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
I have loved the color Red since the summer of 1994 when I tapped my first Mountain for turn 1 Kird Ape. To me, Kird Ape was the Narnian doorway to greater understanding of Magic: the Gathering. It’s synergy with Forest unlocked that special something in my brain that said “there is more to this game than I know,” that made me want to explore the synergies and combinations that I was convinced were already discovered – no, hidden – in Renton, WA.
I liked Red early in my career for cards like Lightning Bolt, which did double duty against my opponents’ first turn Hypnotic Specters and faces. I liked it for Red Elemental Blast, which took care of so many problems so cheaply and easily. In recent years I’ve of course loved coming back to Red for cards like Magma Jet and figuring out how to solve formats from the fast – but still flexible – side of the metagame.
It is with this eye that I am coming at Ravnica Red. One of the two “shortchanged” colors, Red is arguably the weakest of the five when non-Guild affiliated… But it still has some nice burn additions and decent synergies with other cards.
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 unspectacular and 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, that is when 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 decks. 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
Barbarian Riftcutter
He’s a little pricey, but I can honestly see him making the cut. Like is this card that much worse, in his role, than a Shard Phoenix? I mean control decks can easily deal with Barbarian Riftcutter, and weenie decks don’t fold to him, but in Ponza? He goes with everything they are trying to do, more or less, while filling in a potentially necessary slot of warm body.
Playable – Role Player
Blockbuster
This card costs five mana, might eat a Disenchant before I untap, and costs seven mana before it does anything whatsoever, at which point it might be doing nothing very good. Nowhere on the card text do I read “win the game.”
Yet if you have a Red mana available, it might have some virtue in Enduring Ideal… but I don’t think so because it should be easy to play around.
Constructed Unplayable
Breath of Fury
This card has crazy potential. Like you can have a ton of little guys and get a million attacks. The problem is, no one is going to let you tag them with a little guy wearing this unless you’ve already got a huge lead. Maybe it could be good with some sort of crazy trixiness. I’m not sure, but I don’t think this will be anything memorable.
Constructed Unplayable
Char
This card goes straight in. I like it so much, I’d play it in Legacy, let alone any other lower-end format.
Playable – Staple
Cleansing Beam
Quite possibly a house, this card seems like the kind of card I would typically only sideboard, rather than play for fear that it would eat all my own guys. If I’m just sideboarding creature kill, why am I paying five mana to deal two damage when I could be playing something like Shard Phoenix or a conventional sweeper? I don’t know either, that’s why I’m asking you!
Cleansing Beam might make the cut in Block, but probably not in Standard or any of the bigger formats.
Playable – Role Player
Coalhauler Swine
I once won a PTQ with Flesh Reaver, so it’s not that I’m scared of the drawback on this guy so much as I don’t think he’s a great deal. Flesh Reaver was 4/4 for two mana instead of 4/4 for six. Moreover, for six, I can get Godo or a Dragon. Possibly in Block this guy will be good enough, but I’m actually a little afraid of the situations where he gets team blocked. Nah, I don’t like him.
Constructed Unplayable
Dogpile
This just seems way too conditional to be any good.
Constructed Unplayable
Excruciator
In a sense this card is nice… It gets through things like Sphere of Law or Circle of Protection: Red. On the other hand, the decks that have those cards can usually deal with, ahem, eight drops. I don’t want to say he’s unplayable because he might be nice in Reanimator – he hits right through Solitary Confinement, for instance – but I don’t think anyone will want to voluntarily summon him.
Playable – Role Player
Fiery Conclusion
This card is a powerful addition to the Red sideboard suite. Red has never been very good at hitting creatures with toughness 4 or greater, which is why I rated Char so highly. This card goes a step further and takes down creatures with toughness 5. Now I’m not saying that Fiery Conclusion is the be all and end all of Swords to Plowshares-class elimination spells, but sacrificing a creature is actually not that big a deal in this era of duplicate Legends and disposable tokens. The winner between two Red Decks is quite often whoever has the last giant (“giant” defined as Dragon, Beast, Spirit, or Yamabushi Master Blaster of gigantic or greater size), and like we just said, Red ain’t so great at killing giants, even if it is okay at making them. I see no shame in blocking the Hearth Kami, taking my four like a man – or Barbarian, Goblin Warrior, or Insect as the case may be – and sacrificing the Kami killer to take down the big guy next door.
Is this optimal? Probably not. Is it reliable? Maybe. All I know is that Red-on-Red is rarely about early game damage and that if you can trade one of your long game meaningless cards for one of the opponent’s trumps, you might be able to, if I may borrow the line, say “it’s the last fatty that kills you.”
Playable – Role Player
Flame Fusillade
This card is pretty cool. It’s a new take on Fireball, if you think about it, that lets you do things like tap your Umezawa’s Jitte or Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang for additional damage. Unlike traditional Fireball, this card splits up the damage for you, letting you take out more creatures more cheaply (even if the sorcery is more expensive by three on its face) as well as circumventing Circle of Protection: Red more efficiently. Unlike the original, Flame Fusillade can’t be played early to kill a Birds of Paradise.
You’ll want to construct your deck a certain way if your high end tops on Flame Fusillade, with lots of permanents rather than cards in hand, but I am pretty sure this card will be a game ender when played in the right deck.
Playable – Role Player
Flash Conscription
Blind With Anger is generally better than this card, and it isn’t busting down any doors to make the cut in Constructed. The W side effect is nice, but for six mana, you might as well just trump with a Godo or Dragon and not worry about the other guy’s Godo or Dragon as a one-time collaborator. Block is always weird, though. It’s possible this card will make the cut in Ravnica only, just because of threat/answer availability… The theme of the card has been strong since Ray of Command.
Constructed Unplayable (possibly Role Player)
Frenzied Goblin
This little guy isn’t bad. Early game no one wants to trade with him, late game he gets the more important stuff through.
Playable – Role Player
Galvanic Arc
This card is a dorky Urza’s Rage any time you’ve got a guy. Three damage cards for three always get played, from the aforementioned Rage to Fiery Temper and beyond, so I’m not worried about Galvanic Arc making the cut. The first strike aspect will probably be relevant at times as well, but isn’t the core value to Galvanic Arc. Clearly this card shines in the Auratouched deck, where it is Flametongue Kavu, but it will be good all around, regardless.
Playable – Role Player (could go as high as Staple)
Goblin Fire Fiend
When this card is good, Unearthly Blizzard would probably be better. Otherwise he’s a 1/1 Firebreathing for four mana. Goblin Fire Friend isn’t a “bad” creature per se, just not a very good one.
Constructed Unplayable
Goblin Spelunkers
He didn’t get any play the first time around, but these days, more players have got Sakura-Tribe Elder touching for Godo, and Boros as a Guild will put Mountains in White Weenie decks. That said, there is a big difference between two mana and three, so this guy is no Joshie Green Rushwood Dryad. If Spelunkers actually gets play, it’s going to be narrowly, likely in Block, and likely in the sideboard.
Playable – Role Player
Greater Forgeling
The greatest virtue of this card is probably that it can pull two cards from an opposing Red Deck the turn you tap out for it. 3/4 for five mana is no great shakes and 6/1 for five mana is even worse with no haste or trample or anything like that.
Constructed Unplayable
Hammerfist Giant
This guy sure is a giant warrior. Bam! Pow! Whap! The swarm decks are going to hate the Hammerfist Giant. He is big enough to tangle with the staple threats, and can do something few others can claim: he can take out Kodama of the North Tree outside of combat.
Is Hammerfist Giant perfect? No. He would be the first one to tell you that he sometimes gets out of hand and accidentally kills himself. He would say that even though 5/4 for six mana is pretty decent for a Red creature, he sometimes gets taken out by three-drops. But does he try? Yessir! Don’t look for him to be headlining any top ends outside of Mono-Red for now.
Playable – Role Player
Hunted Dragon
This card is straight up awesome, the best of the Hunted cards, which will be reviewed together next week.
Playable – Staple (could be Flagship)
Incite Hysteria
Falter, Wave of Indifference, Unearthly Blizzard… What do they have in common? They never made sixty-card decks.
Constructed Unplayable
Indentured Oaf
I’ve got no clue why you would want to play this card. It’s not bad, and it doesn’t have any kind of a guaranteed downside, but Indentured Oaf has these giant question marks floating all around his head. I am trying to imagine he is a vanilla creature with no additional text or abilities, just a 4/3 for four mana… Would I want to run him? I don’t think I would, but I am mesmerized by the fact that he doesn’t hit… your own team? Is there some secret combination, some Enchantment – Aura that could set him up in such a way that he would be broken if he killed, say, all the opponent’s creatures but not his compatriots?
I am dizzied with wonder at the Indentured Oaf.
I am indentured, now, in oafishness, to his mysteries.
Constructed Unplayable… or is he?
Infuriate
When you’ve absolutely, positively, got to kill his Merfolk Looter but you don’t have…
This is just a ridiculous train of thought.
Constructed Unplayable
Mindmoil
What a waste of a rare slot. I hate cards like this. What if I like the cards in my hand? Why doesn’t this mess with my opponents at least?
Constructed Unplayable
Molten Sentry
I wouldn’t mind a 5/2 haste for four mana, though honestly I don’t know if I’d be knocking down doors for it, either. However I am pretty sure I’d never want a 2/5 defender for the same price.
Constructed Unplayable
Ordruun Commando
This guy is way too dumb for a review.
Constructed Unplayable
Rain of Embers
This card is pretty much strictly worse than Yamabushi’s Storm. I didn’t play Yamabushi’s Storm when I was up against Blue creatures in Limited, so what are the chances I play Rain of Embers?
Constructed Unplayable
Reroute
Reroute, I’d like you to meet young Myojin of Night’s Reach and his friend, Ghost-Lit Stalker. They have been causing all kinds of trouble recently, lollygagging about, up to no good. Do you think you could have a talk with these gentlemen? I hate to use the word “gentle,” because they have been known to – I kid you not – assault players’ hands. Also they are not so much “men” as “creatures of the spirit world,” but you get my drift. Anyway, can you have a talk with them? I’m sure you will have something productive to say.
Very definite sideboard card.
Playable – Role Player
Sabertooth Alley Cat
Uh, no.
Constructed Unplayable
Seismic Spike
This card is very interesting, very interesting indeed. Not only does it come in for a discount on turn 4, it is potentially abusive with Eye of the Storm. There isn’t so much to say about an overcosted-yet-undercosted Stone Rain in general, other than “I hope you don’t get mana burned” and “no one likes land destruction players.”
Playable – Role Player
Sell-Sword Brute
On one hand, this guy is a jerk. You definitely don’t want to draw him on the last turn when you need one key chump block to set up the burn kill. On the other hand, as far as straight Red two-drops go, he’s about as worthwhile as they come (up until we get to Guild Mana, at least, and that’s basically cheating). Two damage isn’t a big deal, but it isn’t optimal, either, so look for this guy to take a back seat to the Boros Guildmage, and probably Hearth Kami. On the other hand, unlike almost every other two-drop in his color’s history, Sell-Sword Brute can block if he has to and doesn’t trade with Llanowar Elves.
Playable – Role Player
Smash
Surprisingly, this card never did a lot in Constructed. The true test would have been Smash against Mirrodin Block, but for now, it’s going to have to content itself against Umezawa’s Jitte and Honor-Worn Shaku. Smash is very playable… I’m just not sure if it will actually get played.
Playable – Role Player
Sparkmage Apprentice
This card looks just atrocious… Two mana, one damage, one power… No thanks.
I just wrote about how Sell-Sword Brute might be playable because Red two-drops are so weak, and Sparkmage Apprentice falls under the same mana cost. I would not likely play this guy straight up, but I could see him coming in as an alternate Swordsmaster or Jitteman against a deck that had a lot of x/1 utility creatures. There are worse things in the world than killing the opponent’s Birds of Paradise and having a body ready to carry the Jitte in to the aptly-named Red Zone.
Playable – Role Player (sideboard only, if then)
Stoneshaker Shaman
One of the main things wrong with this guy is that you have to sacrifice the first land. Another thing that sucks about him is that even in a deck designed to lock the board, he doesn’t have some sort of “… or sacrifice Stoneshaker Shaman” clause, meaning that after the other schmuck hasn’t got any lands left, you might be stuck losing all of your own. That said, he’ll probably clobber for one per turn unchecked because the opponent won’t want you to lose your precious Stoneshaker Shaman.
I can see him being the nail in the coffin in a very narrow sense, but Stoneshaker Shaman’s downside is just so atrocious and his size is so miniscule and his cost is so in the neighborhood of very good cards that I don’t think that he’ll ever make the cut in any normal deck.
Constructed Unplayable
Surge of Zeal
How many creatures do you usually play per turn? I usually only play one per turn, and when I play two, I rarely have lots of extra mana. If I do, I am usually playing Green, not Red. All of that said, it should be clear that I don’t know when you would want this card. If it were Reckless Charge I’d understand, but as it is, I don’t think this card makes the cut.
Constructed Unplayable
Torpid Moloch
This card looks awful but I bet it could actually be relevant. Think about siding it just against Watchwolf or something on that order. Who in the world is going to want to trade with Torpid Moloch? He would thereby generate some nice tempo advantage against bigger creatures or at least trade with regular old bears. The downside is that Red Decks don’t exactly want cost efficient 3/3 guys back on defense on the other side of the table because they don’t want to send into 3/2 garbage walls… but you can’t have everything. Obviously this is a sideboard card if it makes the cut at all. Don’t forget that over a late game you can actually smash.
Playable – Role Player (quite possibly or even probably Constructed Unplayable)
Viashino Fangtail
Wow.
Compare this card to Frostwielder. 3/3 creatures for four mana often come close to playability in Constructed (Zvi Mowshowitz made Top 8 of a Standard Pro Tour with 3/3 Elephants for 3G in his deck), and the “Tim” ability is actually a great one to have; it’s all about the rest of the card (in Zvi’s case the other half was a bad – yet sometimes appropriate – Shock). If Satoshi Nakamura can play plain old Prodigal Sorcerer in his Opposition deck, I don’t see why this guy can’t be good in some deck or other.
Playable – Role Player
Viashino Slasher
This card is a great example of why you might play Sell-Sword Brute even though he has a two damage downside. He’s worse than a Bear for 1R, and if you pay an extra R… he’s worse than a Bear. Somebody get me a Sell-Sword Brute!
Constructed Unplayable
War-Torch Goblin
Red is the sluttiest of all the colors. Some people think Green is the sluttiest because it mingles with other colors via Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kodama’s Reach, and Birds of Paradise, but Red will let anyone, and I mean anyone, make the cut. The following beaters have won PT slots or made Top 8 at events like the World Championships in Mono-Red beatdown decks: Mons Goblin Raiders, Firebrand Ranger, Goblins of the Flarg (but only in concert with Dwarven Lieutenant in the same deck)… The list goes on and on. Compared to some short bus jockeys, War-Torch Goblin has the cranial superstardom of the Legendary Master featured on Presence of the Master (Phil Foglio version).
Welcome aboard!
Playable – Role Player
Warp World
I generally dislike symmetrical cards, and Warp World, provided it actually hits, is anything but predictable. Theoretically if you played a deck with mostly cheap weenies with only accelerators and Warp World itself for non-permanent cards, you could get this off around turn 6, or perhaps turn 5. The problem is that if you had a lot of weenie garbage in your deck – because the only way to get a real advantage with Warp World is to have your hand essentially in play when it goes off – you are probably just going to turn over more weenie garbage. If you play with expensive cards to break Warp World… you might actually draw them. See the problem?
Attrition into Enduring Ideal is probably just better if you want to play this kind of goofball strategy.
Constructed Unplayable
Wojek Embermage
This card is a little pricey, but, again, compare it to Frostweilder. All the Red Tim creatures in this set make Frosty look pretty useless (not that he was constructed playable). This card is probably too clunky to run in the main, but I can’t imagine Saproling strategies – or even the Knight tokens from Hunted Dragon – would take a liking to Wojek Embermage, especially if he had a little help. If this card is actually in play and active, he can potentially control the board, but I don’t think that he can get to that position with any kind of predictable regularity. Therefore Wojek Embermage will probably be relegated to the sideboard against token generating decks, if he is played at all.
Playable – Role Player (probably Constructed Unplayable)
Straight Red seems uncommonly weak compared to the other colors in this set, with only one and a half Constructed Staple cards. I mean Char is really good and Galvanic Arc gives you some decent play, but there are close to 40 other Red cards to consider. That said, Hunted Dragon is the best of the Hunted cards in my estimation, and seems a perfect addition to several archetypes across the various formats. Luckily for Red, Boros seems like the strongest of the Guilds, or at least the swiftest, so adherent Mountain tappers are still going to get something out of Ravnica.
Up tomorrow, the strongest of the traditional colors for Constructed, Green.