The defensive aspect of this card is underwhelming even if you're continually blinking it with Flickerwisp style effects. Assembling 2+ card combos to build-your-own Ghostly Prison is hardly exciting. Otherwise, it's an anemic 3/3 for 3 which isn't where you want to be in multiplayer.
Grade: Nice C+
This is a stellar enabler for decks featuring cards like Flower // Flourish, Discovery // Dispersal, Manamorphose, Jeskai Ascendancy and Monastery Mentor that are simultaneously looking to go big + wide to overrun the table. It's also a fantastic 2 drop for multicolor decks seeking to curve into things like Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Notion Thief, Dark Intimations, etc. assuming that you have something to do with the tokens. Moreover, I appreciate the fact that it's a build-around-me which doesn't significantly restrict your deckbuilding options since the only true requirement is that you're playing with multicolor spells. For someone like me who already has a slew of all/mostly gold decks that means that I can easily slot them in without having to add or remove any other cards. The card isn't broken or anything, you're not going to beat the table down with a motley crew of 1/1s, but as long as you can covert a wide board into something useful the rate on this card is nuts.
Grade: A+
My comprehensive review can be found here. The TL;DR is that this card is busted in ramp, combo, prison, midrange, etc. and will be a staple 4 drop moving forward. You could blindly jam 4 in any deck capable of producing White mana and it would almost always be correct.
Grade: D+
Much like Forbidding Spirit too much of this card's power is weighted in the body + Afterlife 1 for it to be exciting. You're significantly better off with alternatives such as Grand Abolisher which emphasize the "taxing" portion since that's what you're actually looking for in a multiplayer setting. This card is still playable as a mild form of disruption for your Armageddon decks because unlike a Thalia he doesn't affect your own spells which is relevant when you're trying to cast 4 drops in your ~20 land deck. Still, I'd much rather curve Mother of Runes into Grand Abolisher into Brimaz, King of Oreskos into Ravages of War than waste my time with Tithe Taker.
Blue
Grade: D
Confiscate isn't terrible and this card has the upside of scaling wild out-of-control as the game progresses which makes it a passable option for monoblue. At UUUU it's a poor fit for Cloudpost decks but High Tide + Land Untappers is still a thing meaning that it's not especially difficult to generate 12 mana on turn 6 to steal 4 things. Unfortunately, it competes unfavorably with alternatives such as Blatant Thievery and Expropriate which don't require nearly as much mana nor setup and so it's unlikely to have signficant multiplayer applications.
Grade: C
I've always liked Tidings in multiplayer and Scry 3 + draw 3 is roughly equivalent to draw 4 as a Sorcery and this card has the upside of also functioning as a Jace's Ingenuity when you're trying to play at instant-speed. The issue with fair draw spells such as these is that they tend to lose out to unfair alternatives such as Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Recurring Insight, etc. meaning that the best best versions of your Blue decks won't be able to find room for them. That isn't to say that you couldn't or shouldn't start a deck with 4x Tidings but know that the people playing Rhystic Study and Manifold Insights are going to win a significantly higher % of games than you all other things being equal.
Grade: F
I completely understand why people would be interested in playing with this card but I want to stress that it's a straight F. Let's break down why.
My baseline assumption will always be that a 4/4 flier for 4 is unplayable. I appreciate the fact that having bodies can be important in multiplayer to avoid getting aggro'd out but even then you should always be turning to engines or ETB triggers as opposed to pure bundles of stats. Sphinx has a minor Scry 1 upside so it's not completely useless once it's in play but in reality there's no compelling argument to field it over something like Vizier of Many Faces or Aura Thief that scales better with the increased number of players. Raw stats are basically the last thing that I look for and the card isn't good enough otherwise to earn its keep. I realize that not everyone will share this point of view, and that's totally fine, but in my experience it's the Oracle of Mul Dayas and Crypt Ghasts that dominate games as opposed to the Air Elementals.
Moving on, the next thing that we need to discuss is "decks that have really good cards." Let's take Oath of Druids and Waste Not as examples. These are two cards that you can run out on turn 1-2 and that enable you to win the game on the subsequent turn. After all, Oath can nab Griselbrand and turn that into a Storm kill and Waste Not curves into Dark Deal or Windfall or whatever and easily wins from there with a Cut // Ribbons or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or anything really. Shouldn't these decks not consider playing Sphinx if for no other reason than the Scry 3?
Absolutely not! Three reasons why.
First, Serum Powder is a significantly better card if your deck has a 1-card win condition like Waste Not. Not only does it see up to 4 additional cards but it also chains better with itself and has more generic utility. Whereas no multiplayer deck of mine would ever play a 4/4 flier for 4 there's some world where a Manalith is relevant (ramping out a powerful 5+ drops for example) which means that it's a better turn 0 dig spell with a better fail use-case.
Second, decks only have so much room for dead draws such as these. It's not impossible for a deck to want additional copies of this effect (even bad ones) but I'll stress that these cards have diminishing returns and carry very real deckbuilding costs. After all, not only are they complete blanks but they're also totally useless when you do get your "key card" which means that you can still sometimes lose even when you draw it. This is especially true if your adversaries are playing an interactive game of Magic against you (permission, removal, etc) at which point you're almost always going to lose if your key card becomes neutralized. This explains why you'll probably never see Sphinx of Foresight in Vintage Dredge for example. Even though that deck wants to see Bazaar of Baghdad on turn 1 of every game it also needs to consistently win games of Magic when it does and adding another set of dead cards to the maindeck won't actually improve it's overall win %. The same is going to be true for most lists and while I can't blindly claim that this will hold true for "all decks across all time" I struggle to envision a world where this card earns its keep.
Third, cheap cantrips such as Mystic Remora, Preordain, Ponder and Brainstorm significantly outperform Sphinx on average. They see similar/larger quantities of cards (on average), have stronger fail use-cases, replace themselves, are more relevant in interactive games, act as fuel and provide you with a significantly more consistent gaming experience among other things. Sphinx is clearly superior when it enables you to achieve the turn 1 Gemstone Caverns + Forbidden Orchard + Oath of Druids draws but given how unlikely those are to occur you're much better off playing something like 4x Preordain and 4x Ponder (or Brainstorm assuming that you have access to fetchlands) instead so that you can actually play Magic each and every game. Your probability of getting a Magical Christmas Land draw will decrease slightly but your overall play experience and win % will be drastically higher. This is primarily because, and I can't stress this enough, these cards are many orders of magnitude more valuable when your adversaries are interacting with you. After all, if you're fielding a bunch of Serum Powders and Sphinxes and your Oath of Druids gets countered/removed them you lose. Period. But, if you're playing with Preordains and Ponders you can play real games of Magic where you dig for permission, replacements, defense (Defense Grid, City of Solitude, etc) and more to ensure that you don't automatically lose to a simple Swan Song or Assassin's Trophy.
Note: I understand that Sphinx of Foresight is legitimately awful in Oath of Druids decks for blatantly obvious reasons but I'm only trying to illustrate a point. The specific 1-card win condition that you want to use as your example is wholly irrelevant to the arguments that I'm making. Replace it with literally any busted card that you're thinking of because the same logic applies to all of them.
Grade: B+
Realistically this card is more of a sideboard/niche card than anything else but it's way too powerful to overlook. Assuming that a single opponent taps a single creature each circuit then it's a Phyrexian Arena that's easier to cast and that doesn't cost life which would already be a solid card. At 2+ draws per circuit it starts to feel oppressive and that will frequently occur without any effort on your part. Moving on, it's a back-breaking sideboard card against "Elf" decks by which I mean any creature-based deck that's reliant on activated abilities to function. After all, if someone is curving Elvish Mystic into Duskwatch Recruiter into Karametra's Acolyte they're now faced with the options of A) not playing Magic or B) letting you draw millions of cards which is a win-win for you either way. This won't be relevant for every player in every meta but much like Compost and Insight you'll know when they're good and by golly these cards are oppressive when they're good.
Moreover, the card has a home in Stax decks that feature cards like Tangle Wire and Opposition which can repeatedly and reliably tap opposing creatures down. This offsets one of Stax's primary weaknesses of needing to draw the right cards at the right time by simply enabling you to draw "all of the cards" instead. That being said it's been brought to my attention that Verity Circle doesn't work with replacement effects (such as Orb of Dreams and Frozen Aether) which makes it less appealing than I originally claimed. After all, this means that you wouldn't want to field it in a Stasis + Frozen Aether + Smothering Tithe deck for example because it wouldn't be drawing you any extra cards. Still, it's bombtastic in Opposition decks so if you're already playing something degenerate with Prophet of Kruphix you may as well add some of these because at that point you're literally able to draw your entire deck after 1-2 circuits. Assuming that you have a single copy of Nexus of Fate (or something similar) that becomes an automatic game win with the primary upside being that your opponents can justify scooping faster. They no longer have to sit around being miserable for 20 minutes because now you can enact something quick and deterministic.
Finally, the card's activated ability offers marginal utility both as a draw engine and as insulation against game-ending bombs such as Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Blightsteel Colossus. At 5 mana it's far too expensive for it to be generically useful but it will occasionally prevent you from losing games to absurd Battlecruisers. I'll stress that while this isn't a key selling point it's not total trinket text either because I've already seen this make come into play against cards like Jhoira of the Ghitu and Sneak Attack and both times they enabled players to win games that they otherwise would have lost.
Black
Grade: C
This card has interesting applications in Waste Not/Geth's Grimoire decks as a way of sealing the game on turn 5. After all, it should be nearly impossible for anyone else to win from that position making this a clean 2 card kill on turn 4-5. Unfortunately, I can't think of a compelling reason to field it over cheaper alternatives such as Dark Deal, Delirium Skeins, Pox, etc. which accomplish the same thing for less mana. Not in a literal sense, but in a function sense, since discard decks need something like Waste Not in order to consistently win and once you have a Waste Not in play there's no strong argument to wait until turn 5 when a Dark Deal will kill on turn 2-3. Geth's Grimoire is similar in the sense that if I'm Dark Ritualing one out on turn 2 then I want to be able to win on turn 3 and not turn 5.
It could also potentially see play in Stax decks, especially ones built around Ensnaring Bridge, but even then I question its inclusion. I'd rather have something cheaper like Necrogen Mists that not only takes people to 0 cards but locks them there as well so that I can slowly grind them out with things like Contamination and Smokestack. 5 CMC isn't impossible for a Stax deck by any means but you'd need it to be something insanely impactful and this doesn't quite pass muster.
Grade: D
While I'll happily play the first 2 copies of "Anger of the Gods" (any 3 mana for 3 damage mass removal spell) in my decks the same can't be said about Infests. Not only is 2 significantly less than 3 when you're trying to kill things like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Kambal, Consul of Allocation but they're also "strictly worse" than alternatives such as Toxic Deluge and Massacre which are obscene Magic cards by comparison. That isn't to say that you can't/shouldn't field them, the first 2 copies are still reasonable, but they're never going to be optimal inclusions.
Grade: Niche C
This is more of an EDH/2HG card than anything else but I do think that it's quite powerful in decks that feature cards like Necropotence, Necrologia, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Griselbrand, etc. Fetches and Shocks are obviously a "thing" too so there's more than one way to skin a cat but in reality I'm only interested in casting this early on, tutoring up a Necropotence (or whatever), drawing a ton of cards, generating a ton of counters and killing a ton of creatures.
While these types of cards are largely unplayable they have extremely minor applications as durable + noninteractive win conditions. I would still much rather pay 5 for Palace Siege than slow burn people for 1 per circuit but assuming that you're doing something like turn 4 Ill-Gotten Inheritance into turn 5 Bubbling Muck + Death Cloud for X=5 then it technically sticks around to ping people out. Moreover, you can also enact sequences such as turn 1 Bloodchief Ascension, turn 2 Ankh of Mishra/Gonti's Machinations, turn 3 Retreat to Hagra, turn 4 Ill-Gotten Inheritance, etc. and chain these into cards like Exsanguinate and Gray Merchant of Asphodel while clearing the field with mass removal such as Toxic Deluge, Massacre and Damnation. This is relatively effective against creature-based and/or removal-heavy decks since your cards ignore creature removal and effectively stack with each other. I still wouldn't play Ill-Gotten Inheritance over Pestilence even if that's the gameplan that I was going for but you can see how it might be a reasonable turn 4 given the other cards already present in your list.
Grade: Niche C
Blazing Volley is already a marginal playable in multiplayer and the fact that this transforms it into a 1 mana Plague Wind means that you'll never struggle to dismantle board stalls in the mid-to-late stages of the game. I don't like the fact that neither card has much inherent value and I'd never want to draw 1:3 or 3:1 splits of either but (as I often say) multiplayer is a "go big or go home" format and sometimes you need to get lucky and draw that 2:2 split in order to win. I wouldn't recommend including a ton of copies of either effect (not that we have access to a second copy of Spirit to begin with) because even though you could (for example) jam some Electrickerys as Volleys 5-6 you then run the risk of flooding out on a crappy effect that doesn't accomplish anything meaningful. Even when you do assemble your Plague Winds it won't mean anything if all you have are 3/2s and Lava Darts to try seal the deal which is why I'd stick to a 4-4 split and play "real cards" otherwise.
While I think that this card is being over-hyped for formats such as Standard it does have some interesting multiplayer applications, especially now that Black has access to the ultimate Doomed Traveler in the form of Stitcher's Supplier. An ideal draw will look something like Supplier -> Priest -> Lingering Souls at which point you can immediately activate your Priest to Flashback Lingering Souls. From there you'll ideally want to jam things like Zulaport Cutthroat while digging towards + powering out bombs such as Rally the Ancestors and Living Death to all-but seal the game. Green is another solid splash, primarily because Satyr Wayfinder pairs amazingly well with Stitcher's Supplier in these Living Death style decks. You can also stay monoblack for things like Viscera Seer, Burglar Rat, Dusk Legion Zealot, Reassembling Skeleton, Weaponcraft Enthusiast. and Sengir Autocrat which all fit the bill in a pinch. Regardless of your color(s) your primary goal should be to assemble Priest of Forgotten Gods + Zulaport Cutthroat as quickly as possible because that combo is obscene when you're seeking to drain the table out while simultaneously trying to control the quantity and quality of creatures that your adversaries keep in play. I also highly recommend including Skullclamp if you're allowed to because that gives you a solid backup plan in scenarios where you fail to draw your Priests and/or they die to removal.
Grade: Niche C
This card is reasonable in all-in aggro decks that abuse cards like Vicious Conquistador and Throne of the God-Pharaoh in order beat the table into submission. My primary concern is that its damage output is woefully lacking compared to things like Bloodchief Ascension and Ankh of Mishra given that it deals 0 damage the turn that it comes into play and 7 on all subsequent rounds. Sulfuric Vortex, by comparison, immediately deals 6 damage and then 6 more on all subsequent rounds. This makes it too inefficient for the Rakdos versions of the deck and even the monoblack variations have access to superior alternatives.
Otherwise, because it deals damage it works well with Curiosity effects but unfortunately most of Black's aggressive threats cause lifeloss as opposed to dealing damage. If Black starts getting Pulse Trackers that deal damage then we'll start seeing these aggro decks shift towards Curiosity/Keen Sense style payoffs but until then that's going to remain in Red's court.
Grade: Niche D
This card has marginal applications in the aforementioned Priest of Forgotten Gods decks that feature things like Viscera Seer, Zulaport Cutthroats and Living Death to combo kill the rest of the table. The problem is that this variation costs 4, doesn't trigger off of itself, doesn't trigger off of opposing creatures and ultimately doesn't bring anything special to the table. Poison-Tip Archer is significantly more exciting given that it triggers off "each other creature" whereas this one only works with ones that "you control" which is gargantuan when you're casting things like Living Death that Wrath the board. As such I couldn't envision slotting this into one of my builds because it doesn't do nearly enough to justify the 4 CMC investment.
Red
Grade: D
Goblin Chainwhirler is sweet and all but when you up the cost by 1, remove the Planeswalker ping and significantly weaken the body it immediately plummets from Hero to Zero. Still, the thing that keeps this card from being an F is that fact that decks can reasonably field Status // Statue as a "Vindicate" and gain the upside of being able to Plague Wind when you assemble your 2-card combo. The nice thing about this pairing is that both cards are at least somewhat reasonable in a vacuum (not good but not terrible) and the upside of pairing them together is huge. You could also argue that this card has niche applications with other Deathtouch enablers (think Deadly Allure and Nightshade Peddler) but, much like Pestilent Spirit, these combos are more cute than good and typically aren't worth including en masse in your lists. I only like this card because of exactly Status // Statue since I could still sleep at night if I cut my Beast Withins for those knowing that I'll always have outs to a powerful Plague Wind combo.
Grade: Niche C+
There's already throngs of articles that discuss how you can pair Electrodominance at X=0 with Hypergenesis, Living End, Ancestral Vision, Wheel of Fate and Restore Balance so I'm not going to spend too much time focusing on these "As Foretold" archetypes. Paying 2 mana for a broken effect is broken, more news at 11. Still, I find these archetypes to be inconsistent, clunky, vulnerable to interaction and lackluster in practice but they can certainly feel busted when everything comes together and their consistency continues to improve with every new addition to the "cheat" roster (think Kari Zev's Expertise for example). It'll note that I tend to prefer the Cascade versions of the decks that field things like Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread instead (1 card combo as opposed to a 2-3 card combo) but to each their own. If I had to recommend building one it would easily be a Hypergenesis deck since they're supremely fun to play but there's also nothing wrong with the others.
As Foretold aside, I also think that this card will have a home in non-interactive spell-based decks. Namely, I really like this card in deck that feature Windfall effects that it can use to bypass their timing restrictions. After all, the primary weakness of Wheels is that your adversaries typically get the first crack at the cards which makes casting them at EOT significantly more appealing. That way you can uptap and win before anyone else can react to your degenerate gameplan. Otherwise you need a card like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Alms Collector or Notion Thief in play to ensure that you're not going to get crushed by your adversaries and those tend to cost 3+ mana and die to removal early and often.
Grade: Sideboard D
Very few decks want more than 4x Harsh Mentor and this card is significantly weaker than his 2 damage cousin. The lategame pump is heinousas far as I'm concerned because the only reason why you'd ever get to that stage of the game would be because your cards aren't doing enough damage to end the game in a timely fashion. If for some magical reason you need 1-2 extra copies then Immolation Shaman technically qualifies but in general I'd highly recommend taking a pass on this one.
Grade: Niche C+
This card is fantastic in low-to-the-ground burn decks that feature cards like Spear Spewer, Thermo-Alchemist, Flame Rift, Price of Progress, etc. After all, multiplayer games tend to be slower and significantly harder to close out which means that you're often forced to lean on card advantage or powerful finishers if you want to consistently seal the deal. A 1 mana "draw 2" is an extremely powerful effect (even if it's conditional) and this is the type of spell that will enable you hang with the rest of the pack while you dig for your land drop and expensive bombs (think Fiery Confluence) to deliver the final blow. It's also monored, cheap to cast and cheap to acquire which makes it an ideal inclusion for budget-minded Monored and Rakdos builds. Finally, unlike Curiosity/Keen Sense it's not reliant on creatures and so it doesn't force you to A) splash other colors or B) field dorks like Spear Spewer to support it.
This card is significantly better than it looks. It's unplayable in "normal" decks but it'll definitely find a home in specific archetypes where you'll always want to see it for turn 1. Namely, the decks where this card will shine are "Curiosity" builds that feature things like Curiosity, Keen Sense, Ophidian Eye, Snake Umbra, Tandem Lookout, Thermo-Alchemist, Eidolon of the Great Revel and Firebrand Archer. Turn 1 Spear Spewer into turn 2 Curiosity means that you can spend the rest of the game Ancestral Recalling every turn while sitting on Swan Song + Foil backup without a care in the world. Prior, we couldn't consistently establish that "lock" until at least turn 3 so this is a huge boon to the archetype. From there you can play as fair or unfair as you want but common ways to win are to A) burn the table out or B) assemble the Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity "infinite" combo.
With that in mind, the card is the ideal 1 drop for burn decks given that the typical pair of Goblin Guide and Monastery Mentor are woefully inadequate at beating a table of 3+ adversaries into submission. 20 is reasonable but 60 is a stretch. As such multiplayer burn decks are forced to lean on curves such as Spear Spewer into Eidolon of the Great Revel into Sulfuric Vortex into Fiery Confluence in order to reliably burn the table out. Some classics such as Flame Rift and Price of Progress still hold their own but iconic centerpieces such as Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike and Chain Lightning need to get bumped for Thermo-Alchemist and Atarka's Command instead. At this point we can also afford to field Keen Sense since we have 12 amazing targets (Spear, Eidolon, Alchemist) to ensure that we draw enough lands and gas to seal the deal. Green also enables us to play things like Cindervines which provides us with a Hull Breach style effect that still works with our primary gameplan.
Alternatively, you don't field any combos and beat people however the heck you want. I mention burn and Niv Mizzet combos because you need cards like Spear Spewer and Curiosity to assemble your infinite Ancestral Recalls but in reality you could win with just about anything when you're generating this much card advantage. So if burn/combos aren't your cup of tea add whatever random midrange nonsense that you want and beat people down with Inferno Titans or whatever. And hey! There's nothing wrong with putting Curiosity on Inferno Titan either . I'll stress that the real crux of this deck is turn 1 Spear Spewer into Curiosity with Dive Down/Spell Pierce/Swan Song/Flusterstorm/Foil/Force of Will backup because then you're drawing infinite cards, protecting your key threats and gaining access to free permission like Foil that would otherwise be completely unplayable.
Green
Grade: C
This is a decent 5 drop for ramp decks that provides reasonable value on turn 5 and massive returns as the game progresses. Assuming that you're fielding things like Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial then you can sometimes cheat your entire manabase into play at which point this can churn throngs of tokens into play. It's also bonkers in "Prophet of Kruphix" decks given that it's a powerful mana sink assuming that your adversaries aren't casting spells worth countering. You can sit on your Spell Bursts and Mystic Snakes on their Main Phases and then activate the Ooze at EOT as desired. I realize that the +1/+1 counter only triggers on your end step (as opposed to each end step) but it's still pumping out sizable tokens and the fact that it's 5 mana itself means that it curves perfectly off of a turn 3-5 Prophet of Kruphix.
One thing I'd like to note is that this card is a great example of why Tendershoot Dryad is so broken. Just compare the two. It's pathetic. Heck, even if you assemble Prophet of Kruphix + Biogenic Ooze it's still not even clear to me which is better. Tendershoot Dryad is that broken! Play the card people!
Grade: B
"Elf decks" typically need 1-2 Craterhoof Behemoth style finishers to assist with closing games out and since the Hoof-father is ~25.00$ people will often need access to a budget alternative. This is likely the second-best option which will make it an ideal finisher moving forward. It's nowhere near as good Hoof, but nothing ever will be, so we'll have to settle with whatever we're given. I don't consider cards like Pathbreaker Ibex to be playable since your finishers need to kill out of nowhere in order to be competitive. After all, the second that you have to untap with them you open yourself up to interaction which isn't where you want to be. So I really like the fact that this card behaves exactly like Hoof (albeit on a smaller scale) in the sense that the game ends immediately after it hits play.
Note, by "Elf decks" I don't mean literal Elf tribal. I'm merely referring to any Green Creature-based deck that floods the board with random dorks. Sakura-Tribe Elder, Ramunap Excavator, Oracle of Mul Daya and Seedborn Muse aren't capable of beating the table down with their piddly bodies but once you start factoring "Overruns" into the equation even the smallest dork can transform into the mightiest beaters.
Grade: C
This card would have been significantly more exciting at 3 mana since at 4 CMC it's tough to compete with Harmonize for noncreature card draw. It's actually trivially easy to build your deck in such a way that you're always casting a unique threat, I don't consider that to be remotely challenging, my primary fear is that you need to cast at least 4 creatures before it supplants Harmonize and whereas I typically want to cast my draw spells after I've cast my ramp + threats this one forces you to cast it asap. The upside is that it will frequently land on turn 3 and assuming a 12-15 turn game it can easily draw 8-10 cards so this makes it an ideal inclusion in slow metas that lack Enchantment removal but weaker in faster ones that feature fair amounts of interaction.
In terms of how to build around this card, it's not that hard. Consider things like:
You get the point. I don't have to go out of my way to support Guardian Project because there's plenty of interchangeable pieces to the puzzle and 1-ofs also make tutors such as Green Sun's Zenith and Survival of the Fittest that much more versatile. So the issue isn't "can you support it" but rather "do you want to field it over Harmonize" or whatever other 4-6 drop value spell that you decide to add to your list. Compost, Nissa, Vital Force, Lurking Predators, etc.
Grade: Niche B
This card is extremely broken in decks that reliably activate it since having a Black Lotus on a 2 CMC stick is a busted card. It reminds me of Bloom Tender which is an equally obscene Magic card when you can reliably trigger it for 3+. Turn 2 Bloom Tender, turn 3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest, tap for 3, Windfall, game! The problem is always that "reliably activate it" part since that's always easier said than done. You don't want to warp your deck around Incubation Druid since then you run the risk of losing miserably when your draw doesn't line up properly. You also don't want to jam things like Thrive into your deck just to activate it. With that in mind I'd be aiming to play these in decks that already feature cards like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Forgotten Ancient. After all, you can already include Llanowar Reborn at very little cost (turn 1 Reborn, turn 2 Druid is a sweet curve!) and so at that point you're not bending over backwards to try and make it work. It also curves naturally into both Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Forgotten Ancient on turn 3 so as long as your decks want those types of cards then you have access to some some extremely powerful opening sequences.
Build-around-mes aside, Rampant Growths are already reasonable inclusions and the fact that this one transforms into a Gilded Lotus in the mid-to-lategame is bonkers. After all, unlike Gilded Lotus this card is relevant on turn 2 and the fact that it taps for mana means that on turn 4 you can EOT Adapt it and untap on turn 5 with access to 7-8 mana and a 3/5. There's obviously some drawbacks (it dies to mass removal, it's not a good play on turn 5 whereas Gilded Lotus is, it can get sniped with the Adapt trigger on the stack for a big tempo hit, it's not the best thing to be doing on turn 2 nor turn 4, etc) but I still really like it's average use-case. That is, I'm extremely happy to start a game with Incubation Druid on 2 into Adapt on 4 even if I'm not playing with things like Forgotten Ancient. I still highly recommend playing 4x Llanowar Reborn because that 1-2 curve is way too oppressive to omit but this definitely isn't a card that you need to build around. Any ramp deck should strongly consider it because even though its floor is weaker than that of oh, say, Sakura-Tribe Elder the ceiling on this card is insanely high by comparison. STEve is cool and all but the only thing that he's ever doing is chumping and ramping 1 whereas this card is still doing that on turn 2 and then doing busted Gilded Lotus nonsense on turn 5.
Grade: C+
Green will always prefer fielding creatures over spells given that it has a significantly easier time tutoring for those but this is still an extremely powerful form of interaction. Not only does it nuke all Arts/Enchs but the fact that it's an instant means that you can blow people out if they're going for combo kills and/or abuse opposing Wraths to immediately kill the tokens. The tokens shouldn't matter either way if you're in Green but if there's already Wrath on the stack then you may as well transform it into a Planar Cleansing. I wouldn't advise jamming 3-4 of these in your lists but the first 1-2 copies seems fantastic. Mass removal has some diminishing returns in the sense that you can't kill something that's already dead but, again, the primary downside is that this card it isn't a creature and so you can't reliably tutor for/recur it relative to something like Bane of Progress. More often than not you'll be fielding those instead. Otherwise it's difficult to imagine games where you'd be unhappy to see the first copy making it a solid acquisition.
Grade: B+
This is one of the most interesting cards in the set and it definitely has competitive applications. After all, it's a cheap + durable "double your mana" effect so as long as you can work around the timing restrictions the long-run mana advantage that it offers is obscene. The way that this card should be played is that you'll want cast it on turn 3-4 like a typical "Thran Dynamo" spell and immediately untap your lands. The more Wild Growths, Utopia Sprawls and Overgrowths that you have at this stage of the game, the better. From there you can sit back on permission spells since unlike most ramp you're never going "shields down" when you play it so you can still hold up mana for something like Spell Burst, Counterspell, Frilled Mystic, Cryptic Command, Plasm Capture and Spell Swindle.
Moreover, while Wilderness Reclamation's effect is relatively unique mana doublers aren't and there's plenty of cards like Prophet of Kruphix and Zendikar Resurgent that can act as copies 4-8 as needed. They all reward the same types of spells and effects and even if your X spells get slightly weaker it's offset by how much better your card draw/permission effects become. I'll also plug Plasm Capture and Spell Swindle because these decks have heavy incentive to field permission and so it's relevant to include ones that inherently fuel your powerful X spells and/or Nexus of Fates. I understand that that you can't go turn 4 Wilderness Reclamation into Plasm Capture on a 4-6 drop into casting a 20 drop of your own on turn 5 (the timing doesn't work out) but you don't need that in order to win. Still, this is one of the reasons why I really like Spell Swindle in the deck, since I can go turn 1 Utopia Sprawl, turn 2 Overgrowth, turn 3 Wilderness Reclamation, untap, Spell Swindle a 4-5 drop and then at my next EOT I basically have enough mana to Comet Storm for the win. You don't quite get there but it's closer than you think.
Finally, and I know that this mostly goes without saying but I'd also like to quickly highlight the fact that Wilderness Reclamation makes "spell lands" such as Arch of Orazca, Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, Kessig Wolf Run, Eye of Ugin and Primal Wellspring significantly more powerful than they already are. This is especially true once you have multiple in play at which point your land can often be netting your 2-3 additional cards per circuit and the mana needed to cast them. it starts to spiral wildly out of control if left unchecked so you do want to ensure that you're fielding some number of copies of them.
Multicolor
Grade: F
"Cumber Stones" are largely unplayable in multiplayer given that creature-based combat scales terribly with the increased number of adversaries. More players = more life + more blockers + more removal = more headaches. As such anyone flooding the board is (presumably) already planning to scale wildly over-the-top with finishers such as Craterhoof Behemoth which trivialize these types of defensive measures.
Wheels are incredibly high risk, high reward cards in multiplayer given that enable you to reliably assemble combos at the cost of providing your adversaries with a fresh grip of resources themselves. This makes them ideal in degenerate combo decks but largely unplayable in "fair" builds where your opponents are often the primary benefactors of the exchange. Emergency Powers is interesting in the sense that it's both "free" and "fast" assuming that you jam it at EOT, untap and go from there. Still, the fact that it costs 7 mana to cast coupled with the fact that it reshuffles your graveyard makes it extremely difficult to abuse. I don't expect it to see any play outside of janky Group Hug decks but there's always a chance that a free draw 7 could be broken enough to see play. If you could somehow cheat the manacost, drop a 7 CMC bomb into play and draw 7 cards that could easily swing an otherwise unwinninable game so there's always a chance that you'll see this played in a Dream Halls deck or something along those lines.
Lavinia is extremely interesting since she, much like Teferi, is a hard lock assuming that you can get a Knowledge Pool/Omen Machine into play. This makes her an ideal Commander because not only is cheaper but she also enables you to add White cards like Enlightened Tutor to further bolster your combo consistency. She also makes Dream Hallss one-sided, hates on ramp (looking at you Cloudpost, Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, etc), denies free permission (Force of Will, Foil, Pact of Negation) and dumpsters things like Dread Return and Omniscience which tend to end games on the spot. While none of this is relevant enough to make her a generic playable she's a monstrous "sideboard" card and an absolute house in dedicated combo decks. Still, her best home is going to be EDH where all you need to do is dig/tutor/draw into Knowledge Pool for an easy win and unlike Teferi you gain access to White for things like Silence, Enlightened Tutor, Swords to Plowshares on and on and on.
Grade: C
3 CMC Red removal is always a tough sell given that we already have access to Chaos Warp which is cheap, easy to cast and hits everything. It's easily one of the strongest spot removal spells in the entire game and since you don't want to overload on those in multiplayer (2-4 copies tops) there's very little need for alternatives.Still, the effect is versatile making it a reasonable inclusion in any Rakdos build. Less is more when it comes to 1-for-1 trades in multiplayer so I recommend sticking to 1-2 copies at most but it fits the bill in a pinch assuming that you want a couple of cheap, interactive spells to flesh out your curves.
Grade: F
While "Puppeteer Cliques" gain a fair amount of value in multiplayer I'm not sold on the cost + upside that this one brings to the table. It feels more like a Threaten than an Animate Dead and so I can't think of a compelling reason to slot it into a deck.
Grade: F
Multiplayer isn't a beatdown format and when you think of this as a 5 CMC Burglar Rat you realize just how awful that the card actually is. Play The Eldest Reborn if you want a generically powerful 5 drop that disrupts your adversaries.
Grade: C
Thanos memes aside the newest iteration of Rakdos does a decent Titan impersonation given that he's a 6/6 Flample for 6 with a powerful ETB. Feel free to ignore the Demon/Imp/whatever line since it's wholly irrelevant and by no means should you think of him as a "lord." Treat him like any other random finisher and ramp him out early and often. The rest of your deck doesn't really matter since he could easily see play in Control, Ramp, Midrange, etc. Don't worry about preserving your own creatures either. Multiplayer is all about calculated risks which sometimes means going for the 50/50 flips.
Still, it's a shame that he competes directly with Sire of Insanity which (alongside Consecrated Sphinx) is one of the strongest multiplayer 6 drops in the game. Rakdos wins out in decks seeking to preserve their cards in hand but mass discard is harder to come by than removal and the random nature of Rakdos leads to unpredictable outcomes neither of which is ideal. I personally won't be acquiring Rakdos for these reasons (I even prefer Inferno Titan as well) but I do think that he's a reasonable playable assuming that you get bored of jamming Sire and Inferno-Daddy.
Grade: C
Multiplayer games are often lengthy and defensive which is the ideal home for "Phyrexian Arenas." After all, assuming that you can survive the tempo hit of taking the turn off to cast them they provide an obscene quantity of card advantage over time. Your adversaries can obviously remove/interact with them and the games have to go long enough for the extra cards to matter but assuming that you're expecting to play 12-15 turns of Magic they can draw upwards of 10 cards which is utterly absurd. Theater of Horrors is interesting in the sense that it enables aggro decks to keep pace with the rest of the field by doubling the quantity of cards that they have access to every turn. It's extremely difficult to reliably beat a table down and, much like we see with Experimental Frenzy, sometimes the best solution is to overwhelm everyone with card quantity when you know that you're going to be lacking in card quality. You also don't have to be playing a pure aggro deck or anything either but you'll want to reliable trigger Spectacle without using the activated ability since 4 mana for 1 damage is woefully underpowered and you'll fall too far behind if that's what you're spending your mana on.
Grade: Niche C
I've always liked having access to things like Ankh of Mishra and Pyrostatic Pillar for my burn decks since they provide me with excellent resilience against spot removal. What Cindervines lacks in raw power in gains in flexibility given that it can also be used to remove troublesome permanents in a pinch. 1 is significantly less than 2 so the trade-off isn't trivial but assuming that you were already going to play a "Hull Breach" type spell in your burn/aggro decks then this is a no-brainer. Green already has Keen Sense and Atarka's Command that it brings to traditional burn decks (Spear Spewer + Keen Sense etc) so the splash is already well worth it and I could easily see myself making room for 2 of these in my builds.
Grade: Niche B
Domri is a playable-yet-underwhelming Planeswalker in a vacuum but shines in Doubling Season decks where he can immediately pop his (game winning) ultimate. Assuming a 4 player game that's eight 4/4s every circuit which should close the game in short order. The card is extremely underwhelming otherwise and while I wouldn't fault someone for playing him there's no compelling reason to do so.
Grade: B
My hot take is that this card is busted. She seems absolutely bonkers to me since her drawback is being wildly overblown and the upside that she offers is unreal. After all, one of the most powerful aspects of Green decks is their ability to focus on toolbox enablers such as Green Sun's Zenith, Survival of the Fittest and Birthing Pod that enable you to play singletons of all relevant threats while still being able to consistently locate them as needed. As such it's mindlessly easy to add a single Nikya to your builds and still locate her as needed to fuel your powerful creatures and engines. Going from 5 to 12 is obscene and worst-case scenario you can just pump excess mana into something like Kessig Wolf Run to pummel your opposition. That being said ideally you'll want want to ramp out game-ending bombs (like Eldrazi) which you're probably already playing in your Green-based ramp shells. Otherwise pour that mana into expensive bombs, Duskwatch Recruiters and Biogenic Oozes and crush your adversaries with an insurmountable mana advantage.
Grade: C
Rhythm is another slam-dunk for Gruul since it's an easy 4-of in any creature-based deck. The card is pushed since it's essentially a combination of Fires of Yavimaya + Vexing Shusher + Gaea's Anthem and unlike any of those other cards it's not even weak in multiples. The second, third and fourth copies are all still useful which seems absurd to me. This makes it an ideal foil to Control since it turns off all of their permission and renders most Sorcery-based removal obsolete since you'll kill too quickly for it to matter. For example, if someone is holding a Damnation as their answer to your threats then your Inferno Titan is still going to bash for 12+ damage before succumbing. Things like Dragonlord Atarka are similar since you clear a blocker and immediately swing for 8 and it's nuts with Ruric Thar, the Unbowed since Ruric gets to come down (ignoring permission), swing for 6 and then even if people kill him they still take another 6. Lastly, you don't have to do anything special for this card to be good other than play creatures. Ideally you'll want to curve it off of a turn 1 Elf and into a turn 4 bomb like Oracle of Mul Daya or Ramunap Excavator but even that isn't required to make the card obscenely powerful.
Grade: C
The combination of "reasonable body" plus "lifegain" plus "AOE discard" means that there's enough going on for me to like this card. It pairs well with things like Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire and it's also perfect for decks seeking to curve Burglar Rat into Liliana's Specter into Syphon Mind into The Eldest Reborn. Double Black is also nice for Gray Merchant of Asphodel and since your deck will have a ton of lifegain at that point you can easily afford to field powerful draw spells such as Necropotence and Necrologia to abuse it. It's also great in Blink decks if you feel like whipping out your Panharmonicons and Restoration Angels so there's no shortage of ways to abuse the thing.
Grade: C
As a lover of both Night of Souls' Betrayal and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I'm kinda digging this card in token/swarm decks. A permanent "+2/+2" is an enormous swing and the fact that it keeps most tokens/dorks at bay goes a long way to grinding people out. It's also decent at hosing graveyard-based decks and a swarm of 2/2 fliers is nothing to shake a stick at. The card is ultimately too expensive and fair to experience any breakout success but it's a spicy little 1-of for your Orzhov builds.
Grade: F
Too expensive, the ETB trigger is too weak and the body isn't relevant enough to matter.
Grade: C+
Wraths are fantastic in multiplayer since they scale amazing well with the increased player count and efficiently deal with all opposing threats. Any Control deck can confidently play 4-8 (especially if they have 2 CMC rocks such as Orzhov Signet to power them out) since that can enable them to reliably clear the board without spewing card advantage on 1-for-1 trades. This one is relatively difficult to cast but does offer a minor bonus if/when you nuke your own critters. I'll always defer to something like Sublime Exhalation because the risk of being unable to cast your removal vastly outweighs the minor upside of gaining life but 4 CMC Wraths are always going to solid playables and the reality is that people can and should "play what they own" rather than worry about tiny optimizations such as these.
Grade: Niche C+
I'm a huge proponent of doubling effects in multiplayer since you typically need to be doing wildly unfair things in order to reliably secure wins and most cards are too innately fair to compete. For example, I've found Panharmonicon to be stellar in ETB decks since it pushes the power level of your critters over-the-top of what your adversaries are doing. I expect Teysa to perform similarly in "death matters" decks that feature cards like Skullclamp, Stitcher's Supplier, Zulaport Cutthroat, Boreas Charger, Pawn of Ulamog, Pitiless Plunderer, Grave Pact, Reef Worm, Mitotic Slime, Dictate of Erebos, Martyr's Bond etc. After all, Skullclamping into 4 cards for 1 mana isn't remotely reasonable, especially if you happen to have a card like Pitiless Plunderer in play. Throw in a Gravecrawler and now you can draw your entire deck and/or kill everyone with a Zulaport Cutthroat. Grave Pact also starts to feel oppressive for creature-based decks to play against given that it becomes virtually impossible to stick threats at that point. With respect to her token clause, it may occasionally come in handy for things like Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls which frequently work their way into Skullclamp decks. All-in-all she's a perfect fit for the archetype and I expect her to see a ton of play moving forward.
Grade: Niche B
I'm extremely excited to see a creature-based version of Training Grounds (TG) since it's going to open tons of new doors for Simic. The fact that it's a creature means that it's fetchable with all of Green's tutors and since most TG decks are going to include 4x Duskwatch Recruiter it's relevant that you're now able to dig into your entire combo as needed. These decks often win by paring things like Eldrazi Displacer with Eyeless Watcher to generate infinite stuff but you can also "fair" the table out with a slew of Jade Mages and Tasigur, the Golden Fangs as well. After all, Jade Mage starts to feel rather degenerate when it's churning out tokens for a single mana and Eldrazi Displacer can blank countless attackers/blockers as needed to buy time. It's still an extremely niche card since you need to playing with a specific set of cards to abuse it but it's impact is unquestionable once you have a critical mass of activated abilities.
Grade: D+
I'm not especially high on Mystic Snake in a vacuum since I tend to prefer things like Plasm Capture and Cryptic Command instead. After all, I don't typically need the body for anything and paying for 4 mana for a permission spell is a tough sell. That being said I adore these types of threats in Prophet of Kruphix decks since it's important to have mana sinks such as Duskwatch Recruiter and enchantments such as Opposition so you're highly incentivized to field as many creatures as possible. People either cast spells and have them countered or they pass at which point you dig into more Mystic Snakes and continue to tap down their lands on upkeep with Opposition. It's a lose-lose scenario either way and eventually you have enough creatures to turn Opposition into Stasis to secure the win. They're also great with Survival of the Fittest type spells since having access to a tutorable Counterspell can be invaluable in the later stages of the game and I'm a big fan of them in Cloudstone Curio decks as well since you can keep cycling them with each other to counter every relevant threat played by your opposition. Prophet of Kruphix comes in handy here once again since that's an extremely mana-intensive combo so it's nice to have access to all of your mana each turn to prevent anything relevant from resolving. Lastly, the card is "fine" as a generic playable and I wouldn't fault anyone for including them in generic Simir builds. Ramp, control, midrange, it's playable in anything really. Still, I want to stress that a 3/2 for 4 isn't much of a threat in multiplayer so you should focus on abusing unfair interactions as much as possible rather than concern yourself with marginal beaters.
Grade: C
This card is comparable to Explore given that it's hardest to cast and has more restrictions (it's not an extra land drop; you must immediately put it into play) but has the upside of being an instant. I like these cards because they cycle (whereas Rampant Growths don't) which makes them stronger topdecks in the later stages of the game when you're hurting for action but the downside is that you need lands in hand to turn them into ramp which is why you'll want to pair them with Bouncelands as much as possible. For example, a 4x Explore + 4x Growth Spiral deck should strongly consider playing 8-10 of them even if they're off-color ones like Gruul Turf. That way you can reliably take advantage of both modes since a turn 2 Explore doesn't accomplish anything relevant unless you have 4 lands to play by turn 3.
The reason why these cards don't grades higher than a C is because even in decks that can abuse them they're not especially abusable. Burgeoning and Summer Bloom are many orders of magnitude more powerful by comparison and so if you're going to be fielding a whack of Bouncelands you may as well be putting 5 mana into play on turn 2 as opposed to 4 mana into play for turn 3. More mana faster = no brainer decision. This makes them fine for budget builds but the best versions of these decks have no incentive to field them over Burgeoning.
Grade: C+
This card is obviously good and obviously pushed but I want to stress that it's not going to be the "be all end all" in multiplayer. When I look at this card I see a (baseline) 6 mana 4/4 Flample that gains 2 life, draws 2 cards and that hoses Counterspell decks like no other. That's strong, but it's no Recurring Insight, Consecrated Sphinx or Primeval Titan. Still, I like how the card is playable at 4 CMC because even if it's "bad" it still "better than nothing" which is sometimes your alternative. Recurring Insight might win more games when it resolves but that "when it resolves" is irrelevant if you lose with a bunch of 6-8 mana spells rotting in your hand. Beyond that the card scales well as the game progresses and I've routinely seen these jammed at X>=10 in decks that don't even have much in the way of ramp. This is because the card plays similar to Sphinx's Revelation in the sense that the first fuels the second and the second fuels the third etc. It draws you into more lands, gain you some life, clogs up the board, on and on and on. This combination of "playable early" + "fine in the midgame" + "strong in the lategame" + "good in multiples" means the card could reasonably be played in any numbers in any Simic midrange/ramp shell. Heck, you can even splash because you want want to be jamming them early regardless and the color requirements are negligible. So go wild slotting these into Gruul decks or whatever because Flample + Kessig Wolf Run is a beastly combination.
What I will stress is that this card isn't much better than a "solid playable." This is because it doesn't do anything broken which is the cost of playing with a spell that's (basically) always decent. This means that the person who curves Recurring Insight into Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth is going to stomp you each and every time because they're doing legitimately unfair things with their cards. You'll have fewer "nongames" where you die with your 6+ CMC bombs rotting in your hand but assuming that you both make your land drops and cast your ramp spells then you're going to get stomped.
The card is good, I'm not trying to make it sound awful or anything, but there are significantly stronger things to be doing in Simic once you get to 6+ mana and so I don't want people to see this card crushing in Standard and assume that that's how it'll function in multiplayer as well.
Grade: C
3 CMC spot removal in Green is always a tough sell given that Beast Within has been a multiplayer staple since its inception. The fact that it hits anything at instant-speed for only 3 mana is bonkers and so it obsoletes most of the alternatives. Incubation // Incongruity is legitimately worth discussing though since it brings some relevant upsides to the table. First and foremost, the card is never "dead" since you can cycle it away into a creature as needed. This is extremely relevant since spot removal "flooding" is a very real possibility in multiplayer given the inefficient nature of 1-for-1 trades. I'm fine drawing 1-2 Beast Withins in an average game but I'll never want to see 3 in my top 14 cards or anything. The fact that I can trade this in for a threat is a massive boon and makes it significantly easier to justify playing more than a handful of spot removal spells. Moreover, exiling is becoming increasingly relevant as the game evolves. Reanimate, Zulaport Cutthroat, Eternal Witness, Arena Rector, Grave Pact, Blightsteel Colossus, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, the list goes on and on of cards that abuse graveyards, abuse death triggers, ignore destroy effect and more. Where traditional removal fails "Swords to Plowshares" shines given that it permanently deals the worst offenders. Now, by no means do I think that Incubation // Incongruity will totally supplant Beast Within since it only hits critters and losing that "catch all" flexibility is a significant blow. Still, I could envision myself playing a 2-2 split to avoid flooding out of the effect and giving myself outs to resilient threats such as Eldrazi. I see it as a more of a 1-2 of to pair alongside other removal as opposed to something that you'd want to run 3-4 of.
Grade: A+
This card is utterly insane and will revolutionize the way that TemurTwin decks are built. As we've already seen with Birthing Pod these lists abuse untappers such as Scryb Ranger and Deceiver Exarch in order to climb up the chain and combo off with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker kill that wipes out any number of adversaries. After all, Kiki + any untapper or Blinker produces an arbitrarily large number of attackers and since there's untappers at every point on the CMC curve you only need to untap with a single creatures that costs 1 or more mana in order to immediately kill any number of opposing players. Moreover, these decks aren't reliant on Vannifar/Pod to kill because you can always backdoor into Splinter Twin combos since that card also works with any untapper. EOT you can jam a Bounding Krasis, untap and Splinter Twin it for an easy win. What makes Vannifar so appealing for these lists is that it's significantly easier to abuse creatures than it is Enchantments. This is because you can Summoner's Pact, Green Sun's Zenith, Shallow Grave, Goryo's Vengeance, Chord of Calling, etc. a creature into play whereas there's fewer ways to abuse Enchantments. This brings an incredibly degree of resilience and consistency to these builds because it provides you with throngs of ways to locate + activate your 1-card kill.
Moreover, this card is still insane outside of combo decks. After all, there's nothing wrong with initiating a chain such as Birds of Paradise -> Primal Druid -> Eternal Witness -> Aura Thief - >Peregrine Drake -> Primeval Titan -> Sylvan Primordial -> Sundering Titan and things along those lines. This makes her an ideal inclusion in midrange value decks, especially ones that are already abusing things like Evolutionary Leap, Recurring Nightmare, Eldritch Evolution, Birthing Pod, etc. At that point you can focus entirely on ETB/death triggers and have plenty of ways to abuse them. Still, by no means do you have to build your deck entirely around Vannifar because any deck that curves up to 7+ will probably be able to abuse her in some capacity. Trading creatures up is always relevant even if you're not getting absurd "death" value by binning things like Aura Thief.
Grade: Niche B
This will be a stellar addition to the "counters matter" archetypes that includes things like Hardened Scales, Mold Adder, Winding Constrictor, Hangarback Walker, Scavenging Ooze, Managorger Hydra, Forgotten Ancient and Walking Ballista. Not only is it extremely cheap to cast but it also means that you don't have to swing at anyone to win the game. This means that you can sit back on D, put yourself at zero risk whatsoever and still have an easy turn 6 win without doing anything special. Even if it gets removed, no big deal, it's not like there's any significant cost to running or casting it. The card itself only costs 2 mana and it's not as though you're going out of your way to support it. The deck was already solid pre-Simic Ascendancy and it still functions fine without it. This makes it a low-risk, high-reward 2 drop that will earn a ton of free wins when left unchecked.
Artifact + Land
Grade: Niche D
Sphinx curves nicely into Coalition Victory and is significantly less susceptible to interaction than Transguild Courier is given that you can't snipe it response with a removal spell. It's still not a great deck by any means but prior you were basically drawing dead if your Transguild Courier was neutralized by a Swords to Plowshares (or whatever) while your Coalition Victory was on the stack which isn't a concern when your key threat shugs off most spot removal.
Grade: Niche D
At 5 CMC I can't think of anything worthwhile to do with this card. After all, you'd have to cast ~4 spells and tap it 2-3 times to get your money's worth which seems like a big ask to me. Even in decks that pair cantrips like Manamorphose and Discovery // Dispersal with Dovin's Acuity or Disinformation Campaign you'd still have to sandbag them until you jammed this first which makes it significantly less appealing given that you want to be slamming those early and often to smooth your draw. I posted a sample Hero of Precinct One "multicolor" deck here that could conceivably play something like Tome of the Guildpact but even then I couldn't envision cutting anything to make room for it.
Grade: A
"Shock Lands" is one of the most powerful land cycles in the entire game and is only surpassed by Fetchlands and ABUR Duals in terms of raw power. After all, not only do they ETB untapped and tap for multiple colors but they're also Fetchable given that they possess basic land tags. Many cards such as Misty Rainforest, Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim and Sylvan Primordial only state "Forest" (as opposed to "basic Forest") so you can happily nab these instead. The fact that you have to take 2 to play them untapped is obviously a slight drawback (and that's why they're below ABUR duals) but I'll stress that it's basically irrelevant in multiplayer. Aggro is significantly less competitive when you're tasked to defeat multiple adversaries and you're often playing high HP formats such as 2HG and EDH that give you a sizable health buffer to work with. You also have the option of playing them as "Guildgates" if you don't need the mana immediately and they'll never dome you for 6+ damage when drawn in multiples like Painlands and Mana Confluence can. They're eternal staples that will be played until the game's eventual demise making them one of the single greatest investments that you could possibly make. True duals aside there's nothing better than a mix of Fetches and Shocks (and random goodies like Exotic Orchard and Battle Lands) so from a pure cost-to-benefit ratio you can't argue with the sheer value that Shocks bring to your collection.
Conclusion
Ravnica Allegiance is one of the most influential multiplayer sets ever printed and will have a dramatic impact on the overall landscape of its formats. After all, Shock Lands (alongside Fetches) are one of the single best investments that any player can make and should always be prioritized by players who're still missing key copies of relevant Shocks (i.e. Shocks for colors that they routinely play). Moreover, it brought us a slew of bombs that figure to see competitive play for years to come. Spear Spewer, Verity Circle, Smothering Tithe and more are utterly absurd and I cannot wait to get my hands on them. In addition, as we saw with Guilds of Ravnica RNA brought forth a throng of staples for the various 2-color guilds. In fact, the only color that didn't get something absurd was "mono Black" since every other mono color and 2-color guild got at least one relevant addition to their roster. I'm excited to continue building and playing around RNA and I laud Wizards for blowing this one out of the park.
Review isn't done but I'm posting what I typed up today so that people have something to peruse for the time being. I'll be adding the rest when I find the time to finish it up.
Also let me now if there's any other cards that you'd like to see reviewed in the colors that I've already completed. They probably wouldn't be getting a grade higher than a D though.
Thanks for the write up. Do you think there's a niche for Sphinx of Foresight? Is there any overlap between decks that want to aggressively look for a card on turn 1 and decks that would want an ok 4/4 flier for 4?
Thanks for the write up. Do you think there's a niche for Sphinx of Foresight? Is there any overlap between decks that want to aggressively look for a card on turn 1 and decks that would want an ok 4/4 flier for 4?
Agree with everything so far - you've covered all the things I have figured out are bonkers.
Please tell me Rhythm of the Wild is getting a nod in multicolor, though... it's been insane for me in just about every format I've tried it in so far.
Open the Gates, like most other "Lay of the Lands," is too slow and awkward for most decks/draws. You have to think of them as ETB lands with additional drawbacks (you need Green mana, you need at least 1 real land, etc) so unless the card does something extra the effect isn't playable. We see cards like Flower // Flourish and Attune with Aether played because they're virtual ETB lands with relevant upside but unless you have that "relevant upside" bonus it's not worth the slot over lands, ramp, etc.
Regenesis isn't bad per say but it's also not good. After all, you need multiple relevant permanents to recur, you need to be willing to pay 5 mana to get them back and you need to justify fielding this card over throngs of alternatives such as Harmonize, Nissa, Vital Force, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Lurking Predators on and on and on. Moreover, even if you're looking for recursion you're still better off fielding creatures such as Eternal Witness because Green can tutor for/manipulate creatures significantly easier. You also can't recur game-ending bombs such as Genesis Wave and Tooth and Nail which are often the key targets that you're seeking to buy back.
All of the cards that I'm planning to review have been reviewed. Let me know if there's any other cards that people are interested in because if they're ones that I like I'll often add submissions after-the-fact. No guarantees though since some don't interest me whatsoever lol.
I don't think the issue it's that you could never want a 4/4:flyer for 4. My group is casual enough that a creature like that can be just fine. I think the issue is why would you want that 4/4 flyer over anything else you could slot into that deck? Even if I we're trying to build "mono U sphinxes" on a budget, why pick Sphinx of Foresight over Curator of Mysteries? The only unique thing it does is the opening hand scry. What decks would rather have "opening hand scry 3" as opposed to "cycling U"? Your aggressive combo decks might but--to restate the review--they'd probably rather run Ponder than slot in a 4cmc beater.
But does that mean it gets an F? I wouldn't run Cs, but that doesn't mean they're Fs.
I wouldn't even rate a 4 mana 4/4 flier that Scrys 1 on upkeep so it wouldn't even get an F. The only compelling argument to field this card (IMO obviously) is as a Serum Powder but I think that it's a "weak card that shouldn't be played" in combo decks hence the rating. Essentially, I don't think that anyone should consider playing it in multiplayer for any reason.
I'll stress that I like 0 drops a lot. 2 of my most played cards are 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Gemstone Caverns. 4x Gemstone Caverns I play in virtually 100% of my builds (I just remove them when I post my decklists on here). So I have nothing against 0 drops in general because I think they're obscene. I just personally believe that this one isn't worth running.
I wouldn't even rate a 4 mana 4/4 flier that Scrys 1 on upkeep so it wouldn't even get an F. The only compelling argument to field this card (IMO obviously) is as a Serum Powder but I think that it's a "weak card that shouldn't be played" in combo decks hence the rating. Essentially, I don't think that anyone should consider playing it in multiplayer for any reason.
I'll stress that I like 0 drops a lot. 2 of my most played cards are 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Gemstone Caverns. 4x Gemstone Caverns I play in virtually 100% of my builds (I just remove them when I post my decklists on here). So I have nothing against 0 drops in general because I think they're obscene. I just personally believe that this one isn't worth running.
Personally since you like to showcase decks, I find it valuable to see budget and non budget builds. Not because I am lazy but because every once in awhile I have that "I didn't realize that was even a card" moment.
The audience around here seems to be part budget and part anything goes
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Grading Scale:
A: Oppressive bombs that dominate games.
Ex: Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Smothering Tithe, Consecrated Sphinx, Sylvan Primordial and Purphoros, God of the Forge.
B: Formidable staples that surge you ahead of the pack.
Ex: Grave Pact, Rolling Earthquake, Wrath of God, Recurring Insight and Tendershoot Dryad.
C: Strong playables that enable you to keep pace with the rest of the field.
Ex: Fleshbag Marauder, Clever Impersonator, Scab-Clan Berserker, Realm Seekers and Oreskos Explorer.
D: Marginal filler that can be used to flesh out your lists.
F: Weak cards that shouldn't be played.
Niche: Specialized tools that are Bs/As in decks that actively want them and Fs/Ds everywhere else.
Ex: Waste Not, Repercussion, Limited Resources, Intruder Alarm and Oath of Druids.
Sideboard: Narrow effects that have competitive applications in known metagames with clearly defined threats and strategies.
Ex: Leyline of the Void, Verity Circle, City of Solitude, Stony Silence and 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
The defensive aspect of this card is underwhelming even if you're continually blinking it with Flickerwisp style effects. Assembling 2+ card combos to build-your-own Ghostly Prison is hardly exciting. Otherwise, it's an anemic 3/3 for 3 which isn't where you want to be in multiplayer.
Grade: Nice C+
This is a stellar enabler for decks featuring cards like Flower // Flourish, Discovery // Dispersal, Manamorphose, Jeskai Ascendancy and Monastery Mentor that are simultaneously looking to go big + wide to overrun the table. It's also a fantastic 2 drop for multicolor decks seeking to curve into things like Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Notion Thief, Dark Intimations, etc. assuming that you have something to do with the tokens. Moreover, I appreciate the fact that it's a build-around-me which doesn't significantly restrict your deckbuilding options since the only true requirement is that you're playing with multicolor spells. For someone like me who already has a slew of all/mostly gold decks that means that I can easily slot them in without having to add or remove any other cards. The card isn't broken or anything, you're not going to beat the table down with a motley crew of 1/1s, but as long as you can covert a wide board into something useful the rate on this card is nuts.
Grade: A+
My comprehensive review can be found here. The TL;DR is that this card is busted in ramp, combo, prison, midrange, etc. and will be a staple 4 drop moving forward. You could blindly jam 4 in any deck capable of producing White mana and it would almost always be correct.
Grade: D+
Much like Forbidding Spirit too much of this card's power is weighted in the body + Afterlife 1 for it to be exciting. You're significantly better off with alternatives such as Grand Abolisher which emphasize the "taxing" portion since that's what you're actually looking for in a multiplayer setting. This card is still playable as a mild form of disruption for your Armageddon decks because unlike a Thalia he doesn't affect your own spells which is relevant when you're trying to cast 4 drops in your ~20 land deck. Still, I'd much rather curve Mother of Runes into Grand Abolisher into Brimaz, King of Oreskos into Ravages of War than waste my time with Tithe Taker.
Grade: D
Confiscate isn't terrible and this card has the upside of scaling wild out-of-control as the game progresses which makes it a passable option for monoblue. At UUUU it's a poor fit for Cloudpost decks but High Tide + Land Untappers is still a thing meaning that it's not especially difficult to generate 12 mana on turn 6 to steal 4 things. Unfortunately, it competes unfavorably with alternatives such as Blatant Thievery and Expropriate which don't require nearly as much mana nor setup and so it's unlikely to have signficant multiplayer applications.
Grade: C
I've always liked Tidings in multiplayer and Scry 3 + draw 3 is roughly equivalent to draw 4 as a Sorcery and this card has the upside of also functioning as a Jace's Ingenuity when you're trying to play at instant-speed. The issue with fair draw spells such as these is that they tend to lose out to unfair alternatives such as Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Recurring Insight, etc. meaning that the best best versions of your Blue decks won't be able to find room for them. That isn't to say that you couldn't or shouldn't start a deck with 4x Tidings but know that the people playing Rhystic Study and Manifold Insights are going to win a significantly higher % of games than you all other things being equal.
Grade: F
I completely understand why people would be interested in playing with this card but I want to stress that it's a straight F. Let's break down why.
My baseline assumption will always be that a 4/4 flier for 4 is unplayable. I appreciate the fact that having bodies can be important in multiplayer to avoid getting aggro'd out but even then you should always be turning to engines or ETB triggers as opposed to pure bundles of stats. Sphinx has a minor Scry 1 upside so it's not completely useless once it's in play but in reality there's no compelling argument to field it over something like Vizier of Many Faces or Aura Thief that scales better with the increased number of players. Raw stats are basically the last thing that I look for and the card isn't good enough otherwise to earn its keep. I realize that not everyone will share this point of view, and that's totally fine, but in my experience it's the Oracle of Mul Dayas and Crypt Ghasts that dominate games as opposed to the Air Elementals.
Moving on, the next thing that we need to discuss is "decks that have really good cards." Let's take Oath of Druids and Waste Not as examples. These are two cards that you can run out on turn 1-2 and that enable you to win the game on the subsequent turn. After all, Oath can nab Griselbrand and turn that into a Storm kill and Waste Not curves into Dark Deal or Windfall or whatever and easily wins from there with a Cut // Ribbons or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or anything really. Shouldn't these decks not consider playing Sphinx if for no other reason than the Scry 3?
Absolutely not! Three reasons why.
First, Serum Powder is a significantly better card if your deck has a 1-card win condition like Waste Not. Not only does it see up to 4 additional cards but it also chains better with itself and has more generic utility. Whereas no multiplayer deck of mine would ever play a 4/4 flier for 4 there's some world where a Manalith is relevant (ramping out a powerful 5+ drops for example) which means that it's a better turn 0 dig spell with a better fail use-case.
Second, decks only have so much room for dead draws such as these. It's not impossible for a deck to want additional copies of this effect (even bad ones) but I'll stress that these cards have diminishing returns and carry very real deckbuilding costs. After all, not only are they complete blanks but they're also totally useless when you do get your "key card" which means that you can still sometimes lose even when you draw it. This is especially true if your adversaries are playing an interactive game of Magic against you (permission, removal, etc) at which point you're almost always going to lose if your key card becomes neutralized. This explains why you'll probably never see Sphinx of Foresight in Vintage Dredge for example. Even though that deck wants to see Bazaar of Baghdad on turn 1 of every game it also needs to consistently win games of Magic when it does and adding another set of dead cards to the maindeck won't actually improve it's overall win %. The same is going to be true for most lists and while I can't blindly claim that this will hold true for "all decks across all time" I struggle to envision a world where this card earns its keep.
Third, cheap cantrips such as Mystic Remora, Preordain, Ponder and Brainstorm significantly outperform Sphinx on average. They see similar/larger quantities of cards (on average), have stronger fail use-cases, replace themselves, are more relevant in interactive games, act as fuel and provide you with a significantly more consistent gaming experience among other things. Sphinx is clearly superior when it enables you to achieve the turn 1 Gemstone Caverns + Forbidden Orchard + Oath of Druids draws but given how unlikely those are to occur you're much better off playing something like 4x Preordain and 4x Ponder (or Brainstorm assuming that you have access to fetchlands) instead so that you can actually play Magic each and every game. Your probability of getting a Magical Christmas Land draw will decrease slightly but your overall play experience and win % will be drastically higher. This is primarily because, and I can't stress this enough, these cards are many orders of magnitude more valuable when your adversaries are interacting with you. After all, if you're fielding a bunch of Serum Powders and Sphinxes and your Oath of Druids gets countered/removed them you lose. Period. But, if you're playing with Preordains and Ponders you can play real games of Magic where you dig for permission, replacements, defense (Defense Grid, City of Solitude, etc) and more to ensure that you don't automatically lose to a simple Swan Song or Assassin's Trophy.
Note: I understand that Sphinx of Foresight is legitimately awful in Oath of Druids decks for blatantly obvious reasons but I'm only trying to illustrate a point. The specific 1-card win condition that you want to use as your example is wholly irrelevant to the arguments that I'm making. Replace it with literally any busted card that you're thinking of because the same logic applies to all of them.
Grade: B+
Realistically this card is more of a sideboard/niche card than anything else but it's way too powerful to overlook. Assuming that a single opponent taps a single creature each circuit then it's a Phyrexian Arena that's easier to cast and that doesn't cost life which would already be a solid card. At 2+ draws per circuit it starts to feel oppressive and that will frequently occur without any effort on your part. Moving on, it's a back-breaking sideboard card against "Elf" decks by which I mean any creature-based deck that's reliant on activated abilities to function. After all, if someone is curving Elvish Mystic into Duskwatch Recruiter into Karametra's Acolyte they're now faced with the options of A) not playing Magic or B) letting you draw millions of cards which is a win-win for you either way. This won't be relevant for every player in every meta but much like Compost and Insight you'll know when they're good and by golly these cards are oppressive when they're good.
Moreover, the card has a home in Stax decks that feature cards like Tangle Wire and Opposition which can repeatedly and reliably tap opposing creatures down. This offsets one of Stax's primary weaknesses of needing to draw the right cards at the right time by simply enabling you to draw "all of the cards" instead. That being said it's been brought to my attention that Verity Circle doesn't work with replacement effects (such as Orb of Dreams and Frozen Aether) which makes it less appealing than I originally claimed. After all, this means that you wouldn't want to field it in a Stasis + Frozen Aether + Smothering Tithe deck for example because it wouldn't be drawing you any extra cards. Still, it's bombtastic in Opposition decks so if you're already playing something degenerate with Prophet of Kruphix you may as well add some of these because at that point you're literally able to draw your entire deck after 1-2 circuits. Assuming that you have a single copy of Nexus of Fate (or something similar) that becomes an automatic game win with the primary upside being that your opponents can justify scooping faster. They no longer have to sit around being miserable for 20 minutes because now you can enact something quick and deterministic.
Finally, the card's activated ability offers marginal utility both as a draw engine and as insulation against game-ending bombs such as Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Blightsteel Colossus. At 5 mana it's far too expensive for it to be generically useful but it will occasionally prevent you from losing games to absurd Battlecruisers. I'll stress that while this isn't a key selling point it's not total trinket text either because I've already seen this make come into play against cards like Jhoira of the Ghitu and Sneak Attack and both times they enabled players to win games that they otherwise would have lost.
Grade: C
This card has interesting applications in Waste Not/Geth's Grimoire decks as a way of sealing the game on turn 5. After all, it should be nearly impossible for anyone else to win from that position making this a clean 2 card kill on turn 4-5. Unfortunately, I can't think of a compelling reason to field it over cheaper alternatives such as Dark Deal, Delirium Skeins, Pox, etc. which accomplish the same thing for less mana. Not in a literal sense, but in a function sense, since discard decks need something like Waste Not in order to consistently win and once you have a Waste Not in play there's no strong argument to wait until turn 5 when a Dark Deal will kill on turn 2-3. Geth's Grimoire is similar in the sense that if I'm Dark Ritualing one out on turn 2 then I want to be able to win on turn 3 and not turn 5.
It could also potentially see play in Stax decks, especially ones built around Ensnaring Bridge, but even then I question its inclusion. I'd rather have something cheaper like Necrogen Mists that not only takes people to 0 cards but locks them there as well so that I can slowly grind them out with things like Contamination and Smokestack. 5 CMC isn't impossible for a Stax deck by any means but you'd need it to be something insanely impactful and this doesn't quite pass muster.
Grade: D
While I'll happily play the first 2 copies of "Anger of the Gods" (any 3 mana for 3 damage mass removal spell) in my decks the same can't be said about Infests. Not only is 2 significantly less than 3 when you're trying to kill things like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Kambal, Consul of Allocation but they're also "strictly worse" than alternatives such as Toxic Deluge and Massacre which are obscene Magic cards by comparison. That isn't to say that you can't/shouldn't field them, the first 2 copies are still reasonable, but they're never going to be optimal inclusions.
Grade: Niche C
This is more of an EDH/2HG card than anything else but I do think that it's quite powerful in decks that feature cards like Necropotence, Necrologia, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Griselbrand, etc. Fetches and Shocks are obviously a "thing" too so there's more than one way to skin a cat but in reality I'm only interested in casting this early on, tutoring up a Necropotence (or whatever), drawing a ton of cards, generating a ton of counters and killing a ton of creatures.
Grade: Niche D
This card has niche applications in Stax decks that feature cards like Skullclamp, Viscera Seer, Tortured Existence, Contamination, Smokestack, Braids, Cabal Minion, etc. Even then it's one of the weaker 1 drop recursive threats and I couldn't envision playing it in anything other than Tortured Existence decks where the "to hand" recursion shines. Otherwise I'd much rather have something like Reassembling Skeleton which is cheaper and easier to manipulate.
Grade: D
While these types of cards are largely unplayable they have extremely minor applications as durable + noninteractive win conditions. I would still much rather pay 5 for Palace Siege than slow burn people for 1 per circuit but assuming that you're doing something like turn 4 Ill-Gotten Inheritance into turn 5 Bubbling Muck + Death Cloud for X=5 then it technically sticks around to ping people out. Moreover, you can also enact sequences such as turn 1 Bloodchief Ascension, turn 2 Ankh of Mishra/Gonti's Machinations, turn 3 Retreat to Hagra, turn 4 Ill-Gotten Inheritance, etc. and chain these into cards like Exsanguinate and Gray Merchant of Asphodel while clearing the field with mass removal such as Toxic Deluge, Massacre and Damnation. This is relatively effective against creature-based and/or removal-heavy decks since your cards ignore creature removal and effectively stack with each other. I still wouldn't play Ill-Gotten Inheritance over Pestilence even if that's the gameplan that I was going for but you can see how it might be a reasonable turn 4 given the other cards already present in your list.
Grade: Niche C
Blazing Volley is already a marginal playable in multiplayer and the fact that this transforms it into a 1 mana Plague Wind means that you'll never struggle to dismantle board stalls in the mid-to-late stages of the game. I don't like the fact that neither card has much inherent value and I'd never want to draw 1:3 or 3:1 splits of either but (as I often say) multiplayer is a "go big or go home" format and sometimes you need to get lucky and draw that 2:2 split in order to win. I wouldn't recommend including a ton of copies of either effect (not that we have access to a second copy of Spirit to begin with) because even though you could (for example) jam some Electrickerys as Volleys 5-6 you then run the risk of flooding out on a crappy effect that doesn't accomplish anything meaningful. Even when you do assemble your Plague Winds it won't mean anything if all you have are 3/2s and Lava Darts to try seal the deal which is why I'd stick to a 4-4 split and play "real cards" otherwise.
Unfortunately, a "build-your-own-Plague Wind" doesn't hold a candle to actual 2 card combos (like Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin) which win the game on the spot. Why Plague Wind when you could curve Grenzo, Dungeron Warden into Doomsday and assemble Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts for the win? Pestilent Spirit + Blazing Volley is still a fun way to mise games and I wouldn't fault anyone for playing with them but this won't be a Rakdos staple moving forward or anything.
Grade: Niche C+
While I think that this card is being over-hyped for formats such as Standard it does have some interesting multiplayer applications, especially now that Black has access to the ultimate Doomed Traveler in the form of Stitcher's Supplier. An ideal draw will look something like Supplier -> Priest -> Lingering Souls at which point you can immediately activate your Priest to Flashback Lingering Souls. From there you'll ideally want to jam things like Zulaport Cutthroat while digging towards + powering out bombs such as Rally the Ancestors and Living Death to all-but seal the game. Green is another solid splash, primarily because Satyr Wayfinder pairs amazingly well with Stitcher's Supplier in these Living Death style decks. You can also stay monoblack for things like Viscera Seer, Burglar Rat, Dusk Legion Zealot, Reassembling Skeleton, Weaponcraft Enthusiast. and Sengir Autocrat which all fit the bill in a pinch. Regardless of your color(s) your primary goal should be to assemble Priest of Forgotten Gods + Zulaport Cutthroat as quickly as possible because that combo is obscene when you're seeking to drain the table out while simultaneously trying to control the quantity and quality of creatures that your adversaries keep in play. I also highly recommend including Skullclamp if you're allowed to because that gives you a solid backup plan in scenarios where you fail to draw your Priests and/or they die to removal.
Grade: Niche C
This card is reasonable in all-in aggro decks that abuse cards like Vicious Conquistador and Throne of the God-Pharaoh in order beat the table into submission. My primary concern is that its damage output is woefully lacking compared to things like Bloodchief Ascension and Ankh of Mishra given that it deals 0 damage the turn that it comes into play and 7 on all subsequent rounds. Sulfuric Vortex, by comparison, immediately deals 6 damage and then 6 more on all subsequent rounds. This makes it too inefficient for the Rakdos versions of the deck and even the monoblack variations have access to superior alternatives.
Where I could potentially see playing it is in Rakdos, Lord of Riots style decks seeking to curve something like Vicious Conquistador into any combination of 2 Pulse Trackers, Thornbow Archers, Mardu Shadowspears, Vicious Conquistadors and/or Night Market Lookouts into Spawn of Mayhem into Rakdos, Lord of Riots. From there you could attack and hardcast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn if you wanted to but since Spawn hits for 7 and any 1 "Pulse Tracker" hits for 4 it's typically better to field 10-11 mana threats such as Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger instead so that you can do things like turn 4 attack, cast Rakdos and immediately cast Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or whatever. Note that Rakdos isn't the only creature that has this type of effect and you can also power out giant Cryptborn Horrors and whatnot but that's obviously significantly less powerful than turn 4 Rakdos + Eldrazi.
Otherwise, because it deals damage it works well with Curiosity effects but unfortunately most of Black's aggressive threats cause lifeloss as opposed to dealing damage. If Black starts getting Pulse Trackers that deal damage then we'll start seeing these aggro decks shift towards Curiosity/Keen Sense style payoffs but until then that's going to remain in Red's court.
Grade: Niche D
This card has marginal applications in the aforementioned Priest of Forgotten Gods decks that feature things like Viscera Seer, Zulaport Cutthroats and Living Death to combo kill the rest of the table. The problem is that this variation costs 4, doesn't trigger off of itself, doesn't trigger off of opposing creatures and ultimately doesn't bring anything special to the table. Poison-Tip Archer is significantly more exciting given that it triggers off "each other creature" whereas this one only works with ones that "you control" which is gargantuan when you're casting things like Living Death that Wrath the board. As such I couldn't envision slotting this into one of my builds because it doesn't do nearly enough to justify the 4 CMC investment.
Grade: D
Goblin Chainwhirler is sweet and all but when you up the cost by 1, remove the Planeswalker ping and significantly weaken the body it immediately plummets from Hero to Zero. Still, the thing that keeps this card from being an F is that fact that decks can reasonably field Status // Statue as a "Vindicate" and gain the upside of being able to Plague Wind when you assemble your 2-card combo. The nice thing about this pairing is that both cards are at least somewhat reasonable in a vacuum (not good but not terrible) and the upside of pairing them together is huge. You could also argue that this card has niche applications with other Deathtouch enablers (think Deadly Allure and Nightshade Peddler) but, much like Pestilent Spirit, these combos are more cute than good and typically aren't worth including en masse in your lists. I only like this card because of exactly Status // Statue since I could still sleep at night if I cut my Beast Withins for those knowing that I'll always have outs to a powerful Plague Wind combo.
Grade: Niche C+
There's already throngs of articles that discuss how you can pair Electrodominance at X=0 with Hypergenesis, Living End, Ancestral Vision, Wheel of Fate and Restore Balance so I'm not going to spend too much time focusing on these "As Foretold" archetypes. Paying 2 mana for a broken effect is broken, more news at 11. Still, I find these archetypes to be inconsistent, clunky, vulnerable to interaction and lackluster in practice but they can certainly feel busted when everything comes together and their consistency continues to improve with every new addition to the "cheat" roster (think Kari Zev's Expertise for example). It'll note that I tend to prefer the Cascade versions of the decks that field things like Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread instead (1 card combo as opposed to a 2-3 card combo) but to each their own. If I had to recommend building one it would easily be a Hypergenesis deck since they're supremely fun to play but there's also nothing wrong with the others.
As Foretold aside, I also think that this card will have a home in non-interactive spell-based decks. Namely, I really like this card in deck that feature Windfall effects that it can use to bypass their timing restrictions. After all, the primary weakness of Wheels is that your adversaries typically get the first crack at the cards which makes casting them at EOT significantly more appealing. That way you can uptap and win before anyone else can react to your degenerate gameplan. Otherwise you need a card like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Alms Collector or Notion Thief in play to ensure that you're not going to get crushed by your adversaries and those tend to cost 3+ mana and die to removal early and often.
Grade: Sideboard D
Very few decks want more than 4x Harsh Mentor and this card is significantly weaker than his 2 damage cousin. The lategame pump is heinousas far as I'm concerned because the only reason why you'd ever get to that stage of the game would be because your cards aren't doing enough damage to end the game in a timely fashion. If for some magical reason you need 1-2 extra copies then Immolation Shaman technically qualifies but in general I'd highly recommend taking a pass on this one.
Grade: Niche C+
This card is fantastic in low-to-the-ground burn decks that feature cards like Spear Spewer, Thermo-Alchemist, Flame Rift, Price of Progress, etc. After all, multiplayer games tend to be slower and significantly harder to close out which means that you're often forced to lean on card advantage or powerful finishers if you want to consistently seal the deal. A 1 mana "draw 2" is an extremely powerful effect (even if it's conditional) and this is the type of spell that will enable you hang with the rest of the pack while you dig for your land drop and expensive bombs (think Fiery Confluence) to deliver the final blow. It's also monored, cheap to cast and cheap to acquire which makes it an ideal inclusion for budget-minded Monored and Rakdos builds. Finally, unlike Curiosity/Keen Sense it's not reliant on creatures and so it doesn't force you to A) splash other colors or B) field dorks like Spear Spewer to support it.
Unfortunately, even though 1 mana draws 2s are good Ancestral Recalls are better and infinite Ancestral Recalls is best. This means that the best versions of the burn decks should be splashing for Keen Sense/Curiosity if they want to maximize their probability of winning. Light Up the Stage is still powerful, especially if you can't afford 4x Scalding Tarn and 4x Steam Vents, but once you open with an early Spear Spewer/Thermo-Alchemist/Eidolon of the Great Revel into a Curiosity you'll never look back.
Grade: Niche A
This card is significantly better than it looks. It's unplayable in "normal" decks but it'll definitely find a home in specific archetypes where you'll always want to see it for turn 1. Namely, the decks where this card will shine are "Curiosity" builds that feature things like Curiosity, Keen Sense, Ophidian Eye, Snake Umbra, Tandem Lookout, Thermo-Alchemist, Eidolon of the Great Revel and Firebrand Archer. Turn 1 Spear Spewer into turn 2 Curiosity means that you can spend the rest of the game Ancestral Recalling every turn while sitting on Swan Song + Foil backup without a care in the world. Prior, we couldn't consistently establish that "lock" until at least turn 3 so this is a huge boon to the archetype. From there you can play as fair or unfair as you want but common ways to win are to A) burn the table out or B) assemble the Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity "infinite" combo.
With that in mind, the card is the ideal 1 drop for burn decks given that the typical pair of Goblin Guide and Monastery Mentor are woefully inadequate at beating a table of 3+ adversaries into submission. 20 is reasonable but 60 is a stretch. As such multiplayer burn decks are forced to lean on curves such as Spear Spewer into Eidolon of the Great Revel into Sulfuric Vortex into Fiery Confluence in order to reliably burn the table out. Some classics such as Flame Rift and Price of Progress still hold their own but iconic centerpieces such as Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike and Chain Lightning need to get bumped for Thermo-Alchemist and Atarka's Command instead. At this point we can also afford to field Keen Sense since we have 12 amazing targets (Spear, Eidolon, Alchemist) to ensure that we draw enough lands and gas to seal the deal. Green also enables us to play things like Cindervines which provides us with a Hull Breach style effect that still works with our primary gameplan.
Alternatively, you don't field any combos and beat people however the heck you want. I mention burn and Niv Mizzet combos because you need cards like Spear Spewer and Curiosity to assemble your infinite Ancestral Recalls but in reality you could win with just about anything when you're generating this much card advantage. So if burn/combos aren't your cup of tea add whatever random midrange nonsense that you want and beat people down with Inferno Titans or whatever. And hey! There's nothing wrong with putting Curiosity on Inferno Titan either . I'll stress that the real crux of this deck is turn 1 Spear Spewer into Curiosity with Dive Down/Spell Pierce/Swan Song/Flusterstorm/Foil/Force of Will backup because then you're drawing infinite cards, protecting your key threats and gaining access to free permission like Foil that would otherwise be completely unplayable.
Grade: C
This is a decent 5 drop for ramp decks that provides reasonable value on turn 5 and massive returns as the game progresses. Assuming that you're fielding things like Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial then you can sometimes cheat your entire manabase into play at which point this can churn throngs of tokens into play. It's also bonkers in "Prophet of Kruphix" decks given that it's a powerful mana sink assuming that your adversaries aren't casting spells worth countering. You can sit on your Spell Bursts and Mystic Snakes on their Main Phases and then activate the Ooze at EOT as desired. I realize that the +1/+1 counter only triggers on your end step (as opposed to each end step) but it's still pumping out sizable tokens and the fact that it's 5 mana itself means that it curves perfectly off of a turn 3-5 Prophet of Kruphix.
One thing I'd like to note is that this card is a great example of why Tendershoot Dryad is so broken. Just compare the two. It's pathetic. Heck, even if you assemble Prophet of Kruphix + Biogenic Ooze it's still not even clear to me which is better. Tendershoot Dryad is that broken! Play the card people!
Grade: B
"Elf decks" typically need 1-2 Craterhoof Behemoth style finishers to assist with closing games out and since the Hoof-father is ~25.00$ people will often need access to a budget alternative. This is likely the second-best option which will make it an ideal finisher moving forward. It's nowhere near as good Hoof, but nothing ever will be, so we'll have to settle with whatever we're given. I don't consider cards like Pathbreaker Ibex to be playable since your finishers need to kill out of nowhere in order to be competitive. After all, the second that you have to untap with them you open yourself up to interaction which isn't where you want to be. So I really like the fact that this card behaves exactly like Hoof (albeit on a smaller scale) in the sense that the game ends immediately after it hits play.
Note, by "Elf decks" I don't mean literal Elf tribal. I'm merely referring to any Green Creature-based deck that floods the board with random dorks. Sakura-Tribe Elder, Ramunap Excavator, Oracle of Mul Daya and Seedborn Muse aren't capable of beating the table down with their piddly bodies but once you start factoring "Overruns" into the equation even the smallest dork can transform into the mightiest beaters.
Grade: C
This card would have been significantly more exciting at 3 mana since at 4 CMC it's tough to compete with Harmonize for noncreature card draw. It's actually trivially easy to build your deck in such a way that you're always casting a unique threat, I don't consider that to be remotely challenging, my primary fear is that you need to cast at least 4 creatures before it supplants Harmonize and whereas I typically want to cast my draw spells after I've cast my ramp + threats this one forces you to cast it asap. The upside is that it will frequently land on turn 3 and assuming a 12-15 turn game it can easily draw 8-10 cards so this makes it an ideal inclusion in slow metas that lack Enchantment removal but weaker in faster ones that feature fair amounts of interaction.
In terms of how to build around this card, it's not that hard. Consider things like:
4x Llanowar Elves vs Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves
4x Wall of Roots vs Wall of Roots, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Devoted Druid, Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Courser of Kruphix vs Courser of Kruphix, Ramunap Excavator, Tireless Tracker, Eternal Witness
You get the point. I don't have to go out of my way to support Guardian Project because there's plenty of interchangeable pieces to the puzzle and 1-ofs also make tutors such as Green Sun's Zenith and Survival of the Fittest that much more versatile. So the issue isn't "can you support it" but rather "do you want to field it over Harmonize" or whatever other 4-6 drop value spell that you decide to add to your list. Compost, Nissa, Vital Force, Lurking Predators, etc.
Grade: Niche B
This card is extremely broken in decks that reliably activate it since having a Black Lotus on a 2 CMC stick is a busted card. It reminds me of Bloom Tender which is an equally obscene Magic card when you can reliably trigger it for 3+. Turn 2 Bloom Tender, turn 3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest, tap for 3, Windfall, game! The problem is always that "reliably activate it" part since that's always easier said than done. You don't want to warp your deck around Incubation Druid since then you run the risk of losing miserably when your draw doesn't line up properly. You also don't want to jam things like Thrive into your deck just to activate it. With that in mind I'd be aiming to play these in decks that already feature cards like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Forgotten Ancient. After all, you can already include Llanowar Reborn at very little cost (turn 1 Reborn, turn 2 Druid is a sweet curve!) and so at that point you're not bending over backwards to try and make it work. It also curves naturally into both Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Forgotten Ancient on turn 3 so as long as your decks want those types of cards then you have access to some some extremely powerful opening sequences.
Build-around-mes aside, Rampant Growths are already reasonable inclusions and the fact that this one transforms into a Gilded Lotus in the mid-to-lategame is bonkers. After all, unlike Gilded Lotus this card is relevant on turn 2 and the fact that it taps for mana means that on turn 4 you can EOT Adapt it and untap on turn 5 with access to 7-8 mana and a 3/5. There's obviously some drawbacks (it dies to mass removal, it's not a good play on turn 5 whereas Gilded Lotus is, it can get sniped with the Adapt trigger on the stack for a big tempo hit, it's not the best thing to be doing on turn 2 nor turn 4, etc) but I still really like it's average use-case. That is, I'm extremely happy to start a game with Incubation Druid on 2 into Adapt on 4 even if I'm not playing with things like Forgotten Ancient. I still highly recommend playing 4x Llanowar Reborn because that 1-2 curve is way too oppressive to omit but this definitely isn't a card that you need to build around. Any ramp deck should strongly consider it because even though its floor is weaker than that of oh, say, Sakura-Tribe Elder the ceiling on this card is insanely high by comparison. STEve is cool and all but the only thing that he's ever doing is chumping and ramping 1 whereas this card is still doing that on turn 2 and then doing busted Gilded Lotus nonsense on turn 5.
Grade: C+
Green will always prefer fielding creatures over spells given that it has a significantly easier time tutoring for those but this is still an extremely powerful form of interaction. Not only does it nuke all Arts/Enchs but the fact that it's an instant means that you can blow people out if they're going for combo kills and/or abuse opposing Wraths to immediately kill the tokens. The tokens shouldn't matter either way if you're in Green but if there's already Wrath on the stack then you may as well transform it into a Planar Cleansing. I wouldn't advise jamming 3-4 of these in your lists but the first 1-2 copies seems fantastic. Mass removal has some diminishing returns in the sense that you can't kill something that's already dead but, again, the primary downside is that this card it isn't a creature and so you can't reliably tutor for/recur it relative to something like Bane of Progress. More often than not you'll be fielding those instead. Otherwise it's difficult to imagine games where you'd be unhappy to see the first copy making it a solid acquisition.
Grade: B+
This is one of the most interesting cards in the set and it definitely has competitive applications. After all, it's a cheap + durable "double your mana" effect so as long as you can work around the timing restrictions the long-run mana advantage that it offers is obscene. The way that this card should be played is that you'll want cast it on turn 3-4 like a typical "Thran Dynamo" spell and immediately untap your lands. The more Wild Growths, Utopia Sprawls and Overgrowths that you have at this stage of the game, the better. From there you can sit back on permission spells since unlike most ramp you're never going "shields down" when you play it so you can still hold up mana for something like Spell Burst, Counterspell, Frilled Mystic, Cryptic Command, Plasm Capture and Spell Swindle.
Eventually you can jam something like Fact or Fiction at EOT if no one plays anything worth countering and once the turn comes back around you'll have access to 8+ "instant-speed mana." This is because you can tap, untap and tap your lands again all at your EOT to cast things like Expansion // Explosion, Sphinx's Revelation and Nexus of Fate. You'll obviously need a critical mass of ways to abuse large sums of mana at instant-speed but once you assemble 2-3 of these then you can easily Comet Storm/Expansion // Explosion the table for millions. It's also not as though you're playing bad cards to support Wilderness Reclamation since things like Brainstorm, Impulse, Counterspell, Plasm Capture, Mystic Snake, Fact or Fiction and Nexus of Fate are all staples in UG archetypes regardless.
Moreover, while Wilderness Reclamation's effect is relatively unique mana doublers aren't and there's plenty of cards like Prophet of Kruphix and Zendikar Resurgent that can act as copies 4-8 as needed. They all reward the same types of spells and effects and even if your X spells get slightly weaker it's offset by how much better your card draw/permission effects become. I'll also plug Plasm Capture and Spell Swindle because these decks have heavy incentive to field permission and so it's relevant to include ones that inherently fuel your powerful X spells and/or Nexus of Fates. I understand that that you can't go turn 4 Wilderness Reclamation into Plasm Capture on a 4-6 drop into casting a 20 drop of your own on turn 5 (the timing doesn't work out) but you don't need that in order to win. Still, this is one of the reasons why I really like Spell Swindle in the deck, since I can go turn 1 Utopia Sprawl, turn 2 Overgrowth, turn 3 Wilderness Reclamation, untap, Spell Swindle a 4-5 drop and then at my next EOT I basically have enough mana to Comet Storm for the win. You don't quite get there but it's closer than you think.
Finally, and I know that this mostly goes without saying but I'd also like to quickly highlight the fact that Wilderness Reclamation makes "spell lands" such as Arch of Orazca, Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, Kessig Wolf Run, Eye of Ugin and Primal Wellspring significantly more powerful than they already are. This is especially true once you have multiple in play at which point your land can often be netting your 2-3 additional cards per circuit and the mana needed to cast them. it starts to spiral wildly out of control if left unchecked so you do want to ensure that you're fielding some number of copies of them.
Grade: F
"Cumber Stones" are largely unplayable in multiplayer given that creature-based combat scales terribly with the increased number of adversaries. More players = more life + more blockers + more removal = more headaches. As such anyone flooding the board is (presumably) already planning to scale wildly over-the-top with finishers such as Craterhoof Behemoth which trivialize these types of defensive measures.
Grade: Niche C
In a deck full of Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorms, Impulses, Accumulated Knowledges, Cyclonic Rift, Capsizes, Engulf the Shores and Fact or Fictions this is a decent life + card advantage engine that will enable you to slowly grind your adversaries into submission. Moreover, I was to highlight its immense synergy with cost reducers such as Sapphire Medallion and The Immortal Sun which substantially increase its power-level. The card is marginally playable as-is but it well and truly shines when you're effectively playing a 2 CMC Zendikar Resurgent to pair alongside it. I wouldn't advocate playing the deck without Sapphire Medallion however since you may as well field something like Manifold Insights at that point and this unfortunately makes it a niche card at best.
Grade: Niche D
Wheels are incredibly high risk, high reward cards in multiplayer given that enable you to reliably assemble combos at the cost of providing your adversaries with a fresh grip of resources themselves. This makes them ideal in degenerate combo decks but largely unplayable in "fair" builds where your opponents are often the primary benefactors of the exchange. Emergency Powers is interesting in the sense that it's both "free" and "fast" assuming that you jam it at EOT, untap and go from there. Still, the fact that it costs 7 mana to cast coupled with the fact that it reshuffles your graveyard makes it extremely difficult to abuse. I don't expect it to see any play outside of janky Group Hug decks but there's always a chance that a free draw 7 could be broken enough to see play. If you could somehow cheat the manacost, drop a 7 CMC bomb into play and draw 7 cards that could easily swing an otherwise unwinninable game so there's always a chance that you'll see this played in a Dream Halls deck or something along those lines.
Speaking of Dream Halls...
Grade: Sideboard B/Niche B
Lavinia is extremely interesting since she, much like Teferi, is a hard lock assuming that you can get a Knowledge Pool/Omen Machine into play. This makes her an ideal Commander because not only is cheaper but she also enables you to add White cards like Enlightened Tutor to further bolster your combo consistency. She also makes Dream Hallss one-sided, hates on ramp (looking at you Cloudpost, Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, etc), denies free permission (Force of Will, Foil, Pact of Negation) and dumpsters things like Dread Return and Omniscience which tend to end games on the spot. While none of this is relevant enough to make her a generic playable she's a monstrous "sideboard" card and an absolute house in dedicated combo decks. Still, her best home is going to be EDH where all you need to do is dig/tutor/draw into Knowledge Pool for an easy win and unlike Teferi you gain access to White for things like Silence, Enlightened Tutor, Swords to Plowshares on and on and on.
Grade: C
3 CMC Red removal is always a tough sell given that we already have access to Chaos Warp which is cheap, easy to cast and hits everything. It's easily one of the strongest spot removal spells in the entire game and since you don't want to overload on those in multiplayer (2-4 copies tops) there's very little need for alternatives.Still, the effect is versatile making it a reasonable inclusion in any Rakdos build. Less is more when it comes to 1-for-1 trades in multiplayer so I recommend sticking to 1-2 copies at most but it fits the bill in a pinch assuming that you want a couple of cheap, interactive spells to flesh out your curves.
Grade: F
While "Puppeteer Cliques" gain a fair amount of value in multiplayer I'm not sold on the cost + upside that this one brings to the table. It feels more like a Threaten than an Animate Dead and so I can't think of a compelling reason to slot it into a deck.
Grade: F
Multiplayer isn't a beatdown format and when you think of this as a 5 CMC Burglar Rat you realize just how awful that the card actually is. Play The Eldest Reborn if you want a generically powerful 5 drop that disrupts your adversaries.
Grade: C
Thanos memes aside the newest iteration of Rakdos does a decent Titan impersonation given that he's a 6/6 Flample for 6 with a powerful ETB. Feel free to ignore the Demon/Imp/whatever line since it's wholly irrelevant and by no means should you think of him as a "lord." Treat him like any other random finisher and ramp him out early and often. The rest of your deck doesn't really matter since he could easily see play in Control, Ramp, Midrange, etc. Don't worry about preserving your own creatures either. Multiplayer is all about calculated risks which sometimes means going for the 50/50 flips.
Still, it's a shame that he competes directly with Sire of Insanity which (alongside Consecrated Sphinx) is one of the strongest multiplayer 6 drops in the game. Rakdos wins out in decks seeking to preserve their cards in hand but mass discard is harder to come by than removal and the random nature of Rakdos leads to unpredictable outcomes neither of which is ideal. I personally won't be acquiring Rakdos for these reasons (I even prefer Inferno Titan as well) but I do think that he's a reasonable playable assuming that you get bored of jamming Sire and Inferno-Daddy.
Grade: C
Multiplayer games are often lengthy and defensive which is the ideal home for "Phyrexian Arenas." After all, assuming that you can survive the tempo hit of taking the turn off to cast them they provide an obscene quantity of card advantage over time. Your adversaries can obviously remove/interact with them and the games have to go long enough for the extra cards to matter but assuming that you're expecting to play 12-15 turns of Magic they can draw upwards of 10 cards which is utterly absurd. Theater of Horrors is interesting in the sense that it enables aggro decks to keep pace with the rest of the field by doubling the quantity of cards that they have access to every turn. It's extremely difficult to reliably beat a table down and, much like we see with Experimental Frenzy, sometimes the best solution is to overwhelm everyone with card quantity when you know that you're going to be lacking in card quality. You also don't have to be playing a pure aggro deck or anything either but you'll want to reliable trigger Spectacle without using the activated ability since 4 mana for 1 damage is woefully underpowered and you'll fall too far behind if that's what you're spending your mana on.
Grade: Niche C
I've always liked having access to things like Ankh of Mishra and Pyrostatic Pillar for my burn decks since they provide me with excellent resilience against spot removal. What Cindervines lacks in raw power in gains in flexibility given that it can also be used to remove troublesome permanents in a pinch. 1 is significantly less than 2 so the trade-off isn't trivial but assuming that you were already going to play a "Hull Breach" type spell in your burn/aggro decks then this is a no-brainer. Green already has Keen Sense and Atarka's Command that it brings to traditional burn decks (Spear Spewer + Keen Sense etc) so the splash is already well worth it and I could easily see myself making room for 2 of these in my builds.
Grade: Niche B
Domri is a playable-yet-underwhelming Planeswalker in a vacuum but shines in Doubling Season decks where he can immediately pop his (game winning) ultimate. Assuming a 4 player game that's eight 4/4s every circuit which should close the game in short order. The card is extremely underwhelming otherwise and while I wouldn't fault someone for playing him there's no compelling reason to do so.
Grade: B
My hot take is that this card is busted. She seems absolutely bonkers to me since her drawback is being wildly overblown and the upside that she offers is unreal. After all, one of the most powerful aspects of Green decks is their ability to focus on toolbox enablers such as Green Sun's Zenith, Survival of the Fittest and Birthing Pod that enable you to play singletons of all relevant threats while still being able to consistently locate them as needed. As such it's mindlessly easy to add a single Nikya to your builds and still locate her as needed to fuel your powerful creatures and engines. Going from 5 to 12 is obscene and worst-case scenario you can just pump excess mana into something like Kessig Wolf Run to pummel your opposition. That being said ideally you'll want want to ramp out game-ending bombs (like Eldrazi) which you're probably already playing in your Green-based ramp shells. Otherwise pour that mana into expensive bombs, Duskwatch Recruiters and Biogenic Oozes and crush your adversaries with an insurmountable mana advantage.
Grade: C
Rhythm is another slam-dunk for Gruul since it's an easy 4-of in any creature-based deck. The card is pushed since it's essentially a combination of Fires of Yavimaya + Vexing Shusher + Gaea's Anthem and unlike any of those other cards it's not even weak in multiples. The second, third and fourth copies are all still useful which seems absurd to me. This makes it an ideal foil to Control since it turns off all of their permission and renders most Sorcery-based removal obsolete since you'll kill too quickly for it to matter. For example, if someone is holding a Damnation as their answer to your threats then your Inferno Titan is still going to bash for 12+ damage before succumbing. Things like Dragonlord Atarka are similar since you clear a blocker and immediately swing for 8 and it's nuts with Ruric Thar, the Unbowed since Ruric gets to come down (ignoring permission), swing for 6 and then even if people kill him they still take another 6. Lastly, you don't have to do anything special for this card to be good other than play creatures. Ideally you'll want to curve it off of a turn 1 Elf and into a turn 4 bomb like Oracle of Mul Daya or Ramunap Excavator but even that isn't required to make the card obscenely powerful.
Grade: C
The combination of "reasonable body" plus "lifegain" plus "AOE discard" means that there's enough going on for me to like this card. It pairs well with things like Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire and it's also perfect for decks seeking to curve Burglar Rat into Liliana's Specter into Syphon Mind into The Eldest Reborn. Double Black is also nice for Gray Merchant of Asphodel and since your deck will have a ton of lifegain at that point you can easily afford to field powerful draw spells such as Necropotence and Necrologia to abuse it. It's also great in Blink decks if you feel like whipping out your Panharmonicons and Restoration Angels so there's no shortage of ways to abuse the thing.
Grade: C
As a lover of both Night of Souls' Betrayal and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I'm kinda digging this card in token/swarm decks. A permanent "+2/+2" is an enormous swing and the fact that it keeps most tokens/dorks at bay goes a long way to grinding people out. It's also decent at hosing graveyard-based decks and a swarm of 2/2 fliers is nothing to shake a stick at. The card is ultimately too expensive and fair to experience any breakout success but it's a spicy little 1-of for your Orzhov builds.
Grade: F
Too expensive, the ETB trigger is too weak and the body isn't relevant enough to matter.
Grade: C+
Wraths are fantastic in multiplayer since they scale amazing well with the increased player count and efficiently deal with all opposing threats. Any Control deck can confidently play 4-8 (especially if they have 2 CMC rocks such as Orzhov Signet to power them out) since that can enable them to reliably clear the board without spewing card advantage on 1-for-1 trades. This one is relatively difficult to cast but does offer a minor bonus if/when you nuke your own critters. I'll always defer to something like Sublime Exhalation because the risk of being unable to cast your removal vastly outweighs the minor upside of gaining life but 4 CMC Wraths are always going to solid playables and the reality is that people can and should "play what they own" rather than worry about tiny optimizations such as these.
Grade: Niche C+
I'm a huge proponent of doubling effects in multiplayer since you typically need to be doing wildly unfair things in order to reliably secure wins and most cards are too innately fair to compete. For example, I've found Panharmonicon to be stellar in ETB decks since it pushes the power level of your critters over-the-top of what your adversaries are doing. I expect Teysa to perform similarly in "death matters" decks that feature cards like Skullclamp, Stitcher's Supplier, Zulaport Cutthroat, Boreas Charger, Pawn of Ulamog, Pitiless Plunderer, Grave Pact, Reef Worm, Mitotic Slime, Dictate of Erebos, Martyr's Bond etc. After all, Skullclamping into 4 cards for 1 mana isn't remotely reasonable, especially if you happen to have a card like Pitiless Plunderer in play. Throw in a Gravecrawler and now you can draw your entire deck and/or kill everyone with a Zulaport Cutthroat. Grave Pact also starts to feel oppressive for creature-based decks to play against given that it becomes virtually impossible to stick threats at that point. With respect to her token clause, it may occasionally come in handy for things like Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls which frequently work their way into Skullclamp decks. All-in-all she's a perfect fit for the archetype and I expect her to see a ton of play moving forward.
Grade: Niche B
I'm extremely excited to see a creature-based version of Training Grounds (TG) since it's going to open tons of new doors for Simic. The fact that it's a creature means that it's fetchable with all of Green's tutors and since most TG decks are going to include 4x Duskwatch Recruiter it's relevant that you're now able to dig into your entire combo as needed. These decks often win by paring things like Eldrazi Displacer with Eyeless Watcher to generate infinite stuff but you can also "fair" the table out with a slew of Jade Mages and Tasigur, the Golden Fangs as well. After all, Jade Mage starts to feel rather degenerate when it's churning out tokens for a single mana and Eldrazi Displacer can blank countless attackers/blockers as needed to buy time. It's still an extremely niche card since you need to playing with a specific set of cards to abuse it but it's impact is unquestionable once you have a critical mass of activated abilities.
Grade: D+
I'm not especially high on Mystic Snake in a vacuum since I tend to prefer things like Plasm Capture and Cryptic Command instead. After all, I don't typically need the body for anything and paying for 4 mana for a permission spell is a tough sell. That being said I adore these types of threats in Prophet of Kruphix decks since it's important to have mana sinks such as Duskwatch Recruiter and enchantments such as Opposition so you're highly incentivized to field as many creatures as possible. People either cast spells and have them countered or they pass at which point you dig into more Mystic Snakes and continue to tap down their lands on upkeep with Opposition. It's a lose-lose scenario either way and eventually you have enough creatures to turn Opposition into Stasis to secure the win. They're also great with Survival of the Fittest type spells since having access to a tutorable Counterspell can be invaluable in the later stages of the game and I'm a big fan of them in Cloudstone Curio decks as well since you can keep cycling them with each other to counter every relevant threat played by your opposition. Prophet of Kruphix comes in handy here once again since that's an extremely mana-intensive combo so it's nice to have access to all of your mana each turn to prevent anything relevant from resolving. Lastly, the card is "fine" as a generic playable and I wouldn't fault anyone for including them in generic Simir builds. Ramp, control, midrange, it's playable in anything really. Still, I want to stress that a 3/2 for 4 isn't much of a threat in multiplayer so you should focus on abusing unfair interactions as much as possible rather than concern yourself with marginal beaters.
Grade: C
This card is comparable to Explore given that it's hardest to cast and has more restrictions (it's not an extra land drop; you must immediately put it into play) but has the upside of being an instant. I like these cards because they cycle (whereas Rampant Growths don't) which makes them stronger topdecks in the later stages of the game when you're hurting for action but the downside is that you need lands in hand to turn them into ramp which is why you'll want to pair them with Bouncelands as much as possible. For example, a 4x Explore + 4x Growth Spiral deck should strongly consider playing 8-10 of them even if they're off-color ones like Gruul Turf. That way you can reliably take advantage of both modes since a turn 2 Explore doesn't accomplish anything relevant unless you have 4 lands to play by turn 3.
The reason why these cards don't grades higher than a C is because even in decks that can abuse them they're not especially abusable. Burgeoning and Summer Bloom are many orders of magnitude more powerful by comparison and so if you're going to be fielding a whack of Bouncelands you may as well be putting 5 mana into play on turn 2 as opposed to 4 mana into play for turn 3. More mana faster = no brainer decision. This makes them fine for budget builds but the best versions of these decks have no incentive to field them over Burgeoning.
Grade: C+
This card is obviously good and obviously pushed but I want to stress that it's not going to be the "be all end all" in multiplayer. When I look at this card I see a (baseline) 6 mana 4/4 Flample that gains 2 life, draws 2 cards and that hoses Counterspell decks like no other. That's strong, but it's no Recurring Insight, Consecrated Sphinx or Primeval Titan. Still, I like how the card is playable at 4 CMC because even if it's "bad" it still "better than nothing" which is sometimes your alternative. Recurring Insight might win more games when it resolves but that "when it resolves" is irrelevant if you lose with a bunch of 6-8 mana spells rotting in your hand. Beyond that the card scales well as the game progresses and I've routinely seen these jammed at X>=10 in decks that don't even have much in the way of ramp. This is because the card plays similar to Sphinx's Revelation in the sense that the first fuels the second and the second fuels the third etc. It draws you into more lands, gain you some life, clogs up the board, on and on and on. This combination of "playable early" + "fine in the midgame" + "strong in the lategame" + "good in multiples" means the card could reasonably be played in any numbers in any Simic midrange/ramp shell. Heck, you can even splash because you want want to be jamming them early regardless and the color requirements are negligible. So go wild slotting these into Gruul decks or whatever because Flample + Kessig Wolf Run is a beastly combination.
What I will stress is that this card isn't much better than a "solid playable." This is because it doesn't do anything broken which is the cost of playing with a spell that's (basically) always decent. This means that the person who curves Recurring Insight into Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth is going to stomp you each and every time because they're doing legitimately unfair things with their cards. You'll have fewer "nongames" where you die with your 6+ CMC bombs rotting in your hand but assuming that you both make your land drops and cast your ramp spells then you're going to get stomped.
The card is good, I'm not trying to make it sound awful or anything, but there are significantly stronger things to be doing in Simic once you get to 6+ mana and so I don't want people to see this card crushing in Standard and assume that that's how it'll function in multiplayer as well.
Grade: C
3 CMC spot removal in Green is always a tough sell given that Beast Within has been a multiplayer staple since its inception. The fact that it hits anything at instant-speed for only 3 mana is bonkers and so it obsoletes most of the alternatives. Incubation // Incongruity is legitimately worth discussing though since it brings some relevant upsides to the table. First and foremost, the card is never "dead" since you can cycle it away into a creature as needed. This is extremely relevant since spot removal "flooding" is a very real possibility in multiplayer given the inefficient nature of 1-for-1 trades. I'm fine drawing 1-2 Beast Withins in an average game but I'll never want to see 3 in my top 14 cards or anything. The fact that I can trade this in for a threat is a massive boon and makes it significantly easier to justify playing more than a handful of spot removal spells. Moreover, exiling is becoming increasingly relevant as the game evolves. Reanimate, Zulaport Cutthroat, Eternal Witness, Arena Rector, Grave Pact, Blightsteel Colossus, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, the list goes on and on of cards that abuse graveyards, abuse death triggers, ignore destroy effect and more. Where traditional removal fails "Swords to Plowshares" shines given that it permanently deals the worst offenders. Now, by no means do I think that Incubation // Incongruity will totally supplant Beast Within since it only hits critters and losing that "catch all" flexibility is a significant blow. Still, I could envision myself playing a 2-2 split to avoid flooding out of the effect and giving myself outs to resilient threats such as Eldrazi. I see it as a more of a 1-2 of to pair alongside other removal as opposed to something that you'd want to run 3-4 of.
Grade: A+
This card is utterly insane and will revolutionize the way that Temur Twin decks are built. As we've already seen with Birthing Pod these lists abuse untappers such as Scryb Ranger and Deceiver Exarch in order to climb up the chain and combo off with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker kill that wipes out any number of adversaries. After all, Kiki + any untapper or Blinker produces an arbitrarily large number of attackers and since there's untappers at every point on the CMC curve you only need to untap with a single creatures that costs 1 or more mana in order to immediately kill any number of opposing players. Moreover, these decks aren't reliant on Vannifar/Pod to kill because you can always backdoor into Splinter Twin combos since that card also works with any untapper. EOT you can jam a Bounding Krasis, untap and Splinter Twin it for an easy win. What makes Vannifar so appealing for these lists is that it's significantly easier to abuse creatures than it is Enchantments. This is because you can Summoner's Pact, Green Sun's Zenith, Shallow Grave, Goryo's Vengeance, Chord of Calling, etc. a creature into play whereas there's fewer ways to abuse Enchantments. This brings an incredibly degree of resilience and consistency to these builds because it provides you with throngs of ways to locate + activate your 1-card kill.
Moreover, this card is still insane outside of combo decks. After all, there's nothing wrong with initiating a chain such as Birds of Paradise -> Primal Druid -> Eternal Witness -> Aura Thief - >Peregrine Drake -> Primeval Titan -> Sylvan Primordial -> Sundering Titan and things along those lines. This makes her an ideal inclusion in midrange value decks, especially ones that are already abusing things like Evolutionary Leap, Recurring Nightmare, Eldritch Evolution, Birthing Pod, etc. At that point you can focus entirely on ETB/death triggers and have plenty of ways to abuse them. Still, by no means do you have to build your deck entirely around Vannifar because any deck that curves up to 7+ will probably be able to abuse her in some capacity. Trading creatures up is always relevant even if you're not getting absurd "death" value by binning things like Aura Thief.
Grade: Niche B
This will be a stellar addition to the "counters matter" archetypes that includes things like Hardened Scales, Mold Adder, Winding Constrictor, Hangarback Walker, Scavenging Ooze, Managorger Hydra, Forgotten Ancient and Walking Ballista. Not only is it extremely cheap to cast but it also means that you don't have to swing at anyone to win the game. This means that you can sit back on D, put yourself at zero risk whatsoever and still have an easy turn 6 win without doing anything special. Even if it gets removed, no big deal, it's not like there's any significant cost to running or casting it. The card itself only costs 2 mana and it's not as though you're going out of your way to support it. The deck was already solid pre-Simic Ascendancy and it still functions fine without it. This makes it a low-risk, high-reward 2 drop that will earn a ton of free wins when left unchecked.
Grade: Niche D
Sphinx curves nicely into Coalition Victory and is significantly less susceptible to interaction than Transguild Courier is given that you can't snipe it response with a removal spell. It's still not a great deck by any means but prior you were basically drawing dead if your Transguild Courier was neutralized by a Swords to Plowshares (or whatever) while your Coalition Victory was on the stack which isn't a concern when your key threat shugs off most spot removal.
Grade: Niche D
At 5 CMC I can't think of anything worthwhile to do with this card. After all, you'd have to cast ~4 spells and tap it 2-3 times to get your money's worth which seems like a big ask to me. Even in decks that pair cantrips like Manamorphose and Discovery // Dispersal with Dovin's Acuity or Disinformation Campaign you'd still have to sandbag them until you jammed this first which makes it significantly less appealing given that you want to be slamming those early and often to smooth your draw. I posted a sample Hero of Precinct One "multicolor" deck here that could conceivably play something like Tome of the Guildpact but even then I couldn't envision cutting anything to make room for it.
Grade: A
"Shock Lands" is one of the most powerful land cycles in the entire game and is only surpassed by Fetchlands and ABUR Duals in terms of raw power. After all, not only do they ETB untapped and tap for multiple colors but they're also Fetchable given that they possess basic land tags. Many cards such as Misty Rainforest, Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim and Sylvan Primordial only state "Forest" (as opposed to "basic Forest") so you can happily nab these instead. The fact that you have to take 2 to play them untapped is obviously a slight drawback (and that's why they're below ABUR duals) but I'll stress that it's basically irrelevant in multiplayer. Aggro is significantly less competitive when you're tasked to defeat multiple adversaries and you're often playing high HP formats such as 2HG and EDH that give you a sizable health buffer to work with. You also have the option of playing them as "Guildgates" if you don't need the mana immediately and they'll never dome you for 6+ damage when drawn in multiples like Painlands and Mana Confluence can. They're eternal staples that will be played until the game's eventual demise making them one of the single greatest investments that you could possibly make. True duals aside there's nothing better than a mix of Fetches and Shocks (and random goodies like Exotic Orchard and Battle Lands) so from a pure cost-to-benefit ratio you can't argue with the sheer value that Shocks bring to your collection.
Ravnica Allegiance is one of the most influential multiplayer sets ever printed and will have a dramatic impact on the overall landscape of its formats. After all, Shock Lands (alongside Fetches) are one of the single best investments that any player can make and should always be prioritized by players who're still missing key copies of relevant Shocks (i.e. Shocks for colors that they routinely play). Moreover, it brought us a slew of bombs that figure to see competitive play for years to come. Spear Spewer, Verity Circle, Smothering Tithe and more are utterly absurd and I cannot wait to get my hands on them. In addition, as we saw with Guilds of Ravnica RNA brought forth a throng of staples for the various 2-color guilds. In fact, the only color that didn't get something absurd was "mono Black" since every other mono color and 2-color guild got at least one relevant addition to their roster. I'm excited to continue building and playing around RNA and I laud Wizards for blowing this one out of the park.
Top 10 Cards in the Set:
1. Shocks
2. Smothering Tithe
3. Prime Speaker Vannifar
4. Spear Spewer
5. Verity Circle
6. Teysa Karlov
7. Nikya of the Old Ways
8. Rampage of the Clans
9. Priest of Forgotten Gods
10. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Overall Set Grade: 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
Also let me now if there's any other cards that you'd like to see reviewed in the colors that I've already completed. They probably wouldn't be getting a grade higher than a D though.
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
Maybe not too many (affordable) supercards but with my collection that is no surprise.
Thanks! And looking forward to the rest of it, just like the previous reactee.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Aren't all of of the good cards super cheap? Off of the top of my head:
Smothering Tithe
Verity Circle
Priest of Forgotten Gods
Spear Spewer
Rampage of the Clans
Wilderness Reclamation
I'll add an entry for it.
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
Please tell me Rhythm of the Wild is getting a nod in multicolor, though... it's been insane for me in just about every format I've tried it in so far.
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
Of those I bought the priest.
The Tithe is on my list but for me not worth the 4 to 5 euro it’s currently at.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Just read it, thank you. I was thinking along the same lines but wasn't sure if I'd overlooked anything. Looking forward to the rest of the review.
Open the Gates, like most other "Lay of the Lands," is too slow and awkward for most decks/draws. You have to think of them as ETB lands with additional drawbacks (you need Green mana, you need at least 1 real land, etc) so unless the card does something extra the effect isn't playable. We see cards like Flower // Flourish and Attune with Aether played because they're virtual ETB lands with relevant upside but unless you have that "relevant upside" bonus it's not worth the slot over lands, ramp, etc.
Regenesis isn't bad per say but it's also not good. After all, you need multiple relevant permanents to recur, you need to be willing to pay 5 mana to get them back and you need to justify fielding this card over throngs of alternatives such as Harmonize, Nissa, Vital Force, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Lurking Predators on and on and on. Moreover, even if you're looking for recursion you're still better off fielding creatures such as Eternal Witness because Green can tutor for/manipulate creatures significantly easier. You also can't recur game-ending bombs such as Genesis Wave and Tooth and Nail which are often the key targets that you're seeking to buy back.
Of course. Although, the card is weaker than I originally thought. It's still good, but it's not insane.
Wow I assumed that the card would be free. Guess I'm not the only one who loves this card.
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
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
A bit harsh on Sphinx of Foresight. I'm sure we all had games that we wouldn't have lost if we had a 4/4 flyer for 4 that scried on upkeep.
Exactly this. There's no compelling scenario where you'd want a dorky 4 drop and degenerate combo decks have superior options at their disposal.
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 wouldn't even rate a 4 mana 4/4 flier that Scrys 1 on upkeep so it wouldn't even get an F. The only compelling argument to field this card (IMO obviously) is as a Serum Powder but I think that it's a "weak card that shouldn't be played" in combo decks hence the rating. Essentially, I don't think that anyone should consider playing it in multiplayer for any reason.
I'll stress that I like 0 drops a lot. 2 of my most played cards are 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Gemstone Caverns. 4x Gemstone Caverns I play in virtually 100% of my builds (I just remove them when I post my decklists on here). So I have nothing against 0 drops in general because I think they're obscene. I just personally believe that this one isn't worth running.
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
Personally since you like to showcase decks, I find it valuable to see budget and non budget builds. Not because I am lazy but because every once in awhile I have that "I didn't realize that was even a card" moment.
The audience around here seems to be part budget and part anything goes