Draft Trainer

Core Set 2021 Limited Quiz

Answered: 0/20
Accuracy: 0
Waker of Waves
Average Picked At: 5.80
Total Times Picked: 5
Average Last Seen At: 4.75
Total Times Seen 17
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This card is pretty awesome. When you play it as a creature it gives you a huge body that immediately impacts the board by lowering the power of your opponents’ creatures, and that already would probably be playable, but it really gets pushed over the edge by its pseudo-cycling effect. You can use it in the early game to help you hit a land drop or find something else you need, and this plan gets even more attractive in UB, where reanimator decks are quite powerful. This is the premiere non-rare creature you want in that deck, since it is great to reanimate and it comes with a way to put itself in the graveyard.
Return to Nature
Average Picked At: 9.30
Total Times Picked: 10
Average Last Seen At: 8.36
Total Times Seen 105
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This does enough different stuff that you can maindeck it without really being disappointed about it, but it is still generally better to bring in out of the sideboard.
Thieves' Guild Enforcer
Average Picked At: 15.00
Total Times Picked: 0
Average Last Seen At: 4.00
Total Times Seen 3
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This will have the stats boost and death touch some of the time, but don’t count on it being consistent, unless you’re in a mill deck, which is definitely a thing in this format, but not something that always works out.
Garruk's Harbinger
Average Picked At: 15.00
Total Times Picked: 0
Average Last Seen At: 2.50
Total Times Seen 2
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: A 3-mana 4/3 who can’t be targeted by Black stuff is a pretty solid card already, and the Herald has a hugely powerful combat damage trigger, which will generally be allowing you to draw an extra card every turn. Now, despite the efficiency, if you get this guy late he will often be unable to successfully attack and survive -- but if you can get him down early and even just in one hit, he will more than pull his weight.
Pursued Whale
Average Picked At: 7.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 3.33
Total Times Seen 3
Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: This is a nice efficient creature, but being a 7-mana 8/8 isn’t what makes this impressive. Giving your opponent that 1/1 token is pretty nice. It has a little bit of upside for your opponent -- after all, you are giving them an extra body -- but it also has the significant downside of making all of your opponent’s creatures attack, right into this 8/8 body and whatever else you have on the board. There will certainly be times where your opponent would have been attacking anyway, and that’s going to suck -- but a decent amount of the time, this will force them to attack before they want to, right into your board, at which point the game might pretty much be over. The Whale also is hard to kill with removal spells because of all the extra mana it asks for to target it -- adding 3 to the cost is no joke, and it means that even if things go badly and the Whale is killed right away, you aren’t taking a huge tempo hit, because it is likely your opponent is paying at least 5 mana to kill it, and usually more.
Indulging Patrician
Average Picked At: 11.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 4.71
Total Times Seen 22
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: So, a 3-mana ¼ with flying and lifelink is already a pretty nice card.+. It defends well and gains you life while it does, and it can also hit the opponent to create two point life swings, which isn’t insignificant. Then, you tack on a pretty powerful ability -- making your opponent lose 3 life any turn you gain 3 is great, and if you just manage to trigger that once, you’re going to be pretty happy -- if you do it more than that, well, your opponent’s probably dead or close to it. Keep in mind, by the way, that it causes loss of life -- this means you don’t also gain 3 life when your opponent loses the life, because it isn’t damage, so lifelink doesn’t matter there. How good the Patrician will be will really depend on how easy it is to gain 3 life on a given turn. Because the Patrician gains 1 on its own, you only need to gain 2 more life the rest of a turn -- this means that combining the Patrician with combat tricks might be especially devastating by the way.
Alchemist's Gift
Average Picked At: 8.67
Total Times Picked: 3
Average Last Seen At: 7.57
Total Times Seen 90
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This is a decent trick, if you choose the deathtouch option you will be virtually guaranteeing that you kill the other creature, and that can be particularly spicy against a double block. You’ll choose the lifelink option if you just need the stats boost to win combat.
Havoc Jester
Average Picked At: 8.63
Total Times Picked: 8
Average Last Seen At: 6.96
Total Times Seen 43
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: So, a 5-mana 5/5 is usually pretty solid in Limited, and this comes with some powerful upside -- letting you ping something every time you sacrifice a permanent. It does this without asking for an additional mana investment of any kind -- so, as we saw with Mayhem Devil in the past -- that is a very powerful ability. You have to end up with some sacrifice action going on, but if you’re in Black-Red especially that won’t be all that hard. On top of that, the floor here is just very reasonable, as it is an efficient creature.
Forest
Average Picked At: 14.33
Total Times Picked: 3
Average Last Seen At: 10.92
Total Times Seen 44
Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
Average Picked At: 4.50
Total Times Picked: 2
Average Last Seen At: 3.25
Total Times Seen 4
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is Man – O’-War with a bunch of upside, and I’m all about that. Bouncing an opposing permanent is typically what you’ll do, and that will feel really good, since you’re adding to your board and subtracting from your opponent. But what really feels great is to bounce one of your own creatures that has an ETB ability, or that is shut down by an Aura, because you not only get to take advantage of THAT, you also get to net an additional card.
Celestial Enforcer
Average Picked At: 7.43
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 7.02
Total Times Seen 76
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: If you don’t have fliers, you probably hope you don’t play this, but as long as you have 4 or 5 Flyers, this probably gets into the playable range, and that isn’t a crazy thing to achieve. Tap down effects are always nice in Limited, and even a situational one like this is well worth playing.
Sure Strike
Average Picked At: 7.13
Total Times Picked: 8
Average Last Seen At: 7.35
Total Times Seen 76
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This trick virtually always allows your creature to win combat, and that’s the kind of trick that aggressive decks are after.
Tolarian Kraken
Average Picked At: 5.17
Total Times Picked: 6
Average Last Seen At: 5.81
Total Times Seen 35
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This guy is a bit clunky but his ability is an alright thing to have around. At worse, you can do it once on your turn to get a blocker out of the way and enable some nice attacks. If you have some ways to draw cards at Instant speed -- and you probably will in Blue -- that will be even better, because it will let you tap down things on your opponent’s turn which will also prevent a creature from attacking. The 1 generic mana is a very reasonable cost for this nice effect. All that said, the mediocre stats do definitely hold this card back.
Temple of Triumph
Average Picked At: 6.00
Total Times Picked: 1
Average Last Seen At: 2.67
Total Times Seen 3
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This fix for you and help you smooth out your draws, so they can really play a key role in helping smooth out the beginning of your game. If they are in both your colors you should value them over most medium cards, and if you’re interested in splashing you should value them even more.
Basri's Lieutenant
Average Picked At: 4.00
Total Times Picked: 3
Average Last Seen At: 4.00
Total Times Seen 3
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This gives you a lot for the investment. A 4-mana ¾ with Vigilance is usually a playable card, and you have a lot more going on here. You get to add a counter to a creature when he comes down -- which includes Basri. So at worst you’r elooking at a 4-mana ⅘ with Vigilance -- and it will be one that, when it dies, creates a 2/2 Knight with vigilance. Protection from multicolored isn’t a huge factor here, but it does matter a little bit.
Leafkin Avenger
Average Picked At: 5.14
Total Times Picked: 7
Average Last Seen At: 5.57
Total Times Seen 27
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: I always like cards that are reasonably efficient, and have abilities that can be useful all game long, and that’s what the Leafkin does. It is the signpost uncommon for the RG deck, which is all about high power -- and both of its abilities are all about that -- and, you know, obviously it has 4 power itself. You don’t always need extra mana in the later part of the game, but if you have some mana sinks and some six drops, it will be relevant a decent chunk of the time. Oh, and this guy has a built in mana sink too! It might be expensive, but in the late game it will be an ability that puts your opponent on a quick clock -- and it can tap for mana and use the ability all in the same turn, which makes it a little more plausible you’ll be able to use it.
Setessan Training
Average Picked At: 7.88
Total Times Picked: 8
Average Last Seen At: 5.64
Total Times Seen 79
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This gives a reasonable enough boost and replaces itself. It isn’t as good here as it was in Theros, where Enchantments came with a lot of upsides, but its still a fine card.
Traitorous Greed
Average Picked At: 5.40
Total Times Picked: 5
Average Last Seen At: 6.26
Total Times Seen 35
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: Threaten effects need a lot of work to be good in Limited, and I don’t see the necessary pieces here, even if this does make you treasure. You have to win the game when you cast them or they are virtually useless, and that’s just too narrow.
Animal Sanctuary
Average Picked At: 10.50
Total Times Picked: 2
Average Last Seen At: 7.00
Total Times Seen 9
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: As a colorless land, one does always have to consider the impact it will have on a mana base, and this will be hurting you in that department. However, the activated ability it has is legitimately powerful, and this format has enough creatures of those types -- especially cats and dogs -- that most decks will probably have something like 3-5 creatures that this can put counters on. And, if you get to that point, this is a land that is worth running despite the implications it has for your mana base. Having a regular old land in your deck turn into a source of serious value is a great feeling, and is sort of like getting card advantage out of it, since your opponent’s lands won’t be doing anything remotely like this.
Short Sword
Average Picked At: 7.40
Total Times Picked: 10
Average Last Seen At: 6.37
Total Times Seen 92
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This gives a reasonable boost for the cost, and in this format it really seems to overperform. It makes a lot of creatures get to 4 power for the RG deck for example.
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