Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: This is a way above-rate creature that gives you food with upside every time one of your opponents creatures gets killed by it – and they are going to get killed, because Shelob has death touch and is absolutely massive. If you have other Spiders around things get sillier, but even on its own Shelob is a massive problem that your opponent has to deal with immediately

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is a fairly powerful sacrifice effect. Normally we just get “draw a card” on this type of thing and that ends up being fine, so also getting a Food out of it is some serious business. Gaining life on top of drawing a card can be a powerful way to pull ahead in a game. This has sort of decent stats too, and a useful creature type, and there’s plenty of good sacrifice fodder around

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: Getting tempted by the Ring repeatedly is going to generate some nice value, and this gives you the ability to also draw some extra cards in addition to upgrading a creature. Keep in mind you can keep choosing different ring-bearers if you want to, and the effects from “Tempted by the Ring” will be transferred, and when you have this around you’re going to want to switch to draw an extra card. This has the potential to generate some very real value, but it also doesn’t do a whole lot the turn it comes down, and if you can’t keep a creature around it is going to feel pretty bad

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: A 5-mana 5/4 Haste is decent, so the fact this can spit out a 1/1 a decent chunk of the time is pretty nice. Since Eomer himself has 5 power, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll be making that first token the turn you play him, which is great.

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: So, the Horse effect is some hilarious flavor, but this is mostly just a two mana 2/1 that makes a treasure when it gets blocked. That’s a fairly mediocre two-drop, but not a disaster either.

Pro Rating: 0.5
Pro Comment: There’s some graveyard stuff going on in this format, but not really enough for this to be main deck material. Sure, it replaces itself in a worst case, but that’s not really enough

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: Decreasing the Balrog’s cost is possible, but it isn’t that easy to pull off without spending mana to do it, so the discount isn’t as appealing as it looks at first. Still, a 7-mana 7/5 with Haste that is hard to block and destroys something when it dies is a pretty darn good card. Hard for you not to get a 2-for-1 out of it, and it can do a ton of damage in a hurry

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is kind of an interesting take on Think Twice and similar cards. Drawing a card for two mana isn’t really worth it, but if you have a few cards with Scry in your deck, this suddenly turns into an impressive 2-for-1 that you only spend two mana on. Scry is definitely available in the set too, and it seems very doable to make this work in most Blue decks.

Pro Rating: 0.0 // 4.0
Pro Comment: This seems like it takes a little bit too much work to work consistently in Limited. A 5-mana 9/9 that spits out 1/1s is great and all, but it enters tapped and heavily stunned, and if you don’t have several ways to draw cards on your opponents turn, you’re not going to be getting those 1/1s real often either. If you can get the 1/1s things look way better, because then you start adding to the board and making it tough for your opponent to attack, because if you can block with those 1/1s your opponent is going to deal with an untapped Watcher that will start stunning their stuff. I guess this probably needs a build around grade, because even your typical Blue deck probably isn’t going to have enough ways to draw cards on your opponents turn to make this worth it – in which case it is simply unplayable. If you can find enough ways to draw cards on your opponent’s turn though, especially repeatable ways, the Watcher will turn into a nightmare for your opponent

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: Meriadoc itself is a Halfling so at worst it is a two mana 2/2 that makes a food when it attacks, and that’s a solid card to have around. It gets even better when you’ve got more Halflings and food payoffs, and neither of those seems like a big stretch for Green

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: Obviously, this doesn’t work super well against Armies, since they will have counters to remove that allows this to untap, and there are other +1/+1 counters in the set too. However, I do think this will effectively lock down most creatures in the set, and it isn’t like if they have +1/+1 counters this goes away entirely anyway, because they have to keep removing counters from it to untap it. Obviously you want to use it on things that don’t have those counters at all, I’m just saying that even in the worst case it can be a problem for your opponent. I think this actually gets pretty close to being premium removal because it is so cheap, but even ignoring the whole +1/+1 counter part of the card, this doesn’t ever fully deal with a creature.

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This is another nice removal spell for Black decks. This is Bone Splinters when that’s what you need, but having the option of paying 5 to kill something with it is nice, since it means in the later stages of the game you don’t need to give up a creature. Neither mode is super efficient of course – individually each of those cards is probably a 2.0 or a 2.5, but I think the modality – plus the presence of good sacrifice fodder makes it a 3.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: We’ve seen a lot of 4-mana 3/3s that give +1/+1 to your whole board in the past, and they are usually pretty medium. This doesn’t offer the toughness boost, but it does have the potential to offer multiple boosts if you have enough Humans in your deck, and it goes especially well with human creature tokens since those help you go wide and trigger this, sometimes more than once in a turn

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: It is a little sad it can’t buff itself, as that would have made it significantly better, but offering +1/+0 to something every turn does do enough to improve combat for you often enough for this to be fine

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: Tapping opposing creatures tends to be pretty good in aggro decks, but paying three for the effect is kind of rough. Giving up a Food is more appealing, but you’re still attacking with a 1/3, and there’s a pretty good chance that even when you tap down an opposing creature with this, your opponent can easily take it down in combat, especially after the early stages of the game.

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: Manalith doesn’t tend to be very good in Limited. Using up a card just for inefficient fixing and ramp can be rough, though adding “The Ring Tempts You” to the mix probably does enough for this to be fixing you turn to when you’re desperate

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: Playing this in your second main phase after something died in combat is going to feel pretty good, as at that point Denethor is a three mana 2/4 and a 1/1 token, which is an amazing rate! Plus, he can give up creatures to drain life, and you can do that once every turn without really giving anything up, because he can just sacrifice the token every time

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is a great payoff for Scrying, which is a big part of what Blue-Green is doing in the format. Getting to put a counter anywhere is powerful, and in the late game she can fuel herself. There will be times where Arwen is just a two mana 2/2 and you don’t find your Scry stuff, but one of the nice things about Scry is, if you find a little bit of it, you increase your chances of finding more, because…you know, you Scried

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: Obviously you’re going to be happiest with this in a Black-Red deck, but in that deck this seems like a pretty legit payoff. A three mana ¼ isn’t anything to write home about, but throwing a 2/1 Boulder at your opponent every time you attack with a Goblin or Orc is pretty sweet. It also works quite well alongside sacrifice outlets