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Quick Draft STX 20 January 2022

20 January 10:12 - tehm 7 Wins - 1 Losses
Maindeck
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (10)
1 Adventurous Impulse image
1 Culling Ritual image
2 Infuse with Vitality image
1 Charge Through image
1 Field Trip image
1 Agonizing Remorse image
1 Duress image
1 Baleful Mastery image
1 Emergent Sequence image
Creature (13)
2 Witherbloom Apprentice image
1 Callous Bloodmage image
1 Professor of Zoomancy image
1 Karok Wrangler image
1 Witherbloom Pledgemage image
2 Blood Researcher image
1 Overgrown Arch image
1 Master Symmetrist image
1 Accomplished Alchemist image
2 Dina, Soul Steeper image
Other (1)
1 Rise of Extus image
Land (16)
8 Forest image
7 Swamp image
1 Witherbloom Campus image
Sideboard
1 Spined Karok image
1 Reflective Golem image
1 Hall Monitor image
1 Oggyar Battle-Seer image
1 Crushing Disappointment image
1 Charge Through image
1 Leyline Invocation image
1 Letter of Acceptance image
1 Fractal Summoning image
1 Introduction to Annihilation image
1 Aether Helix image
1 Containment Breach image
1 Inkling Summoning image
1 Fracture image
1 Elemental Masterpiece image
1 Thrilling Discovery image
1 Curate image
1 Dragon's Approach image
1 Make Your Mark image
1 Archway Commons image

Pack 1 Pick 1: Callous Bloodmage
Revitalize image 1.5 In most formats, this card is pretty underwhelming. With spellcraft being a thing in this set, it will probably be a little bit better than normal -- and that’s probably true of all cantrips, but it still isn’t something you should go after that hard, and you’ll cut it more than you’ll play it.
Callous Bloodmage image 4.0 Typically, you’ll be choosing one of the first two modes here. Three mana for a 2/1 that marks a 1/1 token, or three mana for a 2/1 that draws you a card is a nice couple of things to choose between, as if this was just either of those, it would be something you basically never cut. Going after a graveyard will come up in this format too, as there are some significant graveyard shenanigans around, especially in RW.
Reduce to Memory image 1.0 // 2.5 So, you can kind of sort of play this in your main deck, if you feel like you really need some removal and you didn’t get any Learn. Obviously, giving your opponent a 3/2 isn’t good -- it basically sets you up to get 2-for-1’d, but it can deal with any nonland permanent and that does matter some. You can use it on your own guy in a pinch too. Being able to sort of toolbox it up is way better, because if you can choose to get it from among other choices, that’s just a way different deal, and you can grab it when you really need it.
Access Tunnel image 2.0 This has some decent, if unexciting late game utility. It isn’t great for your mana, so you probably can’t run it if your mana is already looking a little sketchy.
Practical Research image 3.5 This is pretty close to being Rain of Revelation, and that was a pretty great draw spell. Sometimes you won’t want to discard the instant or sorcery, especially if you ended up with a couple lands you don’t need, but you still end up seeing a lot of cards for a reasonable cost, and -- importantly, at instant speed.
Basic Conjuration image 1.5 // 3.0 This will be a nice thing to grab when you “Learn,” since it gives you some pretty nice card selection and gains you some life. If you end up with no “Learn” at all, it would be a somewhat passable card in your deck too. It is a bit clunky to be sure, but gaining life off of it helps offset that problem.
Quandrix Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Bury in Books image 3.0 Totally Lost is usually a kind of passable card, and this is mostly a better version of it. Sure, it can only target creatures, but Totally Lost does that 90% of the time anyway, and the fact that this gets discounted to only three mana when you hit an attacking creature is pretty good. Remember, when you put something back in your opponent’s deck, you’re actually trading 1-for-1, not just getting tempo out of the deal, and the fact they will usually have to wait a whole turn to get that card is nice. This seems like a pretty good Blue common, I think you always run the first copy.
Prismari Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Stonebound Mentor image 2.5 This starts with solid stats, and then it has an ability that will fit nicely in RW decks. As we’ve seen, RW has ways to exile cards from the graveyard for value as well as ways to return cards from the graveyard to your hand or the battlefield. Those will all trigger the Scry here, which will be some nice incidental value.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Star Pupil image 2.5 This is a nice one drop for the BW deck, the deck most interested in +1/+1 counters. Even if you have no other synergy, this is sort of passable since it can move its one counter elsewhere, but if you put counters on it early, you won’t feel nearly as bad when it dies – provided you have another creature. This seems like a key common for BW.
Witherbloom Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Novice Dissector image 2.5 This starts out as a Hill GIant, which is not so good, but it does have a pretty reasonable ability. Note, by the way, it lets you put the counter wherever. Lots of times when we see this effect only the creature who does the Sacrificing ends up getting the counters, but that’s not true here, and that’s good news for sure, as putting the counters on flyers and stuff sounds pretty good. This is another Black common that supports both Black archetypes well. It does +1/+1 counter stuff for BW, and it likes Pest tokens for BG.
Pack 1 Pick 2: Culling Ritual
Grapeshot image 3.5 So, this Storm card is cheap enough that I think it will be pretty good in Limited. Getting this to a storm count of 2 is enough for it to be quite good, because it can kill an X/3 or divide the damage in some way to get a 2-for-1. There will be times where you just can’t get your storm count going, but the fail case it has isn’t the worst thing ever either. You shouldn’t really expect to go off and win the game with Grapeshot like you can in cube or the Eternal formats, but it will give you more than your mana’s worth pretty often.
Culling Ritual image 2.5 Most decks have a reasonable number of cards that will be able to be destroyed by this, and one cool thing here is that you get mana back – even if your permanents get destroyed by this, and that softens the blow a bit if there’s some collateral damage. But there will be board states where this either hits you more than your opponent, or doesn’t make enough of a difference, since it is so focused only on killing really low CMC things. Now, this format does have a reasonable number of creature tokens that this can hit, and that certainly matters. I think it will have enough things it can blow up that it is certainly a solid card, but this is the kind of card where I wouldn’t really be surprised if I was wrong in either direction.
Fracture image 0.5 // 2.5 This format doesn’t have very many of these three permanent types, so this is best left in your sideboard.
Aether Helix image 2.5 I really want to like this card, since I love bounce spells and getting stuff back from my graveyard, but I just don’t think this is anything special. Bouncing a permanent does not give you a card’s worth of value, and it may not even give you much tempo would you pay 5 for it. And yeah getting a permanent back is good and all, but this is basically just a 5 mana bounce a permanent, draw a card. And its a Sorcery. That’s just not that great!
Ardent Dustspeaker image 4.0 So, this helps trigger all the cards in RW that like it when things leave your graveyard, AND it will effectively draw you cards at the same time. That’s pretty powerful, so of course they had to make the creature rather inefficient, as a 5-mana ¾. Even with that limitation though, this is going to be quite good. ¾ is enough size to attack on lots of boards, and as long as the best your opponent can do is trade with this, you’re going to be in business, because the cards you get from the effect will help you come out ahead from the trade. In some situations, even if the Dustspeaker is going to die without killing anything, attacking will still be worth it for the effect. You can also get serious value by giving it evasion or stats boosts that make things harder on your opponent. If this gets to use that ability more than once, chances are you just win.
Environmental Sciences image 3.5 All the lessons are much better than they look, and that is certainly the case for Environmental Sciences. If you can pick up one of these, it effectively makes every single card you have with “Learn” into fixing. This means you can have pretty excellent mana for a splash simply by playing one basic land of another color. The life gain doesn’t hurt either.
Serpentine Curve image 2.5 In many Blue decks in this format, this tends to make pretty efficient creatures, and is worth playing.
Spiteful Squad image 2.5 4-mana 2/2s with Deathtouch normally arent the most exicting thing int he world. They can trade fo ranything, but doing that at 4 mana isn’t exactly exciting. I like that they compensated for that here by letting the Band put it +1/+1 counters on other stuff when it dies. This also means that it is a good place to put counters, since it will do something with them when it dies, unlike most creatures.
Quandrix Pledgemage image 3.0 We see this type of card a lot, though lately it has mostly been Red. Either way, this kind of creature tends to grow rapidly in a deck with a decent number of spells. It is certainly vulnerable at first, but if your opponent doesn’t take it down when they can, it can get quite impressive.
Witherbloom Pledgemage image 2.5 This has pretty good stats and a solid Magecraft trigger. BG likes to gain life, so it will really fit in well there.
Tome Shredder image 3.0 This guy can get pretty big on his diet of instants and sorceries, and he’ll work especially well in RW, because that deck can load the graveyard reasonably well, and it also likes it when cards leave the graveyard in any way, and Tome Shredder will do that for you.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Teach by Example image 1.5 I know this format is all about spells and stuff, but I have a hard time thinking a card like this will be worthwhile very often. You have to have it line up the right way for it to do something. And sure, using it on a draw spell or something will feel pretty sweet, as will copying some of the huge wacky spells in UR, but it still seems like the set up is too much. This kind of spell isn’t good in most Limited formats, and I don’ think it will be here either.
Biomathematician image 3.5 A three-mana 2/2 that makes a 1/1 is generally pretty good in Limited, and this comes with significant upside between the +1/+1 counter and the additional value you can get from having other fractals. This seems like a card in the lower range of first pickable, and a really strong Common.
Pack 1 Pick 3: Professor of Zoomancy
Agonizing Remorse image 3.0 This was a good discard spell the last time we saw it, and I think it will be pretty good here too. It can disrupt the opponent pretty much all game long, and having a fail case to exile a card in their graveyard isn’t too shabby.
Returned Pastcaller image 4.0 This seems really good to me. RW in this set is about the graveyard, strange as that may seem, so this will generally have no problem returning something. It does only have two toughness so it dies to a lot, but because you returned something that still means you’re getting a 2-for-1, and if your opponent can’t deal with it, this hits pretty darn hard in the air.
Deadly Brew image 3.0 You basically take down an opposing creature, and then trade a creature in play for a permanent in your graveyard. It won’t always be easy to set it up -- edict effects are notoriously inconsistent, but most of the time you’ll probably come out ahead when you cast this. Especially if you have creature tokens and stuff like that!
Spirit Summoning image 2.5 RW has some spirit synergies, so this gets a few extra points. It is a nice lesson to have like all the other summonings, because it can pretty much always do something.
Infuse with Vitality image 2.5 This is a nice trick, one that virtually guarantees your creature will both kill whatever it is in combat with AND survive. Well, technically your creature can still die of course, but it will come back right away so, yeah. Incidental life gain tacked on to help out BG with its life gain synergies works for me! Now, as good of a trick as this is, it is still a trick, and still highly situational and risky and all of that.
Professor of Zoomancy image 4.0 This is an excellent common. You get 5/4 worth of stats for 4 mana, across two bodies, not to mention the lifegain synergy this gives you.
Archway Commons image 1.5 This does give you fixing, but at a pretty real cost. It enters tapped and requires another land to tap for it to come into play, effectively making it cost one mana. That’s some serious slowness, but you’ll run it if you need the fixing.
Enthusiastic Study image 2.5 This is great in aggro decks, as it often helps you hit for a ton of trample damage – even saving your creature a decent chunk of the time – and ON TOP OF THAT, you get to learn, which Is just great.
Pilgrim of the Ages image 2.5 This doesn’t exactly fix for you, since it is White and can only get Plains, but it does make sure you hit your land drops, and that’s always a nice thing to do with a 3-drop creature. It also gets extra value from the fact that it isn’t interested in staying in the graveyard, and in the late game it can give you a nice mana sink creature that can block all day and continue to thin out your deck. RW is the best home for this, since it likes to leave the graveyard and has the Spirit type. I think this is a solid Common.
Reckless Amplimancer image 2.5 So, this is a bear with some nice late game upside, especially for decks that are either capable of producing a lot of mana or capable of putting +1/+1 counters on stuff. Or even better, both! UG is the Green color pair that will be the rampeist, and I really think it is going to want some late game manasinks, and this definitely delivers. Now, it isn’t especially efficient to pump this thing, but it is something to do with your mana. And, obviously, +1/+1 counters make it more efficient too. This is just going to be a solid two drop for pretty much all Green decks.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Pillardrop Warden image 2.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and the ability to bring an instant or sorcery back to your hand, giving it utility pretty much all game long.
Waterfall Aerialist image 2.5 A 4-mana 3/1 flyer is generally a playable card, it hits pretty hard in the air for the mana cost. 1 toughness is certainly a liability though, since it can die to everything, even the cheapest removal spells! The Aerliast gets around that, though, with Ward, which means that it will be tough for your opponent to get a great deal on their removal spell. This set does have 2/1 flying tokens though, and that hurts the value of a card like this significantly.
Pack 1 Pick 4: Karok Wrangler
Karok Wrangler image 3.5 This has some mediocre stats, but boy -- it has a very strong Magecraft trigger. Being able to put a counter anywhere is very strong, and if you have Instants, it can be particularly punishing.
Show of Confidence image 2.5 So, if you can’t make any copies of this it isn’t really going to be especially worthwhile, that boost just isn’t worth the investment. However, if you can get two copies of it or more, it will feel pretty good. It is also further augmented by the Magecraft mechanic, which will trigger off of the copies too. Getting two copies of it is definitely doable, but you’ve gotta keep in mind that it is some real set up, and it won’t always work out. Getting more than two copies will happen some, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Rip Apart image 4.0 This is premium removal. Two mana for three damage would already be there, but adding the nice modal effect to deal with problem permanents makes it even better.
Fractal Summoning image 3.0 Another Lesson that will be nice to get when you “Learn.” It is going to be inefficient, but its a card you get for free when you “Learn”, and its one that adds to the board, so I’m on board with having one of these to wish for.
Lorehold Pledgemage image 3.0 Players will have a very difficult time ever wanting to block this, since any instant or sorcery suddenly makes things a lot harder thank to First Strike, and that’s especially true if you have a trick! This will just get through a lot for aggressive decks, and that’s kind of what you want your creatures to be doing. It also has hybrid mana, making it fit in multiple decks pretty easily.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Hunt for Specimens image 3.0 This ends up feeling like an upgraded Elvish Visionary often enough that this card is very worth playing. A 1/1 pest and a card that is good in your situation is just great for two mana.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Unwilling Ingredient image 2.5 This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Crushing Disappointment image 1.5 This isn’t amazing. 4-mana to draw 2 at instant speed is alright, and it is nice the life loss is symmetrical, but I tend to have a hard time getting behind this kind of card draw in Limited. It is pretty inefficient and expensive, and by choosing to spend 4 of you r mana to cast this you probably already paid some life in a way -- since you didn’t add to your board with that mana. Then, paying more life can be surprisingly painful. Again, it is nice that it can give you some reach against some opponents, and in BG especially you’ll be able to gain enough life that you don’t need to worry about it, but I still think this is a card that gets cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pack 1 Pick 5: Fractal Summoning
Strategic Planning image 1.5 We just saw this card in Kaldheim and...it was pretty mediocre. Granted, Kaldheim was a weird set, and this set has more of a spell theme, but still. This was frequently a card you saw as the last card in booster packs, that’s how much people wanted it. It DOEs load your graveyard and give you decent card selection, but being a Sorcery is kind of killer.
Start from Scratch image 2.5 Yet another Lesson I’m pretty excited about. There’s just something about being able to grab these cards with narrow but useful effects out of your sideboard at the ideal time. Your opponent won’t always have an Artifact, or an X/1 to kill, or be at 1 life, but when any of those things are true, grabbing Start from Scratch when you Learn will feel pretty awesome.
Secret Rendezvous image 0.0 You will always come up behind when you use this. You’re the one casting it, and using up a card and mana, your opponent gets the three cards for free -- they don’t spend a card or mana to get them. Now, if you have extra mana you will be taking advantage of the new cards first, but chances are also good your opponent will have an easier time doing that, because...again, they spent 0 mana to draw 3. Don’t play this in Limited.
Fractal Summoning image 3.0 Another Lesson that will be nice to get when you “Learn.” It is going to be inefficient, but its a card you get for free when you “Learn”, and its one that adds to the board, so I’m on board with having one of these to wish for.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Curate image 1.0 I’m not super interested in this. It is just another Anticipate variant, and those are always replaceable. It does help you load your graveyard I guess if that’s what you want, and give you some card selection, and it will trigger magecraft, but it just has an underwhelming effect that is not often worth a card.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Fuming Effigy image 2.5 This is mostly here for the RW deck, which makes cards leave the graveyard pretty often. This is likely to do a few damage in that deck, in addition to having reasonable stats to start with.
Biomathematician image 3.5 A three-mana 2/2 that makes a 1/1 is generally pretty good in Limited, and this comes with significant upside between the +1/+1 counter and the additional value you can get from having other fractals. This seems like a card in the lower range of first pickable, and a really strong Common.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Excavated Wall image 0.5 One-mana 0/4 defenders tend to not really be worth it in Limited. And this one does help you load your graveyard, which RW decks will like especially, but I still don’t really think that’s going to be enough to get me to run this most of the time.
Pack 1 Pick 6: Rise of Extus
Opt image 2.5 Another solid draw spell that will be a bit better here as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Plumb the Forbidden image 3.5 So this has a reasonable fail case, and a potentially really amazing ceiling. Two mana to pay 1 life and draw a card isn’t terrible, and if you start copying it, it gets a lot nice. It is also an Instant, so you will have a really wide window of ways to use this to get the extra copies – like after setting up blocks that will kill your creatures anyway, or in response to removal. Sacrifincg Pests to this will be particularly satisfying, because you’ll even gain the life back! Keep in mind, too, that everything with Magecraft will trigger for every single copy. Now, there will be times where you just can’t afford to make the copies, but like I said I think this has a reasonable fail case.
Expanded Anatomy image 3.0 This looks like it wouldn’t be especially good, but because you can choose to get it at exactly the right time (assuming you Learn), it often has a major impact on the game, allowing an attack that you just didn’t have before.
Make Your Mark image 2.5 So, the boost here isn’t going to always allow your creature to outright win combat, but that’s okay, because if your creature doesn’t win combat, you still get something back – a 3/2 Spirit. Obviously, this will feel best when you use it to help you kill a creature in combat, AND get the spirit, but even just getting the Spirit isn’t too bad.
Rise of Extus image 3.5 This is expensive and clunky, but it also isn’t too far from being a removal spell that has “draw a card,” added to it. Now granted, most of the cards you can get with the Learn part aren’t exactly going to be worldbeaters, but they are still cards, and adding that effect to a removal spell seems pretty nice. Exiling an instant or sorcery doesn’t hurt either. This often really drastically changes the game between removing your opponents best thing and drawing you a card.
Charge Through image 1.0 In your typical format, this wouldn’t be close to a 0.0. It replaces itself, but the effect it has can be useless or close to it a huge chunk of the time. After all, you need blocks to go a certain way, and you need creatures of a certain size for Trample to even matter. However, in a format with lots of spells payoffs -- including in Green --, I think this will make the cut sometimes.
Resculpt image 1.0 People always overrate this type of card. They think of scenarios where you will exile one of your own artifacts or creatures and get a 4/4 out of the deal at Instant speed, and then you block an attacker or something. Or you use it in response to a removal spell and still get a 4/4 and all of that. But every time we see a card like this, even the one that made a 4/4 Angel, they just never line up as well as you might think at first. That situation I described just won’t happen as much as you want it to, and you’ll often find yourself in situations where this just isn’t worth casting. Now, it does have the ability to also go after opposing permanents, but giving your opponent a 4/4 in that case isn’t especially good most of the time either.
Serpentine Curve image 2.5 In many Blue decks in this format, this tends to make pretty efficient creatures, and is worth playing.
Sudden Breakthrough image 1.5 This is a decent trick -- it gives a boost large enough for your creature to win combat most of the time -- and it gives you a Treasure for some fixing and ramping. But you’ll probably cut it a lot, after all, it is still a trick -- and that means it is risky and highly situational.
Tangletrap image 1.5 // 3.0 Kind of funny this isn’t a lesson, I almost felt like it would be! Anyway, we see these modal “Destory artifact or flyer” type cards a lot, and they’re always alright. This one probably isn’t one you want to put in your main deck because this format doesn’t have that many artifacts. However, if you see 5 or so targets against someone – both flyers and artifacts – it can be a pretty nice sideboard card.
Pack 1 Pick 7: Introduction to Annihilation
Divine Gambit image 2.0 This ended up being better than I expected in Kaldheim – that’s not to say its good, but it is a solid playable. You basically treat it as a late game removal spell, and if you look at it that way, it tends to do the job with very little downside. This format also has fewer permanents than normal, and that could matter.
Fracture image 0.5 // 2.5 This format doesn’t have very many of these three permanent types, so this is best left in your sideboard.
Hall Monitor image 3.5 Cheap cards that make something unable to block have a pretty good track record in Limited. Making just one thing unable to block is often enough to make your whole board capable of attacking, and, this thing is a Raging Goblin on turn one, which means it will get in for some damage early, and then in the later part of the game really make blocking difficult for your opponent. Seems like a great aggro card.
Introduction to Annihilation image 3.0 Giving yourself access to a removal spell any time you Learn is pretty nice. Obviously, the fact your opponent draws a card is rough, but you generally just end up breaking even, since you’ll get Introduction to Annihilation for free when you learn.
Unwilling Ingredient image 2.5 This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Eager First-Year image 2.5 This seems like your typical solid White two-drop. It starts out with a fine base line and has some decent upside. Could be particularly nice with combat tricks, since it will get the extra bonus. It is a solid card, but not much else.
Quandrix Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Arcane Subtraction image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks! The effect doesn’t always do something worthwhile – fogging a single creature isn’t always impactful, but when the fail case is fogging a creature and drawing a card – while also triggering some magecraft – you are in a pretty good place with this card, especially because it has the very big upside of sometimes helping you kill a creature in combat.
Make Your Mark image 2.5 So, the boost here isn’t going to always allow your creature to outright win combat, but that’s okay, because if your creature doesn’t win combat, you still get something back – a 3/2 Spirit. Obviously, this will feel best when you use it to help you kill a creature in combat, AND get the spirit, but even just getting the Spirit isn’t too bad.
Pack 1 Pick 8: Crushing Disappointment
Secret Rendezvous image 0.0 You will always come up behind when you use this. You’re the one casting it, and using up a card and mana, your opponent gets the three cards for free -- they don’t spend a card or mana to get them. Now, if you have extra mana you will be taking advantage of the new cards first, but chances are also good your opponent will have an easier time doing that, because...again, they spent 0 mana to draw 3. Don’t play this in Limited.
Daemogoth Woe-Eater image 3.5 Obviously the stats are massive for the cost, but having to sacrifice a creature every turn is a little bit rough. You’ll need some expendable things around to make that worth it. Pest tokens provide that for you. The good news is, even if you end up not having something worth sacriificing and just have to play Daemogoth on an empty board or something, you’ll still get some value back when you sacrifice it to its own ability. Gaining 2 life and forcing your opponent to discard something while you gain life and draw a card isn’t incredible for the mana investment, but Daemogoth probably also deterred an attack for a turn too because of the huge body, and that’s honestly not bad for 4 mana. I think the fail case here is pretty good, and the upside of having such an early 7/6 sounds pretty nice.
Tome Shredder image 3.0 This guy can get pretty big on his diet of instants and sorceries, and he’ll work especially well in RW, because that deck can load the graveyard reasonably well, and it also likes it when cards leave the graveyard in any way, and Tome Shredder will do that for you.
Prismari Pledgemage image 2.5 We have seen a lot of creatures like this over the last few years -- A two mana 3/3 with Defender that can gain the ability to attack one way or another. The initial body is actually pretty good at helping you block on the ground, and once you can get it to attack it will feel pretty good. Now, you do have to find a way to trigger Magecraft most turns for this to really be at its best, and that won’t always be easy.
Beaming Defiance image 2.0 This is a solid trick, it gives a good enough stats boost to win most combats, and the Hexproof part makes it so that you can also use it to effectively counter removal. Like I always say, it IS still a trick, which means you will only be running it in aggro decks, and it comes with various risks – but it will be solid for those decks.
Pillardrop Warden image 2.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and the ability to bring an instant or sorcery back to your hand, giving it utility pretty much all game long.
Crushing Disappointment image 1.5 This isn’t amazing. 4-mana to draw 2 at instant speed is alright, and it is nice the life loss is symmetrical, but I tend to have a hard time getting behind this kind of card draw in Limited. It is pretty inefficient and expensive, and by choosing to spend 4 of you r mana to cast this you probably already paid some life in a way -- since you didn’t add to your board with that mana. Then, paying more life can be surprisingly painful. Again, it is nice that it can give you some reach against some opponents, and in BG especially you’ll be able to gain enough life that you don’t need to worry about it, but I still think this is a card that gets cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
Square Up image 1.0 This kind of card never really comes through. You can sort of treat it like a trick, but it is just too situational to even be reliable in that capacity. The idea here I guess is to use it on Fractals, but even that isn’t worth it to me.
Pack 1 Pick 9: Witherbloom Campus
Access Tunnel image 2.0 This has some decent, if unexciting late game utility. It isn’t great for your mana, so you probably can’t run it if your mana is already looking a little sketchy.
Quandrix Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Prismari Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Witherbloom Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Novice Dissector image 2.5 This starts out as a Hill GIant, which is not so good, but it does have a pretty reasonable ability. Note, by the way, it lets you put the counter wherever. Lots of times when we see this effect only the creature who does the Sacrificing ends up getting the counters, but that’s not true here, and that’s good news for sure, as putting the counters on flyers and stuff sounds pretty good. This is another Black common that supports both Black archetypes well. It does +1/+1 counter stuff for BW, and it likes Pest tokens for BG.
Pack 1 Pick 10: Aether Helix
Fracture image 0.5 // 2.5 This format doesn’t have very many of these three permanent types, so this is best left in your sideboard.
Aether Helix image 2.5 I really want to like this card, since I love bounce spells and getting stuff back from my graveyard, but I just don’t think this is anything special. Bouncing a permanent does not give you a card’s worth of value, and it may not even give you much tempo would you pay 5 for it. And yeah getting a permanent back is good and all, but this is basically just a 5 mana bounce a permanent, draw a card. And its a Sorcery. That’s just not that great!
Ardent Dustspeaker image 4.0 So, this helps trigger all the cards in RW that like it when things leave your graveyard, AND it will effectively draw you cards at the same time. That’s pretty powerful, so of course they had to make the creature rather inefficient, as a 5-mana ¾. Even with that limitation though, this is going to be quite good. ¾ is enough size to attack on lots of boards, and as long as the best your opponent can do is trade with this, you’re going to be in business, because the cards you get from the effect will help you come out ahead from the trade. In some situations, even if the Dustspeaker is going to die without killing anything, attacking will still be worth it for the effect. You can also get serious value by giving it evasion or stats boosts that make things harder on your opponent. If this gets to use that ability more than once, chances are you just win.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Teach by Example image 1.5 I know this format is all about spells and stuff, but I have a hard time thinking a card like this will be worthwhile very often. You have to have it line up the right way for it to do something. And sure, using it on a draw spell or something will feel pretty sweet, as will copying some of the huge wacky spells in UR, but it still seems like the set up is too much. This kind of spell isn’t good in most Limited formats, and I don’ think it will be here either.
Biomathematician image 3.5 A three-mana 2/2 that makes a 1/1 is generally pretty good in Limited, and this comes with significant upside between the +1/+1 counter and the additional value you can get from having other fractals. This seems like a card in the lower range of first pickable, and a really strong Common.
Pack 1 Pick 11: Infuse with Vitality
Infuse with Vitality image 2.5 This is a nice trick, one that virtually guarantees your creature will both kill whatever it is in combat with AND survive. Well, technically your creature can still die of course, but it will come back right away so, yeah. Incidental life gain tacked on to help out BG with its life gain synergies works for me! Now, as good of a trick as this is, it is still a trick, and still highly situational and risky and all of that.
Archway Commons image 1.5 This does give you fixing, but at a pretty real cost. It enters tapped and requires another land to tap for it to come into play, effectively making it cost one mana. That’s some serious slowness, but you’ll run it if you need the fixing.
Enthusiastic Study image 2.5 This is great in aggro decks, as it often helps you hit for a ton of trample damage – even saving your creature a decent chunk of the time – and ON TOP OF THAT, you get to learn, which Is just great.
Reckless Amplimancer image 2.5 So, this is a bear with some nice late game upside, especially for decks that are either capable of producing a lot of mana or capable of putting +1/+1 counters on stuff. Or even better, both! UG is the Green color pair that will be the rampeist, and I really think it is going to want some late game manasinks, and this definitely delivers. Now, it isn’t especially efficient to pump this thing, but it is something to do with your mana. And, obviously, +1/+1 counters make it more efficient too. This is just going to be a solid two drop for pretty much all Green decks.
Pillardrop Warden image 2.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and the ability to bring an instant or sorcery back to your hand, giving it utility pretty much all game long.
Pack 1 Pick 12: Spined Karok
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pack 1 Pick 13: Curate
Secret Rendezvous image 0.0 You will always come up behind when you use this. You’re the one casting it, and using up a card and mana, your opponent gets the three cards for free -- they don’t spend a card or mana to get them. Now, if you have extra mana you will be taking advantage of the new cards first, but chances are also good your opponent will have an easier time doing that, because...again, they spent 0 mana to draw 3. Don’t play this in Limited.
Curate image 1.0 I’m not super interested in this. It is just another Anticipate variant, and those are always replaceable. It does help you load your graveyard I guess if that’s what you want, and give you some card selection, and it will trigger magecraft, but it just has an underwhelming effect that is not often worth a card.
Fuming Effigy image 2.5 This is mostly here for the RW deck, which makes cards leave the graveyard pretty often. This is likely to do a few damage in that deck, in addition to having reasonable stats to start with.
Pack 1 Pick 14: Charge Through
Charge Through image 1.0 In your typical format, this wouldn’t be close to a 0.0. It replaces itself, but the effect it has can be useless or close to it a huge chunk of the time. After all, you need blocks to go a certain way, and you need creatures of a certain size for Trample to even matter. However, in a format with lots of spells payoffs -- including in Green --, I think this will make the cut sometimes.
Tangletrap image 1.5 // 3.0 Kind of funny this isn’t a lesson, I almost felt like it would be! Anyway, we see these modal “Destory artifact or flyer” type cards a lot, and they’re always alright. This one probably isn’t one you want to put in your main deck because this format doesn’t have that many artifacts. However, if you see 5 or so targets against someone – both flyers and artifacts – it can be a pretty nice sideboard card.
Pack 1 Pick 15: Hall Monitor
Hall Monitor image 3.5 Cheap cards that make something unable to block have a pretty good track record in Limited. Making just one thing unable to block is often enough to make your whole board capable of attacking, and, this thing is a Raging Goblin on turn one, which means it will get in for some damage early, and then in the later part of the game really make blocking difficult for your opponent. Seems like a great aggro card.
Pack 2 Pick 1: Field Trip
Duress image 1.5 // 3.0 This will be a little better in a format with more noncreature spells, but it probably is still going to be better out of your sideboard.
Venerable Warsinger image 4.0 This is a cool card. So, three mana for a 3/3 with Vigilance and Trample is already something you’d always play! Then you factor in the ability to reanimate creatures DIRECTLY TO THE BOARD and you end up with something incredibly strong. It doesn’t have incredible size, and you won’t always be able to reanimate stuff with it, but I think you’ll be able to often enough that this is pretty good.
Returned Pastcaller image 4.0 This seems really good to me. RW in this set is about the graveyard, strange as that may seem, so this will generally have no problem returning something. It does only have two toughness so it dies to a lot, but because you returned something that still means you’re getting a 2-for-1, and if your opponent can’t deal with it, this hits pretty darn hard in the air.
Golden Ratio image 2.5 So, you’ll want this to at least be Divination, and that seems reasonably doable. However, one thing that kind of stinks there, is that you can cast Divination on an empty board and still draw 2. That’s not going to happen here. Still, it also has way more upside than Divination, and will draw you 3+ cards sometimes. It will be really painful to have this in a hand where it is your only three drop or something like that, but I think in the late game it will be powerful enough to make up for that.
Killian, Ink Duelist image 4.0 I would have been reasonably happy with a two mana 2/2 with Lifelink and Menace, or a 2-mana 2/2 with the spell reduction ability, but obviously this has all of that stuff! It is going to give you a lot for two mana. It will attack well early, and then make your spells cheaper – this will allow you to trigger Magecraft more easily, while also pumping your creatures with combat triggers. Your removal spells will cheaper as well as your tricks, anyway. This is an excellent Uncommon.
Introduction to Annihilation image 3.0 Giving yourself access to a removal spell any time you Learn is pretty nice. Obviously, the fact your opponent draws a card is rough, but you generally just end up breaking even, since you’ll get Introduction to Annihilation for free when you learn.
Arcane Subtraction image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks! The effect doesn’t always do something worthwhile – fogging a single creature isn’t always impactful, but when the fail case is fogging a creature and drawing a card – while also triggering some magecraft – you are in a pretty good place with this card, especially because it has the very big upside of sometimes helping you kill a creature in combat.
Curate image 1.0 I’m not super interested in this. It is just another Anticipate variant, and those are always replaceable. It does help you load your graveyard I guess if that’s what you want, and give you some card selection, and it will trigger magecraft, but it just has an underwhelming effect that is not often worth a card.
Field Trip image 2.5 So, this pretty much just ramps for you, it doesn’t provide fixing because you can only get a Forest, and that’s a pretty big bummer. Still, ramping looks like a smarter strategy in ths format It does have Learn, which will either let you rummage or get a Lesson from your sideboard, and both of those are nice additional effects.
Prismari Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Excavated Wall image 0.5 One-mana 0/4 defenders tend to not really be worth it in Limited. And this one does help you load your graveyard, which RW decks will like especially, but I still don’t really think that’s going to be enough to get me to run this most of the time.
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Ageless Guardian image 1.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and it is a Spirit, and RW has some tribal synergy for that. You’ll play it in a deck that wants that sometimes, but I imagine you’ll cut it pretty often.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Pack 2 Pick 2: Witherbloom Pledgemage
Furycalm Snarl image 3.0 These are good fixing, and they’ll help you splash. Don’t underestimate how nice it is, even in a two-color deck, to have one land that can produce either color, it is really great for your mana base. You should never be first picking these, but I think you should value them over most medium cards in packs if you’re in one or both of the colors it produces.
Lorehold Excavation image 3.0 While it is a little awkward that it doesn’t impact the board immediately most of the time, it does only cost two, and at least it starts doing damage and gaining you life right away. That part of the card shouldn’t be overlooked, by the way, this will sort of feel like Ill-Gotten Inheritance with more upside. If you’re in RW, and you are if you’re playing this, this seems like the kind of glue that will keep that deck together. I’m not sure it quite does enough to pull you into the color pair itself, but if you’re there already, value it highly.
Detention Vortex image 1.5 This isn’t great. It might look like an efficient removal spell, but it basically signs you up to go down a card in the future, because your opponent can just pay some mana to get rid of it. It isn’t completely horrendous in more aggressive BW decks, since no matter what it does make a creature unable to block for a turn – but that’s pretty much the only place you’ll play this, and even then it won’t always make the cut.
Umbral Juke image 3.0 This has two reasonable modes. Three mana for a 2/1 Flyer is fine, and three mana for an edict is fine too, especially because this is an instant. Modality is enough to make a card with two “fine” effects become an actually “pretty good” card.
Inkling Summoning image 3.5 This Lesson is nice because it isn’t a complete disaster if you don’t get any cards with Learn and play it in your main deck. A three mana 2/1 with Flying is just fine, and this also triggers all the mage craft stuff of course. Obviously, if you have Learn, it is going to usually be better in the sideboard.
Eureka Moment image 2.5 This ramps you a little bit while drawing you cards which is fine. A lot of the time the ability to put lands into play from your hand aren’t that good in Limited because there comes a point where you just don’t have lands to put down, but this draws you card, and makes it more likely you have a land to put into play to take advantage.
Witherbloom Pledgemage image 2.5 This has pretty good stats and a solid Magecraft trigger. BG likes to gain life, so it will really fit in well there.
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Promising Duskmage image 2.5 This is a solid little +1/+1 counter payoff. Sometimes when you put a counter on something it is a bummer that it gets killed, but this makes sure to give you some value no matter what!
Leech Fanatic image 3.0 We’ve seen pretty much this same card before, and it overperformed, and I think this will here too. It slots well into both Black decks too – gaining life for BG and being a good place to stick counters for BW.
Defend the Campus image 2.0 I see this as two separate cards in many formats, and both of them are often cards you cut, just because they are a little too narrow. HOWEVER, by putting both of these effects on a single card, you end up with a better card. The effects are still narrow of course, but between the two effects one of them is going to be useful pretty often. This might all sounds like I think this is incredible -- but I just get excited about modal cards. It is a solid card that will actually make the cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
First Day of Class image 1.5 If you’re only able to make one creature benefit from this it won’t feel all that good, even if you have a Lesson to grab. After all, most of the Lessons are actually mediocre cards, but they’re worthwhile because you get them for free when you Learn. So, you kind of need your card with Learn to do something worth close to a card, and if you’re just getting one counter and giving one thing Haste, I’m not sure you’re doing it here. “Learn” is sort of like “draw a card,” and does give you some card selection, but those cards to choose from just aren’t gonna be awesome. Keep in mind you can also choose to rummage instead of getting a Lesson, and sometimes that will be best. Now, where this does start to get interesting is when you play multiple creatures in a turn, which won’t be easy if you’re just casting a regular ol’ creature spell, but if you have ways to make multiple tokens in a turn, this will start to feel pretty good. All in all, I’m not super high on this to start, just because I don’t think it will be all that easy to make it work, but I could see myself being wrong here.
Pillardrop Warden image 2.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and the ability to bring an instant or sorcery back to your hand, giving it utility pretty much all game long.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Pack 2 Pick 3: Reflective Golem
Opt image 2.5 Another solid draw spell that will be a bit better here as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Reflective Golem image 1.0 // 3.0 This will be nice with fight spells and tricks. Copying those kinds of things will feel great. It has mediocre stats and needs the right deck composition to really thrive, though.
Humiliate image 3.5 Now THIS is how you design a good discard spell for Limited! First, it lets you take whatever you want for a very efficient cost of two mana. That’s going to allow for significant disruption. What really saves this though, is the fact that you get a +1/+1 counter out of the deal too. Most discard spells get terrible in the extreme late game, but this makes sure that you get some value out of it no matter what, and it is can be some pretty significant value!
Creative Outburst image 3.5 This is expensive, but because it lets you discard it to make a treasure early, part of that downside is mitigated against. Casting this will feel really good, as doing 5 damage to something and drawing a card chosen from among five is a really good deal. UR is all about big spells like this, so it fits right in, while also supporting the archetype’s ability to cast those spells since it can make treasure.
Spirit Summoning image 2.5 RW has some spirit synergies, so this gets a few extra points. It is a nice lesson to have like all the other summonings, because it can pretty much always do something.
Quandrix Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Leech Fanatic image 3.0 We’ve seen pretty much this same card before, and it overperformed, and I think this will here too. It slots well into both Black decks too – gaining life for BG and being a good place to stick counters for BW.
Tangletrap image 1.5 // 3.0 Kind of funny this isn’t a lesson, I almost felt like it would be! Anyway, we see these modal “Destory artifact or flyer” type cards a lot, and they’re always alright. This one probably isn’t one you want to put in your main deck because this format doesn’t have that many artifacts. However, if you see 5 or so targets against someone – both flyers and artifacts – it can be a pretty nice sideboard card.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Blood Age General image 2.5 This is a Bear with some nice upside for the RW deck, which will have plenty of Spirits.
Soothsayer Adept image 1.5 This card has okay stats and it can loot, and that’s enough for it to be a reasonable inclusion in most decks. Looting isn’t a bad mana sink to have late, as it can really improve your draws.
Leyline Invocation image 2.5 This is often a 6-mana 8/8 or something like that in the late game for UG decks, and that makes it a solid thing to have at the top of your curve.
Pack 2 Pick 4: Blood Researcher
Eyetwitch image 3.0 One-mana 1/1 Flyers often aren’t really worth it in Limited because they are so quickly outclassed, but this has quite the useful death trigger. So you will need to have picked up a few Lessons for cards like this to be at their best, but it is nice you can rummage with them in a pinch. This will feel like drawing a card often enough that I think it is pretty good! Also not a bad place to stick a +1/+1 counter.
Golden Ratio image 2.5 So, you’ll want this to at least be Divination, and that seems reasonably doable. However, one thing that kind of stinks there, is that you can cast Divination on an empty board and still draw 2. That’s not going to happen here. Still, it also has way more upside than Divination, and will draw you 3+ cards sometimes. It will be really painful to have this in a hand where it is your only three drop or something like that, but I think in the late game it will be powerful enough to make up for that.
Inkling Summoning image 3.5 This Lesson is nice because it isn’t a complete disaster if you don’t get any cards with Learn and play it in your main deck. A three mana 2/1 with Flying is just fine, and this also triggers all the mage craft stuff of course. Obviously, if you have Learn, it is going to usually be better in the sideboard.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pigment Storm image 2.5 This effect at Sorcery speed is really clunky. If you have to use this to kill a smaller creature, it feels really miserable because of the tempo hit. This does try to make up for that a little, by having the damage Trample, and that is some nice additional upside, but I still think this falls well short of being premium removal.
Letter of Acceptance image 2.0 This gives you reasonable fixing, and once you don’t need that you can cash it in for a card. We see cards like this a lot, and the decks that need fixing will run them, but it is unlikely anyone else will.
Study Break image 3.0 This is another card with Learn that is way better than it looks at first. This is a key card for BW or RW aggro decks, as tapping down blockers can really open the floodgates on your opponent – and you even draw a card off of it thanks to Learn! It tends to have a very real impact on games when it is cast.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Reckless Amplimancer image 2.5 So, this is a bear with some nice late game upside, especially for decks that are either capable of producing a lot of mana or capable of putting +1/+1 counters on stuff. Or even better, both! UG is the Green color pair that will be the rampeist, and I really think it is going to want some late game manasinks, and this definitely delivers. Now, it isn’t especially efficient to pump this thing, but it is something to do with your mana. And, obviously, +1/+1 counters make it more efficient too. This is just going to be a solid two drop for pretty much all Green decks.
Blood Researcher image 3.5 This seems like a nice Common payoff for gaining life. It may not be quite as cheap as Ajani’s Pridemate, but it adds Menace to the mix and I think that’s a fair trade. This will get pretty big, and that’s always nice with an evasive ability.
Stonerise Spirit image 2.5 This starts out with really reasonable stats, and then in the late game it can enable your payoffs for moving stuff out of your graveyard while also giving your other creatures flying. That late game mana sink is going to end games sometimes, but keep in mind that it is pretty expensive to use the ability, so you often won’t be able to make more than one thing fly.
Burrog Befuddler image 2.5 This seems like a solid two-drop. Flash + the ability to lower a creature’s power will sometimes give you a pretty attractive blocking situation, but even if this just prevents one damage and lets you add to the board with a two-mana 2/1, that’s fine too.
Pack 2 Pick 5: Agonizing Remorse
Agonizing Remorse image 3.0 This was a good discard spell the last time we saw it, and I think it will be pretty good here too. It can disrupt the opponent pretty much all game long, and having a fail case to exile a card in their graveyard isn’t too shabby.
Expressive Iteration image 3.0 Basically, you draw one card from your top three, and you exile another that you can cast until the end of your turn. So this is sort of a two mana Divination, albeit one that is very time sensitive. Note, by the way, that it does let you play lands from exile, so you can even cast this on like turn three, exile a land in your top 3 and put something else in your hand, and then play that land right away. Because you get to choose, there really is a reasonable chance you will get 2 cards out of it, even early.
Fracture image 0.5 // 2.5 This format doesn’t have very many of these three permanent types, so this is best left in your sideboard.
Rip Apart image 4.0 This is premium removal. Two mana for three damage would already be there, but adding the nice modal effect to deal with problem permanents makes it even better.
Stonebound Mentor image 2.5 This starts with solid stats, and then it has an ability that will fit nicely in RW decks. As we’ve seen, RW has ways to exile cards from the graveyard for value as well as ways to return cards from the graveyard to your hand or the battlefield. Those will all trigger the Scry here, which will be some nice incidental value.
Silverquill Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Sudden Breakthrough image 1.5 This is a decent trick -- it gives a boost large enough for your creature to win combat most of the time -- and it gives you a Treasure for some fixing and ramping. But you’ll probably cut it a lot, after all, it is still a trick -- and that means it is risky and highly situational.
Owlin Shieldmage image 3.0 This is pretty good top-curve for BW aggro decks. It isn’t the most efficient flyer, but it often puts your opponent in a terrible place, where their live is low enough that they have to kill your flyer, but they have to pay 3 life to do it.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Arcane Subtraction image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks! The effect doesn’t always do something worthwhile – fogging a single creature isn’t always impactful, but when the fail case is fogging a creature and drawing a card – while also triggering some magecraft – you are in a pretty good place with this card, especially because it has the very big upside of sometimes helping you kill a creature in combat.
Pack 2 Pick 6: Overgrown Arch
Witherbloom Command image 3.0 Three of the options here aren’t something I think will be good very often -- draining the opponent for 2 has some synergy with the color pair, destroying a non-creature non-land permanents with a CMC of 2 or less, and the mill + return land effect don’t seem that great. However, tacking any of those on to the -3/-1 effect, which has a reasonably shot at killing something, isn’t too bad. I mean, if you choose the mill option it is kind of like two mana for -3/-1 and draw a card, and that’s not bad -- but it isn’t that good either. One big problem is that, as a Sorcery, this will typically only be capable of killing X/1s, and that’s pretty narrow. You can use it to make an attack better for you even when you don’t kill an X/1, but it still isn’t great. Blowing up some 2 CMC or less permanent and killing a creature will feel good, but it just won’t line up that way often enough – there aren’t enough noncreature nonland permanents in this set. Look, you’ll always play this if you’re BG, but I don’t really think you should take it remotely highly.
Overgrown Arch image 3.0 We’ve seen walls that can cash themselves in for cards before, and they’re always kind of mediocre. However, thsi one does add life gain to the mix, which is something that can really add up -- especially because the BG deck in this format really likes repeatable sources of life gain to power all of its cards.
Reflective Golem image 1.0 // 3.0 This will be nice with fight spells and tricks. Copying those kinds of things will feel great. It has mediocre stats and needs the right deck composition to really thrive, though.
Waterfall Aerialist image 2.5 A 4-mana 3/1 flyer is generally a playable card, it hits pretty hard in the air for the mana cost. 1 toughness is certainly a liability though, since it can die to everything, even the cheapest removal spells! The Aerliast gets around that, though, with Ward, which means that it will be tough for your opponent to get a great deal on their removal spell. This set does have 2/1 flying tokens though, and that hurts the value of a card like this significantly.
Prismari Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Guiding Voice image 3.0 All the cards with Learn and all the Lessons are big overperformers in this set, and this is an example of that. This effectively reads “Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and draw a card that is pretty useful in this situation,” and that’s a great deal for one White mana. Especially in a format with a bunch of magecraft.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Infuse with Vitality image 2.5 This is a nice trick, one that virtually guarantees your creature will both kill whatever it is in combat with AND survive. Well, technically your creature can still die of course, but it will come back right away so, yeah. Incidental life gain tacked on to help out BG with its life gain synergies works for me! Now, as good of a trick as this is, it is still a trick, and still highly situational and risky and all of that.
Campus Guide image 2.0 This has passable stats and it can fix for you, though keep in mind just putting a land on top is substantially worse than putting one in your hand. Still, if you’re trying to do some splashing this will help you do it. If you’re not splashing at all, though, it probably isn’t worth playing.
Elemental Masterpiece image 2.5 Late, this gives you two 4/4 bodies pretty efficiently. And, like a lot some other UR spells in this set, it can actually make you treasure early too, giving you both fixing and ramp, and making this significantly better than it would be if all you could ever do is cast it.
Pack 2 Pick 7: Archway Commons
Spell Satchel image 1.5 So, this is a mana rock that asks you to fulfill the condition of casting spells, which isn’t going to be that hard in this set, but it does concern me a little! One nice thing about it is that in the late game, when you really don’t need the mana, you can save up book counters and start drawing cards with it. I think this format would have to be glacial for this card to be really good though.
Illuminate History image 3.0 Paying 4 to help you rummage a bit and make a 3/2 won’t be that hard with this – especially because you can wait to “Learn” it until your graveyard is primed and ready to go.
Blood Age General image 2.5 This is a Bear with some nice upside for the RW deck, which will have plenty of Spirits.
Resculpt image 1.0 People always overrate this type of card. They think of scenarios where you will exile one of your own artifacts or creatures and get a 4/4 out of the deal at Instant speed, and then you block an attacker or something. Or you use it in response to a removal spell and still get a 4/4 and all of that. But every time we see a card like this, even the one that made a 4/4 Angel, they just never line up as well as you might think at first. That situation I described just won’t happen as much as you want it to, and you’ll often find yourself in situations where this just isn’t worth casting. Now, it does have the ability to also go after opposing permanents, but giving your opponent a 4/4 in that case isn’t especially good most of the time either.
Study Break image 3.0 This is another card with Learn that is way better than it looks at first. This is a key card for BW or RW aggro decks, as tapping down blockers can really open the floodgates on your opponent – and you even draw a card off of it thanks to Learn! It tends to have a very real impact on games when it is cast.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Make Your Mark image 2.5 So, the boost here isn’t going to always allow your creature to outright win combat, but that’s okay, because if your creature doesn’t win combat, you still get something back – a 3/2 Spirit. Obviously, this will feel best when you use it to help you kill a creature in combat, AND get the spirit, but even just getting the Spirit isn’t too bad.
Archway Commons image 1.5 This does give you fixing, but at a pretty real cost. It enters tapped and requires another land to tap for it to come into play, effectively making it cost one mana. That’s some serious slowness, but you’ll run it if you need the fixing.
Pack 2 Pick 8: Containment Breach
Containment Breach image 0.0 // 1.5 This is kind of a bad lesson. This format is surprisingly low on both Enchantments and Artifacts – it has 4 Enchantments – two of them are Rare, and 13 artifacts 4 of which are rare, and less than half have a mana value of 2 or less. Because this set is so heavy on Instants and Sorceries, those card types got wittled way down. That means this isn’t as good as it would be in a normal format. Still, you can probably pick it up pretty easily, so having it as an option when you do run into those cards isn’t too bad.
Lorehold Apprentice image 3.5 This is a pretty weird Magecraft trigger, but it actually seems like it will work pretty well in RW, which has the ability to make Spirit tokens, in addition to just having creatures who have the Spirit type, and if you can suddenly tap all of your spirits to do 1 to your opponent, things could really get out of hand for your opponent in a hurry! Just trigger this twice with like 3 spirits in play is a ton of damage.
Arcane Subtraction image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks! The effect doesn’t always do something worthwhile – fogging a single creature isn’t always impactful, but when the fail case is fogging a creature and drawing a card – while also triggering some magecraft – you are in a pretty good place with this card, especially because it has the very big upside of sometimes helping you kill a creature in combat.
Enthusiastic Study image 2.5 This is great in aggro decks, as it often helps you hit for a ton of trample damage – even saving your creature a decent chunk of the time – and ON TOP OF THAT, you get to learn, which Is just great.
Waterfall Aerialist image 2.5 A 4-mana 3/1 flyer is generally a playable card, it hits pretty hard in the air for the mana cost. 1 toughness is certainly a liability though, since it can die to everything, even the cheapest removal spells! The Aerliast gets around that, though, with Ward, which means that it will be tough for your opponent to get a great deal on their removal spell. This set does have 2/1 flying tokens though, and that hurts the value of a card like this significantly.
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pack 2 Pick 9: Duress
Duress image 1.5 // 3.0 This will be a little better in a format with more noncreature spells, but it probably is still going to be better out of your sideboard.
Curate image 1.0 I’m not super interested in this. It is just another Anticipate variant, and those are always replaceable. It does help you load your graveyard I guess if that’s what you want, and give you some card selection, and it will trigger magecraft, but it just has an underwhelming effect that is not often worth a card.
Excavated Wall image 0.5 One-mana 0/4 defenders tend to not really be worth it in Limited. And this one does help you load your graveyard, which RW decks will like especially, but I still don’t really think that’s going to be enough to get me to run this most of the time.
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Ageless Guardian image 1.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and it is a Spirit, and RW has some tribal synergy for that. You’ll play it in a deck that wants that sometimes, but I imagine you’ll cut it pretty often.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Pack 2 Pick 10: Inkling Summoning
Lorehold Excavation image 3.0 While it is a little awkward that it doesn’t impact the board immediately most of the time, it does only cost two, and at least it starts doing damage and gaining you life right away. That part of the card shouldn’t be overlooked, by the way, this will sort of feel like Ill-Gotten Inheritance with more upside. If you’re in RW, and you are if you’re playing this, this seems like the kind of glue that will keep that deck together. I’m not sure it quite does enough to pull you into the color pair itself, but if you’re there already, value it highly.
Detention Vortex image 1.5 This isn’t great. It might look like an efficient removal spell, but it basically signs you up to go down a card in the future, because your opponent can just pay some mana to get rid of it. It isn’t completely horrendous in more aggressive BW decks, since no matter what it does make a creature unable to block for a turn – but that’s pretty much the only place you’ll play this, and even then it won’t always make the cut.
Inkling Summoning image 3.5 This Lesson is nice because it isn’t a complete disaster if you don’t get any cards with Learn and play it in your main deck. A three mana 2/1 with Flying is just fine, and this also triggers all the mage craft stuff of course. Obviously, if you have Learn, it is going to usually be better in the sideboard.
Promising Duskmage image 2.5 This is a solid little +1/+1 counter payoff. Sometimes when you put a counter on something it is a bummer that it gets killed, but this makes sure to give you some value no matter what!
First Day of Class image 1.5 If you’re only able to make one creature benefit from this it won’t feel all that good, even if you have a Lesson to grab. After all, most of the Lessons are actually mediocre cards, but they’re worthwhile because you get them for free when you Learn. So, you kind of need your card with Learn to do something worth close to a card, and if you’re just getting one counter and giving one thing Haste, I’m not sure you’re doing it here. “Learn” is sort of like “draw a card,” and does give you some card selection, but those cards to choose from just aren’t gonna be awesome. Keep in mind you can also choose to rummage instead of getting a Lesson, and sometimes that will be best. Now, where this does start to get interesting is when you play multiple creatures in a turn, which won’t be easy if you’re just casting a regular ol’ creature spell, but if you have ways to make multiple tokens in a turn, this will start to feel pretty good. All in all, I’m not super high on this to start, just because I don’t think it will be all that easy to make it work, but I could see myself being wrong here.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Pack 2 Pick 11: Leyline Invocation
Reject image 1.5 This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Tangletrap image 1.5 // 3.0 Kind of funny this isn’t a lesson, I almost felt like it would be! Anyway, we see these modal “Destory artifact or flyer” type cards a lot, and they’re always alright. This one probably isn’t one you want to put in your main deck because this format doesn’t have that many artifacts. However, if you see 5 or so targets against someone – both flyers and artifacts – it can be a pretty nice sideboard card.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Soothsayer Adept image 1.5 This card has okay stats and it can loot, and that’s enough for it to be a reasonable inclusion in most decks. Looting isn’t a bad mana sink to have late, as it can really improve your draws.
Leyline Invocation image 2.5 This is often a 6-mana 8/8 or something like that in the late game for UG decks, and that makes it a solid thing to have at the top of your curve.
Pack 2 Pick 12: Letter of Acceptance
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Letter of Acceptance image 2.0 This gives you reasonable fixing, and once you don’t need that you can cash it in for a card. We see cards like this a lot, and the decks that need fixing will run them, but it is unlikely anyone else will.
Study Break image 3.0 This is another card with Learn that is way better than it looks at first. This is a key card for BW or RW aggro decks, as tapping down blockers can really open the floodgates on your opponent – and you even draw a card off of it thanks to Learn! It tends to have a very real impact on games when it is cast.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Pack 2 Pick 13: Fracture
Fracture image 0.5 // 2.5 This format doesn’t have very many of these three permanent types, so this is best left in your sideboard.
Sudden Breakthrough image 1.5 This is a decent trick -- it gives a boost large enough for your creature to win combat most of the time -- and it gives you a Treasure for some fixing and ramping. But you’ll probably cut it a lot, after all, it is still a trick -- and that means it is risky and highly situational.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Pack 2 Pick 14: Elemental Masterpiece
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Elemental Masterpiece image 2.5 Late, this gives you two 4/4 bodies pretty efficiently. And, like a lot some other UR spells in this set, it can actually make you treasure early too, giving you both fixing and ramp, and making this significantly better than it would be if all you could ever do is cast it.
Pack 2 Pick 15: Thrilling Discovery
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Pack 3 Pick 1: Baleful Mastery
Ephemerate image 2.0 This kind of effect is sort of flexible...but also sort of narrow at the same time. It can be used to trigger an ETB ability, or to help a creature dodge removal...but those things don’t come up as often as you’d think. The rebound is some serious additional value, and if you ARE trigger an ETB ability a couple of extra times with it it is going to feel great! It also works well with Magecraft.
Baleful Mastery image 4.0 Even if you can only cast this for 3B, it would be premium removal, since it straight up exiles creatures at instant speed for 4 mana. The fact you can also cast this for 1B in a pinch is nice, even with the downside of your opponent drawing a card. Sometimes you’ll only have 1B up and just HAVE To use it to not die or something, and that will feel good in those situations.
Maelstrom Muse image 3.5 It is pretty nice that this can decrease the cost of your spells by 2 mana, even on its own - - and that’s in addition to actually have nice stats for the cost. You won’t always be able to take advantage of that mana reduction, but UR is all about big spells, so it will probably come up more than you might think at first.
Bookwurm image 4.0 This is one of the best win conditions for both the UG and UR ramp decks. If it comes down, it is hard to beat, since it brings a huge body, gains you some life and gives you an extra card. And it doesn’t end there! Even if your opponent gets rid of it, it will be coming back.
Detention Vortex image 1.5 This isn’t great. It might look like an efficient removal spell, but it basically signs you up to go down a card in the future, because your opponent can just pay some mana to get rid of it. It isn’t completely horrendous in more aggressive BW decks, since no matter what it does make a creature unable to block for a turn – but that’s pretty much the only place you’ll play this, and even then it won’t always make the cut.
Fractal Summoning image 3.0 Another Lesson that will be nice to get when you “Learn.” It is going to be inefficient, but its a card you get for free when you “Learn”, and its one that adds to the board, so I’m on board with having one of these to wish for.
Star Pupil image 2.5 This is a nice one drop for the BW deck, the deck most interested in +1/+1 counters. Even if you have no other synergy, this is sort of passable since it can move its one counter elsewhere, but if you put counters on it early, you won’t feel nearly as bad when it dies – provided you have another creature. This seems like a key common for BW.
Frost Trickster image 3.5 This is a very strong Common. It is probably Blue’s best Common, and a contender for best Common in the set. Now, I am somewhat biased here, if you’ve watched my set reviews or drafts before, you know I love tempo creatures like this -- Blue creatures with ETB abilities that either tap something down or bounce something -- but there’s a reason I love them! They’re really good in Limited. They add to your board while effectively taking something away from your opponent. You make their best creature unable to block and attack for an entire cycle, and that has a pretty massive effect on a race. Frost Lynx is already a card that you first pick sometimes, and this adds FLYING to the mix, which is a great addition.
Archway Commons image 1.5 This does give you fixing, but at a pretty real cost. It enters tapped and requires another land to tap for it to come into play, effectively making it cost one mana. That’s some serious slowness, but you’ll run it if you need the fixing.
Cogwork Archivist image 0.5 I mostly don’t think you’ll play this. It has mediocre stats and an unexciting ability. The ability might be a little more useful in the RW deck, which likes it when things leave the graveyard, but mostly using this ability is super underwhelming. Now, if games in this format go long and you are out of cards and you can legit use this to draw the best card in your graveyard every turn, then it will be better than that -- but that won’t happen very often.
Sudden Breakthrough image 1.5 This is a decent trick -- it gives a boost large enough for your creature to win combat most of the time -- and it gives you a Treasure for some fixing and ramping. But you’ll probably cut it a lot, after all, it is still a trick -- and that means it is risky and highly situational.
Eureka Moment image 2.5 This ramps you a little bit while drawing you cards which is fine. A lot of the time the ability to put lands into play from your hand aren’t that good in Limited because there comes a point where you just don’t have lands to put down, but this draws you card, and makes it more likely you have a land to put into play to take advantage.
Mage Hunters' Onslaught image 3.5 This is a nice removal spell. It is definitely a little bit clunky as a 4-mana sorcery, but it does kill anything, and the upside of punishing an opponent for Blocking will sometimes have a pretty real effect. Taking away their best blocker and then attacking with this seems pretty nice.
Resculpt image 1.0 People always overrate this type of card. They think of scenarios where you will exile one of your own artifacts or creatures and get a 4/4 out of the deal at Instant speed, and then you block an attacker or something. Or you use it in response to a removal spell and still get a 4/4 and all of that. But every time we see a card like this, even the one that made a 4/4 Angel, they just never line up as well as you might think at first. That situation I described just won’t happen as much as you want it to, and you’ll often find yourself in situations where this just isn’t worth casting. Now, it does have the ability to also go after opposing permanents, but giving your opponent a 4/4 in that case isn’t especially good most of the time either.
Charge Through image 1.0 In your typical format, this wouldn’t be close to a 0.0. It replaces itself, but the effect it has can be useless or close to it a huge chunk of the time. After all, you need blocks to go a certain way, and you need creatures of a certain size for Trample to even matter. However, in a format with lots of spells payoffs -- including in Green --, I think this will make the cut sometimes.
Pack 3 Pick 2: Master Symmetrist
Adventurous Impulse image 2.5 This is a fine card for Green decks. Its nice that if you’re flooding it can help you get out, and if you’re desperate for a mana drop it can help you there too. It is also a cheap spell which is always upside in this set.
Symmetry Sage image 2.5 So the idea here is that you can make this into a one mana 2/2 flyer if you have enough instants and sorceries lying around. For the most part, giving others of your creatures base power 2 probably won’t be an upgrade, or if it is one, it will be a very small one, and that certainly hurts this card’s case a little bit. I like that this can rumble in the air when you use spells and all that, but I’m not overly impressed here.
Humiliate image 3.5 Now THIS is how you design a good discard spell for Limited! First, it lets you take whatever you want for a very efficient cost of two mana. That’s going to allow for significant disruption. What really saves this though, is the fact that you get a +1/+1 counter out of the deal too. Most discard spells get terrible in the extreme late game, but this makes sure that you get some value out of it no matter what, and it is can be some pretty significant value!
Master Symmetrist image 4.0 This is basically a 4-mana 4/4 with Reach and Trample, since its ability counts itself, and Trample only matters when you attack anyway. That on its own would be good enough, but then granting all of your other creatures with symmetrical power and toughness trample is some nice additional upside.
Elemental Summoning image 1.5 // 3.0 This is yet another lesson that you wouldn’t really ever want in your main deck, as a 5-mana 4/4 just isn’t good these days, but being able to draw this when you “Learn” sounds pretty good!
Enthusiastic Study image 2.5 This is great in aggro decks, as it often helps you hit for a ton of trample damage – even saving your creature a decent chunk of the time – and ON TOP OF THAT, you get to learn, which Is just great.
Serpentine Curve image 2.5 In many Blue decks in this format, this tends to make pretty efficient creatures, and is worth playing.
Quandrix Pledgemage image 3.0 We see this type of card a lot, though lately it has mostly been Red. Either way, this kind of creature tends to grow rapidly in a deck with a decent number of spells. It is certainly vulnerable at first, but if your opponent doesn’t take it down when they can, it can get quite impressive.
Unwilling Ingredient image 2.5 This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Pillardrop Rescuer image 3.0 This is a pretty nice Common. By turn 5 you’ll often have something this can bring back without really trying, so just playing this, getting something back, and having a 2/2 flyer is going to feel pretty good. I think basically every White deck in the format will want the first copy of this.
Professor's Warning image 1.5 If this card only did one of these two things, it would be terrible. One mana just isn’t a good rate for either of those things, even if they can help you out sometimes, what it does often won’t be worth a card. Making this modal make it better of course, and so does the fact that this set loves cheap spells as a result of Magecraft and other spell payoffs.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Vortex Runner image 2.5 This is underwhelming as a three-drop on curve, but in the late game it can become a legitimate win condition, especially in UG decks which are particularly good at getting lots of lands in play.
Mage Hunters' Onslaught image 3.5 This is a nice removal spell. It is definitely a little bit clunky as a 4-mana sorcery, but it does kill anything, and the upside of punishing an opponent for Blocking will sometimes have a pretty real effect. Taking away their best blocker and then attacking with this seems pretty nice.
Pack 3 Pick 3: Accomplished Alchemist
Infuriate image 2.0 This is a pretty nice trick, and a cheap card in a set with lots of spell triggers. It is probably the best Red trick in this format – but it is still a trick.
Accomplished Alchemist image 4.0 This has nice defensive stats and does a good job ramping and fixing, and sometimes you’ll be able to get even more mana out of it, provided you gained life. This format looks like it has enough life gain and enough reasons to ramp that I think this is pretty darn good.
Academic Dispute image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks. You can often use this to help you take down a creature – either because you force an opposing creature to block, or you give one of your creatures Reach and it can suddenly take down an opposing flyer. That doesn’t always line up, but even when it doesn’t, this basically replaces itself thanks to Learn.
Zephyr Boots image 3.5 This seems like a reasonable Equipment to me. Flying tends to be a pretty nice boost on just about any creature, and it gives that ability fairly efficient. And, the loot combat damage trigger is a great way to improve your draws.
Inkling Summoning image 3.5 This Lesson is nice because it isn’t a complete disaster if you don’t get any cards with Learn and play it in your main deck. A three mana 2/1 with Flying is just fine, and this also triggers all the mage craft stuff of course. Obviously, if you have Learn, it is going to usually be better in the sideboard.
Spiteful Squad image 2.5 4-mana 2/2s with Deathtouch normally arent the most exicting thing int he world. They can trade fo ranything, but doing that at 4 mana isn’t exactly exciting. I like that they compensated for that here by letting the Band put it +1/+1 counters on other stuff when it dies. This also means that it is a good place to put counters, since it will do something with them when it dies, unlike most creatures.
Serpentine Curve image 2.5 In many Blue decks in this format, this tends to make pretty efficient creatures, and is worth playing.
Relic Sloth image 2.5 This isn’t THAT far from being Serra Angel, right? I mean Menace is basically flying. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but kind of to make a point. This is a pretty good vanilla creature, and while it costs 5, I imagine it makes the cut a lot of the time.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Stonerise Spirit image 2.5 This starts out with really reasonable stats, and then in the late game it can enable your payoffs for moving stuff out of your graveyard while also giving your other creatures flying. That late game mana sink is going to end games sometimes, but keep in mind that it is pretty expensive to use the ability, so you often won’t be able to make more than one thing fly.
Blood Age General image 2.5 This is a Bear with some nice upside for the RW deck, which will have plenty of Spirits.
Tome Shredder image 3.0 This guy can get pretty big on his diet of instants and sorceries, and he’ll work especially well in RW, because that deck can load the graveyard reasonably well, and it also likes it when cards leave the graveyard in any way, and Tome Shredder will do that for you.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pack 3 Pick 4: Blood Researcher
Show of Confidence image 2.5 So, if you can’t make any copies of this it isn’t really going to be especially worthwhile, that boost just isn’t worth the investment. However, if you can get two copies of it or more, it will feel pretty good. It is also further augmented by the Magecraft mechanic, which will trigger off of the copies too. Getting two copies of it is definitely doable, but you’ve gotta keep in mind that it is some real set up, and it won’t always work out. Getting more than two copies will happen some, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Ardent Dustspeaker image 4.0 So, this helps trigger all the cards in RW that like it when things leave your graveyard, AND it will effectively draw you cards at the same time. That’s pretty powerful, so of course they had to make the creature rather inefficient, as a 5-mana ¾. Even with that limitation though, this is going to be quite good. ¾ is enough size to attack on lots of boards, and as long as the best your opponent can do is trade with this, you’re going to be in business, because the cards you get from the effect will help you come out ahead from the trade. In some situations, even if the Dustspeaker is going to die without killing anything, attacking will still be worth it for the effect. You can also get serious value by giving it evasion or stats boosts that make things harder on your opponent. If this gets to use that ability more than once, chances are you just win.
Expressive Iteration image 3.0 Basically, you draw one card from your top three, and you exile another that you can cast until the end of your turn. So this is sort of a two mana Divination, albeit one that is very time sensitive. Note, by the way, that it does let you play lands from exile, so you can even cast this on like turn three, exile a land in your top 3 and put something else in your hand, and then play that land right away. Because you get to choose, there really is a reasonable chance you will get 2 cards out of it, even early.
Ageless Guardian image 1.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and it is a Spirit, and RW has some tribal synergy for that. You’ll play it in a deck that wants that sometimes, but I imagine you’ll cut it pretty often.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Teach by Example image 1.5 I know this format is all about spells and stuff, but I have a hard time thinking a card like this will be worthwhile very often. You have to have it line up the right way for it to do something. And sure, using it on a draw spell or something will feel pretty sweet, as will copying some of the huge wacky spells in UR, but it still seems like the set up is too much. This kind of spell isn’t good in most Limited formats, and I don’ think it will be here either.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Arrogant Poet image 2.5 We have seen lots of two mana 2/1s that gain flying when they attack be pretty good, and while this is admittedly worse as a result of having to pay life to make that happen, it will still be a nice card to have in Black Aggressive decks. Gaining flying goes a long way towards making this two drop stay relevant. It slots well into the Black-Green deck, which is good at gaining life, and the +1/+1 counter deck, which likes putting counters on evasive creatures.
Cram Session image 1.5 So yeah, BG has a lot of life gain payoffs as we’ve seen throughout the week and as we will continue to see in this video, so a card like Cram Session is a little bit better than it would normally be, I think. Although, I still don’t think it is great. It is basically a bad Revitalize – and Revitalize isn’t great to begin with!
Blood Researcher image 3.5 This seems like a nice Common payoff for gaining life. It may not be quite as cheap as Ajani’s Pridemate, but it adds Menace to the mix and I think that’s a fair trade. This will get pretty big, and that’s always nice with an evasive ability.
Novice Dissector image 2.5 This starts out as a Hill GIant, which is not so good, but it does have a pretty reasonable ability. Note, by the way, it lets you put the counter wherever. Lots of times when we see this effect only the creature who does the Sacrificing ends up getting the counters, but that’s not true here, and that’s good news for sure, as putting the counters on flyers and stuff sounds pretty good. This is another Black common that supports both Black archetypes well. It does +1/+1 counter stuff for BW, and it likes Pest tokens for BG.
Make Your Mark image 2.5 So, the boost here isn’t going to always allow your creature to outright win combat, but that’s okay, because if your creature doesn’t win combat, you still get something back – a 3/2 Spirit. Obviously, this will feel best when you use it to help you kill a creature in combat, AND get the spirit, but even just getting the Spirit isn’t too bad.
Pack 3 Pick 5: Dina, Soul Steeper
Snakeskin Veil image 2.5 This is a good combat trick that gives your creature a permanent boost, while also being useful against removal.
Quandrix Command image 4.0 Like most of these, it has two options you’ll choose more than the others in Limited, while the other two options are just some nice additional upside. Here, I think you’ll choose the bounce option and the +1/+1 counter option most of the time. Those two things together can really make things go awry for you opponent -- all of the sudden you’ve bounced their best attacker or blocker, AND you’ve pumped one of your creatures so it can win combat -- that’s pretty nice! Then, sometimes you’ll also get to counter and bounce, if your opponent plays the right permanent type for you to counter it. This format doesn’t have a ton of artifacts and enchantments though, so that won’t come up a ton. The shuffle effect will probably go unused when you draft this, but I guess it could occasionally be useful.
Dina, Soul Steeper image 4.0 This is a powerful life gain payoff. The ideal thing to do with her ability is going to be to sacrifice a pest token, at which point you start draining your opponent with Dina in play, in addition to raising her power. She can also just potentially threaten a bunch of damage when she attacks, which is always a nice thing to make your opponent contend with.
Introduction to Prophecy image 2.5 When you play a card with Learn, drawing this card will feel pretty nice, since it is additional value. Then, in the later part of the game, you can cast it and get some nice card selection. Think of it sort of like you would a creature who has an expensive activated ability, but it is an ability that gives you something to do with your mana late.
Elemental Masterpiece image 2.5 Late, this gives you two 4/4 bodies pretty efficiently. And, like a lot some other UR spells in this set, it can actually make you treasure early too, giving you both fixing and ramp, and making this significantly better than it would be if all you could ever do is cast it.
Reckless Amplimancer image 2.5 So, this is a bear with some nice late game upside, especially for decks that are either capable of producing a lot of mana or capable of putting +1/+1 counters on stuff. Or even better, both! UG is the Green color pair that will be the rampeist, and I really think it is going to want some late game manasinks, and this definitely delivers. Now, it isn’t especially efficient to pump this thing, but it is something to do with your mana. And, obviously, +1/+1 counters make it more efficient too. This is just going to be a solid two drop for pretty much all Green decks.
Campus Guide image 2.0 This has passable stats and it can fix for you, though keep in mind just putting a land on top is substantially worse than putting one in your hand. Still, if you’re trying to do some splashing this will help you do it. If you’re not splashing at all, though, it probably isn’t worth playing.
Biblioplex Assistant image 2.0 This is an alright way to get back a powerful spell, and the creature you get isn’t the most disastrous thing ever – it may even be able to attack in the sky! But remember, putting a card back on top is wayyy worse than putting it into your hand.
Quandrix Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Beaming Defiance image 2.0 This is a solid trick, it gives a good enough stats boost to win most combats, and the Hexproof part makes it so that you can also use it to effectively counter removal. Like I always say, it IS still a trick, which means you will only be running it in aggro decks, and it comes with various risks – but it will be solid for those decks.
Infuse with Vitality image 2.5 This is a nice trick, one that virtually guarantees your creature will both kill whatever it is in combat with AND survive. Well, technically your creature can still die of course, but it will come back right away so, yeah. Incidental life gain tacked on to help out BG with its life gain synergies works for me! Now, as good of a trick as this is, it is still a trick, and still highly situational and risky and all of that.
Pack 3 Pick 6: Emergent Sequence
Witherbloom Apprentice image 3.5 A two mana 2/2 that drains the opponent every time you play or copy an instant or sorcery is a solid deal, especially because BG can take advantage of the life gain.
Emergent Sequence image 3.5 This a lot like Rampant Growth, which is pretty solid as far as fixing and ramping go! What’s great is, it actually adds to the board in a meaningful way in addition to ramping and fixing for you, since the land will also be a 1/1 at a minimum and making it a 2/2 won’t be particularly difficult. It will feel a lot like a mana dork that comes into play tapped, and that’s pretty good! Now, that comes with some downsides, like if you search up your one land for a splash and now your opponent can kill it with a cheap burn spell, but I think its well worth it. This format has lots of payoffs for ramping too.
Eyetwitch image 3.0 One-mana 1/1 Flyers often aren’t really worth it in Limited because they are so quickly outclassed, but this has quite the useful death trigger. So you will need to have picked up a few Lessons for cards like this to be at their best, but it is nice you can rummage with them in a pinch. This will feel like drawing a card often enough that I think it is pretty good! Also not a bad place to stick a +1/+1 counter.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Biblioplex Assistant image 2.0 This is an alright way to get back a powerful spell, and the creature you get isn’t the most disastrous thing ever – it may even be able to attack in the sky! But remember, putting a card back on top is wayyy worse than putting it into your hand.
Defend the Campus image 2.0 I see this as two separate cards in many formats, and both of them are often cards you cut, just because they are a little too narrow. HOWEVER, by putting both of these effects on a single card, you end up with a better card. The effects are still narrow of course, but between the two effects one of them is going to be useful pretty often. This might all sounds like I think this is incredible -- but I just get excited about modal cards. It is a solid card that will actually make the cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
Stonerise Spirit image 2.5 This starts out with really reasonable stats, and then in the late game it can enable your payoffs for moving stuff out of your graveyard while also giving your other creatures flying. That late game mana sink is going to end games sometimes, but keep in mind that it is pretty expensive to use the ability, so you often won’t be able to make more than one thing fly.
Curate image 1.0 I’m not super interested in this. It is just another Anticipate variant, and those are always replaceable. It does help you load your graveyard I guess if that’s what you want, and give you some card selection, and it will trigger magecraft, but it just has an underwhelming effect that is not often worth a card.
First Day of Class image 1.5 If you’re only able to make one creature benefit from this it won’t feel all that good, even if you have a Lesson to grab. After all, most of the Lessons are actually mediocre cards, but they’re worthwhile because you get them for free when you Learn. So, you kind of need your card with Learn to do something worth close to a card, and if you’re just getting one counter and giving one thing Haste, I’m not sure you’re doing it here. “Learn” is sort of like “draw a card,” and does give you some card selection, but those cards to choose from just aren’t gonna be awesome. Keep in mind you can also choose to rummage instead of getting a Lesson, and sometimes that will be best. Now, where this does start to get interesting is when you play multiple creatures in a turn, which won’t be easy if you’re just casting a regular ol’ creature spell, but if you have ways to make multiple tokens in a turn, this will start to feel pretty good. All in all, I’m not super high on this to start, just because I don’t think it will be all that easy to make it work, but I could see myself being wrong here.
Silverquill Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Pack 3 Pick 7: Witherbloom Apprentice
Plumb the Forbidden image 3.5 So this has a reasonable fail case, and a potentially really amazing ceiling. Two mana to pay 1 life and draw a card isn’t terrible, and if you start copying it, it gets a lot nice. It is also an Instant, so you will have a really wide window of ways to use this to get the extra copies – like after setting up blocks that will kill your creatures anyway, or in response to removal. Sacrifincg Pests to this will be particularly satisfying, because you’ll even gain the life back! Keep in mind, too, that everything with Magecraft will trigger for every single copy. Now, there will be times where you just can’t afford to make the copies, but like I said I think this has a reasonable fail case.
Test of Talents image 2.0 This set has a ton of instants and sorceries, and countering those no questions asked for only two mana actually seems like a decent thing here – after all, it’s a hard counter. The fact you then take out all the other copies of a card you counter is upside, but it isn’t exactly huge. I think this is just a solid playable.
Witherbloom Apprentice image 3.5 A two mana 2/2 that drains the opponent every time you play or copy an instant or sorcery is a solid deal, especially because BG can take advantage of the life gain.
Unwilling Ingredient image 2.5 This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Specter of the Fens image 2.0 This doesn’t have the greatest stats, but it has a late game mana sink ability that is serviceable, especially in decks interested in gaining life.
Bayou Groff image 2.5 I like the upside we have here. It is either a 5-mana 5/4, a sort of passable card already, or a two mana 5/4 that you sacrifice a creature for. Doing the sacrifice thing can be a bit risky if you’re giving up a real card to cast it on turn two, since if your opponent can remove the Snagger or otherwise make it hard for it to attack, the cost will definitely not be worth it. BUT, just having the option available to you is great, and sometimes you’ll have very expendable creatures – like Pest tokens --, and you can double spell with this on like turn 5 if you give one of them up, which works for me.
Quandrix Pledgemage image 3.0 We see this type of card a lot, though lately it has mostly been Red. Either way, this kind of creature tends to grow rapidly in a deck with a decent number of spells. It is certainly vulnerable at first, but if your opponent doesn’t take it down when they can, it can get quite impressive.
Biblioplex Assistant image 2.0 This is an alright way to get back a powerful spell, and the creature you get isn’t the most disastrous thing ever – it may even be able to attack in the sky! But remember, putting a card back on top is wayyy worse than putting it into your hand.
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Pack 3 Pick 8: Dina, Soul Steeper
Dina, Soul Steeper image 4.0 This is a powerful life gain payoff. The ideal thing to do with her ability is going to be to sacrifice a pest token, at which point you start draining your opponent with Dina in play, in addition to raising her power. She can also just potentially threaten a bunch of damage when she attacks, which is always a nice thing to make your opponent contend with.
Containment Breach image 0.0 // 1.5 This is kind of a bad lesson. This format is surprisingly low on both Enchantments and Artifacts – it has 4 Enchantments – two of them are Rare, and 13 artifacts 4 of which are rare, and less than half have a mana value of 2 or less. Because this set is so heavy on Instants and Sorceries, those card types got wittled way down. That means this isn’t as good as it would be in a normal format. Still, you can probably pick it up pretty easily, so having it as an option when you do run into those cards isn’t too bad.
Burrog Befuddler image 2.5 This seems like a solid two-drop. Flash + the ability to lower a creature’s power will sometimes give you a pretty attractive blocking situation, but even if this just prevents one damage and lets you add to the board with a two-mana 2/1, that’s fine too.
Springmane Cervin image 2.5 This is a solid creature for Green decks. It has alright stats, and the fact it gains life will enable a number of synergies in this format.
Needlethorn Drake image 2.5 This can attack in the air early, and then stay back to trade with anything late. Like most cheap deathtouch creatures, this is pretty solid.
Silverquill Campus image 3.0 These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Pillardrop Warden image 2.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and the ability to bring an instant or sorcery back to your hand, giving it utility pretty much all game long.
Eureka Moment image 2.5 This ramps you a little bit while drawing you cards which is fine. A lot of the time the ability to put lands into play from your hand aren’t that good in Limited because there comes a point where you just don’t have lands to put down, but this draws you card, and makes it more likely you have a land to put into play to take advantage.
Pack 3 Pick 9: Charge Through
Maelstrom Muse image 3.5 It is pretty nice that this can decrease the cost of your spells by 2 mana, even on its own - - and that’s in addition to actually have nice stats for the cost. You won’t always be able to take advantage of that mana reduction, but UR is all about big spells, so it will probably come up more than you might think at first.
Detention Vortex image 1.5 This isn’t great. It might look like an efficient removal spell, but it basically signs you up to go down a card in the future, because your opponent can just pay some mana to get rid of it. It isn’t completely horrendous in more aggressive BW decks, since no matter what it does make a creature unable to block for a turn – but that’s pretty much the only place you’ll play this, and even then it won’t always make the cut.
Frost Trickster image 3.5 This is a very strong Common. It is probably Blue’s best Common, and a contender for best Common in the set. Now, I am somewhat biased here, if you’ve watched my set reviews or drafts before, you know I love tempo creatures like this -- Blue creatures with ETB abilities that either tap something down or bounce something -- but there’s a reason I love them! They’re really good in Limited. They add to your board while effectively taking something away from your opponent. You make their best creature unable to block and attack for an entire cycle, and that has a pretty massive effect on a race. Frost Lynx is already a card that you first pick sometimes, and this adds FLYING to the mix, which is a great addition.
Cogwork Archivist image 0.5 I mostly don’t think you’ll play this. It has mediocre stats and an unexciting ability. The ability might be a little more useful in the RW deck, which likes it when things leave the graveyard, but mostly using this ability is super underwhelming. Now, if games in this format go long and you are out of cards and you can legit use this to draw the best card in your graveyard every turn, then it will be better than that -- but that won’t happen very often.
Sudden Breakthrough image 1.5 This is a decent trick -- it gives a boost large enough for your creature to win combat most of the time -- and it gives you a Treasure for some fixing and ramping. But you’ll probably cut it a lot, after all, it is still a trick -- and that means it is risky and highly situational.
Resculpt image 1.0 People always overrate this type of card. They think of scenarios where you will exile one of your own artifacts or creatures and get a 4/4 out of the deal at Instant speed, and then you block an attacker or something. Or you use it in response to a removal spell and still get a 4/4 and all of that. But every time we see a card like this, even the one that made a 4/4 Angel, they just never line up as well as you might think at first. That situation I described just won’t happen as much as you want it to, and you’ll often find yourself in situations where this just isn’t worth casting. Now, it does have the ability to also go after opposing permanents, but giving your opponent a 4/4 in that case isn’t especially good most of the time either.
Charge Through image 1.0 In your typical format, this wouldn’t be close to a 0.0. It replaces itself, but the effect it has can be useless or close to it a huge chunk of the time. After all, you need blocks to go a certain way, and you need creatures of a certain size for Trample to even matter. However, in a format with lots of spells payoffs -- including in Green --, I think this will make the cut sometimes.
Pack 3 Pick 10: Adventurous Impulse
Adventurous Impulse image 2.5 This is a fine card for Green decks. Its nice that if you’re flooding it can help you get out, and if you’re desperate for a mana drop it can help you there too. It is also a cheap spell which is always upside in this set.
Symmetry Sage image 2.5 So the idea here is that you can make this into a one mana 2/2 flyer if you have enough instants and sorceries lying around. For the most part, giving others of your creatures base power 2 probably won’t be an upgrade, or if it is one, it will be a very small one, and that certainly hurts this card’s case a little bit. I like that this can rumble in the air when you use spells and all that, but I’m not overly impressed here.
Enthusiastic Study image 2.5 This is great in aggro decks, as it often helps you hit for a ton of trample damage – even saving your creature a decent chunk of the time – and ON TOP OF THAT, you get to learn, which Is just great.
Serpentine Curve image 2.5 In many Blue decks in this format, this tends to make pretty efficient creatures, and is worth playing.
Unwilling Ingredient image 2.5 This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Spined Karok image 1.5 This has alright defensive stats for the cost. You’ll play it sometimes if that’s what you need. But mostly you hope you won’t need it.
Pack 3 Pick 11: Oggyar Battle-Seer
Infuriate image 2.0 This is a pretty nice trick, and a cheap card in a set with lots of spell triggers. It is probably the best Red trick in this format – but it is still a trick.
Academic Dispute image 3.0 This is another Learn card that is way better than it looks. You can often use this to help you take down a creature – either because you force an opposing creature to block, or you give one of your creatures Reach and it can suddenly take down an opposing flyer. That doesn’t always line up, but even when it doesn’t, this basically replaces itself thanks to Learn.
Blood Age General image 2.5 This is a Bear with some nice upside for the RW deck, which will have plenty of Spirits.
Tome Shredder image 3.0 This guy can get pretty big on his diet of instants and sorceries, and he’ll work especially well in RW, because that deck can load the graveyard reasonably well, and it also likes it when cards leave the graveyard in any way, and Tome Shredder will do that for you.
Oggyar Battle-Seer image 2.0 This has mediocre stats, even with Haste, and while tapping to Scry is good, I don’t think it does enough to overcome this card’s inefficiency. You won’t always play this.
Pack 3 Pick 12: Make Your Mark
Ageless Guardian image 1.5 This has reasonable defensive stats and it is a Spirit, and RW has some tribal synergy for that. You’ll play it in a deck that wants that sometimes, but I imagine you’ll cut it pretty often.
Teach by Example image 1.5 I know this format is all about spells and stuff, but I have a hard time thinking a card like this will be worthwhile very often. You have to have it line up the right way for it to do something. And sure, using it on a draw spell or something will feel pretty sweet, as will copying some of the huge wacky spells in UR, but it still seems like the set up is too much. This kind of spell isn’t good in most Limited formats, and I don’ think it will be here either.
Thrilling Discovery image 1.5 I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
Make Your Mark image 2.5 So, the boost here isn’t going to always allow your creature to outright win combat, but that’s okay, because if your creature doesn’t win combat, you still get something back – a 3/2 Spirit. Obviously, this will feel best when you use it to help you kill a creature in combat, AND get the spirit, but even just getting the Spirit isn’t too bad.
Pack 3 Pick 13: Infuse with Vitality
Snakeskin Veil image 2.5 This is a good combat trick that gives your creature a permanent boost, while also being useful against removal.
Reckless Amplimancer image 2.5 So, this is a bear with some nice late game upside, especially for decks that are either capable of producing a lot of mana or capable of putting +1/+1 counters on stuff. Or even better, both! UG is the Green color pair that will be the rampeist, and I really think it is going to want some late game manasinks, and this definitely delivers. Now, it isn’t especially efficient to pump this thing, but it is something to do with your mana. And, obviously, +1/+1 counters make it more efficient too. This is just going to be a solid two drop for pretty much all Green decks.
Infuse with Vitality image 2.5 This is a nice trick, one that virtually guarantees your creature will both kill whatever it is in combat with AND survive. Well, technically your creature can still die of course, but it will come back right away so, yeah. Incidental life gain tacked on to help out BG with its life gain synergies works for me! Now, as good of a trick as this is, it is still a trick, and still highly situational and risky and all of that.
Pack 3 Pick 14: Witherbloom Apprentice
Witherbloom Apprentice image 3.5 A two mana 2/2 that drains the opponent every time you play or copy an instant or sorcery is a solid deal, especially because BG can take advantage of the life gain.
Defend the Campus image 2.0 I see this as two separate cards in many formats, and both of them are often cards you cut, just because they are a little too narrow. HOWEVER, by putting both of these effects on a single card, you end up with a better card. The effects are still narrow of course, but between the two effects one of them is going to be useful pretty often. This might all sounds like I think this is incredible -- but I just get excited about modal cards. It is a solid card that will actually make the cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
Pack 3 Pick 15: Dragon's Approach
Dragon's Approach image 0.0 This is a neat design, but not really one that will work out in Limited. Even if you get like, six of these in your draft, the chances you have the necessary ones in your graveyard at some point aren’t great -- and that’s without even mentioning that you ALSO need a dragon for that effect do anything. Basically, this is just a Lava Axe-type effect, and those normally don’t play great in Limited, since they cost you a card and don’t affect the board.
Draft Pick Overview