Draft Trainer

The Brothers' War Retro Artifacts Limited Quiz

Answered: 0/20
Accuracy: 0
Bone Saw
Average Picked At: 12.57
Total Times Picked: 21
Average Last Seen At: 8.17
Total Times Seen 430
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: 0 mana artifacts are exciting for constructed, but they aren’t nearly as good in Limited because what you get is usually a card that isn’t worth an entire card – and that’s definitely what Bone Saw is. Especially in a set without any real equipment theme. Playing this will feel like you took a mulligan
Platinum Angel
Average Picked At: 1.00
Total Times Picked: 2
Average Last Seen At: 1.50
Total Times Seen 4
Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: Making it so you can’t lose and your opponent can’t win is pretty oppressive, and the Angel can even help you win the game with its 4/4 flying body. The downside of the card is always the massive mana investment coupled with the fact that it dies to a whole lot of stuff, and while the latter is still going to be true, the mana will be easier to come by in this format than normal. If she sticks around, your opponent just can’t win – obviously – and that’s enough for her to get into the lower bomb range. She doe still die to a lot, and gives you absolutely 0 value in situations where your opponent untaps and kills her, and that keeps her from being completely absurd. But she’s still great
Swiftfoot Boots
Average Picked At: 7.70
Total Times Picked: 46
Average Last Seen At: 5.64
Total Times Seen 312
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: The Boots are pretty nice on the right creature, though the downside they always have is that the creature you put it on already has to be pretty impressive, otherwise it makes very little difference! That said, once you have a creature worth protecting, the Boots are a nightmare for your opponent! It doesn’t hurt that they can also give haste, something that can really change your attacks.
Keening Stone
Average Picked At: 5.22
Total Times Picked: 9
Average Last Seen At: 4.33
Total Times Seen 59
Pro Rating: 0.5
Pro Comment: Mill strategies are often bad in Limited, but this is one that might have some uses in the format, especially if you’re playing against the Black/Green self-mill deck, which will rapidly load its graveyard, allowing you to mill them out with one or two uses of this thing. Still, it costs a ton of mana to play and a ton of mana to activate, and sometimes won’t do anything at all! It is probably just a sideboard card – and not even that good of one.
Chromatic Star
Average Picked At: 5.08
Total Times Picked: 39
Average Last Seen At: 3.97
Total Times Seen 195
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: Because this is a noncreature spell and an artifact that replaces itself, it is going to be very playable, as multiple decks in this format care about that stuff. It also fixes your mana of course, though it is a bit clunky if you’re just using it for those purposes
Thorn of Amethyst
Average Picked At: 9.78
Total Times Picked: 9
Average Last Seen At: 6.84
Total Times Seen 91
Pro Rating: 0.5
Pro Comment: If you are a super heavy creature deck, the tax this puts on your opponent can be interesting, but ending up in such a deck is tough in Limited – and this is still something that doesn’t add to the board in a meaningful way
Sigil of Valor
Average Picked At: 7.17
Total Times Picked: 36
Average Last Seen At: 5.53
Total Times Seen 313
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This seems like it will be kind of alright. It is definitely rough that sometimes it offers no bonus at all, but there are enough boards in the mid-to-late game where equipping this does some work,. Only attacking with one thing is definitely a big restriction, but this can also make just about any creature into a threat on a lot of board states. The set up and restriction are pretty real, though – and it definitely underperformed last time we saw it
Journeyer's Kite
Average Picked At: 8.29
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 4.94
Total Times Seen 76
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This does basically let you draw a card for three mana, even if that card is always a land. Still, that does give you card advantage and even thins out your deck and helps you fix your mana. Powerstones make it more likely you can use this too, but there will still be a whole lot of times where you just don’t have the time or mana to use it.
Foundry Inspector
Average Picked At: 4.20
Total Times Picked: 44
Average Last Seen At: 3.17
Total Times Seen 150
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This looks amazing in this format, because most decks are going to have 7+ artifacts, and some will have even more! This makes your artifacts easy to cast while adding a very real body to the board – that makes it a heck of a lot better than something like Cloud Key.
Elsewhere Flask
Average Picked At: 6.85
Total Times Picked: 48
Average Last Seen At: 5.00
Total Times Seen 287
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This replaces itself, and that is enough in this format for it to be decent enough, since the UR deck likes casting nocnreature spells and several decks like artifacts. It can also fix your mana a bit, but that’s a small part of what this card does.
Ashnod's Altar
Average Picked At: 7.00
Total Times Picked: 9
Average Last Seen At: 6.10
Total Times Seen 69
Pro Rating: 0.0 // 2.5
Pro Comment: This isn’t too bad as a sacrifice outlet, and there’s definitely a market for those in this format. It can also ramp you into some big scary things, though with all the powerstones I don’t really think you’re hurting for this. It is tempting to look at this and think of the crazy upside where you slam a huge creature by giving up a bunch of creatures, but you’re playing with fire if you do that in Limited, since removal just completely wrecks you. You will sometimes have expendable creature to sacrifice which makes it better of course, but it will be hard to make this work consistently
Inspiring Statuary
Average Picked At: 9.50
Total Times Picked: 6
Average Last Seen At: 5.45
Total Times Seen 74
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This is kind of cool, as it sort of makes it so your powerstones can tap to cast nonartifact spells. However, this is another instance where you use up a card for a mana discount, and cards are a massively important resource in Limited – using one just to help you cast spells is suboptimal, and this is a little too particular for me to like it very much
Unwinding Clock
Average Picked At: 6.29
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 4.70
Total Times Seen 66
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This has some potential applications in this format. With powerstones and a plethora of mana sink activated abilities, you may actually be able to generate some value with this. It also gives your artifact creatures pseudo-vigilance. But, those are sort of the ideal situations for the card, and there will be plenty of times where it is meaningless.
Key to the City
Average Picked At: 3.53
Total Times Picked: 15
Average Last Seen At: 3.32
Total Times Seen 38
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is a pretty nice card. Unblockability is the kind of thing that allows you to close out a game – or just allows you to pressure your opponent no matter what they are doing – and while you have to discard a card for the effect, you are ultimately just rummaging, since you can pay mana to draw a card when it untaps. Powerstones can pay for that ability too! This was nice last time we saw it, and I think it is pretty good here too.
Millstone
Average Picked At: 12.40
Total Times Picked: 30
Average Last Seen At: 8.29
Total Times Seen 500
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: Now we’ve got the original mill card, which is where the mechanic gets its name! And…it also isn’t great in Limited, though the fact that you actually can control who this hurts more makes it better than something like the Orb. This can actually win you some games if you’re a control deck, but most of the time you’d rather just have something that actually adds to the board.
Quicksilver Amulet
Average Picked At: 7.71
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 4.65
Total Times Seen 48
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: Yeah, no. This kind of effect is easy to overrate because you think of the ideal situation of slamming some monster into play, but that’s hard to consistently line up in Limited, and this asks for so much mana to do its job that it almost isn’t worth it anyway. This kind of thing also never gives you an actual card of value, because it basically just gives you a discount. It does let you play a creature at instant speed, which is something – but we’ve seen this card and cards like it before, and they’re always awful in Limited.
Liquimetal Coating
Average Picked At: 13.26
Total Times Picked: 38
Average Last Seen At: 9.60
Total Times Seen 547
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: You don’t want to be doing this. For the most part, this effect is meaningless! There are of course some cornercases – like if you have a card that destroys artifacts you can make it destroy any permanent – or if you need another artifact in play for some effect it can do that, but there’s a reason I said “corner cases.” This just doesn’t do enough.
Ornithopter
Average Picked At: 12.48
Total Times Picked: 29
Average Last Seen At: 7.71
Total Times Seen 469
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This is another 0 mana artifact that doesn’t really give you a full card of value. You just don’t get enough out of playing a 0/2 Flyer to make it worth the card, and that matters a ton in Limited. This can basically come down and chump block something – and sometimes you can equip it or give it some counters, which makes things more interesting – but that’s a lot of work to make a terrible card passable
Mesmeric Orb
Average Picked At: 4.80
Total Times Picked: 5
Average Last Seen At: 4.24
Total Times Seen 36
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: This is a symmetrical mill card, and not really something you should be playing. It is hard to have much control over who has more permanents to untap, and you never know if this will hurt you more than your opponent. It is true that it will hurt your opponent first since they will untap first, but that still isn’t enough for me to ever play this thing.
Runechanter's Pike
Average Picked At: 4.29
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 3.45
Total Times Seen 38
Pro Rating: 1.0 // 3.0
Pro Comment: In the right deck, this makes any creature into a threat that just can’t be blocked effectively, and luckily this format does have a deck interested in instants and sorceries – and there is also a pretty hefty self-mill theme. It is definitely a build around, because this is bad if you aren’t granting a significant power boost to go with the first strike.
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