Average Picked At: 2.20 Total Times Picked: 10 Average Last Seen At: 2.19 Total Times Seen 16
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: It is surprisingly easy to get two 2/2 Zombie tokens out of this, and that’s good for the investment, especially because it also loads your graveyard for your other purposes, scries, and gains you some life.
Average Picked At: 5.00 Total Times Picked: 19 Average Last Seen At: 4.35 Total Times Seen 73
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This might seem like it does 3 kind of minor things -- but I think it is a pretty reasonable inclusion in White decks in this format. Searching up a Plains gurantees you will hit your 3rd land drop, a 0/4 defender is unexciting, but it does add something to the board, and 2 life is unexciting too. But, if you look at this with all the parts together, it is basically Wall of Omens that gains you 2 life, for the same mana cost, and that’s something I want to play, especially in less aggressive White decks.
Average Picked At: 3.00 Total Times Picked: 7 Average Last Seen At: 2.42 Total Times Seen 12
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: A 5-mana 4/5 flyer is probably already really good. When you have a creature this big who has flash, it isn’t hard to get a 2-for-1 out of it, since it can flash in and ambush much smaller creatures. Then, you have a huge efficient flyer who can get the job done in the air. He also makes your expensive spells cheaper, and makes them encounterable – the uncounterable part won’t come up a ton in Limited, and reducing the cost of spells won’t come up a bunch either, so don’t expect that part to matter more than a time or two per draft. Of course, that time or two is pretty great when attached to a creature this impressive.
Average Picked At: 5.70 Total Times Picked: 30 Average Last Seen At: 4.75 Total Times Seen 90
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This can tuck a huge number of permanents in this set and it does it really efficiently, basically amounting to being premium removal.
Average Picked At: 12.07 Total Times Picked: 29 Average Last Seen At: 9.28 Total Times Seen 469
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: This counterspell costs way too much mana, and adding Scry doesn’t really help that.
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: 8.69 Total Times Picked: 13 Average Last Seen At: 6.86 Total Times Seen 154
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This is pretty easy to crew, but not that easy to cast. It is a pretty good creature though when you can crew it.
Average Picked At: 5.71 Total Times Picked: 17 Average Last Seen At: 4.13 Total Times Seen 98
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is a very efficient removal spell, capable of completely shutting down a creature – at least for a few turns. Obviously it would be better if your opponent couldn’t eventually get rid of it, but it takes them time to remove those task counters, and generally a creature being out of commission for 3+ turns will be worth the mana here.
Average Picked At: 9.53 Total Times Picked: 34 Average Last Seen At: 8.54 Total Times Seen 398
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is another Aura that feels like a combat trick that leaves some value behind, and the boost it often gives is well worth it in aggro decks. Still risky of course, so keep that in mind.
Average Picked At: 11.86 Total Times Picked: 37 Average Last Seen At: 9.55 Total Times Seen 490
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: There aren’t really enough Artifacts in this set for this to be worth it in your main deck. If you go up against someone with a few targets though, this can become a 2-for-1.
Average Picked At: 9.03 Total Times Picked: 34 Average Last Seen At: 7.08 Total Times Seen 337
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: The flexibility of this to feel like a combat trick that sticks around OR a counterspell against removal is pretty nice, especially in a set loaded with Enchantment payoffs.
Average Picked At: 3.22 Total Times Picked: 23 Average Last Seen At: 2.88 Total Times Seen 63
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This gives you a great rate – you get 5/5 worth of stats for three mana! And sure, generally only one of them is going to be untapped, but when Alirios dies he leaves behind significant value. This is one of the best ETB abilities to abuse in this entire set too, so if you have ways to do that, considering utilizing them here.
Average Picked At: 2.00 Total Times Picked: 8 Average Last Seen At: 1.75 Total Times Seen 12
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This has alright stats and the Dryad’s ability to let you play additional lands, and make your lands into every basic land type is pretty nice. The former helps you ramp some, and the latter is pretty amazing fixing. Now, I think people sometimes overrate effects that let you play additional lands in Limited. This is because that ability becomes increasingly pointless pretty quickly – you just will be out of extra lands to play in a hurry – though, if your deck has lots of ways to draw cards, it probably does get a little better. Don’t get me wrong, the ability is nice, but I think a lot of people imagine just playing two lands a turn every turn with this, and that just won’t happen. The fixing this provides is also pretty incredible.
Average Picked At: 9.70 Total Times Picked: 44 Average Last Seen At: 8.40 Total Times Seen 408
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is a Bear that is sometimes unblockable, but not really often enough to be that great.
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: 10.00 Total Times Picked: 12 Average Last Seen At: 6.58 Total Times Seen 144
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This format has a lot of graveyard stuff, so this is a little better than it usually is. Worst case, it can sort of just cycle itself, best case, it really interferes with your opponents’ plans.
Average Picked At: 4.42 Total Times Picked: 12 Average Last Seen At: 3.53 Total Times Seen 57
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This gives you a bunch of small effects, but taken together they make for a reasonable card. The one thing that bothers me about is that sometimes you just can’t cast what you named with Chapter II, because the state of the game demands you do something else, but I think you draw 2 off of it often enough that it turns out to be a solid card.
Average Picked At: 3.50 Total Times Picked: 4 Average Last Seen At: 2.33 Total Times Seen 9
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: Lifelink is just such a nice keyword, since it can swing the game wildly in your favor – whenever this hits your opponent the life swing is EIGHT which is just massive. Sure, it isn’t very efficient – but Gravebreaker Lamia makes up for this by letting you tutor up whatever you want to put it into your graveyard, while also reducing the cost of cards you cast from the graveyard – which in this format, mostly means cards with Escape, which – again, will be cheaper to cast. This means that a lot of the time, this will amount to a 5-mana 4/4 with Lifelink that draws you a card, and that’s pretty darn good.
Average Picked At: 1.25 Total Times Picked: 8 Average Last Seen At: 1.42 Total Times Seen 12
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: So, Heliod helps you both gain life, and is a nice payoff for doing it. Lifelink is already a great keyword ability because of the way that it drastically alters races, and getting +1/+1 counters when you gain the life makes that even more true! Obviously Heliod gets even better when you have other ways to gain life, but he can be an engine all on his own sometimes. Like all the Gods being huge and indestructible when loyalty gets high enough is also really nice.
Average Picked At: 7.31 Total Times Picked: 42 Average Last Seen At: 6.18 Total Times Seen 276
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This Aura gets around the classic problem that many of them have – the danger of a 2-for-1. With Escape, you can avoid that ever being a real problem, and enjoy the benefits of a pretty efficient stats boost on your creatures.