually playable in the right meta (and is very good in modern). If you have a hypercompetitive meta where many of the key creatures are 4 or less mana (Brago, Zur, Arcum, Hermit Druid, etc.), this is basically a 1-mana kill spell. With fetchlands around you can trigger the revolt easily. You may want to have more cards that can leave the battlefield on command so you can get the revolt trigger more reliably, but regardless, any 1-mana kill spell should be on your radar. Pick up your foils because modern is going to love this card and it will cause this to be expensive for a long time.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Machinations - The sac ability is terrible, but it seems like an okay energy generator. Crack a fetchland on a turn you're not damaged to get a free energy, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Herald of Anguish - The discard ability seems kind of tacked on but is good, since it triggers at your endstep which helps it generate value faster than if it triggered at your upkeep. The sac ability is a bit hefty as you need 1B and you only get a Disfigure out of it, but artifact decks have a slew of artifacts to toss away. What's more interesting is that black gets a card that loves artifacts, since it's usually white/blue/red that get the artifact love. Not sure if it'll be good enough for artifact decks since they can combo so quickly though, but it sounds good on paper.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Midnight Entourage - Not sure if there are enough playable Aetherborns.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Perilous Predicament - Almost everyone will have a noncreature artifact, but not everyone will have an artifact creature.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Sly Requisitioner - Depending on how many artifacts you have that sacrifice themselves and/or how many artifact sac outlets you have, this might be a decent value card. Most of the time if you're saccing artifacts you're going for an infinite loop though so this won't really do anything.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Vengeful Rebel - Similar to Fatal Push; decent to good in the right meta, and you need to trigger the revolt reliably.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Yahenni, Undying Partisan - Sac outlets that require no mana investment are always something to be aware of. He can't sac himself but whatever. It can also grow fairly quickly, although you're going to play this more as a sac outlet than anything else. While most sac outlets can't compare to the really good ones like Viscera Seer or Phyrexian Altar, this will still be fine.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Yahenni's Expertise - A mini-sweeper is not always relevant in EDH, but being able to cast a spell for free is always dangerous and worth watching out for. Play this and use the free spell on a removal spell to kill a big threat that the mini-sweeper doesn't catch. You really do want to play this card in a meta where the mini-sweeper matters.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
RED
**Indomitable Creativity - Really huge polymorph-variant must be interesting, right? Well this one seems like it'll be very difficult to abuse. While you can target artifacts or creatures, revealing either one will satisfy the card. For example, if you wanted to kill 4 of your dumb creature tokens, you might end up revealing underwhelming artifacts instead of these huge creatures you wanted to flip over, and vice versa. If you played something like Divergent Transformations instead, which only cares about creatures, you will instead keep flipping until you hit creatures, making it easier to cheat in bombs. This means this card seems more like a multi-kill spell that gives the controller something in return at random, rather than something you can build around and be able to cheat in a fattie with the proper deckbuilding. Given that monored has problems killing large creatures this might still see play, but it's not going to be as good as your normal Polymorph-type card.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Kari Zev, Skyship Raider - She's a lower CMC Geist of Saint Traft who doesn't hit as hard and can be killed with spot removal, but is a little harder to kill in actual combat. She'll be interesting in standard, but it doesn't seem like she'll be enough for EDH as a voltron. She comes down early and is hard to block, but she needs serious equipment/aura to boost her power and she can still be killed with removal spells.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Kari Zev's Expertise - This might be the most interesting of the cycle not because the Threaten effect is bonkers, but the fact that it's the lowest CMC of the cycle, meaning if you want to go out of your way to abuse Ancestral Vision or the like, this is the best of the cycle to do so.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Lightning Runner - Extra attack steps can be strong in the right build, but because you need so much energy for it, there's not many places that can use this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Pia's Revolution - Punisher mechanics are not good in EDH, but this is at a low enough CMC and is repeatable where either choice the opponent makes is generally acceptable. It's similar to Combustible Gearhulk in that you get to target the opponent who has to make the choice, so you can target the guy at a low life total if you want to recur an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Quicksmith Rebel - Granting an artifact an ability while this guy is in play is cool design, although just poking something for 2 damage isn't that useful in EDH.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Release the Gremlins - There are a bunch of cards that destroy multiple artifacts, and I feel like there are enough of them that are more efficient than this card. It's a nice mana sink late in the game, but it is very inefficient early-midgame, so I would rather play Shattering Spree, Vandalblast, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
GREEN
**Aetherwind Basker - If you want to make an energy deck, you can play a token deck and have this in here to create a bunch of energy quickly. outside of that this card doesn't really do anything.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Aid from the Cowl - This triggers at your end step so you are more likely to get at least one trigger when it resolves (as opposed to triggering at your upkeep), which helps the playability of the card. 5-mana is pretty hefty so you want to be almost all permanents or have some library manipulation.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Maelstrom Wanderer
****Heroic Intervention - Basically it's a super Boros Charm/Simic Charm. If you're blue, you should just play a counterspell instead of this so you can counter whatever would be troubling you, but if you're not blue and you're in green this might be your next best option. It stops most traditional removal spells and sweepers.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hidden Herbalists - Most creatures that produced mana upon ETB were red or black or made eldrazi tokens, so I guess it's interesting that monogreen finally gets one that does it, albeit with the revolt restriction. Regardless, the types of decks that cared about Priest of Urabrask and similar cards would care about this, and everything else probably won't.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Maulfist Revolutionary - It proliferates only one target, and since it does target it can't get around shroud/protection/etc. for whatever that's worth.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Monstrous Onslaught - If you have a large creature (e.g. Terastodon) this can pick off multiple creatures. Since it checks the value of X as you cast it, you don't get blown out by a removal spell either. Sorcery speed and 5-mana sucks, but if you can kill 2-3 creatures it could be fine.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Peema Aether-Seer - It can generate a lot of energy on its own if you have recursion/blink.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Ridgescale Tusker - Anthems the rest of your team for 5-mana. Sounds fine but you really want to have a +1/+1 counter theme.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Rishkar, Peema Renegade - He's subtle but I see a lot of utility. Basically he makes two of your creatures slightly bigger and into Llanowar Elves, meaning he's fine early on in a creature-heavy deck to help you mana ramp (especially if the two creatures getting the counters can immediately tap), and he's fine later in the game when you want extra power/toughness on the board. In addition, anything with +1/+1 counter synergies like Doubling Season will be good. On top of that, your creatures can produce mana if they have ANY counters on them, including -1/-1 counters, and any counters that were on them before Rishkar ETB'd. You do want to build around him, and play cards that can put +1/+1 counters on a lot of things quickly (e.g. Oath of Ajani, Cathars' Crusade, etc.) but when built around properly he provides a lot of utility for just 3-mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Prossh with some changes
***Rishkar's Expertise - One of the most interesting cards in the cycle because it lets you cast a larger variety of spells for free. Consider that Garruk, Primal Hunter was a 5-mana planeswalker who let you draw cards (and would kill himself immediately). 6-mana is a lot, but you get what you pay for, and since you draw a bunch of cards before you cast your free spell, you can certainly end up casting something very sweet.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
MULTICOLOR
***Winding Constrictor - Similar to Hardened Scales except for 1 more mana, you get a similar ability on a 2/3 body and it affects counters that you would get too, though right now it's just energy counters, experience counters (from some of the Commander 2015 generals, and given the colors it's probably just for Meren of Clan nel Toth) and poison counters. Still, this should have a home in the right build of creatures with +1/+1 counters.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
ARTIFACT
***Cogwork Assembler - 7-mana for its activation is very hefty, so I imagine it'll be used for infinite combos or something as the ability doesn't require tapping. For example, Krark-Clan ironworks + Myr Battlesphere + this card = infinite colorless mana. Of course artifact decks generally don't have problems generating mana (unless they get hit with a sweeper) and so maybe this being a mana dump will make it good, I don't know.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Crackdown Construct - With any ability that requires no cost to activate and isn't a mana ability, you can get an infinite power and toughness artifact creature, and I'm sure there's a lot of things you can do with that. In standard we get Wandering Fumarole for lulz which is funny as hell, and I know there are other things you can do.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Aether Heart - Seems not bad if you're focused on generating energy. If you want to play this card with the idea of taking an extra turn, you'll probably be disappointed, as you would be better off just playing Time Warp effects or something.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Heart of Kiran - Simple beatsticks in EDH don't cut it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hope of Ghirapur - Legendary version of Xantid Swarm. You need to have this actually connect while Xantid Swarm just needs to attack, and while this does have flying and is only a 1-drop, it's going to be hard for a 1/1 to force through damage, and you need to sacrifice this for the effect, and it only stops noncreature spells. Granted, this does last for a full turn cycle while Xantid Swarm was more like a Grand Abolisher placed on one player for just the rest of the turn. I guess being legendary maybe you can make colorless voltron or something, but I don't know. Xantid Swarm is better when you attack a player with counterspells to help resolve a combo, whereas this is more like a stax piece on the control/storm player, but this is fairly clunky unless you can play it really early and continuously recur it. It is a relatively unique effect so it isn't unplayable, but I wouldn't be excited to test this out.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Inspiring Statuary - Most artifact decks don't have a problem generating mana, especially if this card only helps power out nonartifact spells which an artifact deck won't have a ton of (especially those that cost a lot of mana). Still, it is something to keep your eye on.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Lifecrafter's Bestiary - Essentially it's a bad Glimpse of Nature, but Glimpse of Nature was more like a deck that enabled storm decks/combo and that kind of thing, whereas this is more of a card that just gives all your creature spells "Kicker G, draw a card". Still should be playable in any case. You obviously want a high number of creatures, maybe 30-40 or more, before you should even consider this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Metallic Mimic - If you have a tribal theme this should be fine for just 2-mana, though it's more for weenie decks as I don't think something like Dragon tribal really needs +1/+1 counters on them.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BANNEDParadox Engine - I'm not even going to spend much time talking about this card. It's going to get banned really fast. I would be shocked if the RC doesn't ban it. Prophet of Kruphix got hammered and it isn't nearly as insane as this. It combos with way too many things, namely a bunch of mana rocks and/or mana dorks + some dumb enabler. Buyback cards like Capsize becomes bounce everything you want. Put something stupid like Think twice under an Isochron Scepter and it draws your deck. There are tons of combos, and none of them are good for the game. Play the crap out of this card and have fun with it until it gets banned.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Probably everything pending budget
***Planar Bridge - Obvious parallel to Planar Portal right down to the name. Both are artifacts that cost 6 to hardcast, and this one is 8 mana instead of 6 to find your card and only for permanents but you do put it into play immediately (e.g. sneak in Blightsteel Colossus end of turn). These types of cards are fine in big mana decks that need mana sinks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Renegade Map - I'd rather play Wanderer's Twig or Mycosynth Wellspring if I wanted these cheap artifacts that got me basic lands.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Scrap Trawler - Artifact recursion for no additional costs at just 3 mana upfront is not bad. There are some restrictions but it is repeatable, and it should do some nice work.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Servo Schematic - Similar to Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring in that they're 2-mana artifacts that do the same thing upon ETB or hitting the graveyard. Here though I think making a 1/1 flier is worse than drawing a card or fetching a basic land to ensure your next land drop.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Treasure Keeper - Similar to Matter Reshaper except you add one mana, remove the colorless requirement, and there are fewer restrictions on the free card you get when it dies (any nonland card that is CMC 3 or less can be cast for free). Seems decent.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Universal Solvent - Decks get another way to deal with problematic permanents that their colors won't allow them to (e.g. black/red vs enchantments), and it's another tool for Trinket Mage, and is another object that can be recurred with Salvaging Station. Unassuming card that most decks won't play because it is overcosted, but if your deck/colors are desperate it should be good, and artifact decks don't really have problems generating the necessary mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Walking Ballista - Functions similarly to Triskelion. Interestingly enough if you pay 6 it ETBs with three +1/+1 counters which is the same as Triskelion. The difference is obviously that Triskelion is better for infinite combos as it always ETBs with the counters while cheating this into play doesn't do anything. It's kind of more like Hangarback walker as they are playable artifact creatures with XX costs.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
LAND
***Spire of Industry - Glimmervoid that requires you to pay 1 life to get the colored mana, but it doesn't disappear if you have zero artifacts in play. It's usually worse than Glimmervoid; 1 life isn't much, but they can add up, and it's not that hard to have at least 1 artifact in play if you are the kind of deck that actually wants to play Glimmervoid. Still, artifact decks likely want to play this anyway, and this could be passable in non-artifact decks although there are usually going to be better options.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Gonna try something a little different for my set review.
Instead of just copying and pasting my review of the cards that match the deck's colors, I'm just going to link to my Progenitus review (which covers all cards I think will be relevant for EDH) and then put the summary in my respective topics.
Amonkhet
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Anointed Procession
As Foretold
Pull from Tomorrow
Shadow of the Grave
Harsh Mentor
Harvest Season
Manglehorn
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Manglehorn
Vizier of the Menagerie
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)