Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: The shield counter is pretty nice on a creature with high power and trample, as it really can put your opponent in a bind when it comes to blocking it. For some of these shield creatures, you can just throw one of your tokens in front of it to get the shield to go away – and you can still do that here, but you’re probably taking 5 in the process! This seems like a decent top curve.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is a solid way to force damage through, and it has a decent aggressive stat-line, so it can take advantage of not being blockable all on its own!

Pro Rating: 5.0
Pro Comment: A ⅖ with Flash is actually pretty reasonable at ambushing things, but the real value of course comes from the cards it puts Collection counters on. Even on its own, it pretty much draws you two cards, and because of Flash, you can put this down at the end of your opponents turn, untap, and make use of one those cards before your opponent can do something about it in most cases. On the next turn you can use the other card if she survives. Then, the additional Vampire upside is huge, and the hybrid mana situation also means you can play this in a whole lot of decks.

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: A vanilla one mana 2/1 already isn’t a great card in Limited, since it really tends to get outclassed in a hurry – and this is basically a one mana 2/1 that is conditional. A 2/1 is only marginally better than a 1/1 in most games. It doesn’t really seem worth it to me, even in an aggro deck. I guess the idea is that you can buff it so that your one drop can be sacrificed to a Casualty 2 spell, but that doesn’t make it that much better.

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This looks pretty nice. A one mana 1/1 with Menace and First Strike is kind of a pain to interact with early, and it’s a great place to put counters and stuff. Then, once it becomes irrelevant, it can also just ramp and fix for you. This provides a lot for only one Red mana.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This might be the least exciting of the Charms in this set, but its pretty good. It is a little worse than the others because all three of its modes are kind of situational, and there isn’t really one that is going to feel good as the fall back plan. However, situations where one of those modes are useful will come up often enough that I still like it. If you can kill your opponent or a planeswalker with the first mode, obviously you choose that. +1/+1 and trample to the whole board will be nice if you’re going wide, and sometimes it can basically function as a removal spell. And, paying three mana for two 1/1 tokens is also fine. The Cabaretti are into going wide, and it is nice that this can enable that and pay you off for that.

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: 4 mana to draw 2 at instant speed is kind of passable. This has additional minor upside in that it gives you a bit of information, but that doesn’t really do enough for this to be something that consistently makes the cut in your deck.

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: This..doesn’t seem amazing. Typically his ETB ability will make your opponent discard a single card by the time you play him. And…that’s nice, but not absolutely incredible for what you’re paying. His attack trigger can also put your opponent in real danger of getting milled out, but it will still take quite awhile, and if he attacks enough to mill them out, they are probably dead from damage anyway! His death trigger is the most exciting one, as it will actually impact the board unlike the first two, but it is also in some ways the hardest to get. So yeah, he does a lot, but he’s pretty clunky mana-wise, and while the effects are pretty powerful they are also woefully inconsistent, I don’t think they are nearly as powerful as they look. Maestros does have ways to sacrifice him, at least.

Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: This is pretty interesting, but my feeling is that it probably isn’t very good in Limited. You have to sacrifice a creature and then also have the mana to play whatever you search up, and that’s doable, but you’re basically giving something up on the board and paying one extra mana for some creature in your deck. There will also be times where the color of your creatures just doesn’t line up the right way to get you what you want. Though, sacrificing a mono-colored creature to get a two-colored creature or a two-colored creature to get a three-colored one seems like it will happen pretty often. But yeah, unless you have plenty of sacrifice fodder, I’m not a big believer in this.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This looks pretty good. Its fragile, but it seems like it will be drawing you cards pretty often in both of the families it overlaps into it, thanks to Obscuara’s Connive and the Brokers’ Shield counters. It also hits pretty hard if the air is clear!

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This card is pretty mediocre, even with a single Alliance trigger. That first one will usually just make it a 3-mana ⅔ with Trample and Haste, and probably not on the turn you cast it, and that isn’t a great deal. However, if you can trigger Alliance 2+ times, like by creating tokens, this Devil can become a real problem for your opponent. He also gets better if you are already increasing his power. Seems like a solid card you probably never cut from creature-heavy Red decks, but it isn’t anything special.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This blocks better than it used to but is much less useful as an attacker. However, it does still freeze down an opposing creature a huge chunk of the time, as the format has plenty of counters between Connive and Shield counters.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: Like most of this cycle, this is solid. It has okay base stats, and it can gain a useful keyword! Deathtouch does mean it can trade with anything, and that’s nice.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is some more very nice fixing for the format, which isn’t a huge surprise since three colors is what this format is all about. This is basically a more narrow Evolving Wilds, but one that also gains you a life – and it doesn’t have to tap either, though that isn’t coming up much in Limited. You definitely will play these in a lot of your decks, as they’ll be nice for mana. They don’t have the late game upside of the dual land cycle, so I think I would rank them a little lower.

Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: Trample is less impressive than lifelink for the most part, so this card has actually gotten a little worse! It can still attack as a 3/3 with regularity, though.

Pro Rating: 5.0
Pro Comment: This looks like a very good 3 mana walker. He can protect himself with Devil tokens, which always wreak havoc in Limited, and while his +1 isn’t incredible, it does pressure your opponent or pick apart their hand. And there are enough demons and devils in the set that gaining life isn’t out of the question either. His ultimate isn’t going to be super easy to get to, but if you can it might finish off your opponent or draw you a ton of cards! Adding Casualty to the mix is particularly spicy, because getting a copy of this planeswalker is pretty awesome, even if it starts with only a single loyalty. Your opponent will have a heck of a time taking down both of them.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This card has a lot of different modes, and I like that. You can use it to bounce an opposing spell or permanent back to the library. Keep in mind that when its worded like this, the controller of the permanent is who makes the decision, but either way – when you are putting a card back on top or bottom of a library, you’re actually trading 1-for-1, unlike when you put something back in your opponent’s hand. Those are the modes you probably choose the most, but you can also do some things to benefit yourself, of course. The most obvious is putting a card back on top of your library that you really want to get back. That isn’t great in terms of value, because you use up a card for only card selection, but the fact that it is an available option is upside on a card that’s already pretty good. You can also rebuy ETB abilities and the like, but again – putting the thing on top of your library is a pretty big cost. Mostly, you’ll use this as removal or a counterspell.

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This rebalanced version of the card seems significantly better than it used to be. Sure, it is a Sorcery and costs one more mana, but I think adding a second body to the board is a pretty big deal, as at the very least it will buy you more time, and sometimes it will even trigger alliance and stuff like that. It still isn’t a great card, though.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: I think this is actually fine. If you know me, you know I usually hate this sort of Black card that gives the opponent options, because they can always choose what concerns them the least and that often minimizes the impact of a card. And..that’s kind of true here. If your opponent can afford to take 6 or can effectively take it down in combat that’s what they’ll do, and if they can’t, they’ll just give you the card. In games that are close this will be pretty nasty since it will feel like “pick your poison,” but it won’t always be in that situation. Still, both outcomes are pretty decent. What really sells me on this, though, is that it can still block really effectively, and that means that in the part of the game where it can’t really do what you want it to, it can hang back as an oversized blocker, before joining in the offense later. If your opponent chooses to give you the card, it even untaps!