Draft Trainer

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Limited Quiz

Answered: 0/20
Accuracy: 0
Scion of Stygia
Average Picked At: 8.47
Total Times Picked: 268
Average Last Seen At: 7.58
Total Times Seen 2248
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: If you know me, you know I’m a pretty big fan of Blue creatures with bounce or tap down effects, and this is a distinctly D & D version of it, but it seems pretty good to me. The nice thing about it is, even if you roll 1-9 with it, you’re getting reasonable value out of a 3-mana 2/1, and the tap down might prevent an attack or enable a better one for you. Then, when you hit 10-20, which is slightly more likely, you’re going to feel like you’ve got an amazing deal. Basically, 1-9 this will feel like a 2.0, and 11-20 will feel like a 3.5. I think that means it gets a 3.0
Baleful Beholder
Average Picked At: 9.15
Total Times Picked: 311
Average Last Seen At: 8.12
Total Times Seen 2593
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: If you’re looking for some kind of finisher in a Black deck, this Beholder isn’t a terrible place to turn. Sometimes giving menace to your whole time will just win you the game on the spot, other times it won’t do anything --- the average situation is probably somewhere in the middle. Like, it lets one of your creatures attack who couldn’t, but that’s still not bad when attached to a 6-mana 6/5. Additionally, the fact it can get rid of Enchantments in a pinch is nice too.
Ellywick Tumblestrum
Average Picked At: 1.29
Total Times Picked: 17
Average Last Seen At: 2.30
Total Times Seen 28
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: Her main strength is her ability to allow you to pretty rapidly go through a dungeon, which will give you a lot of value and allow you to make your cards better that check to see if you’ve completed them. Her -2 isn’t bad either, as it does let you dig for a creature and you’ll sometimes even gain life! Her ultimate is nice -- and synergizes well with the +1, as she is very likely to tick up and help you complete a dungeon, and if she is left unchecked, that ultimate will give a pretty nice boost. Now, there are some very real downsides here -- she does nothing to protect herself, and she has to tick down to draw you cards. There will be times where you just can’t play Ellywick effectively because your board state needs to already be pretty well constructed for her to get going. I think that keeps her from bomb status, though she is still quite good.
Instrument of the Bards
Average Picked At: 6.54
Total Times Picked: 24
Average Last Seen At: 4.36
Total Times Seen 195
Pro Rating: 0.0
Pro Comment: This card seems a little hard to make work in Limited. For one thing, in the early game you won’t really be interested in using it, as adding to your board more immediately will be far better than just tutoring something up. That means that playing this on turn one isn’t going to feel that great, as it will just sit around unused. I guess if you can’t do anything early it will probably be an okay thing to have around, but you’re still going to be in a lot of trouble, even with this, if you aren’t able to add to your board at all on turns 2-4. It does get a little bit interesting in the later part of the game, like using it to find your 6 mana finisher or something. But even then, it is a very slow cards. So what you’re looking at here is still a very particular tutor, and one that you don’t actually have that much control over. The mana cost HAS to be equal to what you search up, not “less than or equal.” I think in the end this is probably just unplayable, it is far too particular to make work in Limited.
Mordenkainen's Polymorph
Average Picked At: 12.60
Total Times Picked: 216
Average Last Seen At: 10.32
Total Times Seen 3344
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This kind of card always looks really cool, and that’s because it is easy to think of situations where it does something. But, even though there are several of them -- like making a creature big enough to block something it couldn’t before, or shrinking an opposing creature, or doing 4 lethal damage int he air, or saving a creature from damage-based removal -- even with all of those possibilities, you’d be surprised how infrequently a situation emerges where this will actually do something. We’ve seen a ton of cards like this over the years, and they always significantly underperform. I can’t see that changing here.
Manticore
Average Picked At: 8.97
Total Times Picked: 308
Average Last Seen At: 7.81
Total Times Seen 2431
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: These types of “kill something that was damaged” effects are often underwhelming, just because it takes more work than you'd think to consistently manufacture situations where that happens -- in particular, situations where you can make it happen without giving up significant resources, like an ugly block or an attack. However, when they add Flash to the mix, the card gets significantly more interesting because it means there will be a wider variety of situations where you can make that part of the card work. Plus, in a fail case this gives you a passable Flying body. Don’t count on this to feel like a Flying Ravenous Chupacabra all the time, but it will do that often enough to be a pretty nice common.
Forsworn Paladin
Average Picked At: 1.94
Total Times Picked: 48
Average Last Seen At: 2.03
Total Times Seen 76
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This looks pretty good. First, it provides some nice fixing and ramp since it can churn out treasure, and then it also has an ability that is a pretty potent Treasure payoff. Even without treasure, the ability to pump something +2/+0 would feel pretty good, but if you can give that thing death touch, that’s when things will get really interesting. This is nice too, because one of the things it looks like treasure decks will want is mana sinks, and Forsworn Paladin is nice there as well. On top of all of that, it is a one mana 1/1 with Menace, a creature that can attack fairly effectively in the early game, and which can pump itself with its ability, so if you have the ability to give it death touch, you’ll be taking down two things no matter how your opponent blocks. The whole package makes for quite an impressive one drop.
Clever Conjurer
Average Picked At: 10.39
Total Times Picked: 285
Average Last Seen At: 9.08
Total Times Seen 2952
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This ability only being Sorcery speed is a bummer, but it is still a pretty useful one to have on a 3-mana ⅔. Notably, it can untap lands for you, helping you ramp. And that’s probably the way you’ll use it the most. This seems like a solid playable.
Dragon Turtle
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This has a pretty neat design. You get a super efficient creature who can lock down an opposing creature for a turn, though it does have to tap itself down too. One thing to keep in mind though, if you play this on your opponent’s turn, it will mean that your Dragon Turtle untapped before their creature does, since your “next turn” will be more immediate, and that means that Dragon Turtle will get to take advantage of the thing being tapped down for one attack. Either way, this will be a good way to slow down the opponent’s board while also adding to your own, even if the creature can’t immediately get in there for damage. This seems like a high-quality card to me, one you’ll first pick a lot.
Bard Class
Average Picked At: 7.41
Total Times Picked: 32
Average Last Seen At: 5.78
Total Times Seen 258
Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This set does have a significant number of legendaries in it, but I’m not convinced there will be enough to really make this worthwhile. It is all about legendaries, and does literal nothing if you don’t have enough of them. I could give it a build around grade, but I think it will be so difficult to make this work that I don’t think I need to go there
Orb of Dragonkind
Average Picked At: 8.31
Total Times Picked: 35
Average Last Seen At: 5.67
Total Times Seen 300
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: There are enough Dragons in this set for this to provide some very real fixing for you, and having the fail case of helping you find a Dragon -- which is presumably one of your better cards -- is pretty nice. I think most Red decks will find themselves with enough dragons to make this a reasonable playable, and sometimes it may even help you to splash an off-color dragon.
Xorn
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This has passable stats, and its ability to multiply treasure will definitely come up sometimes, especially in the Black Red deck. However, I wouldn’t count on that always coming up.
Air-Cult Elemental
Average Picked At: 9.30
Total Times Picked: 276
Average Last Seen At: 8.22
Total Times Seen 2605
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This is one big Man-O’-War! A 6-mana 2/5 Flyer is a bad rate, but because this bounces another creature, you’ll often feel like you’re getting your mana’s worth. If you know me, you know I always love this kind of effect – and there’s a reason for that, it is great in Limited! Adding to your board while subtracting from your opponent’s is one of the best feelings you can have! And yeah, while the 2/5 stats aren’t exactly incredible, it is enough that the elemental can still be a little bit of a threat in the sky, or be an effective blocker. It does cost 6 mana, so you don’t really want more than one of them, but I think I’m going to value the first copy relatively highly.
Drider
Average Picked At: 5.69
Total Times Picked: 96
Average Last Seen At: 4.51
Total Times Seen 549
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This doesn’t have good base stats, but it does have a good combat damage trigger. Even just getting one Spider out of this will feel great, and it feels like UB is well-equipped with enough ways to make this evasive that it will feel pretty strong when it lines up that way. It won’t always do that though, and sometimes it will just be an inefficient creature.
Oswald Fiddlebender
Average Picked At: 5.97
Total Times Picked: 38
Average Last Seen At: 4.39
Total Times Seen 215
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: So, these types of abilities are tough to make work in Limited. They can shine in constructed because you can make your deck so that it can really effectively utilize it, but in Limited, you’ll be dependent on the draft going just the right way for the ability to always be useful, and even then it might not be worth it! The good news is, it has a baseline as a two mana 2/2, and even if you just end up with a 2-mana and 3-mana Artifact in your deck, the ability might actually come up sometimes. This seems like it will get cut a lot, as just a straight up bear isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a decent enough fail case.
Reaper's Talisman
Average Picked At: 3.55
Total Times Picked: 136
Average Last Seen At: 3.27
Total Times Seen 355
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This looks like some pretty nice Equipment. One to play and two to equip for Death touch and an “attacks alone” trigger is kind of an okay deal, especially because those two things pair so well together. You often would find yourself rumbling with just a small death toucher anyway, so draining two on top of that will be a very real problem for your opponent. Keep in mind, the creature only has death touch on the attack, so don’t move this to a blocker and expect it to have death touch.
Fifty Feet of Rope
Average Picked At: 9.53
Total Times Picked: 60
Average Last Seen At: 6.43
Total Times Seen 859
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: Well, this is interesting. “Climb Over” won’t matter very often, and “Tie Up” is perhaps a little too situational too. Because it doesn’t tap the creature as part of the effect, it will only do a thing against creatures that already tapped. The part that intrigues me the most is Venturing into the Dungeon, but even that seems a little clunky, though it is obviously a late game mana sink. The first two modes will be hard to make use of early or even late, and the Venture into the Dungeon option is pretty good late, but I can see this sitting ont he table doing very little early, and that’s kind of rough. This is definitely the kind of card it is easy to miss on, because it is both unusual and utilizes a new mechanic, but I don’t think I’m super high on it right now
Grim Wanderer
Average Picked At: 4.82
Total Times Picked: 104
Average Last Seen At: 3.81
Total Times Seen 477
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This is a strange card to evaluate. Obviously on the vanilla test it is incredible, but the requirement of a creature needing to die is harder to set up than you might think. It does have Flash, which means that you can more easily find a situation where you can cast it, but keep in mind the kind of Flash it has will almost never allow you to use it to ambush your opponent, because a creature probably won’t die until combat. Still, it isn’t hard to imagine a situation where you and your opponent trade two drops and you play this at the end of their turn, and if you can do that, it will be quite imposing. A 5/3 even in the late game isn’t too bad, and you may be able to double spell because it is so cheap. The big downside is you literally can’t cast it at all if something hasnt’ died. It would be much better even if it cost like 6 or 7 or something as a base cost, and then got reduce dwhen something died, but sometimes this will just be stuck in your hand, or to get it going you have to block in an ugly way or something like that, and that really tempers my expectations here.
Druid Class
Average Picked At: 6.41
Total Times Picked: 73
Average Last Seen At: 5.07
Total Times Seen 617
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: I’m not very impressed with this. Gaining a life for every land isn’t worth a card, and while this does level up, neither of the things it levels up into are that good. Playing more than one land a turn is pretty hard to take advantage of after the very early game, because you just won’t have extra lands, and if you do -- you’re probably flooding! Level three is where you finally get something that is worth a whole card in Limited, but you paid a total of 10 mana to get there, and the final product is just a big vanilla creature. Yes, the fact you pay installments does matter, but overall, I think you’ll end up cutting Druid Class a significant chunk of the time.
Wizard Class
Average Picked At: 4.41
Total Times Picked: 96
Average Last Seen At: 3.82
Total Times Seen 496
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This is much less buildaroundy than most of the other Classes, and that’s good news, because it will just be nice in any Blue deck, though it does get better the better you are at drawing cards. The level one Enchantment is pretty irrelevant, but drawing two at level two will feel nice, and obviously leveling this up all the way will feel great, as getting a counter every turn is quite nice. It is quite slow, of course, and that holds it back significantly, but I think it looks pretty nice overall.
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