Average Picked At: 5.65 Total Times Picked: 389 Average Last Seen At: 5.50 Total Times Seen 1929
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: Another Lesson that will be nice to get when you “Learn.” It is going to be inefficient, but its a card you get for free when you “Learn”, and its one that adds to the board, so I’m on board with having one of these to wish for.
Average Picked At: 1.63 Total Times Picked: 51 Average Last Seen At: 1.93 Total Times Seen 85
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: I think this is the best of this set’s Command cycle. This is partly because unlike the other card we’ll see in it, it has four options that will frequently be useful. I mean, 5-mana for the Lightning Helix effect itself isn’t terrible – and would probably be borderline playable. Then, you add all these other options and you really have something sweet. I mean, you can really look at this as a 5-mana 3/2 creature with Flash and an ETB ability that Lightning Helixes something. Once you look it at it that way, it becomes clear that this is very powerful! And it even has two other options that are nice! Giving up a permanent to draw some cards is sometimes nice in the late game, and obviously the board pump + indestructibility effect will be backbreaking for your opponent too in the right situation.
Average Picked At: 6.09 Total Times Picked: 43 Average Last Seen At: 4.09 Total Times Seen 239
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is a very nice Lesson, since it is so powerful in the perfect situation, and you can just wait to get it until that situation every time!
Average Picked At: 4.42 Total Times Picked: 139 Average Last Seen At: 3.84 Total Times Seen 545
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a kind of reasonable card just as a French Vanilla creature, so when you add the rest to the mix it gets quite good. Being able to gain whatever key words it friends has will sometimes be awesome. That said, he will also sometimes be a two mana 2/2 with Vigilance and that’s it -- which is fine. Just don’t expect him to always be always taking to the sky or anything. He will gain other keyword abilities often enough though to be a relevant card at multiple stages of the game.
Average Picked At: 4.57 Total Times Picked: 173 Average Last Seen At: 4.34 Total Times Seen 572
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: So, Zimone’s first ability is the kind that is often overrated in Limited. Sure, if you have the extra land she will ramp you early, and that’s nice. Thing is, you tend to run out of extra lands to play in a hurry in Limited, so she is going to do this once, and only if you get her early, really. Her draw effect is what is more intriguing to me, just being able to pay 4 for a single card is a great mana sink, and in the late game when she starts drawing you two, she’s likely to just win you the game. She is small and easy to kill, but at two mana that isn’t going to hurt too much.
Average Picked At: 11.48 Total Times Picked: 321 Average Last Seen At: 9.79 Total Times Seen 3421
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is a reasonable trick -- two mana for +3/+3, and one of those +1/+1s sticks around as a counter, so you end up getting some value from it beyond the turn you play it. That’s a boost big enough to help your creature win most combat too. Aggressive Green decks will likely always run the first copy of this -- but it IS still a trick -- it is situational and risky.
Average Picked At: 3.95 Total Times Picked: 162 Average Last Seen At: 3.76 Total Times Seen 512
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: I would have been reasonably happy with a two mana 2/2 with Lifelink and Menace, or a 2-mana 2/2 with the spell reduction ability, but obviously this has all of that stuff! It is going to give you a lot for two mana. It will attack well early, and then make your spells cheaper – this will allow you to trigger Magecraft more easily, while also pumping your creatures with combat triggers. Your removal spells will cheaper as well as your tricks, anyway. This is an excellent Uncommon.
Average Picked At: 13.67 Total Times Picked: 218 Average Last Seen At: 10.86 Total Times Seen 3809
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This has reasonable defensive stats and it is a Spirit, and RW has some tribal synergy for that. You’ll play it in a deck that wants that sometimes, but I imagine you’ll cut it pretty often.
Average Picked At: 8.57 Total Times Picked: 382 Average Last Seen At: 7.63 Total Times Seen 2664
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: These are all good fixing, and then all have a nice late-game mana sink to help improve your draws when you’re flooding out. You can take these over most medium cards, especially if you are interested in splashing or they are on color for you.
Average Picked At: 6.67 Total Times Picked: 298 Average Last Seen At: 6.24 Total Times Seen 2046
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This seems like a nice Common payoff for gaining life. It may not be quite as cheap as Ajani’s Pridemate, but it adds Menace to the mix and I think that’s a fair trade. This will get pretty big, and that’s always nice with an evasive ability.
Average Picked At: 10.75 Total Times Picked: 134 Average Last Seen At: 8.15 Total Times Seen 1302
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: So, you’ll want this to at least be Divination, and that seems reasonably doable. However, one thing that kind of stinks there, is that you can cast Divination on an empty board and still draw 2. That’s not going to happen here. Still, it also has way more upside than Divination, and will draw you 3+ cards sometimes. It will be really painful to have this in a hand where it is your only three drop or something like that, but I think in the late game it will be powerful enough to make up for that.
Average Picked At: 7.23 Total Times Picked: 292 Average Last Seen At: 6.73 Total Times Seen 2172
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This effect at Sorcery speed is really clunky. If you have to use this to kill a smaller creature, it feels really miserable because of the tempo hit. This does try to make up for that a little, by having the damage Trample, and that is some nice additional upside, but I still think this falls well short of being premium removal.
Average Picked At: 10.24 Total Times Picked: 265 Average Last Seen At: 8.73 Total Times Seen 2945
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: 4-mana 2/2s with Deathtouch normally arent the most exicting thing int he world. They can trade fo ranything, but doing that at 4 mana isn’t exactly exciting. I like that they compensated for that here by letting the Band put it +1/+1 counters on other stuff when it dies. This also means that it is a good place to put counters, since it will do something with them when it dies, unlike most creatures.
Average Picked At: 10.23 Total Times Picked: 123 Average Last Seen At: 8.35 Total Times Seen 1214
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is a pretty weird Magecraft trigger, but it actually seems like it will work pretty well in RW, which has the ability to make Spirit tokens, in addition to just having creatures who have the Spirit type, and if you can suddenly tap all of your spirits to do 1 to your opponent, things could really get out of hand for your opponent in a hurry! Just trigger this twice with like 3 spirits in play is a ton of damage.
Average Picked At: 5.83 Total Times Picked: 124 Average Last Seen At: 4.88 Total Times Seen 659
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This is a powerful life gain payoff. The ideal thing to do with her ability is going to be to sacrifice a pest token, at which point you start draining your opponent with Dina in play, in addition to raising her power. She can also just potentially threaten a bunch of damage when she attacks, which is always a nice thing to make your opponent contend with.
Average Picked At: 1.60 Total Times Picked: 58 Average Last Seen At: 1.84 Total Times Seen 77
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: This is really good. A two mana 2/2 with Prowess is usually pretty nice, and in most ways, this is an upgrade. Getting a permanent boost is big, and then in the late game it will become too big for most boards thanks to the ability to double counters.
Average Picked At: 8.18 Total Times Picked: 303 Average Last Seen At: 7.24 Total Times Seen 2556
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This is often a 6-mana 8/8 or something like that in the late game for UG decks, and that makes it a solid thing to have at the top of your curve.
Average Picked At: 7.27 Total Times Picked: 44 Average Last Seen At: 5.14 Total Times Seen 263
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: While ramping and fixing are nice in Limited, most of the time big expensive ramp spells like this aren’t so good. You do get four lands out of the deal which is pretty awesome, and two of them even come into play! But you also just spent a ton of mana without an immediate impact on the board of any kind! And, the alternate cost here generally won’t be worth it, since giving your opponent a land seems pretty painful to me. I think you’ll run this in some UR and UG decks because you are super into mana and fixing.
Average Picked At: 8.68 Total Times Picked: 130 Average Last Seen At: 6.72 Total Times Seen 1009
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: You basically take down an opposing creature, and then trade a creature in play for a permanent in your graveyard. It won’t always be easy to set it up -- edict effects are notoriously inconsistent, but most of the time you’ll probably come out ahead when you cast this. Especially if you have creature tokens and stuff like that!
Average Picked At: 8.92 Total Times Picked: 273 Average Last Seen At: 7.51 Total Times Seen 2507
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This doesn’t have the greatest stats, but it has a late game mana sink ability that is serviceable, especially in decks interested in gaining life.