Part 1 of this set review can be found here: White
Part 2 of this set review can be found here: Blue
Part 3 of this set review can be found here: Black
The only color to boast two Guilds in Guildpact, Red is poised to front the strongest group of cards in the set. It represents speed with one of the best two-drops in some time; tenacity with a long game powerhouse that combines size and card economy; and everything in between via its intersections with Blue and Green. All of that said, Red has the shortest run of single-color cards in this set — many of its key themes are explored among the Gold cards — so it should be interesting to see how those conflicting trends of strength and scarcity intersect.
Again, the Set Review Rating System:
Constructed Unplayable
This card should not be played in Constructed under any normal circumstances and will never generally be found in a competitive Constructed deck. Example: Battle-Mad Ronin, Viashino Warrior
Playable – Role Player
This card is either competing with cards that do the same thing more efficiently or useful in only a limited number of decks. For whatever reason (redundancy, lack of better alternatives), the card is good enough to fill a role in a reasonable Constructed deck. Example: Glacial Ray, Kindle
Playable — Staple
This card is played in whatever decks and strategies where it would be appropriate, almost without question. When the card is absent, we start asking questions. Example: Arc-Slogger, Rorix Bladewing
Playable — Flagship
This card has a powerful or unique effect, so much so that we build decks around it rather than fitting it into existing builds. Quite often, the presence of this card allows for new archetypes to be explored. In some cases, those archetypes are not very good (but without their flagships, we would never even ask the question). Example: Lightning Rift, Sneak Attack
Guildpact Red:
Bloodscale Prowler
So… 3/1 for three mana much? No thanks. 4/2 for four mana… does it smash a four-power guy on the way down? No? Then no thanks again.
What?
“Four mana?” you ask?
On all the Bloodthirst cards, I’ve been gauging the cards against whether I would be willing to spend a Shock pre-cast for the boost. Bloodthirst is a conditionally powerful ability, but it’s not consistent in the same way as, say, Dredge. Bloodthirst makes you work, and even though Gruul is the most nakedly aggressive of the Guilds, you can’t assume that the opponent is getting smashed prior to your second main phase. Luckily, the Red side of the Guild can give you a second option, but it costs in cards and mana.
What about a 4/2 for three? That isn’t going to crack the world, wouldn’t even be the kind of thing that you would look twice at in Green, but the precondition isn’t actually asking for so much… just getting in there with a bear cleanly. Later in the game you can just crash and play guys off curve and get a lot out of Bloodthirst when you have spare mana and are just playing topdeck; in that situation, Bloodscale Prowler isn’t significantly worse than most other Red drops. From that perspective — and the fact that a 3/1 for three, while embarassing in Constructed, is only mildly so — I think that Bloodscale Prowler may not actually be Constructed Unplayable. I recall Dave Price playing this terrible Mono-Green deck with Shambling Striders and sideboarded Gorilla Packs, making a Pro Tour Qualifier Top 8 in a format where players had Contagion, Necropotence, and Force of Will.
I don’t think this card is “good,” but I also wouldn’t be so surprised if some deck full of sub-optimal drops had sufficient synergy to convince some hapless young mage to play it. People play Fungus Fire in Standard, don’t they? Red is a slut color for any kind of drop that even resembles efficiency.
Playable – Role Player (probably only in Block, and then only in monochromatic Red Decks)
Fencer’s Magemark
No. Just no. I don’t have the words.
Constructed Unplayable
Ghor-Clan Bloodscale
This card is not good enough for Constructed. For reference, an example of a card that is good enough for Constructed that requires two different colors of mana would be Loxodon Hierarch, or Ghost Council of Orzhova.
Constructed Unplayable
Hypervolt Grasp
If this card cost 1R it would definitely be good enough; Levy made Top 8 of Maher’s Extended Pro Tour with Fire Whip, and Shark routinely played Psionic Gift in his U/G sideboard in Block. There are decks that won’t be able to deal with this effect, and it is a good foil to token generation.
I don’t like this card in essence, and neither should you, but if we only played cards we liked then Combo decks wouldn’t rule every big set format (they do) and the cards with hideous subject matter like Ichorid and Goblin Warchief wouldn’t be the best creatures (they are).
Playable – Role Player
Leyline of Lightning
This card is unexciting. If it could hit creatures as well I’d be on board, but if all it can do is leech a mana for a point to the opponent’s dome, I can’t see how this will be good enough most of the time. Even if Leyline of Lightning is in your opening grip, mana is generally quite tight in the early turns, so there is no guarantee that you will be able to get any points off until, say, turn three.
That said, Leyline of Lightning seems quite an Izzet card. Clearly the sort of deck to which Leyline of Lightning is best suited is one that can constantly replenish its spell count, i.e. a Blue deck (draw, ping, repeat). That said, how often do you play twenty spells in one game? I like my games to go like this:
Turn 1 Sensei’s Divining Top (1)
Turn 2 Sakura-Tribe Elder (2)
Turn 3 Top, sacrifice during a block, Counter (3)
Turn 4 Jitte (4), Top
Turn 5 Keiga (5)
… and then I don’t cast any more cards, except for countermagic or one more legend. Or you can have those games where you counter once, play a Wood Elves, equip it with Jitte on turn four, and win the game with support cards.
This isn’t to say that you won’t be able to tune a deck that can take advantage of Leyline of Lightning, only that there isn’t enough mana in a typical game to make this an automatic choice. If it isn’t in your hand, this card seems like it would cost you six or seven extra mana (and a card) to deal three damage.
Playable – Role Player
Living Inferno
One of my favorite lessons in Magic was taught to me by Billy Jensen on a plane ride to a Pro Tour L.A. “I really like U/G,” Huey said. “Because it’s hard enough to deal with a tree… Usually the opponent has to use two cards to stop your tree. Are you telling me he can deal with it twice?” Taking Billy’s lesson to heart, you would never want to cast this. If you had a deck that could reliably play eight-mana guys, you would play six-mana guys instead, leaving two mana open to protect them.
Like any overcosted and enormous creature, Living Inferno may find a home in a reanimator deck. The problem is that it is nowhere near the most insane eight for viable reanimation. Is it possibly a good target? Sure. This card can devastate a weenie deck’s board! But even then, it is less than flexible. I don’t see anyone risking eight mana for a creature with only five toughness and no particularly impressive survival instincts.
For point of reference, the awful U/G/r/w Dredge deck I posted in the Blue review makes bigger Golgari Grave-Trolls than this. They’re tougher to kill, and we make them on a respectable turn.
Constructed Unplayable (except maybe in Reanimator)
Ogre Savant
I want this card to be good enough, simply because I love Man-o’-War from the old days. I can see Red Deck Wins picking up the Weird new Blue Thornscape Battlemage update, but here is an example when one mana really does make a difference. A Red Deck touching Blue can ostensibly sideboard a four-mana guy for the purposes of winning attrition fights in the long term, but five mana for a bouncing barbarian (trivia: Man-o’-War’s playtest name was “Boomerang Bears”) is asking a bit much.
The reason that I like Man-o’-War so much is that it’s the best tempo creature ever created, at least in Blue. It could make the opponent replay his second turn while presenting a card of equal size, or move aside his third turn enabling an unblocked Ophidian. Ogre Savant can’t tangle with most Constructed four-drops, and that invalidates him from Red Deck adoption for purposes of the long game; when facing Dragons, they can turn to Threaten instead. Generally speaking, Blue decks have better options for bounce.
Constructed Unplayable
Parallectric Feedback
This card seems pretty cute for stopping the game-winning Stroke, Blaze, or Drain. Of course, none of those cards are legal. Even as a foil to High Tide or Bloom, if not ID19, you have the issue of being under Abeyance or having to fight through permission with a four-drop, not to mention the fact that your response card is pretty freaking narrow. I suppose it is cute against today’s UrzaTron decks with their two Blazes, but again that is a narrow utilization for a card… Are you just going to leave four mana open the whole game?
To make it simple, I hate this card because there are so many better things you can do with four mana… Â but the fact is that almost every burn spell with any teeth has made its way into some redundant deck or other (we even played Scent of Cinder). In that vein, Parallectric Feedback could make the cut in a pure burn deck looking for a finisher — the non-creature equivalent of any warm body as the case may be. I don’t know why you wouldn’t play, say, Flames of the Blood hand in Standard, but in Block? The idea of playing this against Chord of Calling is not an unattractive one.
Playable – Role Player
Pyromatics
This card is so inefficent. It’s horrible compared to most one-mana burn spells, from Shower of Sparks on up, and does less damage than any tournament playable two-mana burn spell. The problem is that you can’t completely discount Pyromatics, for the same reason that you can’t ignore Train of Thought: it’s disgustingly versatile. An example? When your opponent plays a midgame Birds of Paradise, you can kill it at the end of his turn, and either get in a point or two, or kill one of his other creatures that you would otherwise have ignored in the short term.
No, I don’t like it either.
Playable – Role Player
Rabble-Rouser
Here’s the pitch… it costs four. Strike!
One more for Dave? It’s a 1/1. Strike Two!
Come on, Rabble-Rouser… Do it for Dan? It does nothing unless other cards are online… Sterrrrrr-ike Three!
Can’t argue with the ump.
Constructed Unplayable
Scorched Rusalka
I don’t have to talk about the obvious parts too much… Essentially Mogg Fanatic gains the versatility of Skirk Prospector or Goblin Sledder. I figure you already noticed the mana activation. You already know it is going straight into Mono-Red beatdown and will probably see Extended play in more than one kind of deck.
Don’t be surprised if this card becomes the next Disciple of the Vault. Many times the Disciple killed according to how many lands the Affinity player had left, and Scorched Rusalka can work the same way. Instead of sacrificing lands to deal one point each, this card sacrifices creatures but needs open mana to do so. Overall, a very good card that, you guessed it, keeps counters off the Jitte.
Playable — Staple
Shattering Spree
Speaking of Affinity, this card should be the nail in that deck’s coffin in Extended. I think they should probably unban Disciple of the Vault to give poor Arcbound Ravager a fighting chance, because he is done if Shattering Spree is played. Of course, it’s like Zvi once said about Affinity… Evil can be defeated, but never destroyed. “A deck that is kept in check only by hate cannot be kept in check for long, unless that hate is the result of splash damage.” The corollary here is that Affinity is kept down only if Shattering Spree is actually in the six-gun loop hanging at your hip; if it is only the fear of Shattering Spree, the only thing holding Ravager back is the bravery in the heart of his master.
In Standard, this card is going to be highly important. As a sorcery, it is not an ideal answer to the Jitte, which often comes down as a four-drop, but it will put a huge hurt on Annex Wildfire and any decks that are adopting Signets and Fellwar Stones wholesale. The swing in board advantage generated by double-Red against two Signets, or against a Signet and an Icy Manipulator, is scary given the cost.
Playable — Staple
Siege of Towers
This is a sorcery, so we can ignore any exploration of the card as a defensive measure. Assuming all copies resolve, it’s rather like a Fireball for one less mana; on the other hand, actually striking with the Mountains is an issue, not to mention potentially losing those Mountains. Six mana gets you a Ball Lightning, albeit one without Trample, which may be of interest.
The biggest strike against Siege of Towers is that it will be concurrent with Selesnya Guildmage, Seed Spark, and Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree for the forseeable future, and can’t really get past any of them with any degree of percentage.
Constructed Unplayable
Skarrgan Firebird
I already reviewed this one. The long version is here. The short version is that this card asks a lot from you, but also gives you a creature that is potentially bigger than other six-drops (other in-print ones, anyway). It gives you a threat that won’t quit, as long as you don’t run home with your tail tucked between your legs. I still prefer the Stronghold version, but would be very surprised if Skarrgan Firebird didn’t have a lot of advocates come the Pro Tour.
Playable – Role Player
Tin Street Hooligan
You don’t expect patience from the Red cards, but in this case, the kids under the Mountain saved the best for last. Tin Street Hooligan is simply the best Red card in the set. Assuming you can avoid blowing up your own Jitte, this guy is — from a Red perspective — a Viridian Shaman or Uktabi Orangutan for one less mana. Those creatures have always been well regarded and universally played. That you can search up a Tin Street Hooligan with Goblin Matron is a nice bonus, for a deck that seems on its last legs in Extended, but I’d bet that the majority of play this card draws will be in a classic R/G beatdown archetype.
Playable — Staple
Despite being fewer in number than most of the other Guilds, the straight Red cards in Guildpact seem the strongest, at least at the first pass. Here is my short list:
Tin Street Hooligan
This Goblin troublemaker is essentially Viridian Shaman at a one-mana discount. The fact that it has only one toughness should be counterbalanced consistently by the fact that it is in the same color as Shock.
Shattering Spree
Boom goes the dynamite. And boom again. And again. Goodbye Affiniy and KCI; we’re looking at you next, Annex Wildfire.
Scorched Rusalka
While not equal to what some have called the best one drop of all time, Scorched Rusalka is a very serviceable creature that will be almost universally played in relevant Standard and Block decks; its long game “Fireball” capability will make this Spirit a favorite across many formats.
Skarrgan Firebird
I wasn’t too high on Heartbeat of Spring when it was my preview card, and look how that turned out! I like Skarrgan Firebird a good deal more at this early stage than the Heartbeat, but would still like to see it in action before giving this immolated peacock my complete love and support.
Next Up: The Big and Dumb Color of Sharing.
LOVE
MIKE