Average Picked At: 8.65 Total Times Picked: 46 Average Last Seen At: 6.57 Total Times Seen 551
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: For a total investment of 5 mana, you get 6/2 worth of stats with a whole bunch of keyword abilities. Those creatures of course die at the end of your end step, but the life swing they will allow for will often make it a pretty reasonable deal. You also won’t always (or even usually) trade one of these vampires for a card, so in a way you’re sort of Lava Axing your opponent here, though obviously it is significantly better than that! There are some other useful synergies too -- the vampire creature type for one thing, and the fact that you can use the tokens for fodder in your second main phase. Still, even with all of that in mind, I don’t feel like this is a signpost Uncommon that really pulls you into its color pair. In fact, I don’t think it gets particularly close to getting there.
Average Picked At: 7.92 Total Times Picked: 243 Average Last Seen At: 7.60 Total Times Seen 1477
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: A two mana ½ who loots is fine, and this one can get bigger. I don’t think you’ll want to discard a spirit or a card with Disturb to it all that often, since the power of those cards is often in the fact that you get the two bodies, but you’ll discard those things sometimes and it’ll get bigger.
Average Picked At: 2.04 Total Times Picked: 23 Average Last Seen At: 2.06 Total Times Seen 52
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: So, you’re basically never going to Flash this back in Limited, but that’s okay because it is a really efficient removal spell that can also go for your opponents dome. It might be a Sorcery, but the flexibility makes it premium removal for sure.
Average Picked At: 2.27 Total Times Picked: 22 Average Last Seen At: 1.83 Total Times Seen 48
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: Basically, when your creatures attack, they get death touch. When they aren’t attacking, they have hexproof. That’s not exactly how this works, but it is how it will play out most of the time, and having those two things be true is great! Of course, Saryth doesn’t count itself, so it can still die to removal, but that’s okay. It will come down and impact the board immediately on most board states. Its nice it comes with the ability to untap a creature too, since it can give you hexproof at instant speed! It can also untap lands, but that won’t come up too much in Limited.
Average Picked At: 9.36 Total Times Picked: 169 Average Last Seen At: 8.05 Total Times Seen 1627
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: We have basically seen this card before -- Centaur Nurturer in War of the Spark, and it was pretty nice. It gives you fixing, and while it might not be the most imposing creature, the life it gains you can help you get to your next turn, where you can make use of that mana.
Average Picked At: 12.29 Total Times Picked: 130 Average Last Seen At: 9.92 Total Times Seen 1955
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: Its nice that this does three different things, making it a more reasonable main deck card, but I’m still pretty skeptical about main decking it on a regular basis. This format has artifacts and enchantments, but not a ton of them, and while exiling something from a graveyard is nice, yo’ure often only getting half a card of value when you do it, since your opponent already cast their spell with flashback or their creature with disturb. I think this should probably still start in your sideboard.
Average Picked At: 1.82 Total Times Picked: 11 Average Last Seen At: 1.76 Total Times Seen 17
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This whole adversary cycle is super good! A two mana 2/2 with Haste is already a solid playable, and in the later game if you pump mana into this you can end up copying some spells, and that’s going to feel pretty insane! You do need spells of the right cost, but most decks will have 1-2 spells that meet the requirement in the later game, and that’s plenty.
Average Picked At: 10.06 Total Times Picked: 160 Average Last Seen At: 8.90 Total Times Seen 1719
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: This doesn’t seem like a great trick to me. Only increasing power means there’s a good chance your creature will be dying, and while the life that you gain and the 1/1 flyer you get in exchange for that makes a difference, it will still usually feel like you’re getting 2-for-1’d when you use this.
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Three mana for a ½ that reduces the cost of instants and sorceries isn’t a terrible deal in a spell heavy deck, and this comes with all sorts of upside. If you play it on turn three, it often won’t be day or night yet, so when you play it in that situation it will be a ⅔ that reduces the cost of spells by TWO, which is pretty silly for the early game. And, the longer the game goes, the more Vadrik will reduce the cost of spells, and the larger he’ll get, and that’s pretty awesome. He does start out kind of fragile, and needs a decent spell deck to really thrive, but that last part isn’t a huge challenge with spells as the UR archetype. This will definitely sometimes feel like its a bomb, like when you play it on turn three and it sticks around, but getting it later in the game isn’t ultra impressive.
Average Picked At: 9.66 Total Times Picked: 188 Average Last Seen At: 8.30 Total Times Seen 1616
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This seems like a decent trick if you’re a White aggro deck with lots of Humans in it. It gives a decent stats boost that will often allow your creature to win combat. Two mana for just +2/+2 is pretty mediocre for a trick, but the Human upside will make it worth running often enough
Average Picked At: 6.69 Total Times Picked: 51 Average Last Seen At: 5.36 Total Times Seen 380
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: If it is day time, you get a pretty decent two drop that might be able to trade for something and ramp your mana a bit -- or even better, just ramp you mana without dying! If its night, you get a really nice Werewolf/Wolf lord that will be pumping a good chunk of your deck in RG. And, of course, like with all of these, it can go back and forth between the two modes. Additionally, setting thing up on turn two to start keeping track of day and night might be a big deal, too. Overall, I think this is a strong enough signpost Uncommon that it pulls you into its color pair, even very early on.
Average Picked At: 4.05 Total Times Picked: 78 Average Last Seen At: 3.63 Total Times Seen 258
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This starts by giving you a decent body that loads up your graveyard, and then in the later game it can give you another somewhat reasonable body that loads the graveyard more! Lots of decks in this format are interested in throwing stuff in the graveyard, including both UB and UW. This will be a nice inclusion in either of them.
Average Picked At: 1.77 Total Times Picked: 13 Average Last Seen At: 1.69 Total Times Seen 16
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: A two mana 3/1 with Lifelink is already solid, one that would make the cut in just any deck! It blocks and attacks reasaonably well, but this comes with all kinds of upside. It effectively has multi-kicker, and for every two additional mana you sink into it, the more it pumps your entire board! This means the power of this card scales massively as the game goes, and if you draw it in a stalled out game and have like 8 mana, or even 6, you probably won on the spot. Note, by the way, that it also counts itself, so it becomes less fragile the more mana you can pump into it. This is a rare thing to see -- but this is a two mana card that’s a bomb! Granted...when it feels like a bomb you probably aren’t only paying two mana, but still!
Average Picked At: 10.43 Total Times Picked: 167 Average Last Seen At: 8.74 Total Times Seen 1747
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This is a reprint from our last trip to Innistrad, where it was mediocre. You can flash it in to ambush block a small thing, and then it is a decent threat in the air, but it isn’t especially efficient.
Average Picked At: 4.01 Total Times Picked: 81 Average Last Seen At: 3.57 Total Times Seen 267
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Lately, we’ve seen a lot of Blue creatures with Flash that reduce the power of something when they come down. Some of them have been pretty good -- like Faerie Duelist. Others have been pretty mediocre, like Burrog Befuddler. I think this one ends up being pretty good though. A 3-mana 2/1 with Flash and Flying is already pretty playable, so adding an ability that, at the very least, makes you take less damage, isn’t too shabby. Especially because sometimes reducing a creature’s power will give you a whole card worth of value on its own! This is a very good Uncommon.
Average Picked At: 5.13 Total Times Picked: 47 Average Last Seen At: 4.74 Total Times Seen 333
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: If your deck has a decent number of non-token creatures and/or lots of way to take down opposing creatures, this looks pretty nice. And doing either of those things in Black doesn’t look crazy difficult! Sure, the tokens are temporary, but paying two mana for a token factory like this seems very nice, even if they are decaying.
Average Picked At: 8.52 Total Times Picked: 150 Average Last Seen At: 7.25 Total Times Seen 1415
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: A 3 mana ¼ with Reach makes the cut reasonably often in most Limited formats, and this will sometimes be a much larger creature. Seems like a solid Common to me! I’m giving it a 2.5.
Pro Rating: 5.0 Pro Comment: Like most planeswalkers, Wrenn and Seven is quite powerful. Typically, you’ll be playing it and using the -3 to get a 5/5 Treefolk that will continue to grow throughout the game, and that’s not a bad deal as fail case! If Wrenn is allowed to stick around, you can use the +1 to find more lands while also loading up your graveyard, and in this format loading up your graveyard will sometimes feel like drawing extra cards thanks to Flashback. The more lands you find, the bigger that token gets, and the more loyalty Wrenn and Seven gets, the more tokens it can make. Even if all you do is use the -3 to make a 5/5, then use the +1, and then use the -3 again to get another big Treefolk, you’re going to feel pretty good! Obviously, if you get to the ultimate, then you’re really in business, and all the stuff you threw in your graveyard just comes back! Because Wrenn can protect itself quite effectively and draw you cards and load up your graveyard in a format where that matters, I think it gets into the lower range of “bomb.”
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: Adding Ward “Discard a card” means that your opponent can’t really use removal on this without 2-for-1ing themselves, and that’s nice, especially because it has reasonable stats and a fairly useful ability that will trigger when it ETBs and when it attacks! Graveyards are going to be important resources for many decks in this format, so going after them is nice, especially because you can drain life in the process! And, of course, if it is night time, it becomes even stronger!
Average Picked At: 7.98 Total Times Picked: 63 Average Last Seen At: 5.69 Total Times Seen 422
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: So, you kind of need to be getting a 5/5 with this before you’ll feel like you’re getting there, and that’s asking kind of a lot. I suppose a 4/4 is passable, but yeah. The fact it has Flashback is certainly nice, but you still just need so many instants and sorceries in your graveyard to make it work, and even in the UR spell deck, I’m not very confident you’ll be able to do that consistently enough.