Introductions and Explanations Who Am I?
Greetings fellow multiplayer enthusiasts. My name is Kyle "Prid3" Brecht and at the time of writing this I'm a 15+ year MTG veteran who's been playing and following the game competitively (across all relevant duel formats) for well over a decade. That being said whereas most Magic players spend the vast majority of their recreational time dueling/drafting/testing the bulk of my personal playtime has been spent at kitchen tables slinging spells in large multiplayer matches with my friends, family and acquaintances. Be it Cube, Constructed and/or EDH I've literally played tens of thousands of hours of multiplayer Magic in my lifetime and so I consider myself to be an expert on the subject as a whole. With that in mind I'd like to offer you my take on how Magic's latest set will affect the global multiplayer scene as a whole. That is, unlike similar set reviews this one is going to be purely focused on multiplayer formats and dynamics with absolutely no emphasis on duel and/or limited Magic. While I understand that this sort of content won't appeal to everyone it's my belief that multiplayer Magic is played by a relatively high % of the casual MTG playerbase and so it's my hope that most of you will be able to extract meaningful value from my expertise.
My Philosophy
I'm a fiercely competitive player and my set reviews are going to reflect that. That is to say that this is largely going to be a competitive multiplayer set review and so don’t expect me to put any emphasis on subjective measures such as fun factor, flavor nor self-imposed restrictions. While I recognize that terms such as "casual" and "competitive" carry many negative stigmas in the MTG community rest assured that I don’t use either maliciously. As far as I'm concerned it's a simple matter of mindset and how players approach the game from a mental perspective. "Competitive" Magic players such as myself typically build decks with the goal of maximizing our overall match win % given an expected metagame. "Casual" players on the other hand tend to consider a wide variety of variables and factors beyond winning alone. Clearly it's an entire spectrum as opposed to a set of binary data points but the key thing that I wanted to stress is that these terms have absolutely no bearing on a person’s worth nor morality. That is, no one is inherently better or worse than anyone else for thinking about a game in a different way. The only reason why I’m going to focus entirely on "what wins games of Magic" is because every other variable is too subjective to make any definitive, sweeping claims about. That being said all other things being equal we'd all rather win games than lose them.
Grading Scale: A: Oppressive cards that completely warp the game around them. These are format definers that dominate games in which they're left unchecked and crush adversaries who aren't employing similarly powered strategies. This makes them must-have competitive staples with limitless potential. Think Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Humility, Consecrated Sphinx, Sylvan Primordial, Purphoros, God of the Forge. B: Formidable cards that will enable you to pull ahead of the pack. Winning decks should be clamoring to field them as they figure to significantly improve your overall win %. This makes them top-priority acquisition targets for players of all skill-levels. Think Grave Pact, Rolling Earthquake, Wrath of God, Recurring Insight, Tendershoot Dryad. C: Powerful cards that will enable you to keep pace with the rest of the field. A list full of C's won't crush a table but a solid foundation of them should be good enough to keep you competitive. Think Fleshbag Marauder, Clever Impersonator, Scab-Clan Berserker, Realm Seekers, Oreskos Explorer. D: Marginal playables with which to flesh out your lists in the absence of reasonable alternatives. I strongly encourage that you enlist substitutes if it's a realistic option since they're unlikely to yield impressive win %s. F: Weak cards that shouldn't be played. Niche: Immensely powerful-yet-narrow cards that are Bs/As in decks that actively want them and Fs/Ds everywhere else. Think Waste Not, Repercussion, Limited Resources, Intruder Alarm, Oath of Druids. Sideboard: Tremendously powerful-yet-niche cards that you shouldn't maindeck against unknown adversaries but that have competitive applications in known metagames with clearly defined threats and strategies. Think Dystopia, Energy Flux, Compost, Stony Silence, Ruination. +/-: Used to denote a better or worse N. That is, a B+ represents a strong B whereas C- implies a weak C.
White
Grade: F
Even though this card arguably scales with the number of players given that it states "each upkeep" there's no worthwhile incentive to try and do so. After all, there aren't any 1 drops that enable you to pay life for free and so you're relegated to 3+ CMC follow-ups such as Necropotence to get the ball rolling. Given that assembling a 2+ card combo to build-your-own Managorger Hydra is dubious at best I can't recommend trying to build around this thing. Whoever designed it needs to atone for their sins instead.
Grade: C
Unfortunately this is the only reasonable White card in the set given that it's an unconditional 3 CMC Wrath for oppressive fatties that are cheated into play early on. After all, the fact that it's a sacrifice effect means that it slaughters things like Ulamog and Blightsteel Colossus which are incredibly strong when they're ramped, reanimated or Tinkered out early on. That being said the problem with this type of Wrath effect is that it doesn't nuke troublesome ramp/value dorks such as Oracle of Mul Daya and Crypt Ghast nor does it prevent you from being rushed down early on. If someone curves 2 drop -> 3 drop they can still mess you up. It does, however, enable you to curve out with things like Thraben Inspector, Wall of Omens and Eldrazi Displacer without losing your board when you Wrath it on turn 4-5. In that sense it'll excel in "broken" metas filled with oppressive ramp + recursion and/or in lists that feature a large number of small creatures themselves. As such I while I wouldn't recommend starting your generic control decks with these in lieu of traditional Wraths it'll definitely excel in certain metas and archetypes. That being said it's not a "must have" by any means given the conditional nature of the effect.
Grade: F
I hereby decree that this card is absolutely abysmal and should never be played. The effect is nigh worthless in ~95% of all scenarios and requires the stars to align to be worth the resources used to cast it. After all, it essentially doesn't do anything other than prevent your opponents from casting Sorceries for a single circuit which is so laughably weak that it's not even funny. What exactly are you hoping to achieve with that? Sometimes maybe dodge a Wrath for a turn while you develop the board? Prevent a ramp or card draw spell from being played for a turn? It just doesn't make any sense. Please don't play with this trash.
Blue
Grade: Sideboard D
Crafty players will already known to cut all ties with this nonsense because even from sideboard it's unimpressive at best. After all, 4 mana is an extremely high tax to impose given that you essentially can't play magic while you're sitting on it. Cards like Fact or Fiction certainly mitigate that risk to some extent but not by nearly enough to justify playing something as marginal as this. Remember, even when you do manage to snag some tokens you're realistically not even pulling ahead given that Blue decks can't abuse them in the same ways that other colors can. This ensures that even when you're hitting something relevant like Deranged Hermit it's still not the blowout that it needs to be. As such I couldn't envision myself ever playing with or against this card even in a token-heavy metagame. There's certainly a world where this makes the cut but don't go digging through your purse to find the cash needed to acquire some copies.
Grade: Niche D+
I'm personally going to induce some temporary amnesia on this card and recommend that others follow suit. In world of cards like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study and Manifold Insights a 3 mana "Winds of Change" is never going to make the cut so please don't think of this as a "fair" card for "fair" decks. That's not where you want to be. Rather, it needs to be paired with things like Perilous Research, Flickerwisp, Brago, King eternal, Notion Thief and Alms Collector that can legitimately abuse the effect. Note, I realize that flicker effects aren't busted since you don't actually generate any card advantage when you blink it with Brago (or whatever) but seeing a new hand every turn is still immensely powerful as it ensures that you'll always have plenty of action as your games progress. After all, converting a hand of 3 lands into 3 spells can definitely make-or-break your ability to win games of Magic. That being said you're going to be significantly better off fielding more reliable alternatives (such as Manifold Insights) in 95% of all cases making this an extremely underwhelming addition to Blue's already stacked arsenal of draw spells.
Grade: Niche F
This card makes absolutely no sense to me. First of all it's completely unplayable in the "Ebony Owl Netsuke/Iron Maiden" archetype given that it costs 4 and only forces one additional draw per player per circuit. That deck already has multiple 3 CMC versions of the spell that it doesn't play and the only 4 drops that it even considers force 2 or more draws. Beyond that this card is heinous in Blue Control decks given that A) you'll never hit Ascend to begin with and B) it would barely be playable even if it started with the Ascend mode already activated. In colors like Red and White, sure, but Blue? The color with Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Compulsive Research, Fact or Fiction and Recurring Insight? Pass.
Grade: C
Negate is one of the most competitive permission spells in the entire game and every Blue Mage worth their salt should own multiple play sets. It's cheap, easy to cast, hits plenty of relevant targets (including other permission) and is virtually impossible to play around. Remember, when someone Tinkers out a Blightsteel Colossus or Buried Alives + Wake the Deads Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion even though you're technically dying to creatures realistically it's spells that won your adversaries the game. That being said 1-for-1 permission is marginal at best unless you're using it to counter opposing permission and/or game-winning spells so field these types of spells sparingly unless that's the case for you and your meta. If everyone is jamming fair creatures + removal spells as opposed to combos and/or game-ending threats then don't bother with interaction such as this. Still, in any combo/permission-heavy meta it's an utterly absurd Magic card that only loses out to a handful of other alternatives (very few of which are budget-minded).
Grade: A+
This card is straight-up broken. RIX has been an extremely unexciting set up this point but the tide is finally turning because this is the first card that I'm urging everyone to acquire and play. Let me be clear; this card is legitimately worth discussing among titans such as Consecrated Sphinx, Griselbrand, Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur in Reanimator/Ramp/Control decks. This is because it's the first and only one that naturally protects itself without complete reliance on Force of Will, Not of this World and other cheap/free permission/protection spells. Once Nezahal hits the field he isn't going anywhere regardless of what gets thrown at him and that's downright frightening. Believe me when I say that I've seen countless people lose games which their in Jin was killed before it could do anything whatsoever whereas a card like Nezahal would have completely shrugged the removal off. He's so good for so many reasons that I barely know where to start.
First of all, the vast majority of spells and effects that would otherwise kill Nezahal, Primal Tide will inherently draw you a card. Once you start to think of his protection ability as "discard 2 cards, keep your oppressive finisher around" you realize that it's not nearly as taxing as it initially sounds. This is especially true if you factor in the slew of oppressive draw spells and engines that Blue naturally has at its disposal because by no means does he have to be your only form of card draw. Between things like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Consecrated Sphinx and Recurring Insight keeping a full of grip of cards at all times is easier than it sounds.
Moreover, don't sleep on his "unlimited hand size" clause because it's insanely relevant on this type of threat. Keeping all of your "junk" (in addition to your gas) will enable you to consistently protect him as the game progresses while simultaneously ensuring that you can continue to play Magic unimpeded. This, again, provides him a sizable edge over alternatives that require spell-based forms of protection. Also, while having an unlimited hand size might otherwise be a drawback for Reanimator/graveyard-based decks the fact that he can bin cards whenever prevents this from ever being a problem. Those fatties can be binned whenever you want so there's no need to worry about having the effect backfire.
Now, I realize that I haven't spent much time talking about "why" card is good but I don't think much needs to be said about it. As we've previously seen with cards such as Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study and Consecrated Sphinx the effect is "in your face" powerful and scales wildly out of control as the number of players increases. Drawing millions of cards with a large + resilient fatty doesn't need much of the way of further justification. Nezahal is easily the strongest card in the set (not close, not close to being close) so if I could pick any one card for everyone to purchase and play with it would be him. You can literally slot him into deck that could reasonably get him into play and it would be correct to do so. The card is completely bonkers.
Grade: D
The name of this card is fitting in the sense that releasing it to the wind is likely its most relevant use. It's trying so hard to be a good card but it ultimately fails in every possible way. After all, when you take a second to critically analyze how it plays out you realize that it's nothing but a marginal 3 CMC blink spell. Ok, it's a bit better than that, but not by nearly enough. Realistically you only want to be casting this on your permanents and while the ability to control the timing of the re-cast is interesting I'd love to hear the argument as to makes it "powerful." Sure, you could "hide" something and then cast Upheaval (or whatever) but why would I want this in my "Upheaval" decks to begin with? I'd much rather field a card like Worn Powerstone and re-cast a hand full of mana rocks after resolving it.
Otherwise if you simply compare it to something like Ghostly Flicker, again, I'd much rather take the consistent value of bouncing the second permanent. The upside of being able to temporarily remove opposing permanents is marginal at best since that's rarely going to matter in an average multiplayer game. Yes, sometimes it will enable you to remove a Trinisphere so that you can combo off (or something along those lines) but those games will be few and far between. It's a cute effect and I hope that wizards continues to explore this design space but this card is entirely too safe to be interesting. Good concept, weak execution.
Grade: D+
A word to the wise; if you never play with this card in multiplayer you'll be significantly better off than those who do. While I think that most people were excited to finally see Brainstorm tacked-on to a creature I personally view this type of critter as being little more than marginal filler. This card is almost strictly worse than Sea Gate Oracle given that it costs significantly more mana for a marginal increase in powerful which isn't a trade-off that anyone should be happy to make. It's certainly a reasonable inclusion in Blink-based value decks that feature "Ghostly Flicker" type effects (especially ones that also have access to cheap shuffle effects such as fetchlands) but that deck is already stacked for 4+ drops (Panharmonicon, Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Peregrine Drake) and would much rather have something cheaper like Sea Gate Oracle instead. Ultimately it's a reasonable 4 drop for basically any value deck (Blink or not) but in a world of cards like Fact or Fiction and Control Magic it's difficult to justify slotting a 4 CMC + Sorcery speed version of Brainstorm on the off-chance that you manage to abuse the body somehow.
Grade: D
Geez, where am I going to find the time to even being to navigate this card? As much as I want to like it I can't envision a scenario where it would be playable. Not only is hitting Ascend extremely difficult for Blue decks in general but you also have to untap with her before you can activate the effect. Your reward? A slightly cheaper Time Warp that you had to jump through endless hoops to acquire. Don't get me wrong, Time Walks are busted in multiplayer and I love them to death, but I also have to be level-headed with my evaluations and provide realistic expectations to my readers. Time Warp variants will outperform the Navigator 99% of the time and her average use-case will be to sit in play doing absolutely nothing before dying a pointless death. Even in token decks that can reliably hit Ascend she's still going to struggle to earn her keep because she still has to untap before she can activate. Given how maligned extra turn effects tend to be in multiplayer (for good reason) that's always going to be a tall task because needless to say people will be trying to gun her down asap. Until we discover some crazy combo interaction that can bypass these restrictions (maybe we can cross the streams?) I recommend shying away from her.
Black
Grade: C
Oh baby, now my blood is flowing! I'm now going to spend entirely too much time talking about this card so the TL;DR is that it's a reasonable disruption spell for any Black deck in any multiplayer format. That is to say that regardless of the format, the number of players, deck strengths and/or deck strategies you can reasonably start any list with 4 of them and expect to experience mild success at the very least. With that in mind let's move on to all the reasons why I'm extremely excited to see this type of spell being printed.
First of all I want to briefly discuss why you don't see many global discard spells and effects played in multiplayer. Every now and then you'll see Mindslicer in sacrifice-based decks but why is it that you never see cards like Delirium Skeins flying around? After all, it sounds completely bonkers on paper. Think about it; in a 4 player game it's a straight 4-for-9 and for someone like me who plays in 8 player FFAs it's literally a 4-for-21. Four for TWENTY ONE. How is that not broken? The reason why the card legitimately sucks in practice is because you'll never win a game in which you resolve one. Period. Not only are your adversaries ahead on cards since they only discarded 3 whereas you discarded 4 but they also get to untap and draw before you get another chance to act. As such they're essentially up 2 cards and all of their mana on you. Moreover, they're typically drawing into spells and effects that matter whereas you're drawing into worthless discard spells like Delirium Skeins which no longer have value. The net result is that you die a slow and miserable death and never win a game. This is why you typically don't see much mass discard in MP even though it seems powerful on paper.
Now, there are obviously ways to circumvent this fate. Cards like Waste Not, Asylum Visitor and Geth's Grimoire are clearly bonkers when paired with mass discard. Still, at that point you essentially have to be building a full-blown discard deck because you can't just start a list with cards like Geth's Grimoire unless you're going all-in. Moreover, Waste Not was a mistake and doesn't allow anyone to play Magic. I've literally never lost a game in which I've gone turn 2 Waste Not turn 3 Delirium Skeins/Dark Deal or any similar sequence in any similar time-frame. It's legitimately unbeatable. As such discard decks tend to get boring/banned extremely quickly because of how oppressive Waste Not is. Clearly you can ban it or build decks without it but then you lose so much power that it's rarely worth pursuing. It's also hard to justify working on "fair" versions of a previously banned decks because deep down you'll always know that if you do ever manage to break it again your "reward" will be another banning. Fun times.
Based on what I've just said above I'm really happy that Wizards is starting to print some generically powerful discard spells that don't need to be entirely built around or abused. Arterial Flow is a straight 2N-for-1 where N is the number of adversaries. You don't have to build around it whatsoever because it's always going to be a purely advantageous exchange. Moreover, unlike "Syphon Mind" effects that affect each/each other player Arterial Flow only affects your opponents (not you or your allies) making it ideal for team-based formats such as 2HG and Emperor. It's a straight 3 mana 4-for-1 in 2HG (or even 3 player FFA) and that's an awesome place to be. I also appreciate how this is the first generically powerful discard spell that you can blindly run out on turn 3 in order to set up for the turn 4 Syphon Mind. Assuming a 4 player game that's back-to-back 6-for-1s and will leave your opponents with (mostly) empty hands while you'll still be boasting a full grip yourself. This also isn't a combo by any means since both cards work just fine on their own. I do think that this one-two punch will be back-breaking to deal with and I'm excited to start giving it a whirl in my own games.
Beyond that I want to stress how important these kinds of cards are for players who operate in small metas. You have no idea how people message me saying "hey Pride, I play in a small meta and so I need a deck designed for duels, 3 player FFA, 4 player FFA and 2HG." That's harder than it sounds when you're trying to build something competitive on a budget. This is why I'm so happy to see cards like Arterial Flow that are playable in any format regardless of the number of players. It's still a Mind Rot in a duel setting and that's a perfectly playable Magic card. It's not broken by any means, it's no Hymn to Tourach, but it gets the job done and scales into the multiplayer formats. This makes it an extremely strategic acquisition for newer players who need all-purpose decks and strategies. Rather than having to worry about a massive sideboard plan if I can limit it to a small number of cards that's perfect.
Finally, this isn't a broken card by any means. Mind Rot isn't a game-winning effect and discard tends to be actively bad against graveyard-based decks which tend to be prevalent in multiplayer formats. After all, helping your adversary bin a fatty so that they can then reanimate it feels awful. Discard can also go dead as the game progresses and people find themselves in topdeck mode. However, that tends to be less of a concern in multiplayer in my experience as players have more incentive to play for the lategame and field card draw. As such I'm not especially worried about drawing blank discard spells but it's obviously still a thing that can happen from time-to-time. The idea here isn't that this card will revolutionize the game or anything, it's a reasonable playable and nothing more, but I'm glad that I can finally slot a genetic discard spell in my lists and feel actively good about. I certainly didn't feel that way for Unnerve or Tasigur's Cruelty but I'm pumped for Arterial Flow.
Grade: D
Anyone caught playing this on my watch is a dead man. Much like Paladin of Atonement this card might seem multiplayer-slanted but in reality it should virtually never be played over consistent alternatives such as Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood. Remember, it doesn't allow you to play lands so even if you're killing a 4-5 power creature you're still only going to draw ~2 spells on average and bear in mind that spells from opposing decks will typically have less overall value than ones from your own. This is because decks tend to be built with all of their cards and synergies in mind making it entirely possible (and probable) to hit things that are almost completely worthless outside of them. As such you have to do an insane amount of work to get this to outperform something as simple as Night's Whisper, which, again, will never let you down. Don't get me wrong, the dream of killing a giant Taurean Mauler and "drawing" 10-15 additional cards is sweet and it will certainly happen in a small % of games. That being said you're also going to consistently find yourself wishing that this were literally any other card in the game as you fail to assemble the 3 card "combo" of Chest + Fatty + Removal Spell. Why worry about jumping through so many hoops when you could jam 2 copies of Sign in Blood and not have to deal with any of that nonsense?
Grade: C+
Oh wow, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition! This is low-key one of the best cards in the set and one that I highly recommend acquiring. Believe me when I say that it's going to be one of Black's strongest 2 drops moving forward so you may as well start grabbing some play sets now because you're they're all going to find homes eventually. Much like Phyrexian Rager and Gonti, Lord of Luxury before it this is the type of threat excels in decks and archetypes that care about having a critical mass of "stuff." Since that statement is extremely vague let me provide a more in-depth explanation.
Black decks, in general, tend to revolve around cards like Diabolic Intent, Zulaport Cutthroat, Contamination, Recurring Nightmare, Crypt Ghast, Grave Pact, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Living Death, Dictate of Erebos, Razaketh, the Foulblooded and plenty of additional spells and effects that require having a critical mass of resources. Now, while some of you might be thinking to yourselves "ok, sure, but why not just play things like Reassembling Skeleton and Endless Cockroaches?" the answer is "because you can't." The problem with recursive threats (in general) is that they tend to be worthless on their own, resource intensive, terrible in multiples and miserable top decks at virtually every stage of the game. Most "Reassembling Skeleton" decks want to draw exactly one copy of that effect but everything beyond that tends to be heinous. Clearly you're living the dream when you curve turn 2 Skeleton into turn 3 Contamination and/or turn 4 Smokestack but if those get removed and you draw 2-3 Skeles and a Bloodghast you can't do anything other than mope around until you die. Bad draws, removal, mana screw and much more become automatic losses and that's never a good place to be.
This is where cards like Dusk Legion Zealot and Phyrexian Rager shine. They're still 2 and 3 drop creatures that create bodies for the turn 4 Grave Pact and that add devotion for that turn 5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel but they also help you hit your land drops and dig for your big payoff spells and effects. Even if your draw isn't great or you're missing some key components you're never left stranded with do-nothing blockers who don't advance your game plan in a meaningful way. Note, by no means am I suggesting that these cards are "broken" or anything along those lines. They're playable-but-unexciting filler that get the job done. My point is that they tend to outperform the alternatives because they're never dead draws where the others one frequently are. This is why I consider Dusk Legion Zealot to be an extremely competitive 2 drop because, on average, it's going to be one of the best things to be casting on turn 2 when your deck is fielding the typical broken Black spells such as Diabolic Intent, Recurring Nightmare, Grave Pact, Living Death and Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
Grade: Niche D
Before anyone gets ahead of themselves I'm urging everyone in our little coalition to run away from this trap. Even though it says "each opponent" and even though it can chain into itself and/or Dire Fleet Ravager I don't recommend trying to build around it. I briefly tested a pseudo Pirate deck with Phantasmal Image and Hostage Taker among other things but the deck proved to be far too slow, unreliable and weak to warrant further exploration. As with any other cheap tutor it could easily become a "thing" if the right creature is printed but that day isn't today
Grade: C, but F in reality
Unfortunately this isn't going to be the golden boy of the set and the reports of Massacre's demise have been greatly exaggerated. "Infest" variants are almost always reasonable inclusions in multiplayer decks as they enable Control players to stabilize the board against multiple adversaries early on. They hit faster and more consistently than 4+ CMC alternatives which is extremely important against early mana dorks and other utility threats that could otherwise run away with the game. They're still weaker than things like Toxic Deluge and Damnation on average but they're also budget-minded and easy to acquire which makes them ideal for newer players.
That being said this isn't a card worth acquiring. It's strictly worse than either Drown in Sorrow or Flaying Tendrils both of which are already completely unplayable relative to both Toxic Deluge and Massacre. Decks that want "Infest" effects aren't going to be able to consistently hit Ascend nor would they have any use for it to begin with. Most of them are going to be creaturelight/less Control builds that would much rather have the consistent Scry/exile that the alternatives provide. As such there's zero incentive to field this over the multitude of significantly more relevant alternatives.
Grade: Niche C
While I fully expect this card to excel under the right conditions I also expect it to be insanely overrated in general. Let me be perfectly clear; this isn't a playable finisher for generic creature-based drain decks. A gruesome fate awaits anyone who start slotting these into random Gray Merchant decks as an alternative to things like Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate. That's not what this card is designed for. Rather, save them for your token decks to pair with things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Purphoros, God of the Forge. That is, you want to be casting things like Viscera Seer, Sylvan Offering, Zulaport Cutthroat, Sengir Autocrat, Twilight Prophet, Tendershoot Dyrad, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Avenger of Zendikar that spew a ton of bodies onto the field. That way if you're ever able to untap you can fire 1-2 of these off to clear the table out in a single blow. That does make it a fairly niche card in practice but it's certainly one worth acquiring if token decks are your thing.
Grade: A
It doesn't take mastermind to see that this is a must-have acquisition for anyone allowed to play with it. Without getting into a big Wish rant I do want to go on record expressing my discontent for these types of spells. Not only do they enable you to build incredibly fast, consistent and powerful decks but they also break fundamental rules of the game. My go-to example (and the way I got Wishes banned in my meta) is Living Wish with Cloudpost. Not only is this card essentially a Green Sun's Zenith but what most people don't seem to realize is that it inherently enables you to break the 4-of rule. That's not my opinion, that's just how the card works. Go ahead, read it! There's absolutely nothing stopping from grabbing a 5th Cloudpost even if you already have 4 in your deck. As such it enabled me to build decks with 8 virtual copies of cards like Cloudpost, Gaea's Cradle, Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial while also enabling me to grab any silver-bullet at any time. That's not fun, that's not Magic, that's just mindless cheese. It's an utterly terrible design, rewards the "haves," punishes the "have nots" and creates miserable games. Ban that garbage.
Putting all of that aside this card is absurd. It literally grabs any card in your collection and, again, enables you to break the 4-of rule for oppressive spells and effects such as such as Cloudpost, Cabal Coffers, Waste Not and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Or any other card in Magic for that matter! It can literally grab ANYTHING that you own. Don't get me wrong, 4 is a lot of mana to pay for a tutor (Diabolic Tutor sees zero multiplayer play), but it would be ridiculous to argue that this is anything other than an inherently broken spell. That being said I do highly recommend banning wishes and since I expect them to be subject to house rules regardless I'm not going to waste any more time on them. If your meta is cool with Wishes and you happen to have a big collection, awesome, go nuts doing broken things with game-breaking effects.
Grade: Niche D
While neither of these cards is worth analyzing in a vacuum I'll briefly note that they both work as enablers for various Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Zulaport Cutthroat style combo kills. The idea here is that if you can assemble Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat/Bitter Ordeal and [any revival threat] and [any way to sac that threat] and [any way to infinitely cast that threat] you can win the game against any number of adversaries. Note that these combos typically include cards like Phyrexian Altar and/or Ashnod's Altar that act as both sac outlets and mana engines which makes that task slightly more achievable than it sounds. Both of these card can theoretically work in this style of deck because if you're able to assemble something like Phyrexian Altar + Bontu's Monument + Oathsworn Vampire then you can nuke the table down fairly easily.
That being said the reason why you've probably never seen these types of decks is because they're typically not very good. Not only do they have a ton of moving pieces, no way to protect/recur them and no way to reliably assemble them but they're also extremely slow, inconsistent, vulnerable to removal and painfully obvious as to what they're trying to do. Any reasonable group of adversaries will be able to thwart your gameplan and leave you with a pile of do-nothing combo pieces and worthless blockers. If the individual combo pieces had more inherent value then the archetype might would be worth pursuing but as it sits it's far too unreliable
Grade: D+
Welcome to the most overrated card in the set. I don't think that it's unplayable or anything but for the life of me I'll never understand people's fascination with expensive + Sorcery speed + 1-for-1 removal spells in multiplayer. When I first saw Vona's Hunger spoiled my jaw dropped because of how bonkers that card is going to be. Not only is it the first instant-speed Fleshbag Marauder effect that we've ever seen but it's also playable in team formats (whereas Marauders are marginal at best) and it even has an extremely powerful Ascend clause. That being said when I took a peek over in this thread the only card that people were talking about was the Goateater. I don't get it. When has Nekrataal ever been good in multiplayer? When have you ever seen a deck that included it?
There's legitimately a whole host of problems with those types of spells and effects in multiplayer. First of all they're extremely expensive which means that they often hit too slow to react to giant fatties being cheated out early on. There's plenty of cards like Oath of Druid, Animate Dead and Tinker that will power them out long before Flametongue Kavus come online. Moreover, the fact that they're 1-for-1s also means that they won't actually seize control of the board when they're cast given that you're only killing a single creature from a single adversary. Whereas a card like Damnation will kill "the everything" Nekrataals won't even pull you ahead of the rest of the pack. They're also "Sorceries" which makes them worthless against true game-enders such as Consecrated Sphinx, Sire of Sanity, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and a host of other common closers that need to die immediately. You simply cannot afford to wait on removing them. On the subject of Sorceries let's not forget that they also force you to tap out on your turn which prevents you from holding up/representing interaction against combo/synergy decks. It's also extremely easy to play around Sorcery-speed removal since you can essentially just "go for it" as soon as you assemble whatever you need to win. Lastly, even though everyone likes to think of these cards as being 2-for-1s please reflect on the value of a Grizzly Bears in multiplayer. Sorry, it's not a card, it's barely a fraction of a fraction of a card. Ravenous Chupacabra, to me, is only marginally better than an "Impale" unless you're actually abusing the body for something other than attacking and blocking. Even then I use the word "abuse" extremely loosely because that's easier said than done. If you're Birthing Podding into this over Mindslicer or Meren of Clan Nel Toth then you're doing it wrong.
This card, to me, is extremely unexciting filler at best. Even if your deck has things like Recurring Nightmare, Eldritch Evolution, Birthing Pod, etc. this should never make the cut over things like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Solemn Simulacrum and Mindslicer. It doesn't do nearly enough to justify its slot. Again, it's not completely unplayable or anything (it's not Mudhole levels of bad) but for the life of me I don't understand why these types of cards receive so much love whereas cards like Vona's Hunger go completely overlooked. There's virtually no world where it should make the cut unless you're just trying to fool around with purposely weak cards.
Grade: D+
It's coming! While this card is slightly more interesting than the Chupacabra it still isn't something that you should be looking to field in multiplayer outside of small, team-based formats such as 2HG. After all, a pure upside "Plague WindTitan" seems nigh unbeatable unless your adversaries are doing something extremely unfair. Note that oppressive mana engines such as Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx don't change the equation either because no matter how you slice it "Dread Cacodemons" aren't that exciting in multiplayer. Their biggest weakness is that they don't actually win games of Magic. After all, even when you slam them and clear (or mostly clear) the board it's not as though you're suddenly in a prime position to win. What are you going to do, beat everyone down? Doesn't happen. You still need a lot of things to be going your way and that's rarely going to be the case. They're also extremely mana intensive, worthless reanimation targets and fairly useless against creature-light decks and strategies. All-in-all I don't see a compelling reason to fool around with this type of finisher when there's throngs of significantly more powerful and consistent alternatives.
Grade: Niche C
All I can say "thank God she isn't sparkling." So help me God if I ever seen another Twilight vampire... ahem... moving on. As most of you have probably guessed by now I'm not very high on Ascend cards that don't have a relevant "base mode" since I do think that it's a legitimate cost that will be difficult to consistently reach. As such I have absolutely no interest in playing this card in generic Control/Combo/Ramp shells as a lategame form of card advantage and drain. I'd much rather slam a Graveborn Muse, take my free card every turn and move on with my life.
It doesn't have to be this exact curve or anything but you can see where I'm going with this. From there you'll ideally be able to slam things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Gruesome Fate in order to close the game out in short order with your global drain effects. The card is playable, but only in deck that actively work to make the Ascend mode the "base" mode. It's not going to pull its weight in a generic Control/Combo/Ramp shell.
Grade: C+
Heck yeah, here's a card that I've been hungering for for some time. Not only is it the first instant-speed "Fleshbag Marauder" that Wizards has ever printed but it's also immensely powerful in team-based formats and it even has an extremely powerful Ascend clause. Note, I already consider cards like Oath of Liliana to be competitive powerhouses so this card would still be insane even if didn't have Ascend. They could remove that line of text entirely and my analysis of this card would barely change. Since pure-upside + scaling removal mostly speaks for itself I'm mostly going to focus on how Vona's Hunger separates itself from the pack (Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Execution, Oath of Liliana) as opposed to explaining why mass removal is good in multiplayer. I'm sure that most of my reads can already piece that one together themselves ;).
The biggest strength that Vona's Hunger offers over the competition is that it's an instant. I've lost countless games with a Fleshbag Marauder in hand because I couldn't immediately react to that Consecrated Sphinx, Sire of Insanity, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Blightsteel Colossus, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and more which tend to make frequent appearances in multiplayer formats. As such I've always longed for a faster version of the spell to give me additional outs against those oppressive bombs. Moreover, whereas the creatures pair well with revival and the Oath provides Devotion for Gray Merchant of AsphodelVona's Hunger is the first version of the effect that boasts any synergy with "spells matter" cards and effects such as Snapcaster Mage, Past in Flames, Archaeomancer, Mizzix's Mastery, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, etc. This makes it ideal for the "Grixis Control" archetype that needs a critical mass of relevant spells in order to function. Lastly, while I want to stress the fact that I don't consider the Ascend to be a vital aspect of the card it's certainly going to be relevant in some decks/metas and the upside is extremely relevant when you manage to obtain it. 3 mana to kill multiple creatures from each adversary at instant-speed is a ridiculous rate so by no means should it be overlooked. This will be a must-have staple moving forward since barring any synergies this should be your default Black 3 CMC spot removal spell of choice.
Red
Grade: Niche B
Aww yeah, I love me any card that's going to make people's blood boil. Puns aside I do really like this card but not for the reasons that people probably expect. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally down to get people with cards like Blood Moon and Ruination, but that's not where this card is going to shine. After all, realistically all it does is stop Fetchlands since most worthwhile abilities on lands are mana ones. Since I typically expect multiplayer metas to be more casual and budget-minded I don't expect that to be relevant for my average reader. If that applies to you, by all means, but this card is still relevant even if everyone is playing on a budget. Here's why:
Blood Sun will shine in "Summer Bloom" decks that feature a large number of Bouncelands. After all, with a Blood Sun in play they enter untapped and without bouncing a land. Yep, they're straight multicolor Ancient Tombs that don't cost any life :). Clearly you can also go deep on cards like Lotus Vale but the problem with that card is that it only works with Blood Sun whereas Bouncelands/Karoos also work with Burgeoning and Summer Bloom. You basically want to start your deck with something like:
So that you can go to town ramping as early as turn 1. Now, some of you are probably wondering "why play Blood Sun at all?" Burgeoning and Summer Bloom are faster versions of the effect and you certainly don't need more than 8 total copies of it. The answer is "because it cantrips." Take it from someone who plays this deck on a regular basis; you will flood out A LOT if you don't build the deck properly. Not only does your deck have have 25-28 lands but it also has a ton of cards like Burgeoning and Summer Bloom that become dead/worthless past turn 2. This is actually one of the few decks where I'll field things like Day's Undoing because otherwise I constantly find myself with millions of mana in play but no cards in hand and no action. This is why I'm extremely excited to see a ramp engine that replaces itself to further mitigate the risk of flooding out into oblivion. Don't get me wrong, I understand that paying 3 mana to cycle a card is horrific, but it's still many orders of magnitude more relevant than drawing a legitimately dead card like Summer Bloom. I think that it's extremely interesting and powerful card in that sense and it's one that I do plan on purchasing and playing with.
Grade: D
I've already talked to the brass about placing a bounty on anyone who puts this card in their decks. I can't give it an F because doubling your mana can always turn a losing game around but where you compare this to things like Gauntlet of Might (or Extraplanar Lens or Gauntlet of Power or Caged Sun or literally any other version of this spell) you can't help but feel depressed. There's also no world where you'd ever field it over Mana Geyser which provides more mana, faster, and without the turn of delay. Let's just leave it at that and move on with our lives shall we?
Grade: C+
Cards like Dire Fleet Daredevl and Snapcaster Mage are almost always going to be reasonable playables regardless of the format, number of players and/or level of competition. This is because they offer a powerful effect that naturally scales as the game progresses while also offering a reasonable body that can be used pressure and/or protect as needed. The fact that they're creatures means that you can further abuse them with things like Mimic Vat, Feldon of the Third Path, Sneak Attack, Panharmonicon, Flameshadowing Conjuring, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and more to get multiples uses of their ETB triggers. "Abuse" aside the ability to copy the best spell played that game (for a given situation) is always relevant which means that you can blindly jam them in any deck and experience success. In that sense it's not that Dire Fleet Daredevl does any one thing particularly well, it's mostly that you'll find something powerful to do with them at some point and that's all that matters. Don't be afraid to run them out on turn 3 to copy that Preordain if needed but clearly you should be looking to copy things like Demonic Tutor and Manifold Insights if at all possible.
Grade: C+
Oh baby, now this is a card that I can get behind! Assuming a 4 player game this thing draws and casts an average of 2 extra spells per circuit (as long as it manages to attack) while also beating down with a Titan-sized body. It also boasts immense synergy with library manipulation, rituals, Haste enablers, extra combat phases, recursion and cheat effects all which frequently work their way into multiplayer Red decks. In that sense the card is no only powerful but it inherently works with the spells and effects that we're already playing. Moreover, putting average use-cases aside the highs on this card are insanely high given that some % of the time you'll hit 4 spells off of his trigger which can easily turn an auto loss into an auto win. I always preach that multiplayer is a "go big or go home format" and Etali can go bigger than most other things. In that sense I cannot wait to start jamming him as Red's second Titan (or third if you count Combustible Gearhulk) because this is exactly where you want to be.
Grade: D+
I really, really want to like this card. No joke. Instant-speed board clears are almost always bonkers in multiplayer and the fact that this one cantrips is kind of insane. Moreover, Red is a color that typically struggles to draw additional cards throughout the game which often causes it to lag behind the more powerful ones. As such you often have to take what you can get even if it isn't ideal. The problem that I have with this card is that it's 3 mana for 1 damage. Most Red decks are going to play roughly two 3 CMC board clears in an average multiplayer list and right now the uncontested king is Anger of the Gods. Sweltering Suns is a decent alternative given that it cycles away when it isn't needed but Anger is by far and away the most played + most competitive card for the slot. With that in mind I have to ask myself "would I ever play Shake the Foundations over Anger?" and the answer is "no." I realistically wouldn't play it over any of the 3 mana 3 damage Wraths either. As smuch as I want that extra card there's too many scenarios where this will fail to kill key mana/utility dorks and/or token armies and I'll lose far too many games as a result. It's also far too slow to hose turn 1 mana dorks since they'll already have tapped for mana twice by the time you resolve a 3 CMC sweeper which will be far too late to make a difference. This card is significantly more powerful and playable than it problem looks, please don't dismiss entirely, it's just not quite there outside of extremely meta specific circumstances.
Grade: D-
As much as I want to like to this card I don't think that it's going to get there. The dream is clearly to curve one into a Pyrohemia and/or have a Forerunner of the Empire in play but even then why aren't we playing something like Wildfire instead and ignoring all of these additional hoops? Whereas a card like Silverclad Ferocidons is incredibly expensive, dies to removal at no benefit and only works with a small subset of global damage spells and effects alternatives such as Devastation are completely mindless by comparison. Anyone can curve an Inferno Titan into a Destructive Force and win the game in a significantly faster and more reliable fashion. I do realize that the Ferocideons are "each opponent" whereas Obliterate effects are symmetrical but it's still too slow and unreliable to pique my interests.
While you could arguably play this in any creature-based deck you'll be hard-pressed to justify fielding it over cheaper, more reliable and/or stronger alternatives such as Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Harmonize and Rishkar's Expertise. It's going to earn in keep in games where you manage to stick one on turn 3 and follow it up with a slew of creatures throughout the course of the game but otherwise it'll feel lackluster at best.
Where I do see a niche home for this card is in token decks as an extreme form of card selection, card advantage and pump. After all, in games where you curve:
It's going to look and feel impressive to say the least. Not only will you be hitting all of your land drops and filtering your draw steps as needed but you'll also be pumping your swarm to threaten better attacks and blocks. In that sense it seems like a fairly reasonable addition to token decks and archetypes that will be casting multi-bodies threats all throughout the game. Otherwise you'll be better off sticking with "Harmonize" spells that will draw you the cards at a faster and more reliable clip.
Grade: B+
The only thing stopping me from giving this card an A is that it dies to removal at no benefit. I'm not going to bother trying to hide or shy away from this weakness because it's very real. That being said Tendershoot Dryad is easily the second-best card in the entire set because (much like Nezahal) it's a one-card win condition that can dominate games on its own.
Think about it. If you play this card and it doesn't die you automatically win the game. Period. There's virtually no world where this doesn't have Ascend when you untap with it in a 4+ player game and swinging for 9 -> 21 -> 33 -> 45 doesn't exactly give your adversaries much breathing room. This card legitimately feels like an Entomb + Animate Dead combo except it's a single card that only costs you 5 mana total. In a Green deck that means that it's hitting on turn 4 at the latest but literally any turn 1 "Wild Growth," turn 2 "Wood Elves," type sequence means that you're slamming him on turn 3. Casting something that says "answer me in under 3 turns or lose" is disgusting when it's hitting that early.
Now, again, some % of the time this card will die to removal at no benefit. I don't know what that % is but we can all agree that it's nontrivial. Irrelevant. If someone wants to 1-for-1 your 1-card win condition, by all means, let them. You might be down a bit of mana but the upside is that you literally win every game where they don't "have it." When your worst-case scenario is "trade 1-for-1 and be down on mana" and your upside is "kill the table with 1 card in 3 turns" it's a blatantly unfair exchange that everyone should be willing to make. This card is completely nuts in that sense and it's one that I highly encourage people to purchase and play with at their earliest convenience. I promise you that it's going to feel hopelessly unfair a significant % of the time.
Grade: F
This is what I like to call a "reverse multiplayer card." Whereas a card like Managorger Hydra gets stronger as the number of players increases Thrashing Brontodon tends to gets weaker. This is because you're much less likely to need a random 3/4 and much more likely to need a removal spell and paying 4 mana for a Nature's Claim is exactly as bad as it sounds. If you disagree with my assessment and want to thrash around and throw a tantrum, so be it, just know it won't sway my opinion. I'm willing to put my longneck out on this one and call it a straight F.
Don't get me wrong, I love this card for casual tables since it enables newer players to maindeck hate without running the risk of drawing dead cards. Worst-case scenario it's still a 3/4 for 3 and that's a passable Magic card in many circles. I can totally get behind that concept and appreciate how Wizards is looking out for the players that need it the most when they print cards like these. That being said if you're a multiplayer specialist then you're only playing this type of card because it kills powerful noncreature permanents in the first place at which point you should be sticking to things like Reclamation Sage and Manglehorn instead.
Grade: D
Carry on my wayward son for there'll be peace when you are done. On that note stick a fork in him because he's done. Sorry folks, this isn't the budget replacement for Azusa, Lost but Seeking that you're looking for. Absolutely no one would play her if she only ramped 1 extra land per turn because at that point you may as well just play Sakura-Tribe Scout or literally anything else. This card is legitimate trash because not only are you paying 3 CMC for an Exploration but you're also stuck with all of the drawbacks associated with playing a creature (namely that it dies to removal). The "upside" is clearly that you can tutor for it but, again, if you can't afford Azusa then Sakura-Tribe Scout is the place to be. After all, the card is easier to cast/cheat out with cards like Green Sun's Zenith and is (typically) legitimately good to jam on turn 1. If this card had any redeeming qualities then sure, we might consider playing it, but jumping through all of these hoops for a 5/5 isn't worthwhile.
Grade: Niche C+
In world of Fetchlands, mill engines, burst mill and Dredgers it's trivially easy to fill your graveyard at a breakneck pace without falling impossibly behind on board. This makes it easy to prepare for cards like World Shaper that can immediately provide you with an insurmountable mana advantage while setting up for cheesy Cut // Ribbons kills. Bear in mind that the presence of revival spells and effects such as Volrath's Stronghold + Life from the Loam and Unburial Rites provide creatures with significant advantages over spell-based alternatives. Splendid Reclamation is clearly the more powerful card in a vacuum, it's not close to being close, but the fact that you have to draw the card isn't trivial since you'd much rather Dredge a Golgari Grave-Troll every turn than draw a single card from the top of your library. The fact that you never have to draw a World Shaper (you can just mill + revive it) gives it a huge edge and, heck, you can always play both cards if needed. Clearly you'll still have to find a way to kill World Shaper if you do opt for that route (and that can sometimes be easier said than done) but that's also where cards like Smallpox shine and those tend to play well in Dredge decks regardless. All-in-all this strikes me as a powerful new addition for the Dredge archetype and I expect many a Cut // Ribbons kill after having someone essentially dump their entire manabase into play.
Multicolor
Grade: C
Angrath is a refreshingly powerful Planeswalker with an interesting slew of abilities. His +1 puts Liliana Vess's to shame and boasts immense synergy with things like Shrieking Affliction, Waste Not, Liliana's Caress, Asylum Visitor, Wheel of Torture, Geth's Grimoire and basically every other "discard matters" effect. While I typically harp on "Megrim" effects this one doesn't need to force a discard in order to deal damage which means that it's still relevant even when players are in topdeck mode. From there you can sit behind your Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales while building towards his ultimate which will easily win the game outright. His -3 is anemic at best, it's only marginally relevant if you happen to have access to a sac outlet, but even then it's mostly trash. That being said his ultimate is bonkers because it essentially reads "you win the game" which makes it ideal for "Wildfire" decks that employ Obliterate effects such as Death Cloud, Jokulhaups, Destructive Force, Devastation, etc. The idea here is to slam him on a protected board, keep him alive for a circuit, destroy "the everything," lock people at 0 cards with his +1 and then easily kill everyone with the ultimate. Look, I get it, it's not the most interactive way to win games but at least it works! At the end of the day I'm fan of basically any 1-card win condition and I can envision more than enough scenarios where this will seal the deal after you lock the board one way or another. Even if you don't his +1 is great value and any curve of Arterial Flow, Syphon Mind, Angrath, the Flame-Chained and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh won't be easy to beat.
Grade: D
In a world of cards like Sphinx's Revelation, Sun Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Recurring Insight, Approach of the Second Sun and Nezahal, Primal Tide it's extremely difficult for me to take these kinds of cards seriously. The ETB trigger is clearly fine, I'll take it, but I sure as heck don't want to pay 6 mana and a card for it. As such you're incredibly reliant on having Azor live enough to make some attacks and even then it sucks having to tap out at Sorcery-speed for an effect that'd you much rather jam at EOT. Don't get met wrong, I'm not saying that you can't put him in a deck, I just don't see why you'd want to.
The best deck for this card (by an order of magnitude) has to be the "Brago, King Eternal" deck that can blink him + a whack of mana rocks every turn to transform him into a real card. After all, with Brago his ETB trigger becomes a passive effect and since Brago untaps all of your mana rocks you don't have to feel nearly as bad tapping out to draw cards on your turn. You'll still end your turns with enough mana to cast your interaction which is what matters. I understand that this makes Azor rather niche, I legitimately wouldn't him play him in anything else, but he does seem extremely sweet in that archetype.
Grade: D
Cards like these, in general, suffer from the fact that the vast majority of spells and effect that would otherwise "break" them also end up killing them as well. I'm clearly referencing Wrath effects which, while perfect for killing large quantities of creatures, are terrible at keeping specific ones alive. That being said all hope isn't lost because there's plenty of cards like Fleshbag Marauder that foot the bill in a pinch. Moreover, where I personally see Elenda shining is in decks that want to open with something along the lines of:
It doesn't have to be that exact curve but you can see where I'm going with this. Not only are you draining people for massive quantities of life each circuit, stacking your draws and building a huge + resilient blocker but you're also building towards the burst combo kill of sac outlet + Zulaport Cutthroat + Elenda. Sac your board to build a huge Elendra, sac Elenda, sac all of your tokens, win. Easy.
Otherwise you could also field her in Vampire tribal, ideally ones featuring the Viscera Seer + Bloodghast combo. From there you could build a giant lifelinked fatty to fuel powerful card draw spells and engines such as Champion of Dusk. This would give you immense resilience against mass removal (and other forms of interaction) by ensuring that you'd always have plenty of action both on and off the field. Still not a stellar card by any means but certainly a reasonable 1-of.
Grade: Niche C
This will be a welcome addition to +1/+1 counter archetypes given that creatures such as Mold Adder, Managorger Hydra, Taurean Mauler and Forgotten Ancient kill extremely quickly when their power is doubled and they're granted evasion. This is especially true if you happen to open with either Hardened Scales and/or Winding Constrictor at which point virtually any attack is going to result in a kill. My only issue with the card is that I've never had a compelling reason to play Blue in these shells and Hadana's Climb definitely isn't enough to change that on its own. As such I can't envision a world where I'd get to slot this into an actual deck unless I felt like dropping a ton of money on mana fixing. Don't get me wrong, you can obviously build and play Blue versions of this archetype if you want to and should always play at least 1 copy of Hadana's Climb if you do. As long as you're able to justify the splash in other ways you'll be hard-pressed to find a more reliable finisher.
Grade: Niche C
Huatli is an interesting but relatively niche Planeswalker that realistically can't exist outside of a dedicated token strategy. After all, her +1 is literally worthless at anything other than building towards her ultimate and since Green already has access to forms of card draw such as Rishkar's Expertise you're not going to field her in a generic creature list. I'm imaging something along the lines of:
The idea here is that Huatli will jump to 8 counters with her +1 on turn 3 so that you can immediately activate her ultimate turn 4 and follow-up with a burst token generator of some sort. From there you jam things like Cathars' Crusade, Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth until you win. Seems easy enough.
Note, I realize that this strategy isn't perfect. If literally anything goes wrong then you don't get your nut draw and that fact isn't lost on me. Still, I do think that it's important to think about how you're going to design your deck and what your goldfish curve is going to look like. After all, it's not that hard to go 1 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 when you're playing Green as long as you keep your ratios in check. Still, at the end of the day I don't expect Huatli to revolutionize the GW Token archetype by any means because you could just as easily run something like Shamanic Revelation instead. In that sense you're not going to see me champion her or anything. That being said I can appreciate the raw power that she offers when everything goes right so I'm definitely not going to sleep on her either.
Grade: Niche B
This card proves that the journey is more important that the destination since it's going to see play for an eternity. Not only is it a cheap form of ramp and card advantage but it also acts as an extremely powerful + durable mid-to-lategame value engine that blows the competition out of the water. After all, most "Volrath's Stronghold" effects are some combination of slow, conditional and/or expensive whereas Atzal, Cave of Eternity is none of those things. Not only does it return the creature directly to play (so it's actual card advantage as opposed to card selection) but it also does so for a fixed cost. As such it enables you to constantly power out your game-ending bombs for less than their going rate which is completely absurd. All-in-all this strikes me being an obvious staple because I couldn't imagine cutting the first copy from any list that could reasonably support it.
Now, almost everyone figured out the Sakura-Tribe Elder "combo" on day 1 and so if you're looking for an effective 2 -> 3 curve that's as good as it gets. Still, I actually think that most of my Journey to Eternity won't have any STEves whatsoever. That might seem like heresy but hear me out. As good as the STEve curve is, and believe me when I say that it's bonkers, STEve is the only card like STEve in the game. There's obviously other creatures that can sacrifice themselves but if you're jamming this on something like Darkheart Sliver then you're going to get laughed out of the room. Where I think Journey to Eternity will truly shine is in the "sacrifice matters" archtype. I'm not referring to any one specific deck or archetype, just any deck that plays some combo the following cards:
Again, I'm not saying that you have to play this deck card-for-card or anything, but I am saying that my Golgari decks field a significant quantity of them. With that in mind Journey to Eternity is exactly where I want to be because jamming one of those on a Viridian Emissary before pitching it to an Eldritch Evolution for Mindslicer is going to elicit more than a couple of groans. Heck, I can literally cast it on any of my creatures and even if my opponents respond with removal I can shrug, say "ok" and move on with my life. If it does resolve, hey-hey, I'm a happy camper. My point here is that you can't be all-in on STEve and expect to get there every game. That's not realistic. As such you'll want a well-rounded gameplan that isn't completely reliant on any one sequence even it means losing out on the potential to instantly win the game on turn 3.
Grade: Niche C
This is a classic case of "I really like this card but sadly it doesn't have a home." After all, not only is it a 2-CMC mass removal spell but it's also an extremely reliable + noninteractive finisher that scales linearly with the number of players. You can literally sit there threatening to kill anything that attacks you and/or burn the table at EOT if people sit back and play defensively. It's a win-win either way and it doesn't cost you a damned thing. The problem is obviously "how the heck do we flip this thing?" Clearly you can add cards like Ash Zealot, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Boros Reckoner, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Scab-Clan Berserker, etc. to your lists but at that point you're essentially playing Boros Stax/aggro which isn't the most competitive archetype in the world. Moreover, it's ironic that the strongest finishers for those builds are mass land destruction (MLD) spells such Impending Disaster and Armageddon which neutralize Metzali, Tower of Triumph altogether. Worse, if you cut the MLD for Path of Mettle that will only serve to drastically decrease your probability of winning games and so that's not a realistic option either. Again, I really do like this card, I just can't envision a world where I'd get to play it. I'd have to somehow be playing a deck full of cheap Red/White creatures that (for some unknown reason) doesn't want to field Armageddon and I literally couldn't tell you what that deck would look like.
Grade: F
I (thankfully) haven't seen anyone call this card playable yet but just so we're all clear it's complete and utter trash. Even as a grindy value card it's far too slow, unreliable and weak against removal to bother testing. Remember, you're literally sinking 25 mana into this thing before you're casting your first creature off of it and that's just... yeah... no. Please no. Please don't put this card in your decks.
Grade: F
This card is a straight F. As much as I love Clones in multiplayer we sure as heck don't need one that's this conditional. Moving right along.
Grade: B
This is one of the most well-designed cards that I've ever seen. It's legitimately downright impressive how well Wizards managed to craft this card because the execution is almost perfect. Virtually any Artifact deck can start their game with something along the lines of:
Which seems like an awesome place to be if you ask me. There's also tons of other ways to make all of this happen by turn 3 (turn 4 tops) so by no means is this the only line that you can take. At that point you're playing with Tolarian Academy on your side of the field which, needlessly to say, is a heck of a lot of fun for you and not so much fun for everyone else. Playing with "infinite" mana is exactly as fun as it sounds, especially when you're in Grixis and have access to throngs of powerful card draw spells and Wheels. Otherwise I don't have much to add because the thing more-or-less speaks for itself. If you're playing a broken artifact-based deck then it's going to stomp people but otherwise it can be safely ignored. The effect is ludicrously powerful if you can consistently trigger it though so by all means build around and play with this card if you can afford to support it.
Artifact and Land
Grade: C
For what it's worth this card gets my vote for "most interesting card in the set." I don't think that it's the most powerful by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time I cannot help but smile when I read Sanctum of the Sun. I do think that this card is playable, it basically wins the game if you manage to flip it, the problem is how you go about getting there. Let's start from the top by going over all of the reasons why this card sucks.
First, this isn't a real looter. Whereas I'm happy to start basically any Blue deck with 4x Merfolk Looter the card would be unplayable trash if it exiled the cards and cost a mana to activate. You'd never even consider playing it. After all, half of the reason to play them is to fill your graveyard full of goodies so that you can do broken things with cards like Animate Dead, Yawgmoth's Will, Living Death and Dig Through Time. When you strip that away and add an activation cost the card starts to look abysmal. Moreover, the card dies to removal at basically no benefit. After all, the effect is overcosted and underpowered so even after you've "looted" 3-4 times you're still unhappy with the exchange if it bites the bullet before flipping. Lastly, your opponents aren't idiots and there's absolutely nothing sneaky or subtle about the effect. Most people are smart enough to realize that "hey, untapping with 20 mana is bad" and so they'll either remove your Gateway or kill you long before you gain access to Sanctum of the Sun. With all of this in mind what can Azor's Gateway do to overcome its laundry list of glaring weaknesses?
Azor's Gateway can provide card selection to decks and colors that otherwise lack it. Let's face it; Red and White don't have the option of playing with cards like Merfolk Looter (or any other decent card selection/draw spells for that matter) and so that's not even on the table. As such it could easily make sense for them to field cheap forms of card selection that other colors would otherwise dismiss. Take White for example. One of my favorite sets of cards is the Land Tax/Tithe/Gift of Estates cycle that enables you to consistently hit your land drops and play for the lategame. A looter, even a bad one, starts to look significantly more relevant if you're consistently filling your hand with nonsense. And look, I get it, you don't exactly want to be cycling nothing but lands with the Gateway. Ideally you want to be looting away spells in order to build for the flip. Still, given the option of "play useless land number 9" and "dig for a relevant spell" there's no decision to be made. This is why I could still easily see this card being played even though the base card has questionable value.
Azor's Gateway boasts immense synergy with untap effects. Cards like Voltaic Key, Unwinding Clock and Paradox Engine tend to be busted when paired with oppressive mana engines such as Mana Vault, Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith and Azor's Gateway feels like a natural fit to that archetype. Needless to say it's definitely interested in Sanctum of the Sun because big mana is always in the market for bigger mana. With something as simple as Darksteel Citadel and Unwinding Clock you can easily flip the Gateway within 2 circuits (tops) and Paradox Engine essentially enables it to flip as soon as you resolve your next spell. While I'm not suggesting that you must pair Azor's Gateway with untap effects such as these it should certainly influence the way that you build and play your deck. There's no sense in leaving value off of the table.
Sanctum of the Sun is completely and utterly broken and that's ultimately why we're playing this card. For all of its weaknesses, for all of its shortcomings, this card says "do something easy, win the game" and that's a ridiculously good place to be in multiplayer. Even if your deck is complete trash relative to what your adversaries are fielding there's always a world where you can win if you manage to activate Sanctum of the Sun. It's that good. Again, I recognize that this card has a lot going against it, but multiplayer Magic will forever and always be a "go big or go home" format so sometimes you have to take a chance on a card that won't always get there. Besides, at the end of the day it's not the end of the world when your Gateway gets removed. You traded 1-for-1 and overpaid for some card selection. Is that good? No. Is that game-losing? Heck no. You're behind but it's rather insignificant all things considered. That's why this card gets my pick for "most interesting card in the set" because I cannot help but want to jam in it lists and try to "get there." For better or for worse it seems like a worthwhile endeavor.
Grade: C
It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries! This card is both incredibly sweet and moderately powerful and it's something that I expect to see played for many years to come. After all, it's a solid mid-to-lategame value engine that enables you break board stalls by going over-the-top of your adversaries and neutering their key threats. Moreover, when evaluating The Immortal Sun you essentially get to ignore the Planeswalker and +1/+1 clauses and treat them as pure upsides because the card would still be playable even if it didn't have them. You're primarily fielding it as a Staff of Nin + Worn Powerstone hybrid that draws you an extra card each turn while reducing the cost of your spells. I also promise you that the cost reduction matters way more than you probably think, especially in monocolor builds that field Medallions. They're already my go-to mana rocks in monoblue/green/black lists because of how degenerate they feel when paired with mass card draw. Casting a whack of spells that cost 2 (or more) less to cast starts to get absurd and so I'm excited to start pairing these cards together.
Other than Medallions you'll also want to pair this card with Inventors' Fair if at all possible. The idea here is drawing the first Inventors' Fair has basically no opportunity cost (it's still a land that taps for mana) which virtually enables you to play with 2 copies of The Immortal Sun without running the risk of flooding out on them. Clearly your deck will still need a reasonably high artifact count to hit "Metalcraft" for the tutor clause but for many builds that won't be a stretch by any means. After all, it's not a card that you want to see in multiples nor do you ever want to draw it early on. That being said you do want to draw it at some point in your games so being able to field a second copy at no risk is extremely relevant.
Now, clearly Staff of Nin isn't an oppressive magic card by any means. You typically only see it played as a 1-of in White/Red decks due to the fact that they otherwise lack access to card draw. That's fine. A card doesn't have to be played as a 4-of to be good. If you start all of your grindy Red/White decks with one of these I can almost guarantee you that the card will feel quite powerful in the games where you do manage to draw it. That being said don't go hog-wild playing 4 of these given that they're slow, Legendary and extremely weak if you've already started falling behind. Whereas a card like Inferno Titan will help to catch you back up The Immortal Sun takes many turns to recoup its investment cost. It's not a bomb nor will it change the way that we build and play our decks but it's undoubtedly going to be a decent value engine for the foreseeable future.
Grade: Sideboard D+
While I'm typically quite vocal about my love of playing 1-2 copies of cards like Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb and Rest in Peace in multiplayer the prospect of jamming a 5 CMC alternative has me silent as the grave. "Ground Seal" is certainly relevant against reanimator/Snapcaster Mage decks, I wouldn't deny that for a second, but ultimately there's still a ton of graveyard-based strategies and archetypes that couldn't care less about it. Yawgmoth's Will, Past in Flames, Living Death, Dig Though Time and more won't even bat an eye. Clearly it can still function as a Relic when needed but 4 is a lot to pay for that effect. It's still a reasonable sideboard card for metas plagued with graveyard-based decks and strategies but it won't pass muster anywhere else.
Grade: D
This is low-cost, low-reward draw engine that virtually any 1-2 color deck could potentially field as a 1-of in order to function as a lategame source of card advantage. After all, hitting 10 or more permanents is an obtainable requirement and given that it inherently ETB untapped and taps for mana it's not as though there's a significant cost to fielding it. While paying 6 mana to conditionally draw a card is far too slow, unreliable and weak to get excited over I also wouldn't cut Arch of Orazca from most decks that decided to include it. Again, the opportunity cost is completely insignificant and colors like Red and White could always use the extra source of card advantage.
Grade: Niche C
Since I'm sure that most people are already aware of Evolving Wilds value as a budget-minded color fixer I'm not going to spend any additional time explaining how it's a cheap way splash/fix your colors in 2-3 color decks. The game has evolved to such a place where that'll never be the optimal way to build your manabases but if this is what you can afford, by all means, go wild.
What I would like to discuss is how increasing powerful these budget-minded Fetchlands are becoming in most Green (and many Blue) lists. Up until a couple of years ago you didn't have much incentive to field anything other than basic lands in your (budget-minded) monocolor decks. After all, a basic Forest does exactly what you need when you need it whereas a card like Terramorphic Expanse carries a legitimate drawback given that it ETBT. That being said Green is now so reliant on landfall/top of library/recursion mechanics that I routinely find myself playing 8 or more Fetchlands in my monogreen builds even if they're the "bad" ones like Terramorphic Expanse. Take the following cards for example:
All of these cards benefit massively from the addition of Fetchlands to your builds and realistically the list stretches on and on and on from here. They heavily reward you for playing with a critical mass of cheap shuffle effects and/or ways of getting lands into your graveyard in order to provide you with obscene value in the long run. These are also all cards that I routinely find myself playing in my Green lists so it's not as though I'm going out of my way to field them. They're legitimately some of the strongest cards to be casting at every slot in the curve assuming that you're able to support them.
Moreover, while all of this may seem overly niche remember that basically all of these cards work well in tandem with one another. When you curve a Courser of Kruphix into a Vizier of the Menagerie you literally don't care what the top of your library yields. You're happy with lands and creatures either way so the more looks that you have for cards the better. Beyond that most of them are worthless in multiples which means that they tend to played as 1-2 ofs as opposed to 4-ofs (ideally supported with Green Sun's Zenith and/or other tutor effects) in order to avoid flooding out on any one particular card/effect. After all, you'd much rather draw exactly one Ramunap Excavator, exactly one Tireless Tracker and exactly one Vizier of the Menagier than any combination of multiples of either card. As such decks that play one of these cards often play most/all of them in small numbers which further bolsters the power of Fetchlands. Clearly Evolving Wilds isn't a broken card. It serves a niche role but doesn't hold a candle to true Fetchlands. Still, if you're in the market for cheap library manipulation/shuffle effects/recursion they foot the bill in a pinch and that's all that matters.
Conclusion
While I was underwhelmed with Ixalan's lack of playables I was pleasantly surprised with how powerful RIX turned out to be. The Cs and Ds are all interesting and powerful enough to see play and the As and Bs are utterly absurd in the right shells. I'm also always excited see mindless staples such as Nezahal, Primal Tide being printed because you can literally slot them into any deck that can cast them and have it be a correct decision. The other 59 cards don't even matter. Otherwise I want to stress the importance of key filler cards like Dusk Legion Zealot that will make up the bulk of your lists. Even though they're never going to win games on their own they're crucial for fueling things like Viscera Seer, Diabolic Intent, Recurring Nightmare, Contamination, Grave Pact, Living Death, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Razaketh, the Foulblooded which require a critical mass of disposable resources.
Note, my criteria for "top cards" and their rankings extends well beyond simple letter gradings. Without going into too much detail I also take into consideration colors, cost, probability that the "average" player will find a home for it, flexibility, etc. For example, I think that Storm the Vault is significantly more oppressive card than Tendershoot Dryad in any deck designed to break either. That being said I also know that the best versions of a Storm the Vault deck will cost thousands of dollars whereas literally any $20.00 Green deck can go turn 1 Wild Growth, turn 2 Overgrowth, turn 3 Tendershoot Dryad and have that be a reasonable draw. Moreover, I don't consider The Immortal Sun to be better than a card like Journey to Eternity in any deck designed to abuse either but I also recognize that one is colorless and has no requirements whereas the other is multiple colors and has to be built around. You'll also notice that I purposely exclude overly niche combo/synergy cards like Blood Sun because I don't believe that 99.99% of my readers will ever build or play the decks that can support them. As such I see no value in telling people to purchase that card unless they're going to build and play that exact Burgeoning shell that I posted. That is, my "top 10" is very much skewed towards "why should a casual, budget-minded player purchase to expand his or her collection" as opposed to "what are the most powerful cards assuming that you have an unlimited budget, unfettered access to cards and your only goal is to maximize your overall win %."
I am surprised Path of Discovery is not on the list. Also think Nezahal is a bit overrated. Having no evasion really hurts, I have played with the card and it has not been as good as I want it to be. Love the read though. Nice work, Thanks!
Nezahal is not in any way overrated and I want to throw him into decks because the fact of the matter is that you're only realistically 2 for 1 ing yourself against removal every time you need to use that last ability (Enemy source of removal is almost always noncreature, netting you a card). The no max hand size clause meshes perfectly with it because when you have a hand of 9+ cards you will always have "junk" cards that you're willing to throw away.
EDIT: Oh wait, I didn't read the full thing and simply repeated what was already said.
I don't want to attack with him. I want his 7/7 body on blocking duty for enemy aggro so that I get time to spend all the cards I got.
Also, real talk, Inventors' Fair REQUIRES a metalcraft condition to be met in order to tutor. Still an insanely strong card, but the deckbuilding cost is not zero.
Lastly, Etali, Primal Storm also synergizes with library manipulation (and sorta gets hurts by your opponents' Sensei's Divining Tops). I run pretty much every synergy you listed in Xenagod and being able to use Mirri's Guile to help cheat in very deadly 4-mana enchantments (or 6 drop creatures... or extra combats) after paying 6 for a free card off of everyone's deck (and potentially 12 damage) gives you an insane amount of tempo.
I am surprised Path of Discovery is not on the list.
There's plenty of additional cards that I could have reviewed and given a D but I tend to focus on ones that I feel are worth talking about for one reason or another. Path of Discovery is the wrong combo of "boring and weak" for me but I suppose I could, at the very least, highlight its synergy in token decks. What I will say is that I'll never play with or against it nor would I ever recommend sleeving it up. It's not a good Magic card compared to something as simple as Harmonize which will always provide reliable and immediate value for its cost.
W.r.t Nezahal I completely disagree. I'm not trying to force you to like the card or anything, I believe you when you say that you were unimpressed with it, but last night I had my first opportunity to turn 1 Careful Study turn 2 Animate Dead a Nezahal, Primal Tide and it was everything that I dreamed of and more. The fact that you literally never need to hold mana up for protection nor make room for niche/expensive permission such as Not of this World and Force of Will is bonkers. I also don't think that it has to be played in Reanimator/cheaty decks either, it's a stellar finisher in any shell, but this is the type of card that's worth jumping through some hoops to cheat into play early on if possible. I realize that I'm just repeating what I previously said but I'd stand by that A+ rating and stance that it's the strongest overall card in the set. If I had to pick any one card to build and play with for the rest of my life it would be that one.
Also, real talk, Inventors' Fair REQUIRES a metalcraft condition to be met in order to tutor. Still an insanely strong card, but the deckbuilding cost is not zero.
No joke, I've been thinking about this for some time and actually logged on tonight to make an edit to that entry. As with anyone else I'm very much influenced by the decks that I personally build and play against and since Artifacts tend to be extremely broken I'm used to seeing them in large quantities. They're so ubiquitous that you can basically tell who's winning or losing based on their total artifact count in the opening turns. Still, that's me defaulting to what I see as opposed to what the average person sees. With that in mind I agree with your assessment and think I'll tone down the language that I previously used. Again, it's not that I suddenly stopped playing that card in all of my decks or anything, it's just that I don't want to make blanket claims about what other people should be playing. As much it boggles my mind that people aren't casting cards named Fellwar Stone or Sapphire Medallion on turn 2 I can't close my eyes and plug my ears to pretend that they are.
I played Bishop of Binding last week and was positively surprised by it.
Maybe it’s better than it seems.
While these types of cards are fine in smaller tables I find that they scale negatively with the number of players. After all, as it increases the probability that people will be playing mass removal follows suit. Since "Faceless Butchers" are at their worst against mass removal (you lose everything, your opponent keeps their best creature) I find that these cards to be actively detrimental. After all, whereas a normal Wrath would clear everything the fact that you exiled someone's key threat ultimately hurts everyone more than it helps. I strongly dislike them in 4+ player games for that reason. I do realize that your games are smaller than mine, I'm not saying that I disagree with your assessment of the card for you and your meta, I just think that in general it hurts more than helps to field these "Fiend Hunters" in multiplayer.
For example, we probably disagree on Thrashing Brontodon. That card is eminently reasonable in smaller games where the 3/4 body is more likely to matter. You still want outs to troublesome perms but you don't want to maindeck Nature's Claim or whatever. At the end of the day the number of players matters a lot because it's the difference between a card like Compost being a "must have" or completely useless.
In my game it helped blowing out the last opponent by removing a threat while instantly boosting one of my other attacking vamps.
We certainly play sweepers but at a guess no more than one every five or six turns or so. (and I play most of those...)
If sweepers happen often it’s probably more of a help to my opponent.
But as a “combat trick” it does nice work.
Thrashing Brontodon seems nice for my meta too...
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Upon further reflection I've decided to bump the grade for Dire Fleet Daredevil because I think that he's significantly more playable than similarly graded cards such as Ravenous Chupacabra. Whereas I will legitimately never play with or against Riverwise Augur the Daredevil isn't out of the question. I legitimately don't like and don't play with cards like Snapcaster Mage in multiplayer but they're still closer to Cs than Ds. Otherwise most of my tweaks are done at this point, including adding Path of Discovery. Also, that card is triggering me because its link doesn't work.
Do you think playing two Copies of blood sun would make sense in your Simic Burgeoning Deck? I cannot find room for four copies as I do not want to cut on the Days Undoing
That's what I'm doing as of now. My current suite is 4x Burgeoning 2x Summer Bloom 2x Blood Sun. It still give you 6 ways to go completely broken by turn 2 but also gives you additional outs in case things go awry. I don't have many games under my belt but with aggressive mulliganing (i.e. abusing the free multiplayer mulligan and taking advantage of the Scry 1 if you go to 6) I haven't had any major issues and the extra draw is always welcome. That deck MOWS through cards so I'll take any extra draw that I can get. It's possible that I might bump the Summer Blooms back up and shave other things but this is what I'm trying for now.
Thx. How many massdraw do you use? I cut back to 4x Day's undoing + 1x Prime Speaker...originally I also played 2x trade Routes
Roughly the same. I actually cut Zegana because I found that she was too inconsistent when drawn and I never seem to find good opportunities to Green Sun's Zenith for her. As such I tend to field things like Recurring Insight, Consecrated Sphinx and Nezahal, Primal Tide instead even though I can't tutor for them. They're better cards to randomly draw which is what the deck was lacking whenever I played it. Your experiences with her might differ but I've been severely underwhelmed. The deck just doesn't have enough warm bodies to make her work.
I'm actually glad that you made this comment because I think that it's a very good learning opportunity in terms of explaining grades. After all, nothing that you said contradicts or goes against anything that I did. Let's break it down. You posit that:
What do all of these pairings have it common? All of them employ one heinously overpowered card that cannot be replaced and one that's highly interchangeable. In all 3 scenarios the second card could literally be any reasonably similar effect and the answer would still be "yes, that would do well in my meta." After all, consider the following:
This, to me, perfectly showcases the difference between Ds + Cs and Bs + As. Ds are replaceable by throngs of alternatives and don't bring anything significant to the table. That is, if you cut one for another you'll hardly notice the difference. As, on the other hand, are going to be a massive blow if you lose them. If you suddenly cut Waste Note from your discard deck whatever you use in its place is going to feel many orders of magnitude less powerful. This is why I give cards like Ravenous Chupacabra a D and cards like Waste Not an A. It doesn't matter what card you pair with Deadeye Navigator because you're going to win either way. After all, I think we can both agree that your statement would still hold true even if I spun it to:
I should jump into these threads more, given I get free previews.
On Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose - I got absolutely wiped by it at RIX pre-release, and I will be including it in my Multiplayer cube... but Prid3 is right. In Limited / draft environments, it is a fine, fine card (even in Multiplayer Limited), but I would not want to be relying on it in Multiplayer constructed.
It's fantastic when you're facing down a bunch of creature ramp decks - all of its abilities are instant, so you can sit back and durdle, removing the worst threat before your turn starts. Once you flip it, you can reanimate the horrors you exiled at instant speed too.
But, that said, in Constructed, someone will be packing enchantment removal. Or see it and want to deal with you before you flip. In Limited / draft environments, your opponents won't always have enchantment removal or the power level to be able to blow you off the table before it flips.
So it's fine enough if you're building a cube, and it might be worth considering in specialized Multiplayer EDH decks, but it's way too slow for MP Constructed (alas).
In Limited / draft environments, it is a fine, fine card (even in Multiplayer Limited), but I would not want to be relying on it in Multiplayer constructed.
For the record I think that it's unplayable in multiplayer Cube. That is, given the choice I would actively choose to put this in someone's deck and have them draw it. I think that it's stone unplayable in every multiplayer format.
Don't get me wrong, card is fantastic in Duel limited, but I disagree with the notion that "they won't have it" in multiplayer unless you're purposely building your Cube in a way that avoids all playable forms of interaction (which I don't recommend). Otherwise I literally couldn't envision a world where this does what you need to it do to justify the obscene mana investment.
Happy to see Path of Discovery crack the list. I have added it to a bant tokens deck. I am also considering it in Meren. It draws cards, throws creatures in the graveyard, etc. It can help churn through the deck.
Happy to see Path of Discovery crack the list. I have added it to a bant tokens deck. I am also considering it in Meren. It draws cards, throws creatures in the graveyard, etc. It can help churn through the deck.
I'll throw cards like Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos into the mix too because they're routinely played in these "sacrifice matters" decks. My issue with these types of sequences is that they tend to be inherently flawed. After all, the net result is usually something along the lines "everyone else loses their creatures, you keep a big threat." While this seems like a good spot on paper in practice it's typically unimpressive. After all, there's suddenly only one direction to place removal/interaction towards and it's late enough into the game that people have cards and mana to work with. It's also difficult to straight OTK off of a single Wrath effect at which point chump blockers and such reduce your clock to a crawl. I'm not saying that you're in a bad/unfavorable position or anything, but you're often barely ahead of the pack when all's said and done. It always feels like you should be more ahead than you actually are.
That being said Cataclysm is an exception. Anything that allows you to win the board and destroy all lands is game-winning. In my circles one of the most common ways for games to end is off of the back of things like Consecrated Sphinx + Armageddon" or Sylvan Primordial into Upheaval + Primeval Titan that prevent your opponents from counterattacking in any meaningful way. As such I can definitely get behind "Armageddon" strategies that employ these types of threats.
Here's my issue. If my deck has Assemble + Chandra and I want a powerful wincon then I'm going to field cards like Jokulhaups. Period. That way I win 100% of the time as opposed to [some vastly smaller number]% of the time. I get that I'm comparing 2 drops to 6-10 drops but I dislike how all of these synergies prevent me from running the cards that I actually want to field. I recognize the fact that I can cut the MLD and that most people purposely avoid it but then you're playing a fair Boros deck which has its own set of problems. I dunno, I have a hard time buying into a card unless I can confidently state "here's a deck that showcases how this can be the best card to be casting." Slither Blade might be straight-garbage in 99.99999% of all decks but if it's part of Edric, Spymaster of Trest's nut draw then I'm willing to rally behind it. I would just like to see a deck where Path of Mettle could reliably earn its keep. Still, maybe that's just "fair Boros Control" which is fine I guess.
What I will say is that I hadn't thought of Tempt as an enabler. I still can't quite piece together a deck in my mind but there's clearly some cool things that you can do with the card. After all, even if you can't flip super early it's still a cheap form of mass removal that has relevant upside in the later stages of the game. You also don't have to race to flip it because it's as though you'll be activating it early on. The ramp is nice, I'd want that, but you could afford to wait a bit.
In Limited / draft environments, it is a fine, fine card (even in Multiplayer Limited), but I would not want to be relying on it in Multiplayer constructed.
For the record I think that it's unplayable in multiplayer Cube. That is, given the choice I would actively choose to put this in someone's deck and have them draw it. I think that it's stone unplayable in every multiplayer format.
Don't get me wrong, card is fantastic in Duel limited, but I disagree with the notion that "they won't have it" in multiplayer unless you're purposely building your Cube in a way that avoids all playable forms of interaction (which I don't recommend). Otherwise I literally couldn't envision a world where this does what you need to it do to justify the obscene mana investment.
Well, I suspect it's going to fit in my cube simply because my Orzhov archetype is currently really, really grindy. It sits around and bleeds people with Zulaport Cutthroat, Vizkopa Guildmage and so forth, and just sits in the game thanks to lifegain (i.e. it's a real bleeder strategy already). If anywhere, Profane Procession should work here - it's a slow, grindy control card that continually improves board position, which is exactly what a grindy bleeder straegy is looking for. I guess we'll see how it goes!
In Limited / draft environments, it is a fine, fine card (even in Multiplayer Limited), but I would not want to be relying on it in Multiplayer constructed.
For the record I think that it's unplayable in multiplayer Cube. That is, given the choice I would actively choose to put this in someone's deck and have them draw it. I think that it's stone unplayable in every multiplayer format.
Don't get me wrong, card is fantastic in Duel limited, but I disagree with the notion that "they won't have it" in multiplayer unless you're purposely building your Cube in a way that avoids all playable forms of interaction (which I don't recommend). Otherwise I literally couldn't envision a world where this does what you need to it do to justify the obscene mana investment.
Well, I suspect it's going to fit in my cube simply because my Orzhov archetype is currently really, really grindy. It sits around and bleeds people with Zulaport Cutthroat, Vizkopa Guildmage and so forth, and just sits in the game thanks to lifegain (i.e. it's a real bleeder strategy already). If anywhere, Profane Procession should work here - it's a slow, grindy control card that continually improves board position, which is exactly what a grindy bleeder straegy is looking for. I guess we'll see how it goes!
But it's too slow. If your Cube has a reasonable quantity of mass removal it's not going to last long enough to be worthwhile.
Well, I suspect it's going to fit in my cube simply because my Orzhov archetype is currently really, really grindy. It sits around and bleeds people with Zulaport Cutthroat, Vizkopa Guildmage and so forth, and just sits in the game thanks to lifegain (i.e. it's a real bleeder strategy already). If anywhere, Profane Procession should work here - it's a slow, grindy control card that continually improves board position, which is exactly what a grindy bleeder straegy is looking for. I guess we'll see how it goes!
But it's too slow. If your Cube has a reasonable quantity of mass removal it's not going to last long enough to be worthwhile.
Which it doesn't - I've purposely kept the mass removal levels low, which is probably why that archetype works in my cube.
So, yeah.... I think I might have the one spot where Profane Procession is viable.
Introductions and Explanations
Who Am I?
Greetings fellow multiplayer enthusiasts. My name is Kyle "Prid3" Brecht and at the time of writing this I'm a 15+ year MTG veteran who's been playing and following the game competitively (across all relevant duel formats) for well over a decade. That being said whereas most Magic players spend the vast majority of their recreational time dueling/drafting/testing the bulk of my personal playtime has been spent at kitchen tables slinging spells in large multiplayer matches with my friends, family and acquaintances. Be it Cube, Constructed and/or EDH I've literally played tens of thousands of hours of multiplayer Magic in my lifetime and so I consider myself to be an expert on the subject as a whole. With that in mind I'd like to offer you my take on how Magic's latest set will affect the global multiplayer scene as a whole. That is, unlike similar set reviews this one is going to be purely focused on multiplayer formats and dynamics with absolutely no emphasis on duel and/or limited Magic. While I understand that this sort of content won't appeal to everyone it's my belief that multiplayer Magic is played by a relatively high % of the casual MTG playerbase and so it's my hope that most of you will be able to extract meaningful value from my expertise.
My Philosophy
I'm a fiercely competitive player and my set reviews are going to reflect that. That is to say that this is largely going to be a competitive multiplayer set review and so don’t expect me to put any emphasis on subjective measures such as fun factor, flavor nor self-imposed restrictions. While I recognize that terms such as "casual" and "competitive" carry many negative stigmas in the MTG community rest assured that I don’t use either maliciously. As far as I'm concerned it's a simple matter of mindset and how players approach the game from a mental perspective. "Competitive" Magic players such as myself typically build decks with the goal of maximizing our overall match win % given an expected metagame. "Casual" players on the other hand tend to consider a wide variety of variables and factors beyond winning alone. Clearly it's an entire spectrum as opposed to a set of binary data points but the key thing that I wanted to stress is that these terms have absolutely no bearing on a person’s worth nor morality. That is, no one is inherently better or worse than anyone else for thinking about a game in a different way. The only reason why I’m going to focus entirely on "what wins games of Magic" is because every other variable is too subjective to make any definitive, sweeping claims about. That being said all other things being equal we'd all rather win games than lose them.
Grading Scale:
A: Oppressive cards that completely warp the game around them. These are format definers that dominate games in which they're left unchecked and crush adversaries who aren't employing similarly powered strategies. This makes them must-have competitive staples with limitless potential. Think Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Humility, Consecrated Sphinx, Sylvan Primordial, Purphoros, God of the Forge.
B: Formidable cards that will enable you to pull ahead of the pack. Winning decks should be clamoring to field them as they figure to significantly improve your overall win %. This makes them top-priority acquisition targets for players of all skill-levels. Think Grave Pact, Rolling Earthquake, Wrath of God, Recurring Insight, Tendershoot Dryad.
C: Powerful cards that will enable you to keep pace with the rest of the field. A list full of C's won't crush a table but a solid foundation of them should be good enough to keep you competitive. Think Fleshbag Marauder, Clever Impersonator, Scab-Clan Berserker, Realm Seekers, Oreskos Explorer.
D: Marginal playables with which to flesh out your lists in the absence of reasonable alternatives. I strongly encourage that you enlist substitutes if it's a realistic option since they're unlikely to yield impressive win %s.
F: Weak cards that shouldn't be played.
Niche: Immensely powerful-yet-narrow cards that are Bs/As in decks that actively want them and Fs/Ds everywhere else. Think Waste Not, Repercussion, Limited Resources, Intruder Alarm, Oath of Druids.
Sideboard: Tremendously powerful-yet-niche cards that you shouldn't maindeck against unknown adversaries but that have competitive applications in known metagames with clearly defined threats and strategies. Think Dystopia, Energy Flux, Compost, Stony Silence, Ruination.
+/-: Used to denote a better or worse N. That is, a B+ represents a strong B whereas C- implies a weak C.
White
Grade: F
Even though this card arguably scales with the number of players given that it states "each upkeep" there's no worthwhile incentive to try and do so. After all, there aren't any 1 drops that enable you to pay life for free and so you're relegated to 3+ CMC follow-ups such as Necropotence to get the ball rolling. Given that assembling a 2+ card combo to build-your-own Managorger Hydra is dubious at best I can't recommend trying to build around this thing. Whoever designed it needs to atone for their sins instead.
Grade: C
Unfortunately this is the only reasonable White card in the set given that it's an unconditional 3 CMC Wrath for oppressive fatties that are cheated into play early on. After all, the fact that it's a sacrifice effect means that it slaughters things like Ulamog and Blightsteel Colossus which are incredibly strong when they're ramped, reanimated or Tinkered out early on. That being said the problem with this type of Wrath effect is that it doesn't nuke troublesome ramp/value dorks such as Oracle of Mul Daya and Crypt Ghast nor does it prevent you from being rushed down early on. If someone curves 2 drop -> 3 drop they can still mess you up. It does, however, enable you to curve out with things like Thraben Inspector, Wall of Omens and Eldrazi Displacer without losing your board when you Wrath it on turn 4-5. In that sense it'll excel in "broken" metas filled with oppressive ramp + recursion and/or in lists that feature a large number of small creatures themselves. As such I while I wouldn't recommend starting your generic control decks with these in lieu of traditional Wraths it'll definitely excel in certain metas and archetypes. That being said it's not a "must have" by any means given the conditional nature of the effect.
Grade: F
I hereby decree that this card is absolutely abysmal and should never be played. The effect is nigh worthless in ~95% of all scenarios and requires the stars to align to be worth the resources used to cast it. After all, it essentially doesn't do anything other than prevent your opponents from casting Sorceries for a single circuit which is so laughably weak that it's not even funny. What exactly are you hoping to achieve with that? Sometimes maybe dodge a Wrath for a turn while you develop the board? Prevent a ramp or card draw spell from being played for a turn? It just doesn't make any sense. Please don't play with this trash.
Grade: Sideboard D
Crafty players will already known to cut all ties with this nonsense because even from sideboard it's unimpressive at best. After all, 4 mana is an extremely high tax to impose given that you essentially can't play magic while you're sitting on it. Cards like Fact or Fiction certainly mitigate that risk to some extent but not by nearly enough to justify playing something as marginal as this. Remember, even when you do manage to snag some tokens you're realistically not even pulling ahead given that Blue decks can't abuse them in the same ways that other colors can. This ensures that even when you're hitting something relevant like Deranged Hermit it's still not the blowout that it needs to be. As such I couldn't envision myself ever playing with or against this card even in a token-heavy metagame. There's certainly a world where this makes the cut but don't go digging through your purse to find the cash needed to acquire some copies.
Grade: Niche D+
I'm personally going to induce some temporary amnesia on this card and recommend that others follow suit. In world of cards like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study and Manifold Insights a 3 mana "Winds of Change" is never going to make the cut so please don't think of this as a "fair" card for "fair" decks. That's not where you want to be. Rather, it needs to be paired with things like Perilous Research, Flickerwisp, Brago, King eternal, Notion Thief and Alms Collector that can legitimately abuse the effect. Note, I realize that flicker effects aren't busted since you don't actually generate any card advantage when you blink it with Brago (or whatever) but seeing a new hand every turn is still immensely powerful as it ensures that you'll always have plenty of action as your games progress. After all, converting a hand of 3 lands into 3 spells can definitely make-or-break your ability to win games of Magic. That being said you're going to be significantly better off fielding more reliable alternatives (such as Manifold Insights) in 95% of all cases making this an extremely underwhelming addition to Blue's already stacked arsenal of draw spells.
Grade: Niche F
This card makes absolutely no sense to me. First of all it's completely unplayable in the "Ebony Owl Netsuke/Iron Maiden" archetype given that it costs 4 and only forces one additional draw per player per circuit. That deck already has multiple 3 CMC versions of the spell that it doesn't play and the only 4 drops that it even considers force 2 or more draws. Beyond that this card is heinous in Blue Control decks given that A) you'll never hit Ascend to begin with and B) it would barely be playable even if it started with the Ascend mode already activated. In colors like Red and White, sure, but Blue? The color with Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Compulsive Research, Fact or Fiction and Recurring Insight? Pass.
Grade: C
Negate is one of the most competitive permission spells in the entire game and every Blue Mage worth their salt should own multiple play sets. It's cheap, easy to cast, hits plenty of relevant targets (including other permission) and is virtually impossible to play around. Remember, when someone Tinkers out a Blightsteel Colossus or Buried Alives + Wake the Deads Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion even though you're technically dying to creatures realistically it's spells that won your adversaries the game. That being said 1-for-1 permission is marginal at best unless you're using it to counter opposing permission and/or game-winning spells so field these types of spells sparingly unless that's the case for you and your meta. If everyone is jamming fair creatures + removal spells as opposed to combos and/or game-ending threats then don't bother with interaction such as this. Still, in any combo/permission-heavy meta it's an utterly absurd Magic card that only loses out to a handful of other alternatives (very few of which are budget-minded).
Grade: A+
This card is straight-up broken. RIX has been an extremely unexciting set up this point but the tide is finally turning because this is the first card that I'm urging everyone to acquire and play. Let me be clear; this card is legitimately worth discussing among titans such as Consecrated Sphinx, Griselbrand, Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur in Reanimator/Ramp/Control decks. This is because it's the first and only one that naturally protects itself without complete reliance on Force of Will, Not of this World and other cheap/free permission/protection spells. Once Nezahal hits the field he isn't going anywhere regardless of what gets thrown at him and that's downright frightening. Believe me when I say that I've seen countless people lose games which their in Jin was killed before it could do anything whatsoever whereas a card like Nezahal would have completely shrugged the removal off. He's so good for so many reasons that I barely know where to start.
First of all, the vast majority of spells and effects that would otherwise kill Nezahal, Primal Tide will inherently draw you a card. Once you start to think of his protection ability as "discard 2 cards, keep your oppressive finisher around" you realize that it's not nearly as taxing as it initially sounds. This is especially true if you factor in the slew of oppressive draw spells and engines that Blue naturally has at its disposal because by no means does he have to be your only form of card draw. Between things like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Consecrated Sphinx and Recurring Insight keeping a full of grip of cards at all times is easier than it sounds.
Moreover, don't sleep on his "unlimited hand size" clause because it's insanely relevant on this type of threat. Keeping all of your "junk" (in addition to your gas) will enable you to consistently protect him as the game progresses while simultaneously ensuring that you can continue to play Magic unimpeded. This, again, provides him a sizable edge over alternatives that require spell-based forms of protection. Also, while having an unlimited hand size might otherwise be a drawback for Reanimator/graveyard-based decks the fact that he can bin cards whenever prevents this from ever being a problem. Those fatties can be binned whenever you want so there's no need to worry about having the effect backfire.
Now, I realize that I haven't spent much time talking about "why" card is good but I don't think much needs to be said about it. As we've previously seen with cards such as Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study and Consecrated Sphinx the effect is "in your face" powerful and scales wildly out of control as the number of players increases. Drawing millions of cards with a large + resilient fatty doesn't need much of the way of further justification. Nezahal is easily the strongest card in the set (not close, not close to being close) so if I could pick any one card for everyone to purchase and play with it would be him. You can literally slot him into deck that could reasonably get him into play and it would be correct to do so. The card is completely bonkers.
Grade: D
The name of this card is fitting in the sense that releasing it to the wind is likely its most relevant use. It's trying so hard to be a good card but it ultimately fails in every possible way. After all, when you take a second to critically analyze how it plays out you realize that it's nothing but a marginal 3 CMC blink spell. Ok, it's a bit better than that, but not by nearly enough. Realistically you only want to be casting this on your permanents and while the ability to control the timing of the re-cast is interesting I'd love to hear the argument as to makes it "powerful." Sure, you could "hide" something and then cast Upheaval (or whatever) but why would I want this in my "Upheaval" decks to begin with? I'd much rather field a card like Worn Powerstone and re-cast a hand full of mana rocks after resolving it.
Otherwise if you simply compare it to something like Ghostly Flicker, again, I'd much rather take the consistent value of bouncing the second permanent. The upside of being able to temporarily remove opposing permanents is marginal at best since that's rarely going to matter in an average multiplayer game. Yes, sometimes it will enable you to remove a Trinisphere so that you can combo off (or something along those lines) but those games will be few and far between. It's a cute effect and I hope that wizards continues to explore this design space but this card is entirely too safe to be interesting. Good concept, weak execution.
Grade: D+
A word to the wise; if you never play with this card in multiplayer you'll be significantly better off than those who do. While I think that most people were excited to finally see Brainstorm tacked-on to a creature I personally view this type of critter as being little more than marginal filler. This card is almost strictly worse than Sea Gate Oracle given that it costs significantly more mana for a marginal increase in powerful which isn't a trade-off that anyone should be happy to make. It's certainly a reasonable inclusion in Blink-based value decks that feature "Ghostly Flicker" type effects (especially ones that also have access to cheap shuffle effects such as fetchlands) but that deck is already stacked for 4+ drops (Panharmonicon, Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Peregrine Drake) and would much rather have something cheaper like Sea Gate Oracle instead. Ultimately it's a reasonable 4 drop for basically any value deck (Blink or not) but in a world of cards like Fact or Fiction and Control Magic it's difficult to justify slotting a 4 CMC + Sorcery speed version of Brainstorm on the off-chance that you manage to abuse the body somehow.
Grade: D
Geez, where am I going to find the time to even being to navigate this card? As much as I want to like it I can't envision a scenario where it would be playable. Not only is hitting Ascend extremely difficult for Blue decks in general but you also have to untap with her before you can activate the effect. Your reward? A slightly cheaper Time Warp that you had to jump through endless hoops to acquire. Don't get me wrong, Time Walks are busted in multiplayer and I love them to death, but I also have to be level-headed with my evaluations and provide realistic expectations to my readers. Time Warp variants will outperform the Navigator 99% of the time and her average use-case will be to sit in play doing absolutely nothing before dying a pointless death. Even in token decks that can reliably hit Ascend she's still going to struggle to earn her keep because she still has to untap before she can activate. Given how maligned extra turn effects tend to be in multiplayer (for good reason) that's always going to be a tall task because needless to say people will be trying to gun her down asap. Until we discover some crazy combo interaction that can bypass these restrictions (maybe we can cross the streams?) I recommend shying away from her.
Grade: C
Oh baby, now my blood is flowing! I'm now going to spend entirely too much time talking about this card so the TL;DR is that it's a reasonable disruption spell for any Black deck in any multiplayer format. That is to say that regardless of the format, the number of players, deck strengths and/or deck strategies you can reasonably start any list with 4 of them and expect to experience mild success at the very least. With that in mind let's move on to all the reasons why I'm extremely excited to see this type of spell being printed.
First of all I want to briefly discuss why you don't see many global discard spells and effects played in multiplayer. Every now and then you'll see Mindslicer in sacrifice-based decks but why is it that you never see cards like Delirium Skeins flying around? After all, it sounds completely bonkers on paper. Think about it; in a 4 player game it's a straight 4-for-9 and for someone like me who plays in 8 player FFAs it's literally a 4-for-21. Four for TWENTY ONE. How is that not broken? The reason why the card legitimately sucks in practice is because you'll never win a game in which you resolve one. Period. Not only are your adversaries ahead on cards since they only discarded 3 whereas you discarded 4 but they also get to untap and draw before you get another chance to act. As such they're essentially up 2 cards and all of their mana on you. Moreover, they're typically drawing into spells and effects that matter whereas you're drawing into worthless discard spells like Delirium Skeins which no longer have value. The net result is that you die a slow and miserable death and never win a game. This is why you typically don't see much mass discard in MP even though it seems powerful on paper.
Now, there are obviously ways to circumvent this fate. Cards like Waste Not, Asylum Visitor and Geth's Grimoire are clearly bonkers when paired with mass discard. Still, at that point you essentially have to be building a full-blown discard deck because you can't just start a list with cards like Geth's Grimoire unless you're going all-in. Moreover, Waste Not was a mistake and doesn't allow anyone to play Magic. I've literally never lost a game in which I've gone turn 2 Waste Not turn 3 Delirium Skeins/Dark Deal or any similar sequence in any similar time-frame. It's legitimately unbeatable. As such discard decks tend to get boring/banned extremely quickly because of how oppressive Waste Not is. Clearly you can ban it or build decks without it but then you lose so much power that it's rarely worth pursuing. It's also hard to justify working on "fair" versions of a previously banned decks because deep down you'll always know that if you do ever manage to break it again your "reward" will be another banning. Fun times.
Based on what I've just said above I'm really happy that Wizards is starting to print some generically powerful discard spells that don't need to be entirely built around or abused. Arterial Flow is a straight 2N-for-1 where N is the number of adversaries. You don't have to build around it whatsoever because it's always going to be a purely advantageous exchange. Moreover, unlike "Syphon Mind" effects that affect each/each other player Arterial Flow only affects your opponents (not you or your allies) making it ideal for team-based formats such as 2HG and Emperor. It's a straight 3 mana 4-for-1 in 2HG (or even 3 player FFA) and that's an awesome place to be. I also appreciate how this is the first generically powerful discard spell that you can blindly run out on turn 3 in order to set up for the turn 4 Syphon Mind. Assuming a 4 player game that's back-to-back 6-for-1s and will leave your opponents with (mostly) empty hands while you'll still be boasting a full grip yourself. This also isn't a combo by any means since both cards work just fine on their own. I do think that this one-two punch will be back-breaking to deal with and I'm excited to start giving it a whirl in my own games.
Beyond that I want to stress how important these kinds of cards are for players who operate in small metas. You have no idea how people message me saying "hey Pride, I play in a small meta and so I need a deck designed for duels, 3 player FFA, 4 player FFA and 2HG." That's harder than it sounds when you're trying to build something competitive on a budget. This is why I'm so happy to see cards like Arterial Flow that are playable in any format regardless of the number of players. It's still a Mind Rot in a duel setting and that's a perfectly playable Magic card. It's not broken by any means, it's no Hymn to Tourach, but it gets the job done and scales into the multiplayer formats. This makes it an extremely strategic acquisition for newer players who need all-purpose decks and strategies. Rather than having to worry about a massive sideboard plan if I can limit it to a small number of cards that's perfect.
Finally, this isn't a broken card by any means. Mind Rot isn't a game-winning effect and discard tends to be actively bad against graveyard-based decks which tend to be prevalent in multiplayer formats. After all, helping your adversary bin a fatty so that they can then reanimate it feels awful. Discard can also go dead as the game progresses and people find themselves in topdeck mode. However, that tends to be less of a concern in multiplayer in my experience as players have more incentive to play for the lategame and field card draw. As such I'm not especially worried about drawing blank discard spells but it's obviously still a thing that can happen from time-to-time. The idea here isn't that this card will revolutionize the game or anything, it's a reasonable playable and nothing more, but I'm glad that I can finally slot a genetic discard spell in my lists and feel actively good about. I certainly didn't feel that way for Unnerve or Tasigur's Cruelty but I'm pumped for Arterial Flow.
Grade: D
Anyone caught playing this on my watch is a dead man. Much like Paladin of Atonement this card might seem multiplayer-slanted but in reality it should virtually never be played over consistent alternatives such as Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood. Remember, it doesn't allow you to play lands so even if you're killing a 4-5 power creature you're still only going to draw ~2 spells on average and bear in mind that spells from opposing decks will typically have less overall value than ones from your own. This is because decks tend to be built with all of their cards and synergies in mind making it entirely possible (and probable) to hit things that are almost completely worthless outside of them. As such you have to do an insane amount of work to get this to outperform something as simple as Night's Whisper, which, again, will never let you down. Don't get me wrong, the dream of killing a giant Taurean Mauler and "drawing" 10-15 additional cards is sweet and it will certainly happen in a small % of games. That being said you're also going to consistently find yourself wishing that this were literally any other card in the game as you fail to assemble the 3 card "combo" of Chest + Fatty + Removal Spell. Why worry about jumping through so many hoops when you could jam 2 copies of Sign in Blood and not have to deal with any of that nonsense?
Grade: C+
Oh wow, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition! This is low-key one of the best cards in the set and one that I highly recommend acquiring. Believe me when I say that it's going to be one of Black's strongest 2 drops moving forward so you may as well start grabbing some play sets now because you're they're all going to find homes eventually. Much like Phyrexian Rager and Gonti, Lord of Luxury before it this is the type of threat excels in decks and archetypes that care about having a critical mass of "stuff." Since that statement is extremely vague let me provide a more in-depth explanation.
Black decks, in general, tend to revolve around cards like Diabolic Intent, Zulaport Cutthroat, Contamination, Recurring Nightmare, Crypt Ghast, Grave Pact, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Living Death, Dictate of Erebos, Razaketh, the Foulblooded and plenty of additional spells and effects that require having a critical mass of resources. Now, while some of you might be thinking to yourselves "ok, sure, but why not just play things like Reassembling Skeleton and Endless Cockroaches?" the answer is "because you can't." The problem with recursive threats (in general) is that they tend to be worthless on their own, resource intensive, terrible in multiples and miserable top decks at virtually every stage of the game. Most "Reassembling Skeleton" decks want to draw exactly one copy of that effect but everything beyond that tends to be heinous. Clearly you're living the dream when you curve turn 2 Skeleton into turn 3 Contamination and/or turn 4 Smokestack but if those get removed and you draw 2-3 Skeles and a Bloodghast you can't do anything other than mope around until you die. Bad draws, removal, mana screw and much more become automatic losses and that's never a good place to be.
This is where cards like Dusk Legion Zealot and Phyrexian Rager shine. They're still 2 and 3 drop creatures that create bodies for the turn 4 Grave Pact and that add devotion for that turn 5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel but they also help you hit your land drops and dig for your big payoff spells and effects. Even if your draw isn't great or you're missing some key components you're never left stranded with do-nothing blockers who don't advance your game plan in a meaningful way. Note, by no means am I suggesting that these cards are "broken" or anything along those lines. They're playable-but-unexciting filler that get the job done. My point is that they tend to outperform the alternatives because they're never dead draws where the others one frequently are. This is why I consider Dusk Legion Zealot to be an extremely competitive 2 drop because, on average, it's going to be one of the best things to be casting on turn 2 when your deck is fielding the typical broken Black spells such as Diabolic Intent, Recurring Nightmare, Grave Pact, Living Death and Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
Grade: Niche D
Before anyone gets ahead of themselves I'm urging everyone in our little coalition to run away from this trap. Even though it says "each opponent" and even though it can chain into itself and/or Dire Fleet Ravager I don't recommend trying to build around it. I briefly tested a pseudo Pirate deck with Phantasmal Image and Hostage Taker among other things but the deck proved to be far too slow, unreliable and weak to warrant further exploration. As with any other cheap tutor it could easily become a "thing" if the right creature is printed but that day isn't today
Grade: C, but F in reality
Unfortunately this isn't going to be the golden boy of the set and the reports of Massacre's demise have been greatly exaggerated. "Infest" variants are almost always reasonable inclusions in multiplayer decks as they enable Control players to stabilize the board against multiple adversaries early on. They hit faster and more consistently than 4+ CMC alternatives which is extremely important against early mana dorks and other utility threats that could otherwise run away with the game. They're still weaker than things like Toxic Deluge and Damnation on average but they're also budget-minded and easy to acquire which makes them ideal for newer players.
That being said this isn't a card worth acquiring. It's strictly worse than either Drown in Sorrow or Flaying Tendrils both of which are already completely unplayable relative to both Toxic Deluge and Massacre. Decks that want "Infest" effects aren't going to be able to consistently hit Ascend nor would they have any use for it to begin with. Most of them are going to be creaturelight/less Control builds that would much rather have the consistent Scry/exile that the alternatives provide. As such there's zero incentive to field this over the multitude of significantly more relevant alternatives.
Grade: Niche C
While I fully expect this card to excel under the right conditions I also expect it to be insanely overrated in general. Let me be perfectly clear; this isn't a playable finisher for generic creature-based drain decks. A gruesome fate awaits anyone who start slotting these into random Gray Merchant decks as an alternative to things like Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate. That's not what this card is designed for. Rather, save them for your token decks to pair with things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Purphoros, God of the Forge. That is, you want to be casting things like Viscera Seer, Sylvan Offering, Zulaport Cutthroat, Sengir Autocrat, Twilight Prophet, Tendershoot Dyrad, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Avenger of Zendikar that spew a ton of bodies onto the field. That way if you're ever able to untap you can fire 1-2 of these off to clear the table out in a single blow. That does make it a fairly niche card in practice but it's certainly one worth acquiring if token decks are your thing.
Grade: A
It doesn't take mastermind to see that this is a must-have acquisition for anyone allowed to play with it. Without getting into a big Wish rant I do want to go on record expressing my discontent for these types of spells. Not only do they enable you to build incredibly fast, consistent and powerful decks but they also break fundamental rules of the game. My go-to example (and the way I got Wishes banned in my meta) is Living Wish with Cloudpost. Not only is this card essentially a Green Sun's Zenith but what most people don't seem to realize is that it inherently enables you to break the 4-of rule. That's not my opinion, that's just how the card works. Go ahead, read it! There's absolutely nothing stopping from grabbing a 5th Cloudpost even if you already have 4 in your deck. As such it enabled me to build decks with 8 virtual copies of cards like Cloudpost, Gaea's Cradle, Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial while also enabling me to grab any silver-bullet at any time. That's not fun, that's not Magic, that's just mindless cheese. It's an utterly terrible design, rewards the "haves," punishes the "have nots" and creates miserable games. Ban that garbage.
Putting all of that aside this card is absurd. It literally grabs any card in your collection and, again, enables you to break the 4-of rule for oppressive spells and effects such as such as Cloudpost, Cabal Coffers, Waste Not and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Or any other card in Magic for that matter! It can literally grab ANYTHING that you own. Don't get me wrong, 4 is a lot of mana to pay for a tutor (Diabolic Tutor sees zero multiplayer play), but it would be ridiculous to argue that this is anything other than an inherently broken spell. That being said I do highly recommend banning wishes and since I expect them to be subject to house rules regardless I'm not going to waste any more time on them. If your meta is cool with Wishes and you happen to have a big collection, awesome, go nuts doing broken things with game-breaking effects.
Grade: Niche D
While neither of these cards is worth analyzing in a vacuum I'll briefly note that they both work as enablers for various Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Zulaport Cutthroat style combo kills. The idea here is that if you can assemble Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat/Bitter Ordeal and [any revival threat] and [any way to sac that threat] and [any way to infinitely cast that threat] you can win the game against any number of adversaries. Note that these combos typically include cards like Phyrexian Altar and/or Ashnod's Altar that act as both sac outlets and mana engines which makes that task slightly more achievable than it sounds. Both of these card can theoretically work in this style of deck because if you're able to assemble something like Phyrexian Altar + Bontu's Monument + Oathsworn Vampire then you can nuke the table down fairly easily.
That being said the reason why you've probably never seen these types of decks is because they're typically not very good. Not only do they have a ton of moving pieces, no way to protect/recur them and no way to reliably assemble them but they're also extremely slow, inconsistent, vulnerable to removal and painfully obvious as to what they're trying to do. Any reasonable group of adversaries will be able to thwart your gameplan and leave you with a pile of do-nothing combo pieces and worthless blockers. If the individual combo pieces had more inherent value then the archetype might would be worth pursuing but as it sits it's far too unreliable
Grade: D+
Welcome to the most overrated card in the set. I don't think that it's unplayable or anything but for the life of me I'll never understand people's fascination with expensive + Sorcery speed + 1-for-1 removal spells in multiplayer. When I first saw Vona's Hunger spoiled my jaw dropped because of how bonkers that card is going to be. Not only is it the first instant-speed Fleshbag Marauder effect that we've ever seen but it's also playable in team formats (whereas Marauders are marginal at best) and it even has an extremely powerful Ascend clause. That being said when I took a peek over in this thread the only card that people were talking about was the Goateater. I don't get it. When has Nekrataal ever been good in multiplayer? When have you ever seen a deck that included it?
There's legitimately a whole host of problems with those types of spells and effects in multiplayer. First of all they're extremely expensive which means that they often hit too slow to react to giant fatties being cheated out early on. There's plenty of cards like Oath of Druid, Animate Dead and Tinker that will power them out long before Flametongue Kavus come online. Moreover, the fact that they're 1-for-1s also means that they won't actually seize control of the board when they're cast given that you're only killing a single creature from a single adversary. Whereas a card like Damnation will kill "the everything" Nekrataals won't even pull you ahead of the rest of the pack. They're also "Sorceries" which makes them worthless against true game-enders such as Consecrated Sphinx, Sire of Sanity, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and a host of other common closers that need to die immediately. You simply cannot afford to wait on removing them. On the subject of Sorceries let's not forget that they also force you to tap out on your turn which prevents you from holding up/representing interaction against combo/synergy decks. It's also extremely easy to play around Sorcery-speed removal since you can essentially just "go for it" as soon as you assemble whatever you need to win. Lastly, even though everyone likes to think of these cards as being 2-for-1s please reflect on the value of a Grizzly Bears in multiplayer. Sorry, it's not a card, it's barely a fraction of a fraction of a card. Ravenous Chupacabra, to me, is only marginally better than an "Impale" unless you're actually abusing the body for something other than attacking and blocking. Even then I use the word "abuse" extremely loosely because that's easier said than done. If you're Birthing Podding into this over Mindslicer or Meren of Clan Nel Toth then you're doing it wrong.
This card, to me, is extremely unexciting filler at best. Even if your deck has things like Recurring Nightmare, Eldritch Evolution, Birthing Pod, etc. this should never make the cut over things like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Solemn Simulacrum and Mindslicer. It doesn't do nearly enough to justify its slot. Again, it's not completely unplayable or anything (it's not Mudhole levels of bad) but for the life of me I don't understand why these types of cards receive so much love whereas cards like Vona's Hunger go completely overlooked. There's virtually no world where it should make the cut unless you're just trying to fool around with purposely weak cards.
Grade: D+
It's coming! While this card is slightly more interesting than the Chupacabra it still isn't something that you should be looking to field in multiplayer outside of small, team-based formats such as 2HG. After all, a pure upside "Plague Wind Titan" seems nigh unbeatable unless your adversaries are doing something extremely unfair. Note that oppressive mana engines such as Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx don't change the equation either because no matter how you slice it "Dread Cacodemons" aren't that exciting in multiplayer. Their biggest weakness is that they don't actually win games of Magic. After all, even when you slam them and clear (or mostly clear) the board it's not as though you're suddenly in a prime position to win. What are you going to do, beat everyone down? Doesn't happen. You still need a lot of things to be going your way and that's rarely going to be the case. They're also extremely mana intensive, worthless reanimation targets and fairly useless against creature-light decks and strategies. All-in-all I don't see a compelling reason to fool around with this type of finisher when there's throngs of significantly more powerful and consistent alternatives.
Grade: Niche C
All I can say "thank God she isn't sparkling." So help me God if I ever seen another Twilight vampire... ahem... moving on. As most of you have probably guessed by now I'm not very high on Ascend cards that don't have a relevant "base mode" since I do think that it's a legitimate cost that will be difficult to consistently reach. As such I have absolutely no interest in playing this card in generic Control/Combo/Ramp shells as a lategame form of card advantage and drain. I'd much rather slam a Graveborn Muse, take my free card every turn and move on with my life.
That being said this card seems eminently playable in Token decks alonside cards such as Sylvan Offering, Zulaport Cutthroat, Sengir Autocrat, Tendershoot Dryad, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Avenger of Zendikar. Ideally you want to be hitting Ascend by turn 4 (assuming a turn 1-2 ramp spell) with something along the lines of:
Turn 1 Carpet of Flowers/Burgeoning/Utopia Sprawl/Wild Growth
Turn 2 Catacomb Sifter
Turn 3 Twilight Prophet
Turn 4 Tendershoot Dryad
It doesn't have to be this exact curve or anything but you can see where I'm going with this. From there you'll ideally be able to slam things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Gruesome Fate in order to close the game out in short order with your global drain effects. The card is playable, but only in deck that actively work to make the Ascend mode the "base" mode. It's not going to pull its weight in a generic Control/Combo/Ramp shell.
Grade: C+
Heck yeah, here's a card that I've been hungering for for some time. Not only is it the first instant-speed "Fleshbag Marauder" that Wizards has ever printed but it's also immensely powerful in team-based formats and it even has an extremely powerful Ascend clause. Note, I already consider cards like Oath of Liliana to be competitive powerhouses so this card would still be insane even if didn't have Ascend. They could remove that line of text entirely and my analysis of this card would barely change. Since pure-upside + scaling removal mostly speaks for itself I'm mostly going to focus on how Vona's Hunger separates itself from the pack (Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Execution, Oath of Liliana) as opposed to explaining why mass removal is good in multiplayer. I'm sure that most of my reads can already piece that one together themselves ;).
The biggest strength that Vona's Hunger offers over the competition is that it's an instant. I've lost countless games with a Fleshbag Marauder in hand because I couldn't immediately react to that Consecrated Sphinx, Sire of Insanity, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Blightsteel Colossus, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and more which tend to make frequent appearances in multiplayer formats. As such I've always longed for a faster version of the spell to give me additional outs against those oppressive bombs. Moreover, whereas the creatures pair well with revival and the Oath provides Devotion for Gray Merchant of Asphodel Vona's Hunger is the first version of the effect that boasts any synergy with "spells matter" cards and effects such as Snapcaster Mage, Past in Flames, Archaeomancer, Mizzix's Mastery, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, etc. This makes it ideal for the "Grixis Control" archetype that needs a critical mass of relevant spells in order to function. Lastly, while I want to stress the fact that I don't consider the Ascend to be a vital aspect of the card it's certainly going to be relevant in some decks/metas and the upside is extremely relevant when you manage to obtain it. 3 mana to kill multiple creatures from each adversary at instant-speed is a ridiculous rate so by no means should it be overlooked. This will be a must-have staple moving forward since barring any synergies this should be your default Black 3 CMC spot removal spell of choice.
Grade: Niche B
Aww yeah, I love me any card that's going to make people's blood boil. Puns aside I do really like this card but not for the reasons that people probably expect. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally down to get people with cards like Blood Moon and Ruination, but that's not where this card is going to shine. After all, realistically all it does is stop Fetchlands since most worthwhile abilities on lands are mana ones. Since I typically expect multiplayer metas to be more casual and budget-minded I don't expect that to be relevant for my average reader. If that applies to you, by all means, but this card is still relevant even if everyone is playing on a budget. Here's why:
Blood Sun will shine in "Summer Bloom" decks that feature a large number of Bouncelands. After all, with a Blood Sun in play they enter untapped and without bouncing a land. Yep, they're straight multicolor Ancient Tombs that don't cost any life :). Clearly you can also go deep on cards like Lotus Vale but the problem with that card is that it only works with Blood Sun whereas Bouncelands/Karoos also work with Burgeoning and Summer Bloom. You basically want to start your deck with something like:
4x Gruul Turf
4x Izzet Boilerworks
2x Boros Garrison
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Summer Bloom
4x Blood Sun
So that you can go to town ramping as early as turn 1. Now, some of you are probably wondering "why play Blood Sun at all?" Burgeoning and Summer Bloom are faster versions of the effect and you certainly don't need more than 8 total copies of it. The answer is "because it cantrips." Take it from someone who plays this deck on a regular basis; you will flood out A LOT if you don't build the deck properly. Not only does your deck have have 25-28 lands but it also has a ton of cards like Burgeoning and Summer Bloom that become dead/worthless past turn 2. This is actually one of the few decks where I'll field things like Day's Undoing because otherwise I constantly find myself with millions of mana in play but no cards in hand and no action. This is why I'm extremely excited to see a ramp engine that replaces itself to further mitigate the risk of flooding out into oblivion. Don't get me wrong, I understand that paying 3 mana to cycle a card is horrific, but it's still many orders of magnitude more relevant than drawing a legitimately dead card like Summer Bloom. I think that it's extremely interesting and powerful card in that sense and it's one that I do plan on purchasing and playing with.
Grade: D
I've already talked to the brass about placing a bounty on anyone who puts this card in their decks. I can't give it an F because doubling your mana can always turn a losing game around but where you compare this to things like Gauntlet of Might (or Extraplanar Lens or Gauntlet of Power or Caged Sun or literally any other version of this spell) you can't help but feel depressed. There's also no world where you'd ever field it over Mana Geyser which provides more mana, faster, and without the turn of delay. Let's just leave it at that and move on with our lives shall we?
Grade: C+
Cards like Dire Fleet Daredevl and Snapcaster Mage are almost always going to be reasonable playables regardless of the format, number of players and/or level of competition. This is because they offer a powerful effect that naturally scales as the game progresses while also offering a reasonable body that can be used pressure and/or protect as needed. The fact that they're creatures means that you can further abuse them with things like Mimic Vat, Feldon of the Third Path, Sneak Attack, Panharmonicon, Flameshadowing Conjuring, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and more to get multiples uses of their ETB triggers. "Abuse" aside the ability to copy the best spell played that game (for a given situation) is always relevant which means that you can blindly jam them in any deck and experience success. In that sense it's not that Dire Fleet Daredevl does any one thing particularly well, it's mostly that you'll find something powerful to do with them at some point and that's all that matters. Don't be afraid to run them out on turn 3 to copy that Preordain if needed but clearly you should be looking to copy things like Demonic Tutor and Manifold Insights if at all possible.
Grade: C+
Oh baby, now this is a card that I can get behind! Assuming a 4 player game this thing draws and casts an average of 2 extra spells per circuit (as long as it manages to attack) while also beating down with a Titan-sized body. It also boasts immense synergy with library manipulation, rituals, Haste enablers, extra combat phases, recursion and cheat effects all which frequently work their way into multiplayer Red decks. In that sense the card is no only powerful but it inherently works with the spells and effects that we're already playing. Moreover, putting average use-cases aside the highs on this card are insanely high given that some % of the time you'll hit 4 spells off of his trigger which can easily turn an auto loss into an auto win. I always preach that multiplayer is a "go big or go home format" and Etali can go bigger than most other things. In that sense I cannot wait to start jamming him as Red's second Titan (or third if you count Combustible Gearhulk) because this is exactly where you want to be.
Grade: D+
I really, really want to like this card. No joke. Instant-speed board clears are almost always bonkers in multiplayer and the fact that this one cantrips is kind of insane. Moreover, Red is a color that typically struggles to draw additional cards throughout the game which often causes it to lag behind the more powerful ones. As such you often have to take what you can get even if it isn't ideal. The problem that I have with this card is that it's 3 mana for 1 damage. Most Red decks are going to play roughly two 3 CMC board clears in an average multiplayer list and right now the uncontested king is Anger of the Gods. Sweltering Suns is a decent alternative given that it cycles away when it isn't needed but Anger is by far and away the most played + most competitive card for the slot. With that in mind I have to ask myself "would I ever play Shake the Foundations over Anger?" and the answer is "no." I realistically wouldn't play it over any of the 3 mana 3 damage Wraths either. As smuch as I want that extra card there's too many scenarios where this will fail to kill key mana/utility dorks and/or token armies and I'll lose far too many games as a result. It's also far too slow to hose turn 1 mana dorks since they'll already have tapped for mana twice by the time you resolve a 3 CMC sweeper which will be far too late to make a difference. This card is significantly more powerful and playable than it problem looks, please don't dismiss entirely, it's just not quite there outside of extremely meta specific circumstances.
Grade: D-
As much as I want to like to this card I don't think that it's going to get there. The dream is clearly to curve one into a Pyrohemia and/or have a Forerunner of the Empire in play but even then why aren't we playing something like Wildfire instead and ignoring all of these additional hoops? Whereas a card like Silverclad Ferocidons is incredibly expensive, dies to removal at no benefit and only works with a small subset of global damage spells and effects alternatives such as Devastation are completely mindless by comparison. Anyone can curve an Inferno Titan into a Destructive Force and win the game in a significantly faster and more reliable fashion. I do realize that the Ferocideons are "each opponent" whereas Obliterate effects are symmetrical but it's still too slow and unreliable to pique my interests.
Grade: Niche C
I rather like this card as a 2-of for "Zombardment" decks that field things like Tempt with Vengeance, Norin the Wary, Viscera Seer, Mogg War Marshal, Zulaport Cutthroat, Impact Tremors, Goblin Bombardment, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Sengir Autocrat, etc. Not only can that deck easily hit Ascend as needed but it's also perfectly content to create a temporary army of tokens (triggering Impact Tremors/Purphoros, God of the Forge) and then saccing them to Goblin Bombardment to kill opposing critters while also triggering Zulaport Cutthroat in the process. The deck can kill extremely quickly once everything comes online and this is definitely one of the more ideal midgame token engines for the archetype.
Grade: Niche C
While you could arguably play this in any creature-based deck you'll be hard-pressed to justify fielding it over cheaper, more reliable and/or stronger alternatives such as Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Harmonize and Rishkar's Expertise. It's going to earn in keep in games where you manage to stick one on turn 3 and follow it up with a slew of creatures throughout the course of the game but otherwise it'll feel lackluster at best.
Where I do see a niche home for this card is in token decks as an extreme form of card selection, card advantage and pump. After all, in games where you curve:
Turn 2 Sakura-Tribe Elder/Nature's Lore
Turn 3 Path of Discovery/Parallel Lives
Turn 4 Beacon of Creation/Eyeless Watcher
Turn 5 Tendershoot Dryad/Deranged Hermit
Turn 6+ Sylvan Offering/Howl of the Night Pack/Avenger of Zendikar/Craterhoof Behemoth
It's going to look and feel impressive to say the least. Not only will you be hitting all of your land drops and filtering your draw steps as needed but you'll also be pumping your swarm to threaten better attacks and blocks. In that sense it seems like a fairly reasonable addition to token decks and archetypes that will be casting multi-bodies threats all throughout the game. Otherwise you'll be better off sticking with "Harmonize" spells that will draw you the cards at a faster and more reliable clip.
Grade: B+
The only thing stopping me from giving this card an A is that it dies to removal at no benefit. I'm not going to bother trying to hide or shy away from this weakness because it's very real. That being said Tendershoot Dryad is easily the second-best card in the entire set because (much like Nezahal) it's a one-card win condition that can dominate games on its own.
Think about it. If you play this card and it doesn't die you automatically win the game. Period. There's virtually no world where this doesn't have Ascend when you untap with it in a 4+ player game and swinging for 9 -> 21 -> 33 -> 45 doesn't exactly give your adversaries much breathing room. This card legitimately feels like an Entomb + Animate Dead combo except it's a single card that only costs you 5 mana total. In a Green deck that means that it's hitting on turn 4 at the latest but literally any turn 1 "Wild Growth," turn 2 "Wood Elves," type sequence means that you're slamming him on turn 3. Casting something that says "answer me in under 3 turns or lose" is disgusting when it's hitting that early.
Now, again, some % of the time this card will die to removal at no benefit. I don't know what that % is but we can all agree that it's nontrivial. Irrelevant. If someone wants to 1-for-1 your 1-card win condition, by all means, let them. You might be down a bit of mana but the upside is that you literally win every game where they don't "have it." When your worst-case scenario is "trade 1-for-1 and be down on mana" and your upside is "kill the table with 1 card in 3 turns" it's a blatantly unfair exchange that everyone should be willing to make. This card is completely nuts in that sense and it's one that I highly encourage people to purchase and play with at their earliest convenience. I promise you that it's going to feel hopelessly unfair a significant % of the time.
Grade: F
This is what I like to call a "reverse multiplayer card." Whereas a card like Managorger Hydra gets stronger as the number of players increases Thrashing Brontodon tends to gets weaker. This is because you're much less likely to need a random 3/4 and much more likely to need a removal spell and paying 4 mana for a Nature's Claim is exactly as bad as it sounds. If you disagree with my assessment and want to thrash around and throw a tantrum, so be it, just know it won't sway my opinion. I'm willing to put my longneck out on this one and call it a straight F.
Don't get me wrong, I love this card for casual tables since it enables newer players to maindeck hate without running the risk of drawing dead cards. Worst-case scenario it's still a 3/4 for 3 and that's a passable Magic card in many circles. I can totally get behind that concept and appreciate how Wizards is looking out for the players that need it the most when they print cards like these. That being said if you're a multiplayer specialist then you're only playing this type of card because it kills powerful noncreature permanents in the first place at which point you should be sticking to things like Reclamation Sage and Manglehorn instead.
Grade: D
Carry on my wayward son for there'll be peace when you are done. On that note stick a fork in him because he's done. Sorry folks, this isn't the budget replacement for Azusa, Lost but Seeking that you're looking for. Absolutely no one would play her if she only ramped 1 extra land per turn because at that point you may as well just play Sakura-Tribe Scout or literally anything else. This card is legitimate trash because not only are you paying 3 CMC for an Exploration but you're also stuck with all of the drawbacks associated with playing a creature (namely that it dies to removal). The "upside" is clearly that you can tutor for it but, again, if you can't afford Azusa then Sakura-Tribe Scout is the place to be. After all, the card is easier to cast/cheat out with cards like Green Sun's Zenith and is (typically) legitimately good to jam on turn 1. If this card had any redeeming qualities then sure, we might consider playing it, but jumping through all of these hoops for a 5/5 isn't worthwhile.
Grade: Niche C+
In world of Fetchlands, mill engines, burst mill and Dredgers it's trivially easy to fill your graveyard at a breakneck pace without falling impossibly behind on board. This makes it easy to prepare for cards like World Shaper that can immediately provide you with an insurmountable mana advantage while setting up for cheesy Cut // Ribbons kills. Bear in mind that the presence of revival spells and effects such as Volrath's Stronghold + Life from the Loam and Unburial Rites provide creatures with significant advantages over spell-based alternatives. Splendid Reclamation is clearly the more powerful card in a vacuum, it's not close to being close, but the fact that you have to draw the card isn't trivial since you'd much rather Dredge a Golgari Grave-Troll every turn than draw a single card from the top of your library. The fact that you never have to draw a World Shaper (you can just mill + revive it) gives it a huge edge and, heck, you can always play both cards if needed. Clearly you'll still have to find a way to kill World Shaper if you do opt for that route (and that can sometimes be easier said than done) but that's also where cards like Smallpox shine and those tend to play well in Dredge decks regardless. All-in-all this strikes me as a powerful new addition for the Dredge archetype and I expect many a Cut // Ribbons kill after having someone essentially dump their entire manabase into play.
Grade: C
Angrath is a refreshingly powerful Planeswalker with an interesting slew of abilities. His +1 puts Liliana Vess's to shame and boasts immense synergy with things like Shrieking Affliction, Waste Not, Liliana's Caress, Asylum Visitor, Wheel of Torture, Geth's Grimoire and basically every other "discard matters" effect. While I typically harp on "Megrim" effects this one doesn't need to force a discard in order to deal damage which means that it's still relevant even when players are in topdeck mode. From there you can sit behind your Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales while building towards his ultimate which will easily win the game outright. His -3 is anemic at best, it's only marginally relevant if you happen to have access to a sac outlet, but even then it's mostly trash. That being said his ultimate is bonkers because it essentially reads "you win the game" which makes it ideal for "Wildfire" decks that employ Obliterate effects such as Death Cloud, Jokulhaups, Destructive Force, Devastation, etc. The idea here is to slam him on a protected board, keep him alive for a circuit, destroy "the everything," lock people at 0 cards with his +1 and then easily kill everyone with the ultimate. Look, I get it, it's not the most interactive way to win games but at least it works! At the end of the day I'm fan of basically any 1-card win condition and I can envision more than enough scenarios where this will seal the deal after you lock the board one way or another. Even if you don't his +1 is great value and any curve of Arterial Flow, Syphon Mind, Angrath, the Flame-Chained and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh won't be easy to beat.
Grade: D
In a world of cards like Sphinx's Revelation, Sun Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Recurring Insight, Approach of the Second Sun and Nezahal, Primal Tide it's extremely difficult for me to take these kinds of cards seriously. The ETB trigger is clearly fine, I'll take it, but I sure as heck don't want to pay 6 mana and a card for it. As such you're incredibly reliant on having Azor live enough to make some attacks and even then it sucks having to tap out at Sorcery-speed for an effect that'd you much rather jam at EOT. Don't get met wrong, I'm not saying that you can't put him in a deck, I just don't see why you'd want to.
The best deck for this card (by an order of magnitude) has to be the "Brago, King Eternal" deck that can blink him + a whack of mana rocks every turn to transform him into a real card. After all, with Brago his ETB trigger becomes a passive effect and since Brago untaps all of your mana rocks you don't have to feel nearly as bad tapping out to draw cards on your turn. You'll still end your turns with enough mana to cast your interaction which is what matters. I understand that this makes Azor rather niche, I legitimately wouldn't him play him in anything else, but he does seem extremely sweet in that archetype.
Grade: D
Cards like these, in general, suffer from the fact that the vast majority of spells and effect that would otherwise "break" them also end up killing them as well. I'm clearly referencing Wrath effects which, while perfect for killing large quantities of creatures, are terrible at keeping specific ones alive. That being said all hope isn't lost because there's plenty of cards like Fleshbag Marauder that foot the bill in a pinch. Moreover, where I personally see Elenda shining is in decks that want to open with something along the lines of:
Turn 1 Viscera Seer
Turn 2 Zulaport Cutthroat/Impact Tremors/Blood Artist
Turn 3 Ophiomancer
Turn 4 Elenda, the Dusk Rose
It doesn't have to be that exact curve but you can see where I'm going with this. Not only are you draining people for massive quantities of life each circuit, stacking your draws and building a huge + resilient blocker but you're also building towards the burst combo kill of sac outlet + Zulaport Cutthroat + Elenda. Sac your board to build a huge Elendra, sac Elenda, sac all of your tokens, win. Easy.
Otherwise you could also field her in Vampire tribal, ideally ones featuring the Viscera Seer + Bloodghast combo. From there you could build a giant lifelinked fatty to fuel powerful card draw spells and engines such as Champion of Dusk. This would give you immense resilience against mass removal (and other forms of interaction) by ensuring that you'd always have plenty of action both on and off the field. Still not a stellar card by any means but certainly a reasonable 1-of.
Grade: Niche C
This will be a welcome addition to +1/+1 counter archetypes given that creatures such as Mold Adder, Managorger Hydra, Taurean Mauler and Forgotten Ancient kill extremely quickly when their power is doubled and they're granted evasion. This is especially true if you happen to open with either Hardened Scales and/or Winding Constrictor at which point virtually any attack is going to result in a kill. My only issue with the card is that I've never had a compelling reason to play Blue in these shells and Hadana's Climb definitely isn't enough to change that on its own. As such I can't envision a world where I'd get to slot this into an actual deck unless I felt like dropping a ton of money on mana fixing. Don't get me wrong, you can obviously build and play Blue versions of this archetype if you want to and should always play at least 1 copy of Hadana's Climb if you do. As long as you're able to justify the splash in other ways you'll be hard-pressed to find a more reliable finisher.
Grade: Niche C
Huatli is an interesting but relatively niche Planeswalker that realistically can't exist outside of a dedicated token strategy. After all, her +1 is literally worthless at anything other than building towards her ultimate and since Green already has access to forms of card draw such as Rishkar's Expertise you're not going to field her in a generic creature list. I'm imaging something along the lines of:
Turn 1 Elvish Mystic/Llanowar Elves/etc.
Turn 2 [anything that puts 3 or more bodies into play]
Turn 3 Huatli, Radiant Champion/Anointed Procession/Parallel Lives/etc.
Turn 4 Tendershoot Dryad/Deranged Hermit/Increasing Devotion/etc.
The idea here is that Huatli will jump to 8 counters with her +1 on turn 3 so that you can immediately activate her ultimate turn 4 and follow-up with a burst token generator of some sort. From there you jam things like Cathars' Crusade, Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth until you win. Seems easy enough.
Note, I realize that this strategy isn't perfect. If literally anything goes wrong then you don't get your nut draw and that fact isn't lost on me. Still, I do think that it's important to think about how you're going to design your deck and what your goldfish curve is going to look like. After all, it's not that hard to go 1 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 when you're playing Green as long as you keep your ratios in check. Still, at the end of the day I don't expect Huatli to revolutionize the GW Token archetype by any means because you could just as easily run something like Shamanic Revelation instead. In that sense you're not going to see me champion her or anything. That being said I can appreciate the raw power that she offers when everything goes right so I'm definitely not going to sleep on her either.
Grade: Niche B
This card proves that the journey is more important that the destination since it's going to see play for an eternity. Not only is it a cheap form of ramp and card advantage but it also acts as an extremely powerful + durable mid-to-lategame value engine that blows the competition out of the water. After all, most "Volrath's Stronghold" effects are some combination of slow, conditional and/or expensive whereas Atzal, Cave of Eternity is none of those things. Not only does it return the creature directly to play (so it's actual card advantage as opposed to card selection) but it also does so for a fixed cost. As such it enables you to constantly power out your game-ending bombs for less than their going rate which is completely absurd. All-in-all this strikes me being an obvious staple because I couldn't imagine cutting the first copy from any list that could reasonably support it.
Now, almost everyone figured out the Sakura-Tribe Elder "combo" on day 1 and so if you're looking for an effective 2 -> 3 curve that's as good as it gets. Still, I actually think that most of my Journey to Eternity won't have any STEves whatsoever. That might seem like heresy but hear me out. As good as the STEve curve is, and believe me when I say that it's bonkers, STEve is the only card like STEve in the game. There's obviously other creatures that can sacrifice themselves but if you're jamming this on something like Darkheart Sliver then you're going to get laughed out of the room. Where I think Journey to Eternity will truly shine is in the "sacrifice matters" archtype. I'm not referring to any one specific deck or archetype, just any deck that plays some combo the following cards:
1x Viscera Seer
1x Primal Druid
1x Viridian Emissary
1x Wall of Blossoms
1x Elvish Visionary
1x Dusk Legion Zealot
1x Satyr Wayfinder
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Fierce Empath
1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1x Mindslicer
1x Thragtusk
1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Primeval Titan
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Woodland Bellower
1x Demon of Dark Schemes
1x Sylvan Primordial
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Eldritch Evolution
1x Journey to Eternity
1x Deathreap Ritual
1x Birthing Pod
1x Grave Pact
1x Dictate of Erebos
Again, I'm not saying that you have to play this deck card-for-card or anything, but I am saying that my Golgari decks field a significant quantity of them. With that in mind Journey to Eternity is exactly where I want to be because jamming one of those on a Viridian Emissary before pitching it to an Eldritch Evolution for Mindslicer is going to elicit more than a couple of groans. Heck, I can literally cast it on any of my creatures and even if my opponents respond with removal I can shrug, say "ok" and move on with my life. If it does resolve, hey-hey, I'm a happy camper. My point here is that you can't be all-in on STEve and expect to get there every game. That's not realistic. As such you'll want a well-rounded gameplan that isn't completely reliant on any one sequence even it means losing out on the potential to instantly win the game on turn 3.
Grade: Niche C
This is a classic case of "I really like this card but sadly it doesn't have a home." After all, not only is it a 2-CMC mass removal spell but it's also an extremely reliable + noninteractive finisher that scales linearly with the number of players. You can literally sit there threatening to kill anything that attacks you and/or burn the table at EOT if people sit back and play defensively. It's a win-win either way and it doesn't cost you a damned thing. The problem is obviously "how the heck do we flip this thing?" Clearly you can add cards like Ash Zealot, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Boros Reckoner, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Scab-Clan Berserker, etc. to your lists but at that point you're essentially playing Boros Stax/aggro which isn't the most competitive archetype in the world. Moreover, it's ironic that the strongest finishers for those builds are mass land destruction (MLD) spells such Impending Disaster and Armageddon which neutralize Metzali, Tower of Triumph altogether. Worse, if you cut the MLD for Path of Mettle that will only serve to drastically decrease your probability of winning games and so that's not a realistic option either. Again, I really do like this card, I just can't envision a world where I'd get to play it. I'd have to somehow be playing a deck full of cheap Red/White creatures that (for some unknown reason) doesn't want to field Armageddon and I literally couldn't tell you what that deck would look like.
Grade: F
I (thankfully) haven't seen anyone call this card playable yet but just so we're all clear it's complete and utter trash. Even as a grindy value card it's far too slow, unreliable and weak against removal to bother testing. Remember, you're literally sinking 25 mana into this thing before you're casting your first creature off of it and that's just... yeah... no. Please no. Please don't put this card in your decks.
Grade: F
This card is a straight F. As much as I love Clones in multiplayer we sure as heck don't need one that's this conditional. Moving right along.
Grade: B
This is one of the most well-designed cards that I've ever seen. It's legitimately downright impressive how well Wizards managed to craft this card because the execution is almost perfect. Virtually any Artifact deck can start their game with something along the lines of:
Turn 1 Seat of the Synod + Preordain
Turn 2 Great Furnace + Fellwar Stone + Mox Opal + Baleful Strix
Turn 3 Storm the Vault + flip at EOT + hold up mana for Thirst for Knowledge/Fact or Fiction/Cryptic Command/Mystic Confluence/etc.
Which seems like an awesome place to be if you ask me. There's also tons of other ways to make all of this happen by turn 3 (turn 4 tops) so by no means is this the only line that you can take. At that point you're playing with Tolarian Academy on your side of the field which, needlessly to say, is a heck of a lot of fun for you and not so much fun for everyone else. Playing with "infinite" mana is exactly as fun as it sounds, especially when you're in Grixis and have access to throngs of powerful card draw spells and Wheels. Otherwise I don't have much to add because the thing more-or-less speaks for itself. If you're playing a broken artifact-based deck then it's going to stomp people but otherwise it can be safely ignored. The effect is ludicrously powerful if you can consistently trigger it though so by all means build around and play with this card if you can afford to support it.
Grade: C
For what it's worth this card gets my vote for "most interesting card in the set." I don't think that it's the most powerful by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time I cannot help but smile when I read Sanctum of the Sun. I do think that this card is playable, it basically wins the game if you manage to flip it, the problem is how you go about getting there. Let's start from the top by going over all of the reasons why this card sucks.
First, this isn't a real looter. Whereas I'm happy to start basically any Blue deck with 4x Merfolk Looter the card would be unplayable trash if it exiled the cards and cost a mana to activate. You'd never even consider playing it. After all, half of the reason to play them is to fill your graveyard full of goodies so that you can do broken things with cards like Animate Dead, Yawgmoth's Will, Living Death and Dig Through Time. When you strip that away and add an activation cost the card starts to look abysmal. Moreover, the card dies to removal at basically no benefit. After all, the effect is overcosted and underpowered so even after you've "looted" 3-4 times you're still unhappy with the exchange if it bites the bullet before flipping. Lastly, your opponents aren't idiots and there's absolutely nothing sneaky or subtle about the effect. Most people are smart enough to realize that "hey, untapping with 20 mana is bad" and so they'll either remove your Gateway or kill you long before you gain access to Sanctum of the Sun. With all of this in mind what can Azor's Gateway do to overcome its laundry list of glaring weaknesses?
Azor's Gateway can provide card selection to decks and colors that otherwise lack it. Let's face it; Red and White don't have the option of playing with cards like Merfolk Looter (or any other decent card selection/draw spells for that matter) and so that's not even on the table. As such it could easily make sense for them to field cheap forms of card selection that other colors would otherwise dismiss. Take White for example. One of my favorite sets of cards is the Land Tax/Tithe/Gift of Estates cycle that enables you to consistently hit your land drops and play for the lategame. A looter, even a bad one, starts to look significantly more relevant if you're consistently filling your hand with nonsense. And look, I get it, you don't exactly want to be cycling nothing but lands with the Gateway. Ideally you want to be looting away spells in order to build for the flip. Still, given the option of "play useless land number 9" and "dig for a relevant spell" there's no decision to be made. This is why I could still easily see this card being played even though the base card has questionable value.
Azor's Gateway boasts immense synergy with untap effects. Cards like Voltaic Key, Unwinding Clock and Paradox Engine tend to be busted when paired with oppressive mana engines such as Mana Vault, Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith and Azor's Gateway feels like a natural fit to that archetype. Needless to say it's definitely interested in Sanctum of the Sun because big mana is always in the market for bigger mana. With something as simple as Darksteel Citadel and Unwinding Clock you can easily flip the Gateway within 2 circuits (tops) and Paradox Engine essentially enables it to flip as soon as you resolve your next spell. While I'm not suggesting that you must pair Azor's Gateway with untap effects such as these it should certainly influence the way that you build and play your deck. There's no sense in leaving value off of the table.
Sanctum of the Sun is completely and utterly broken and that's ultimately why we're playing this card. For all of its weaknesses, for all of its shortcomings, this card says "do something easy, win the game" and that's a ridiculously good place to be in multiplayer. Even if your deck is complete trash relative to what your adversaries are fielding there's always a world where you can win if you manage to activate Sanctum of the Sun. It's that good. Again, I recognize that this card has a lot going against it, but multiplayer Magic will forever and always be a "go big or go home" format so sometimes you have to take a chance on a card that won't always get there. Besides, at the end of the day it's not the end of the world when your Gateway gets removed. You traded 1-for-1 and overpaid for some card selection. Is that good? No. Is that game-losing? Heck no. You're behind but it's rather insignificant all things considered. That's why this card gets my pick for "most interesting card in the set" because I cannot help but want to jam in it lists and try to "get there." For better or for worse it seems like a worthwhile endeavor.
Grade: C
It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries! This card is both incredibly sweet and moderately powerful and it's something that I expect to see played for many years to come. After all, it's a solid mid-to-lategame value engine that enables you break board stalls by going over-the-top of your adversaries and neutering their key threats. Moreover, when evaluating The Immortal Sun you essentially get to ignore the Planeswalker and +1/+1 clauses and treat them as pure upsides because the card would still be playable even if it didn't have them. You're primarily fielding it as a Staff of Nin + Worn Powerstone hybrid that draws you an extra card each turn while reducing the cost of your spells. I also promise you that the cost reduction matters way more than you probably think, especially in monocolor builds that field Medallions. They're already my go-to mana rocks in monoblue/green/black lists because of how degenerate they feel when paired with mass card draw. Casting a whack of spells that cost 2 (or more) less to cast starts to get absurd and so I'm excited to start pairing these cards together.
Other than Medallions you'll also want to pair this card with Inventors' Fair if at all possible. The idea here is drawing the first Inventors' Fair has basically no opportunity cost (it's still a land that taps for mana) which virtually enables you to play with 2 copies of The Immortal Sun without running the risk of flooding out on them. Clearly your deck will still need a reasonably high artifact count to hit "Metalcraft" for the tutor clause but for many builds that won't be a stretch by any means. After all, it's not a card that you want to see in multiples nor do you ever want to draw it early on. That being said you do want to draw it at some point in your games so being able to field a second copy at no risk is extremely relevant.
Now, clearly Staff of Nin isn't an oppressive magic card by any means. You typically only see it played as a 1-of in White/Red decks due to the fact that they otherwise lack access to card draw. That's fine. A card doesn't have to be played as a 4-of to be good. If you start all of your grindy Red/White decks with one of these I can almost guarantee you that the card will feel quite powerful in the games where you do manage to draw it. That being said don't go hog-wild playing 4 of these given that they're slow, Legendary and extremely weak if you've already started falling behind. Whereas a card like Inferno Titan will help to catch you back up The Immortal Sun takes many turns to recoup its investment cost. It's not a bomb nor will it change the way that we build and play our decks but it's undoubtedly going to be a decent value engine for the foreseeable future.
Grade: Sideboard D+
While I'm typically quite vocal about my love of playing 1-2 copies of cards like Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb and Rest in Peace in multiplayer the prospect of jamming a 5 CMC alternative has me silent as the grave. "Ground Seal" is certainly relevant against reanimator/Snapcaster Mage decks, I wouldn't deny that for a second, but ultimately there's still a ton of graveyard-based strategies and archetypes that couldn't care less about it. Yawgmoth's Will, Past in Flames, Living Death, Dig Though Time and more won't even bat an eye. Clearly it can still function as a Relic when needed but 4 is a lot to pay for that effect. It's still a reasonable sideboard card for metas plagued with graveyard-based decks and strategies but it won't pass muster anywhere else.
Grade: D
This is low-cost, low-reward draw engine that virtually any 1-2 color deck could potentially field as a 1-of in order to function as a lategame source of card advantage. After all, hitting 10 or more permanents is an obtainable requirement and given that it inherently ETB untapped and taps for mana it's not as though there's a significant cost to fielding it. While paying 6 mana to conditionally draw a card is far too slow, unreliable and weak to get excited over I also wouldn't cut Arch of Orazca from most decks that decided to include it. Again, the opportunity cost is completely insignificant and colors like Red and White could always use the extra source of card advantage.
Grade: Niche C
Since I'm sure that most people are already aware of Evolving Wilds value as a budget-minded color fixer I'm not going to spend any additional time explaining how it's a cheap way splash/fix your colors in 2-3 color decks. The game has evolved to such a place where that'll never be the optimal way to build your manabases but if this is what you can afford, by all means, go wild.
What I would like to discuss is how increasing powerful these budget-minded Fetchlands are becoming in most Green (and many Blue) lists. Up until a couple of years ago you didn't have much incentive to field anything other than basic lands in your (budget-minded) monocolor decks. After all, a basic Forest does exactly what you need when you need it whereas a card like Terramorphic Expanse carries a legitimate drawback given that it ETBT. That being said Green is now so reliant on landfall/top of library/recursion mechanics that I routinely find myself playing 8 or more Fetchlands in my monogreen builds even if they're the "bad" ones like Terramorphic Expanse. Take the following cards for example:
1x Mirri's Guile
1x Life from the Loam
1x Lotus Cobra
1x Sylvan Library
1x Eternal Witness
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Ramunap Excavator
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Vizier of the Menagerie
1x Splendid Reclamation
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
1x Avenger of Zendikar
All of these cards benefit massively from the addition of Fetchlands to your builds and realistically the list stretches on and on and on from here. They heavily reward you for playing with a critical mass of cheap shuffle effects and/or ways of getting lands into your graveyard in order to provide you with obscene value in the long run. These are also all cards that I routinely find myself playing in my Green lists so it's not as though I'm going out of my way to field them. They're legitimately some of the strongest cards to be casting at every slot in the curve assuming that you're able to support them.
Moreover, while all of this may seem overly niche remember that basically all of these cards work well in tandem with one another. When you curve a Courser of Kruphix into a Vizier of the Menagerie you literally don't care what the top of your library yields. You're happy with lands and creatures either way so the more looks that you have for cards the better. Beyond that most of them are worthless in multiples which means that they tend to played as 1-2 ofs as opposed to 4-ofs (ideally supported with Green Sun's Zenith and/or other tutor effects) in order to avoid flooding out on any one particular card/effect. After all, you'd much rather draw exactly one Ramunap Excavator, exactly one Tireless Tracker and exactly one Vizier of the Menagier than any combination of multiples of either card. As such decks that play one of these cards often play most/all of them in small numbers which further bolsters the power of Fetchlands. Clearly Evolving Wilds isn't a broken card. It serves a niche role but doesn't hold a candle to true Fetchlands. Still, if you're in the market for cheap library manipulation/shuffle effects/recursion they foot the bill in a pinch and that's all that matters.
While I was underwhelmed with Ixalan's lack of playables I was pleasantly surprised with how powerful RIX turned out to be. The Cs and Ds are all interesting and powerful enough to see play and the As and Bs are utterly absurd in the right shells. I'm also always excited see mindless staples such as Nezahal, Primal Tide being printed because you can literally slot them into any deck that can cast them and have it be a correct decision. The other 59 cards don't even matter. Otherwise I want to stress the importance of key filler cards like Dusk Legion Zealot that will make up the bulk of your lists. Even though they're never going to win games on their own they're crucial for fueling things like Viscera Seer, Diabolic Intent, Recurring Nightmare, Contamination, Grave Pact, Living Death, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Razaketh, the Foulblooded which require a critical mass of disposable resources.
Top 10 Cards in the Set
10. Azor's Gateway
9. Etali, Primal Storm
8. Dire Fleet Daredevil
7. Dusk Legion Zealot
6. Journey to Eternity
5. The Immortal Sun
4. Vona's Hunger
3. Storm the Vault
2. Tendershoot Dryad
1. Nezahal, Primal Tide
Note, my criteria for "top cards" and their rankings extends well beyond simple letter gradings. Without going into too much detail I also take into consideration colors, cost, probability that the "average" player will find a home for it, flexibility, etc. For example, I think that Storm the Vault is significantly more oppressive card than Tendershoot Dryad in any deck designed to break either. That being said I also know that the best versions of a Storm the Vault deck will cost thousands of dollars whereas literally any $20.00 Green deck can go turn 1 Wild Growth, turn 2 Overgrowth, turn 3 Tendershoot Dryad and have that be a reasonable draw. Moreover, I don't consider The Immortal Sun to be better than a card like Journey to Eternity in any deck designed to abuse either but I also recognize that one is colorless and has no requirements whereas the other is multiple colors and has to be built around. You'll also notice that I purposely exclude overly niche combo/synergy cards like Blood Sun because I don't believe that 99.99% of my readers will ever build or play the decks that can support them. As such I see no value in telling people to purchase that card unless they're going to build and play that exact Burgeoning shell that I posted. That is, my "top 10" is very much skewed towards "why should a casual, budget-minded player purchase to expand his or her collection" as opposed to "what are the most powerful cards assuming that you have an unlimited budget, unfettered access to cards and your only goal is to maximize your overall win %."
Overall Set Grade: C
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
EDIT: Oh wait, I didn't read the full thing and simply repeated what was already said.
I don't want to attack with him. I want his 7/7 body on blocking duty for enemy aggro so that I get time to spend all the cards I got.
Also, real talk, Inventors' Fair REQUIRES a metalcraft condition to be met in order to tutor. Still an insanely strong card, but the deckbuilding cost is not zero.
Lastly, Etali, Primal Storm also synergizes with library manipulation (and sorta gets hurts by your opponents' Sensei's Divining Tops). I run pretty much every synergy you listed in Xenagod and being able to use Mirri's Guile to help cheat in very deadly 4-mana enchantments (or 6 drop creatures... or extra combats) after paying 6 for a free card off of everyone's deck (and potentially 12 damage) gives you an insane amount of tempo.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
There's plenty of additional cards that I could have reviewed and given a D but I tend to focus on ones that I feel are worth talking about for one reason or another. Path of Discovery is the wrong combo of "boring and weak" for me but I suppose I could, at the very least, highlight its synergy in token decks. What I will say is that I'll never play with or against it nor would I ever recommend sleeving it up. It's not a good Magic card compared to something as simple as Harmonize which will always provide reliable and immediate value for its cost.
W.r.t Nezahal I completely disagree. I'm not trying to force you to like the card or anything, I believe you when you say that you were unimpressed with it, but last night I had my first opportunity to turn 1 Careful Study turn 2 Animate Dead a Nezahal, Primal Tide and it was everything that I dreamed of and more. The fact that you literally never need to hold mana up for protection nor make room for niche/expensive permission such as Not of this World and Force of Will is bonkers. I also don't think that it has to be played in Reanimator/cheaty decks either, it's a stellar finisher in any shell, but this is the type of card that's worth jumping through some hoops to cheat into play early on if possible. I realize that I'm just repeating what I previously said but I'd stand by that A+ rating and stance that it's the strongest overall card in the set. If I had to pick any one card to build and play with for the rest of my life it would be that one.
No joke, I've been thinking about this for some time and actually logged on tonight to make an edit to that entry. As with anyone else I'm very much influenced by the decks that I personally build and play against and since Artifacts tend to be extremely broken I'm used to seeing them in large quantities. They're so ubiquitous that you can basically tell who's winning or losing based on their total artifact count in the opening turns. Still, that's me defaulting to what I see as opposed to what the average person sees. With that in mind I agree with your assessment and think I'll tone down the language that I previously used. Again, it's not that I suddenly stopped playing that card in all of my decks or anything, it's just that I don't want to make blanket claims about what other people should be playing. As much it boggles my mind that people aren't casting cards named Fellwar Stone or Sapphire Medallion on turn 2 I can't close my eyes and plug my ears to pretend that they are.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I understand and agree with most of it.
I played Bishop of Binding last week and was positively surprised by it.
Maybe it’s better than it seems.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
While these types of cards are fine in smaller tables I find that they scale negatively with the number of players. After all, as it increases the probability that people will be playing mass removal follows suit. Since "Faceless Butchers" are at their worst against mass removal (you lose everything, your opponent keeps their best creature) I find that these cards to be actively detrimental. After all, whereas a normal Wrath would clear everything the fact that you exiled someone's key threat ultimately hurts everyone more than it helps. I strongly dislike them in 4+ player games for that reason. I do realize that your games are smaller than mine, I'm not saying that I disagree with your assessment of the card for you and your meta, I just think that in general it hurts more than helps to field these "Fiend Hunters" in multiplayer.
For example, we probably disagree on Thrashing Brontodon. That card is eminently reasonable in smaller games where the 3/4 body is more likely to matter. You still want outs to troublesome perms but you don't want to maindeck Nature's Claim or whatever. At the end of the day the number of players matters a lot because it's the difference between a card like Compost being a "must have" or completely useless.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
In my game it helped blowing out the last opponent by removing a threat while instantly boosting one of my other attacking vamps.
We certainly play sweepers but at a guess no more than one every five or six turns or so. (and I play most of those...)
If sweepers happen often it’s probably more of a help to my opponent.
But as a “combat trick” it does nice work.
Thrashing Brontodon seems nice for my meta too...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
That's what I'm doing as of now. My current suite is 4x Burgeoning 2x Summer Bloom 2x Blood Sun. It still give you 6 ways to go completely broken by turn 2 but also gives you additional outs in case things go awry. I don't have many games under my belt but with aggressive mulliganing (i.e. abusing the free multiplayer mulligan and taking advantage of the Scry 1 if you go to 6) I haven't had any major issues and the extra draw is always welcome. That deck MOWS through cards so I'll take any extra draw that I can get. It's possible that I might bump the Summer Blooms back up and shave other things but this is what I'm trying for now.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Roughly the same. I actually cut Zegana because I found that she was too inconsistent when drawn and I never seem to find good opportunities to Green Sun's Zenith for her. As such I tend to field things like Recurring Insight, Consecrated Sphinx and Nezahal, Primal Tide instead even though I can't tutor for them. They're better cards to randomly draw which is what the deck was lacking whenever I played it. Your experiences with her might differ but I've been severely underwhelmed. The deck just doesn't have enough warm bodies to make her work.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I must admit, you talked me into Nezahal. At his current price, why not.
Thanks as always--these are a lot of fun.
Fully-powered 600-Card "Dream Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/dreamcube
450-Card "Artificer's Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/artificer
Cubing in Indianapolis...send me a PM!!
I'm actually glad that you made this comment because I think that it's a very good learning opportunity in terms of explaining grades. After all, nothing that you said contradicts or goes against anything that I did. Let's break it down. You posit that:
Deadeye Navigator + Ravenous Chupacabra
Would work well in your meta. Riddle me this, how about:
Waste Not + Dark Deal
Or even:
Repercussion + Chain Reaction
What do all of these pairings have it common? All of them employ one heinously overpowered card that cannot be replaced and one that's highly interchangeable. In all 3 scenarios the second card could literally be any reasonably similar effect and the answer would still be "yes, that would do well in my meta." After all, consider the following:
Deadeye Navigator + Sea Gate Oracle, Archaeomancer, Mulldrifter, Peregrine Drake, Diluvian Primordial
Waste Not + Small Pox, Arterial Flow, Delirium Skeins, Pox, Liliana of the Veil
Repercussion + Earthquake, Anger of the Gods, Breath of Darigaaz, Hour of Devastation, Blasphemous Act
This, to me, perfectly showcases the difference between Ds + Cs and Bs + As. Ds are replaceable by throngs of alternatives and don't bring anything significant to the table. That is, if you cut one for another you'll hardly notice the difference. As, on the other hand, are going to be a massive blow if you lose them. If you suddenly cut Waste Note from your discard deck whatever you use in its place is going to feel many orders of magnitude less powerful. This is why I give cards like Ravenous Chupacabra a D and cards like Waste Not an A. It doesn't matter what card you pair with Deadeye Navigator because you're going to win either way. After all, I think we can both agree that your statement would still hold true even if I spun it to:
I could see Sea Gate Oracle + something like Deadeye Navigator being pretty decent at my tables.
Or:
I could see Peregrine Drake + something like Deadeye Navigator being pretty decent at my tables.
But we couldn't do the same if we tried replacing Deadeye Navigator. Do you see what I'm saying? That's why one's a D and the other is B/A.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
On Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose - I got absolutely wiped by it at RIX pre-release, and I will be including it in my Multiplayer cube... but Prid3 is right. In Limited / draft environments, it is a fine, fine card (even in Multiplayer Limited), but I would not want to be relying on it in Multiplayer constructed.
It's fantastic when you're facing down a bunch of creature ramp decks - all of its abilities are instant, so you can sit back and durdle, removing the worst threat before your turn starts. Once you flip it, you can reanimate the horrors you exiled at instant speed too.
But, that said, in Constructed, someone will be packing enchantment removal. Or see it and want to deal with you before you flip. In Limited / draft environments, your opponents won't always have enchantment removal or the power level to be able to blow you off the table before it flips.
So it's fine enough if you're building a cube, and it might be worth considering in specialized Multiplayer EDH decks, but it's way too slow for MP Constructed (alas).
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
For the record I think that it's unplayable in multiplayer Cube. That is, given the choice I would actively choose to put this in someone's deck and have them draw it. I think that it's stone unplayable in every multiplayer format.
Don't get me wrong, card is fantastic in Duel limited, but I disagree with the notion that "they won't have it" in multiplayer unless you're purposely building your Cube in a way that avoids all playable forms of interaction (which I don't recommend). Otherwise I literally couldn't envision a world where this does what you need to it do to justify the obscene mana investment.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Tokens good! Meren bad >:(. That deck is too tight for slots to be able to fit one in. I've actually been having a ton of fun with my Meren deck too ever since I added the Academy Rector -> Bitterheart Witch Birthing Pod/Eldritch Evolution line that lets you cheat out Sandwurm Convergence and either Overwhelming Splendor and/or Cruel Reality. Not only do you end the thing with a Primeval Titan (or whatever) in play but you also have a pair of 8 mana enchantments that you only paid a fraction of the cost for.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I'll throw cards like Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos into the mix too because they're routinely played in these "sacrifice matters" decks. My issue with these types of sequences is that they tend to be inherently flawed. After all, the net result is usually something along the lines "everyone else loses their creatures, you keep a big threat." While this seems like a good spot on paper in practice it's typically unimpressive. After all, there's suddenly only one direction to place removal/interaction towards and it's late enough into the game that people have cards and mana to work with. It's also difficult to straight OTK off of a single Wrath effect at which point chump blockers and such reduce your clock to a crawl. I'm not saying that you're in a bad/unfavorable position or anything, but you're often barely ahead of the pack when all's said and done. It always feels like you should be more ahead than you actually are.
That being said Cataclysm is an exception. Anything that allows you to win the board and destroy all lands is game-winning. In my circles one of the most common ways for games to end is off of the back of things like Consecrated Sphinx + Armageddon" or Sylvan Primordial into Upheaval + Primeval Titan that prevent your opponents from counterattacking in any meaningful way. As such I can definitely get behind "Armageddon" strategies that employ these types of threats.
Here's my issue. If my deck has Assemble + Chandra and I want a powerful wincon then I'm going to field cards like Jokulhaups. Period. That way I win 100% of the time as opposed to [some vastly smaller number]% of the time. I get that I'm comparing 2 drops to 6-10 drops but I dislike how all of these synergies prevent me from running the cards that I actually want to field. I recognize the fact that I can cut the MLD and that most people purposely avoid it but then you're playing a fair Boros deck which has its own set of problems. I dunno, I have a hard time buying into a card unless I can confidently state "here's a deck that showcases how this can be the best card to be casting." Slither Blade might be straight-garbage in 99.99999% of all decks but if it's part of Edric, Spymaster of Trest's nut draw then I'm willing to rally behind it. I would just like to see a deck where Path of Mettle could reliably earn its keep. Still, maybe that's just "fair Boros Control" which is fine I guess.
What I will say is that I hadn't thought of Tempt as an enabler. I still can't quite piece together a deck in my mind but there's clearly some cool things that you can do with the card. After all, even if you can't flip super early it's still a cheap form of mass removal that has relevant upside in the later stages of the game. You also don't have to race to flip it because it's as though you'll be activating it early on. The ramp is nice, I'd want that, but you could afford to wait a bit.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Well, I suspect it's going to fit in my cube simply because my Orzhov archetype is currently really, really grindy. It sits around and bleeds people with Zulaport Cutthroat, Vizkopa Guildmage and so forth, and just sits in the game thanks to lifegain (i.e. it's a real bleeder strategy already). If anywhere, Profane Procession should work here - it's a slow, grindy control card that continually improves board position, which is exactly what a grindy bleeder straegy is looking for. I guess we'll see how it goes!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
But it's too slow. If your Cube has a reasonable quantity of mass removal it's not going to last long enough to be worthwhile.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Which it doesn't - I've purposely kept the mass removal levels low, which is probably why that archetype works in my cube.
So, yeah.... I think I might have the one spot where Profane Procession is viable.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor