Average Picked At: 4.10 Total Times Picked: 51 Average Last Seen At: 3.77 Total Times Seen 169
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is a nice removal spell, and unlike most Pacifism-type effects, this one can let you permanently get rid of the creature, which is worth doing any time you have the mana lying around, since if your opponent finds a way to get rid of the Aura, or if the creature has a static ability, you’re going to be in trouble. This is premium removal.
Average Picked At: 2.57 Total Times Picked: 7 Average Last Seen At: 2.20 Total Times Seen 10
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This scales all game long, and is capable of killing anything if the situation is right. Sometimes, X-costed Sorceries that are removal spells have the donwnside of making you tap out to kill one creature, which on some boards can be dangerous – but the life gain this gives you helps make that less of a big deal. Now, the second mode – the ability to exile stuff from graveyards – will only be what you want to do a small percentage of the time, but it does come up on occasion.
Average Picked At: 6.21 Total Times Picked: 56 Average Last Seen At: 5.68 Total Times Seen 243
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This loads your graveyard in a format that is interested in that, and it can trade for anything!
Average Picked At: 2.30 Total Times Picked: 23 Average Last Seen At: 2.28 Total Times Seen 42
Pro Rating: 5.0 Pro Comment: This is a premium removal spell whenever we see it. Three mana to deal with any non-land permanent is incredible, especially because it is exiled -- something that really matters in a set with a graveyard matters theme. It is also an Enchantment, which gives this already very powerful cards some additional value in a set with an Enchantment theme. One thing not going for Banishing Light is the fact that this set, in addition to having way more Enchantments than normal, also has way more ways to deal with Enchantments than is the norm, meaning your opponent can get the permanent back from this more often than you might think. But still, most of the time, this will at least take care of a problem permanent for a few turns, and that will often be enough.
Average Picked At: 2.00 Total Times Picked: 11 Average Last Seen At: 1.85 Total Times Seen 13
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: 4 mana to kill something at Instant speed is already something you always, and this adds Surveil to the mix, which certainly doesn’t hurt. Killing something and then doing what you can to improve the quality of your next draw is going to feel pretty great. The fact you can put the card in the graveyard might actually be useful sometimes too. The fact it only has one Black in its cost is nice too, since it means splashing it won’t be that hard. Obviously the ability to kill planeswalkers is nice, but won’t come up for often in this format. you see it.
Average Picked At: 11.05 Total Times Picked: 19 Average Last Seen At: 9.12 Total Times Seen 443
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: This has Flash, which matters for the UR deck in this format, and it had okay defensive stats, but you still usually won’t play it
Average Picked At: 9.64 Total Times Picked: 11 Average Last Seen At: 6.50 Total Times Seen 115
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: Devotion is generally not a big enough theme in this set for Underworld Dreams to be worth it. It is too hard to cast and too slow for such a lame effect.
Average Picked At: 5.29 Total Times Picked: 7 Average Last Seen At: 4.07 Total Times Seen 31
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: These give great fixing while also improving your draw a little bit. That makes it well worth the fact it comes into play tapped.
Average Picked At: 11.76 Total Times Picked: 38 Average Last Seen At: 9.50 Total Times Seen 452
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This has good defensive stats, you’ll play it in more controlling decks.
Average Picked At: 5.68 Total Times Picked: 19 Average Last Seen At: 5.30 Total Times Seen 115
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: So, this can get pretty silly when you can get a graveyard to have both an Aura and a creature, and that isn’t that hard to do in this format. You will pretty much always get more than 5 mana worth of value when you do it, and it gets especially silly with Constellation and bombs. This can help you get back ahead from behind, which is awesome! The trade off is that it can be pretty terrible early, though.
Average Picked At: 2.57 Total Times Picked: 21 Average Last Seen At: 2.14 Total Times Seen 40
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: At worst she is a 4-mana 2/3 that makes your creatures come down with an additional counter – and that’s a card you would pretty much always play. But, the higher your devotion, the higher the power, and the more impressive she becomes.
Average Picked At: 3.85 Total Times Picked: 13 Average Last Seen At: 3.36 Total Times Seen 52
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This set has lots of good Auras in it, and this is one of them. This is expensive, but the stats boost it offers is big enough that it completely alters your game plan, and once you start getting tokens out of it you’ll be far ahead of your opponent.
Average Picked At: 10.95 Total Times Picked: 40 Average Last Seen At: 8.93 Total Times Seen 440
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This gives you some nice card selection, loads your graveyard, and provides an instant speed effect for the UR deck, so it fits into most decks in this format reasonably well.
Average Picked At: 6.17 Total Times Picked: 42 Average Last Seen At: 5.19 Total Times Seen 239
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: Two mana to do two to anything at Instant speed is usually a solid card, if not premium removal. Adding some scry to the later game doesn’t hurt either. Then this gets a little bonus for both being an Enchantment, and a card with Flash -- since there are decks in this format interested in both things. This is cheap enough too, that killing 3 and 4 mana creatures who have two toughness with it will happen a decent chunk of the time. Sometimes you’ll break even on it, but I think you’ll trade up enough that this will feel really good.
Average Picked At: 3.83 Total Times Picked: 6 Average Last Seen At: 2.92 Total Times Seen 25
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: On its own, the Oracle is a two mana 1/3 that gives you some card selection. Oftentimes it will give you even better card selection, when your devotion is higher. Winning with this in Limited is unlikely, but the reasonable stats and ability to help you find what you need makes it a fine card.
Average Picked At: 8.75 Total Times Picked: 53 Average Last Seen At: 7.84 Total Times Seen 375
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: Because you can choose what this Edict hits, you can often choose an option that takes out a pretty good permanent. It still has the downside of all Edicts – the bigger the board, the worse it gets.
Average Picked At: 5.33 Total Times Picked: 24 Average Last Seen At: 4.39 Total Times Seen 95
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Siona makes it clear that GW is all about Enchantments, and more specifically - Auras. It is going to be pretty hard to wiff entirely on Enchantments in your top 7 cards in this format, so generally Siona will at least be a 3-mana 2/2 that draws you a card, something that is always solid. But then, it comes with the ability to make a creature token every time you put an Aura on one of your creatures, and that’s a nice payoff too. Auras can sometimes be risky because if your opponent has removal, you get 2-for-1’d -- but making a creature token every time you put an Aura on something helps soften the blow if that’s what happens, because at least you have a 1/1 left behind. Siona is going to draw you a card and make 1-2 creature tokens without a whole lot of help.
Average Picked At: 8.79 Total Times Picked: 14 Average Last Seen At: 7.20 Total Times Seen 159
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: Six mana for a board pump effect like this honestly isn’t that impressive, especially because the boost it gives is so inconsistent, and it doesn’t even offer a keyword ability to sweeten the deal. You’ll play this in some of your Green decks, especially if you’re close to mono-green and going wide, but you’ll barely every play this.
Average Picked At: 2.38 Total Times Picked: 8 Average Last Seen At: 2.35 Total Times Seen 18
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This has some pretty impressive stats, and a lure effect. Basically if you attack with your whole board, your opponent can only block the Boar so you know everything else will get in, and that’s great! What won’t feel so great sometimes is the fact that every creature your opponent has to put in front of the boar draws them a card – so they end up sort of breaking even on the exchange, or potentially doing even better if they can take down the Boar. If the boar does survive to do its thing again on the next turn, you probably win, as a second attack with your whole board should mean the end of your opponent. If your opponent survives this initial attack though, they’ll often be able to stabilize thanks to the cards you gave them. In other words, the Boar is really swingy and inconsistent, but the ceiling is high enough that I like it a fair bit.
Average Picked At: 4.17 Total Times Picked: 6 Average Last Seen At: 3.71 Total Times Seen 15
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: As usual, Board sweepers are really strong in Limited, and this kills almost everything in this format. They are hard-to-replace effects that just completely reshape the game. And sure, they are obviously symmetrical, but because you’re the one with Storm’s Wrath you know its coming – your opponent doesn’t, and that is often enough for you to come out ahead.