Hello and welcome back to our regularly scheduled broadcast, already in service.
This is the next installment in set of 5-Color reviews. If this set is like others, then reviews-a-go-go should be the rule of the day on a variety of Magic sites over the next few weeks. We will have Limited reviews, Vintage reviews, Legacy reviews, Standard Reviews, Extended Reviews, and more. We might have Peasant Magic reviews and casual player reviews. With all of this hot review action, 5-Color wants a review, too. It told me so.
Now, before I begin reviewing Ravnica, I have to explain what 5-Color is, as is my fashion for these articles. Let’s see if I can use the fewest possible words to define the format. Here we go:
5-Color is a casual format requiring a minimum of 250 cards and 20 cards of each color using Type One legal sets. The format is unusual enough that we need our own banned and restricted list, we have healthy mulligan rules, and we even allow ante.
I think that I can make it shorter, but I think that’s pretty good for right now. If you are interested in the details, head on over to www.5-color.com after reading this article (after reading the article, please; I doubt StarCityGames.com wants people heading off to other sites before finishing articles here).
I have a standard way of heading into my set reviews: The first thing I do is discuss the mechanics of the set, to find out which are (and which are not) 5-Color friendly. Then I’ll head into the colors and look at some specific cards. It is very important to understand that I simply do not have the time or inclination to evaluate every single card. That’s boring. The casual nature of 5-Color means that many cards will be seen in decks, and you never know when someone will play Feast or Famine against you.
However, there are some cards that look good for 5-Color. There are also hot cards that are being discussed right now in forums and mailing lists, so I like to discuss those as well. Sometimes, it’s more important for me to point out the cards that are really bad than the cards that are really good.
It is much simpler for me to evaluate new cards for 5-Color than it is for Limited or Standard. We have established standards to compare cards against, so we can see what works a lot more easily. In fact, I am proud to say that my prognostications in these articles have noted several powerful cards that were ignored at first, until someone experimented with them. For example, I said in my Mirrodin review that Myr Incubator was a very powerful card with a lot of constructed potential in 5-Color, despite its mana cost, because it won on the very next combat phase. People have been talking about the Incubator and how dominating it is, but initially there was little press about it.
The Mechanics
During Kamigawa block, I sometimes skipped this section because the mechanics were not very 5-Color friendly. In fact, there haven’t been very many 5-Color friendly mechanics in a while. However, Ravnica marks the debut of a mechanic so powerful, so broken, so abusable in 5-Color that we may need to auto-restrict virtually every single card with the mechanic.
Convoke
Convoke really isn’t that powerful in a 5-Color deck. You are not going to want to tap your creatures in order to make something Green or White cheaper to play; you’d rather attack with them. There just aren’t that many convoke cards that you’d even want to run in 5-Color, convoke or no, so having that ability is hardly an incentive.
Dredge
Dredge is a very friendly mechanic for 5-Color. We love milling cards into our own graveyard. Getting out Incarnations, flashback cards, and Ashen Ghouls is a real nice treat. We like getting ready for a bigger Living Death or Replenish. We like having more resources for a Psychatog to eat. We like filling up our graveyards so much that some decks run Tolarian Serpent.
Thus, the higher the dredge number on a card, the happier we are. Getting back a guaranteed creature (or a nice removal spell) for our draw while also filling our graveyard with goodies makes us quite happy. As such, this is possibly the best mechanic for 5-Color since threshold and flashback.
It is not, however the best mechanic in the set for our format. Read on.
Radiance
Radiance really isn’t that great in 5-Color. When everybody is forced to play all five colors, you cannot rely on the existence of additional cards of a color when you’re targeting things. If you hit something else, it’s because you are lucky. Any radiance card would have to be good on its own merits in order to warrant inclusion into a deck.
Transmute
Hello, and welcome to Amazingly Powerful Cards. Every single card with transmute is a Tutor!
Imagine a deck with 250 cards and a lot of colors. What is going to be the most likely reason that you will lose a game? If you said, "Lack of consistency," you are absolutely right. In fact, virtually every tutor that can get something not named "creature" is restricted. We want to keep the flavor of the format intact. If everybody could run a gazillion tutors, the impact of having a 250-card deck is effectively neutralized.
That’s where transmute’s sheer power steps in. Imagine a card that allows me to tutor for any one-mana card. Contract from Below, Firestorm, Ancestral Recall, and Skullclamp are just a few seconds away. Contract, Ancestral, and Clamp are arguably three of the five most powerful draw spells ever, and I can get them. Two-mana Tutors get Time Walk or Balance. Three-mana Tutors get Timetwister or Wheel of Fortune. Four mana gets Fact or Fiction or Diminishing Returns. And five mana gets….
Well, you get the point.
This is the uber-broken mechanic of doom, and there are few transmute cards that we might allow in multiples. You can expect a decision to be made quickly on this matter, but I wanted to express the seriousness of this issue.
Now that we’ve looked at the new mechanics, it’s time to look at some individual cards.
White
There are just a few cards in White that I actually enjoy. The best might be Loxodon Gatekeeper, since the Armorer is competing for a crowded two-spot.
Auratouched Mage
One of the things I try to look at when considering a card is to review what abusable things you could do with it. With the Mage, you could search your library for Pattern of Rebirth and slap that on the Mage, then sacrifice it to tutor for any creature and put it into play. That’s okay, but not all that powerful. Feel free to abuse that, but I think that’s as good as it gets for the Auratouched Mage.
Leave no Trace
As mentioned above, radiance cards are relatively unreliable due to the whole playing-with-five-colors issue. Maybe you can find a spot for Leave no Trace in the Wishboard, however. Taking out a Mirari’s Wake, for example, could also hit the Sylvan Library or Land Tax or some Hondens and so forth. This card might be worth thinking about in that situation.
Loxodon Gatekeeper
Here we have a very interesting creature, indeed. As a Kismet on a stick for virtually the same price, this should appeal to some players. Both cost four mana, but the Gatekeeper costs a pair of White mana. That’s a significantly more difficult casting cost in 5-Color – but when you get a 2/3 body for that more intense casting cost, I consider it a bargain. This is a nice tempo adjunct for a Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, Rising Waters, or Armageddon strategy. All of those are pretty popular, so I expect the Gatekeeper will pop up occasionally.
Three Dreams
Tutoring for three cards appears at first to be a powerful ability. However, you have to get three different auras. Typically, this might be a good control card to get a Control Magic, Treachery, Persuasion, Arrest, and so forth. You could get Annex and Conquer in a mana denial deck. You could run a single copy of Steal Artifact or Confiscate to get in a pinch. Otherwise it’s all about the beatdown – Rancor, Armadillo Cloak, and more. You probably won’t see this much, but a clever deck might find a nice way to use it.
Veteran Armorer
I’m really impressed with the power of the Armorer. It’s a quick 2/2 body with a splashable cost, but it will help pump your other creature’s defense. Sure, it’s just defense, but in a creature deck, you know you are going to be attacking. Isn’t it nice to know that an x/2 is now no longer Fireboltable, an x/3 is no longer Lightning Boltable, and so forth? It will take just a little more work on your opponent’s part to stop your creatures. Now your quick drops, like a 2/2 for two mana, become significantly better, like a 2/3. This is a very solid creature.
Green
Green seems to have a lot of solid cards, plus several of the most powerful in the set. The reprinting of both Birds of Paradise and Elves of Deep Shadow can help get even more one-drop mana accelerants into people’s hands. Beyond that, look for a color full of combo power, aggressive creatures, and recursion.
Birds of Paradise
Well, surprisingly, this is a really great card. I’m glad that they finally got around to printing a decent mana accelerator for Green.
Dowsing Shaman
Anything that allows you to pay a little mana and tap it to return a specific card from the graveyard to your hand can be quite useful. Even enchantments can be used again and again.
Farseek
Good because it searches for a dual land and puts it directly into play. You can get any dual land, so it’s a great card for making your mana more consistent; land fetching cards really need to accelerate your mana in order to be truly worth playing, and this does. They also need to be one or two mana so that you can fix your mana on the first couple of turns, then start casting business spells instead of finding more lands. Farseek fits that criteria as well.
Life from the Loam
There are many people already calling for an automatic banning or restriction of this card before anyone even cracks one in a pack. The problem with this card is that is allows you to use and reuse Strip Mines and Wastelands until your opponent is landless, at which point you can continue on your merry way. As I mentioned above, dredge cards have some serious potential for abuse. The more you dredge Life from the Loam back, the more likely you are to find more Wastelands to recur.
Perilous Forays
This card allows you, for colorless mana, to sacrifice creatures at a moment’s notice to Tutor through your deck for mana. I can only imagine the silly number of things that some decks can do with this. In fact, the wheels are already turning in my head, and I think that this may very well be my favorite card of the set, despite an overcrowded goodness of the set. We’ll see if it plays as well as I think it should.
Recollect
Yes, it’s a Regrowth for just one more colorless. Yes, that’s really good. Yes, it’s potentially restrictable. Yes, it’s an amazing card. Yes, you should get one for your deck.
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
Although I haven’t thought of any yet, I am sure that there are some really powerful combo engines that can revolve around this card. Or maybe it’s the Oboro Breezecaller of the set.
Ursapine
Urza’s Pine has an interesting variation on the typical Frozen Shade ability. It a deck that focuses on Green (as many 5-Color decks do), you have a creature that can really change combat math around. This is a very strong card for its ability to allow your team to break through defenses and establish dominance.
Red
Unlike previous sets, where there was at least a hint of playable Red cards, this set gives 5-Color practically nothing to play with. A dragon and a pair of splashable spells pretty much sums it up.
Char
Cute, reprinting Psionic Blast like that. Very cute.
Flame Fusillade
Although it will likely leave you tapped out, it can also be a powerful finishing blow. Like Fireblast before it, who cares what your board position looks like if you win? This is also splashable and works well in decks that like having a lot of land. I would not be surprised to occasionally see this get played, although certainly not every deck wants one. (Also check out the Time Vault combo – The Ferrett)
Hunted Dragon
Many of the hunted creatures are bad deals. However, the Dragon has haste and flies, making it a pretty good bargain. Red also has plenty of ways of clearing out annoying 2/2 Knight tokens like Pyroclasm, Earthquake, and Steam Blast. This also works well in a Wildfire-style deck. Good luck trying out the dragon.
Black
The power of Black in this set is rooted in the transmute ability. Without it, Black has a few useful tools, but nothing broken… But with that ability, Black becomes a very powerful color. In fact, this is possibly the most powerful selection of Black cards that I have ever reviewed, once you include transmute.
Brainspoil
Unfortunately, Brainspoil is an overcosted sorcery-speed creature removal spell. You’ll likely only play this for the transmute ability. Still, playing a card for its transmute ability is quite good.
Dark Confidant
This could be worth it in certain aggro decks. You’ll note that it is Clampable when its life loss becomes too much. It’s essentially a cheaper Phyrexian Arena that kills you more quickly, but also swings for two. I’m sure that several aggro decks will be trying out the newest Invitational card.
Dimir House Guard
This is hardly a good creature, so it’s playable only for the transmute ability. However, the four casting cost transmute brings some serious pressure, so I like it.
Dimir Machinations
As a transmute card, I expect this to be transmuted, not played. Still, I can easily see where you might play this in order to seal a player’s fate near the end of the game when they need an answer.
Empty the Catacombs
Of course this isn’t as powerful as Living Death or Twilight’s Call, but there are all sorts of nifty combo-riffic ideas that come to mind with this handy little spell. From discarding cards for various effects to a broken Eureka follow-up, I’m sure that you can come up with a few ideas of your own.
Necroplasm
I can’t put my finger on exactly why I like this card. It will stupidly kill itself after a few turns. However, it can really wreak havoc on the small casting cost creatures that aggro decks really love to play. It also has dredge, so you can bring it back when needed. Note that it will kill token creatures at the end of the turn you play it, since they have a casting cost of zero and it has no counters on it.
Netherborn Phalanx
Although the higher casting cost might initially make you think that transmute would no longer be a problem, it’s still quite versatile. It’s also a decent creature, although a bit expensive.
Nightmare Void
As a way to strip out combos or to thwart controlling tricks, Nightmare Void is very powerful. It can be a bit expensive, and it slows you down, but when the game becomes a battle of card advantage, this card will win you the game. Thanks to dredge!
Shred Memory
You might occasionally play Shred Memory to remove a few tricks from the graveyard. Hitting a Roar of the Wurm, Wonder, Deep Analysis, Genesis, Anger, Recoup, Nightmare Void, or more can be pretty helpful in some games.
Oh yes, and it has some ability called "transmute" as well. I hear that’s pretty good.
Sins of the Past
Sins is essentially a Relearn that requires you to immediately play the spell. If you play Sins on, say, Time Walk, then you’ll be pretty happy. If your best card is a Lightning Bolt, then you probably won’t be. Still, for what you get, I think Sins is a perfectly acceptable card to consider playing.
Blue
Blue gives us quite a few transmute effects, plus the occasional other card. Like Black, the inclusion of transmute has created a very powerful color. There’s your typical slate of card drawing, countermagic, and the occasional creature.
Compulsive Research
A sorcery-speed Thirst for Knowledge that has a more likely outlet in discarding land.
Copy Enchantment
I just wanted to point out that this is a card whose printing is long overdue. Play it with Copy Artifact and start getting confused. Then again, maybe you won’t, so never mind.
Dizzy Spell
This is likely to be the most broken of the transmute spells. Getting a one casting cost card can get you the hallowed Contract from Below, in whose strength our format trusts. You can also get Clamp, which in some situations is better than the Contract. There are other options, obviously. Maybe you need an artifact or an enchantment from your deck, so Enlightened Tutor would be a good choice. Maybe the one card that will stop your opponent is Akroma’s Vengeance, so you need Mystical Tutor to get one. Dizzy Spell is much more powerful than it sounds.
Drift of Phantasms
Oh look! Another transmute spell has arrived. This one is a nice blocker for when you really need a body. It also has a pretty powerful three-mana cost, allowing you to get Wheel of Fortune or something.
Ethereal Usher
Not only can the Usher of the Ether occasionally break open a creature stalemate by tapping to make a creature unblockable, but it can also transmute into another five-mana card. Rout, Memory Jar, Golden Wish, Citanul Flute, and more await you.
Eye of the Storm
I’ve heard a lot of people speaking about the Eye and suggesting that it might be really powerful. I wonder if they know that this works for both players. If you play the Eye, you then essentially tap out. Your opponent plays, say, Kodama’s Reach. It’s removed, then that player gets to put a copy of the Reach on the stack. Your opponent hasn’t lost anything. You untap, and you play Lightning Bolt. It gets removed, and now you get a Reach and a Bolt to put on the stack. After doing so, your opponent plays Counterspell, which gets removed, and then they get to put a Reach, a Bolt and a Counter on the stack. It doesn’t really seem that the player of the Eye get much of an advantage from playing it.
Grozoth
This might be the only transmute card to not get restricted. After all, a nine-mana card is simply not going to have the early-game (or even mid-game) impact that the only cards might have. There are, of course, some exceptions. The Bringers from Fifth Dawn have a converted casting cost of nine, but are playable earlier. Krosan Colossus has morph, and therefore can be played earlier. There are few tricks, then, that you can get.
Muddle the Mixture
This is another highly useful transmute card. The two-mana slot is loaded with goodies that you are already likely to be playing. Add to that a card that can be used as an emergency Counterspell in the right situation, and you have a very playable card.
Tunnel Vision
This is a very expensive, very powerful card because it does one thing and it does it well. Tunnel Vision fills up your graveyard with oodles of goodies. We’ve talked previously about how dredge is good, among other reasons, because it allows 5-Color players to put all sorts of treats into their graveyard. It fuels Living Deaths and Replenishes and so forth.
Now, imagine that you can cast a spell that could dump a couple hundred cards in your graveyard. All you have to name is a card that you have just a single copy of in your deck. You’ll usually dig fifty, a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty cards deep before finding it. Now you’ll have a graveyard so large they’ll start calling it a gravepark. There are all sorts of nasty things you can do, from flashback to playing a sort of Angry Hermit deck.
The benefits of playing this card cannot be missed. They also can’t be easily overexaggerated.
Gold
There are quite a few powerful Gold cards in this set. I chose to combine Guild Cards with Gold cards. (They’re all multicolor, after all!)
We have more transmute cards to play with, and there are several powerful cards here as well. From big creatures to big spells, this section seems to have it all. Some of my favorite cards include the powerful removal spells, such as Putrefy. I also really like Moroii as a nice adjunct creature for beatdown strategies.
Clutch of the Undercity
If you thought that we were done with transmute cards simply because we are done with the Blue and Black sections, think again. This spell can also provide a kill when your opponent is low on life, so it’s not just an expensive bounce spell.
Congregation at Dawn
I know that there have already been comments about how good Congregation at Dawn is. Unfortunately for them, it’s really not all that good. It’s not bad, but I’d rather have an Eladamri’s Call, which immediately gives me a creature, than this, which is just an expensive Worldly Tutor for a few turns.
I think people see this card and immediately think of Insidious Dreams, which allowed you to stack multiple cards on top of your library. Insidious Dreams was so powerful that we had to ban it. This is no Insidious Dreams. It’s not even Eladamri’s Call, and the Call is unrestricted.
Dimir Doppelganger
I really like Dimir Doppelganger for its ability to become a very powerful creature for virtually no cost. Copy a Reya Dawnbringer or a transmuted Grozoth to create a major pain. I really enjoy thinking about ways to use the Doppelganger and I think it could have some decent uses.
Dimir Guildmage
A lot of the new guildmages aren’t as good as some of the other, older 2/2 creatures for two different-colored mana, like Gaea’s Skyfolk or Goblin Legionnaire. However, the Dimir Guildmage offers a pair of abilities that can prove useful later in the game, since the late game can often stagnate into a game of who-draws-what-first. A 2/2 creature that can allow you to draw extra cards or make an opponent discard at a critical juncture can be quite useful in getting you over that hump and giving you the advantage in the game.
Dimir Infiltrator
Yet another transmute card. We’ve mentioned before how good the two-mana slot is for transmute. (My favorite transmute target for two is Balance.) Of course, the Infiltrator can also get in the last few points of damage or serve as an emergency blocker.
Gleancrawler
The Gleancrawler might be able to find its way into some decks. As a 6/6 creature with a flexible six casting cost, you will probably see a few come forth. Trample is a nice ability, and you can always use a way to get creatures back from the yard. However, control decks probably want creatures with better abilities and beatdown probably wants cheaper creatures, which means that this critter might lose out because it doesn’t have an obvious home.
Golgari Rotwurm
I suspect that the Rotwurm will only see play in budget decks where players may not have some of the older, more expensive beatdown creatures. The Rotwurm is a very serviceable body, with a 5/4 for five mana. It also allows you to deal some life loss right there at the end of the game when you might need it. However, the Rotwurm is competing with Spiritmonger’s casting cost, and Spiritmonger should almost always be played over the Rotwurm.
Grave-Shell Scarab
Here’s another five-mana Green/Black gold card that can serve as a beater. The Scarab’s Dredge ability might be enough for it to see play, but I suspect that only a few people will try it out, and many will be disappointed.
Lightning Helix
Lightning Helix is a solid enough card. Remember that in 5-Color, we actually have Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Incinerate, so there might not be enough reason to use the Helix. Still, you might find a use for it occasionally, and I wouldn’t think badly of someone who played it against me.
Loxodon Hierarch
I love the interesting ability, and the Hierarch is a 4/4 for four mana. Still, he’s competing with the Mystic Enforcer casting cost. If you have space for more creatures at the four spot, the Hierarch might just be your salvation.
Moroii
Here we have a 4/4 flyer for four mana with only a Serendib Efreet disadvantage. Wow. This is a great creature, and I can’t wait to get some from the StarCityGames.com store. I think this would be a great adjunct to certain beatdown decks that want a few large, cheap flyers to back up a nice early ground attack.
Perplex
Oh, look! One more transmute spell for the pile. At least this one is a halfway-playable Counterspell as well.
Putrefy
Hello, powerful cards! I love Putrefy. As an instant, you get a quick kill spell that can also whack an artifact if you are so inclined. It’s like a Terminate that can hit any creature, except that you can also choose artifacts. Consider it an instant Vindicate that loses the ability to hit lands and enchantments. Putrefy is the perfect card for what it does, and I expect to see them as a staple removal spell for 5-Color for some time. This is up there with Rend Flesh, Terminate, Vindicate, and Swords to Plowshares for playability.
Shadow of Doubt
Shadow of Doubt is an interesting metagame call. With tutors becoming more prominent, playing a Shadow of Doubt can give you a lot of tempo. You can always just play it to draw a card. Between all sorts of land search, fetch lands, transmute cards, and regular ordinary tutors, this card can get a lot of play. You’ll love playing it in response to an opponent sacrificing a fetch land to get a significant advantage on mana.
Skyknight Legionnaire
I find the newest Skyknight to be a very nice balance between solid and strong. As a 2/2 with haste, I find it unappealing. As a 2/2 flyer with haste, I find it really strong. It’s no Serendib Efreet or anything, but I suspect that its combination of haste and flying might well find the card taking hard-to-fill Red spots on decklists.
Watchwolf
Obviously, aggressive strategies rely on getting out the biggest creatures possible as quickly a possible. Watchwolf fits that bill. He’ll overpower most other two-drops in the game. Of course, other creatures might be supplemented by a quick Skullclamp, Rancor, and whatnot. Then again, so might the Watchwolf. Getting it into play on the second turn isn’t always going to happen, but even if it’s a third-turn Watchwolf, it’s just as good as a lot of third-turn 3/3s.
Artifacts
Most of the artifacts in this set are bland. Between expensive equipment, poor artifact mana, and such, there just isn’t room for many good cards. However, there are three artifacts that I think warrant a closer look. I think Cloudstone Curio may be a strong sleeper.
Cloudstone Curio
I really like the Curio for its ability to establish a significant tempo advantage early in the duel. Every time you play a land, you get to bounce an opponent’s land. Every time you play a creatures or enchantments, the same occurs. That’s a pretty powerful tempo advantage, especially with the lands. I’d love to have six lands while my opponent is still at three because of the Curio.
Plague Boiler
In a format where we have Nevinyrral’s Disk, Powder Keg, Obsidian Stone, and Pernicious Deed, another global removal spell might not get that much press. The Plague Boiler is different in kind from many of these other options. It is not as good as some (like Deed), but it is better than the Stone at least. It might find a home in your deck.
Sunforger
Sunforger has some interesting interactions. Remember that Sunforger can essentially play your most expensive, most powerful burn spell every turn (because you aren’t playing burn that costs more than four, right?), and you might think differently about it in that light. You can also get land search (Tithe), removal (Swords to Plowshares), alpha strike ability (Order / Chaos), tutoring (Enlightened Tutor) and more. It’s a nice, versatile weapon that also allows your creatures to hit for four more damage, which is never a bad thing. Good luck with testing the Sunforger.
There we are! Fifty-four cards later, we have finished this 5-Color review of the set. There are a lot of highly playable cards in the set, so watch out. In fact, this may be one of the best sets for 5-Color since Odyssey block.
Start playtesting now! It should be a fun ride.
Until later,
Abe Sargent