Tarkir: Dragonstorm has been released, and with it a whole host of new cards. There’s cards created specifically for Commander, cards created for the Draft format, and of course, cards created for Standard. But what, exactly, are the best red cards in the set for Standard?
Cori-Steel Cutter
Cori-Steel Cutter is a brilliant piece of equipment for Standard. Not only does it give the creature that it’s equipped to +1/+1, trample and haste, but it also has a secondary ability. Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, you create a 1/1 white Monk creature token with Prowess. You can then attach this card to that token - if you cast low cost instant, sorceries and artifacts, then you can have a really big Monk that also has trample and haste, allowing for a massive amount of damage in one turn.
Tersa Lightshatter
Tersa Lightshatter is an interesting card. When it enters the battlefield, it allows you to discard up to two cards before drawing that many cards, which helps to fulfill the secondary ability. Whenever it attacks, if there’s seven or more cards in your graveyard (and these can be any type of card, not just nonland cards) then you get to exile a card at random from your graveyard. You can then play that card this turn. What really makes this stand above some other cards of the same ilk is that the effect specifically uses the word ‘play’ - this means that if you haven’t played a land this turn, and you happen to exile one, then you can still play that land.
Magmatic Hellkite
Magmatic Hellkite is a really useful card because it’s land destruction in Standard. Land removal is a controversial topic in Magic The Gathering in general, but it’s important to have, especially in a format like Standard. Land removal on legs? That’s really important.
What makes this especially cool is that it causes the basic land to enter the battlefield with a stun counter on it - what this means is that your opponent cannot use the land the turn after it actually comes into play. So you get to destroy a nonbasic land and slow down your opponents game plan.
Stadium Headliner
Stadium Headliner is a one drop with an ability that creates more creatures as it attacks. Mobilize 1 means that as you attack, you create a 1/1 warrior creature token that’s also attacking - the only downside is that it’s sacrificed at the beginning of the next end step.
However, if you use the card strategically, then you can utilize this to power up the second ability of the card - by paying two mana and sacrificing Stadium Headliner, you deal damage equal to the number of creatures you control to any target creature. So if you use this ability after attacking and not being blocked, you’re dealing at minimum two damage to another creature.
Wild Ride
Wild Ride might not seem like much on the surface - it gives a creature +3/+0 and haste until the end of turn. It’s not much, but it’s pretty cool.
While that ability is pretty basic, what really makes this card tick is the fact it has Harmonize. This allows you to cast it from your graveyard, and if you tap a creature then you reduce the cost of the card by X where X was that cards power before exiling it. For example - the Harmonize cost here is four colorless and one red. If you tap a creature with four power, then the card will be a one-drop once again, meaning you can really make a creature terrifying.
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