If you missed part one from yesterday, I covered the white, blue, and black cards from Magic Origins. Today I take care of the rest to get you ready for the Magic Origins Prerelease. Red is where I’ll begin:
Red
Common Creatures By Curve
One Mana:
Two Mana:
Three Mana:
Four Mana:
Five Mana:
Six Mana:
Removal
Tricks
Other
Red looks like it provides some much-needed high-end power to aggressive decks at a low cost, so basically the same thing red always does. It’s also a little higher on conditional cards than other colors, so basically the same place red always is. It’s also the color I’m most excited to draft in general because I like stupid things like turning 6/4s sideways or giving 5/2 pieces of road flying twice for the win.
Seriously, the more I think about beating someone with Cobblebrute, the better it gets. It’s miserable on the in-game level of getting mised out by some stupid Lava Axes, and on the flavor level of you died to a pile of bricks flying into you out of nowhere. Firefiend Elemental is similar, but just not as cool and not nearly as much damage.
Turn-three Fiery Impulse plus two drop is going to end a lot of games. See also Wild Slash in the last format. The late-game upgrade isn’t huge, but it’s a nice bonus.
Ghirapur Gearcrafter is just Sandsteppe Outcast, only this time in a format where random dorks are more profitable than the one where everyone got to play a million high drops due to Morph or the one about Dragons. Akroan Sergeant is some good competition for the three-drop slot though, as 3/3 First Strike is super hard to stop and even just a 2/2 First Strike on defense is fine here if you aren’t behind to Renown already. There isn’t a clear other color that is short on good threes that takes advantage of this, so it’s probably more important to find the color with good twos to curve into these threes with.
The red two-drops leave a lot to be desired. They all do something cool but are significantly worse than the baseline when that cool thing isn’t good. Must attack if able has always been a huge drawback as a big part of aggro is positioning your attacks for maximum value and not jamming all out all the time, so despite being a super-efficient Prowess creature, I’m skeptical of Mage-Ring Bully. Dragon Fodder has the same issues and benefits as it did in Dragons of Tarkir. Subterranean Shambler is just a Goblin Piker in a Thopter world if you have to play it early, but it does have some nice combos like the previously-mentioned Nantuko Husk business. Just don’t play Bellows Lizard to make it good.
Lightning Javelin is really closer to Weight of the Underworld than anything else. Don’t be shocked to see this sixth pick.
Prickleboar and Volcanic Rambler really speak to the part of me that loves simple combats. I would not be surprised to see a pseudo-Monsters archetype in this set, though looking at it I’m struggling to find the right two-drops it needs to just keep up until you start jamming Fat/Fat creatures onto the battlefield. There’s also enough generic removal floating around to actually punish the deck. That said, I have no idea how anyone ever blocks Prickleboar, and it’s actually a better Cobblebrute at doing the Cobblebrute thing.
Chandra’s Fury has me unreasonably excited. I loved that card in Magic 2013 draft. It’s probably a bit worse here as the sizing jump is a bit bigger here than it was there, making it harder to use Fury to finish off multiple blockers.
Smash to Smithereens follows the “good sideboard card over mediocre maindeck card” rule. If this ever kills a non-token permanent, it’s real hard to lose.
Remember Titan’s Strength exists and don’t get wrecked by it. If only the red creatures weren’t all X/1s that still die when given +3/+1 in combat…
I actually really like Infectious Bloodlust. If the jump from 2/2 to 3/3 is good, then the jump from 2/2 to 4/3 is even better. This card is going to lead to a lot of crazy curve-outs that are hard to beat because their next creature is also large – this card chains. Unlike the other cards in this cycle, you only need a couple of this card to make the effect good. It’s probably at its best at three copies as drawing too many copies of it means you don’t have more creatures or spells in your deck you could draw instead.
Can we please just stop reprinting Demolish? Anything else that has a potential effect please.
Color Combinations:
B/R is definitely a base-red deck that uses the black cards that don’t fit elsewhere to beat down hard, including Nantuko Husk being an all-star due to tokens and Act of Treason.
R/W is your usual hyper-aggro deck that gets a one-mana trick on both sides. This is most likely base white as the white two-drops are so much better. As mentioned above, there is also a tokens deck here with Kytheon’s Tactics and Dragon Fodder, though it’s possible that this deck just plays enough dorks that +2/+1 to your team is good enough anyways.
G/R is the usual base-green Monsters deck. There’s also an aggressive archetype here that leans on Orchard Spirit to force in Infectious Bloodlust, Yeva’s Forcemage, and Titan’s Strength.
U/R is the Cobblebrute deck. Usual U/R tempo rules apply, with the shortage being acceptable early drops. Get those Watercoursers lined up! It’s like the Cobblebrute that blocks!
Uncommon Creatures By Curve
One Mana:
Three Mana:
Four Mana:
Five Mana:
Removal
Other
I really think Fireball is one of the effects that people overrate due to historical implications. Games just don’t drag on forever to the point you can go to the face for ten anymore. That said, just going five and five on a Spell Mastered Ravaging Blaze has to be more than enough. I guess my point is that you shouldn’t be afraid to fire this off early if you have to.
Seismic Elemental is Seismic Stomp when that card wins the game and a 4/4 when it doesn’t. Basically the perfect split card. The other beefy uncommon basically deserves no comments. Skyraker Giant is all on the surface: fine size with an upside. Not exciting, but solid.
The Threaten-Sacrifice theme extends up a rarity, but I’m much less excited by the uncommon options. As it only targets smaller creatures, Enthralling Victor doesn’t do the best thing Act of Treason does… but stealing a “small creature” against black seems great. It’s slightly better than a Goblin Shortcutter on Catacomb Slug or Returned Centaur. Fiery Conclusion on the sacrifice side might seem like a good effect, but the base mode of Bone Splinters isn’t too exciting in this format. Too much of the format plays out on the low end, and if you look at the commons there’s a few instances of six toughness floating around on the high-cost creatures. I guess calling five damage Bone Splinters might have been presumptive.
On the six toughness note, Acolyte of the Inferno with Renown can basically attack into anything and trade. Given it is impossible to block early and trades up later, this card seems pretty good as long as you aren’t blocking with it.
Thopter Engineer seems absurd in U/R, which I stated was missing a good early blocker. Of course it is probably still just good everywhere else as 1/3 plus haste on the Thopter is approximately the same as Ghirpaur Gearcrafter. Not a real top uncommon, but it’s in the same tier as the best commons.
Don’t play either of the one-drops. Magmatic Insight is half the card Tormenting Voice was, as it can’t fix early mana-light hands, and Goblin Glory Seeker is a 1/1 that occasionally upgrades… into an average 2/2. I also don’t really like Call of the Full Moon, which is really odd considering how much I like Auras. The drawback just reads “if your opponent does something good against an aggressive draw, you are doubly screwed because you lost this card too.”
Rares
Great:
Good:
OK:
Unknown:
Not quite as good as black, but still pretty great.
Unlike Constructed, Avaricious Dragon doesn’t have other 4/4 fliers for four competing with it here. There also aren’t a lot of commons that kill it, as even getting it Claustrophobia’ed leaves you with a Grafted Skullcap going and doesn’t lead to the full-on blowout of losing your hand and your Dragon.
I may be overestimating how easy it is to flip Chandra, but unlike Constructed it’s pretty clear that the -2 ability can kill things here. If you know you have the card, you can plan for getting it to the planeswalker side and start doing crazy stuff fairly fast.
Chandra’s Ignition is Cobblebrute’s best friend. It seems real easy for this to be a Wrath plus Lava Axe and there honestly aren’t a lot of instants that punish it. If you play it on a x/4, there’s literally just Unholy Hunger and Disperse at common.
The other Good or Great cards should be really obvious. Exquisite Firecraft is only not top tier because it is double-red to cast. Pia and Kiran Nalaar is just an upgrade of the best uncommon in a better color. Ember Hellion is big, tramples, and pumps your team.
The OK cards are just dorks. Some decks might be great for Goblin Piledriver, but most of the time it’s high end is 3/2 with protection from the worst color which was least likely to block anyway. Abbot of Keral Keep is similarly sized with cycling later on when you don’t want a small body. Scab-Clan Berserker is just worse in Limited than the common three-drop Renown creature, as First Strike is better than Haste plus a conditional situational bonus.
Flame Conjuring feels like a card that is unbeatable in certain decks, but I’m struggling to find the deck you want it in. The blue and green decks don’t want to take a turn off to play this as they will just get run over, and the white and black decks would rather keep running people over.
Molten Vortex is probably good, I’m just throwing it in this category as it does nothing on its own, not a lot early, and because I have no recollection of Seismic Assault entering play in Limited. Triple red and really old formats make it a bit hard.
Green
Common Creatures By Curve
One Mana:
Two Mana:
Three Mana:
Four Mana:
Five Mana:
Six Mana:
Removal
Tricks
Other
Overall, green lacks depth. There’s a lot of acceptable cards, but not a ton that really play low to the ground or are good to draw going long. It does seem pretty obvious the color is tilted towards attacking, but it doesn’t have the best early game to fully exploit that plan.
Even if the average card in green is unexciting, the top end of the color is real good. 4/4 is already big for this format. I have no idea how anyone stops a 6/6 trampler. Rhox Maulers is the card people get into fights for green over. Wild Instincts jumps right over the 2/2 to 3/3 leap that defines a lot of the format, letting you reasonably race a Renown start. Leaf Gilder is only high here because it’s such a good two-drop in a color that needs them. It attacks and blocks well on top of doing the usual green ramp nonsense well.
The rest of the early drops are only slightly above being uninteresting. Orchard Spirit might be the best as it gives you a relevant carrier for Infernal Scarring, Grasp of the Hieromancer, Infectious Bloodlust, or even just a Yeva’s Forcemage trigger. Yeva’s Forcemage is also likely much better than it was last time due to Renown forcing the chump block a little harder. That plus the fact that it curves well with a two-drop should tell you it’s at its best in G/W and certain G/R decks. I’m also going to take Timberpack Wolves pretty high because I’m pretty sure I just want a Grizzly Bears and, unlike the other options, this one actually gets better if you accidentally take too many. Hitchclaw Recluse though… see my point about attacking. It will probably make decks, but I am not taking it over the other low drops.
Llanowar Empath is basically the key to B/G. Unlike Elvish Mystic the body is actually worth a full card, and you are 70-75% to hit a creature with Empath. Pharika’s Disciple is a little better at combat, but both of these cards aren’t the best at keeping up the beats. This affects W/G the most and means that Charging Griffin and Ampryn Tactician go up a bit in value in that color combination as their value over replacement four drop is higher.
Aerial Volley is really good for a common sideboard card. Not only does it kill all the common fliers (disclaimer: pre-Prowess or Renown) for one mana, it kills multiple Thopters. There also might be an occasional deck where you get to play multiple Stratus Walks and combo-kill your opponent’s creatures.
The fact that there are multiple common pumps spells in green means that they aren’t at any premium. There aren’t really the token enablers for Might of the Masses here outside of a really odd nearly mono-red Thopter deck, so if you don’t need the one-mana tempo trick early, Titanic Growth is likely about the same size as the best case for Might of the Masses and therefore is just going to be better.
Green probably has the most actively-bad commons. I’m not interesting in paying a card for a defensive Aura boost (Mantle of Webs), or to slowly re-buy something (Reclaim), non-fixing ramp without effecting the board (Nissa’s Pilgrimage), or play a 1/1 Disenchant game one (Caustic Caterpillar). Three of these four cards are clear Constructed plants, so I don’t mind it, but it kind of sucks for a color that already looked a bit shallow.
Color Combinations:
G/W is the obvious aggressive deck. Orchard Spirit and the slightly larger combat tricks are the big things green is adding, and the best versions of the deck are likely base white.
G/R’s normal archetype is a Monsters deck just looking to play random on-curve creatures until it hits a point where it has much better on-curve creatures than the other decks. There’s also weird niche hyper-aggressive Orchard Spirit / Thopter token / pump spell decks floating around that are likely a little fragile but look real scary at their best.
Uncommon Creatures By Curve
Two Mana:
Three Mana:
Four Mana:
Five Mana:
Six Mana:
Removal
Tricks
Other
Green has a pretty high median uncommon, but nothing really on the level of Whirler Rogue or Cruel Revival. In other news, typical green.
I may be overrating Skysnare Spider as six is a lot of mana, but it’s just so big and beats so many cards. They can’t attack into it and Vigilance means you don’t have to power down the shields to fire.
Conclave Naturalists isn’t quite a Shriekmaw, but it isn’t far off. If you ever take out a Suppression Bonds, you come close to winning on the spot, and even just KO’ing a Thopter token is enough when your “cost” is playing a reasonably-costed 4/4.
Undercity Troll is just obviously good. It’s an on-par two-drop at the baseline that plays well if you get ahead due to Renown and still plays well in the mid- to late- game because of regeneration.
The next tier of uncommons is also good but slightly flawed. I would likely take them above average commons, but not much ahead. Somberwald Alpha plays really poorly from behind and is a bit clunky. Joraga Invocation is a lot of mana for an effect that seems powerful but could easily be bad in a random situation, unlike Overrun which is super easy to plan for killing them with. Dywen’s Elite is just a bear with a small bonus. Valeron Wardens is either unbeatable if it hits or really mediocre if it doesn’t, and without an on-color way to force it through you are leaning heavily on your secondary color to do that. That obviously implies G/W, but U/G with Stratus Walk also makes sense.
The bad uncommons aren’t complete bricks, but they aren’t exciting either. Gather the Pack is the only self-mill card in the color, but it is really good with Undead Servant and I may be underrating the late-game draw-two potential a bit. Zendikar’s Roil is powerful but takes three triggers to really be worth it, meaning it’s basically a dead topdeck and that you need to hit three lands after your five-drop. Elemental Bond feels a lot like win-more to me, but I wouldn’t be against boarding it in for something like G/R Monsters against G/B Grindy Stuff.
Rares
Great:
Good:
OK:
No Thanks:
Unknown:
There’s a lot of powerful cards here, but not a lot I’m taking over Whirler Rogue.
As has been discussed for Constructed, Nissa is just great at all points of the game and is well-deserving of the first pick. The rest of the options are just bodies though. Outland Colossus is just a big creature that gets bigger in a very unimpressive way. Managorger Hydra is bad after turn seven. Woodland Bellower is just big and finds some average other creature. Gaea’s Revenge is really big and really blockable. Dwynen is probably the best of this bunch, and that’s only because it does something other than be big due to Reach.
The only cards that actually have interesting effects and are remotely playable are Evolutionary Leap and Nissa’s Revelation. Evolutionary Leap likely depends a lot on your deck and whether there are creatures you really want to find like rares or Undead Servants, whereas Nissa’s Revelation really feels like a card you want to get to seven mana for and could build a deck around casting.
And yes, Honored Hierarch is probably on the low side of OK. It’s just that if Leaf Gilder is really good, the upside of getting that Renown bump is just really high in Limited.
Multicolored
Not a lot to see here. These are basically all great if they are on-color. Reclusive Artificer (U/R) and Shaman of the Pack (B/G) are the only ones that are conditionally good based on you being on-theme too. These are your roadmaps to what color pairs are open. Both colors of the pair might not be open, but when you see that sixth-pick Blazing Hellhound in pack two it should be clear no one is in B/R.
Artifacts
Commons By Curve
Creature:
Other:
Guardian Automaton is actually a pretty reasonably option if you just need a four-drop body. It’s not better than the on-color options, but better than the typical replacement level. These rest are all super mediocre. Alchemist’s Vial is a fine trick if you can’t find one in red or white. Guardians of Meletis is a fine creature if you can’t find a blocker in blue (read: often). Bonded Construct-style effects have never been good at 2/2 or 2/1 as it’s too easy to eat them on top of the obvious plan of kill all the other creatures, but as an early blocker I’ve seen worse. It’s effectively a blue card in my book.
Uncommons By Curve
Creature:
Other:
There’s a lot of cards here to discuss, but again very few are exciting.
War Horn is easily the best of the bunch as it is reasonably costed and unique in a format where there’s a lot of random bodies that want the bonus. Expect this to go early and define at least one archetype. That archetype likely also wants Chief of the Foundry, though not pumping Goblin tokens hurts a bit.
Sigil of Valor is the other good one. It seems easy enough to make this about a Vulshok Morningstar. The only question is if there is a deck that A) plays a small-enough creature that this matters and B) isn’t severely hampered by only having one attacker at a time. Oddly enough, this might be best in black when held by a Fetid Imp or making Returned Centaur attack for real amounts.
I’ve talked a lot about Evolving Wilds being a key fixer, but Meteorite can fill in if needed. It doesn’t hurt that splashing often goes alongside playing seven-drops, and that we want any form of value possible from extra mana sources.
Runed Servitor is a replacement-level two drop. Gold-Forged Sentinel is an average six. Play both if you need that.
Ramroller is pretty easy to turn on, and a 4/3 is also well-sized for the format. If it ever turns off, expect to be down a card almost immediately. Angel’s Tomb is very similarly awkward, as it’s not always good while ahead and really bad while behind.
Throwing Sword feels a lot like Vial of Dragonfire on one side and a lot like Darksteel Axe on the other, which is always worse than it looks. Being both at once means it is probably a little better than I’m giving it credit for, which still makes it an average playable.
Rares
Great:
Good:
No Thanks:
Unknown:
Chronomoton was insane. Hangarback Walker just as XX to cast would be Chronomoton that scales up if you draw it late, which is pretty good. With the bonus Thopters, this card is Chronomoton that rapidly becomes unkillable as it actually kills you if it dies.
Mage-Ring Responder is the only generically-good seven-drop in the format that I might just jam in a deck that has a low curve. I’m willing to pay all of my mana each turn in almost any deck to kill a creature each turn and send in a 7/7.
Helm of the Gods is insane if you can reliably give +2/+2. It’s mediocre at +1/+1. This implies to me it is a U/W card where you have Claustrophobia, Suppression Bonds, and Stratus Walk as low-cost enchantments to leave on board. Even then, how many first-pick removal spells will you actually need to have to make your conditional rare good?
Don’t play the rest. I might sideboard Orbs of Warding if I need to turn off Sphinx’s Tutelage or a similar card. That’s it.
Lands
The Takeaway
This format is aggressive, but not Zendikar-aggressive. It punishes people for stumbling, much like Dragons of Tarkir can. Hit your minimum number of early drops to not die, but don’t overload unless you are planning on killing your opponent with them. There are less Dragon-style trumps in this format, so take the ones you find early and emphasize alternate ways to win.
There is a lot of small card advantage spells and not a lot of big ones. That means there is a lot more adding up small advantages.
The fourth toughness is the key jump for a defensive creature. On the ground it trumps a lot of the Renown attackers, and in the air it trumps all of the common fliers.
Being able to interact profitably with x/1 fliers is important. Just killing them is an option, but x/1 attackers are way worse.
Removal in this format isn’t great, but it is there. Big creatures aren’t necessarily safe in the face of three common hard removal spells and two bounce spells.
Yet again we see a Core Set look rather themed. While there aren’t necessarily linears to play to, look for packages that work well together. These synergies will really define the difference between average and good decks.