Average Picked At: 1.00 Total Times Picked: 1 Average Last Seen At: 1.00 Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 5.0 Pro Comment: Well, this is a bomb. You can really tell because when you chop up the card, it is still really good. Take away any of the three abilities it has, and it would still be incredibly good! But it has all of them -- including a highly efficient evasive body, an effect that punishes opponents if they kill it, and the last ability which really pushes it into insane territory, which lets you turn every creature you play into a removal or burn spell. I like that even if they kill it before you get to untap and go crazy, they are at least taking 3 damage, too.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 7.00 Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This gives you some nice card selection and in a spell deck can often actually represent a pretty real threat, too. It is a little bit awkward alongside the UR signpost, which returns instants or sorceries to your hand, which is a bit of a nonbo alongside the Augur, but I still like it.
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.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 9.00 Total Times Seen 3
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 2.00 Total Times Seen 5
Pro Rating: 1.0 // 3.0 Pro Comment: So, let’s look at this on the French Vanilla test first -- how good is a one mana 1/1 with Vigilance and Lifelink in a set that has a reasonable number of +1/+1 counters? It is probably kind of ok, something that will make the cut about half the time. But, if your deck is SUPER good at gaining life, this becomes a very real threat, since churning out 4/4 angels is no joke. Even if you can only get a single Angel out of this, you’re more than getting your mana’s worth -- but gaining 7 in a single turn, even in a format with a lifegain archetype -- is going to be a challenge. You have to really get there on life gain for that to ever happen, and I don’ think you should count on it. Now, if you are in a BW deck that can gain some life, even if 7 seems far-fetched, it is probably worth running this guy, just because you might pull it off a couple of times. But I think that, even in a life gain deck that really gets there, it will be kind of hard to achieve.
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: This is a two-mana 2/2 with all kinds of upside. Sure, it needs graveyards to feed on, so it won’t always be able to get big in the early game, but graveyards will end up with cards in them one way or another, and the Ooze’s ability to grow larger, disrupt graveyard strategies, and even gain you life is very powerful. It results in a 2-drop that is not only relevant all game long, but is the best creature on the board all game long in many cases.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 9.80 Total Times Seen 8
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Pack Leader is a really good lord, and is good even on its own. It is a two mana 2/2 that can’t be killed by combat damage when it is attacking, which means that it gives you an attacker every turn that is virtually free -- and your opponent has to respect the fact you might have tricks or other nonsense, so on many board states, they will just have to let it through. Then, you throw in the pump to all Dogs, not to mention the fact that it makes all of them have that damage prevention ability, and you have an impressive little guy right here.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 12.00 Total Times Seen 4
Pro Rating: 1.5 // 3.0 Pro Comment: This weird card is mostly here as another way to help the BW deck gain 3 or more life in a turn, thus triggering all the payoffs.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 2.00 Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: So, this is the signpost uncommon for GW, which is all about +1/+1 counters! This will make all of those cards better. It doesn’t hurt that it can gain you a little life when it dies too, and if you have been putting the counters on it, there’s a good chance it will be a substantial amount of life.
Pro Rating: 5.0 Pro Comment: He costs a lot of mana, but if you play him, you’re going to win in almost every situation, and that’s not something you can say about most cards. It will be virtually impossible for your opponent to not get their board wiped by his -X, and then you can just tick him until he wins the game. The mana cost is a big hurdle, but it is one worth jumping over.
Average Picked At: 7.00 Total Times Picked: 1 Average Last Seen At: 10.00 Total Times Seen 5
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: A two mana ½ with Prowess isn’t the most amazing -- we have seen a few different two mana 1/3s with Prowess in the past -- but the damage trigger here letting you loot is pretty nice. That said, a ½ can’t really threaten a whole lot of creatures as an attacker, even with Prowess, and the elder will rapidly become irrelevant on many board states, because it just isn’t big enough. It is pretty nice on turn two, but after that it isn’t all that impressive.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 9.50 Total Times Seen 10
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: This card seems like it would be solid, but it just isn’t. It has mediocre stats that make it a liability as a blocker in many situations, and even as an unblockable attacker it doesn’t really feel that great.
Average Picked At: 2.67 Total Times Picked: 3 Average Last Seen At: 2.13 Total Times Seen 9
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This does an efficient job of killing small creatures at Instant speed, and that makes it premium removal.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 5.00 Total Times Seen 2
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This kind of card is usually not ultra impressive in Limited. It is hard to find situations where this really works -- you need it to impact your opponent’s side of the board more or it just isn’t worth it. And while the loyalty counters thing is a nice additional option, it won’t come up much in Limited.
Average Picked At: 1.00 Total Times Picked: 4 Average Last Seen At: 1.00 Total Times Seen 4
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: However you end up using this, you’re going to be getting a pretty good deal. Scrying a few times and gaining 4 isn’t too bad, and neither is drawing some cards and then gaining 4. It can be a little slow at times, but the life you get back from it helps offset that, at least a little bit. This really has a measurable impact on the game in terms of card advantage and card quality.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 1.00 Total Times Seen 1
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: 3-mana to do 5 at Instant speed is quite good, and certainly premium removal. That is not hard to trade up with, and it can really manufacture some blowouts thanks to it being an Instant. The “turn off indestructible” part of the card usually won’t make a huge difference, but it will matter sometimes.
Average Picked At: 6.50 Total Times Picked: 2 Average Last Seen At: 10.50 Total Times Seen 8
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.
Average Picked At: 5.00 Total Times Picked: 2 Average Last Seen At: 8.50 Total Times Seen 7
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: These are reasonable stats for an evasive creature. Giving something else Flying is a very real ETB trigger, and one that will frequently make attacks happen that just couldn’t before. I think you always run your first copy of this.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 9.00 Total Times Seen 6
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: I’m not usually a fan of Auras that don’t give you some sort of value to off-set their risks -- namely, the risk of getting 2-for-1’d. An Aura has to either give a pretty significant bonus, or off-set that risk with some additional value, to overcome being a card I won’t play. Rousing Read does enough for me to want to play it. It nets you a card when it comes down -- even giving you some card selection, and the bonus it gives is no joke either. +1/+1 and flying is the type of bonus that can dramatically alter a board state. Now, you do still need to be weary of casting this when your opponent has mana up and cards available, because if they kill the target you still get 2-for-1’d, but as long as you’re careful, you’re usually going to be okay with this. It will be particularly nasty on the Megalodon! I’m giving this a C+ -- I think Blue decks will play the first copy of this every time.
Average Picked At: 15.00 Total Times Picked: 0 Average Last Seen At: 10.00 Total Times Seen 10
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: Well, those are some impressive stats on a one mana creature – we’ve never seen a one mana 1/3 with no downsides at all. That said, while he might do well on the vanilla test, he still isn’t all that impressive in Limited. He is quickly outclassed without some help, and you’ll only play him if you really need a one drop for a super aggro deck.