Yes, I’m a tool who wrote Yet Another Set Release. However mine focuses on Legacy. You know, that new format where you absolutely want all the new tech? I’m going to review the four new mechanics and then I’ll point out the cards I think that will make a splash in Legacy, and what I think they are good for.
Convoke
Wait a minute, people play with creatures? We can automatically discount many of the Convoke creatures because Aether Vial cheats creatures into play better, and with Landstill about you absolutely do not want to make a habit out of overcommitting into Wrath of God. Chord of Calling seems awesome, and I will cover that card separately. Other than that, I’m not impressed. They took a bunch of good cards like Giant Growth or Swords to Plowshares and they upped the mana cost, made it weaker, and slapped Convoke on it.
Radiance
Unless you’re using this to buff your own creatures, you have to accept that in half your matches this card will be useless. Sometimes you’ll play Goblins or White Weenie and hit their whole team, and sometimes you’ll face ATS with three different colors and artifacts. All the cards here seem strictly worse than Pyroclasm and cards of that nature, both in that they are limited and that they are more expensive. White Weenie might be able to splash for Cleansing Beam to Pyroclasm the Goblins deck while keeping their team alive, but that play costs five mana and eats an entire turn, while they can already outdraw you thanks to Goblin Ringleader.
Dredge
I really do not know enough Dredge to say for sure, but all the effects seem underwhelming. However, they do combo with Sylvan Library to dredge for free, and in the right color no less. The best of them seems to be Nightmare Void, but Nightmare Void won’t start hitting the opponent until they’ve already had the option to play their bombs. The rest of them are all necessarily far too weak to see play.
Transmute
This might be an absolute bomb or it might suck. You have to Transmute on your own turn, and that can often suck up an entire turn, so the cards you get had better be good. Here is a listing of some of the really good cards by mana cost:
Transmute Costs: 1,2,3,4,5,6,9
1: Lightning Bolt, Annul, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Swords to Plowshares, Chain of Vapor, Red Elemental Blast, Blue Elemental Blast
2: Counterspell, Standstill, Umezawa’s Jitte, Echoing Truth, Fire / Ice, Regrowth, Circle of Protection
3: Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Light and Shadow, Eternal Witness, Crucible of Worlds
4: Fact or Fiction, Gifts Ungiven, Wrath of God, Nevinyrral’s Disk, Decree of Justice, Sphere of Law
5: Mirari’s Wake, Force of Will
6: Exalted Angel, Akroma’s Veangance
9: GROZOTH!
Blue
Muddle the Mixture
This could be a good backup counter for Landstill – it works as a counterspell in the mirror, against other control decks, versus High Tide, and randomly to beat Red Elemental Blasts. Plus, for 1UU you can find any two-mana spell, which means in the late game you can cycle it to go get Standstill.
Black
Dark Confidant
There have been a lot of attempts to run decks with Black in them. Dark Confidant could give Psychatog, Mono-Black Control and even U/B Fish decks a quick boost in card advantage. In those decks you’re unlikely to lose more than 2 or 3 life per card. That two life a turn is significant in a format where you can expect to run into Goblins at least every third round. Phyrexian Arena is probably much better because the life loss is less and you don’t have to reveal the card.
Sins of the Past
Any cards that says “limited Yawgmoth’s Will” on it automatically gets my attention. In the end I don’t think this is worth it. Sins of the Past is just an expensive Regrowth, unless you manage to bin a card with a converted mana cost more than 6. You do have a ready-made Gifts Ungiven Stack: <7+ mana instant/sorcery>, Sins of the Past, Recoup, Careful Study. Right now Sway of the Stars, Time Stretch and the Epic spells have been suggested as potential cards.
Moonlight Bargain
NJX has already mentioned this card and its possibilities. You get the option to draw anywhere from 0 to 5 cards, and you can also mill that many. You can draw five cards!… for the drawback of 3BB and 10 life. This card is carefully worded not to say “Draw a card” like Sylvan Library, which means it does not interact with Dredge or the Words cycle from Onslaught. True, it gets around Chains of Mephistopheles but your tricks are very limited. I think I like Fact or Fiction better.
White
Devouring Light
Any card that wants to be Swords to Plowshares gets a second look. The number of utility creatures is low, so almost every creature attacks. This is not bad for Standard, but we get the much more effective Swords to Plowshares.
Green
Chord of Calling
The high casting cost for this does not seem prohibitive in a deck filled with mana elves and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. This card seems like it could provide the boost Red/Green Survival Advantage needs to go on without finding Survival of the Fittest. Note that this fires at instant speed, so you can punish Landstill for tapping out on their endstep. To find and play a Troll Ascetic out of Survival of the Fittest it costs 1G + G + 1GG, and here it also costs 3GGG, but Chord offers you the chance to tap down some of your other creatures to cast it. This also gives Survival decks an out to Chant lock by finding an Uktabi Orangutan at end of turn.
Farseek
Farseek fills a vital niche in base-Green decks in Legacy. Birds of Paradise is too fragile, but options like Sakura-Tribe Elder are bad because they cannot find dual lands. This can.
Red
Char
This is alright. Psionic Blast is not played at all, but this might fit into Red burn style decks. I cannot see this supplanting Lightning Bolt as a utility card because four damage is not significant against creatures compared to three. There are almost no creatures that Char can kill that Lightning Bolt will not.
Flame Fusillade
See Time Vault.
Stoneshaker Shaman
This card would potentially help out versus Landstill and the format’s control decks because they hardly ever use their mana. Because of Crucible of Worlds and an abundance of lands, Landstill is much more concerned about three-drops that do damage instead of plink away lands. Also this critter is lacking a deck. The Sligh-style deck has almost completely been supplanted by Goblins, and Red Deck Wins already beats up on Landstill.
Gold
Dimir Guildmage
This card seems like an absolute bomb in U/B decks, especially Psychatog-style decks. It comes down early under a counterwall, and over time it will both refill your hand and strip your opponent’s hand. This replaces less attractive options like Shadowmage Infiltrator that have to attack to do so.
Loxodon Hierarch
There have been a few G/W Survival decks making a few appearances, and they are sure to benefit from this card. For the same converted mana cost as Ravenous Baloth you get a card that is strictly better. It gains the life immediately, and can sacrifice to help your team recover from a Nevinyrral’s Disk.
Putrefy
This is much more flexible than Oxidize or Terror. For three mana, it can kill any creature (which makes it better than any other targeted removal spell) or artifacts. The inability to kill enchantments is rarely a concern in Legacy. The only problem is the lack of a strong B/G deck, but when one arises this is a serious tool.
Lightning Helix
For the moment, WW decks and red decks are still mono-color, but this is a serious tool for both. There is one deck, Throbbing Pink Weenie, that this will fit in immediately. For one extra mana you get a Healing Salve added to a Lightning Bolt, which makes this better than Incinerate and Chain Lightning. It will help win damage races, and expect it to show up.
Hunted Creatures
There is a potential combo here with Defense of the Heart. It really seems sort of weak – you make yourself very vulnerable to Swords to Plowshares and countermagic. Reanimator is not very strong because of the presence of Swords to Plowshares, and this is not really strong. Still, expect people to play around with these.
Plague Boiler
It’s not a Pernicious Deed; this is more along the lines of Nevinyrral’s Disk. Still, the existence of a new board clearer, especially an artifact, is significant.
Telling Time
There is a raging debate over whether this card deserves slots in Gro decks. Regardless, this is some of the best library manipulation we’ve seen in a while, and it can conceivably get around the Brainstorm problem by not making your draws suck for the next two turns. Still, it doesn’t let you shuffle away jank from your hand.
Shadow of Doubt
BOMB-tastic. This card cantrips, and counters cards like Gifts Ungiven, transmute, fetchlands and Mirage block tutors. This is especially significant with cards like Personal Tutor and Grim Tutor coming into the environment. This has the same utility as Stifle and it cantrips.
Artifact
Sunforger
For a prohibitive cost, you get a very powerful effect. For 3RW, you can cast Boil, burn, Swords to Plowshares, Red Elemental Blast and other powerful cards. The problem is to do that once it will cost a grand total of 3 + 3 + RW = 6RW. Still any card with such a powerful effect is worth looking at.
Land
New Dual Lands
The new dual lands are: Sacred Forge, Temple Garden, Overgrown Tomb, and Watery Grave. They are not nearly as good as the original dual lands, but they are much better than any alternative. The key point is that these can be searched out by Fetchlands just like the original duals. I see the best use of these as filling out a set of the classic dual lands. Once you have access to the colors of mana you need, you can use Fetchlands at end of turn to grab these. The main problem is that you will have to fetch more aggressively, meaning you play around land destruction and Brainstorm less effectively.
This set is fairly juicy for Legacy. In addition to the Flame Fusillade + Time Vault combo (which some players have called the best two-card combo ever), we get strong tutoring in Transmute, awesome removal in Putrey and some other very strong cards to be on the lookout for. Hopefully the other cards in Ravnica will bring more goodies to expand Legacy manabases and break players out of the monocolored mold.
Kevin Binswanger
[email protected]
Anusien on StarCityGames, The Mana Drain, The Source