This is potentially quite a good surge enabler for bigger surge spells like the one that makes an 8/8, but I feel that it's too inconsistent (~40% chance on average to return) that it won't see much play. And it definitely should not be rare. What the hell is Wizards thinking with the rarity distributions in these last few sets? So many excessively lame rares.
To everyone talking about Domain: This land does not have a basic land type. Therefore, it does not add to Domain, which counts land types, not just "different basic lands".
It also has a set number (184/184), so it will not be a token that you use to replace basic lands when they become blighted.
Just to make a point, it's not named Rib Cage Spider because it actually has an endoskeleton, but because its markings resemble a ribcage. The same reason people sometimes call black widows "hourglass spiders"
The World Champ decks had golden signatures across the type line--those would be pretty hard to get around. You could also not include the foil stamp for rares.
They used to do something similar with the World Championship decks, printing entire gold-bordered standard decks. They could do something similar with the top standard decks of the season or whatever. My friends and I used to have a blast playing the world champ decks against each other back before we had jobs and could afford real cards.
Why would poison have anything to do with the River Prowler? Sure, that's a BUG-like mechanic, but what would river prowler possibly do for a poison deck? He doesn't do poison damage and he can't even block.
Despite the psychological pain of milling away that Stoke the Flames that would have killed them, it is *always* correct to loot unless you are dangerously low on cards in library or you are trying to hit your one-outer. There is really no debate there. Yes, sometimes you will mill that card you wanted, but those will be few and far between. That card on top of your deck is blank until it is drawn. You aren't sacrificing anything by looting it, and you are in fact gaining +1 mana for your delve spells.
If you torture yourself with the "it COULD HAVE BEEN" decisions, you are holding yourself back as a player. You have to have the discipline to not think in what-if terms. People who look at the top cards after mulligans, for example. Were land #2 and #3 sitting on top? Oh gosh, they were. Next time you're more likely to keep that one-land hand and get blown out when it's not there. If it's statistically correct to do it, then DO IT. You will win more games and more tournaments when you learn to play detached from the what-ifs.
The problem there is that you have no way to protect your few win-cons, and you also have no way to draw into more win-cons. With six real threats (and I hesitate to call Hammer a real threat since it's so cost-intensive) in the list, you're looking at drawing two, if you're lucky, in an average game. If your opponent answers those, you're eventually going to have the wrong answer at the wrong time (topdecking Thoughtseize or the Ram when your opponent top decks a Stormbreath Dragon or Polukranos) and die before you draw your next win con. Even the aggro decks may just be able to draw a 2/2 every turn and kill you when you finally fall behind by either drawing lands or cards that don't do anything in the late game.
You're relying on too much 1-for-1 with no inherent card advantage beyond sweepers. I think this needs more threats as a result. 1-for-1 is fine until the late game when it turns into a top deck war. Then you're at the mercy of your draws, and the math just works out that you have more dead draws (more land, thoughtseizes, burn against big creatures) than your aggressive opponents do. Pure control just won't work in this meta in these colors, I don't think.
Magma Spray. Magma Spray is the card I want to see most in my opening hand right now vs an unknown opponent. It deals with Bloodsoaked Champion for good. It deals with every card on that list except Fleecemane Lion, and you can Lightning Strike that. I am looking at some sort of RGx midrange list that main decks Magma Spray and Lightning Strike, in addition to Anger of the Gods out of the board. Even if you kill your own Mystic/Caryatid, if you clear both sides of the board and their followup is a 2/2 and yours is a 5/5, you are in good shape.
I think you should stick to monored if you don't have Mana Confluence or plans to get Bloodstained Mires. That aside, I think you also need to be more aware of your deck choices in general. Here's some advice:
20 lands is far too few for a deck that wants to cast Butcher of the Horde. 20 lands is something I would run in a mono-red deck with 12 1-drops, 12 2-drops, a few 3-drops and some cheap burn spells. With 20 lands, your deck needs to be able to win a game on only 2 mana, since that is frequently what you will be stuck with because you have no library manipulation. This deck can't do that, because you have too few 2-drops. Ankle Shanker will quite literally never hit the table. Butcher *might*, but never consistently on turn 4. He is a wonderful ahead-of-the-curve threat that will bail you out of losing situations, but not if he doesn't come down until turn 6. Aggro decks want the game to end on turn 4.
Magma Spray is going to be main-decked a great deal in midrange and control decks, especially early in the season where it is known that there is a solid all-in aggro deck (Rabble Red) and a potential game-changer in Bloodsoaked Champion coming out of the graveyard. So your opponents are going to be holding up R quite often. Aggressive tricks like Titan's Strength are just asking to get blown out by Magma Spray and/or Lightning Strike/Bile Blight, which will also be common cheap removal. Slower decks are going to have to be proactive in removing your creatures. If they hold off dropping a Caryatid with the intention of Lightning Striking your guy, and you have Gods Willing to save him, you probably just win the game, if you have enough pressure.
This deck here is being pulled in two different directions. You really should pick one or the other: Play Rabble Red, which is the all-in kill-you-before-you-can-blink deck of the format, or up your land count to 24, get some serious fixing, and go for the more midrange Mardu deck. It's more resilient to disruption/Anger of the Gods and can live long enough to deploy big threats like Butcher and Stormbreath Dragon.
Another why, Wizards, why is WHY does Pearl Lake Ancient have prowess? Why does a 6/7 flash beater need prowess? It just seems so utterly pointless on such a large creature. It's something for small, agile things, not a gigantic leviathan. It feels like lazy design. I mean, I hate prowess in general, but sticking it on the Ancient just really got to me. It shows that they were either really next-leveling us and it's going to be bonkers on him, or they were just extremely lazy.
Surrak Dragonclaw, while potentially powerful (not that Standard will ever have real counter spells again), just seems like a total cop-out design-wise. It's like they had no flavorful ideas so they just said, sure whatever, your stuff can't be countered and has trample. Whoopeee.
I don't know what it is, but the design of this set just feels totally uninspired to me. Maybe that's why they didn't reprint Inspiration
Sorin is pretty boring. He basically just does the same thing as his last incarnation. Makes vampires, gives your team +1/+0 and lifelink.
Limited looks like it will be fun, but I feel like they fell flat on a lot of the rares. I guess they just figured the fetches would sell the set so why waste time on cohesive and interesting designs?
It also has a set number (184/184), so it will not be a token that you use to replace basic lands when they become blighted.
Basically, anything but Nemesis (unless Prophecy is hiding under there, then Godspeed).
If you torture yourself with the "it COULD HAVE BEEN" decisions, you are holding yourself back as a player. You have to have the discipline to not think in what-if terms. People who look at the top cards after mulligans, for example. Were land #2 and #3 sitting on top? Oh gosh, they were. Next time you're more likely to keep that one-land hand and get blown out when it's not there. If it's statistically correct to do it, then DO IT. You will win more games and more tournaments when you learn to play detached from the what-ifs.
You're relying on too much 1-for-1 with no inherent card advantage beyond sweepers. I think this needs more threats as a result. 1-for-1 is fine until the late game when it turns into a top deck war. Then you're at the mercy of your draws, and the math just works out that you have more dead draws (more land, thoughtseizes, burn against big creatures) than your aggressive opponents do. Pure control just won't work in this meta in these colors, I don't think.
20 lands is far too few for a deck that wants to cast Butcher of the Horde. 20 lands is something I would run in a mono-red deck with 12 1-drops, 12 2-drops, a few 3-drops and some cheap burn spells. With 20 lands, your deck needs to be able to win a game on only 2 mana, since that is frequently what you will be stuck with because you have no library manipulation. This deck can't do that, because you have too few 2-drops. Ankle Shanker will quite literally never hit the table. Butcher *might*, but never consistently on turn 4. He is a wonderful ahead-of-the-curve threat that will bail you out of losing situations, but not if he doesn't come down until turn 6. Aggro decks want the game to end on turn 4.
Magma Spray is going to be main-decked a great deal in midrange and control decks, especially early in the season where it is known that there is a solid all-in aggro deck (Rabble Red) and a potential game-changer in Bloodsoaked Champion coming out of the graveyard. So your opponents are going to be holding up R quite often. Aggressive tricks like Titan's Strength are just asking to get blown out by Magma Spray and/or Lightning Strike/Bile Blight, which will also be common cheap removal. Slower decks are going to have to be proactive in removing your creatures. If they hold off dropping a Caryatid with the intention of Lightning Striking your guy, and you have Gods Willing to save him, you probably just win the game, if you have enough pressure.
This deck here is being pulled in two different directions. You really should pick one or the other: Play Rabble Red, which is the all-in kill-you-before-you-can-blink deck of the format, or up your land count to 24, get some serious fixing, and go for the more midrange Mardu deck. It's more resilient to disruption/Anger of the Gods and can live long enough to deploy big threats like Butcher and Stormbreath Dragon.
Surrak Dragonclaw, while potentially powerful (not that Standard will ever have real counter spells again), just seems like a total cop-out design-wise. It's like they had no flavorful ideas so they just said, sure whatever, your stuff can't be countered and has trample. Whoopeee.
I don't know what it is, but the design of this set just feels totally uninspired to me. Maybe that's why they didn't reprint Inspiration
Sorin is pretty boring. He basically just does the same thing as his last incarnation. Makes vampires, gives your team +1/+0 and lifelink.
Limited looks like it will be fun, but I feel like they fell flat on a lot of the rares. I guess they just figured the fetches would sell the set so why waste time on cohesive and interesting designs?