Average Picked At: 11.00 Total Times Picked: 9 Average Last Seen At: 8.27 Total Times Seen 92
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: This was not good in Forgotten Realms. Sure, it has a bunch of modes, but the only one that tends to matter is the Hexproof one, and that effect is pretty darn narrow. It feels good when you blank removal with it of course, but there are lots of situations where there is just no real way to use this card effectively.
Average Picked At: 8.19 Total Times Picked: 37 Average Last Seen At: 7.94 Total Times Seen 276
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a reprint, and last time we saw it was a pretty good removal spell. In a format with lots of blink effects and some sacrifice stuff this probably gets a little worse, but it still costs three mana to deal with pretty much any threat. Not turning off all its activated or static abilities can be a bummer, but this still looks pretty good for a Blue deck.
Average Picked At: 5.50 Total Times Picked: 4 Average Last Seen At: 4.95 Total Times Seen 58
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: Like Kalain, Krydle was a signpost Uncommon in Forgotten Realms, and he’s a signpost Uncommon here too. He offers a ton of value for a two drop, since he lets you get through your opponents defenses, and if it is Krydle getting through, you get to drain a life and Scry 1 every time, which is a pretty big deal. In the late game, he can send in much larger creatures to be unblockable. He’s basically a great early-game threat that also works as a late-game win condition.
Average Picked At: 1.00 Total Times Picked: 1 Average Last Seen At: 1.00 Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: Well, this has a fitting name, because its attack/death trigger is pretty chaotic! All of the abilities give you something that can be bad and something that can be good. Because you have control over the ability, you’re going to be able to choose what is the best for you and the worst for your opponent. If you really need mana, you’ll be happy to do 2 to yourself to get it. If your opponent has a bunch of X/2s you can kill, you’ll be happy to give those creatures +2/+0 in exchange for killing several of them. Similarly, if using the ability on your own stuff gives you lethal – you probably do that. I think the most common outcome with the card will be to use it to throw away a land or two to seek one or two nonland cards while doing one of the other effects on your opponent. Giving them treasure has a tendency to not really matter late, and because you have a ⅘ Flyer you’re going to be hitting them pretty hard. Now, no doubt about it, this card is going to be a bit awkward sometimes, but overall I think you get a reasonably efficient flyer that will do more good than bad for you.
Average Picked At: 2.50 Total Times Picked: 8 Average Last Seen At: 2.83 Total Times Seen 13
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: The freeze down effect from the Adventure is often going to really enable a good attack for you – and it can also buy you the time to get to the next turn so you can cast the Harvester itself. The enter the battle field ability can most obviously be used to downgrade opposing creatures, but you can also use it on your own stuff if that’s advantageous. But yeah, casting the Adventure one turn and the Harvester the next turn is going to feel powerful. Now, a 2/2 isn’t nothing, so it isn’t quite getting rid of cards entirely, but the fact you add that 4/4 board to the body, and the same card gave you very real value on the previous turn makes it hard not to see this as an excellent card.
Average Picked At: 1.00 Total Times Picked: 1 Average Last Seen At: 2.67 Total Times Seen 9
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: A two mana 2/1 that is unblockable when it attacks alone is something you’d pretty much always play. So, the fact that this has Specialize is pretty amazing. Once it specializes, it becomes completely unblockable, and then it gives you some pretty powerful effects when you hit your opponent. Now, she does need some spells in the graveyard to fuel her abilities, so you’re obviously going to want to run a bunch of spells alongside Imoen to get the full value out of her. I think this looks like another bomb with Specialize. It starts out as a good card, and then becomes a great one.
Average Picked At: 8.69 Total Times Picked: 26 Average Last Seen At: 6.89 Total Times Seen 212
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This was solid in Forgotten Realms. It gets extra good alongside effects that let it damage things – like Band Together – because the Death touch allows it to take down anything. Outside of that, it does a decent job of deterring attacks early, since it can trade for any of your opponents attacks. It also stays relevant all game long.
Average Picked At: 2.00 Total Times Picked: 3 Average Last Seen At: 2.00 Total Times Seen 5
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: You would always play a 4-mana ⅔ that returns an instant or sorcery from your graveyard to your hand when it enters the battlefield, at least, assuming you have 5 or more cards it can get back. And then, once this specializes, it becomes a really good payoff for casting spells. I think the Blue/White one seems the most powerful, since it adds new bodies to the board, but every single specialized version of this card is very powerful. I think this is a bomb.
Average Picked At: 6.60 Total Times Picked: 5 Average Last Seen At: 4.85 Total Times Seen 71
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: So, these five gates don’t fix mana for you at all, and coming into play tapped can be a liability, but they mostly make up for that by being capable of drawing you a card in the late game – and the card you draw is always a nonland, and that’s a big deal. There is only one Gate payoff in the set, and it isn’t good.
Average Picked At: 11.42 Total Times Picked: 12 Average Last Seen At: 7.85 Total Times Seen 118
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This was way too clunky in Forgotten Realms, but I imagine it will be a little better here. Each of the modes is definitely appealing, since the first option will regularly draw you 2+ cards, and if you already have a developed board, the +2/+2 can do some serious work.
Average Picked At: 1.92 Total Times Picked: 12 Average Last Seen At: 1.68 Total Times Seen 29
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: So, this is a Banisher Priest-type creature, and that’s always a great card in Limited! The downside is of course that your opponent can find removal and get their thing back, but you usually still took their creature for a few turns. The good news too, is that Rasaad can Specialize into a larger creature – making it harder to kill, and all of them also give you an effect that helps soften the blow if your opponent does get rid of him. The White one makes it a vanilla 1/1, and the others all give you a death trigger that gives you some value on the board. Specialize 5 is pretty darn high, but the front of the card alone is probably a 3.5, so this looks great.
Average Picked At: 2.17 Total Times Picked: 6 Average Last Seen At: 2.44 Total Times Seen 21
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This was nice in Forgotten Realms, and it will be here too. It has nice defensive stats, and it does the kinds of things you want to be doing when you’re a defensive situation – since it can draw you cards. It of course also lets you fix your mana.
Average Picked At: 9.45 Total Times Picked: 31 Average Last Seen At: 8.01 Total Times Seen 274
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is another pretty nice source of fixing. A three mana mana rock can definitely be clunky, but this turns into a pretty nice mana sink in the later game, since it can effectively draw you lands and put them into play, or at least let you Scry 1. It will certainly improve your draws in the late game, while helping you fix and ramp early.
Average Picked At: 4.00 Total Times Picked: 3 Average Last Seen At: 3.85 Total Times Seen 15
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: A two mana 2/2 with First Strike and Reach is already a B-, so the Equipment and +1/+1 counter upside is really nice to add to the card. It is already a great place to put Equipment and counters because of those keywords, so the fact it can get more out of Equipments than most creatures and she can use up +1/+1 counters to kill attacking or blocking creatures is just amazing. If you’re in Green/White, I don’t envision it being that hard to get this to get the upside going on this thing.
Average Picked At: 2.00 Total Times Picked: 7 Average Last Seen At: 1.93 Total Times Seen 14
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: It is 3 to play and 3 to equip, which is significant, but the creature you put this on basically HAS to be blocked, and because this gives your creature death touch when it attacks, your opponent won’t be able to block it super effectively very often – their creature will die, no matter how large it is. It is nice that it gives deathtouch to all of your Zombies too, which includes the tokens as well as other random Zombies in the set. Basically, this will put your opponent in “Pick your poison” mode. They have to have a body to stop whatever you equip this too, or you’re going to generate so many Zombie tokens that they can’t do anything about it.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 4.20 Total Times Seen 13
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: One thing to note about this card is that the spell you put on the bottom of your library is removed from the stack and never resolves. I misinterpreted this card in my YouTube set review because I didn’t realize that! So, basically, if you cast something really cheap in the late game, it might be worth it to spin the wheel with Neera and see what happens, but the effect is so random that it just isn’t worth doing with just any old spell. So, basically, it can potentially upgrade spells, but it doesn’t really give you any card advantage, and a lot of the time you’ll just choose not to use its effect. This isn’t very good.
Average Picked At: 11.81 Total Times Picked: 37 Average Last Seen At: 9.59 Total Times Seen 358
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This doesn’t seem that good to me. Sure, it can chump block or trade and make a creature worse, but chumping is not something you want to be doing a whole lot. And yeah, the -2/-0 sticks around no matter what happens to the creature, but I still feel like this is a two drop you will cut pretty often.
Average Picked At: 7.37 Total Times Picked: 19 Average Last Seen At: 5.98 Total Times Seen 77
Pro Rating: 2.5 // 3.5 Pro Comment: This Specialize creature seems a little more build-aroundy than most of them do. On its own, it can make itself unblockable and hit for three, but then it has to return to your hand, and that’s not…amazing. Obviously, making something else unblockable that has an ETB ability or something is super good, but you won’t always pull that off. Then, once Alora specializes, she adds an extra bonus to the creature returning to your hand, but you still really need to be returning something that gives you value already – either by hitting your opponent hard or retriggering ETB – because the bonuses don’t seem that great for the most part. Basically, if your deck doesn’t have much in the way of ETBs to rebuy, this doesn’t seem especially good, and if you do – she’ll be quite good.
Average Picked At: 8.64 Total Times Picked: 22 Average Last Seen At: 6.60 Total Times Seen 211
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: Mana filters don’t tend to be great in Limited, but adding a cantrip to a card like this definitely makes me interested. We’ve seen this card in some really artifact-centric sets actually be quite good, but this format doesn’t have any big Artifact theme, so it doesn’t have that benefit here. It is probably mostly just solid.
Average Picked At: 4.00 Total Times Picked: 3 Average Last Seen At: 4.44 Total Times Seen 53
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: These sorts of tribal payoff board sweepers always disappoint in Limited, and that’s because there are too many situations where they don’t do enough. Sure, you can have a super Dragon-centric deck, but there are enough Dragons that most opponents will have them too. So, the number of dragons and creatures with 3 or more toughness your opponent has just really isn’t something you can control, and generally speaking they will have a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t die to this. This is mostly a sideboard card, I think. If you go up against someone who is really aggressive and has lots of creatures that this dies to, you definitely want to bring it in.