I was like "damn this card could be sweet in wanderer. Basically makes your team unblockable and can go infinite with food chain"
then I realized its color identity is BUG...
edit: then i realized that because its ability isn't casting it, I wouldn't be able to spend food chain'd mana to get it back anyway, so... guess it's not so bad that I can't put it in here?
Full fate reforged spoilers are out and here are the cards that even remotely interest me for this deck...
- Shaman of the great hunt. A 4-drop that doesn't ramp, but the draw effect has potential. I guess slowly growing the army isn't irrelevant but it seems much worse than the draw effect.
- Frontier Siege. Dragons is irrelevant but Khans isn't totally useless. It adds GG on both main phases, it's not a mana dork or mana rock, and it doesn't interfere with primal surge. There are probably better options though.
- Shamanic Revelation. Likely won't play it but it's something.
- Temur Sabertooth. Basically a 4-mana creature that says "1G: Bounce wanderer to your hand". Sounds like it'll usually be worse than the bounce engines already in the deck (Crystal Shard, Equilibrium, Cloudstone Curio) but there's some potential.
- Yasova Dragonclaw. Likely won't play it but it's something.
I wish manifest could work with any nonland card type and not just creatures (I say nonland because flipping over lands for 0 could get dumb). It would be interesting to manifest, say, a time warp, then flip it over for 3UU and cast it.
In general this isn't a favorable set for Wanderer. Morph and rebound interact poorly with cascade. Dash is kinda pointless when Wanderer gives the team haste and none of the dash creatures are that interesting anyway. Exploit isn't great because wanderer doesn't often have expendable bodies. A bunch of cards care about dragons but this deck has almost none. Formidable has some potential because wanderer provides 7 power so any other dude turns it on, but alot of the formidable costs are too expensive. Bolster has some potential because it pumps up mana dorks, but before wanderer is in play I'd rather have my mana dorks tap for mana, and even after wanderer is in play my mana dorks usually are making mana unless I have nothing else to do.
In any case...
no monoblue or monored cards catch my eye Shaman of Forgotten Ways - Probably worse than somberwald sage but there's slight potential. Likely won't play it but it's worth keeping in mind. Dragonlord Atarka - This actually I think is worth considering. It's obviously compared to Bogardan Hellkite, except for some major differences in favor of Atarka. It can be cascaded into since it's 7 mana and not 8, it has trample, and it's an 8/8 instead of a 5/5. No flash hurts a little but flash doesn't really matter when it's being cascaded into. The fact that the damage can't be split to players doesn't seem significant since the 5 damage is often killing creatures and walkers anyway. Sarkhan Unbroken - Meh, but I just want to mention him becuase I do think he'll be good in standard (since he's basically a 5-mana broodmate dragon that needs to survive a turn to get the 2nd dragon out), but not in EDH. 4/4 dragons are not a big deal in EDH and the +1 is meh for 5 mana.
Seedborne Muse needs more instants or flash enablers to really shine.
Purphoros only belongs in token builds, and having only avenger isn't enough. There's no point in having Purphoros make surge stronger because primal surge should end the game anyway.
After taking a quick look at the origins spoilers, only a handful of cards catch my eye and they're likely not even going into this build. In fact most cards listed here are mostly out of spite and showing how *****ty origins is. It's like wizards purposely made the last core set bad so people will be like "yeah core sets are *****ty I'm glad wizards discontinued them!"
Alhammarret, High Arbiter - When I first read this card, I thought you named a nonland card for each opponent, so in a 4-way FFA, you'd name 3 different cards. I thought that was insane, but at 7mana sounds cool. Nope. It's a 7-mana meddling mage. So it's basically unplayable and I only listed it here because origins is a pretty *****ty set and this is one reason why.
Displacement Wave - Unplayable in wanderer, but just pointing it out that this card has potential in normal blue decks. I don't like cyclonic rift because I think it's kinda close to being broken in EDH and I stay away from it, and this is like a nerfed rift. Since it's sorcery I probably wouldn't play this over something like Devastation Tide but I don't want to write off this card yet.
Talent of the Telepath - This is basically a weaker but lower CMC version of Knowledge Exploitation. Wanderer probably would rather play the latter since cascading into it makes the CMC not matter, but you can do dorky value stuff with this.
Chandra's Ignition - The idea is taht if wanderer or any fatty is in play, it's basically duneblast plus nuking each opponent for 7. However it's way too unreliable since cascading into this is risky, especially early on where you may not have a big creature to target (or any creature at all), plus it gets countered hard by a removal spell unlike duneblast (obviously duneblast can't be played in wanderer but that's beside the point).
Nissa, Vastwood Seer - Getting only basic forests kills this card. I don't know why they didn't let you get any basic land, or get any old forest so you could get a shockland or ABU dual. It's not like borderland ranger is that playable so does it really matter if a planeswalker is a strict upgrade over a mediocre card? The flip side is not that great either, since making legendary vanilla 4/4s is whatever and getting a coiling oracle effect is fine, but with requiring 7 lands in play, that comes veyr late.
Nissa's Pilgrimage - Getting only basic forests really kills this card and makes it difficult to play in anything other than monogreen and G/x builds since this cannot color fix you and makes it worse than cultivate and kodama's reach. Even with spell mastery this only "draws" you an additional basic forest which is meh. I'm merely listing it since, again, this is a strict upgrade over cultivate and kodama's reach in monogreen and is viable in G/x.
Nissa's Revelation - Only worth considering since it's 7 mana, but I can't imagine hardcasting this often. This might be more useful in a mayael build that stuffs more fatties since even with scry 5 it can be hard to hit a 5+ power creature (which is what you'd need to hit to even remotely get 7-mana worth). I don't want to do the math behind it, but just that this card has some potential in EDH, but likely won't be in here.
Woodland Bellower - First of all this card shouldn't be mythic since it doesn't feel mythic at all. In any case, fetching out an eternal witness is value, but if it's an early cascade there likely won't be much in the graveyard worth getting back so you'd get a wood elves or fauna shaman or something instead. I probably won't play it in this build but maybe some kind of elves deck that has a lot more utility dorks may find use in this. Creatures that tutor for something when they ETB are always worth considering. I don't know why they had to make it "nonlegendary green creature" though.
Sword of the Animist - Won't be in here since there aren't enough dorky low CMC creatures where I want to strap this to (most of the low CMC creatures are mana dorks or are things like Fauna Shaman that I don't want attacking anyway). The effect is interesting though, since it's a nongreen way to get some land ramp going and the mana costs aren't outrageous. However if you're green I'd rather go with the reliable land fetching options, and at only a +1/+1 boost, your creatures might be swinging into a brick wall and dying.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - A 10-mana creature that does double Utter End that can also nuke lands is interesting. Not sure if it's an upgrade to the original Ulamog since Annihilator 4 is also really good, but this Ulamog costs 1 less and exiles 2 permanents instead of destroying 1. Shuffling your graveyard into your library when the old Ulamog hit your graveyard has its ups and downs though. I don't think it'll be in this deck, but he's something to watch out for.
Void Winnower - This card is just so goofy it's something to watch out for.
Oblivion Sower - Ingest isn't gonna be a real mechanic for EDH, but Delve will, and if people get greedy with their Delve cards and pack fetchlands, this can be interesting (albeit unreliable) ramp. My guess is that this will see very limited play but it is an interesting effect so you should watch out for it.
Part the Waterveil - Wizards has been making extra turn cards exile themselves upon casting recently, which makes them pretty junk in EDH when Time Warp is still the standard at which these cards should measure themselves. However, for something like Narset, Enlightened Master who wants all the extra turn cards they can get their hands on, you should just keep an eye out for it. With every extra turn effect wizards' prints, Narset's laugh gets louder and more obnoxious.
Defiant Bloodlord - Not for this build, but for decks like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, it's a second Sanguine Bond. This is probably worse than said Sanguine Bond though. This card is seriously missing lifelink, wth wizards.
Dragonmaster Outcast - I don't really care about this card, but SERIOUSLY wizards, you're reprinting this as a mythic? get your ***** together and fire the guy who thought this was a good idea. At least Felidar Sovereign is getting reprinted in this set as a rare. Do you know how annoyed people will be when they open this as their mythic?
Zada, Hedron Grinder - This won't be going in any of my decks, but there's a lot of untapped potential in this card, so you should be on the lookout for any decks that use this guy. It's kinda like Precursor Golem except it only triggers on your instants and sorceries and only affects your creatures, so it's easier to control and seems less likely to backfire.
From Beyond - This is worse than Awakening Zone when it comes to generating mana, but this does have a nice upside in that it can sac itself to tutor for an Eldrazi when you don't need the mana. Obviously you'll need useful Eldrazi in the deck, and there probably won't be any in wanderer given that I want most of my cards to be 7 or less CMC (and there aren't many useful Eldrazi at that CMC), but it's worth noting.
Greenwarden of Murasa - Eternal Witness' big daddy. I definitely will be thinking about this card. It exiles itself if you want the regrowth effect when it dies (for balance issues, thnx wizards) but it is a "may" trigger which is nice. Probably would've been better if it had 2 or less power (hi Reveillark) but a 5/4 isn't awful either. I don't think I'll play it in Wanderer given that the deck isn't really big about graveyard recursion (I think Eternal Witness by herself is enough), but don't be surprised if this becomes a staple in your standard green decks.
Nissa's Renewal - I'm not sure if I'll play this. 6-mana is asking for a lot when there are cards like and Mana Reflection and Boundless Realms hovering around that mana cost, and this interferes with primal surge. But just keep an eye out for it.
Bring to light - It's not playable here because this will only find 3 CMC or less, and it also only gets creatures, instants, or sorceries, so no Birthing Pod, which is a shame. But 5-color decks could be interested in this.
Brutal Expulsion - Bouncing a spell is similar to Venser, Shaper Savant and that can be an underrated effect (bounce a Supreme Verdict, for example). You then can smack something else, and it exiles instead of putting in the graveyard. I won't play it because it interferes with Primal Surge, but this is pretty good value for Izzet or URx decks.
Kiora, Master of the Depths - I compared this card to Garruk Wildspeaker. If you've got a mana dork in play, her +1 is basically the same as Garruk (usually giving +2 mana). But her -2 gives creature AND/OR land card which is pretty nice, and then it fills your graveyard for more goodies later. This is pretty good value at 4-mana. Not sure if I'll play it, but keep an eye out for her.
Omnath, Locus of Rage - Play this, play a fetchland, and you get 3 5/5s in play that each bolt something when they die. That can be pretty scary. This can be awkward to cascade into, given that I'm usually playing the land before casting wanderer, so it can be hard to get the immediate value. There are also a handful of strong 7-drops like Balefire Dragon and Dragonlord Atarka, so we'll have to see.
Aligned Hedron Network - Most builds would rather play a normal sweeper (especially since when this leaves the battlefield the creatures come back), and I don't think I want this anyway, but there are scenarios where you may want this instead. If your build is mostly based around small creatures, this can pinpoint bigger problems. It's hard to say, but again, it's a fairly unique effect.
Hedron Archive - The third of the three little bears and Goldilocks. Mind Stone is tiny, Dreamstone Hedron is huge, this is juuuust right... maybe not, but I just thought it was an appropriate card for wizards to print.
Blighted Woodland - Lands that always ramp are interesting. This is worse than Myriad Landscape and Krosan Verge though, given that they're only 2 mana and sac to crack, while this is 4 mana and sac to crack. Still, it does come into play untapped. I wouldn't write this off.
Sanctum of Ugin - Lands that can tutor for something are interesting. Given that this activates when you cast a 7+ colorless spell, chances are at that point you don't need mana, but you may want a big mana Eldrazi, and it's a "may" so you don't need to crack it anyway.
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
This is a pretty long review, as basically all of the cards here were designed for EDH and thus worth talking about (as opposed to your standard set where maybe 10% of the new cards have multiplayer applications). Still, I don't actually cover every card as there are pretty obvious ones that have no place in EDH (e.g. Herald of the Host). This review mostly goes over the rares and a few of the uncommons.
****Aethersnatch - Strictly better than Spelljack. First, this simply gains control of the spell, so it gets around uncounterable things. Second, spelljack recasts the spell for 0 mana so things like Genesis Wave give you no value, while this keeps the X-value. Third, this is 4UU to 3UUU, so it's slightly easier to cast. Seems like an interesting card, but 6-mana is always tough. Also, it doesn't cascade very well.
**Gigantoplasm - I'm not a fan of clones that just can get big P/T. Like, I would rather run Clever Impersonater or Phyrexian Metamorph than this card for their flexibility, and there are only so many clones you can run.
**Illusory Ambusher - In budget builds this is janky but funny. 4-power can kill a decent amount of ground creatures and then you can draw a bunch of cards, at 5-mana with flash.
***Mirror Match - It's like a one-sided fog, sorta, but you can also get ETB effects and death triggers. 6-mana is a lot, but in budget builds this can be a solid goodstuff card to play.
****Mystic Confluence - This Confluence in the cycle interests me the most. The white, red, and green confluences all have at least 1 mode that I can't see myself ever using, while I can foresee myself getting good mileage on all 3 modes here. For starters, it's strictly better than Jace's Ingenuity although that's not saying much. Note that you can use the Mana Leak mode on different spells, so if people are spellslinging all over the place you can just give a big middle finger to a bunch of people if you feel like it. Unsummon is a powerful effect and can be a big blowout. Ultimately this does a pretty good Cryptic Command impersonation. I still like Cryptic more, but Cryptic is dumb as hell so I think this card will still see good play, especially if you can't afford Cryptic. The counter mode doesn't work well with cascade, unfortunately.
****Synthetic Destiny - At first I didn't know what was the point of this card when Mass Polymorph exists until I saw that this is an instant, and that the creatures you get are at the end step and not immediately. So not only can you do silly shenanigans with it (cheat in Kozilek or Ulamog end of turn), but it's also wrath protection too in a way, as the creatures don't ETB until at the end step. There's a lot of potential here. But again, 6-mana is a lot.
*Awaken the Sky Tyrant - See Daxos' Torment, with the drawback that this isn't even that good in enchantress decks (not like red builds lend themselves to enchantress builds in the first place).
**Dream Pillager - This can technically draw you cards when its attack connects with a player, but I feel like there are quite a few dragons in the 6-8 mana slot that have card-advantage mechanics built into them that you don't need this guy to literally draw you cards (Balefire Dragon, Bogardan Hellkite, Ancient Hellkite, Hellkite Charger, etc.). And I rag about P/T not being very relevant, but a 7-mana 4/4 is pretty embarrassing. At least the aforementioned dragons are better at blocking.
**Fiery Confluence - Dealing damage to opponents is irrelevant outside of pinging opposing planeswalkers, so it's a scale-your-own Pyroclasm and can shatter things otherwise. Seems fine.
***Rite of the Raging Storm - This can cause quite a bit of chaos. Thankfully the tokens can't attack you (this card would be almost unplayable otherwise), and presumably this will smack people for a lot of damage over the course of the game as people swing in their 5/1 hasty tramplers with no care, and it's not like 5-power is easy to block (1 toughness is easy to ping though).
***Arachnogenesis - Similar card to Mirror Match in that its big function is as a fog. It is a weaker effect obviously as it's 3 mana and not 6. However you keep these spiders around after combat, so I can see this being playable in token decks, especially if you foresee yourself going up against other token decks.
****Bloodspore Thrinax - In token decks this can make things get out of control quickly. However it's awkward in Prossh, as Prossh generally makes the tokens in one big wave and it can be difficult to make a new wave of tokens without recasting Prossh.
**Centaur Vinecrasher - Just a beater. You can get a little value from the recursion, but meh.
**Ezuri's Predation - I'm not sure how I feel about this card. Basically, this card will kill all X/4s and do nothing against X/5s, and if X < 4 you keep the beast that would fight it. I guess monogreen can't be picky when it comes to "sweepers", but 8-mana is so much. Something that could give your creatures even +1 or +2 more power can really hurt opponents as that's when you can start killing dragons and almost anything that isn't indestructible (also a nice note is that this gets around hexproof). Also you can't cascade into this.
**Great Oak Guardian - Nice combat trick, though 6-mana is a lot. You can play some politics though as you can target any player. Help a player block out of nowhere, or help a player kill out of nowhere.
****Pathbreaker Ibex - It's a smaller, haste-less Craterhoof Behemoth. The cool part about this card is that it pumps power based on the greatest power among creatures you control, not this card's own power, which means this can really get out of control. In particular, Wanderer gives it haste, and with wanderer swinging in too, that's a minimum +7/+7 to the team... The only issue with the card, besides being 6-mana, is that it's a horrible blocker, and unlike Cratheroof it doesn't have haste so it is more easily telegraphed.
**Skullwinder - It's Eternal Witness if Witness gained deathtouch but gave an opponent the best card in his graveyard, which is generally a losing trade. I guess if you can keep an opponent without a graveyard then maybe, but that seems like a lot of work. However there are political aspects, maybe you actually want an opponent to get a good card back for whatever reason. Seems tricky to use.
**Verdant Confluence - Not sure how often you'll use the rampant growth effect as you are already at 6-mana when you cast this. Regardless, seems okay, if a bit underwhelming.
The multicolor Temur cards could see play as generals, but I don't think they'll have any use as part of the 99 in Wanderer.
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
You can see my Progenitus topic to see my opinions on most of the cards in the set. Here I will talk specifically about cards that I would remotely consider for Wanderer.
***Kozilek, the Great Distortion - 10-mana is certainly alot. Regardless, going back up to 7 cards is very good, and being able to counter for 0 mana is nice, and the fact that you go back up to 7 cards synergizes well with that. The menace ability is whatever as by the time he comes down, players will likely have a bunch of creatures they can throw away to block him, plus he's not indestructible so he can actually get killed by twelve 1/1 squirrels. The fact that he requires colorless mana isn't a big deal because Wanderer has plenty of colorless mana rocks, and drawing up to 7 is nice because Wanderer tends to dump their hand really fast due to the density of ramp spells required. It can't be cascaded into and gives a lot less value if it's cheated into play, but this card does have potential.
**Endbringer - A value card that is legal for all decks, but may not have enough of an impact. It's a 6-mana up-front investment and its useful abilities cost mana. Still it's not unplayable for a top-end of a curve.
**Crush of Tentacles - Blue sweepers will always be worth considering, even if they don't hold a candle to Cyclonic Rift. Whether or not it's better than something like Evacuation or Devastation Tide, I'm not sure. The Surge cost can be awkward to cast, because if you're casting a permanent spell then there's a pretty good chance it's just going to get unsummoned when you Surge this anyway which is kind of a waste of time usually, so it appears that it's mostly limited to instants and sorceries.
*Deepfathom Skulker - Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa on a creature but at 2 more mana. That's a fair bit of mana to invest. At least it can attack for itself though and has an expensive unblockable ability. Still, this kind of effect seems more effective when it's at lower mana costs, and with the two aforementioned cards I don't really see the point of this card.
**Sphinx of the Final Word - It sounds like a pretty strong card against blue control decks. However, it still dies to sweepers and can't get around Diabolic Edict type of effects. And given that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir fills a similar role (give the middle finger to blue control decks) but at 2-mana less and with flash, I'm not sure how much play this will see. My guess is that it'll be a "second" copy of Teferi if you need multiples of this kind of card.
**Bonds of Mortality - If hexproof and indestructible generals are causing you grief, I imagine this won't be too shabby of a silver bullet. At the very least it replaces itself so it's not like this will be unplayable as a mainstay in the 99, and since there are Swiftfoot Boots and the like everywhere it will always have some value. Too bad it doesn't stop shroud though. Also you're probably better off just racing these problematic generals.
***Zendikar Resurgent - This is actually a very interesting take on Mana Reflection. The biggest problem with Mana Reflection is obviously it does nothing when you have no cards in hand, as generally when you untap with Reflection in play you vomit your hand onto the board. With this, you can stay gassed to an extent. While I don't think this will explode as spending 7-mana just to gain even more mana is questionable, this has potential to replace Mana Reflection for certain builds. You need to be more creature-heavy to really slot this in though.
**Mina and Denn, Wildborn - It's a bigger Oracle of Mul Daya but trades off the card advantage of Oracle for making a big creature a little more threatening. That's usually a losing trade. Still, anything that lets you play additional lands is always worth considering.
****Mirrorpool - while 5-color decks basically can't play this due to color requirements, 3-color can manage, and 2-color and mono color should be fine. This is pretty good value on a land that is legal in every deck. Note that because it ETBs tapped, it doesn't produce color, and its value abilities cost quite a bit of mana (one of which has to be colorless), you want this to replace a business spell and not a land in your deck, as this is a lategame card that just so happens to be not completely useless if you draw it early. This card won't have a massive impact and will be too slow for the cutthroat metas, but it's legal for every deck and has a fairly minimal cost.
****Sea Gate Wreckage - I actually really like this card. It doesn't ETB tapped, and when you're hellbent you will gladly spend 3 mana and tapping this for a card. Wanderer in particular likes to dump its hand really fast and can gas out, so depending on how you balance your deck between ramp vs business spells vs draw spells, you might consider this. My wanderer deck is a bit heavier on draw spells, but I could consider removing a few draw spells and have this in here.
***Wandering Fumahole - Manlands are always playable. ETBing tapped can be a problem in your race to 8 mana though.
TLDR - No cards in Shadows over innistratd that I would strongly consider putting into this build.
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Engulf the Shore - The instant speed means it might be the go-to sweeper for monoblue decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
**Epiphany at the Drownyard - It's not an X-version of fact or fiction, it's steam augury which is much worse. Granted, in multiplayer you can try to play politics and choose an opponent that will give you the pile you need ("If you don't give me the counterspell we lose."). Still, you play fact or fiction first.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - I find it funny that his unsummon is strictly worse than the version on his Mind Sculptor counterpart (ignoring the fact that Mind Sculptor is a broken POS). With that said, he's a pretty slow draw engine, since unsummon isn't that strong in EDH unless you're unsummoning your own creatures to reuse ETB effects, though I'm sure there are worse things you could play.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Pieces of the Puzzle - A take on Peer Through Depths. This is 1 more mana and is sorcery, but it gets an additional card and the rest go into your graveyard. With that said, this requires significantly more instants and sorceries to get the full value compared to Peer Through Depths. My Talrand deck has over 40 instants and sorceries and often I only see one legal card when I cast Peer, so this card can whiff pretty often. If you can get 50 instants/sorceries in the deck then maybe you can play this safely.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
****Rattlechains - Definitely has a lot of potential. It's low CMC and will often counter a removal spell on one of your spirits, and then lets you play draw-go with your spirits the rest of the game. As for spirits, Brago, King Eternal, all the Kamigawa legendary dragons (or just lots of spirits in Kamigawa in general), Deadeye Navigator, Karmic Guide, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, this list goes on. If you have a semi-spirit tribal theme, or even just a spirit general like Brago, this card should do good work.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Thing in the Ice///Awoken Horror - Could be useful in instant/sorcery-heavy blue decks so you can quickly trigger the transform on command. Once it transforms you can attack for 7 a bit then maybe bounce it back to your hand. Sounds like a lot of work but it's only a 2-mana creature. You'll have to drop it early so you can get the transformation in a reasonable amount of time.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro, Talrand with no polymorph/proteus staff.
**Trail of Evidence - It's a spell-version of Bygone Bishop. With that said, a deck that plays this card would want to have a lot of instants and sorceries and I'm not sure how many of those decks also care about disposable artifacts.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Briarbridge Patrol - If you want the Elvish Piper effect then you just play that card instead, so you really want to put this in a deck that cares about making clues.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Clip Wings - You have a 2-mana spell that can kill 2-3 creatures. The fact that it gets around shround/hexproof/indestructible means you have a solid answer to something like Zur the Enchanter or Brago, King Eternal who often wear greaves or boots and if played early is usually that player's only flier. Despite its simple line of text and appearing to be a very narrow card, I think this card is very strong if your playgroup has very potent fliers. If you can kill at least one flying general and one other half-decent card (like a birds of paradise) then this card will be good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck
****Cryptolith Rite - It's basically a 2-mana enchantment version of Gaea's Cradle, albeit if some of your creatures are already mana dorks then it's less potent, as well as if they need to tap to do an ability (e.g. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard). For another comparison, Phyrexian Altar is 1 more mana and you have to sac the creature for the mana (albeit since it's not tapping it can get around summoning sickness, and having a sac outlet is nice). Still, you basically get mana equal to the number of creatures you control, and that has to do good things. This should be very good in tokens. Just remember that this generally doesn't help power out your token makers, but it lets you explode once you have more tokens in play. That sounds like win-more, but it's hard to say that a 2-mana enchantment that has similarities to several other powerful cards (Cradle, Altar) is going to totally flop.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh.
***Duskwatch Recruiter///Krallenhorde Walker - On its human side it's a watered down Lead the Stampede, and transformed it's a Cloud Key that is locked onto creatures. Both sides synergize fairly well with each other, and on a 2-drop it's not that bad. You really want a large mass of creatures and a deck that wants both sides at any time because of how easy it is to transform back and forth. It could be too slow as well as 3 mana for its activation is a fair bit.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck with at least 35-40 creatures.
*Hermit of the Natterknolls///Lone Wolf of the Natterknolls - It's kind of like Dosan the Falling Leaf in that it punishes (or at least tries to) people for trying to play at instant speed, albeit this one is only affecting your turns. Dosan is better if you want to go for a backbreaking combo on your turn as it states that nobody can do anything ever on other turns, because if you're just playing Dosan for value it could backfire on you if someone else wants to go infinite and Dosan would prevent anyfrom from stopping it. The issue is that if you have this guy out (or its transformed side), people are just gonna not cast anything, and only play an instant if whatever you're doing is more degenerate than the card or two you would draw in which case you probably would want Dosan anyway. In essence it's a punisher mechanic. This guy sounds pretty strong but I think he's not going to be as good as he looks.
My decks that I would play him in: None.
**Sage of Ancient Lore///Werewolf of Ancient Hunger - It's a 5 mana creature that draws you a card when it ETBs, and when it flips it will probably be pretty huge with vigilance and trample. Not sure how it will play out but it sounds fine but unexciting.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Seasons Past - It sounds strong on paper but I'm curious to see how well it stacks in reality. The dream is to return, say, 7+ cards with this, but even in EDH mana curves are not ridiculously high. A lot of spells are 3-4 CMC or lower, with not many at 5, 6, 7, etc. How many cards would you need to return before you're happy with this card? As a 6-mana sorcery, I think I would want at least 5 cards, assuming one of them is a land (fetchlands will get into your graveyard very easily, and it'll be even better if an important land got there). You can make this work if you have things that can get to your graveyard quickly and not going out of your way to do so; mill/dredge, evoke, discard outlets, etc. If it's any bonus, this doesn't target, so cards like Scavenging Ooze that are targeted graveyard removal don't hose this as badly as it could. Also it's a question as to whether or not it's worth it when Praetor's Counsel gets everything in your graveyard back, even if it is 2 more mana. It seems too restrictive.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Second Harvest - Somewhat similar to Saproling Symbiosis where if you have a bunch of stuff in play, this makes your board even larger. Seems somewhat winmore, but if you can get, say, at least 5 or so 1/1 tokens from this, it's not bad. It's also a bit more potent if you have larger creature tokens, like wolves, zombies, beasts, etc. The dream of course is to get copies of tokens that are copies of regular cards (e.g. you're playing a UG deck and you made a token copy of Eternal Witness, so this card makes a copy of that Witness token). The instant speed certainly helps the playability.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if more token makers are in the deck
**Silverfur Partisan - It's kind of like Wild Defiance in that when one of your creatures get targeted by an instant or sorcery you get a bonus. Here it's obviously for a wolf or werewolf tribal deck and I'm not sure if that kind of deck exists, but it doesn't seem like a bad card for that deck.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Tireless Tracker - Funny how this card makes Seer's Sundial into a joke, not that sundial was very playable. For another comparison, it's a one-sided but slower Horn of Greed. In any case, it's a 3-drop that generates permanents in a color that loves getting lands into play. You won't draw cards immediately, and this won't do much if you topdeck it late as you may have run out of lands to drop, but this helps ensure that you will never gas out in the early-midgame. There's also some text about it getting larger as you sacrifice clues, but whatever, this will mostly be used as a draw engine for green.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
***Traverse the Ulvenwald - Pretty mediocre without Delirium, but with Delirium it's Eladamri's Call plus Sylvan Scrying stapled together at only 1 mana. However the delirium means it's going to take awhile for this to trigger. Eladamri's call could be used early to get a value creature like Oracle of Mul Daya while this will be more restricted to finding mid-lategame bombs, and earlygame just getting you a basic land. Green decks by default have a lot of creatures to go find, but I would be happy to play this card if there's also a nonbasic land that I really want too (Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.)
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Ulvenwald Hydra - This guy is Primeval Titan and is so clearly worse in every way (finds 1 land instead of 2, and doesn't trigger when it attacks), but somehow still looks playable, which I guess says more about Prime Time than this guy. Regardless, it's a 6-mana "find any land and put it in play tapped" stapled to a respectable body. Obviously since it's finding significantly fewer lands than Prime Time, you want this guy in a deck where you have a very important land to get (e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Altered Ego - yet another clone to the list of clones for EDH. This one doesn't seem that particularly exciting, though it should be better than something like Quicksilver Gargantuan but that's not saying much. Clones in general want to copy the biggest threat on the board, and usually you don't care about +1/+1 counters. I think the only good thing about this card is that you can tutor it with Green Sun's Zenith for 5 mana, compared to Progenitor Mimic where you would need 7, but Progenitor Mimic just has a lot more upside and that usually makes up for the 2 extra mana cost. Being uncounterable is nice though.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Arlinn Kord///Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon - Granting vigilance is underrated in EDH as attacking can sometimes invite all other players to swing in at you. Her 0 and her -1 on the flip side seem tricky to use though, as using them will transform her, so you can't always count on having them, but making 2/2 tokens and then bolting things are nice to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if she is <$5.
**Ongoing Investigation - It seems like a watered down version of Edric's effect, or something like a watered down Military Intelligence, though this card has stuff about exiling a creature card from your graveyard for a life bonus and investigating. With that said, there's a lot going on in this card, and on a 2-mana enchantment, there's certainly potential for it to do something.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
I have been running pathbreaker ibex over craterhoof behemoth in my build. I can cascade into him and rely on him easier, imo. I also run erratic portal over crystal shard. I don't mind paying 1 extra mana to pay colorless to bounce my/opponent's stuff. I also run domri rade. With the draw fixing this deck runs, I usually have 0 problem grabbing an extra card every turn, and his mid ability usually allows me to pick off pesky things too.
I've been thinking about pathbreaker ibex but I need to make a cut for it.
I tried portal and shard, but I liked shard better. I found that the 1 less mana cost is better than not requiring blue mana.
Domri rade is better if the build has more creatures so the +1 hits more often. You also want something huge early on so dropping domri early on for his fight can actually pick off stuff. Often, you're not going to fight effectively until wanderer comes down. I think domri is better if your general is lower CMC with a big body (like, say, surrak dragonclaw).
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
**Decimator of the Provinces - Overrun on a stick. Or in another comparison, a fairer version of Craterhoof Behemoth. Emerge is an interesting mechanic, as it's like the offering mechanic from Kamigawa except you can't flash it in as an instant unless the card says it can (offering allowed you to play it as an instant) but offering required a very specific thing to offer while emerge just lets you sacrifice any creature. In any case, I feel like this guy doesn't do enough unless you have additional ways to give your swarm more power. +2/+2 isn't that much especially if it's only for the turn. The trample is nice, but at such a hefty mana cost it could be problematic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Elder Deep-Fiend - The flash on this card combined with emerge actually makes it intriguing, as you can sacrifice something in response to something. Tapping things down at instant speed can catch people off guard and buy valuable time.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Curious Homunculus - Only for spellslinger decks. It's a fairly slow mana dork, but it can flip into a Goblin Electromancer which is certainly powerful, plus it can swing for a lot after you throw out a bunch of spells. It probably is worse than regular old Electromancer but more copies of that effect can't be bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Displace - Pauper gets another tool. Though it's still not bad as a budget option for blink/goodstuff decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Docent of Perfection//Final Iteration - I kind of don't like this guy becoming an Eldrazi. I just liked the story, going from Delver in the original Innistrad into Abberant Form in Shadows and I think the eldrazi ending ruined that story. I do like how it basically spits out delvers though. Obviously this only goes into spellslinger decks, and even then it might be too slow. Most spellslinger decks just go infinite with spells and probably have no need to make 1/1s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fortune's Favor - I really like the design of this card, being a fairer fact or fiction. FoF was intended to be a deep card with lots of intricacies, but in reality it doesn't really play like that because it's just too good. This is much fairer and we'll see what happens. Regardless in EDH this doesn't seem like it's strong enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Identity Thief - On one hand, flickering creatures is always handy. Flicker something you control, flicker out something an opponent controls to get attacker(s) in, etc. On the other hand, it sounds like it'll be more difficult to use than it should.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play are always scary (Darksteel Mutation, Song of the Dryads, etc.), and the fact that blue now gets to jump in on the fun is scarier. In a pinch it can also hit a Gaea's Cradle or something. Most blue decks that want to play fair will likely play this card, although green and white do have these types of effects, but if you want multiple copies of this effect then it'll do good work, and if you don't have green or white this will be welcomed.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
*Lunar Force - It's Hesitation for 1 more mana but only triggers on an opponent's spell. In EDH it's too easy for an opponent to throw away a bad spell though.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
***Mausoleum Wanderer - The fact that this is 1 mana will be a huge annoyance. If you can find ways to pump its power at instant speed (flash in other spirits for example) you can catch people off guard and this can become a hard counter.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Mind's Dilation - It sounds like a hilarious effect, but it's 7-mana and if they flip a land you don't get anything, and they can hit mediocre cards, or cards that don't do anything (e.g. flip Green Sun's Zenith).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Summary Dismissal - Counterspells that get around uncounterable spells (e.g. Supreme Verdict) are always interesting. On top of that, you get stifle. It's similar to Voidslime in a way in that it's a catch-all counterspell. While it does say "all" you usually won't be exiling more than one spell or ability (or storm trigger) so don't get your hopes up. If you can get multiple spells and/or abilities with this card though it'll be quite the blowout. The effect is certainly powerful but I don't have any decks that really want this effect. It's just nice to know that if people get cheeky with their Cavern of Souls or Boseijus, thinking their key spell is safe, you always have an out.
My decks that I would play it in: May or may not play in blue decks
**Unsubstantiate - It's Venser, Shaper Savant's ETB effect for 2-mana, although it only unsummons and not boomerangs. Regardless in combo decks this can be a useful counterspell as it's a fairly versatile card to get something out of the way temporarily while you combo out. I don't really see a place for this card in fairer decks though that want the game to go longer. It's not usually worth a card just to gain some tempo against one player. Could see use in 1v1 though.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eldritch Evolution - It's a fairer natural order. That's still very solid. Another comparison would be that it's birthing pod that is one shot, but costs slightly less mana and you "jump" up to 2 mana instead of 1. That's all I really need to say.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks
****Splendid Reclamation - This card has the potential to ramp you very hard. Any deck that has mill can quickly get a bunch of lands into the yard. Compare this to other 4-mana ramp spells that get you 2 lands like Explosive Vegetation, and you can see that just getting 3+ lands reliably will pay you off, and this brings back nonbasics too. This also includes lands that get there naturally, like fetchlands, strip mine, things that got destroyed by opposing strip mines, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks with a mill theme, Progenitus
*Ulvenwald Observer - If you have black, Harvester of Souls is close to strictly better. Even then, Soul of the Harvest is usually better than this. And at 6-mana you don't really want multiples of these effects, not to mention the effect is fairly narrow anyway. How many creatures with 4+ toughness will you have out and die on you?
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ulrich of the Krallenhorde//Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha - Sounds funny for a RG fight club deck, but it's very hard to get creatures to transform, as it requires nobody to cast anything for a turn, which is very rare. Because of that this guy doesn't seem very playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
**Aethersquall Ancient - It requires a lot of energy and it doesn't build up energy at a fast rate. If you can generate a lot of energy then this can keep the board clear. It's too slow on its own though. You ideally want 8 energy before playing this so you can immediately clear the board. At 7-mana if you stuff a bunch of energy cards then maybe.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Ceremonious Rejection - 1-mana hard counters are nothing to scoff at even when they're limited in scope. In the right meta this can be quite good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Dramatic Reversal - This can't untap lands which means it's more limited in scope than Turnabout but it is only 2-mana and it still untaps your mana rocks. Spellslinger decks will probably play this as another way to make infinite mana with Reiterate.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Era of Innovation - It's a reliable but slow way to generate energy. The card drawing is nice but likely you'll play this for the energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Glint-Nest Crane - Passable value creature for artifact decks, but artifact decks might be more interested in playing an artifact that can do something similar.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Insidious Will - It's a cute card, but it's 1 mana too expensive for its effects. 4+ mana counterspells are extremely tricky and hard to use, particularly when Cryptic Command sets the bar for 4-mana counters.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Metallurgic Summonings - It's a 5-mana do nothing, but in the right build this can be scary. Making some creatures whenever you cast an instant or sorcery is nice, but being able to recur tons of spells back to your hand is scary. Requiring 6 artifacts in play sounds like a huge task, but when you consider that you'll likely be playing a lot of mana rocks, it shouldn't be that hard to reach. Note that the creatures created by this card are artifacts which count towards the second ability.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Padeem, Consul of Innovation - Blue version of Leonin Abunas except this can draw you cards slowly and can be your general. It doesn't look like a very strong general, though if you want a monoblue artifact general and you don't want to play Arcum Dagsson who draws obvious hate, you could try this one. As part of the other 99 it has some value, but because this doesn't have hexproof it'll be easy to remove this.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Paradoxical Outcome - My initial instinct is that this card won't be very good. I guess you could play this in response to a wrath, but you would probably be better off just countering the wrath instead of having this in your deck if there are cards you have that you are interested in saving. It is a unique effect and that's why I don't think it'll be useless, but I can't think of any situation where this would be really good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Saheeli's Artistry - Similar to Stolen Identity in that it's a 6-mana sorcery that copies either creatures or artifacts. There are some obvious differences (Stolen Identity ciphers and needs to connect to clone again, this generally is harder to fizzle with removal spells as you will usually have two targets whereas Stolen Identity only has one, etc.), but ultimately the bar for clones is pretty high. It's decent but doesn't really stand out.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Shrewd Negotiation - These types of donate cards are mostly for Zedruu decks, but 5-mana for an exchange effect is still expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Torrential Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, so you really want to be a dedicated draw-go deck where leaving up 6 mana doesn't fire off alarms in everyone's heads. Only hitting instants is somewhat restrictive as well, though there are plenty of good instants to get (namely counterspells and removal spells). However you really want to flashback an instant of CMC 5+ before you really get your money's worth with this card, and while there are a couple (Dig Through Time being obvious, even though it's more like a 2-mana card), there aren't numerous amounts of high-CMC instants that are useful in EDH. This does limit the value of the card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Architect of the Untamed - That's a lot of energy required to create a 6/6 dude. Landfall isn't hard to meet if you have fetchlands, but the fact that you need a lot of energy is offputting. It just seems too slow. It'll be more useful as an energy generator than actually pumping out 6/6 dudes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Armorcraft Judge - If this can draw you 3-4 cards you'll have gotten your money's worth. The trick is being able to do that reliably. Cards that slowly but surely put +1/+1 counters on a lot of creatures (Abzan Ascendency, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, avenger of Zendikar and all the plant tokens, etc.) will have to do the trick. Because of that, this card is very much a lategame card and not something you can play on turn 4 or 5 and expect to draw some cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cultivator of Blades - Interesting dynamic in that either you can make his pump effect more potent, or you can put more bodies into play to receive his pump effect. That is cool design. It's a decent card overall and is obviously for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
Dubious Challenge - This card is terrible but I have heard some buzz about it, so I shall explain why it's awful. First, you have to reliably hit at least two creatures to choose; if you only choose one then your opponent will usually just take it and leave you with nothing (granted, that's not hard to do in a green deck) and if you choose 0 then your spell literally does nothing. Second, the fact that the opponent chooses the creature first is a huge problem because they'll take the better creature and leave you with the inferior creature, and you arguably LOST mana on the deal (e.g. they take a 5-mana dude and leave you with a 4-mana one). The only way I can think of to make this work is to play cards like Homeward Path to get the creature back, but if the creature the opponent takes has an ETB effect (e.g. Acidic Slime) then it doesn't fully mitigate the problem. Basically you have to hope that the opponent takes a creature and then does something with it that doesn't hinder you (e.g. take the acidic slime and blow up someone else's thing) which is already very tricky to do. Basically you have to be really far behind so the opponent takes the creature and then doesn't target you, and you have to choose creatures that can't negatively affect you (e.g. you probably should not pull out a Vorinclex for your opponent to take). Ultimately it's a lot of work for what is basically a crappier Defense of the Heart, Pattern of Rebirth, etc. type of card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Nissa, Vital Force - I'm actually quite excited for her, moreso than your average planeswalker. Unlike most other walkers, she can ultimate very quickly without relying on doubling season, so you can evaluate her based on cracking said ultimate. Her ultimate comes in one turn if you +1 her immediately, and that emblem is definitely solid value. If you have proliferate effects you could even do it immediately. The +1 even helps protect you by making a 5/5 for a whole round. In a green deck, 5-mana is not that hard to get by turn 3 and it can be difficult to pressure a PW that early in the game especially if you make a 5/5 blocker. Now if you can't ultimate her then she is less exciting (Nature's Spiral is a decent card, but she can't do it twice in a row and isn't worth spending 5-mana for it), but if you can hit the ultimate you will get some nice value. Note that her ultimate is very similar to Tireless Tracker except you don't spend 2 mana per card draw and once you get the ultimate off you never have to worry about it being removed.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter - Similar to Rhys the Redeemed; 1-mana generals with a 3-mana activated ability to make a 1/1 dude. However, this doesn't give you access to white, and its second ability is usually worse (generally in token decks it's better to continue to go wide than making one large creature).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Verdurous Hulk - Not really sure what deck to play this in. Just making some dudes bigger is not a big deal in EDH.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wildest Dreams - Power level errata of Recall anyone? In any case, it's a decent card but it's very mana intensive. It's 1-mana over Regrowth, and X=2 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Seasons Past which will often get you more than 2 cards. At X=3 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Praetor's Council. I mean that is the point of X-cards, but this simply seems too inefficient.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Rashmi, Eternities Crafter - Can you imagine how stupid this card would be if Prophet of Kruphix wasn't banned? UG decks are basically just dumb midrange value decks, and this is a perfect dumb midrange value card. Basically ramp hard in the early turns and then transition into a draw-go type of gameplay, with a few flash enablers, to maximize the number of times you can trigger this. She's a 4-drop but you probably want to play her with some mana up so you can play a brainstorm or the like to get some value, so maybe closer to 6-7 mana. She's also insane with cards that have high CMC but have an alternate casting cost (e.g. Force of Will, Misdirection) as you can jam her in early but still get a huge CMC trigger. It's basically a mini-version of cascade spells, so you can't really cheat a big spell into play, but at the very least it's going to your hand, and it doesn't count as a draw effect which gets around things like Consecrated Sphinx and Leovold from the new conspiracy set. It's not broken, but it's a perfect durdle midrange card in colors that love doing exactly that.
My decks that I would play it in: Many UG decks, or a new deck with her as the general
***Saheeli Rai - UR artifacts now gets a solid clone effect at 3-mana. You only keep the token for one turn, but again, 3-mana. She doesn't pass the doubling season test though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
BLUE
**Coastal Breach - Ignore the fact that every bounce blue sweeper pales in comparison to Cyclonic Rift (let alone how most sweepers are worse than Rift). Better or worse than Crush of Tentacles or Devastation Tide? If you have three opponents this costs 4, which is actually not bad. Tide has more upside though since you can miracle it for just 2 (and miracle also means you can cast it at instant speed if you build around it enough) and Crush can leave behind an 8/8. The other issue is that if you have only two opponents this costs 5 and then becomes strictly worse than Tide. Seems okay overall but not particularly exciting because of that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Deepglow Skate - Is this blue's version of Doubling Season? It won't let planeswalkers enter the battlefield and then immediately ultimate (one of the advantages of doubling season) but it does affect PWs already on your board. You can double charge counters, -1/-1 counters, and of course +1/+1 counters as well. Tons of flexibility and power in the right builds.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Faerie Artisans - This creature, at only 4 mana, continuously clones creatures that your opponents play, for no additional mana. However, not all creatures give value, and since you are forced to exile the token, sometimes that creature could do nothing. For example, an opponent could play Consecrated Sphinx and then immediately play Birds of Paradise so you lose your Sphinx token. If an opponent has a big ETB creature (e.g. Terastodon) they will just hold onto it until Artisans leaves play, or if they absolutely have to play the creature. In other words, it will sometimes act as a punisher mechanic. Also, it will generally not affect the hypercompetitive circles as those don't have as many ETB value creatures and are more infinite combos/hyperstax. To improve this card's floor, play some flicker effects, so you can flicker the artisan at will which will let you keep the last token it made (which can also catch people off guard; e.g. in the above example, flicker your artisan before Birds resolves so you keep your Consecrated Sphinx token). It is an extremely powerful card and has the potential to take over a game by itself, but there are some situations where it's not that good.
My decks that I would play it in: Blue creature decks with ETB/flicker theme
***Grip of Phyresis - Is that germ token holding sword of fire and ice? That's amazing. In any case, making this instant speed makes this very interesting. It can throw off a lot of math (were you relying on untapping your lands with sword of feast and famine?). Depending on the attacker and the equipment you steal, you can actually eat the attacker. You likely want to be a voltron deck so you can guarantee that whatever equipment you steal will still retain value (strap the stolen equipment onto your general) but it should be solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Manifold Insights - Very few punisher mechanics are playable. I'm not sure this is one of them. If you can argue some politics you could convince an opponent to give you a key card ("Give me this removal spell to kill this permanent or else we lose"). Also this does say "nonland", and any spell is generally better than nothing. If you are intentionally playing a low-power deck you could also maybe convince people to give you certain cards you want. Again, I tend to not like punisher mechanics, but you could try it out in your playgroup and see how it fares.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
GREEN
****Benefactor's Draught - Simply untapping all creatures (although that includes your opponents') has a lot of potential. It also cantrips and can draw a few more cards. However there will be some intricacies with this card; if an opponent has no untapped creatures and playing this will suddenly give them blockers, this could be a good or bad thing depending on the situation. The cantrip helps this card's floor, but I imagine this will be used in combo decks because of how it untaps your creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Charging Cinderhorn - It starts off doing little damage so it doesn't impact the board early. It can ramp up quickly, but people can just suicide a little dork to avoid the trigger.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Evolutionary escalation - It's 2-mana but you likely won't play this until mid-lategame. In any case, you obviously want to play a creature that wants this huge bonus (like voltron), and most notably you can choose which other creature gets the counters. Put it on a creature with defender, or a creature that normally doesn't attack (like Arcanis the Omnipotent), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Primeval Protector - It can come down for relatively cheap which can make it quite scary. Generally if you run enough creatures/token generators where you would want this card, by the time you want to play this card the board is probably quite cluttered, meaning this can come down for maybe 1-3 mana, anthems your other creatures and leaves a 10/10. Of course if nobody else plays a lot of creatures then it's unplayable, but generally at least one opponent will have a bunch of creatures out and the other opponents usually have at least 1-2 creatures out. It's sort of win more and it is terrible early on or after a sweeper (as are most anthems) though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (budget pending)
**Seeds of Renewal - Restock that requires 2 opponents to be the same card, and 3 opponents makes it slightly better. Restock is a solid card but not really a staple. This card is playable but doesn't jump out to me.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Stonehoof Chieftain - Certainly powerful, but at 8-mana you get what you pay for. Perfect for your usual green stompy decks that want their creatures to force through damage and not die in combat.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(GRUUL)
**Tana, the Bloodsower - Hard to say how exactly to build this guy. You need help to force through damage (trample does help, but you need ways to buff him because he's a 4-mana 2/2, like Xenagos, God of Revels) and then its bonus is to make a bunch of 1/1s. So basically you would need to put a bunch of your eggs in one basket and then your bonus is to go wide. Those abilities seem to be at ends with each other. Unless there's a card where you can sacrifice 1/1s to pump up a creature, I'm not sure how playable this guy will be.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(IZZET)
***Kraum, Ludevic's Opus - Wizards' refusal to make a UR artifact general is frustrating, but let's ignore that for now. Flying + haste on a 4/4 for 5 is decent stats for voltron on its own, and many players do cast 2+ spells a turn, which makes it not bad at drawing cards. However given its aggressive stats, people may kill this because they don't want to get voltron'd out, which means the card draw effect is more of a bonus, and you likely want to play this card more for the fact that it's a relatively aggressive general. UR doesn't really have a voltron general and it'll be interesting if this will fill that role.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - While I'm not as high on lore as some other people, this card is quite disappointing for someone who is supposed to be a "Necro-Alchemist". When I hear "Necro-Alchemist", I'm expecting actual necromancy things, not some weird group hug effect.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
(SIMIC)
**Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Many blue decks have cards that draw a bunch of cards for cheap (Brainstorm being the most iconic) so this can provide a ton of mana. Being only colorless is a bummer. You could use a card or two that can turn colorless mana into colored mana, but that seems clunky and slow. On top of that, having to play or cast things that draw you cards so that your mana dork can actually provide decent mana can be clunky; there are only so many brainstorm effects you can fit in your deck. You can play untap effects (Mind over Matter) once you've drawn enough cards so that you don't need infinite brainstorm effects, but then it starts getting clunky. Note that this only cares about literal cards drawn, so things like Fact or Fiction do lose some value which is a bummer. Maybe you can play some kind of pillow fort/group hug with 9001 howling Mines. If this can reliably tap for 4+ mana, it's worth building around, but it's going to take work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Thrasios, Triton Hero - So it's the Coiling Oracle ETB with scry 1 attached to it, but you need to pay a whooping 4 mana. Obviously this will be a decent mana sink on a 2-drop, but it likely goes in vastly different decks than Coiling Oracle would. Oracle goes into simic durdle ETB value decks, whereas this wants to be harder on control where you want to leave mana up and then use this as a mana sink.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Treacherous Terrain - This would be a funny card against many of those green ramp stompy decks. Too bad this thing costs 8 mana and so it's basically unplayable. Paying 8 mana to do 10-15 damage, even in a good scenario, is meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
Are there still any budget constraints with your list? I've been looking at getting into Wanderer for a while and budget isn't an issue, so I was just curious since I'll be using your list as a starting point.
Are there still any budget constraints with your list? I've been looking at getting into Wanderer for a while and budget isn't an issue, so I was just curious since I'll be using your list as a starting point.
I was like "damn this card could be sweet in wanderer. Basically makes your team unblockable and can go infinite with food chain"
then I realized its color identity is BUG...
edit: then i realized that because its ability isn't casting it, I wouldn't be able to spend food chain'd mana to get it back anyway, so... guess it's not so bad that I can't put it in here?
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
- Shaman of the great hunt. A 4-drop that doesn't ramp, but the draw effect has potential. I guess slowly growing the army isn't irrelevant but it seems much worse than the draw effect.
- Frontier Siege. Dragons is irrelevant but Khans isn't totally useless. It adds GG on both main phases, it's not a mana dork or mana rock, and it doesn't interfere with primal surge. There are probably better options though.
- Shamanic Revelation. Likely won't play it but it's something.
- Temur Sabertooth. Basically a 4-mana creature that says "1G: Bounce wanderer to your hand". Sounds like it'll usually be worse than the bounce engines already in the deck (Crystal Shard, Equilibrium, Cloudstone Curio) but there's some potential.
- Yasova Dragonclaw. Likely won't play it but it's something.
I wish manifest could work with any nonland card type and not just creatures (I say nonland because flipping over lands for 0 could get dumb). It would be interesting to manifest, say, a time warp, then flip it over for 3UU and cast it.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
In general this isn't a favorable set for Wanderer. Morph and rebound interact poorly with cascade. Dash is kinda pointless when Wanderer gives the team haste and none of the dash creatures are that interesting anyway. Exploit isn't great because wanderer doesn't often have expendable bodies. A bunch of cards care about dragons but this deck has almost none. Formidable has some potential because wanderer provides 7 power so any other dude turns it on, but alot of the formidable costs are too expensive. Bolster has some potential because it pumps up mana dorks, but before wanderer is in play I'd rather have my mana dorks tap for mana, and even after wanderer is in play my mana dorks usually are making mana unless I have nothing else to do.
In any case...
no monoblue or monored cards catch my eye
Shaman of Forgotten Ways - Probably worse than somberwald sage but there's slight potential. Likely won't play it but it's worth keeping in mind.
Dragonlord Atarka - This actually I think is worth considering. It's obviously compared to Bogardan Hellkite, except for some major differences in favor of Atarka. It can be cascaded into since it's 7 mana and not 8, it has trample, and it's an 8/8 instead of a 5/5. No flash hurts a little but flash doesn't really matter when it's being cascaded into. The fact that the damage can't be split to players doesn't seem significant since the 5 damage is often killing creatures and walkers anyway.
Sarkhan Unbroken - Meh, but I just want to mention him becuase I do think he'll be good in standard (since he's basically a 5-mana broodmate dragon that needs to survive a turn to get the 2nd dragon out), but not in EDH. 4/4 dragons are not a big deal in EDH and the +1 is meh for 5 mana.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
- H. L. Mencken
French Duel Commander
WBR Kaalia of the Vast WBR
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer RUG
So if mystical tutor is your first cascade you resolve it first (presumably getting tooth and nail) and then go to the second cascade.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Purphoros only belongs in token builds, and having only avenger isn't enough. There's no point in having Purphoros make surge stronger because primal surge should end the game anyway.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Perilous Vault
+ Balefire Dragon
+ Frontier Siege
+ Teferi, Temporal Archmage
- Oblivion Stone
- Academy Ruins
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Acidic Slime
+ Added more to introduction, comparing Wanderer to other RUG generals
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Alhammarret, High Arbiter - When I first read this card, I thought you named a nonland card for each opponent, so in a 4-way FFA, you'd name 3 different cards. I thought that was insane, but at 7mana sounds cool. Nope. It's a 7-mana meddling mage. So it's basically unplayable and I only listed it here because origins is a pretty *****ty set and this is one reason why.
Displacement Wave - Unplayable in wanderer, but just pointing it out that this card has potential in normal blue decks. I don't like cyclonic rift because I think it's kinda close to being broken in EDH and I stay away from it, and this is like a nerfed rift. Since it's sorcery I probably wouldn't play this over something like Devastation Tide but I don't want to write off this card yet.
Talent of the Telepath - This is basically a weaker but lower CMC version of Knowledge Exploitation. Wanderer probably would rather play the latter since cascading into it makes the CMC not matter, but you can do dorky value stuff with this.
Chandra's Ignition - The idea is taht if wanderer or any fatty is in play, it's basically duneblast plus nuking each opponent for 7. However it's way too unreliable since cascading into this is risky, especially early on where you may not have a big creature to target (or any creature at all), plus it gets countered hard by a removal spell unlike duneblast (obviously duneblast can't be played in wanderer but that's beside the point).
Nissa, Vastwood Seer - Getting only basic forests kills this card. I don't know why they didn't let you get any basic land, or get any old forest so you could get a shockland or ABU dual. It's not like borderland ranger is that playable so does it really matter if a planeswalker is a strict upgrade over a mediocre card? The flip side is not that great either, since making legendary vanilla 4/4s is whatever and getting a coiling oracle effect is fine, but with requiring 7 lands in play, that comes veyr late.
Nissa's Pilgrimage - Getting only basic forests really kills this card and makes it difficult to play in anything other than monogreen and G/x builds since this cannot color fix you and makes it worse than cultivate and kodama's reach. Even with spell mastery this only "draws" you an additional basic forest which is meh. I'm merely listing it since, again, this is a strict upgrade over cultivate and kodama's reach in monogreen and is viable in G/x.
Nissa's Revelation - Only worth considering since it's 7 mana, but I can't imagine hardcasting this often. This might be more useful in a mayael build that stuffs more fatties since even with scry 5 it can be hard to hit a 5+ power creature (which is what you'd need to hit to even remotely get 7-mana worth). I don't want to do the math behind it, but just that this card has some potential in EDH, but likely won't be in here.
Woodland Bellower - First of all this card shouldn't be mythic since it doesn't feel mythic at all. In any case, fetching out an eternal witness is value, but if it's an early cascade there likely won't be much in the graveyard worth getting back so you'd get a wood elves or fauna shaman or something instead. I probably won't play it in this build but maybe some kind of elves deck that has a lot more utility dorks may find use in this. Creatures that tutor for something when they ETB are always worth considering. I don't know why they had to make it "nonlegendary green creature" though.
Sword of the Animist - Won't be in here since there aren't enough dorky low CMC creatures where I want to strap this to (most of the low CMC creatures are mana dorks or are things like Fauna Shaman that I don't want attacking anyway). The effect is interesting though, since it's a nongreen way to get some land ramp going and the mana costs aren't outrageous. However if you're green I'd rather go with the reliable land fetching options, and at only a +1/+1 boost, your creatures might be swinging into a brick wall and dying.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Animar is better in a hyper combo deck.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
cards in bold are those that really catch my eye
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - A 10-mana creature that does double Utter End that can also nuke lands is interesting. Not sure if it's an upgrade to the original Ulamog since Annihilator 4 is also really good, but this Ulamog costs 1 less and exiles 2 permanents instead of destroying 1. Shuffling your graveyard into your library when the old Ulamog hit your graveyard has its ups and downs though. I don't think it'll be in this deck, but he's something to watch out for.
Void Winnower - This card is just so goofy it's something to watch out for.
Oblivion Sower - Ingest isn't gonna be a real mechanic for EDH, but Delve will, and if people get greedy with their Delve cards and pack fetchlands, this can be interesting (albeit unreliable) ramp. My guess is that this will see very limited play but it is an interesting effect so you should watch out for it.
Part the Waterveil - Wizards has been making extra turn cards exile themselves upon casting recently, which makes them pretty junk in EDH when Time Warp is still the standard at which these cards should measure themselves. However, for something like Narset, Enlightened Master who wants all the extra turn cards they can get their hands on, you should just keep an eye out for it. With every extra turn effect wizards' prints, Narset's laugh gets louder and more obnoxious.
Defiant Bloodlord - Not for this build, but for decks like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, it's a second Sanguine Bond. This is probably worse than said Sanguine Bond though. This card is seriously missing lifelink, wth wizards.
Dragonmaster Outcast - I don't really care about this card, but SERIOUSLY wizards, you're reprinting this as a mythic? get your ***** together and fire the guy who thought this was a good idea. At least Felidar Sovereign is getting reprinted in this set as a rare. Do you know how annoyed people will be when they open this as their mythic?
Zada, Hedron Grinder - This won't be going in any of my decks, but there's a lot of untapped potential in this card, so you should be on the lookout for any decks that use this guy. It's kinda like Precursor Golem except it only triggers on your instants and sorceries and only affects your creatures, so it's easier to control and seems less likely to backfire.
From Beyond - This is worse than Awakening Zone when it comes to generating mana, but this does have a nice upside in that it can sac itself to tutor for an Eldrazi when you don't need the mana. Obviously you'll need useful Eldrazi in the deck, and there probably won't be any in wanderer given that I want most of my cards to be 7 or less CMC (and there aren't many useful Eldrazi at that CMC), but it's worth noting.
Greenwarden of Murasa - Eternal Witness' big daddy. I definitely will be thinking about this card. It exiles itself if you want the regrowth effect when it dies (for balance issues, thnx wizards) but it is a "may" trigger which is nice. Probably would've been better if it had 2 or less power (hi Reveillark) but a 5/4 isn't awful either. I don't think I'll play it in Wanderer given that the deck isn't really big about graveyard recursion (I think Eternal Witness by herself is enough), but don't be surprised if this becomes a staple in your standard green decks.
Nissa's Renewal - I'm not sure if I'll play this. 6-mana is asking for a lot when there are cards like and Mana Reflection and Boundless Realms hovering around that mana cost, and this interferes with primal surge. But just keep an eye out for it.
Bring to light - It's not playable here because this will only find 3 CMC or less, and it also only gets creatures, instants, or sorceries, so no Birthing Pod, which is a shame. But 5-color decks could be interested in this.
Brutal Expulsion - Bouncing a spell is similar to Venser, Shaper Savant and that can be an underrated effect (bounce a Supreme Verdict, for example). You then can smack something else, and it exiles instead of putting in the graveyard. I won't play it because it interferes with Primal Surge, but this is pretty good value for Izzet or URx decks.
Kiora, Master of the Depths - I compared this card to Garruk Wildspeaker. If you've got a mana dork in play, her +1 is basically the same as Garruk (usually giving +2 mana). But her -2 gives creature AND/OR land card which is pretty nice, and then it fills your graveyard for more goodies later. This is pretty good value at 4-mana. Not sure if I'll play it, but keep an eye out for her.
Omnath, Locus of Rage - Play this, play a fetchland, and you get 3 5/5s in play that each bolt something when they die. That can be pretty scary. This can be awkward to cascade into, given that I'm usually playing the land before casting wanderer, so it can be hard to get the immediate value. There are also a handful of strong 7-drops like Balefire Dragon and Dragonlord Atarka, so we'll have to see.
Aligned Hedron Network - Most builds would rather play a normal sweeper (especially since when this leaves the battlefield the creatures come back), and I don't think I want this anyway, but there are scenarios where you may want this instead. If your build is mostly based around small creatures, this can pinpoint bigger problems. It's hard to say, but again, it's a fairly unique effect.
Hedron Archive - The third of the three little bears and Goldilocks. Mind Stone is tiny, Dreamstone Hedron is huge, this is juuuust right... maybe not, but I just thought it was an appropriate card for wizards to print.
Blighted Woodland - Lands that always ramp are interesting. This is worse than Myriad Landscape and Krosan Verge though, given that they're only 2 mana and sac to crack, while this is 4 mana and sac to crack. Still, it does come into play untapped. I wouldn't write this off.
Sanctum of Ugin - Lands that can tutor for something are interesting. Given that this activates when you cast a 7+ colorless spell, chances are at that point you don't need mana, but you may want a big mana Eldrazi, and it's a "may" so you don't need to crack it anyway.
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods - Only colorless decks, or decks that play a ton of colorless spells, will want this card. However, for those that do, this is a second Temple of the False God.
Skyline Cascade - Having this effect on a land is interesting. Probably won't play it.
Spawning Bed - This is an interesting effect for budget decks.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
This is a pretty long review, as basically all of the cards here were designed for EDH and thus worth talking about (as opposed to your standard set where maybe 10% of the new cards have multiplayer applications). Still, I don't actually cover every card as there are pretty obvious ones that have no place in EDH (e.g. Herald of the Host). This review mostly goes over the rares and a few of the uncommons.
****Aethersnatch - Strictly better than Spelljack. First, this simply gains control of the spell, so it gets around uncounterable things. Second, spelljack recasts the spell for 0 mana so things like Genesis Wave give you no value, while this keeps the X-value. Third, this is 4UU to 3UUU, so it's slightly easier to cast. Seems like an interesting card, but 6-mana is always tough. Also, it doesn't cascade very well.
**Gigantoplasm - I'm not a fan of clones that just can get big P/T. Like, I would rather run Clever Impersonater or Phyrexian Metamorph than this card for their flexibility, and there are only so many clones you can run.
**Illusory Ambusher - In budget builds this is janky but funny. 4-power can kill a decent amount of ground creatures and then you can draw a bunch of cards, at 5-mana with flash.
***Mirror Match - It's like a one-sided fog, sorta, but you can also get ETB effects and death triggers. 6-mana is a lot, but in budget builds this can be a solid goodstuff card to play.
****Mystic Confluence - This Confluence in the cycle interests me the most. The white, red, and green confluences all have at least 1 mode that I can't see myself ever using, while I can foresee myself getting good mileage on all 3 modes here. For starters, it's strictly better than Jace's Ingenuity although that's not saying much. Note that you can use the Mana Leak mode on different spells, so if people are spellslinging all over the place you can just give a big middle finger to a bunch of people if you feel like it. Unsummon is a powerful effect and can be a big blowout. Ultimately this does a pretty good Cryptic Command impersonation. I still like Cryptic more, but Cryptic is dumb as hell so I think this card will still see good play, especially if you can't afford Cryptic. The counter mode doesn't work well with cascade, unfortunately.
****Synthetic Destiny - At first I didn't know what was the point of this card when Mass Polymorph exists until I saw that this is an instant, and that the creatures you get are at the end step and not immediately. So not only can you do silly shenanigans with it (cheat in Kozilek or Ulamog end of turn), but it's also wrath protection too in a way, as the creatures don't ETB until at the end step. There's a lot of potential here. But again, 6-mana is a lot.
*Awaken the Sky Tyrant - See Daxos' Torment, with the drawback that this isn't even that good in enchantress decks (not like red builds lend themselves to enchantress builds in the first place).
**Dream Pillager - This can technically draw you cards when its attack connects with a player, but I feel like there are quite a few dragons in the 6-8 mana slot that have card-advantage mechanics built into them that you don't need this guy to literally draw you cards (Balefire Dragon, Bogardan Hellkite, Ancient Hellkite, Hellkite Charger, etc.). And I rag about P/T not being very relevant, but a 7-mana 4/4 is pretty embarrassing. At least the aforementioned dragons are better at blocking.
**Fiery Confluence - Dealing damage to opponents is irrelevant outside of pinging opposing planeswalkers, so it's a scale-your-own Pyroclasm and can shatter things otherwise. Seems fine.
***Rite of the Raging Storm - This can cause quite a bit of chaos. Thankfully the tokens can't attack you (this card would be almost unplayable otherwise), and presumably this will smack people for a lot of damage over the course of the game as people swing in their 5/1 hasty tramplers with no care, and it's not like 5-power is easy to block (1 toughness is easy to ping though).
***Arachnogenesis - Similar card to Mirror Match in that its big function is as a fog. It is a weaker effect obviously as it's 3 mana and not 6. However you keep these spiders around after combat, so I can see this being playable in token decks, especially if you foresee yourself going up against other token decks.
****Bloodspore Thrinax - In token decks this can make things get out of control quickly. However it's awkward in Prossh, as Prossh generally makes the tokens in one big wave and it can be difficult to make a new wave of tokens without recasting Prossh.
**Centaur Vinecrasher - Just a beater. You can get a little value from the recursion, but meh.
**Ezuri's Predation - I'm not sure how I feel about this card. Basically, this card will kill all X/4s and do nothing against X/5s, and if X < 4 you keep the beast that would fight it. I guess monogreen can't be picky when it comes to "sweepers", but 8-mana is so much. Something that could give your creatures even +1 or +2 more power can really hurt opponents as that's when you can start killing dragons and almost anything that isn't indestructible (also a nice note is that this gets around hexproof). Also you can't cascade into this.
**Great Oak Guardian - Nice combat trick, though 6-mana is a lot. You can play some politics though as you can target any player. Help a player block out of nowhere, or help a player kill out of nowhere.
****Pathbreaker Ibex - It's a smaller, haste-less Craterhoof Behemoth. The cool part about this card is that it pumps power based on the greatest power among creatures you control, not this card's own power, which means this can really get out of control. In particular, Wanderer gives it haste, and with wanderer swinging in too, that's a minimum +7/+7 to the team... The only issue with the card, besides being 6-mana, is that it's a horrible blocker, and unlike Cratheroof it doesn't have haste so it is more easily telegraphed.
**Skullwinder - It's Eternal Witness if Witness gained deathtouch but gave an opponent the best card in his graveyard, which is generally a losing trade. I guess if you can keep an opponent without a graveyard then maybe, but that seems like a lot of work. However there are political aspects, maybe you actually want an opponent to get a good card back for whatever reason. Seems tricky to use.
**Verdant Confluence - Not sure how often you'll use the rampant growth effect as you are already at 6-mana when you cast this. Regardless, seems okay, if a bit underwhelming.
The multicolor Temur cards could see play as generals, but I don't think they'll have any use as part of the 99 in Wanderer.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = Potentially a new staple in EDH.
***** = Will likely have a massive impact on EDH.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
You can see my Progenitus topic to see my opinions on most of the cards in the set. Here I will talk specifically about cards that I would remotely consider for Wanderer.
***Kozilek, the Great Distortion - 10-mana is certainly alot. Regardless, going back up to 7 cards is very good, and being able to counter for 0 mana is nice, and the fact that you go back up to 7 cards synergizes well with that. The menace ability is whatever as by the time he comes down, players will likely have a bunch of creatures they can throw away to block him, plus he's not indestructible so he can actually get killed
by twelve 1/1 squirrels. The fact that he requires colorless mana isn't a big deal because Wanderer has plenty of colorless mana rocks, and drawing up to 7 is nice because Wanderer tends to dump their hand really fast due to the density of ramp spells required. It can't be cascaded into and gives a lot less value if it's cheated into play, but this card does have potential.**Endbringer - A value card that is legal for all decks, but may not have enough of an impact. It's a 6-mana up-front investment and its useful abilities cost mana. Still it's not unplayable for a top-end of a curve.
**Crush of Tentacles - Blue sweepers will always be worth considering, even if they don't hold a candle to Cyclonic Rift. Whether or not it's better than something like Evacuation or Devastation Tide, I'm not sure. The Surge cost can be awkward to cast, because if you're casting a permanent spell then there's a pretty good chance it's just going to get unsummoned when you Surge this anyway which is kind of a waste of time usually, so it appears that it's mostly limited to instants and sorceries.
*Deepfathom Skulker - Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa on a creature but at 2 more mana. That's a fair bit of mana to invest. At least it can attack for itself though and has an expensive unblockable ability. Still, this kind of effect seems more effective when it's at lower mana costs, and with the two aforementioned cards I don't really see the point of this card.
**Sphinx of the Final Word - It sounds like a pretty strong card against blue control decks. However, it still dies to sweepers and can't get around Diabolic Edict type of effects. And given that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir fills a similar role (give the middle finger to blue control decks) but at 2-mana less and with flash, I'm not sure how much play this will see. My guess is that it'll be a "second" copy of Teferi if you need multiples of this kind of card.
**Bonds of Mortality - If hexproof and indestructible generals are causing you grief, I imagine this won't be too shabby of a silver bullet. At the very least it replaces itself so it's not like this will be unplayable as a mainstay in the 99, and since there are Swiftfoot Boots and the like everywhere it will always have some value. Too bad it doesn't stop shroud though. Also you're probably better off just racing these problematic generals.
***Zendikar Resurgent - This is actually a very interesting take on Mana Reflection. The biggest problem with Mana Reflection is obviously it does nothing when you have no cards in hand, as generally when you untap with Reflection in play you vomit your hand onto the board. With this, you can stay gassed to an extent. While I don't think this will explode as spending 7-mana just to gain even more mana is questionable, this has potential to replace Mana Reflection for certain builds. You need to be more creature-heavy to really slot this in though.
**Mina and Denn, Wildborn - It's a bigger Oracle of Mul Daya but trades off the card advantage of Oracle for making a big creature a little more threatening. That's usually a losing trade. Still, anything that lets you play additional lands is always worth considering.
****Mirrorpool - while 5-color decks basically can't play this due to color requirements, 3-color can manage, and 2-color and mono color should be fine. This is pretty good value on a land that is legal in every deck. Note that because it ETBs tapped, it doesn't produce color, and its value abilities cost quite a bit of mana (one of which has to be colorless), you want this to replace a business spell and not a land in your deck, as this is a lategame card that just so happens to be not completely useless if you draw it early. This card won't have a massive impact and will be too slow for the cutthroat metas, but it's legal for every deck and has a fairly minimal cost.
****Sea Gate Wreckage - I actually really like this card. It doesn't ETB tapped, and when you're hellbent you will gladly spend 3 mana and tapping this for a card. Wanderer in particular likes to dump its hand really fast and can gas out, so depending on how you balance your deck between ramp vs business spells vs draw spells, you might consider this. My wanderer deck is a bit heavier on draw spells, but I could consider removing a few draw spells and have this in here.
***Wandering Fumahole - Manlands are always playable. ETBing tapped can be a problem in your race to 8 mana though.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Song of the Dryads
+ Trinket Mage
+ Mana Crypt
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Farhaven Elf
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Engulf the Shore - The instant speed means it might be the go-to sweeper for monoblue decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
**Epiphany at the Drownyard - It's not an X-version of fact or fiction, it's steam augury which is much worse. Granted, in multiplayer you can try to play politics and choose an opponent that will give you the pile you need ("If you don't give me the counterspell we lose."). Still, you play fact or fiction first.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - I find it funny that his unsummon is strictly worse than the version on his Mind Sculptor counterpart (ignoring the fact that Mind Sculptor is a broken POS). With that said, he's a pretty slow draw engine, since unsummon isn't that strong in EDH unless you're unsummoning your own creatures to reuse ETB effects, though I'm sure there are worse things you could play.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Pieces of the Puzzle - A take on Peer Through Depths. This is 1 more mana and is sorcery, but it gets an additional card and the rest go into your graveyard. With that said, this requires significantly more instants and sorceries to get the full value compared to Peer Through Depths. My Talrand deck has over 40 instants and sorceries and often I only see one legal card when I cast Peer, so this card can whiff pretty often. If you can get 50 instants/sorceries in the deck then maybe you can play this safely.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
****Rattlechains - Definitely has a lot of potential. It's low CMC and will often counter a removal spell on one of your spirits, and then lets you play draw-go with your spirits the rest of the game. As for spirits, Brago, King Eternal, all the Kamigawa legendary dragons (or just lots of spirits in Kamigawa in general), Deadeye Navigator, Karmic Guide, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, this list goes on. If you have a semi-spirit tribal theme, or even just a spirit general like Brago, this card should do good work.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Thing in the Ice///Awoken Horror - Could be useful in instant/sorcery-heavy blue decks so you can quickly trigger the transform on command. Once it transforms you can attack for 7 a bit then maybe bounce it back to your hand. Sounds like a lot of work but it's only a 2-mana creature. You'll have to drop it early so you can get the transformation in a reasonable amount of time.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro, Talrand with no polymorph/proteus staff.
**Trail of Evidence - It's a spell-version of Bygone Bishop. With that said, a deck that plays this card would want to have a lot of instants and sorceries and I'm not sure how many of those decks also care about disposable artifacts.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Briarbridge Patrol - If you want the Elvish Piper effect then you just play that card instead, so you really want to put this in a deck that cares about making clues.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Clip Wings - You have a 2-mana spell that can kill 2-3 creatures. The fact that it gets around shround/hexproof/indestructible means you have a solid answer to something like Zur the Enchanter or Brago, King Eternal who often wear greaves or boots and if played early is usually that player's only flier. Despite its simple line of text and appearing to be a very narrow card, I think this card is very strong if your playgroup has very potent fliers. If you can kill at least one flying general and one other half-decent card (like a birds of paradise) then this card will be good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck
****Cryptolith Rite - It's basically a 2-mana enchantment version of Gaea's Cradle, albeit if some of your creatures are already mana dorks then it's less potent, as well as if they need to tap to do an ability (e.g. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard). For another comparison, Phyrexian Altar is 1 more mana and you have to sac the creature for the mana (albeit since it's not tapping it can get around summoning sickness, and having a sac outlet is nice). Still, you basically get mana equal to the number of creatures you control, and that has to do good things. This should be very good in tokens. Just remember that this generally doesn't help power out your token makers, but it lets you explode once you have more tokens in play. That sounds like win-more, but it's hard to say that a 2-mana enchantment that has similarities to several other powerful cards (Cradle, Altar) is going to totally flop.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh.
***Duskwatch Recruiter///Krallenhorde Walker - On its human side it's a watered down Lead the Stampede, and transformed it's a Cloud Key that is locked onto creatures. Both sides synergize fairly well with each other, and on a 2-drop it's not that bad. You really want a large mass of creatures and a deck that wants both sides at any time because of how easy it is to transform back and forth. It could be too slow as well as 3 mana for its activation is a fair bit.
My decks that I would play it in: Any green deck with at least 35-40 creatures.
*Hermit of the Natterknolls///Lone Wolf of the Natterknolls - It's kind of like Dosan the Falling Leaf in that it punishes (or at least tries to) people for trying to play at instant speed, albeit this one is only affecting your turns. Dosan is better if you want to go for a backbreaking combo on your turn as it states that nobody can do anything ever on other turns, because if you're just playing Dosan for value it could backfire on you if someone else wants to go infinite and Dosan would prevent anyfrom from stopping it. The issue is that if you have this guy out (or its transformed side), people are just gonna not cast anything, and only play an instant if whatever you're doing is more degenerate than the card or two you would draw in which case you probably would want Dosan anyway. In essence it's a punisher mechanic. This guy sounds pretty strong but I think he's not going to be as good as he looks.
My decks that I would play him in: None.
**Sage of Ancient Lore///Werewolf of Ancient Hunger - It's a 5 mana creature that draws you a card when it ETBs, and when it flips it will probably be pretty huge with vigilance and trample. Not sure how it will play out but it sounds fine but unexciting.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Seasons Past - It sounds strong on paper but I'm curious to see how well it stacks in reality. The dream is to return, say, 7+ cards with this, but even in EDH mana curves are not ridiculously high. A lot of spells are 3-4 CMC or lower, with not many at 5, 6, 7, etc. How many cards would you need to return before you're happy with this card? As a 6-mana sorcery, I think I would want at least 5 cards, assuming one of them is a land (fetchlands will get into your graveyard very easily, and it'll be even better if an important land got there). You can make this work if you have things that can get to your graveyard quickly and not going out of your way to do so; mill/dredge, evoke, discard outlets, etc. If it's any bonus, this doesn't target, so cards like Scavenging Ooze that are targeted graveyard removal don't hose this as badly as it could. Also it's a question as to whether or not it's worth it when Praetor's Counsel gets everything in your graveyard back, even if it is 2 more mana. It seems too restrictive.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Second Harvest - Somewhat similar to Saproling Symbiosis where if you have a bunch of stuff in play, this makes your board even larger. Seems somewhat winmore, but if you can get, say, at least 5 or so 1/1 tokens from this, it's not bad. It's also a bit more potent if you have larger creature tokens, like wolves, zombies, beasts, etc. The dream of course is to get copies of tokens that are copies of regular cards (e.g. you're playing a UG deck and you made a token copy of Eternal Witness, so this card makes a copy of that Witness token). The instant speed certainly helps the playability.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if more token makers are in the deck
**Silverfur Partisan - It's kind of like Wild Defiance in that when one of your creatures get targeted by an instant or sorcery you get a bonus. Here it's obviously for a wolf or werewolf tribal deck and I'm not sure if that kind of deck exists, but it doesn't seem like a bad card for that deck.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Tireless Tracker - Funny how this card makes Seer's Sundial into a joke, not that sundial was very playable. For another comparison, it's a one-sided but slower Horn of Greed. In any case, it's a 3-drop that generates permanents in a color that loves getting lands into play. You won't draw cards immediately, and this won't do much if you topdeck it late as you may have run out of lands to drop, but this helps ensure that you will never gas out in the early-midgame. There's also some text about it getting larger as you sacrifice clues, but whatever, this will mostly be used as a draw engine for green.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
***Traverse the Ulvenwald - Pretty mediocre without Delirium, but with Delirium it's Eladamri's Call plus Sylvan Scrying stapled together at only 1 mana. However the delirium means it's going to take awhile for this to trigger. Eladamri's call could be used early to get a value creature like Oracle of Mul Daya while this will be more restricted to finding mid-lategame bombs, and earlygame just getting you a basic land. Green decks by default have a lot of creatures to go find, but I would be happy to play this card if there's also a nonbasic land that I really want too (Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.)
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Ulvenwald Hydra - This guy is Primeval Titan and is so clearly worse in every way (finds 1 land instead of 2, and doesn't trigger when it attacks), but somehow still looks playable, which I guess says more about Prime Time than this guy. Regardless, it's a 6-mana "find any land and put it in play tapped" stapled to a respectable body. Obviously since it's finding significantly fewer lands than Prime Time, you want this guy in a deck where you have a very important land to get (e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Altered Ego - yet another clone to the list of clones for EDH. This one doesn't seem that particularly exciting, though it should be better than something like Quicksilver Gargantuan but that's not saying much. Clones in general want to copy the biggest threat on the board, and usually you don't care about +1/+1 counters. I think the only good thing about this card is that you can tutor it with Green Sun's Zenith for 5 mana, compared to Progenitor Mimic where you would need 7, but Progenitor Mimic just has a lot more upside and that usually makes up for the 2 extra mana cost. Being uncounterable is nice though.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Arlinn Kord///Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon - Granting vigilance is underrated in EDH as attacking can sometimes invite all other players to swing in at you. Her 0 and her -1 on the flip side seem tricky to use though, as using them will transform her, so you can't always count on having them, but making 2/2 tokens and then bolting things are nice to have.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh if she is <$5.
**Ongoing Investigation - It seems like a watered down version of Edric's effect, or something like a watered down Military Intelligence, though this card has stuff about exiling a creature card from your graveyard for a life bonus and investigating. With that said, there's a lot going on in this card, and on a 2-mana enchantment, there's certainly potential for it to do something.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
I tried portal and shard, but I liked shard better. I found that the 1 less mana cost is better than not requiring blue mana.
Domri rade is better if the build has more creatures so the +1 hits more often. You also want something huge early on so dropping domri early on for his fight can actually pick off stuff. Often, you're not going to fight effectively until wanderer comes down. I think domri is better if your general is lower CMC with a big body (like, say, surrak dragonclaw).
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Eternal Scourge
Collective Effort
Deploy the Gatewatch
Selfless Spirit
Sigarda's Aid
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Thalia's Lancers
Imprisoned in the Moon
Mausoleum Wanderer
Summary Dismissal
Noosegraf Mob
Tree of Perdition
Shreds of Sanity
Eldritch Evolution
Splendid Reclamation
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Spell Queller
Tamiyo, Field Researcher
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Eternal Scourge (not specifically for this deck, but for more competitive Wanderer builds)
Imprisoned in the Moon
Eldritch Evolution
Splendid Reclamation
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
**Decimator of the Provinces - Overrun on a stick. Or in another comparison, a fairer version of Craterhoof Behemoth. Emerge is an interesting mechanic, as it's like the offering mechanic from Kamigawa except you can't flash it in as an instant unless the card says it can (offering allowed you to play it as an instant) but offering required a very specific thing to offer while emerge just lets you sacrifice any creature. In any case, I feel like this guy doesn't do enough unless you have additional ways to give your swarm more power. +2/+2 isn't that much especially if it's only for the turn. The trample is nice, but at such a hefty mana cost it could be problematic.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Elder Deep-Fiend - The flash on this card combined with emerge actually makes it intriguing, as you can sacrifice something in response to something. Tapping things down at instant speed can catch people off guard and buy valuable time.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Curious Homunculus - Only for spellslinger decks. It's a fairly slow mana dork, but it can flip into a Goblin Electromancer which is certainly powerful, plus it can swing for a lot after you throw out a bunch of spells. It probably is worse than regular old Electromancer but more copies of that effect can't be bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Displace - Pauper gets another tool. Though it's still not bad as a budget option for blink/goodstuff decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Docent of Perfection//Final Iteration - I kind of don't like this guy becoming an Eldrazi. I just liked the story, going from Delver in the original Innistrad into Abberant Form in Shadows and I think the eldrazi ending ruined that story. I do like how it basically spits out delvers though. Obviously this only goes into spellslinger decks, and even then it might be too slow. Most spellslinger decks just go infinite with spells and probably have no need to make 1/1s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fortune's Favor - I really like the design of this card, being a fairer fact or fiction. FoF was intended to be a deep card with lots of intricacies, but in reality it doesn't really play like that because it's just too good. This is much fairer and we'll see what happens. Regardless in EDH this doesn't seem like it's strong enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Identity Thief - On one hand, flickering creatures is always handy. Flicker something you control, flicker out something an opponent controls to get attacker(s) in, etc. On the other hand, it sounds like it'll be more difficult to use than it should.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play are always scary (Darksteel Mutation, Song of the Dryads, etc.), and the fact that blue now gets to jump in on the fun is scarier. In a pinch it can also hit a Gaea's Cradle or something. Most blue decks that want to play fair will likely play this card, although green and white do have these types of effects, but if you want multiple copies of this effect then it'll do good work, and if you don't have green or white this will be welcomed.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
*Lunar Force - It's Hesitation for 1 more mana but only triggers on an opponent's spell. In EDH it's too easy for an opponent to throw away a bad spell though.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
***Mausoleum Wanderer - The fact that this is 1 mana will be a huge annoyance. If you can find ways to pump its power at instant speed (flash in other spirits for example) you can catch people off guard and this can become a hard counter.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Mind's Dilation - It sounds like a hilarious effect, but it's 7-mana and if they flip a land you don't get anything, and they can hit mediocre cards, or cards that don't do anything (e.g. flip Green Sun's Zenith).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Summary Dismissal - Counterspells that get around uncounterable spells (e.g. Supreme Verdict) are always interesting. On top of that, you get stifle. It's similar to Voidslime in a way in that it's a catch-all counterspell. While it does say "all" you usually won't be exiling more than one spell or ability (or storm trigger) so don't get your hopes up. If you can get multiple spells and/or abilities with this card though it'll be quite the blowout. The effect is certainly powerful but I don't have any decks that really want this effect. It's just nice to know that if people get cheeky with their Cavern of Souls or Boseijus, thinking their key spell is safe, you always have an out.
My decks that I would play it in: May or may not play in blue decks
**Unsubstantiate - It's Venser, Shaper Savant's ETB effect for 2-mana, although it only unsummons and not boomerangs. Regardless in combo decks this can be a useful counterspell as it's a fairly versatile card to get something out of the way temporarily while you combo out. I don't really see a place for this card in fairer decks though that want the game to go longer. It's not usually worth a card just to gain some tempo against one player. Could see use in 1v1 though.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eldritch Evolution - It's a fairer natural order. That's still very solid. Another comparison would be that it's birthing pod that is one shot, but costs slightly less mana and you "jump" up to 2 mana instead of 1. That's all I really need to say.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks
****Splendid Reclamation - This card has the potential to ramp you very hard. Any deck that has mill can quickly get a bunch of lands into the yard. Compare this to other 4-mana ramp spells that get you 2 lands like Explosive Vegetation, and you can see that just getting 3+ lands reliably will pay you off, and this brings back nonbasics too. This also includes lands that get there naturally, like fetchlands, strip mine, things that got destroyed by opposing strip mines, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most green decks with a mill theme, Progenitus
*Ulvenwald Observer - If you have black, Harvester of Souls is close to strictly better. Even then, Soul of the Harvest is usually better than this. And at 6-mana you don't really want multiples of these effects, not to mention the effect is fairly narrow anyway. How many creatures with 4+ toughness will you have out and die on you?
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ulrich of the Krallenhorde//Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha - Sounds funny for a RG fight club deck, but it's very hard to get creatures to transform, as it requires nobody to cast anything for a turn, which is very rare. Because of that this guy doesn't seem very playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Geier Reach sanitarium - Similar to Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. Seems nifty for group hug but not very exciting in anything else.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Recruiter of the Guard
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Demon of Dark Schemes
Nissa, Vital Force
Cloudblazer
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
Aetherworks Marvel
Panharmonicon
Inventor's Fair
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
**Aethersquall Ancient - It requires a lot of energy and it doesn't build up energy at a fast rate. If you can generate a lot of energy then this can keep the board clear. It's too slow on its own though. You ideally want 8 energy before playing this so you can immediately clear the board. At 7-mana if you stuff a bunch of energy cards then maybe.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Ceremonious Rejection - 1-mana hard counters are nothing to scoff at even when they're limited in scope. In the right meta this can be quite good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Dramatic Reversal - This can't untap lands which means it's more limited in scope than Turnabout but it is only 2-mana and it still untaps your mana rocks. Spellslinger decks will probably play this as another way to make infinite mana with Reiterate.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Era of Innovation - It's a reliable but slow way to generate energy. The card drawing is nice but likely you'll play this for the energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Glint-Nest Crane - Passable value creature for artifact decks, but artifact decks might be more interested in playing an artifact that can do something similar.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Insidious Will - It's a cute card, but it's 1 mana too expensive for its effects. 4+ mana counterspells are extremely tricky and hard to use, particularly when Cryptic Command sets the bar for 4-mana counters.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Metallurgic Summonings - It's a 5-mana do nothing, but in the right build this can be scary. Making some creatures whenever you cast an instant or sorcery is nice, but being able to recur tons of spells back to your hand is scary. Requiring 6 artifacts in play sounds like a huge task, but when you consider that you'll likely be playing a lot of mana rocks, it shouldn't be that hard to reach. Note that the creatures created by this card are artifacts which count towards the second ability.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Padeem, Consul of Innovation - Blue version of Leonin Abunas except this can draw you cards slowly and can be your general. It doesn't look like a very strong general, though if you want a monoblue artifact general and you don't want to play Arcum Dagsson who draws obvious hate, you could try this one. As part of the other 99 it has some value, but because this doesn't have hexproof it'll be easy to remove this.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Paradoxical Outcome - My initial instinct is that this card won't be very good. I guess you could play this in response to a wrath, but you would probably be better off just countering the wrath instead of having this in your deck if there are cards you have that you are interested in saving. It is a unique effect and that's why I don't think it'll be useless, but I can't think of any situation where this would be really good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Saheeli's Artistry - Similar to Stolen Identity in that it's a 6-mana sorcery that copies either creatures or artifacts. There are some obvious differences (Stolen Identity ciphers and needs to connect to clone again, this generally is harder to fizzle with removal spells as you will usually have two targets whereas Stolen Identity only has one, etc.), but ultimately the bar for clones is pretty high. It's decent but doesn't really stand out.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Shrewd Negotiation - These types of donate cards are mostly for Zedruu decks, but 5-mana for an exchange effect is still expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Torrential Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, so you really want to be a dedicated draw-go deck where leaving up 6 mana doesn't fire off alarms in everyone's heads. Only hitting instants is somewhat restrictive as well, though there are plenty of good instants to get (namely counterspells and removal spells). However you really want to flashback an instant of CMC 5+ before you really get your money's worth with this card, and while there are a couple (Dig Through Time being obvious, even though it's more like a 2-mana card), there aren't numerous amounts of high-CMC instants that are useful in EDH. This does limit the value of the card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Architect of the Untamed - That's a lot of energy required to create a 6/6 dude. Landfall isn't hard to meet if you have fetchlands, but the fact that you need a lot of energy is offputting. It just seems too slow. It'll be more useful as an energy generator than actually pumping out 6/6 dudes.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Armorcraft Judge - If this can draw you 3-4 cards you'll have gotten your money's worth. The trick is being able to do that reliably. Cards that slowly but surely put +1/+1 counters on a lot of creatures (Abzan Ascendency, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, avenger of Zendikar and all the plant tokens, etc.) will have to do the trick. Because of that, this card is very much a lategame card and not something you can play on turn 4 or 5 and expect to draw some cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cultivator of Blades - Interesting dynamic in that either you can make his pump effect more potent, or you can put more bodies into play to receive his pump effect. That is cool design. It's a decent card overall and is obviously for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh
Dubious Challenge - This card is terrible but I have heard some buzz about it, so I shall explain why it's awful. First, you have to reliably hit at least two creatures to choose; if you only choose one then your opponent will usually just take it and leave you with nothing (granted, that's not hard to do in a green deck) and if you choose 0 then your spell literally does nothing. Second, the fact that the opponent chooses the creature first is a huge problem because they'll take the better creature and leave you with the inferior creature, and you arguably LOST mana on the deal (e.g. they take a 5-mana dude and leave you with a 4-mana one). The only way I can think of to make this work is to play cards like Homeward Path to get the creature back, but if the creature the opponent takes has an ETB effect (e.g. Acidic Slime) then it doesn't fully mitigate the problem. Basically you have to hope that the opponent takes a creature and then does something with it that doesn't hinder you (e.g. take the acidic slime and blow up someone else's thing) which is already very tricky to do. Basically you have to be really far behind so the opponent takes the creature and then doesn't target you, and you have to choose creatures that can't negatively affect you (e.g. you probably should not pull out a Vorinclex for your opponent to take). Ultimately it's a lot of work for what is basically a crappier Defense of the Heart, Pattern of Rebirth, etc. type of card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Nissa, Vital Force - I'm actually quite excited for her, moreso than your average planeswalker. Unlike most other walkers, she can ultimate very quickly without relying on doubling season, so you can evaluate her based on cracking said ultimate. Her ultimate comes in one turn if you +1 her immediately, and that emblem is definitely solid value. If you have proliferate effects you could even do it immediately. The +1 even helps protect you by making a 5/5 for a whole round. In a green deck, 5-mana is not that hard to get by turn 3 and it can be difficult to pressure a PW that early in the game especially if you make a 5/5 blocker. Now if you can't ultimate her then she is less exciting (Nature's Spiral is a decent card, but she can't do it twice in a row and isn't worth spending 5-mana for it), but if you can hit the ultimate you will get some nice value. Note that her ultimate is very similar to Tireless Tracker except you don't spend 2 mana per card draw and once you get the ultimate off you never have to worry about it being removed.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter - Similar to Rhys the Redeemed; 1-mana generals with a 3-mana activated ability to make a 1/1 dude. However, this doesn't give you access to white, and its second ability is usually worse (generally in token decks it's better to continue to go wide than making one large creature).
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Verdurous Hulk - Not really sure what deck to play this in. Just making some dudes bigger is not a big deal in EDH.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wildest Dreams - Power level errata of Recall anyone? In any case, it's a decent card but it's very mana intensive. It's 1-mana over Regrowth, and X=2 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Seasons Past which will often get you more than 2 cards. At X=3 you are 1 mana shy of straight up Praetor's Council. I mean that is the point of X-cards, but this simply seems too inefficient.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Rashmi, Eternities Crafter - Can you imagine how stupid this card would be if Prophet of Kruphix wasn't banned? UG decks are basically just dumb midrange value decks, and this is a perfect dumb midrange value card. Basically ramp hard in the early turns and then transition into a draw-go type of gameplay, with a few flash enablers, to maximize the number of times you can trigger this. She's a 4-drop but you probably want to play her with some mana up so you can play a brainstorm or the like to get some value, so maybe closer to 6-7 mana. She's also insane with cards that have high CMC but have an alternate casting cost (e.g. Force of Will, Misdirection) as you can jam her in early but still get a huge CMC trigger. It's basically a mini-version of cascade spells, so you can't really cheat a big spell into play, but at the very least it's going to your hand, and it doesn't count as a draw effect which gets around things like Consecrated Sphinx and Leovold from the new conspiracy set. It's not broken, but it's a perfect durdle midrange card in colors that love doing exactly that.
My decks that I would play it in: Many UG decks, or a new deck with her as the general
***Saheeli Rai - UR artifacts now gets a solid clone effect at 3-mana. You only keep the token for one turn, but again, 3-mana. She doesn't pass the doubling season test though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Deepglow Skate
Faerie Artisans
Divergent Transformations
Benefactor's Draught
Atraxa, Praetor's voice
Breya, Etherium Shaper
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Armory Automaton
Ash Barrens
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Faerie Artisans
THIS PAGE COVERS ALL COMBINATIONS OF PAIRS FOR THE PARTNER GENERALS
https://badaro.github.io/edhpartners/partners.html
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
BLUE
**Coastal Breach - Ignore the fact that every bounce blue sweeper pales in comparison to Cyclonic Rift (let alone how most sweepers are worse than Rift). Better or worse than Crush of Tentacles or Devastation Tide? If you have three opponents this costs 4, which is actually not bad. Tide has more upside though since you can miracle it for just 2 (and miracle also means you can cast it at instant speed if you build around it enough) and Crush can leave behind an 8/8. The other issue is that if you have only two opponents this costs 5 and then becomes strictly worse than Tide. Seems okay overall but not particularly exciting because of that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Deepglow Skate - Is this blue's version of Doubling Season? It won't let planeswalkers enter the battlefield and then immediately ultimate (one of the advantages of doubling season) but it does affect PWs already on your board. You can double charge counters, -1/-1 counters, and of course +1/+1 counters as well. Tons of flexibility and power in the right builds.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Faerie Artisans - This creature, at only 4 mana, continuously clones creatures that your opponents play, for no additional mana. However, not all creatures give value, and since you are forced to exile the token, sometimes that creature could do nothing. For example, an opponent could play Consecrated Sphinx and then immediately play Birds of Paradise so you lose your Sphinx token. If an opponent has a big ETB creature (e.g. Terastodon) they will just hold onto it until Artisans leaves play, or if they absolutely have to play the creature. In other words, it will sometimes act as a punisher mechanic. Also, it will generally not affect the hypercompetitive circles as those don't have as many ETB value creatures and are more infinite combos/hyperstax. To improve this card's floor, play some flicker effects, so you can flicker the artisan at will which will let you keep the last token it made (which can also catch people off guard; e.g. in the above example, flicker your artisan before Birds resolves so you keep your Consecrated Sphinx token). It is an extremely powerful card and has the potential to take over a game by itself, but there are some situations where it's not that good.
My decks that I would play it in: Blue creature decks with ETB/flicker theme
***Grip of Phyresis - Is that germ token holding sword of fire and ice? That's amazing. In any case, making this instant speed makes this very interesting. It can throw off a lot of math (were you relying on untapping your lands with sword of feast and famine?). Depending on the attacker and the equipment you steal, you can actually eat the attacker. You likely want to be a voltron deck so you can guarantee that whatever equipment you steal will still retain value (strap the stolen equipment onto your general) but it should be solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Manifold Insights - Very few punisher mechanics are playable. I'm not sure this is one of them. If you can argue some politics you could convince an opponent to give you a key card ("Give me this removal spell to kill this permanent or else we lose"). Also this does say "nonland", and any spell is generally better than nothing. If you are intentionally playing a low-power deck you could also maybe convince people to give you certain cards you want. Again, I tend to not like punisher mechanics, but you could try it out in your playgroup and see how it fares.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
GREEN
****Benefactor's Draught - Simply untapping all creatures (although that includes your opponents') has a lot of potential. It also cantrips and can draw a few more cards. However there will be some intricacies with this card; if an opponent has no untapped creatures and playing this will suddenly give them blockers, this could be a good or bad thing depending on the situation. The cantrip helps this card's floor, but I imagine this will be used in combo decks because of how it untaps your creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Charging Cinderhorn - It starts off doing little damage so it doesn't impact the board early. It can ramp up quickly, but people can just suicide a little dork to avoid the trigger.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Evolutionary escalation - It's 2-mana but you likely won't play this until mid-lategame. In any case, you obviously want to play a creature that wants this huge bonus (like voltron), and most notably you can choose which other creature gets the counters. Put it on a creature with defender, or a creature that normally doesn't attack (like Arcanis the Omnipotent), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Primeval Protector - It can come down for relatively cheap which can make it quite scary. Generally if you run enough creatures/token generators where you would want this card, by the time you want to play this card the board is probably quite cluttered, meaning this can come down for maybe 1-3 mana, anthems your other creatures and leaves a 10/10. Of course if nobody else plays a lot of creatures then it's unplayable, but generally at least one opponent will have a bunch of creatures out and the other opponents usually have at least 1-2 creatures out. It's sort of win more and it is terrible early on or after a sweeper (as are most anthems) though.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (budget pending)
**Seeds of Renewal - Restock that requires 2 opponents to be the same card, and 3 opponents makes it slightly better. Restock is a solid card but not really a staple. This card is playable but doesn't jump out to me.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Stonehoof Chieftain - Certainly powerful, but at 8-mana you get what you pay for. Perfect for your usual green stompy decks that want their creatures to force through damage and not die in combat.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(GRUUL)
**Tana, the Bloodsower - Hard to say how exactly to build this guy. You need help to force through damage (trample does help, but you need ways to buff him because he's a 4-mana 2/2, like Xenagos, God of Revels) and then its bonus is to make a bunch of 1/1s. So basically you would need to put a bunch of your eggs in one basket and then your bonus is to go wide. Those abilities seem to be at ends with each other. Unless there's a card where you can sacrifice 1/1s to pump up a creature, I'm not sure how playable this guy will be.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(IZZET)
***Kraum, Ludevic's Opus - Wizards' refusal to make a UR artifact general is frustrating, but let's ignore that for now. Flying + haste on a 4/4 for 5 is decent stats for voltron on its own, and many players do cast 2+ spells a turn, which makes it not bad at drawing cards. However given its aggressive stats, people may kill this because they don't want to get voltron'd out, which means the card draw effect is more of a bonus, and you likely want to play this card more for the fact that it's a relatively aggressive general. UR doesn't really have a voltron general and it'll be interesting if this will fill that role.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - While I'm not as high on lore as some other people, this card is quite disappointing for someone who is supposed to be a "Necro-Alchemist". When I hear "Necro-Alchemist", I'm expecting actual necromancy things, not some weird group hug effect.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
(SIMIC)
**Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Many blue decks have cards that draw a bunch of cards for cheap (Brainstorm being the most iconic) so this can provide a ton of mana. Being only colorless is a bummer. You could use a card or two that can turn colorless mana into colored mana, but that seems clunky and slow. On top of that, having to play or cast things that draw you cards so that your mana dork can actually provide decent mana can be clunky; there are only so many brainstorm effects you can fit in your deck. You can play untap effects (Mind over Matter) once you've drawn enough cards so that you don't need infinite brainstorm effects, but then it starts getting clunky. Note that this only cares about literal cards drawn, so things like Fact or Fiction do lose some value which is a bummer. Maybe you can play some kind of pillow fort/group hug with 9001 howling Mines. If this can reliably tap for 4+ mana, it's worth building around, but it's going to take work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Thrasios, Triton Hero - So it's the Coiling Oracle ETB with scry 1 attached to it, but you need to pay a whooping 4 mana. Obviously this will be a decent mana sink on a 2-drop, but it likely goes in vastly different decks than Coiling Oracle would. Oracle goes into simic durdle ETB value decks, whereas this wants to be harder on control where you want to leave mana up and then use this as a mana sink.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Treacherous Terrain - This would be a funny card against many of those green ramp stompy decks. Too bad this thing costs 8 mana and so it's basically unplayable. Paying 8 mana to do 10-15 damage, even in a good scenario, is meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
+ Faerie Artisans
+ Molten Primordial
- Carpet of Flowers
- Halimar Depths
- Balefire Dragon
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
No
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)