Here come the last few cards in Ravnica, as well as a look at some of the set’s cycles. For those of you who missed the first seven sections:
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. In the case of multicolored cards, the effect may be a powerful one, but not justified by its cost. Example: Castle Sengir, Sorrow’s Path
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: Ancient Den, Maze of Shadows
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: Rishadan Port, Wasteland
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: Thawing Glaciers, Tolarian Academy
The Rare Dual Lands
Overgrown Tomb, Sacred Foundry, Temple Garden, and Watery Grave
A few years ago, players were polled as to what R&D should do in order to “fix” Extended. There were all kinds of crazy combo decks and Oath of Druids was once again the top deck of the Pro Tour. Regular old creature decks, the kind with men who swing, were kept out of Tier One. Some pros laughed and didn’t know the answer to the question. The best cards in Extended, they said, were Brainstorm and the Onslaught fetchlands… and you don’t ban those.
In the same vein we have this cycle of Dual Lands. They are extremely good, arguably the best since the first set back in Alpha, and arguably the best cards in the set. Temple Garden and Watery Grave are strictly better than Elfhame Palace and Salt Marsh… and those cards were good enough to win big Constructed events at at least the Grand Prix level. You can play the Rare Dual Lands tapped like the Invasion Duals… but the reason they are so good is that you can play them untapped. Paying two life is a small price to pay when you consider the effectiveness of Adarkar Wastes and the like. There will be times when the two life screws you in the long term, but the potential speed of these cards, like the ostensibly limited Tendo Ice Bridge, is what makes the option so attractive.
Of these four cards, Overgrown Tomb and Temple Garden are the best for one reason: they’re Forests. Most of these cards – and whatever Duals come later in the block I suppose – will be similarly strong and appear in Constructed according to the strength of their respective Guilds in whatever format seems relevant, but the Green ones are special… because Green is the mana fixing color. Farseek isn’t a downside because it can fetch Overgrown Tomb and Temple Garden anyway: they are Swamps and Plains, respectively. But consider Wood Elves. Wood Elves has won PTQs in Extended under the thumb of High Tide and contributed to strong versions of Beacon and Serow Green decks. That Elf is even better with Overgrown Tomb and Temple Garden as available search targets.
All of these cards are Playable – Staple and will show up at Champs. Well… maybe not Watery Grave. The Dimir Rare Dual will make up for it though… look for this land to perform better than any of the other three in LA and through the Extended PTQ season.
The Common Dual Lands
Boros Garrison, Dimir Aqueduct, Golgari Rot Farm, and Selesnya Sanctuary
Compared to the Rare Dual land cycle, these cards are considerably less exciting. That isn’t to say that they aren’t playable in constructed, just that they aren’t the best Duals since Alpha.
In general, the Common Dual cycle is going to set you behind by a drop the turn they come into play, but then come break even the next turn. For example:
Turn 1 Forest – available mana: G.
Turn 2 Golgari Rot Farm – available mana: G.
Turn 3 re-play Forest – available mana: GGW.
So why would you want to play these lands? Again, the two Green ones are exciting… This time they have Vinelasher Kudzu to thank. With the Common Dual lands, Vinelasher Kudzu gets a little extra ammo.
Another utility the Common lands give is to splash or operate the threat lands. For example, you can run a couple of Selesnya Sanctuaries in a Blue deck and operate Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree without disrupting the mana overmuch.
These cards will see a reasonable amount of play, but few if any decks will run four copies main. I would consider them Playable – Role Player.
The Threat Lands
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
The strength of Duskmantle, House of Shadow is that it at least arguably gives you a win condition without forcing you to devote a slot to doing so. From that standpoint it is a strong card… except that I don’t know if you can actually get away with winning the game with a mill for one per turn.
Duskmantle has some interesting possibilities milling yourself… There are many decks that wouldn’t mind hitting seven in the bin, and with Dredge as one of the major mechanics in an allied Guild, Duskmantle might have some utility in that direction. Definitely it can be dangerous as the primary route to victory in a format where the opponent can be a member of the Golgari.
Playable – Role Player
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
This card is dangerous and powerful. It is also expensive to use and not very efficient when you don’t have a lot of spare mana. Therefore I don’t envision a lot of main deck Sunhomes… perhaps this is more of a 1-2 of card in a Boros deck, or perhaps in a G/R/W deck hybridizing the two brawling strategies in Ravnica. Obviously it would be nice to pump up Godo while wearing a Jitte.
Playable – Role Player
Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
This card is probably the second best in this cycle. With Dredge powering up the graveyard, Svogthos can potentially get pretty big. This isn’t the fastest route to victory, requiring essentially six lands, but it shouldn’t be that hard to make Svogthos immediately lethal. The main goal of using this card as the finisher in a Dredge deck is that you can recover from, say, a sweep and kill immediately with 20 power in dead bodies. Incidentally Svogthos has a subtle benefit in that the Golgari have lots of colorless costs… 3 in Gleancrawler, 3 in Grave-shell Scarab, and so on, so playing multiple copies of this land is not going to be much of a liability; Sunhome can’t really say the same thing.
Playable – Role Player
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
Vitu-Ghazi is the best of the threat cycle by a wide margin. It is a bit expensive to get online, requiring essentially five lands, but it is the only card of the four that actually generates card advantage. This card can go in a traditional U/W deck along with some dual lands and prove a valuable resource. It can serve for its intended Guild and mop up the games where Watchwolf and Loxodon Hierarch have already softened up the opposition. It can go in a hybrid deck alongside Red or Black threat creatures, again a late game measure hedging bets against mass removal and even countermagic. All in all Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree seems a nice place. Play lots of them.
Playable – Staple
The Mechanics
Convoke, Dredge, Radiance, Transmute
Of the four Guild mechanics, I find Radiance the least exciting. Of the 10 cards with Radiance in Ravnica, only Leave No Trace really jumps out as a “play me” card, and you might not play it just because there are so many options in the enchantment killing department.
I probably underrate Transmute. I just missed the fact that you can Brainspoil into Battle of Wits… not that I think that’s great or anything. Clutch of the Undercity into Fact or Fiction or the like (Gifts Ungiven, et al) has got to be the best of the Transmute sequences, but I still don’t like pulling my pants down main phase on turn 3. On the other hand, both Muddle the Mixture and Perplex are just good enough to play on their own – people will play whatever counters you give them, after all – and the Transmute on those is basically gravy. I suppose after you’ve emptied an opponent’s hand, it is much better to swap Perplex late game than hold it for no profit.
I’m not entirely sure how to rate Convoke other than to say that it is attached to some of the best cards in Ravnica. Chord of Calling is going to be a format defining card, and Hour of Reckoning, like every bad Wrath of God before it, is going to define Block White; this time, though, in-theme mechanics make the “bad” Wrath better than usual, and highly synergistic. We’ll get to Devouring Light in a bit…
Last but certainly not least is Dredge. Of the four Guild mechanics, Dredge is the strongest by a wide margin. Via Nightmare Void, Black decks are given a recurring threat. Grave-Shell Scarab is a relatively large creature with built-in card advantage and a low Dredge fee that can hold off any small-to-medium sized threats and keep counters off a Jitte given sufficient resources. All the Dredge cards prevent long game losses to mana flood, but drawing the same cards over and over again will prevent players from actually drawing new lands… which is where Life from the Loam comes in. This handy two-mana sorcery gets back any lands that get dumped by Dredge, generating card advantage and recouping board development over the long game. As none of us have actually played with Dredge extensively, it is probably easy to overlook the subtlest strength of the strongest mechanic: selection. It’s obvious that Dredge lets us draw whatever we like, but the fact that more and more cards go to the graveyard with each successive Dredge means that we have greater and greater options of what we can return. Oh, and it makes for good Top, too.
The Signets
The four Signets all do the same thing, more or less, distinguished by their respective two color mana combinations. As I said in a previous review, the Signets are generally weaker than certain predecessors as they don’t make mana immediately and don’t operate as efficiently under an effect like Hokori, Dust Drinker. That said, they can still be useful tools in the right decks.
Selesnya and Golgari Signets will be the straight up weakest because in their color combinations, these cards are competing with Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, and potentially Elves of Deep Shadow – even in Block. An aggressive Guild like Boros will similarly have less desire to accelerate via Signet because, at least in my abstract conception of the Guild, it espouses an aggressive tone, coming out with Swiftblades and Hounds, and Lions early, perhaps some 2/2 flyers (haste or not), and won’t necessarily have time to spend its second turn on a Signet.
This leaves Dimir. Dimir, I predict, will be the most likely Guild to actually pin that Signet to its lapel when venturing into battle. Unlike the Green Guilds, Dimir, doesn’t have mana producing early drops… artifact mana is all they’ve got. That said, the ability to go from two to four is a useful ability because it brings the Guild directly to Cranial Extraction or Gifts Ungiven mana immediately. Foregoing the chance to run a Mana Leak on turn 2 will be greatly counterbalanced by playing, and even when drawing, the acceleration may be more useful than countering an early threat anyway.
The Guildmages
All the Guildmages are serviceable and most of them have Constructed quality powers. The question for these characters is whether or not they can fill any roles in their respective colors, and I stress colors rather than Guilds. If even one of Dimir Guildmage’s abilities lacked that pesky “Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery” tag, I would rate him quite highly, but it’s impossible to ignore those potential liabilities; Dimir is probably still the second strongest of the Guildmages, anyway.
Boros is the foremost. She has the cheapest abilities, and therefore the most likely abilities to come online for a quick drop bear. Golgari’s abilities, though strong in the long term, all cost five mana, and the other two Guildmages, again with potent upsides, demand four mana. Boros’s only ask for two mana… Going long the Haste will be a godsend, especially with fat Red men coming down in aid of the lightning handed little girl. Again, Boros Guildmage is the two-drop many Red Decks have been wanting for years. She obsoletes Goblin Elite Infantry, Goblin Raider, Ironclaw Orcs, Rage Weaver, and Firebrand Ranger – all contributors to successful Red Decks in the past – in at least Mono-Red beatdown.
The Legends
Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran; Chorus of the Conclave; Circu, Dimir Lobotomist; Razia, Boros Archangel; Savra, Queen of the Golgari; Sisters of Stone Death; Szadek, Lord of Secrets; Tolsimir Wolfblood
Not one of these cards is strong in Constructed in the way a Kamigawa Block Legendary Creature was. North Tree, Keiga, Meloku… they go straight in. None of these guys goes straight in, and many of them read “reanimate me or no” in the playability column. The closest is Mr. Kos, and even he is just a 3/3 for five mana when he’s not in the midst of battle. For what most of the rest of these ladies, gentlemen, and vampires cost, I’d expect some spectacular abilities, but frankly, I don’t know if Razia is worth her [w]eight.
In a reversal of most of the rest of the set, Dimir seems to have the sickest Legendary Creatures. Szadek costs seven, which is just north of what I would usually pay for a creature, but Eternal Dragon and Desolation Angel have won tons of games as five power sevens… and Szadek can get bigger. Overall, I like Circu the best – and he has a great illustration – but the Dimir Lobotomist is a little puny for fighting beatdown. Getting him out in time is the main challenge, but I think he will make a difference in the majority of games that he resolves, especially against complicated decks.
The Hunted Cycle
Hunted Dragon
Generally speaking, the Dragon is the best of the Hunted Cycle. He is six power and provides six power right back. However, with his haste, the Dragon is capable of ending games very quickly and can serve as sort of a six-point Fireball for game-ending purposes. Unlike every other Hunted creature in this cycle, Hunted Dragon gets the first lick in; even with higher power in most cases, the other Hunted creatures will generally be blocking the first attack around.
The major downsides to Hunted Dragon will be metagame based. In many decks, the three 2/2 creatures on the other side of the table won’t mean anything at all, but in White Weenie, they might end up a nine point counterattack. More scary than anything else is the fact that even when the opponent is tapped out, three White Knights makes for a Convoke creature kill by the name of Devouring Light. Should Hunted Dragon become popular enough, I could see decks that wouldn’t normally be able to cast Devouring Light siding it in.
I would not be surprised to see this card at Pro Tour: Los Angeles. It seems a superb sideboard card in a Goblins deck, able to bash a Smother-reliant opponent who has otherwise locked the game out with double Engineered Plague.
Hunted Horror
One of the most exciting Hunted creatures, this one is a huge 7/7 for two mana. Moreover, the opponent gets only six power worth of creatures. On the down side, those creatures have Protection from Black and will be able to immediately counterattack and the Horror will be unable to block. As the Centaurs will get in there first, this makes for a difficult racing situation, despite the Horror’s trample.
Sadly for Hunted Horror, most of the cards that would counterbalance the downside – Echoing Truth, Pernicious Deed, et al – are out of Standard. Possibly this card is so strong that it can make it in Extended, where those cards are available.
Hunted Lammasu
Unlike every other Hunted creature, the Lammasu provides the opponent with a single creature of strictly inferior stats. Hunted Dragon has the same power as his spawn, Hunted Horror slightly more than its combined Centaurs, but Hunted Lammasu is a 5/5 flyer that gives up a 4/4 Horror with no notable text. Depending on the matchup, the Horror token might be completely irrelevant (say you don’t want to attack with your Hand of Honor anyway). Given the fact that most players would be willing to spend four mana to get a vanilla 4/4, the downside is not inconsiderable, though.
Luckily Hunted Lammasu can fly, so racing is heavily in its favor. In a White Weenie or Boros deck with Suntail Hawk, Leonin Skyhunter, and so on, this card can be a valuable tool up the curve, winning the race and leaving garbage weenies back to block [the Horror].
I may be being too conservative in my estimation, but I do not think that Hunted Lammasu is a great card in general. It’s terrible in a topdeck fight, or late in the game after an attrition war. In many cases, Huntee Lammasu is worse than its brothers just because the opposing threat is so singularly potent; watch out for removal.
Hunted Phantasm
This card is obliquely fantastic. Originally I didn’t realize just how good it is, and Hunted Phantasm is the only Hunted creature that gives up more power than it itself possesses, but my friend Tony Tsai pointed out that you can play it in a Red Deck with Shark Phoenix or some such and the drawback is negligible. A 4/6 unblockable spirit for three mana is a highly efficient and might have synergies with other effects. I dislike the fact that the opponent is getting goblins, which can be a huge downside depending on the matchup, but the card itself is a great blocker and potentially outrageous attacker for its cost. In fact, I may now like this card better than Hunted Troll.
Hunted Troll
Simply outrageous, Hunted Troll has eight power and a great ability for four mana, and gives up only four damage. The problem is that the Faerie creatures all fly, and Hunted Troll can’t stop any damage because of that.
Like Hunted Horror, this card, in certain formats, is well positioned to play sweeper and take advantage of its huge power. Turn 2 Horror, turn 3 Deed, turn 4 Troll anyone?
Summary
That’s it for my first set review! Luckily Ravnica is a great set with a lot of possibilities. Per usual, my favorite cards are ones like Dark Confidant – cheap spells that can make a big difference – but there are tools here for those of you who love undercosted beaters like Watchwolf, combination engines like Eye of the Storm, or board control with Dream Leash. I know I will be excited to try the new Dual Lands, both in Standard and Extended. Ravnica pairs nicely with the most recent sets… Kamigawa complements these cards with Sensei’s Divining Top for all the new shufflers and land searchers, as well as more efficient Legendary Creatures to top off the Ravnica low drops. All in all, this should help make for a refreshing new set of formats, though I am still a bit worried about a particular two mana piece of equipment…
Good luck,
LOVE
MIKE