Draft Trainer

Core Set 2020 Limited Quiz

Answered: 0/20
Accuracy: 0
Cavalier of Night
Average Picked At: 1.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 1.00
Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 5.0
Pro Comment: A 5-mana 4/5 with lifelink is something that makes your deck 100% of the time, and like the other Cavaliers this is a lot more than just stats and a key word! Being able to Bone Splinters something when he comes down is pretty nice value to have, though I do kind of wish he could sacrifice himself in a pinch, I don’t think I can really complain about this type of efficiency. Sure, sometimes the Bone Splinters trigger won’t be worth it, but it frequently will be. He death trigger is nice too because it synergizes well with the ETB trigger – generally you’ll be sacrificing a little guy, and when this dies it gets that little guy back from the graveyard which is pretty great. This is a bomb.
Scholar of the Ages
Average Picked At: 7.25
Total Times Picked: 4
Average Last Seen At: 5.62
Total Times Seen 17
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: She costs 7 mana for a 3/3, which obviously enough is horrendous – but she does offer the potential for a three-for-one, since she gives you back two spells in your graveyard. You need both a deck that is interested in playing the long game, and enough instants and sorceries that you can consistently get back two with it. Luckily, that is relatively easy to pull of in controlling Blue decks in this format, where Scholar of the Ages is often a nice late play that stabilizes you. Still, you can’t really play it anywhere else.
Angel of Vitality
Average Picked At: 7.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 3.23
Total Times Seen 17
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: Wind Drakes are always fine, and even better when they come with serious upside. Gaining extra life from stuff that gains you life is nice, and if you get enough life she can just get completely out of control. Though honestly, she doesn’t become a 4/4 very often.
Inspiring Captain
Average Picked At: 10.73
Total Times Picked: 11
Average Last Seen At: 8.74
Total Times Seen 73
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: There are enough tokens in this format that Inspiring Captain often comes down and has an immediate impact on the board. Now, you do need a reasonable board state in most cases to really take advantage, but this tends to be better than something like Inspired Charge, since its failed case is still something that adds to the board.
Thornwood Falls
Average Picked At: 7.14
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 6.38
Total Times Seen 29
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: If you need fixing, this is a decent place to get it. There are also a few cards in the set that care about lifegain, which might mean they are a little more useful than usual in some decks, but mostly they just make your mana better. Even if you’re just 2 colors, taking these over filler is sometimes a good call, since they really make your mana so much better.
Gargos, Vicious Watcher
Average Picked At: 1.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 1.00
Total Times Seen 2
Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: So, the Hydra reduction part isn’t going to come up much, but the rest of this card is great so it doesn’t matter! A 6-mana 8/7 with Vigilance is a good deal, and what really pushes this into bomb territory is how much of a pain Gargos is to deal with. Your opponent really can’t remove Gargos without getting 2-for-1’d, since it will fight something if it – or anything else – gets targeted. You can also use this more aggressively, by targeting your own creature with a spell, but that is a little bit harder to make happen all the time.
Mask of Immolation
Average Picked At: 4.50
Total Times Picked: 4
Average Last Seen At: 4.83
Total Times Seen 21
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This is a nice Equipment, since it makes a token right away and impacts the board, and the sacrifice ability this has is a great way to find additional damage to finish an opponent – or pick off a bunch of X/1s. Because it is a free sacrifice ability, it also pairs quite well with Act of Treason and the like.
Risen Reef
Average Picked At: 4.25
Total Times Picked: 4
Average Last Seen At: 3.29
Total Times Seen 8
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: Woo boy, this is one of the sweetest signpost uncommons we’ve ever seen! Elemental decks are really well supported in this Limited format, so Risen Reef ends up triggering a whole whole lot in most cases, and even on its own, it triggers its own ability, and that’s a good fail case to have! It gets particularly silly with cards that make multiple elementals. This is better than most of the rares and mythics in this set.
Forest
Average Picked At: 14.60
Total Times Picked: 5
Average Last Seen At: 12.05
Total Times Seen 41
Moat Piranhas
Average Picked At: 8.57
Total Times Picked: 14
Average Last Seen At: 9.32
Total Times Seen 81
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: We have seen cards like this before – creatures who are very efficient but have defender, and they are always pretty alright. If you’re a defensive deck, I think you can play a couple of these and feel fine about it, and Blue can be pretty defensive. It can block really well early, and isn’t that hard to at least use to trade with something even late. However, if you’re an aggro deck, then this is terrible.
Netcaster Spider
Average Picked At: 8.33
Total Times Picked: 6
Average Last Seen At: 8.40
Total Times Seen 77
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This is another decent spider for Green. It doesn’t have as high of toughness as some spiders, but it makes up for that by becoming a 4/3 when it blocks flyers, which will be enough to trade with a lot of them.
Unsummon
Average Picked At: 7.12
Total Times Picked: 17
Average Last Seen At: 6.40
Total Times Seen 55
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: One mana to return a creature is an awesome rate, because you’re basically always going to come out ahead in terms of tempo – since you’re going to be bouncing things that cost a heck of a lot more than one mana most of the time. Additionally, bounce effects let you blow out opponents who are overly reliant on Auras or combat tricks. Finally, in a pinch you can use it to save your own creature, which will be worth it some of the time.
Agonizing Syphon
Average Picked At: 6.71
Total Times Picked: 14
Average Last Seen At: 6.96
Total Times Seen 68
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: 4 mana for 3 damage is pretty steep, but the fact you can hit any target AND you gain 3 life does enough to make this solid removal, though I wouldn’t say it is premium.
Dread Presence
Average Picked At: 1.67
Total Times Picked: 3
Average Last Seen At: 2.00
Total Times Seen 4
Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: Provided your deck has Black as a primary color, and you’re running 8 or more Swamps, I think this card will be great. If you are mono-colored in Black – if that’s possible – it will become completely absurd, but you don’t have to go that far to abuse Dread Presence. I think more often than not, you’ll go with the “Phyrexian Arena” option and draw a card when you play a Swamp, but sometimes draining your opponent or killing a creature and gaining 2 life will be great too. The one downside this has is that it is horrendous on a splash, but that’s not much of a downside, really. Even just triggering one of those abilities once feels good, and it becomes a value engine in the long run.
Metropolis Sprite
Average Picked At: 6.55
Total Times Picked: 11
Average Last Seen At: 6.76
Total Times Seen 63
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This has reasonable starting stats and the ability to attack sometimes as a 2/1, which isn’t bad. It also isn’t good, but yeah.
Apostle of Purifying Light
Average Picked At: 6.50
Total Times Picked: 4
Average Last Seen At: 6.62
Total Times Seen 19
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is a solid card that obviously gets way better against Black decks and graveyard strategies, but you can really maindeck this because of the solid stats. Chances are pretty good that your opponent will be playing Black as one of their colors, and it will always feel good when that’s the case.
Veil of Summer
Average Picked At: 11.50
Total Times Picked: 2
Average Last Seen At: 6.08
Total Times Seen 23
Pro Rating: 0.0 // 2.5
Pro Comment: Like all the cards in this cycle, this is a nice sideboard card. Sometimes you might have to cast this against an opponent just to draw a card, but doing that for one mana isn’t too terrible. The ceiling of this card is pretty high – if you cast this in response to your opponent using a Blue or Black removal spell, you net yourself a 2-for-1 for only a single Green mana, which is a pretty absurd rate. What’s nice is, at only one Green mana, you can hold this up without too much trouble and wait for that ideal opening. I think it is dangerous to mainboard this – I think it is an F if you do, there are just too many decks where it may as well be a blank card. Against Blue and/or Black opponents, it is always going to be worth bringing in, though I do think being as situational as it is makes it less incredible than most of the other cards in this cycle.
Maniacal Rage
Average Picked At: 12.00
Total Times Picked: 6
Average Last Seen At: 10.39
Total Times Seen 100
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This gives a sizable boost, but also comes with the downside of making your creature unable to block. Notably, you can use it to make an opposing creature unable to block too, but the whole package here just isn’t worth the risk of a 2-for-1.
Field of the Dead
Average Picked At: 14.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 4.83
Total Times Seen 7
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: There aren’t enough different lands in this format to get this going.
Chandra's Embercat
Average Picked At: 7.00
Total Times Picked: 2
Average Last Seen At: 4.90
Total Times Seen 44
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: So, 2 mana 2/2s are always a decent baseline for a card, but this comes with some significant addition value. I think most Red decks will have 4 or 5 elementals in them without even trying, so it seems like most decks can get use out of it. Elementals are one of the best decks in this format too, and this is a key Common for that deck.
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