#instant nut archetype

[inventors-fair]

Can’t Wait To Draft: New Archetype Winners ~

Congratulations to @helloijustreadyourpost, @naban-dean-of-irritation and @snugz for winning this week’s contest!

Going through the awesome cards for this week, we had a plethora of strong design choices. Winners were a lot harder. I had to ask myself a few questions:

Does this card re-inform how I’d usually draft these colors and/or understand these archetypes in a draft?

Does this card play well in with previous MTG cards? e.g. If these cards appeared in a supplemental set, could someone slot them into a deck and/or make a deck with cards of that concept without reaching?

Does the flavor resonate? How so? Does it make sense mechanically? How is it connected?

Finally, does this archetype inform me of what’s to come in a constructive way that implies fun and dynamic gameplay?

Not every question is answered here explicitly, but the options are weighed. Hopefully I can make clear the kinds of thoughts I had about these cards!

@helloijustreadyourpost — Titanspeaker

One of my old favorite cards wall Nulltread Gargantuan from Alara Reborn. UG big monsters shows up on occasion, but...at the same time, never really as an archetype. Eldraine had a little “big spell” subtheme, ish, and even WAR Kiora didn’t have a “build around me” feel. Big creatures in blue feels perfectly reasonable even when the slant would probably be more towards green, and mechanically, wow, that activated ability really is something cool. Not great for much other than limited and commander, but hell, that’s all we can ask for, and it plays great. Can’t play your big thing yet? Use it as an aggro buff. Really cool. 

Merfolk as shamans/monster whisperers also checks out and makes sense, playing against the Ixalan merfolk’s strategy; it makes me feel like they’re not the only speaker species. I can see the sort of misty, rocky, rugged merpeople in their shamanic getup, the speaker themself drawing from the ocean or the stream and being imbued with the monstrous energy. Cool!

Nitpick: it should be “5 or greater” and “gains trample.”

~

@naban-dean-of-irritation — Surgesword Sentry

[Art direction from user: “A spindly looking robot cobbled together from multiple metals, with tubes running from it to a sword that is crackling with energy. Behind it is a completely barren and desolate wasteland.”]

Okay, this definitely feels like it’s at the top of the “weird” curve. Having just played a little of MH2, there’s this sense of robotic artifact mess, and I say “mess” in a Pollock way, not in a disaster way. I mean, hey, you’re here in the winner’s place, so. RG storm isn’t exactly an archetype, and this card, well, it asks for something different. Bizarrely, the “cast 2-3 spells per turn” archetype shows up in BW on Kaldheim, occasionally in blue, and it’s just an odd little duck there. But, casting multiple spell is really cool, and this card changes gameplay hard. Blowing out as a charged mechanic, choosing your spells and/or working around what your opponent might be able to cast, debating instants, changing your curve—yeah, really neat. If R and G have any sacrifice in them in other archetypes, yeah, we’re there too. I think that the RG aggro shell can use this well, and that despite the constructed ease with which aggro decks could use this to go nuts, it changes limited in great ways. Not 100% sure that mechanic is worded exactly right but triggers are weird. Worth asking a legit judge.

Flavorfully! We have this world with green artifact creatures, RG artifact creatures, this kind of world energy, a strange old/overgrown/rusty series of sentries (what are they guarding?) on an inhospitable world. Where on earth are we? What kind of place built these kinds of creatures? I’m intrigued at what the world could be here, and that’s... I can see how it would be frustrating to read how the mystery evokes feeling over something explicitly cool/new, but the implication is strong enough to make me want more.

~

@snugz — Xaus, Unfettered Ritualist

I want to start with the flavor here. Convocation as a concept is indeed not just limited to this choral feeling of Selesnyan togetherness. The warlock demands that the cult come together to complete the ritual. Great! I see this person with their robe, their knives, the way they’re drawing their power, the strength of all the other cultists around them watching as the shackles of the flesh fall away, etc.

Mechanically, what do you need here? BR creature-heavy decks aren’t uncommon, but the extent to which you’d need them to make Xaus work here implies a larger connection. Tokens make that easy, way easier in colors like GW, but RB goblins exist, black spirits, thrulls, whatever—it hardly matters, because this is a weird and awesome subtheme. I’m getting strong Feaster of Fools vibes, or even Hogaak, where it’s less about big swarms and more about easing into some massive spell late-game while also being able to use your cards to get there. At six mana, Xaus is a really big spell itself, but it’s also an engine that can do some weird, weird things. I have no idea what a set like this would look like. I feel that the strength of this card’s ability to cast cheap spells would negate some of the utility considering its cost, but if this is the absolute top of your curve, then what other spells are you playing? I love the challenge of this theoretical set and what BR cards could make for convoke as a subtheme. What happens when they become convoked? What happens when you cast spells in a certain way? What recursion is there? All interesting questions.

Again, thank you all or your entries! I’ll be chipping away at commentary while catsitting and birthday-celebrating this next week. Strong choices mean lots of discussion.

— @abelzumi

[0poole]

Some Retrospective Thoughts on Gen 7

Galar’s making me go nuts. You already know. Let’s look back on Alola because why not. I feel like I have stuff to say about it. Also, I just watched the last episode of the Alolan Anime, so there’s that.

Whenever I first think back to Gen 7, I think “Eh, it was alright. Nothing special, I guess.” The Pokemon were decent, apart from being almost universally slow, apart from like 3 speed demons, the starters weren’t much, the story was alright, the location was alright, etc. etc. 

Then, I ACTUALLY think back, and I realize… I have no idea why I was thinking that. This generation was actually amazing.

First of all, they finally put the motif of the Sun and Moon into game types. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air after they tried to use the fucking dimensions in 3D space for titles in Gen 6 (Loved that gen too, but seriously “Life” and “Death” would both be more fitting and not as strange. Maybe they don’t want “Death” as a title tho). Really fits in with how naturally themed everything is too, which is obviously for the best, since this is the most “natural” game to date. Even though we technically already had an America-based region in Unova, Hawai’i is so unique in its own right it definitely fits for a region. I’m usually the type who doesn’t like super overt themes in things, and kind of just wants a very generalized experience, but it’s probably for the good of everyone that they don’t actually follow through with that idea. 

Probably the biggest thing to come out of this generation is the new habit of them posting short little videos on Youtube revealing new Pokemon/features/etc. Obviously they were super trigger happy with them then, but now it seems they’ve taken a step back a little. I do love this idea, though, because it actually hypes me up more than anything else ever could. I remember before, even though I was kinda-sorta trying to follow the updates on Gens 4-6, I never really felt like I could, and even though I was going to get the games no matter what, now I realize I really want to know what I’m getting into. 

I remember exactly where I was for some of the major announcements. For the starters, I was in my high school geometry class, where I watched and re-watched that video dozens of times just so I could keep looking at them. I started off on Rowlet’s side of course, but once I realized he was getting all the attention and ol Popplio was getting basically none, I changed my allegiance and stayed there to this day. Ignoring the fact that I don’t really like any of the final evolutions enough to actually use them in game, I LOVE Popplio himself. It’s seriously a shame that he didn’t become some clown seal like everyone was speculating. Unlike how it seems, I really, really like “normal��� clown characters (as in, not “horror” clowns), so he could’ve easily become one of my favorites in that case. Decidueye is definitely my favorite of the final forms, and Incineroar I think is still underrated. Sure, whatever, he’s bipedal, and it’s weirder than it otherwise would be, but for some reason I love how his mouth was an actual modeled mouth and not just an image slapped on there like most Pokemon. It really made him more expressive than the average Pokemon. Plus, the animation for Darkest Lariat is really cool, with his hands flashing against a flat back background for a second before actually doing the move. Even better, it’s great meme potential when hacked onto other Pokemon, like Wailord.

I don’t remember if Solgaleo and Lunala were introduced in that first trailer too, but either way I love both of them. I was a bit more drawn to Solgaleo at first, but Lunala has since grown to be one of my favorite legendaries of all. The starry wings, golden rims, and white skeleton-y body are such a great combo. And yeah, sure, Solgaleo would’ve been more fitting as a fire type or whatever, but since stars form the heavy metals that make it onto planets it’s fine. I won’t accept that Lunala should’ve been a dark type, though. The Moon is a major embodiment of light in the night sky, so if anything it shouldn’t be related to darkness. As for Necrozma, I love his base form a lot. It’s such a strange look, especially how the back of his head is transparent. It’s the perfect “evil prism” pokemon. I really just wish Ultra Necrozma had more detail to him, though. He looks so flat for such a major figure in the games… At least he had a good battle and an even BETTER theme song, hot damn

Guess that’s a good transition to talk about the music, and I guess tangentially about Team Skull, since they were probably the best possible departure from the usual “Evil Team” formula. Them just being random hooligans causing trouble instead of a formal organization trying for world domination is a good change of pace, as pretty much everyone agrees… It wouldn’t have been so great if they didn’t at least try to incorporate rap/trap music into their themes. They’re probably the most music-oriented Team canonically speaking, so they’d have to have a great theme. Also, the idea that they feel left behind by the traditions of the Trials really makes sense, since something so important in their culture would definitely make someone feel left out if they couldn’t get through it. 

Other themes for the more calm situations, like Hau’oli City’s night theme, are also extremely good. I didn’t even realize how much I loved that track until I heard Insaneintherain’s cover of it. It almost sounds like something out of Steven Universe, for how pleasant it is (apart from the piano). Lillie’s theme still gives me the warm fuzzies every time I hear it, too. I don’t think a single game before this has ever done the credits so well, too. Apart from the fun artwork, the last shot of Lillie and the game’s legendary actually just kills me every time. She’s such an adorable, pure soul, it’s crazy to think that when she was first revealed, we thought she was the secret supervillain of the game, just because she looked kinda peeved in her official art. We weren’t far off, though, with the Aether Foundation and all. I love both the calm theme of the Paradise itself AND their evil battle theme. Even though one is obviously an evil theme, it does feel like it came from the same source. Same goes for Lusamine’s theme. I really love the Aether Foundation as a whole too, where we can now have “Good” Foundation archetypes to counter the Evil Team archetype. Plus, their designs all involve white with gold accents, which is basically my brand. I tried to design my own Aether outfit the instant I saw them, since I love their look so much. 

As for battle themes, I love how jazzy Galdion’s battle theme ended up. It made him so much more interesting than just a generic edgelord. The Elite Four’s battle theme might actually be the scariest theme to date for some reason, and yet all I can picture when listening to it is Acerola bobbing joyfully back and forth… Basically the same way, the Tapu battle theme is also pretty crazy, with tribal chants in the back of it. The Tapus are probably the coolest group of legendaries in the game, considering how unique they are, with their oddly wooden shells that represent animals. It really makes them feel like spirits brought about by the people of Alola themselves, instead of just some being that came out of nowhere. Probably the one theme that is the most nostalgic (yes, I know it was only 3 years ago, you can still feel nostalgia damnit) for me is the Kahuna battle theme. It was probably just some random comment on Youtube, but somewhere someone said that it was the perfect theme because it starts off intimidating, but quickly switches into a super fun melody, because ultimately, the Island Challenge is for fun. I just love that. I’m always looking for “Fun” stuff in pretty much everything, so I like a theme that represents that. Also, it’s just super catchy, and even expanded upon in Pokemon Masters. Let it be known that Hapu is the best Kahuna by the way. She cute. Also, watching her become the Kahuna is the best world building you could possibly muster up for this kind of setting. 

Of course, I’m intentionally leaving out a certain group…

You know what I think of when I think of Hawai’i? Pearly white sand beaches… Palm trees… Fruity drinks… oh, and let’s not forget fucking interdimensional aliens. 

The Ultra Beasts are the exact type of thing I’d want to insert into the Pokemon world, and that’s why I love them. They’re so weird in the best ways possible. When they were introduced in a trailer, I had the same reaction as I did with Type: Null. They put him up on the screen for a bit and was like “Haha here’s ‘Type: Null,’ okay next” like EXCUSE ME? YOU CAN’T JUST SHOW ME A POKEMON CALLED “Type: Null” AND NOT EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON. Of course, that’s kind of what the games were for, but it was seriously a shock to the system to see Pokemon with code names instead of actual names. You also can’t convince me that Pheromosa wasn’t designed after Lusamine, and to a lesser extent that Xurkitree wasn’t designed after Guzma. I think it’s canon that Lusamine styled Lillie after Nihilego in her crazed state, but the uncanny likeness between those other two is pretty darn notable. I think from the first batch, Celesteela was my favorite of them all, being like a rusted copper rocket ship or something, who can even smack you with her two giant rockets. Also, Pokemon directly based on folktales are always welcome, no matter what. Meanwhile, with the Ultra games being the first sequels to introduce brand-new Pokemon, Blacephalon easily took top spot. I did say I liked clowns, didn’t I? Plus, the biggest evidence that he’s best boi is that in the anime when he appeared, he didn’t even try to attack anything. He just wanted to show off (specifically, believe it or not, by moonwalking… Whoever’s idea that was needs a raise). I also love detachable heads, which is a great idea to mix with clowns, and I guess also fireworks in this case… I just love him. I really hope that there will be future instances of Ultra Beasts, since it’s apparently super easy to just make them however the hell you want them, and since you’re not limited to a region’s natural environment. Lord knows whoever designed Buzzwole didn’t have any limitations. Exploring his, and really all of their worlds in USUM was extremely fun. It’s a damn shame Blacephalon and Stakataka (again, what a name) didn’t get the same privilege. 

As for the Pokemon as a whole, like I mentioned, off the top of my head I don’t feel super crazy about many of them, even though that’s a total lie. Shiinotic appealed to my inner mushroom-character-lover so much that I basically designed a character that looked identical to him. He’s easily the best mushroom Pokemon to date, where he looks pretty cute while also being just slightly creepy enough, with those souless eyes. The concept for Araquanid is amazing, where he’s a reverse Diving Bell spider. I might’ve designed him a bit differently, but he still looks super cool. The ideas behind Oranguru and Passimian are also cool, since we haven’t delved much into intelligent ape Pokemon enough. Wishiwashi is another great concept, and probably the best fish Pokemon in my opinion because of it. Lurantis and Minior are total cuties, the latter being one of those Pokemon that isn’t always in the forefront of my mind, but the instant it is it reclaims its place as one of my all-time favorites. Golisopod and Kommo-o are two of the coolest Pokemon designs to me, the latter being my all-time favorite Pseudo-Legendary. Vikavolt looks awesome, despite being deceptively slow. Dhelmise looks weird until you realize it’s actually insanely large (like, Wailord large). Mudsdale is just an all-around good-looking horse. Oricorio also looks really cool, especially in her fiery form. Tsareena is, well… Tsareena… That’s not even including the adorable Magearna and Marshadow, who are in generational limbo… Also, I think Mimikyu might be the overall best addition to the franchise ever. No Pika-clone could ever compare. 

I mean, specifically as far as a single Pokemon goes, Mimikyu is definitely the best addition to the franchise. Meanwhile, as far as concepts go, the absolutely HUGE idea of Regional Variants is the best addition. Again, I remember where I was when I heard the announcement: it was some sort of weird fantasy house, with a ton of cool details in it to make it look like a setting in some movie or something. It was awesome there, even if we were staying for only a night or so I think. Either way, the concept of different Pokemon adapting to different conditions in the region is the most perfect way to bring attention back to older Pokemon, and I’m so glad they seem to want to keep the idea for all future generations too. It’s especially fitting for Alola, since it’s a super remote island. I love how goofy Alolan Exeggutor is, especially because everyone else seems to love his goofiness too. Same sort of goes for Dugtrio, since his hair is actually based on a real thing… Marowak becoming a spiritual fire dancer is definitely the best possible iteration for him. My favorite might be the colorful Alolan Muk, though, even if Alolan Vulpix is infinitely cuter and better than fiery Vulpix in every way. I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Also, she’s a perfect fit for Lillie, so I guess I’ll use that as my transition into talking about the characters/anime. I’m just gonna be real with you. I’m not going to hold back. Alola has some of the cutest girls in the entire franchise. But first of all, let’s divert that train and instead lust after a man who is easily the hottest professor in the games yet, Kukui. What self-respecting researcher wouldn’t wear his professor-mandated lab coat without any undershirt? He needs his bulging abs as target practice for his Pokemon’s moves, people. He needs to let them breathe. Also, I was kind of enamoured with Sycamore before him, but you can’t deny the tinted skin gets to you a little. Burnet’s a lucky gal, let’s just say.

Okay, now that we’ve established that my pants don’t discriminate, we have to talk about Wicke. So now that that’s covered, can I just say I love Mina? I’d say she deserves more attention, but she was the only Alolan to make it into Lets Go for some reason, so I guess she’s well off? First of all, I love hippie-esque girls (idealized hippies, at least), so that’s a major plus… I mean, I should probably stop using the word “cute” altogether because it applies to every girl in the game, but yeah. Lana’s highly deserved spotlight in the anime made me love her too, where she was a perfect combination of extroverted while still more soft-spoken. I don’t know if that kind of characters’ an anime trope, but lord knows it’s not in western media, so I love how unique her personality is. Her interacting with Mallow and Lillie in cute, girly ways felt so wholesome. If the anime’s anything, it’s wholesome. 

One sec, though. I have to mention that I really like Hau. He’s obviously the one pinned as “Boo, he’s not a giga-asshole! That means he’s bad!” because I guess the fandom’s hive mind has collectively agreed that the only good rivals are assholes now. Like I said before, this stuff’s more about fun now. Hau’s a fun friend to fight, to the point where you beat him as the Champion you kinda feel bad for knocking him down so much. You feel bad because you like him, you know. Also, I forgot to mention this earlier but even though he isn’t entirely difficult himself, the trials in these games are actually both a difficult and interesting challenge. A 2v1 where you’re at the disadvantage is a great boss battle idea, especially with the strategies set out by a Pokemon’s different abilities and moves. Probably the best was Totem Lurantis, who of course summoned a Sunny Day-based Castform to activate her Chlorophyll and buff her Solar Blade, while adding a diverse fire type into play. It was really difficult, to be honest. Those who say it wasn’t either got lucky or have insane standards that cannot be met because they’re Pokemon Veterans who know every little thing about everything. I’m pretty much in that camp, and I still had to actually plan during the fight. Same goes for Totem Araquanid in USUM. I literally had to poison (not toxic, base poison) stall that guy because I couldn’t do anything to him otherwise. He was pretty much one-shotting everything I sent out, anyway, so I had to stall however I could. You can’t argue that that means it was “easy” because I knew how to beat him. It’s only “easy” if you can just send out pretty much whatever and do whatever and still win. Then there’s the Rainbow Rocket episode in USUM, which is just crazy… There’s not much to say that isn’t obvious there. It was fun seeing the villains that were victorious in a different dimension.

Anyways, for the anime, I also have a similar stance. It really seemed like the only people who started off hating it were anime nerds who had no concept of an in-between frame. I will say that it was a step down from XY/XYZ though, but those seasons’ quality was unusually high. Compared to the animation quality of every other season, it was so much better. First of all, I really don’t even like “anime style” that much, so a slightly more western style was very welcome. Like pretty much every show ever, the animation quality is seriously high where it counts, so there’s not much to be said about that, but I’d say the overall animation quality is a step up in general. The more simplified style only really looked weird in Ash because we’re so used to his more pointy style. Every other character looked totally fine, in my opinion. 

As for the story, I will say I would’ve wanted the scope of the plot to be much larger, like how with the other seasons Ash was going on an adventure, whereas here it was very contained, and centered around the Pokemon School. But, still, like I mentioned, I did enjoy the casual wholesomeness of it all. Not only do I just like mindless fun, but it made the crazy shit feel even crazier. The episode where Faba was trying to catch Nebby is a perfect example. It begins with a nice fun game of all the Pokemon and people jumping rope and having a good time, with some slapstick humor with Faba failing to capture Nebby. Then he does, and shit goes down. First of all, he’s torturing the little thing. Then, ASH (not his Pokemon, Ash himself) tackles Faba. Tell me, what other season had humans fighting other humans? I honestly can’t think of a single time when fighting was done with fists and not Pokemon (although surely I’m forgetting something, there’s gotta be at least one other example, right?) Then, Lillie re-experiences her past trauma of almost being abducted by Nihilego, except now her mom gets abducted in her place… Like, what happened? It was so cute a second ago. That’s always the selling point for any cartoon, for me. Stay casual for a decent amount, then break it with some uncharacteristically high tension. The same goes for the segment where Ash goes into Guzzlord’s post apocalyptic dimension. As for mega-feels, It’s great that they made Litten/Torracat an actual character instead of just some random Pokemon, with Stoutland and whatnot. The episode where they go into Tapu Fini’s mist and Mallow meets her mother, and Torracat meets Stoutland just destroyed me. It was strategically remedied by Lillie and Gladion not seeing their father, suggesting he’s still alive. There were some really great episodes in the season, for sure.

So, yeah… Alola was a good time. Don’t deny it. Galar’s gonna be great too. No game’s ever going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.

[dillydedalus]

october reading

 books. i read ‘em.

the bird king, g. willow wilson ugh i’m disappointed with this - i expected it to be more about the fall of granada, rather than just taking that as a jumping-off point for a very slow story of how fatima (concubine to the last andalusian sultan) and her bff hassan (magical mapmaker) escape from lady inquisitor luz to a magical/legendary island. that’s more of an expectation mismatch, but i also found this just a bit boring and confused, didn’t like the characters or the emotional moments. 2.5/5

lanark: a life in four books, alasdair gray y’all... this is a weirdo pomo mess which gray himself describes as ‘a portrait of the artist as a frustrated young glaswegian’ (instant love), it’s about duncan thaw growing up in post-war glasgow (not a good place) and lanark, sans memories, finding himself in the city of unthank (probably The Bad Place), where the sun hardly ever shines and people grow dragonskin, but really it’s about art & cities & politics & scotland & hell. it’s completely nuts & has a chapter where the protagonist meets the author in the process of writing and there’s a chapter-long sidebar detailing all instances of plagiarism in the book (incl. the lack of influence from robert burns, more sinister than all plagiarism). it’s a bit flabby in places & could stand to be a 100-200 pages shorter, but damn. 4/5

the memory police, yoko ogawa (tr. from japanese by stephen snyder) very atmospheric, quietly disturbing magical realist(ish) book about an island on which sometimes certain things (birds, roses, ribbons, fruit) just disappear, with the inhabitants losing their memories and emotional connection to the thing. the disappearances seem to occur randomly and on their own, but the memory police makes sure that no disappeared items remain and that those who can still remember also... disappear. really liked the quiet slow dread building here, the mysterious workings of the disappearances, and the interplay between the main story and the novel the narrator is writing while worrying whether words too will soon disappear. 4/5

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion, jia tolentino collection of nine essays about roughly, life & self-image & politics in the social media age (and its predecessor, the reality tv age), gender politics and uh scams and self-delusions. many of these essays felt vaguely like things i’d read before online (& i might have) & didn’t offer anything completely new but i liked the examinations of big wedding culture, and her take on the ‘difficult woman’ archetype of millenial feminism. tolentino in general is an engaging, sharp writer, and even when she’s writing about familiar topics, she often puts an interesting spin on things. 3.5/5

here in berlin, cristina garcía and the anglophone-berlin-books saga continues. a cuban-american woman with a mild personal crisis goes to berlin (as people w/ personal crises so often do) and there collects a variety of snapshot stories from berliners (by birth or choice or accident), mostly about world war 2 and the latin american diaspora in berlin. some of the snapshots are p interesting or bizarrely funny but mostly they retread the same ground (history, trauma, collective & personal responsibility, commemoration etc) without really saying anything new (except the connection garcía makes between the nazis and south american dictatorships). there’s also a pretty annoying attempt to create authenticity by peppering in german words and phrases which sometimes aren’t even appropriate or spelled correctly* (get a german proofreader you cowards i’ll do it for free... like wtf is ‘volkenbrot’). 2/5 *i ordered it used and got an ARC, so maybe some of these issues were fixed for the final version but lmao. volkenbrot. 

wilder girls, rory power this is annihilation as YA, set on an island called raxter where a mysterious illness called the tox has taken over, transforming the wilderness, the animals (deers grow canines y’all), and most of all the girls at raxter boarding school. the narrator’s eye has fused shut & something is growing under it, her friend has grown an extra spine, other girls have gills or claws. less fortunate girls (and most of the teachers) just die. there was a lot i liked about this, especially the tox and the ambivalent relationships the girls have to their changed bodies, but the last third just... eh. also, like, i like tumblr monster-girl poetics as much as the next person, but this is really overdoing it. 2.5/5

nach mitternacht (after midnight), irmgard keun KEUN HYPE TRAIN!!! this one’s super interesting because it’s the first novel keun wrote in exile, published 1937 and set at around the same time. the protagonist, sanne, is a naive and politically uneducated 19-year-old who is repeatedly & very dramatically confronted with the political reality she lives in, first when her aunt denounces her to the gestapo and later when her boyfriend franz is arrested. for most of the (very short) novel, sanne is observing and not quite understanding the increasing legal discrimination against jews, culture of paranoia and denouncement, and glorification of fascist ideology, which makes for a very disturbing reading experience, especially with the reader’s retrospective knowledge, but the climax is truly nightmarish & devastating. 4/5

children of god, mary doria russell the sequel to the sparrow, which i read & loved earlier this year. in this one, emilio sandoz, still in recovery from the trauma of his first trip to the planet rakhat, is forced to return there (bc the pope thinks it’s god’s will lol) and finds the planet changed after decades (space travel makes time weird) of revolution and civil war. i liked this but it’s not as good as the sparrow, the characters (except my man emilio) aren’t as interesting & well-developed and the dual timeline structure isn’t as well-executed but hey. there’s some closure for emilio & that made me hella emosh. 3.5/5

the wilful princess & the piebald prince, robin hobb a novella telling the true (?) story of charger farseer, the piebald prince, a historical figure that has great influence on the six duchies of fitz’s time, especially regarding the treatment of the witted (people who can magically bond with aninmals) and how fitz is framed & reviled as the ‘witted bastard’. this was cool & i enjoyed how it twists the story, but it’s not worth reading if you haven’t read the main series. 3/5

the inheritance, robin hobb/megan lindholm collection of short stories by hobb under her two pseudonyms - i mostly skipped the lindholm ones (sorry), but the three hobb ones were really really good. the first is about the first expeditions into the rain wilds (i love the cursed shores so much & wish there was a full trilogy about the first settlers there), the second is about bingtown & wizardwood, the third is about how sometimes you gotta kill your abusive ex & if you’re lucky, your cat will help you do it. it’s great & the cat is called marmelade. 4/5 for the hobb stories only

unholy land, lavie tidhar alternate history + multiple realities + high-concept pulp - lior tirosh, a pulp author (it’s meta) returns to his homeland, the jewish state palestina, established in east africa in the early 20th century, and there becomes involved in... rival plots to destroy/stabilise the borders between the worlds, not only between this alternate one and our real one, which tirosh seems to occasionally slip into, but all the million others, including one where the moon broke. love the concept, but this is so vague & confusing on so many points and the ending so abrupt that i was left kinda frustrated & unsatisfied (also bc we never find out much more about the world where the moon broke). 3.5/5

tigermilch (tiger milk), stefanie de velasco german ya book about two teen girls growing up in a poor neighbourhood in berlin. nini’s father is absent, her mother depressed, while jameelah’s father died in iraq and her mother is worried that they might be deported, and their bosnian friend amir’s sister is dating a serb. it’s some pretty harrowing stuff & it’s good to see Issues (TM) addressed in german ya in a way that doesn’t feel super didactic & preachy, but ultimately i’m really not the target audience here. 3/5

sea monsters, chloe aridjis

weirdo brainy dreamy novella about a girl in 80s mexico running away from mexico city to the beach because she’s looking for ukrainian circus dwarfs (???). i liked a lot about this (atmosphere, poetic & mythical allusions, a lot of the writing, the depictions of mexico city and the weird beach culture are both really cool) but a lot of the time this was so dreamy that i just kinda zoned out. 3/5

i am currently reading emma by jane austen bc i forgot about my monthly austen project until the last few days of the month lol & one of the hugo long list anthologies. the one with the cool fox on it.

[avatar-the-second-age]

Brief update

Hello all!

I know it has been quite some time since the last update, so I wanted to let you all know I am still around and that I continue to work on bringing Avatar: The Second Age to life!

I won’t get into specifics, but there have been a lot of events in my personal life that have pulled me away from this project. I have not and will not abandon it, but this hiatus will continue for just a bit longer. Tentatively, I plan to get back to the grind beginning in August, after some things settle down.

For your patience, I would like to reward you with a sneak peak of some of the upcoming content for version 1.4 of the core rulebook! See below the cut, and remember: happy bending!

## In Development CLASSES - Each bender element will be considered its own class (or career) and each one will have three very different archetypes to help diversify characters and elements even further. Here is an airbender example: Class: Air - Airbender - Closest thing to a 'combat' role they have, Talents are mostly bonuses to Bending and combat conditioning - Air Nomad - utility nature, enhances bending techniques, Talents are more utilitarian - Air Guru - supportive role, amplifies existing qualities through Chi and knowledge of the Bending Arts ADDING: - More fluff - Add Crafting blueprints - Add Vehicle weapons - Fire Nation Tanks w/ Grappling hooks - Add Breakdown of Botany skill with added flora - Wild tea, collect leaves, craft tea - White Jade (poisonous flower) - Lychee nuts (instant strain restore) - Tea (temporary increases strain) - Add More gear and equipment - Add Pai Sho and Pro-Bending mechanics - Add Nonbender Class Special/Unique Abilities - Add section to GM chapter about handling the Avatar (whether PC or NPC) - Fame mechanics - Alternative to Honor: measure of a character's reputation throughout the world as a result of personal accomplishment, for better or for worse - INFAMY - High fame equals bonuses to social skill checks - high infamy results in interesting consequences in social checks and encounters - have both at the same time?? or cancel each other? - gain fame (infamy) in the same way one would gain or lose honor - acknowledged by nobility, caught lying (failed Deception check = gain 1 infamy?), completing adventures (Honor), exquisite craftsmanship, the entire series of Social classes, personal or martial defeats, movers, Bragging in certain social situations (putting Fame on the line to gain even more???) - Famous people cannot lay low, would be terrible at trying to sneak past people (unless great with disguise), so certain Deception checks may get setback dice depending on circumstances

[housebeleren]

Theros Beyond Death Limited: Premium Uncommons

Time for the Uncommons of Threos Beyond Death! 

White

Archon is costly, but it’s likely going to be the biggest evasive threat on the board, and by the time you get it out, it shouldn’t be difficult at all to get value out of the death trigger, if your opponent does remove it right away. Seems like a pretty easy 2-for-1, which is what you need your Uncommon 6-drops to do. 3.0/5

Banishing Light takes care of literally any threat on the board, for a very reasonable price. Yes, it can be undone with Enchantment removal, but there’s not so much running around that it’s extremely likely. This is better than usual in this set because it also triggers Constellation, and Exile is much better than sending to the grave, because of Escape.. Take highly. 3.5/5

Knocking out all abilities is a critical part of this card, and is a large part of what makes it playable. This will completely neutralize any bomb Creature for 4 turns, which is a lot of action for only 2 mana. I’d still usually rather have the Banishing Light, but this is not bad at all. 3.0/5

I like that there are multiple ways to recover used Enchantments at Uncommon in this set. It makes for deep interactions that are tons of fun. This teller of tales is a decently sized body on his own, and the option to put a Dreadful Apathy back on top of your deck is big game. It reminds me a little of the Choking Restraints/Ironclad Slayer combo from Eldritch Moon limited. I’m a fan. 3.0/5

At Uncommon, White gets a lot of strong interaction and some reasonably costed cards with lots of potential for creative plays. This is exciting, because White is frequently a super straightforward color in Limited, but it’s clear there’s room for depth and subtlety in the color that is very refreshing to see.

Blue

This is basically a 3/2 that dies and leaves behind a 2/3. And that is really solid value for only 3 mana. A vanilla 3/2 for 3 is playable filler anyway, and will usually trade reasonably. I suspect this will go undervalued by a lot of people. 3.0/5

Aside from having absolutely gorgeous art, Callaphe is a pretty strong turn 3 play. It doesn’t take much for her to be a 4/3 or bigger, at which point she’s great value for the cost, and she taxes all targeted removal against her, as a bonus. Add the fact that she triggers Constellation and adds 2 for Devotion, and I’m pretty well sold. 3.0/5

It’s one mana more than Banishing Light, but it’s just about as effective, though it doesn’t clear abilities, which is unfortunate. Even so, it’s pretty close to unconditional removal, which is much needed in Blue. 3.0/5

This is a card you’d play as an ordinary creature anyway, with the base stats. But this is one of the few ways in the set to truly abuse Constellation, and it will also let you reset your Enchantment-based removal to scale up to bigger targets as the game goes on. And that’s not even mentioning that there are several good ETB triggers to reuse. I’m suspecting this will be really good. It’s the successor to Riptide Chimera, but this one trades stats for being optional, which I’m very okay with. 3.5/5

If Ravnica Allegiance taught us anything, it was to not underestimate Faerie Duelist, which won combats and completely warped the combat calculus around its existence. At Uncommon, this will be less, well, common, but the effect is still potent and shouldn’t be ignored. It’s less consistent, but the upside is higher, and a 1/3 is more playable on its own stats than a 1/2. 3.0/5

Blue got a ton of action at Uncommon, which somewhat makes up for my initial impression that the Commons were a little underwhelming. That said, the variance on the Uncommons is much higher, as there are a few that I think will be fairly weak, so snap up these good ones when you see them.

Black

There is no doubt this will be good. Even at 4 mana, it’s playable, and the cost reduction is just a bonus. Premium removal, for sure. 3.5/5

The first Saga to make the cut for me, I suspect this will be pretty good. Creature powers aren’t crazy high in this set, so you should have some good targets for this, and it will be very difficult for them to avoid having to discard something useful if you cast this on curve. Completely obliterating any Escape they may have going on is a great upside, and very relevant. I’d basically always run this, and maybe side it out against the R/G Ferocious deck or something. 3.0/5

Gary’s back! You definitely want a little devotion on the table before casting this, but once you have another few Black Creatures out, this can be a huge life swing. Definitely an incentive to go deep in the color, but not a great reason to pivot if you’re already going somewhere else. 3.0/5

Play this for the 2/1 Deathtouch. The Escape enabling is just a perk. 3.0/5

Pharika’s Spawn seems like it could be pretty close to a Mythic Uncommon. A 3/4 for 4 is fine, if unexciting, but the Escape is where the real action is. For 6 mana and just a few cards from your ‘yard, you get a 5/6 that comes with an edict attached, and that is big game. Assuming it trades once upfront, this is a completely believable 3-for-1. Sometimes, it won’t end up quite that good, but the potential is also there for it to be even better. If you can get repeated Escapes out of this, I don’t see how you’re losing. One of the best Escape payoffs in the set, and I’m starting pretty high on it. I could imagine this getting up to a 4.0 if the format is right for it. But for now, it’s a 3.5/5

Black knocked it out of the park in Uncommons. There were even more I could have picked, but I wanted to limit it to 5 highlighted cards. Given its strong showing at Common as well, I suspect Black will be a powerhouse color. Of all the colors, Black stands out to me as probably the best candidate for mono drafting, since it really doesn’t need much help to be great. If Black is wide open and you can draft mono-Black devotion, I expect that to be great.

Red

I like the Demigods with variable power rather than toughness, and I also like the ones that cost 1CC rather than CC, since they’ll be easier to cast on curve. Anax here threatens a lot of power on his own, but his ability is pretty fierce as well. By himself, he’ll at least always leave behind a 1/1 when he dies, but it has the potential to get really nuts in in the sacrifice deck. I suspect he will play better than he looks at first blush. 3.0/5

A 2/1 for 2 that chucks a Shock when it dies? Sign me up, this is exactly what both aggro and sacrifice decks want, so I suspect these will get snatched up fast. 3.0/5

Okay, this one I admit I’m a bit unsure of. A 4/2 for 3 would normally be around a 2.0, but this one has some extra going for it. The fact that its ability can hit any target is huge, because it can snipe off opposing X/1s or be that one extra point to take down larger creatures with some of Red’s Instant speed removal. And eventually, it’s going to trade with something itself, so I’ll give it the initial benefit of the doubt. It is definitely way better in the R/U Flash deck than in just a normal deck, so adjust your expectations downward accordingly. 3.0/5

Funny how far Scry 1 goes. While I’d generally rather see Lightning Strike, adding the Scry keeps this from feeling bad at Uncommon. It’s strong, flexible removal, and you’ll like it. 3.0/5

Red did decently in the Uncommon department. Like with its Commons, many of the cards feel situational, like they’ll be better in some decks than others, so my gut is telling me that, barring the bombs at Rare & Mythic, Red will be at its best as a support color, and probably not a great candidate for mono drafting (unlike Black, which seems bonkers if you can draft it alone).

Green

I like this. There aren’t very many 1-toughness creatures with Flying, so if you cast it for 1, it’ll mostly be a chump block. But the Escape is pretty sweet, because a 4/5 with Reach is a massively bigger deal than a measly 1/2. This can be an easy 2-for-1 against many decks, and has even a little more ceiling than that. 3.0/5

A 2/3 for 2 would already be pretty playable. Add that it’s an Enchantment in the color that cares the most, that it shuts off counters at no cost, and that it has a late-game mana sink, and you’ve got a potential powerhouse on your hands. My guess is that it will rarely be amazing, but the potential is there, and it will always be at least good. 3.0/5

On its own, this swings as a 3/4 Trample for only 3 mana, and that’s pretty solid. Being able to move its bonus around as the game develops keeps this relevant, and I suspect it will play very well. 3.0/5

Affectionate Indrik is back, and it was good then. I have no reason to suspect it won’t be now, even if I don’t love that Green keeps getting Fight on ETB. 3.0/5

Renata seems great. On her own, she’s a little underpowered, but pumping up all your future creatures is incredibly solid, and it’s unlikely this card will disappoint. 3.0/5

Green feels quite solid. There are very few cards that feel unplayable, and many of the cards are just good on there own, without help. The color seems flexible and reasonably deep, which is a great sign.

Gold & Colorless

For the Gold cards, there’s just the one signpost for each pair at Uncommon, so I’ll go through all of them.

Most of the Black pairings seem to be centered around the Graveyard, and it’s probably the best color to be in if you want to go deep on Escape. Green-Black has a little self mill, a little top of library filter, and some sacrifice to help fill the ‘yard for your powerful Escape creatures. The Acolyte here is exactly what the colors want, and is a great Gravedigger variant for the archetype. 3.0/5

Black-Blue goes heavy on the self-mill, but outside of Escape, there really isn’t any payoff for doing so. Other than this cutie, of course. It’s a cheap and evasive threat, and can easily fuel your Escape cards. I do wish it were a 2/2, since there are some cards that punish one toughness in the set (Wrap in Flames, for example). Still, you’ll usually play this. 3.0/5

Eutropia seems great. The card she reminds me of the most is Skyrider Patrol from M19, which was one of my favorite cards in the set. Most of the Green-based color pairings care about Enchantments, so it shouldn’t be too hard to peck through lots of damage with Eutropia helping you out. 3.0/5

Red/White is a throwback to the Heroic mechanic from original Theros. (Which they very cutely seeded with Feather & Co. in War of the Spark.) For this round on Theros, Red/White is also the go-wide pairing of the set, with the Herioc triggers this time serving as team pump spells. Hero of the Nyxborn is already a good deal, creating two bodies for 3 mana, and if you’re in the colors, it shouldn’t be hard to get a few good combat tricks to make it even spicier. 3.0/5

I like that they’ve been exploring new ways to do Blue/Red besides just “Instants & Sorceries Matter”. After U/R Draw 2 in Eldraine, U/R Flash is a great compliment in this set that feels right (and fuels my argument that Red should be moved to secondary in Flash, and Green should have Flash restricted somewhat, for balance purposes). Anyway, the Chimera here is great. Well-costed on its own, and a great trigger once you start slinging spells on your opponent’s turn. I’m a fan. 3.0/5

White/Black is another Escape archetype, but with some Enchantment recursion to be found on the Uncommon & above rarities. As for this card, I really wish this were 4 mana. I honestly think Wizards needs to allow reanimation to be a touch more aggressively costed, and let White have a little more unconditional reanimation, again for balance reasons. This card does give me some hope that they recognize the need. For Limited, as is, this is a harder to cast Rise from the Grave, but with the added upside that you’ll occasionally be able to snag back a Dreadful Apathy and get some extra removal. It’s decent, but not as good as most of the other cards in this batch. 2.5/5

But seriously, I’m for Resurrection in Standard. I think it’s completely fine in power level, and would be great for White to reclaim some of the pie.

Green/White is the primary “Auras Matter” color pair, which makes perfect sense. Siona, aside from being FIERCE. AS. FUCK., is a fantastic card for the archetype. She digs deep, making the odds pretty decent that you’ll find an Aura to grab, at which point she’s already worth her cost. If you can grab a Dreadful Apathy with this, even better. (The fact that I keep mentioning that card makes me wonder if I should rate it even higher...) And occasionally she’ll phone a friend, which is just all upside. 3.0/5 (with potential to go higher in the right build)

Sacrifice? For Black/Red? Groundbreaking.

Seriously, though, I am eager for Wizards to surprise me with Black/Red sometime. I’ll give it a pass this set, since there is a minor Graveyard theme, so it’s a natural fit. Spectacle in Ravnica Allegiance was such a breath of fresh air for this color pair. But anyhoo, this card. He’s pretty solid. He threatens a lot of damage, and will be very difficult to block, so I’m suspecting he’ll be good. 3.0/5

White/Blue is a very ambiguous archetype this time around, basically just “tempo”. That said, this card threatens to run away with the game very quickly, and will be absolutely bonkers put on a flier or other evasive threat. I seriously wonder if this will bring back the Curious Obsession deck in Standard, except in White/Blue. For Limited, if you can get at least one hit in with this, you’ve saved yourself from getting 2-for-1′d too badly, so I’ll start with the assumption that this is good, and revise down from there. 3.0/5

Last but not least, Red/Green is doing “Ferocious” this time, which I really enjoy as a semi-deciduous theme. Warden of the Chained is a decent payoff for having other 4+ Power creatures, but is a little frustrating if you don’t have very many of them in the deck. You’ll always play this, but it strikes me as a little weaker than some of the others. 2.5/5

Phew... that’s it for the Gold Signpost cards. Just a couple Artifacts to touch on:

I love this. It’s basically an Icy Manipulator, but it costs a little more to activate, but then frees up your mana after you’ve done so. It can also permanently tap down a creature with a tap to activate ability, something Icy couldn’t do. Every deck will be happy to run this. 3.0/5

I feel like they’re finally getting Vehicles right. 4 mana is a touch more than you want for a 3/3, but First Strike, Trample, and Haste are a lot of keywords, and it’s super easy to crew. I don’t know if it will be great, but it’s definitely playable. 2.5/5

The Rest of the Uncommons

Let’s blaze through the remaining cards, lightning round style. (out of 5)

Alseid of Life’s Bounty - I suspect lots of people will run this card who shouldn’t. Sure, it can sacrifice itself to protect a bigger bomb from removal, but it just doesn’t do enough on its own to really warrant much excitement. 1.5

The Birth of Meletis - This does a lot of things, and... none of them are particularly great? Very weird collection of effects. 1.5

Commanding Presence - This is a lot of effects for one Aura, and it should be possible to either get through or take out a blocker the turn you play this, mitigating the 2-for-1 potential. 2.5

Dawn Evangel - Figuring out when this triggers and what it can get back is a feat unto itself. It’s pretty narrow, to be honest, and so I’m really just looking at this as a 2/3 Enchantment creature for Constellation. 2.0

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun - I like Daxos more for constructed, since there aren’t any lifegain triggers in this set to really make this great. He’s solid, just not incredible. 2.5

Favored of Iroas - I like the concept here. Problem is, it shouldn’t be too hard to predict when you’re holding up a Flash Enchantment as a trick, so a lot of the time, it’ll just be a 2/2. Maybe I’m wrong. 2.0

Hero of the Winds - I really wish this were a 2/4 to begin with. 2.0

Phalanx Tactics - Probably the best Heroic enabler in the set, this is perfect for go-wide, but mediocre if you aren’t in the colors. 2.5

Reverent Hoplite - I want at leaset 3 tokens out of this before I feel good about it. Which, shouldn’t be difficult in mono-White, but could be frustrating in most decks. 2.5

Glimpse of Freedom - I don’t really think this is the format for this card. If you’re in Blue/Red, it’s an Instant, so that’s a thing. The escape is expensive enough to likely not come up often. 2.0

Medomai’s Prophecy - This, on the other hand, is a lot of action for 2 mana, even if it is spread out over several turns. Nonbos with self-mill somewhat, but a cheap Divination if you do it right. 2.5

Sage of Mysteries - Gorgeous art. My guess is this usually isn’t worth it, but occasionally you might be able to build a legitimate mill deck around this. And if you see your opponent is self-milling, it’s a great strategy to pivot into. 2.0

Sea God’s Scorn - I’ve been burned with the six mana bounce spells before, so not again. My hunch is this will be playable, but not every deck will want it. 2.5

Shoal Kraken - Seems solid. Possibly will play better than I think, but reminds me of Sage of the Falls, which was only great sometimes. 2.5

Stinging Lionfish - If you get really deep on Flash, this could go up significantly. Most of the time, I’m expecting it to be just fine. 2.5

Sweet Oblivion - Combined with Sage of Mysteries, a true mill deck could be viable. But I wouldn’t run this just to mill myself. 1.5

Whirlwind Denial - Convolute is as Convolute does. 2.0

Agonizing Remorse - In a set with Gods, it would be foolish to assume this is unplayable. But definitely don’t assume it’s premium removal, because it’s not. 2.0

Cling to Dust - This strikes me as pretty decent sideboard hate for a good Escape deck. But I wouldn’t main deck it. 1.5

Enemy of Enlightenment - By the time you get this out, your opponent can work around the discard.  But a 5/5 flier is big, so there’s that. The removal in the set seems good enough to dampen this a bit. 2.5

Hateful Eidolon - There aren’t tons of Auras that make me think this is super worth playing, but if you draft like 3 or more Mire’s Grasp, this gets really cute really fast. There’s a deck for this, but it’s not every deck. 2.0

Inevitable End - Usually this will just be a slow kill spell, but occasionally if you put it on a bomb, they’ll sacrifice other things just to keep that alive. It’s conditional removal, but still removal. 2.5

Minion’s Return - This being an Enchantment-Matters set makes me like this a lot more than I usually do, and there’s potential for combos with Hateful Eidolon & some of the White recursion. 2.5

Tymaret, Chosen from Death - Difficult to cast on curve, but a reasonable drop at any time. Great hate for Escape decks, but remember, you can’t exile an Escape card once they’ve declared they’re casting it. 2.5

Underworld Dreams - Save it for Constructed. 1.0

Blood Aspirant - In the dedicated R/B Sacrifice deck, this could be a thing, but it starts too puny and the expense is pretty high. 2.0

Dreamshaper Shaman - I get it, but this honestly feels more like a casual Commander card than something for Limited. For Limited, it’s mostly a big body. 2.0

Escape Velocity - This again strikes me more as something for Constructed, something a deck like Izzet Drakes might like. For Limited, it’s cute, but not particularly great. 1.5

Furious Rise - The upside on this is pretty great in the dedicated Ferocious deck. I’d give it a go. 2.5

Heroes of the Revel - Decent stats for the cost, and another Heroic enabler. Good in the archetype, mediocre elsewhere. 2.5

Impending Doom - The name of this card really doesn’t match the flavor, but whatever. It’s a solid Aura for aggressive decks, good in the Heroic build, but a liability if you’re not wanting to attack. 2.0

Skophos Maze-Warden - Ignore the wall of text, this is a 3/4 for 4 with the “Flowstone” ability. Which is pretty solid on its own. If you get the maze, it’s cute, but definitely not necessary to play this. 2.5

The Triumph of Anax - This is one of the hardest cards to evaluate in the whole set. My hunch is it will often not work out quite the way you hope, and one or more chapters will end up getting wasted to removal or by not having good targets. I’m starting pessimistic until I see otherwise. 1.5

Underworld Fires - Can be a way to clean up stragglers after combat, and will be good against decks like Heroic go-wide. There’s potential, but I might start it as a sideboard pick until the format shakes out. 2.0

The Binding of the Titans - This card takes a while to do much useful, but it gets there, and it’s a pretty cheap inclusion. Some decks will want it. 2.5

Hydra’s Growth - This can absolutely run away with the game if left unchecked, so I’d generally run it in G/W Auras or decks with heavy Constellation or Heroic triggers. But it is risky until about 3 turns in, so take it with a grain of salt. 2.5

Klothys’s Design - Oh, how much better this would be if it granted Trample. As is, it’s a reasonable top-end finisher, but some decks will find it dead more often than not. 2.0

Mystic Repeal - Enough Enchantments are running around for this to consistently have targets, and it avoids enabling Escape as well. I’d rather have a Return to Nature for flexibility, but this will do in a pinch. 2.0

Nessian Hornbeetle - I like this little guy as a payoff for the Ferocious deck, and there’s virtually no downside to including him. 3.0

Nessian Wanderer - A two drop that can smooth a land-light hand is reasonable, but you could skip it and probably not notice. 2.0

Setessan Petitioner - You’re rarely going to gain more than around 4 life with this, but once you get above about that point, this starts getting good. If you manage to draft mono-Green, I’d slam this, but in most 2-color decks it’s pretty replaceable. 2.0

Wolfwillow Haven - There’s not much need to ramp in this format, but if you’re heavy Green, it can do work for both Devotion and casting double & triple Green casting costs. The ability is too costly to get excited about, though at least it feeds itself. I’d generally skip this except maybe in mono Green with a good Devotion payoff. 1.5

Mirror Shield - Mostly a flavor win, I don’t see lots of reason for this in the format. Side it in against the all Moss Viper deck. You could also side it in against control decks to hedge against removal. 1.5

Soul-Guide Lantern - This will be a brutal sideboard against the heavy Escape deck, but that’s mainly where I see it. 1.5

Field of Ruin - Save it for Constructed. Nothing in this format is worth destroying aside from maayyybe Labyrinth of Skophos. 0.5

That’s it for the Uncommons. Very few dead picks, lots of good options and a few fun buildarounds. Overall, a good looking set, I think. Up next, the Rares & Mythics!

[mikesmithrhythmandrhyme]

Sunday, 13th August, 2017

Written as a 'response' to John Clare's 'August' in 'The Shepherd's Calendar' (necessarily long - well necessary to me!)

John Clare - 1793-1864.

Again, I include much of John Clare's language - words, phrases, lines ....

And so the tractor rolls along

The busy A19:

Behind, the sullen traffic in a queue ...

Resigned to waiting thus, the drivers

Know it’s best to wait -

In truth there’s little else that they can do.

The cabined, youthful driver slows …

He turns into a field …

Relief all round - the road is tractor-free!

The traffic picks up speed again …

The field is soon forgotten …

Yet it’s where the man John Clare would wish to be …

For in August it is harvest-time,

And everyone is here,

For the harvesting of barley, corn or wheat:

All the cottage doors are shut,

As on a winter’s day:

The village is a silent desert street.

Behind the early-risen reapers

Gleaners follow on,

To pick the littered ear the reaper leaves:

Home toils done, one gleaner’s child

Is poddling by her side,

Her helper in this open field of sheaves.

But this poddling, sun-burnt, stooping toddler

Wishes he could hide

In the cool amongst each rush and grassy stem,

Hide with sun-avoiding insects 

Creeping in the shade -

And often wishing he was one of them.

Whilst he dreams of shaded bliss,

His mother waits supply,

But the handful she’s expecting is not there:

She shouts of rods and other threats

To rouse him into action:

“Get a move on, or I’ll fetch you one, I swear!”

He sighs, sobs and shows his wounds

From piercing, sharp-end stubble,

His little poddling legs all scratchd and sore:

A smiling mother sees his grief

And tells of well-earned pence

Whilst she coaxes him to work - and sob no more.

Elsewhere, the fields are all alive,

With rhythmic rustling scythes,

And shockers follow where their toils have gone,

Turning swathes to wither

In the burning eye of day,

As mice from terrors dangers nimbly run.

Their tender young in fears alarm

Must scramble out for safety,

At the mercy of those swains who beat the ground

With their stone chinkd forks to isolate

The panicked fleeing mice -

And spread an instant murder all around.

When noons hot hours have wanderd bye, (wearied?)

All seek a bush or tree

To sit beneath for rest, food and drink:

Eager maids and favoured swains

Soon find themselves together -

Not caring what those gathered there may think.

From its cool retreat is brought

The stout hooped bottle of beer

To hand around the eager, thirsting ring.

A bold whasp sits on maidens lips,

As if on cherrys sweet:

She shrieks …

To know …

It’s chosen …

Her ...

To sting ...

The shepherd sits and waits his turn

To drink the cooling beer:

His dog awaits its master’s cast-off bone:

Men, women, girls and boys -

At rest …. then back to work,

Til day declines and labour makes for home.

But oh, how sweet the sabbath day!

Release from harvest field!

Within each weary mind what rapture dwells

As childern wake, with pence to spend,

And free from toils employ,

They can hear once more its pleasant chiming bells ...

I remember harvest-time -

That is, I sensed its presence -

When my teacher father harvested away:

It was in the nineteen forties,

Early fifties, I recall,

And the August sun shone every … single … day ...

I do remember very well

The tan he brought back home,

With a burnished, nut brown, leather-shiny glow:

He was one of many teachers

Working harvest fields at Swine,

And every summer holiday he’d go.

Now ‘Harvest’ barely registers ...

It’s out of sight and mind …

Just a single-tractor nuisance on the road …

It’s a Countryfile phenomenon …

A Festival of Tins ...

The highlight of an Archers episode

(da da da da da da da …)

Meanwhile the tractor now prepares

To leave our field of dreams ...

This once-upon-a-long-long-time-since-when ...

This multi-peopled harvest-home ...

This gathering together …

This prompt to re-consider now and then.

The tractor nudges forward

To re-join the busy traffic ...

Its youthful driver waits ... and yes, he can …

There’s a gap …

He sees it’s safe to go …

He slowly trundles out ...

His saviour is - a gypsy caravan!

It’s an archetypal caravan!*

A multi-coloured beauty,

And preceded by a young man on a horse:

No saddle - he’s straight-legged for balance -

Free to be himself: **

John Clare would know what drives this man -

Of course!

* Seen in encampment at Crockey Hill, then on the A19 nearby.

** I refer to legitimate gypsy families who have travelled - and continue to travel - the length and breadth of the country peaceably and with hard-working dignity.

[loreleywrites]

Command Zone: Consulate Commanders and Renegade Ringleaders

Whether you support the Consulate’s efforts to maintain a safe and secure society or the renegade’s efforts to unshackle aether and innovation from oppressive law, Aether Revolt has new commanders for you. In fact, it has six new commanders: one for each color and colorless.

In case it wasn’t obvious, today’s article is going to break each of these new legendary creatures down. What are they about? What kind of strategies do they enable? How well do they fit into existing decks? Those kinds of things.

Sram I Am

He loves The LEGO Movie.

Sram, Senior Edificer is all about building things up. Auras, Equipment, and Vehicles are all subtypes that augment your existing creatures. The key to any Sram deck is to have creatures that benefit from these subtypes too.

Thankfully for Sram, mono-White Equipment decks are already well-supported. Between Kemba, Kha Regent and Nahiri, the Lithomancer, these decks have existed for years. Each commander has their own advantages, and Sram’s is raw card advantage. Drawing cards is White’s biggest weakness, and making all of your Equipment spells into cantrips keeps the cards flowing.

Auras are the next best subtype to build around. Sram may only be a 2/2 for two mana, but Auras can quickly turn him into a Voltron threat. The selling point for this style of deck is that White has a bunch of removal spells that are Auras. You don’t need to attach them to your creatures to get the card; Sram is just happy you’re casting Auras at all! When your removal spells can draw into even more removal spells, you’re harnessing real power. There are even Auras that can bounce themselves back to your hand. #Value

I’m not terribly excited at the prospect of building a Vehicle deck around Sram. Depala, Pilot Exemplar hits a lot more of the relevant cards, but Sram is still going into the 99. Depala can help dig to him, and then it’s off to the card-drawing races as you amass more and more Vehicles. Since he’s also a Dwarf, Sram will be at least a 3/3 to crew most of the Vehicles you’ll play.

Bottom of the Baral

Hooded face? Sword for an arm? Short temper? What a nice guy!

Baral, Chief of Compliance is a self-loathing mage on a plane that has very few mages. I don’t know who taught him his mad skillz, but he’s sure got ‘em.

Obviously, Baral is all about instants and sorceries. Making them all cast one less is better than being a mana dork, as it allows you the discount more than once if you can cast more than one spell a turn. Since Baral only costs two mana, you’re going to get that bonus right away.

As the number one instant and sorcery color, Blue has plenty of stuff to work with. Talrand, Sky Summoner and Uyo, Silent Prophet are just two of the existing mono-Blue commanders this archetype can be built around. So, once again, we have a new legendary creature that offers a new twist on an established strategy.

Baral does also have another ability, however. You get to loot whenever you counter another spell. Sculpting your hand is nice in a singleton format, but I’m pretty down on counterspells in multiplayer. Waiting around and trading one-for-one is a great way to fall behind. There are good counterspells, but I don’t like “Counterspells!” as a deck theme. If you do go that route, don’t forget Guile.

Party Hard

Bottoms up, darlings!

Yahenni, Undying Partisan has a lot going on, so I’ll break it into three parts.

First, they have haste. Haste is probably one of the most underrated abilities in Commander, as not having to live through multiple opponents’ turns to attack is very yes goodtimes (That’s a technical term.) Having haste on your commander, especially when they cost a mere three mana, means more opportunities to smash for commander damage.

Yahenni is one of few Aetherborn that have the ability to draw life-sustaining aether out of other creatures. As such, they are a Vampire and have a version of the classic vampire ability. Any time a creature an opponent controls dies, for any reason, Yahenni gets a +1/+1 counter. When it comes to multiplayer Magic, creatures die. A lot. If you just play a regular game of Commander, Yahenni will get huge on their own.

Though if you want to be tricksy, you can combine a creature sweeper with Yahenni’s final ability. Sac a creature to make Yahenni indestructible, cast Damnation, and probably kill one of your opponents with commander damage right there. Or sac a creature in response to an opponent’s sweeper. Or sac a creature to stop a piece of removal. Or sac a creature to make Yahenni live through combat (especially on defense). Or sac a creature to prevent an opponent from stealing it. In case you didn’t notice the pattern, there are a ton of uses for this ability.

In fact, Yahenni being a sacrifice outlet means they’re much more than just an aggressive Voltron commander. You can do all kinds of graveyard stuff, build around death triggers, abuse the heckfire out of Grave Pact, and more.

It’s your party; go nuts!

Monkey Business

When you’re a professional pirate, you’re always in the best of company.

But maybe you want to go bananas.

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider and her prince, Ragavan, soar free in the aethersphere. They also rumble on the battlefield, since that’s the only time you’re able to actually get that Monkey’s help. First strike and menace aren’t terribly exciting on a 1/3, and an extra 2/1 isn’t doing a whole lot since Ragavan doesn’t deal commander damage, so what do we do with Kari?

First strike and menace would be way more exciting on a bigger creature, so my first thought goes to Voltron. Load Kari up with Equipment and you have a much scarier Pirate. Red has a ton of artifact synergies already, so this is a novel way to build such a deck. It’s much less comboriffic than the usual Daretti, Scrap Savant decks and focused more on a beatdown strategy.

If you get a creature token every time Kari attacks, maybe we can also build around that. A handful of Red cards already interact with creatures entering the battlefield. Purphoros, God of the Forge and Warstorm Surge are just a few examples of cards that will love you pooping out a Monkey every turn. So long as Kari can keep attacking, you can keep whittling down your opponents’ life totals.

That’s where my brain went, but I’m sure a unique creature like Kari has more potential.

Count Me In

What a divine divining rod. Does it point to aether? Cuz that seems like cheating. Aether is everywhere. He might be a fraud. Investigation pending.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade is one helf of an Elf. He plays with +1/+1 counters, a common theme in Green, while also guaranteeing you have two more mana dorks. He also costs three mana. That means he’s on-curve for some serious mana ramp.

Green’s relationship with +1/+1 counters exists in almost every block in Magic history. There is no shortage of different +1/+1 counter decks that can be built around Rishkar, and he’s great in any other +1/+1 counter deck as part of the 99. All that is very open-ended.

It’s worth noting that Rishkar lets any of your creatures with counters be mana dorks, not just ones with +1/+1 counters. But they’re almost always gonna be +1/+1 counters, so there’s not exactly a ton of build-around potential with other counter types. Your next best bet is to tinker with -1/-1 counters and the persist mechanic (annihilating the -1/-1 counters with Rishkar’s +1/+1 counters is a good strategy), but that’s about as far as I’d be willing to stretch.

That’s really all I have to say about Rishkar. I think he’s awesome, and he’s gonna fit into basically any Green deck you want to put him in. He’s a solid commander himself too. My expectations are high for this workhorse of an Elf.

The THOP Heard ‘Round the World

Lore spoiler alert. Good job, flavor text!

LEGENDARY.

THOPTER.

Now that that’s out of the way, we have another colorless commander! Considering five of the now seven cost ten or more mana, it’s refreshing to see a one-drop in this “color.” First, let’s look at what Hope of Ghirapur actually does.

The answer: very little. Other than being a 1/1 flier, it can lock a single opponent out of casting noncreature spells during the second half of your turn. But only if you smack that player with Hopey first. Join me in groaning, because this ability is pretty useless.

Here’s the good news: colorless Commander decks are incredibly difficult to build. Wait, I said good news. How is this good news!? Well, there just isn’t a whole lot to do with Hope of Ghirapur when restricted to colorless cards. It is a one-drop and it does have flying, so commander damage is probably the best avenue of victory here. Colorless does have one big asset in this department: Equipment. Thopter Voltron can be a thing! If you add in some other Thopter cards, you’ll have a host of evasive threats capable of carrying oodles of weapons for you. It’s pretty silly, but I like how it captures Kaladesh’s spirit of invention.

Magic: The Gathering: Civil War

Six new commanders, all at rare, is pretty sweet. They each provide a novel mix of abilities to the format. Being rare means they will be easy to obtain (in foil (or as a prerelease promo)). Commander has its financial problems, but it doesn’t seem like any of these six exciting cards will be part of that. Truly something to celebrate!

Which new legendary creature are you excited to build around, planeswalkers?

[chocolateheal]

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When it comes to ambrosia recipes, it’s all too accessible for additive lists to become actual long, actual fast. Best of the time, they can’t advice themselves. Take this chicken band block with amber frosting, for instance. There are a dozen capacity — and best of those are non-negotiable: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder, boilerplate …

But not every ambrosia is like this.

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1. Totally homemade, ridiculously accessible hot avoid sundae

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(Courtesy Food52)

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(Rocky Luten/Courtesy Food52)

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(Courtesy Food52)

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4. Adhesive posset with graham cracker streusel

(Courtesy Food52)

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If you like pudding, you’ll adulation posset. This custard is egg-free and citrus-thickened, which agency all you accept to do is calefaction up chrism and sugar, add adhesive juice, and wait. (Yep, no gelatin, no cornstarch.) I’d be blessed with that and a spoon, but this compound adds a bonus: graham cracker streusel. Anticipate of it like key adhesive pie in a bowl.

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(Rocky Luten/Courtesy Food52)

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This adventure was originally appear on Food52.com: 5-ingredient or beneath desserts are all about little effort, big reward.

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Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project Card Analysis Lab (Part 4)

Card reveals have begun for Hearthstone's next big expansion. The Boomsday Project will dive deep into science and technology, as part of the next set for the Year of the Raven.

This expansion features the new keyword Magnetic, new Omega Projects, and Legendary Spells. And as is the case with each new Hearthstone expansion, Shacknews is stepping into the lab to analyze each of the Boomsday Project's new cards. Before we get started, here's everything you might have missed:

Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project - The Dr. Boom, Mad Genius Design Interview Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project - Analyzing Dr. Boom, Mad Genius

Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project Analysis Lab (Part 1) Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project Analysis Lab (Part 2) Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project Analysis Lab (Part 3)

And now, let's continue with the next batch of cards.

(1) Eternium Rover (1/3) Type: Minion - Mech Class: Warrior Rarity: Common Whenever this minion takes damage, gain 2 Armor. Source: WalkTone on YouTube

Analysis: Whoa! The Warrior has racked up some fine Turn 1 plays. The Witchwood provided the Town Crier and now the Boomsday Project is offering up this guy. The Eternium Rover comes with fine 1/3 stats, which is pretty ideal for a 1-Mana drop. But the fact that it can offer up a minimum of 2 Armor is pretty great for Warrior players competing against aggro decks.

Eternium Rover will fit in great with Dr. Boom mech decks, but it'll also work just find as a standalone in either constructred or Arena decks. A major thumbs up for what's sure to become a Warrior mainstay.

(6) Mechanical Whelp (2/2) Type: Minion - Mech Class: Neutral Rarity: Rare Deathrattle: Summon a 7/7 Mechanical Dragon. Source: Heige

Analysis: There's a lot of risk to playing Mechanical Whelp, with weak 2/2 stats coming on a 6-Mana play. The meaty 7/7 is sitting behind a Deathrattle, which is a big gamble given how many decks are running tech Silence plays. The risk is even greater in Wild, where Priests are itching to get their hands on this guy with Potion of Madness.

But there's one deck that'll minimize, if not outright remove, all of those risks. That, of course, is the Dr. Boom deck. Playing Dr. Boom, Mad Genius gives all Mech minions Rush, which not only gives the 2/2 Mechanical Whelp Rush, but also gives the ensuing 7/7 Mechanical Dragon Rush. That can come in very handy, especially in the late game. Dr. Boom Warrior decks should at least consider giving this guy a trial run.

(2) Fireworks Tech (2/1) Type: Minion Class: Hunter Rarity: Rare Battlecry: Give a friendly Mech +1/+1. If it has Deathrattle, trigger it. Source: Leeroy Jenkins on Twitch

Analysis: Here's another attempt to make the Mech Hunter a thing. It's certainly not the worst idea in the world. With Spider Bomb potentially lurking on Turn 3, it's an extra minion removal, which will go nicely in most Midrange Hunter decks.

Wild Hunters will fall in love with the Fireworks Tech immediately, given its instant ability to activate minions like Piloted Shredder. It's still hard to picture any Wild Hunter crafting a deck purely on Mechs, but the Fireworks Tech is a decent tool that should help those decks along.

(6) Eureka! Type: Spell Class: Shaman Rarity: Rare Summon a copy of a random minion from your hand. Source: flurry1989 on YouTube

Analysis: This is an expensive proposition for the Shaman. And without a Battlecry attached to this summon, it's hard to see a reason why Eureka! would work for the Shaman player. It wouldn't fit into any current Standard archetype, especially the Shudderwock deck.

Wild players might get a little more use out of this, but not by too much. The deck I can see getting the most use out of this spell is the Burst Shaman, which can call upon a Malygos copy and go nuts with burst spells. Even then, it'll need at least one Emperor Thaurissan turn to truly maximize its effectiveness. Outside of that, I can't imagine Eureka! sees too much play.

(9) The Boomship Type: Spell Class: Warrior Rarity: Legendary Summon 3 random minions from your hand. Give them Rush. Source: BestMarmotte on YouTube

Analysis: The Boomship takes some setting up to make work to its maximum potential. The most helpful thing about this spell is that it takes minions from your hand, which means it's a controllable sort of RNG.

But ignore the Rush keyword for a second and keep in mind that Rush does not override Charge. That means it's possible to bring out some big bad Charge minions and go straight for the face. Get your Charged Devilsaurs and your Grommash Hellscream (with Inner Rage) ready, because this could potentially be a OTK combo in the works. Stay tuned, because The Boomship may not look great on paper, but it could end up being far more powerful than anyone expects.

(6) Missile Launcher (4/4) Type: Minion - Mech Class: Neutral Rarity: Rare Magnetic: At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to all other characters. Source: 3D Juegos

Analysis: Behold! It's Diet Baron Geddon!

So what can anyone do with Diet Baron Geddon, which deals half the damage with half the calories? Well, it's possible to play this with Zilliax, so that the end-of-turn effect does some big-time healing. The Rogue player may want to pay some special attention, because they can use the Plague Scientist Combo effect to give the Missile Launcher a Poisonous effect that would clear the board. That's not a scenario I'd expect to see often, but it's one that's possible.

With weak 4/4 stats, the Missile Launcher shouldn't see much action in a constructed deck, but there's a good chance you'll see it in a Dr. Boom effect, most likely as a Discover effect off the Big Red Button.

(4) Academic Espionage Type: Spell Class: Rogue Rarity: Epic Shuffle 10 cards from your opponent's class into your deck. They cost (1). Source: Ben Brode Trump on YouTube

Analysis: YIKES! Did the Miracle Rogue seriously need more tools?

Yes, there's very little downside to giving Academic Espionage a run in your Miracle Rogue deck. It'll shuffle 10 cards from the opposition's class into the player's deck, which means that minions and weapons can help feed Combo effects or help buff up Edwin VanCleef. But the 1-Mana spells can not only trigger Gadgetzan Auctioneer, but they might be handy cards in themselves. Imagine picking up a 1-Mana Pyroblast or Mind Control.

This is going to be a very dangerous card in the hands of a Miracle Rogue and is sure to make Tess Greymane a lot more entertaining. You will see a lot of this card in the new meta, both in constructed and in Arena.

(2) Crystalsmith Kangor (1/2) Type: Minion Class: Paladin Rarity: Legendary Divine Shield, Lifesteal: Your healing is doubled. Source: Sol on Panda.tv

Analysis: This is a 2-Cost Paladin minion, but it's not one that should really be played on Turn 2, given the potential of its effect.

It didn't take much time for long-time Paladin players to start imagining pairing Crystalsmith Kangor with Lay on Hands, which would then heal for 16 Health while drawing three cards. Wild players can also get the same healing amount for less, thanks to Antique Healbot.

Don't look to play Kangor in the early turns, because he's clearly meant to be a lifesaver when on the brink of defeat. Save him for a desperation situation and then let your favorite healing spell/minion rip.

(4) Cosmic Anomaly (4/3) Type: Minion - Elemental Class: Mage Rarity: Common Spell Damage +2 Source: Mineski

Analysis: Cosmic Anomaly is a bigger, badder version of the old Evolved Kobold. The exact same 4-Mana cost will get an upgraded 4/3 stat line for the same Spell Damage +2 effect, which is pretty awesome. But then again, nobody's looking to use a Spell Damage +2 minion as a body. They just want to attack the face.

But certain things have changed in Standard since the Evolved Kobold's heyday. For one thing, Freeze Mage has gone by the wayside with Ice Lance in the Hall of Fame and other burst spells also going to Wild. But Elemental Mages can certainly make use of the Cosmic Anomaly as a Discover effect from Servant of Kalimos, especially if they have Leyline Manipulator at the ready. Get some Archmage Antonidas Fireballs ready and let the fireworks commence.

Wild players, go nuts. Feel free to use this guy with the standard Freeze Mage and get your best OTK combos ready.

(1) Shooting Star Type: Spell Class: Mage Rarity: Common Deal 1 damage to a minion and the minions next to it. Source: Mineski

Anaylsis: There's not much to get excited about here. It's Arcane Explosion for half the cost, but with roughly half the range. Don't expect to see this in many Mage decks, either in constructed or Arena. It'll also be on the lower-end of Discover effects from cards like Ruby Spellstone or Primordial Glyph.

Worse yet, the card text doesn't specify that it's for enemy minions. So if it shows up off something like Deck of Wonders, there's a chance it'll backfire. Yuck!

(6) Zerek, Master Cloner (5/5) Type: Minion Class: Priest Rarity: Legendary Deathrattle: If you've cast any spells on this minion, resummon it. Source: Jacob0 on YouTube

Analysis: This new Priest Legendary has the potential for some shenanigans, because it's basically a zombie for as long as the Priest players casts spells on it. The most obvious one is Power Word: Shield, but think a little farther outside the box.

How about using something like Unidentified Elixir on this, which could even give it the bonus effect that pops it right back to your hand if it dies? Or how about using Vivid Nightmare, which would summon another copy of it? The Wild player has even more options, like Velen's Chosen and Power Word: Glory.

Having a 5/5 sticking around on the board can be immensely useful and can help exhaust the opposing player's removal resources before bringing out the really big guns at the end of the game. Zerek can be a pest and a good diversion for the Priest player.

(5) Shrink Ray Type: Spell Class: Paladin Rarity: Rare Set the Attack and Health of all minions to 1. Source: Gamespot

Analysis: It's Humility crossed with Equality and spread out across all friendly and enemy minions. This is Shrink Ray and it could be... pretty okay.

Shrink Ray is most likely to see play in Odd Paladin decks, where 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits are running wild. On a board full of Silver Hand Recruits, it's possible to bring everyone down a 1/1 with Shrink Ray and then follow it up by buffing those Silver Hand Recruits to 3/3 Taunts with Level Up! to ensure friendly minions are sitting pretty. Shrink Ray is also the closest the Odd Pally will get to having Equality available to them, so just for that reason, it's a helpful tool.

Aside from that, it's an unorthodox spell that would only see play if the opposing side of the board has gotten out of hand. Shrink Ray has its uses, but I wouldn't expect it to be any Paladin player's first choice.

(1) Voltaic Burst Type: Spell Class: Shaman Rarity: Rare Summon two 1/1 Sparks with Rush. Overload (1) Source: Yen-Yu Chuang on Facebook

Analysis: Unless a Shaman is facing down an opposing board filled with small minions, like Odd Paladin, it's tough to picture Voltaic Burst being of much use. Getting hit by two 1/1 minions with Rush is like getting kicked in the shin by a really weak guy. However, this does have a few limited uses. Think about using the Sparks to trade into other minions to trigger a different minion's effect, like Cult Master or Witch's Cauldron. Clever Shudderwock decks might even use that Cult Master combo to help draw some quick cards.

The other main instance where players will see this card is if it's generated by Hagatha the Witch. It won't do much damage, but Voltaic Burst has a modicum of potential as a utility play.

(5) Myra Rotspring (4/2) Type: Minion Class: Rogue Rarity: Legendary Battlecry: Discover a Deathrattle minion. Also gain its Deathrattle. Source: Alliestrasza on YouTube

Analysis: Myra Rotspring has the potential to be a very good card. There are plenty of useful Deathrattle minions out there, with Alliestrasza pointing out that Myra can be combined with Deranged Doctor for a big-time heal. Other strong Deathrattle effects include Plated Beetle and Bone Drake, with the bonus being that the selected minion also gets added to your deck. On the one hand, that's a good value play.

The downside is that with so many Deathrattle minions out there, there's just as big a chance that this play becomes a dud. Imagine ending up with Carnivorous Cube (which would then summon nothing!) or Rattling Rascal. At that point, it's just a 4/2 minion, which isn't too great for its 5-Mana cost.

There is a wild card question here, though, and that's... what happens if this gets the Sherazin, Corpse Flower effect? Does Myra go dormant upon death and can then be revived as a 4/2 by playing four cards? Something to think about.

That's all for now! Keep an eye on Shacknews over the next few weeks for more card breakdowns for The Boomsday Project, leading all the way up to the expansion's release on August 7.

Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project Card Analysis Lab (Part 4) published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

[mediocremagicman]

Wednesday night draft!

13 Person Ixalan (6 and 7 Person pods, 3xXLN)

I made a great effort to stay open in the 6 person pod which paid off when I ended up being the only merfolk player in the pod. Merfolk are all about evasion and this deck has plenty of it. By not letting my opponent block I turned most games into a race; since I have an aggressive curve and three Chart a Course to refill my hand I was poised to win those races. This strategy was successful my first two rounds where I won before any other games had finished. Then round three I played against an even faster R/W deck that crushed me for a final 2-1 record putting me in second place.

The Draft (Each pick in order from top to bottom, then left to right)

As I mentioned in the opening in a 6 person pod it’s very important to figure out what is open. Pack 1 my rare was Shadowed Caravel which looks colorless, but is unplayable unless you have a enough explore cards that you can expect at least one trigger; although ideally you’d want two triggers before you’re satisfied with it. Since explore cards are focused on green and black that means you must consider the Caravel a green or black card when drafting. This makes the Dusk Legion Dreadnought the more open pick here. Pirate's Cutlass is much the opposite of the Caravel; the first ability makes the card appear as though it’s only good in a pirates deck, but in reality the low curve nature of this set makes any equipment (especially equipment that buffs the butt) good in most decks. Pick three I saw the signpost in the Shapers of Nature. As a multicolored card people are slightly less likely to take it early which would have meant I was misreading the signs. If that did turn out to be the case however it would not be a huge hindrance to waste one pick. It's especially good because it's a strong mana sink. In a fast paced format like this one of the biggest risks is getting flooded so having a place to use that mana when that does happen are important. Even more so when the mana sink is still a decent creature without the ability. This way it works when you curve out, and works when you get flooded. Watertrap Weaver is another good sign on the Merfolk front. It’s one of the mainstays of the Merfolk curve as it lets your early creatures get through and plays very nicely with Storm Sculptor. Shipwreck Looter isn’t a Merfolk but still fits with the general strategy of being aggressive. Part of the reason I took Weaver is because it works well with Sculptor so it made sense to take one when it came up. One With the Wind is another sign that at least blue is open. Most of the flyers in this format are small so turning a small creature into a big flyer can often just win you the game on it’s own. Opt is another blue card that works in any deck. It is a little off on the general concept of the deck but as a one mana instant you’ll find a chance to sneak it in even while being aggressive and just find better cards than you would have otherwise had. Pirate's Prize is slow for what I am building so far but it’s still playable. Emergent Growth it’s a high value card, but an interesting one. When cast on an evasive creature it’s quite powerful but more often you end up forcing a chump block and not getting much for you card. Since it’s the only on color card in the pack it’s the pick here but the likelihood of playing it isn’t high at this time. Commune was a throw away pick. Since I’m looking at building a Merfolk deck you might think I was excited to see Deeproot Waters this late in the pack; but you’re be wrong. As a three drop you’re either going to play off curve hold onto your Merfolk in order to maximize triggers, or play it after you’ve already played one or two Merfolk and get almost nothing out of it. Even when you do get a bunch of triggers, you still only get 1/1′s without evasion in a game that’s gone long enough that they probably have effective blockers for them. I was more excited to see Siren's Ruse as my boot than I was about the Waters.

Pack two I took my rare, Vance's Blasting Cannons // Spitfire Bastion. With only two green cards there is still the chance to go U/R and a repeatable bolt effect is a powerful enough reason to jump into that color. Plus since I am in a low curve deck, flipping it wouldn’t be that difficult. Before long I was back on the Merfolk with another Watertrap Weaver and River Sneak. A second One With the Wind is good, although I’ve learned in previous weeks that two is about the limit of these you can play. The next pack was a difficult decision since pack contained both Kumena’s Speaker and Marauding Looter. Both cards are amazing in their respective decks but I needed to decide which deck I was building. I went with Merfolk as it is more supported, and I had daydreams of putting a One With the Wind on the speaker turn two. Chart a Course was an easy pic; since I’m going to be attacking anyway it’s two cards for two mana which is exactly what you need to restock after curving out. Shaper Apprentice is another mainstay of the Merfolk deck. It’s only good to Merfolk because a 2/1 without any abilities for two mana is just below par. When you can guarantee it’s going to have flying however it suddenly a great deal above par. With four creatures that put it online before it attacks the first time so far it’s well worth taking here. Dive Down is a trick I’ve come up on since the set came out. Since most decks are aggressive the most common use of removal is to remove your blocker before they attack. By giving both hexproof and a pump to toughness you can counter their removal and ruin their attack. It’s not amazing, but definitely playable. At this point the packs got light on what I was looking for. Jungle Delver is in archtype, but mediocre most of the time. When the Looter wheeled I second guessed my commitment to green but not enough to affect my later picks.

Pack three I took another playable rare. It’s not the best rare but it makes my Shapers of Nature so much better and the Jungle Delver I was unexcited about last pack into a solid playable. Daring Saboteur is a non-Merfolk worth playing in the Merfolk deck. If you get in with it naturally then looting for free is just nuts. If you are in a situation where you need to activate its first ability to get it through then you’re probably on the backfoot and digging for the answer can often bring you back. Chart a Course is a little underwhelming this early in the pack, but it’s still solid for the reasons mentioned earlier. Crushing Canopy is a sideboard card, but one I am happy to have since it will let my flyers get through if they also have flyers. Ixalli's Keeper is an okay mana sink if you get flooded on a creature that is also just okay. This adds up to a playable card and the pick at this pack. Shapers Apprentices are better in multiples as they put each other online. Three Chart a Course may be a bit much but it’s better than Pirate's Prize which was the other in color card in that pack. I salivated over the third Shaper Apprentice before the playables disappeared. I found cards that were on color, but nothing I wanted in my deck.

The Final Decklist

Enchantment/Artifacts: 2x One With the Wind 1x Pirate's Cutlass Instant/Sorceries: 1x Opt 1x Dive Down 3x Chart a Course 1x Siren's Ruse 1x Emergent Growth Creatures: 1x Jungle Delver 1x Kumena's Speaker 1x Shipwreck Looter 3x Shaper Apprentice 1x River Sneak 1x Ixalli's Keeper 1x Daring Saboteur 1x Shapers of Nature 2x Watertrap Weaver 1x Herald of Secret Streams 1x Storm Sculptor

Round 1 (2-0) I played against a 4 color good stuff deck. I had Shaper Apprentice and other flyers that killed them before they could get out of the gate. I believe the nail in the often that game was Watertrap Weaver tapping one of the Vampire tokens they’re just created with Queen's Commission followed up with both One With the Wind's next turn for a lethal swing. Game two I lived the dream of opening with Kumena's Speaker turn one into One With the Wind turn two. It alone did 20 points of damage. They blocked a creature on the ground with a lifelink Vampire on the 4th attack but I had Shaper Apprentice to make the fifth swing lethal anyway.

Round 2 (2-0) I got paired down against another U/G deck. Although this one was more built around good cards rather than a tribal archetype. Game one I opened with two Shapers Apprentices and quickly took the lead in the air. They eventually found a flying blocker before I used Emergent Growth to force that one flyer under the bus and continue to get in in the air. Game two I took a hand that only had blue mana. Turn two I played my Daring Saboteur to mirror their Daring Saboteur. They decided it was better to let my Saboteur in than trade them. I found my forest I was able to follow up with a Shaper Apprentice and Speaker. They use their Saboteurs unblockable ability to search for answers. Then I made the Speaker One With the Wind next turn and got in for 8. They were just too far behind at this point and the game quickly went to me.

Round 3 (0-2) was a race, plain and simple. They were R/W with three (yes three) Territorial Hammerskull. This mean I couldn’t block pretty much ever. Cards that have evasion are typically less powerful than cards without. Since they weren’t trying to block anyway that meant the cost to power I paid to get the evasion was for nothing. Given that their “evasion” is on the Hammerskull and not their power cards that cost is mitigated. All this adds up to me getting smashed hard. There wasn’t a great deal of interaction as every turn we look at the opponent's board and said “I can’t block so I might as well attack”. I think the spiciest interaction was when I used Dive Down in response to their Hammerskulls trigger to block anyway. My creature was so small though that this just amounted to preventing two damage.

[inventors-fair]

Just My Type, 7-13 of 13 (excluding winners)

@peculiarflavor - Landlubbers’ Lobbyist is our second bureaucrat, but the first by typeline. It’s a funny card with cool group-hug treasure synergy. However, the first ability is distinctly white, and makes the card feel a little disjointed all things considered. The second ability is fine, though, and makes some great flavor.

@quillpaw - Caller of Tyrants would be out of place on Ixalan, but looking at something like Muraganda, it feels like it could have some fun places. It’s very limited in its application, though, and that’s fine for a lot of tribal cards. I’m not super excited by it because I don’t see it going as nuts as perhaps it wants to go. The fact that you can only cast the mana on dinosaur spells is a letdown.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Nomadic Skywhale is one of the cooler creature type combos that we got from this contest! A big body is nice, and an enchantment shell would love this card. The only problem is that this ability is greenish. White can get artifacts/enchantments, blue gets instant/sorcery cards, and black gets creatures. Technically, this card works! But it doesn’t feel in color. It’s frustrating that this card should work, but doesn’t feel like it should work! I like it, and I also know that it would never see print because of its connection to green.

@starch255 - The Deep-Sea Strangler takes the cake for the coolest creature combo. I’m serious, this is amazing. It’s an octopus assassin. AN OCTOPUS ASSASSIN. COME ONE, HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE IT. That said, it feels kind of like a letdown for a mythic. It’s already legendary, and that’s fine, but I’d rather this be a casual build-around-me rare. Yes, that last ability is powerful, but it’s also fairly narrow even with the ETB attachment.

@strangestquarkwave - Don’t worry, I got the art credit for Duplidocus just fine. Now! There are a couple things that make me a little hesitant about this card even though it’s pretty darn cool. I’d rather it be a 0/0 than 0/2, personally, and I don’t believe this card needs reach. I really love the doubling ability, though, and this card is amazingly fun to imagine on the battlefield.

@thetabbybadger - Seeker of Shinies is fun! I feel that having it be the second spell rather than the third spell would make the power level a little stronger, but third-spell triggers feel like they should be more powerful. This card is fine, but could have been pushed that little farther. In limited? Could be its own archetype!

@wpandp - Driftmother Pioneer perplexes me a little. I’m not sure what the Siren type is supposed to convey here, considering Magic’s history of sirens combined with the natural mythological connotations of Sirens calling prey/enemies. The fact that the card creates tokens with flying and vigilance, while having flying and hexproof, feels like a disconnect. And this is a minor nitpick, but the art here doesn’t feel Siren-y either. This is a powerful card with a neat ability, but I think it needs a bit more polish.

[housebeleren]

Dominaria Limited - Premium Uncommons

After the Commons come the Uncommons. These are the cards that you’ll build around and will form the true power of your Limited deck this season.

White

Baird is more defensive, but he can really disrupt your opponent’s game plan, especially if they were looking to curve into their 5 drop and swing at the same time. Sometimes, a little tax is all you need to turn the tables.

Danitha seems nuts to me. People will look over her because of the Aura & Equipment text, but a 2/2 with First Strike, Vigilance, and Lifelink is a really great deal, even without the cost reduction line. That said, she is probably going to be your best target for Auras and equipment, and makes them better picks than they usually would be.

I would play this in any situation, as a 2/2 First Strike for 2 is pretty excellent, and against a Black player it’s likely to be the best card in your deck. First Strike does seem to be a theme with the Knights, so even though I’m not highlighting it here, playing Kwende in a dedicated Knights tribal deck seems good.

If Ixalan taught me anything, it was not to ignore Auras anymore. Wizards seems to have taken seriously the historic Aura issue and what they’re coming out with these days is better than ever. This will almost guarantee you get in with at least one big hit, and if this survives, you’re going to be near impossible to race.

Giving this Flash is what made this excellent. The fact that it doesn’t have any conditions on what type or size of creature you can Seal Away is strong for 2 mana, and I would be more than happy to first pick this card. It does get worse in game 2, and obviously isn’t excellent against token strategies, but premium removal this be.

News flash: Serra Angel is still good. White made out really excellently with the Uncommons in this set. Even if the Common slot wasn’t great, just about every Uncommon White card is not only playable, but strong, and that’s not a bad place to be. I have quite a feeling I’ll be drafting White often on Dominaria.

Blue

In general, Blue’s Uncommons are much more conditional and buildaround than White’s, which are just good all around. In Bolas’s Clutches is something of an exception. Yes, it’s an expensive Mind Control, but it’s still a massive tempo swing. And Legendary isn’t just blank text in this set, so that almost makes up for the extra mana.

Again, this is conditional, but if you have a couple of targets for this in your deck, I think it will be good. Of course the dream is to flicker a Saga, and by the way, you can flicker the Saga in response to its final ability triggering to “reset” it, and still get use of its third chapter. But more often, I think this is going to be a way to save another Legendary Creature from a removal spell, which is still pretty great.

I like Time of Ice quite a bit. It’s one of the better Uncommon Sagas in the set, and makes life very difficult for your opponent. You’ll slowly gain tempo, and once it hits Chapter 2, they won’t be able to attack at all for fear of having their whole army bounced. It’s not a Time Warp, but it’s pretty darn close. This is one of the only Uncommon Blue spell that I would call unconditionally good in the set. Everything else is good in the right home.

Black

Yes, there are lots of Legends running around in this set, so this card will sometimes be blank against the number one threat you want to get rid of. Even so, this is 2 mana Instant speed removal. You’ll take it and it will serve you well, even if it will be frustrating sometimes.

Unless you’re really under pressure and about to lose, this seems really good. Getting all three activations is insane value, and should set you up for a pretty solid win.

Knight of Grace was good, and Knight of Malice is also good. Play both.

For the most part, you’ll be happier to see Eviscerate at Common, but you’ll still take this whenever you see it. The exile clause will occasionally be relevant, even if the Planeswalker bit will basically never be. All in all, Black has a few good Uncommons, but nothing earth shattering so far.

Red

I’m so excited for people to undervalue this card. Make no mistake, this is premium Red removal and you’ll almost always cast it for 3 mana to burn a creature for 5. Also, that will almost always be the right play, as holding on to it hoping to get to 9 mana is a good way to lose. If the stars align and you do manage to cast it for its kicked cost, you should just win. The fact that this plays so well for both costs makes it one of the best Red cards in the set.

He’s no Flametongue Kavu, but this is about as close an approximation as we get these days. Don’t forget he always pings for 1, as he counts himself. In a dedicated Wizards deck, this will be an all star.

This is another one that people will undervalue just by looking at the kicker. It’s in an interesting space compared to Fight with Fire. The floor is worse, since it’s 4 mana for 4 damage rather than 3 mana for 5. And the ceiling is also worse. That said, achieving the kicker is way easier than Fight with Fire, so instead of casting it for the kicked version 5% of the time, you’ll do it maybe half the time. But don’t forget, casting this unkicked is still good.

It’s weird to see a Phoenix at Uncommon, but there we go. This card is a good deal to cast at 4 mana, and the ability to recur it is not that hard to turn on. I’d almost always run this.

What is with Red Uncommon burn? These spells are all playable without the bonus, but ridiculous with it. In this case, it’s Open Fire, which was totally playable in Hour of Devastation limited. But if you have a Wizard, it’s Lightning Bolt, and I swear somewhere I heard that was a good card. Overall, Red did well with the Uncommons.

Green

I enjoy this card quite a bit. Being able to cash all your dead creatures in for Saprolings is awesome, and occasionally you can cash them in for more cards. Basically, if you’re in Green, you’ll always be happy to see this.

Grunn seems pretty much busted. A six drop that swings as a 10/10 is going to dominate combat, and casting him for 9 is just insane. I like this in Green more than other colors, because at least you can ramp into it, so casting him kicked is more likely than in other colors.

Saproling lord is good. It doesn’t take too many synergies to make this one of the best cards in your deck.

Remember when a 2 drop was literally just a vanilla 2/2? Well now it’s a 2/2 with two keywords. And casting this for 5 will make it one of the best threats on the board. Green done good with Kicker in this set.

Multicolor

Even without any other Wizards in the deck, Adeliz seems fantastic. 2/2 Flying, Haste for 3 mana is a great deal, and adding almost-Prowess to the mix is just gravy. But if you’re in R/U, chances are you will have other Wizards in the deck, in which case she will be bonkers.

I’m really excited to run Garna. Most of the time, you’ll swing and trade with one creature, then drop Garna to get your own creature back. Sometimes, however, this will be an absolute blowout, and if you can trade multiple creatures in the same turn, the advantage here is real.

A 3/3 Trample for 3 is good enough to run anyway, and R/G has enough cards with Kicker to make it likely you’ll get at least one activation out of this. And if you do, you’re in great shape.

I’m all over this. Again, a 3/3 flier with Flash is great for 4 mana. And if you have other historics in your deck, this makes them great.

Slimefoot is the fucking bomb. Not only do I want to make a Commander out of him, but he’s great in limited too. He’s a built-in win condition, and in the B/G deck, there are more than enough Saprolings to make him a massive threat.

G/U is one of the lest defined archetypes of the set, but if you end up in it, having Tatyova (Seriously? That’s her name?) in your deck will be a huge benefit. It means you’ll literally never have a dead draw again, since every Land you draw will just grab you another one.

Colorless

It’s expensive upfront, but once you have it out, it’s a great way to gum up the board. I’ll pretty much always snag this.

Artifacts are worth more than usual in this set, given the Historic payoffs, so I’m higher on this than I normally would be. It’s really best in a deck with Wizards (duh), but it’s playable in any deck if you have Historic matters cards.

Same goes for this card. I’m higher on artifacts than I might normally be. 3 mana is a bit expensive for looting, but some of the time it’ll just be card draw, and in the late game, this will be great. I’ll run it in controlling decks for sure.

So those are my thoughts. What do you think? Rares & Mythics coming up next!

[housebeleren]

Theros Beyond Death Limited: Premium Uncommons

Time for the Uncommons of Threos Beyond Death! 

White

Archon is costly, but it’s likely going to be the biggest evasive threat on the board, and by the time you get it out, it shouldn’t be difficult at all to get value out of the death trigger, if your opponent does remove it right away. Seems like a pretty easy 2-for-1, which is what you need your Uncommon 6-drops to do. 3.0/5

Banishing Light takes care of literally any threat on the board, for a very reasonable price. Yes, it can be undone with Enchantment removal, but there’s not so much running around that it’s extremely likely. This is better than usual in this set because it also triggers Constellation, and Exile is much better than sending to the grave, because of Escape.. Take highly. 3.5/5

Knocking out all abilities is a critical part of this card, and is a large part of what makes it playable. This will completely neutralize any bomb Creature for 4 turns, which is a lot of action for only 2 mana. I’d still usually rather have the Banishing Light, but this is not bad at all. 3.0/5

I like that there are multiple ways to recover used Enchantments at Uncommon in this set. It makes for deep interactions that are tons of fun. This teller of tales is a decently sized body on his own, and the option to put a Dreadful Apathy back on top of your deck is big game. It reminds me a little of the Choking Restraints/Ironclad Slayer combo from Eldritch Moon limited. I’m a fan. 3.0/5

At Uncommon, White gets a lot of strong interaction and some reasonably costed cards with lots of potential for creative plays. This is exciting, because White is frequently a super straightforward color in Limited, but it’s clear there’s room for depth and subtlety in the color that is very refreshing to see.

Blue

This is basically a 3/2 that dies and leaves behind a 2/3. And that is really solid value for only 3 mana. A vanilla 3/2 for 3 is playable filler anyway, and will usually trade reasonably. I suspect this will go undervalued by a lot of people. 3.0/5

Aside from having absolutely gorgeous art, Callaphe is a pretty strong turn 3 play. It doesn’t take much for her to be a 4/3 or bigger, at which point she’s great value for the cost, and she taxes all targeted removal against her, as a bonus. Add the fact that she triggers Constellation and adds 2 for Devotion, and I’m pretty well sold. 3.0/5

It’s one mana more than Banishing Light, but it’s just about as effective, though it doesn’t clear abilities, which is unfortunate. Even so, it’s pretty close to unconditional removal, which is much needed in Blue. 3.0/5

This is a card you’d play as an ordinary creature anyway, with the base stats. But this is one of the few ways in the set to truly abuse Constellation, and it will also let you reset your Enchantment-based removal to scale up to bigger targets as the game goes on. And that’s not even mentioning that there are several good ETB triggers to reuse. I’m suspecting this will be really good. It’s the successor to Riptide Chimera, but this one trades stats for being optional, which I’m very okay with. 3.5/5

If Ravnica Allegiance taught us anything, it was to not underestimate Faerie Duelist, which won combats and completely warped the combat calculus around its existence. At Uncommon, this will be less, well, common, but the effect is still potent and shouldn’t be ignored. It’s less consistent, but the upside is higher, and a 1/3 is more playable on its own stats than a 1/2. 3.0/5

Blue got a ton of action at Uncommon, which somewhat makes up for my initial impression that the Commons were a little underwhelming. That said, the variance on the Uncommons is much higher, as there are a few that I think will be fairly weak, so snap up these good ones when you see them.

Black

There is no doubt this will be good. Even at 4 mana, it’s playable, and the cost reduction is just a bonus. Premium removal, for sure. 3.5/5

The first Saga to make the cut for me, I suspect this will be pretty good. Creature powers aren’t crazy high in this set, so you should have some good targets for this, and it will be very difficult for them to avoid having to discard something useful if you cast this on curve. Completely obliterating any Escape they may have going on is a great upside, and very relevant. I’d basically always run this, and maybe side it out against the R/G Ferocious deck or something. 3.0/5

Gary’s back! You definitely want a little devotion on the table before casting this, but once you have another few Black Creatures out, this can be a huge life swing. Definitely an incentive to go deep in the color, but not a great reason to pivot if you’re already going somewhere else. 3.0/5

Play this for the 2/1 Deathtouch. The Escape enabling is just a perk. 3.0/5

Pharika’s Spawn seems like it could be pretty close to a Mythic Uncommon. A 3/4 for 4 is fine, if unexciting, but the Escape is where the real action is. For 6 mana and just a few cards from your ‘yard, you get a 5/6 that comes with an edict attached, and that is big game. Assuming it trades once upfront, this is a completely believable 3-for-1. Sometimes, it won’t end up quite that good, but the potential is also there for it to be even better. If you can get repeated Escapes out of this, I don’t see how you’re losing. One of the best Escape payoffs in the set, and I’m starting pretty high on it. I could imagine this getting up to a 4.0 if the format is right for it. But for now, it’s a 3.5/5

Black knocked it out of the park in Uncommons. There were even more I could have picked, but I wanted to limit it to 5 highlighted cards. Given its strong showing at Common as well, I suspect Black will be a powerhouse color. Of all the colors, Black stands out to me as probably the best candidate for mono drafting, since it really doesn’t need much help to be great. If Black is wide open and you can draft mono-Black devotion, I expect that to be great.

Red

I like the Demigods with variable power rather than toughness, and I also like the ones that cost 1CC rather than CC, since they’ll be easier to cast on curve. Anax here threatens a lot of power on his own, but his ability is pretty fierce as well. By himself, he’ll at least always leave behind a 1/1 when he dies, but it has the potential to get really nuts in in the sacrifice deck. I suspect he will play better than he looks at first blush. 3.0/5

A 2/1 for 2 that chucks a Shock when it dies? Sign me up, this is exactly what both aggro and sacrifice decks want, so I suspect these will get snatched up fast. 3.0/5

Okay, this one I admit I’m a bit unsure of. A 4/2 for 3 would normally be around a 2.0, but this one has some extra going for it. The fact that its ability can hit any target is huge, because it can snipe off opposing X/1s or be that one extra point to take down larger creatures with some of Red’s Instant speed removal. And eventually, it’s going to trade with something itself, so I’ll give it the initial benefit of the doubt. It is definitely way better in the R/U Flash deck than in just a normal deck, so adjust your expectations downward accordingly. 3.0/5

Funny how far Scry 1 goes. While I’d generally rather see Lightning Strike, adding the Scry keeps this from feeling bad at Uncommon. It’s strong, flexible removal, and you’ll like it. 3.0/5

Red did decently in the Uncommon department. Like with its Commons, many of the cards feel situational, like they’ll be better in some decks than others, so my gut is telling me that, barring the bombs at Rare & Mythic, Red will be at its best as a support color, and probably not a great candidate for mono drafting (unlike Black, which seems bonkers if you can draft it alone).

Green

I like this. There aren’t very many 1-toughness creatures with Flying, so if you cast it for 1, it’ll mostly be a chump block. But the Escape is pretty sweet, because a 4/5 with Reach is a massively bigger deal than a measly 1/2. This can be an easy 2-for-1 against many decks, and has even a little more ceiling than that. 3.0/5

A 2/3 for 2 would already be pretty playable. Add that it’s an Enchantment in the color that cares the most, that it shuts off counters at no cost, and that it has a late-game mana sink, and you’ve got a potential powerhouse on your hands. My guess is that it will rarely be amazing, but the potential is there, and it will always be at least good. 3.0/5

On its own, this swings as a 3/4 Trample for only 3 mana, and that’s pretty solid. Being able to move its bonus around as the game develops keeps this relevant, and I suspect it will play very well. 3.0/5

Affectionate Indrik is back, and it was good then. I have no reason to suspect it won’t be now, even if I don’t love that Green keeps getting Fight on ETB. 3.0/5

Renata seems great. On her own, she’s a little underpowered, but pumping up all your future creatures is incredibly solid, and it’s unlikely this card will disappoint. 3.0/5

Green feels quite solid. There are very few cards that feel unplayable, and many of the cards are just good on there own, without help. The color seems flexible and reasonably deep, which is a great sign.

Gold & Colorless

For the Gold cards, there’s just the one signpost for each pair at Uncommon, so I’ll go through all of them.

Most of the Black pairings seem to be centered around the Graveyard, and it’s probably the best color to be in if you want to go deep on Escape. Green-Black has a little self mill, a little top of library filter, and some sacrifice to help fill the ‘yard for your powerful Escape creatures. The Acolyte here is exactly what the colors want, and is a great Gravedigger variant for the archetype. 3.0/5

Black-Blue goes heavy on the self-mill, but outside of Escape, there really isn’t any payoff for doing so. Other than this cutie, of course. It’s a cheap and evasive threat, and can easily fuel your Escape cards. I do wish it were a 2/2, since there are some cards that punish one toughness in the set (Wrap in Flames, for example). Still, you’ll usually play this. 3.0/5

Eutropia seems great. The card she reminds me of the most is Skyrider Patrol from M19, which was one of my favorite cards in the set. Most of the Green-based color pairings care about Enchantments, so it shouldn’t be too hard to peck through lots of damage with Eutropia helping you out. 3.0/5

Red/White is a throwback to the Heroic mechanic from original Theros. (Which they very cutely seeded with Feather & Co. in War of the Spark.) For this round on Theros, Red/White is also the go-wide pairing of the set, with the Herioc triggers this time serving as team pump spells. Hero of the Nyxborn is already a good deal, creating two bodies for 3 mana, and if you’re in the colors, it shouldn’t be hard to get a few good combat tricks to make it even spicier. 3.0/5

I like that they’ve been exploring new ways to do Blue/Red besides just “Instants & Sorceries Matter”. After U/R Draw 2 in Eldraine, U/R Flash is a great compliment in this set that feels right (and fuels my argument that Red should be moved to secondary in Flash, and Green should have Flash restricted somewhat, for balance purposes). Anyway, the Chimera here is great. Well-costed on its own, and a great trigger once you start slinging spells on your opponent’s turn. I’m a fan. 3.0/5

White/Black is another Escape archetype, but with some Enchantment recursion to be found on the Uncommon & above rarities. As for this card, I really wish this were 4 mana. I honestly think Wizards needs to allow reanimation to be a touch more aggressively costed, and let White have a little more unconditional reanimation, again for balance reasons. This card does give me some hope that they recognize the need. For Limited, as is, this is a harder to cast Rise from the Grave, but with the added upside that you’ll occasionally be able to snag back a Dreadful Apathy and get some extra removal. It’s decent, but not as good as most of the other cards in this batch. 2.5/5

But seriously, I’m for Resurrection in Standard. I think it’s completely fine in power level, and would be great for White to reclaim some of the pie.

Green/White is the primary “Auras Matter” color pair, which makes perfect sense. Siona, aside from being FIERCE. AS. FUCK., is a fantastic card for the archetype. She digs deep, making the odds pretty decent that you’ll find an Aura to grab, at which point she’s already worth her cost. If you can grab a Dreadful Apathy with this, even better. (The fact that I keep mentioning that card makes me wonder if I should rate it even higher...) And occasionally she’ll phone a friend, which is just all upside. 3.0/5 (with potential to go higher in the right build)

Sacrifice? For Black/Red? Groundbreaking.

Seriously, though, I am eager for Wizards to surprise me with Black/Red sometime. I’ll give it a pass this set, since there is a minor Graveyard theme, so it’s a natural fit. Spectacle in Ravnica Allegiance was such a breath of fresh air for this color pair. But anyhoo, this card. He’s pretty solid. He threatens a lot of damage, and will be very difficult to block, so I’m suspecting he’ll be good. 3.0/5

White/Blue is a very ambiguous archetype this time around, basically just “tempo”. That said, this card threatens to run away with the game very quickly, and will be absolutely bonkers put on a flier or other evasive threat. I seriously wonder if this will bring back the Curious Obsession deck in Standard, except in White/Blue. For Limited, if you can get at least one hit in with this, you’ve saved yourself from getting 2-for-1′d too badly, so I’ll start with the assumption that this is good, and revise down from there. 3.0/5

Last but not least, Red/Green is doing “Ferocious” this time, which I really enjoy as a semi-deciduous theme. Warden of the Chained is a decent payoff for having other 4+ Power creatures, but is a little frustrating if you don’t have very many of them in the deck. You’ll always play this, but it strikes me as a little weaker than some of the others. 2.5/5

Phew... that’s it for the Gold Signpost cards. Just a couple Artifacts to touch on:

I love this. It’s basically an Icy Manipulator, but it costs a little more to activate, but then frees up your mana after you’ve done so. It can also permanently tap down a creature with a tap to activate ability, something Icy couldn’t do. Every deck will be happy to run this. 3.0/5

I feel like they’re finally getting Vehicles right. 4 mana is a touch more than you want for a 3/3, but First Strike, Trample, and Haste are a lot of keywords, and it’s super easy to crew. I don’t know if it will be great, but it’s definitely playable. 2.5/5

The Rest of the Uncommons

Let’s blaze through the remaining cards, lightning round style. (out of 5)

Alseid of Life’s Bounty - I suspect lots of people will run this card who shouldn’t. Sure, it can sacrifice itself to protect a bigger bomb from removal, but it just doesn’t do enough on its own to really warrant much excitement. 1.5

The Birth of Meletis - This does a lot of things, and... none of them are particularly great? Very weird collection of effects. 1.5

Commanding Presence - This is a lot of effects for one Aura, and it should be possible to either get through or take out a blocker the turn you play this, mitigating the 2-for-1 potential. 2.5

Dawn Evangel - Figuring out when this triggers and what it can get back is a feat unto itself. It’s pretty narrow, to be honest, and so I’m really just looking at this as a 2/3 Enchantment creature for Constellation. 2.0

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun - I like Daxos more for constructed, since there aren’t any lifegain triggers in this set to really make this great. He’s solid, just not incredible. 2.5

Favored of Iroas - I like the concept here. Problem is, it shouldn’t be too hard to predict when you’re holding up a Flash Enchantment as a trick, so a lot of the time, it’ll just be a 2/2. Maybe I’m wrong. 2.0

Hero of the Winds - I really wish this were a 2/4 to begin with. 2.0

Phalanx Tactics - Probably the best Heroic enabler in the set, this is perfect for go-wide, but mediocre if you aren’t in the colors. 2.5

Reverent Hoplite - I want at leaset 3 tokens out of this before I feel good about it. Which, shouldn’t be difficult in mono-White, but could be frustrating in most decks. 2.5

Glimpse of Freedom - I don’t really think this is the format for this card. If you’re in Blue/Red, it’s an Instant, so that’s a thing. The escape is expensive enough to likely not come up often. 2.0

Medomai’s Prophecy - This, on the other hand, is a lot of action for 2 mana, even if it is spread out over several turns. Nonbos with self-mill somewhat, but a cheap Divination if you do it right. 2.5

Sage of Mysteries - Gorgeous art. My guess is this usually isn’t worth it, but occasionally you might be able to build a legitimate mill deck around this. And if you see your opponent is self-milling, it’s a great strategy to pivot into. 2.0

Sea God’s Scorn - I’ve been burned with the six mana bounce spells before, so not again. My hunch is this will be playable, but not every deck will want it. 2.5

Shoal Kraken - Seems solid. Possibly will play better than I think, but reminds me of Sage of the Falls, which was only great sometimes. 2.5

Stinging Lionfish - If you get really deep on Flash, this could go up significantly. Most of the time, I’m expecting it to be just fine. 2.5

Sweet Oblivion - Combined with Sage of Mysteries, a true mill deck could be viable. But I wouldn’t run this just to mill myself. 1.5

Whirlwind Denial - Convolute is as Convolute does. 2.0

Agonizing Remorse - In a set with Gods, it would be foolish to assume this is unplayable. But definitely don’t assume it’s premium removal, because it’s not. 2.0

Cling to Dust - This strikes me as pretty decent sideboard hate for a good Escape deck. But I wouldn’t main deck it. 1.5

Enemy of Enlightenment - By the time you get this out, your opponent can work around the discard.  But a 5/5 flier is big, so there’s that. The removal in the set seems good enough to dampen this a bit. 2.5

Hateful Eidolon - There aren’t tons of Auras that make me think this is super worth playing, but if you draft like 3 or more Mire’s Grasp, this gets really cute really fast. There’s a deck for this, but it’s not every deck. 2.0

Inevitable End - Usually this will just be a slow kill spell, but occasionally if you put it on a bomb, they’ll sacrifice other things just to keep that alive. It’s conditional removal, but still removal. 2.5

Minion’s Return - This being an Enchantment-Matters set makes me like this a lot more than I usually do, and there’s potential for combos with Hateful Eidolon & some of the White recursion. 2.5

Tymaret, Chosen from Death - Difficult to cast on curve, but a reasonable drop at any time. Great hate for Escape decks, but remember, you can’t exile an Escape card once they’ve declared they’re casting it. 2.5

Underworld Dreams - Save it for Constructed. 1.0

Blood Aspirant - In the dedicated R/B Sacrifice deck, this could be a thing, but it starts too puny and the expense is pretty high. 2.0

Dreamshaper Shaman - I get it, but this honestly feels more like a casual Commander card than something for Limited. For Limited, it’s mostly a big body. 2.0

Escape Velocity - This again strikes me more as something for Constructed, something a deck like Izzet Drakes might like. For Limited, it’s cute, but not particularly great. 1.5

Furious Rise - The upside on this is pretty great in the dedicated Ferocious deck. I’d give it a go. 2.5

Heroes of the Revel - Decent stats for the cost, and another Heroic enabler. Good in the archetype, mediocre elsewhere. 2.5

Impending Doom - The name of this card really doesn’t match the flavor, but whatever. It’s a solid Aura for aggressive decks, good in the Heroic build, but a liability if you’re not wanting to attack. 2.0

Skophos Maze-Warden - Ignore the wall of text, this is a 3/4 for 4 with the “Flowstone” ability. Which is pretty solid on its own. If you get the maze, it’s cute, but definitely not necessary to play this. 2.5

The Triumph of Anax - This is one of the hardest cards to evaluate in the whole set. My hunch is it will often not work out quite the way you hope, and one or more chapters will end up getting wasted to removal or by not having good targets. I’m starting pessimistic until I see otherwise. 1.5

Underworld Fires - Can be a way to clean up stragglers after combat, and will be good against decks like Heroic go-wide. There’s potential, but I might start it as a sideboard pick until the format shakes out. 2.0

The Binding of the Titans - This card takes a while to do much useful, but it gets there, and it’s a pretty cheap inclusion. Some decks will want it. 2.5

Hydra’s Growth - This can absolutely run away with the game if left unchecked, so I’d generally run it in G/W Auras or decks with heavy Constellation or Heroic triggers. But it is risky until about 3 turns in, so take it with a grain of salt. 2.5

Klothys’s Design - Oh, how much better this would be if it granted Trample. As is, it’s a reasonable top-end finisher, but some decks will find it dead more often than not. 2.0

Mystic Repeal - Enough Enchantments are running around for this to consistently have targets, and it avoids enabling Escape as well. I’d rather have a Return to Nature for flexibility, but this will do in a pinch. 2.0

Nessian Hornbeetle - I like this little guy as a payoff for the Ferocious deck, and there’s virtually no downside to including him. 3.0

Nessian Wanderer - A two drop that can smooth a land-light hand is reasonable, but you could skip it and probably not notice. 2.0 [EDIT: I skipped past the repeatable part of this. It’s a little closer to Dryad Greenseeker than I initially thought, but still not quite as good.) 2.5

Setessan Petitioner - You’re rarely going to gain more than around 4 life with this, but once you get above about that point, this starts getting good. If you manage to draft mono-Green, I’d slam this, but in most 2-color decks it’s pretty replaceable. 2.0

Wolfwillow Haven - There’s not much need to ramp in this format, but if you’re heavy Green, it can do work for both Devotion and casting double & triple Green casting costs. The ability is too costly to get excited about, though at least it feeds itself. I’d generally skip this except maybe in mono Green with a good Devotion payoff. 1.5

Mirror Shield - Mostly a flavor win, I don’t see lots of reason for this in the format. Side it in against the all Moss Viper deck. You could also side it in against control decks to hedge against removal. 1.5

Soul-Guide Lantern - This will be a brutal sideboard against the heavy Escape deck, but that’s mainly where I see it. 1.5

Field of Ruin - Save it for Constructed. Nothing in this format is worth destroying aside from maayyybe Labyrinth of Skophos. 0.5

That’s it for the Uncommons. Very few dead picks, lots of good options and a few fun buildarounds. Overall, a good looking set, I think. Up next, the Rares & Mythics!

[housebeleren]

Ixalan Limited - Premium Uncommons

I’ve already reviewed what I think will be the strongest Commons in Ixalan, now it’s time to turn to the Uncommons, which are the other group to make up the bulk of most Limited decks. What are the cards that you’re going to see again and again, and will define the format? Let’s take a look.

White

Of course it’s removal again. 4 mana is on the steep side for an O-Ring effect, but being able to potentially nullify additional copies in their hand is a not-irrelevant upside. The fact that it can deal with any permanent type is incredibly relevant, as there are Artifacts & Enchantments worth removing in this format. I expect Ixalan’s Binding to be a top pick for anyone in White.

When I first saw this card, my gut reaction was shock at how bad the base stats are for the mana cost. Then it slowly dawned on me just how powerful the ability was. This guy makes attacking an absolute nightmare for your opponent. If they swing with anything power 4 or under, you get a permanent buff to your entire team. If you need to trade with this guy, he leaves your whole team with a gift. And good luck to Red decks removing him without damage. Short of pure Destroy or Exile effects, this Dino will perform wonders, even when behind.

While Bellowing Land Dino is a phenomenal defensive card, maybe best suited for the W/G Sir Mix a Lot archetype, Screeching Sky Dino here is pure tempo, and will be an MVP in both R/W Aggro Dinos or W/U Fliers. He takes your 3 drop, pumps it up and flings it at the opponent, then you’re left with a 3/3 flier, perfectly on curve. What’s not to love here?

What is with these white Uncommon Dinos? Again, this is another one I underestimated because the ability took me a while to figure out. Essentially, for a 2 mana investment, Spike Tail Dino acts as a 3/3 First Strike or as a 5/3 during combat. It can pick off weaker enemies while sustaining no damage itself, or power itself up to deal with a larger foe. Again, this card with mana open will deter opponents attacking into you with small creatures, so expect him to be nuts against decks like Vampires.

Blue

So, it may seem weird choosing this as a premier Uncommon given that we just had Ominous Sphinx, which is strictly better. However, don’t forget that the Sphinx was busted, and often referred to as a “Mythic Uncommon.” We definitely can’t expect that to be the norm. Trusty ol’ Gusty here is a phenomenal card for limited, and the biggest Flying creature in the set (Well, he’s tied with a Black 6-drop). Every Blue deck will want him, for sure. Also, I’m loving this new art.

As I mentioned during the Commons, they’ve really powered up Raid this time around. Sure, this doesn’t actually say Raid on it, but it might as well. And attacking with a creature is a small enough hoop to jump through to draw 2 for 2 mana. Having to discard the worst card in your hand is a pretty negligible floor. I predict this card will be highly playable.

Blue is getting good Counterspells again and I am all about it. In the Pirate’s deck, this is better than Mana Leak and that is no fucking joke. In other decks, it’s perfectly serviceable.

I enjoy this card. It’s absolutely playable in any Blue deck, but it solves an issue that bounce sometimes has, which is that they’re really best if you can bounce something with a relatively high CMC. This way, if you need to bounce a smaller permanent, you get Scry 2 out of it. Again, I enjoy this card.

Black

A lot has been made of this card for Constructed, but it’s going to be a high pick in Limited as well. Even a “Merfolk” deck won’t have 100% Merfolk in it, so you’re bound to have some targets. Premium removal and bascially a no-brainer.

I’m less sure about this one, but I like where it’s going. If you have other Treasure producing cards in the deck, this guy is a super solid payoff. I particularly like that his card draw doesn’t cost any mana, so you can activate it in response as needed. Once you have some extra mana, he turns into a good way to cash in your creatures that would die anyway for some reason into fuel, which is a decent place to be.

I think people are really going to underappreciate just how powerful this card can be. Cast it on curve, and just exile the removal from their hand. Then, you have a Flying creature that can attack on turn 3 with minimal chance of blockers to trigger any Raid triggers you want to. Even if they remove it to get back whatever you exiled, they still need to use a kill spell on a 1/2 rather than on one of your larger creatures later in the game. All told, I think this one’s going to be an all-star.

Red

I mean, c’mon. Was there any doubt? This has been a staple in every single Standard format it’s been legal in, and there’s no way it’s not going to be a priority first pick in Ixalan Limited. Go forth and fry shit.

While Red had a rough go of it in the Commons, it’s absolutely killing it with some of these Uncommons. This guy comes out of nowhere doing his best Lava Axe impression and immediately bashes for crazy damage. And chances are unless your opponent is also playing Dinos, it’s going to be the biggest threat on the board.

Dropping this at Instant speed is going to RUIN someone’s day, and I can’t wait for it. This card looks like it’s decently positioned against Merfolk and likely to be absolutely brutal against Vampires. Obviously, side this out if your opponent is also playing Pirates, and definitely be wary about dropping this on a pile of Enraged Dinos. But when it works, it will be a blowout, so play accordingly.

Green

This card is brutal. First of all, it’s strictly better than Hunt the Weak even if you don’t have a Dino to use this with. So that in and of itself makes this highly playable. But the cost reduction clause on this card pushes it into ridiculous territory in the right deck. Don’t make a mistake and think this is a “Dino deck card,” because this is premium removal in any deck that can cast it.

While it’s a little suspicious leaving 5 mana open, if you can ambush an attacker with this, you’re doing great. The fact that it can continually get bigger will make attacking into you a very risky proposition, and will make chump blocking a non-starter. 

Ramp seems super good in this format, especially if you’re dealing with Dinos. And this guy not only helps you cast your beasts, but he gets a bonus once you do. That is a lot of awesome coming from a 2 drop.

I’m really digging the design of this card. This is a type of effect we’ve pretty much only seen in White before, but I’m super feeling it in Green, especially since we don’t get Regenerate anymore. But what really put it over the top for me is the cantrip. Worst case scenario, you can cycle this card for 1G. Best case, you save a dying creature and come out up a card in the end. I always underestimate cards like this, and I’m sure I’m going to have my ass handed to me with it at some point during the format.

Honestly, Green made out good with the uncommons. I think it’s well positioned to be one of the best colors in the set. As it is, I picked 4 cards, but Merfolk Branchwalker, Thundering Spineback, Vineshaper Mystic, and Wildgrowth Walker all have crazy potential. Believe you me, Green is going to smash some face come prerelease night.

Multicolored, Artifacts, and Lands

So, I’m going to skip the Multicolored Uncommons, since they are the archetype pointer cards and will all be fantastic in their respective decks. But, unlike the Commons, there are a few other cards that have promise.

5 mana is hefty, but Crew 2 is pretty doable, and a 4/6 will dominate the board in this format. The fact that this can work well on offense and defense makes me think it would be unwise to underestimate.

Similarly, 3 mana and Crew 1 is so minimal of a cost that this snazzy vessel seems like a no-brainer. Upgrading any token into a 4/3 makes you pretty well positioned in the early game to get some real damage through. I like.

Dinos and Pirates will love this card, but even a 2 color Merfolk or Vampires deck will want to pick it up if they have enough of the relevant creatures. Not coming into play tapped is a huge benefit here, so I expect these to be taken pretty quickly.

So that’s it for the Premium Uncommons. I may or may not do a Rares/Mythics version, since those aren’t really what defines Limited formats as much as the Commons & Uncommons. But we’ll see!

[housebeleren]

Core Set 2020 Limited - Premium Uncommons

We’re barreling towards Core Set 2020 Prerelease, so with that in mind, let’s also barrel forward and take a look at the Uncommons of the set and see what’s going to factor into the Limited environment in a meaningful way. Let’s get to it.

White

White is interesting in this set. There are no really standout killer cards, but there are a lot of solid picks you’ll usually run. Angel of Vitality is like that. On the surface, it’s just a Wind Drake, which is totally playable. But it has a higher ceiling if you have some good life gain effects. It not only enhances those effects, but rewards you for them as well. I’d definitely try to snag a few copies of Daybreak Chaplain if I got this card. But, it’s not a bomb. 3.0/5

I don’t know why I picked another Angel here, but sure. There’s an Angel theme and they’re generally pretty good. This one is one mana too expensive for its base stats, but if you untap with it, things start getting nuts. You definitely want to prioritize having lots of fliers if you’re running Herald, but the reward for doing so is good. 3.0/5

Master Splicer is 5/5 worth of stats spread out over two bodies for 4 mana, and that’s pretty sweet. This plays well with the go-wide strategy, and you can potentially find some ways to reuse it using cards like Yarok’s Wavecrasher. Also, there incidentally some other Golems in the set, so make sure to stay aware of that interaction if you plan on running this guy. Depending on how the set plays out, I could argue this as the best White Uncommon. 3.5/5

Blue

Air Elemental is always good, and in a set with so many small fliers, having a big one like this is the best way to keep the tide going in your favor. I’ve never seen a format where I didn’t grab Trusty Gusty here. 3.5/5

I love this guy. He’s a flier for all the decks that care about that, he can drop in out of nowhere, and he can keep the your hand filled. Azure Mage has always been playable, and this one’s even better. 3.0/5

Yarok’s Wavecrasher is a hefty beater with an aggressive cost, but he’s also loaded with subtle synergy. He’s an elemental if your deck cares about that, and he can allow you to recast your ETB creatures for extra value. Curving Cloudkin Seer into this, then recasting the Seer the following turn is some insane value, and a line of play I can totally see casting. If your deck has several creatures with good ETB effects, I can see this one bumping up another half point. 3.0/5

Black

I’m really digging this. It’s like a hybrid between Soul Salvage & Rise from the Grave, and I think it has potential to be really strong. Sure, it requires sacrifice fodder, but trading in a token to get two real creatures back is big game. Also, due to the templating, you can fetch back the creature you sacrificed to it. If you have some good creatures with ETB effects, the potential value here is insane. 3.0/5

On its own, these are decent stats for a flier at this cost, but it doesn’t take much to make this a crazy threat. Even a few lifegain effects in your deck will easily get this to be a 3/4 or bigger, which is an awesome deal. I’d pick this up early and try to grab a few enablers when I get the chance. Also, I absolutely adore this art and would love to see more of this direction.  3.5/5

Gavedigger is basically always good, and given the ETB theme in these colors, there are even possibilities to reuse it multiple times throughout the game. There are some pretty complex interactions and loops possible with this card in the format, and that makes me really excited for this core set. I’m starting high on this card. 3.5/5

Typhoid Rats are always good, and this card has two bonuses over the standard 1/1 Deathtouch. First, Lifelink is great. It helps enable several of the lifegain payoffs, gives this creature added utility if you buff it up, and can give you some extra buffer in the early game. Second, lady is a Vampire, and there are some Vampire synergies in the set that can make this better. It’s gonna trade with a card and provides a little upside while doing it. Sign me up. 3.0/5

Red

Had to start with this one. First up, living for young Chandra realness. So great & fresh. (Quick note though, the Type bar makes it look like her legs are completely disconnected at the knee, but that can’t be helped.) If you can drop this on turn 4, you should be able to snipe a creature down then get continued value out of her for future turns. Obviously, she’s best with lots of Elementals, but you’re bound to have a few of those in your Red deck. I’m gonna start optimistic with her and see how it plays out. 3.5/5

Flame sweep seems pretty good. I like that it hits opposing fliers, but not your own, so in the right deck, it’s not even symmetric. I’d run this most of the time even if it were, but that just makes it better. Obviously, feel free to side this out if your opponent doesn’t have targets, but I’d start it most of the time. 3.0/5

This card is highly situational, and I’m fully prepared to downgrade my thoughts on it after checking out the format. However, making 3 Elementals with Haste is potentially really strong in the right deck. There are a bunch of cards in the format that synergize with this, most notably Creeping Trailblazer, Overgrowth Elemental, and Yarok’s Wavecrasher. If you happen to get Thunderkin Awakener or Omnath, this is the perfect card to complement them. If you don’t have many synergies in your deck, I’d consider cutting this. 3.0/5

Green

I love the look of this guy. He’s got reasonable stats on his own, and if you have another Elemental when this comes into play, the value’s already off the chart. In a deck full of Elementals, this gets even better. 3.5/5

I remember when Pulse of Murasa first came out in Oath of the Gatewatch. We all thought it was fine, but not exciting. Wizards seems to have realized how good it is, because they’ve upshifted the rarity to Uncommon, which is totally accurate. Pulse is always great. The Instant speed plus the lifegain makes this work more like a Time Walk than it really should. I’d basically always run it. 3.5/5

These Uncommon Creature-making Equpments are super cool designs, and I’m really excited for this design space, because it makes running Equipment a lot less of a liability. This one comes in a tiny bit under curve, but still not embarrassing, and leaves you with a permanent buff even if the creature is destroyed. It’s not crazy good, but it is solid. 3.0/5

Multicolored & Artifacts

Pretty much all the Uncommon Signpost cards are good, but this one is especially good. Worst case, it’s a bear with a pump ability, so the floor is decently high. Best case, this card powers up your entire deck and is a massive threat that can dominate the board. I’d take this fairly early, but be prepared to drop it if the colors aren’t open, since it’s not a great splash. 3.5/5

Blue/White fliers is one of my favorite draft archetypes, and these types of cards are the glue that hold it together. This card is the right stats at the right price, and it can power up your whole deck if you draft it right. 3.5/5

I love this. Coiling Oracle is always great, and this one can trigger multiple times with several Elementals in your deck. I love this as a payoff and look forward to drafting the U/G version of this deck with great glee. 3.5/5

It’s a little weaker than I’d like, but it’s a consistent stream of tokens for the go-wide deck. A couple of these and an Inspired Charge is a pretty solid plan. It’s not splashable, so leave it on the sidelines if you’re not solidly in R/W. 3.0/5

This guy does it all. Gains life, blocks effectively, and smooths your hand not only on ETB, but also when he hits. This is a perfect card for the colors, and I’d run multiple copies of Soul Salvage in tandem with this guy, so you can pitch late game threats early and buy them back later. 3.5/5

I don’t know if this is a Meteor Golem format, but I sure hope it is. This is the best ETB trigger, and the possibilities to use & reuse this make me very excited for the card in this set. There’s even a little ramp to help you get there. The format could be too fast, but if Meteor Golem is playable, it’s going to be great. 3.0/5

And with that, let’s run down the rest of the Uncommons & see where we’re at.

Ancestral Blade - It’s a bear that leaves behind a 1/1 equipment. I would basically always play it, but the effect is pretty minimal. 2.5

Apostle of Purifying Light - This is anemic on its own, but it’s brutal against a heavily Black deck. The ability is relevant there too, as Black decks will want to reanimate. I’d always pick one up for the sideboard. 2.5

Devout Decree - Same as above. About half the time, this card will hit around half of your opponent’s deck. But sometimes, it’ll be your best removal or a complete blank. Grab it for the sideboard. 2.0

Eternal Isolation - It’s hard to tell if this format will be good for this card, given the number of tokens running around. But if it’s good, it’s great. 2.5

Fencing Ace - This doesn’t really seem like a Fencing Ace format, since there aren’t many good buffs for it. But it does blank X/1s nicely, so maybe side it in against the token deck? 1.5

Gauntlets of Light - Honestly, this seems like a buildaround, not an auto-include. If you can get the Gauntlets/Daybreak Chaplain deck going, there’s something here. But in a normal deck, no. 2.0

Gods Willing - It’s more of a constructed plant than anything, but if you have bomb worth saving, or creatures that can win combat on their own without a buff, I’d consider it. 2.0

Loyal Pegasus - Unlike Fencing Ace, this does seem like a Loyal Pegasus format, so I’m in on this. 2.5

Rule of Law - NOPE. Don’t do it. 0.0

Aether Gust - I don’t like that your opponent gets to choose where they put the card. I’d rate it higher if you go to choose, but otherwise this is basically in-line with the rest of this color-hosing cycle. 1.5

Brineborn Cutthroat - As-is, I think a 2/1 with Flash for 2 is playable on its own. In a deck with a lot of Instants, this can be brutal. Tentative 3.0

Captivating Gyre - It’s costly, but there’s potential for a huge blowout here. Also, this isn’t limited to your opponent’s creatures, so you can bounce two of theirs & one of your own to reuse its ETB or remove a Pacifism. 3.0

Cerulean Drake - Most of the time, this isn’t going to be worth a spot. 1/1 is just not enough action to count. However, I could see it sided in against some Red decks, because it can block a dragon every turn without breaking a sweat. 1.5

Hard Cover - One mana to turn any creature into a looter is... new. Honestly, it’s hard to rate this effect, but my hunch is it’s...ok. 1.5

Portal of Sanctuary - My guess is this usually won’t be worth it, but in the dedicated ETB deck, this could be great. It’s a buildaround. 2.0

Renowned Weaponsmith - Baseline a 1/3 isn’t awful, and if you have some Vials of Dragonfire to tutor up, it could be better. But the problem is that nothing he gets is fantastic, and there aren’t amazing Artifacts to ramp into either (other than Meteor Golem, which does make this better). 2.0

Scholar of the Ages - Salvager of Secrets was good in M19, and this gets double the action for 2 more mana. But 7 is a lot, and could be too late to matter. I’d try this and be open to it being good or mediocre. 2.5

Warden of Evos Isle - For the most part, he’s a Wind Drake, so the floor is pretty high. In the fliers deck, it’s also ramp. 3.0

Blightbeetle - This seems so narrow and meh. It’s not even great against Green decks, because they’ll either go wide or have trample. 0.5

Bloodsoaked Altar - Six mana to 2-for-1 yourself seems like a good way to screw yourself. If you’re crazy far ahead, it’s playable, but then it’s a win-more. But the rest of the time, this will either languish in your hand or you won’t have targets worth sacrificing. 1.0

Disfigure - The first copy or two are always good. 3.0

Gruesome Scourger - This works at the nexus between the go-wide deck & the ETB deck. If you can get 4-5 damage out of this regularly, it seems pretty solid. Below that, and it’s kinda wimpy. 2.5

Noxious Grasp - Like all the color hosers, this is playable against the right deck. Take this for your sideboard. 2.0

Thought Distortion - This is awful. It doesn’t get rid of creatures, so unless you’re against the all-spell control deck, it does basically nothing for tons of mana. Don’t play this. It’s for Standard. 0.5

Vengeful Warchief - If you have several good lifegain enablers, this is a decent payoff. You only need one to be at the right stats. 2.5

Yarok’s Fenlurker - It’s kinda hard to cast, but it always trades for one card, and can potentially trade for a second later. If you have lots of ways to reuse its ETB, it gets better. 2.5

Chandra’s Spitfire - My fear is that most of the time, this is going to just be a 1/3, because there aren’t tons of great pingers in this set. If you have enablers, go for it. At least Flying is a theme. 2.0

Dragon Mage - 7 mana is a lot, but a 5/5 flying threat is big, if you can get to it. The ability is... not particularly grate for limited. 2.0

Ember Hauler - A bear you can trade in for a Shock later seems good. 3.0

Fry - See Noxious Grasp & Devout Decree. 2.0

Goblin Ringleader - This is for constructed. 1.5

Mask of Immolation - This is an interesting design. It’s clearly designed to be a payoff in the go-wide deck, but sacrificing creatures at a rate of one damage per creature is painful. My hunch is it won’t be great. 1.5

Rapacious Dragon - 5 mana for a 3/3 flier is about the right rate for Red. The treasure’s aren’t super relevant, because there’s not much to ramp into after 5 in this set, except for some of the big Rares. 2.5

Uncaged Fury - When this was in Shadows Over Innistrad, it was part of a nuts combo with Rush of Adrenaline, and it was great. Now, we have it in the same set as Infuriate, which threatens to be even more explosive. Upshifting this to Uncommon was wise. 2.5

Unchained Berserker - Against a White deck, this can be devastating, because a 3/1 Unblockable attacker is potent. Against other colors, it’s a Devilthorn Fox, which is better than some of the other cards in this cycle fared. 2.0

Barkhide Troll - This is a hard to cast bear. The ability will basically never come up and there aren’t enough ways to put counters on creatures in this format to matter. 1.5

Howling Giant - 7 mana gets you 9/9 of stats across 3 bodies, two of which have tribal synergies in the set. I’m liking it, but you definitely can’t afford to have too many 7 drops. 3.0

Loaming Shaman - If there’s a true control deck in the Sultai shard, this card will definitely play a role as a way to recycle your removal & key threats, and two of these can set up a sort of a loop the way that Clear the Mind did in Ravnica Allegiance. And it’s got solid stats to boot. 3.0

Might of the Masses - Most of the time, this is about a Giant Growth, which is totally playable. Once in a while, it’ll be insane, and that’s a good spot to be in, but don’t go overboard on tricks. 2.5

Overcome - This wasn’t great in Hour of Devastation, but this set has more support for go wide, so I’m going to be willing to try one. 2.5

Season of Growth - Scry 1 every creature isn’t nothing, and making sure all their spot removal leaves you up a card is totally reasonable for 2 mana. Cards like this look bad at first glance, but I think this is actually playable. 2.5

Thrashing Brontodon - These stats are always great. There aren’t many targets for its ability, but it will sometimes come up. 3.0

Veil of Summer - This card does a lot for 3 mana, and bringing it in against a Black/Blue deck will do work. Otherwise, it does a lot of nothing. 1.5

Woodland Champion - A bear that gets bigger is for sure playable, and in a tokens deck, this can be nuts. 2.5

Corpse Knight - This puts a clock on your opponent, and comes down early enough to peck through for a few damage to begin with. I’d mostly always run this. 3.0

Ironroot Warlord - Like most of the signpost uncommons, this is great. Hard to attack through and a great mana sink late. 3.0

Lightning Stormkin - Flying Elemental fits in nicely with both possible themes for this color combination. I’m suspecting it’ll be good. 3.0

Moldervine Reclamation - Cute buildaround idea, but it’s pretty expensive to get going. If you have a really solid curve from 2-4, I’d consider it. 2.0

Ogre Siegebreaker - Having the Vraska’s Finisher ability as an activation is interesting, and once you untap with this will make combat a nightmare for your opponent. Plays really well with tokens. 3.0

Colossus Hammer - Yes, it’s massive, but it’s a beast to equip. Maybe if you have two Renowned Weaponsmiths in your deck? But mostly, I’d leave this for the EDH crowd. 1.5

Diamond Knight - It’s anemic at first, but it doesn’t take long to get up to par, and once you get it to a 4/4, you’re in business. It definitely won’t save you if you’re behind though, so play it with caution. 2.5

Diviner’s Lockbox - 5 mana to maybe draw three cards is awful. Don’t run this, though it is cute if you have Scry going on. 0.5

Manifold Key - This design is interesting, because the mode Limited cares about is the exact mode that Constructed doesn’t care about. I’d rather just run fliers than have to pay 3 to give my stuff evasion. 1.0

Pattern Matcher - This is cute. If you have lots of duplicates of things, this can be excellent. 2.0

Retributive Wand - Nope, not gonna happen. If there were ways to sacrifice Artifacts in the set, I’d consider it, but not as is. 0.5

Salvager of Ruin - The effect is narrow, but it works great post-combat. I’d usually run this, and in some decks, it’ll be great. Plays well with Gravedigger and cards with good ETBs. 2.5

Scuttlemutt - 2/2 that also fixes your mana is solid. I’d always run this in a 3 color deck, and often in 2 color decks. This also incidentally can counter several of the color hosers. 3.0

Cryptic Caves - I like this a lot. If your mana base can handle a colorless land, this is great. 3.0

Alright, that’s it for the Uncommons. After looking through these and the Commons, my gut impulse is that the colors are all fairly balanced, but Green and Blue both stand out in regards to their creature quality, while Black stands out for the quality of its removal. It’ll take playing the set a little to know if that’s true, but those are my early thoughts. 

Rares & Mythics are up next.

[housebeleren]

Ravnica Allegiance Limited - Bomb Rares

Final pre-prerelease post on Ravnica Allegiance is for the Rares & Mythics. These are the cards you hope to open in your prerelease packs and will hopefully form a cornerstone for your deck strategy. Let’s get to it.

White

Let’s start this one off with a bang, shall we? This card doesn’t need any of the text after 5/4 Flash Flying for me to be sold. Really, for the most part, that’s all you’re going to use it for 9 out of 10 times. But once in a while, you’ll also be able to use this to save yourself from dying for a turn, and those rare moments will be absolutely worth it. The final line of text is mostly decorative, but it may come up once in a great while. Let’s just say if you find this card in your pack, you’ll have to have a phenomenal reason to not play it.

The White Rares drop off quickly after the Angel, and I’m not sure this card will be more than a 4/5 Vigilance more than half the time. If this were on Kaladesh, I’d windmill slam this and hope for the W/U ETB archetype, but here that’s only a minor supported theme. That said, if you can “champion” a cheap creature with a good ETB (Basilica Bell-Haunt in particular seems like a good choice), this could be a solid inclusion in your deck. I’m including him on the list out of cautious optimism.

I think this card will play better than it looks at first blush. Bare minimum, it will save a creature from a removal spell, and sometimes it will manage to spare more than one. But if you can build up a good board presence, this will be a really effective way to break a board stall on your turn. And the creatures get to keep the counters and get Vigilance, so it’ll be really hard for your opponent to come back from it too. Seems damn good to me. Also, there’s a Beyonce joke in here somewhere.

Blue

Blue’s Rares are more consistently good than White’s, which is a bit unusual. This guy seems really good. He’s an excellent turn 1 play, because then you can Adapt him right away on turn 2, at which point he’s a 2/2 on turn 2, except he can already attack. Not only that, but activating him gets you a loot out of the deal, so your game plan will always progress smoothly with him in your opening hand. Ways to reuse the Adapt or add more counters to him are going to move him from good to great really fast, so keep an eye out for those.

The mono-Blue Mythic is wordy and confusing at first glance, but will prove to be a major pain in the ass to fight against. This gums up the board better than just about any creature around, with a reasonable body and two chump blockers that lock down anything they block for a full turn. There’s just no good way to profitably attack into this thing, which will buy you plenty of time to set up your win conditions.

A 4/4 Flier for 4 is always going to be good, but one that gives you a free Scry each turn is even better. The opening hand text is cute, and will help you set up your first turn, but the card is excellent even without it.

Black

A lot of Black’s Rares seem designed for other formats, but this guy is priced to move in Limited (and probably Standard too, for that matter). He’ll come out early, help trigger Spectacle a couple times, then you’ll use him to chump block or as sacrifice fodder until you can start recurring things. One fun note is that he combos especially well with Priest of Forgotten Gods, provided you have enough other creatures to sacrifice. But this doesn’t need to be part of a combo to be good. He’ll pull his weight all on his own.

Ignore the cute Instant & Sorcery text for a minute. At its core, this is a creature with Menace & Deathtouch, and more than 1 Power. That means this guy is a guaranteed 2 for 1 if your opponent decides to block it. If not, he’ll just keep swinging away for 3 every turn, activating Spectacle with ease. This card is best suited for Rakdos, because even then the second line of text may turn out to be relevant, as it can help Red burn spells take down bigger threats.

Spawn of Mayhem seems nuts, as appropriate for a Mythic demon. Bare minimum, he’s a 4/4 Flying, Trample for 4, and that’s completely excellent as-is. But with the option of casting this for 3 mana (totally doable with some good turn 1 or 2 plays), and the potential to grow ever larger, this guy can easily be a full on bomb. Grab him early and with great relish.

Red

X Damage spells are always good in Limited, and this one is baller. Not only is it Instant speed, but it can hit any target and comes with a free spell from your hand as a bonus. Can you imagine casting this for X = 3 or 4 when your opponent declares attacks, then dropping in a creature to block with while taking out something else, all at Instant speed? The potential for blowouts is huge, and worst case scenario, it’s X damage removal. What’s not to love?

A lot of people have already commented on just how good this card will be for Constructed, but I predict it’ll be a strong play in Limited as well. Bottom line, it’s a 2 drop 2/2 that rummages for one card on ETB. Not amazing, but a card I would usually play. But if you can land this for Spectacle, it’s a phenomenal way to refill your hand in the mid-late game. Rakdos decks will run the risk of going Hellbent anyway, and this can be a great way to prevent that from happening.

Nobody needs me to tell them that this is good, but here I am. I mean... just look at this ridiculousness. I suspect the +1/+1 counter will be the right choice most of the time, and if you untap with that second ability online, forget it. You’ve won.

Green

Speaking of untapping and winning, I don’t see any way you’re losing (loozing?) if you untap with this on the board. At its base, it’s going to be two 3/3s, but the fact that it continues growing, and has a mana sink to pump out more Oozes makes this beyond nuts.Honestly, at that point just keep stalling until you have an army of slime to win with.

Green only gets two Rares mentioned here, since most of their other Rares seem much more Constructed-oriented. These badasses, however, will end games. 8 mana is a lot, but Green does have the tools to ramp into this, and even if not, having one expensive spell in your deck isn’t an awful idea. Once you do cast this, it should win on the spot, provided you have at least a couple other creatures out. Which seems like a low bar for Green to clear, don’t you agree?

Multicolored

Efficient, flexible removal is efficient & flexible. If you are in these colors, you’ll take it.

This one’s a little more of a buildaround, but I think it’ll work out really well if you do. First, he acts like ramp for Adapt creatures, making their abilities less expensive. But then, as if that weren’t enough for a 2/2 bear, he also allows you to Adapt your creatures multiple times. If this card sticks around for any length of time, it’s going to be insane.

Domri is good. Is he great? Maybe, in a deck with a high enough creature count. For the most part, you’ll toggle back & forth between his top 2 abilities, digging for creatures, then casting them and making them big & fast. I can think of worse ways to spend 4 mana.

Planeswalkers are usually pretty good in Limited, and Dovin seems great. If you’re ahead, you can just start piling on the loyalty and threaten to draw a pile of cards. If you’re behind, he can at least pump out a 1/1 and gain you some life to stall with. I definitely think there will be times where he isn’t the card you’re looking for, but if you can land him on a relatively stable board, I think he’ll take over the game pretty quickly.

This seems like a great way for Orzhov to finish the game. It will sweep the opponent’s board of any stray Spirits or assorted X/1s, and make all of their creatures line up poorly against yours. In fact, this is probably one of the best ways to pull ahead from behind I can imagine. Once you have mana open, you can just start churning out 2/2 Spirits of your own to turn the tides in your favor. I predict this will be a strong finisher for Orzhov decks, and is a card worth running Enchantment removal for if you see it.

Most of the Riot cards seem good, and this one in particular seems excellent. Unlike most Riot cards, this one’s stats are on-curve either way, so you’re really happy to play her in either mode. The Hexproof line of text is great with the Haste option, since you know they can’t remove her even if they have mana up, so you’ll likely get one swing in.

You’re never casting this for X=1, so the bare minimum is this is a 4 mana 2/2 flier that draws you a card on ETB. I’d play that as is, so the fact that this scales makes it even better. If you can cast this for 6, it’s bonkers, and any more than that will just be insane. The flexibility is what makes this, but don’t fall in the trap of holding on to it for too long just in the hopes of making it bigger. If it’s your only play on turn 4, play it on turn 4.

Judith really is stealing the show this set. Pumping up all your creatures is a cute line of text, and will sometimes help you sneak in some extra damage or allow your creatures to trade up where they otherwise couldn’t. Add in the damage effect whenever one of them dies, and you’ve got yourself a solid bomb in the Rakdos deck. You’re always threatening Spectacle with Judith out, and she can pick off 1/1 Spirit tokens with ease as well. I have no doubt she will be great when she sticks around.

You don’t need much other text to make a 6/6 Flying Trample creature great, but Rakdos really gets there. Obviously, there’s a chance for this to go south with some really bad luck, but in general, he’ll probably snipe a couple of creatures from both sides. Keep in mind that Rafter Demon & Carrion Imp both dodge the effect, so their value might go up slightly in a deck with the big bad. Okay, Footlight Fiend and Spawn of Mayhem also dodge it, but the former you don’t really care about, and if you have both Mythic demons in your Limited pool, then you’re winning anyway.

I like Ravager Wurm a lot. Most of the time, this is going to come out as a 5/6 that fights a creature on ETB, and that’s damn good already for 6 mana. Sometimes, you’ll opt to keep it as a 4/5, take out their only blocker, then swing in for 4 to the face, in which case it’s also great. The second ability is really for Constructed, so I don’t see it ever coming up in Limited. But either way, this is a great top-end for a Gruul deck, and is probably splashable in Simic as well.

Again, you don’t need me to tell you that Mythic Angels are usually good in Limited. Just as is, the stats on this are bonkers. A 4/3 Flier for 4 will go uncontested in a lot of games, but if they decide to remove her right away, you’re left with two 1/1 Spirits for your trouble. Seems great. Oh, and the fact that she plays both offense and defense well is just icing on the cake. This card is great, and well worth splashing if you’re already in one of the colors.

I don’t love Vannifar for Limited, but Zegana is the real deal. If you have even one creature with a counter on it, she draws you a card and is already worth her value. If you do get to Adapt her, she turns into a giant monster and will take over the game from there. I also like that she just passively works with your other Adapt creatures, making them better. She’s the total package, and will dominate any game she sticks.

The split cards seem really hit or miss this time around. The Rakdos & Simic ones are basically one-sided, but this one from Gruul seems priced to move. It’s a Rabid Bite on one half, and a 4/4 beater on the other. I think you’ll cast Thrash more often than Threat, but either way it’s a card you won’t be sad to include in your deck.

I debated on this one for a bit too, but in the end I think it’s still going to be pretty great. Warrant will probably come up more often as a really potent combat trick at a fantastic low cost. If you’re already ahead, you may decide to go for the Warden half and create a giant Flier, which also seems pretty good. Again, I think you’ll be happy either way.

So that’s it! We’ve gone through all three rarities of cards. I probably misevaluated some, but only time will tell as we start playing the format. Good luck everyone at Prerelease!