Hey y’all. I’m sure you’re all supa-dupa thrilled to be seeing yet-another flashy, pretentious, “ZOMGWTFQFT!” review of the brand-new splashtastical phenome-nome-non us majix playas call set reviews.
Now that we got all of that horrific lingo out of the way, let’s talk turkey. Set reviews are one of those evil necessities we writers have to do. We do it not because we want to, but because we have no life and have a fascination with mechanically scrutinizing to-be-printed 5′ x 3′ pieces of cardboard.
Or simply because you readers love them. Admit it, you know you do.
Regardless, I will do my best to make sure that this review is less boring and more interesting by interspersing it with random pieces of whim. As many of you know, since my sense of humor sucks, I will expect you on more than one occasion to throw tomatoes at me through your computer screen. If you can figure out how to do that, you’re cooler than Spike Siegel; which is to say, tre’ cool indeed.
On to the obligatory review. Keep in mind that I am looking at Ravnica with an eye towards Legacy; so don’t start tacking messages in the forums about how your favorite monster will be the bane of Type Two. As far as I’m concerned, I would rather spend my time watching Samurai Champloo.
White
Blazing Archon
“Reanimator” decks might use this, but that’s about it. I state “Reanimator” in quotes because it’s not about the physical mechanic of creature resurrection, but more about the basic idea of sneaking creatures into play for much less mana than they cost. (For ease of notation throughout the article, I will classify all of these types of decks under Reanimator, rather than list out all of them separately.) I don’t necessarily think Reanimator is a solid Legacy deck, but at some point enough methods of cheating creatures into play will arise that it could be particularly strong. The G/B Dredge mechanic could help propel the deck, but I don’t think it will be enough.
I can’t see any other real use for it, unless mono-White Urzatron decks or the like become popular; something I don’t foresee anytime soon due to Wasteland. There are better fatty options for these type of decks, though, so I doubt it will see play; although if this hits play against Goblins, it could be quite disruptive.
Concerted Effort
This could be fearsome if you have a cheap creature with double strike. Even without one, though, it could be brutal in a mid-range deck. Cards like Silver Knight and Leonin Skyhunter gain added value.
At four mana, it’s probably too expensive – especially since the effect doesn’t happen right away; but it’s possible that it could prove useful. Ultimately, it will probably be relegated to casual decks, but anything that can give all of your critters double strike is worth investigation.
Devouring Light
The only reason this is worth discussing in Legacy is because it could potentially save you when you’re tapped out of mana. Realistically, this has to compete with Swords to Plowshares, so this will never be played. Maybe it will find a home as Swords #5 and #6 in decks that abuse Decree of Justice, but I doubt it.
Hunted Lammasu
It’s aggressive, but it’s probably costs too much. If you were running Blue, it would go nicely with bounce or Threads of Disloyalty, but I don’t see it as worthwhile.
Leave No Trace
Decent utility – for the most part, it’s better than Echoing Calm. Next.
Loxodon Gatekeeper
Good card, but not in Legacy.
By itself, White gains little of serious use out of Ravnica. The Archon and Devouring Light have a chance, with Leave No Trace as an “extreme sideboard option.” And right now, I would like to find a good segue towards Cowboy Bepop, but I can’t find one, so I’ll just ask outright – what the heck is actually wrong with Ed? She’s really weird, but it’s not really explained why she’s so strange. Yeah, yeah, the Wikipedia says something about Kabuki theatre, but what the Zulu is up with that? She’s still cool, though.
Blue
Before I list my notes, I will make note about the Transmute mechanic. Obviously, any uncounterable tutor can be useful, but would you run a card that does nothing else useful? To me, most of the transmute spells seem a lot like Fabricate – would you realistically run that? Most of the transmute spells are no better; since they only fetch cards with an equal CMC. As an example, take Dizzy Spell:
Dizzy Spell
It can be transmuted into Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Lightning Bolt, Mogg Fanatic, etc. – but the spell itself? It’s pretty useless, if you think about it. It stops one creature for one turn, and doesn’t hit Goblin Piledriver. Would you really run this? I don’t think so. So don’t be surprised if few of the transmute cards make this list – being a limited tutor does not mean the card is worth playing. That’s what Bob Dylan would tell you if you could understand a darn word that came out of his mouth.
Compulsive Research
Thirst for Knowledge, this ain’t. As the say in Yiddish, Veiter. Onwards.
Copy Enchantment
As with any functionally new card, this has room for exploration. In Legacy, I doubt it would amount to much. It would be fun to copy an opposing Survival of the Fittest (although you would need Green mana to activate it), or even a Phyrexian Arena if you saw it; but I doubt you would see find much else to in the format that you would really want to copy. It’s basically a funky rare that will never get used unless there’s a way to break it.
At three mana, it doesn’t even really provide a tempo increase over most of the enchantments you would want to copy. I suppose Enchantress might play this, but A) I don’t know if it even wants to use a slot for this, and B) many Enchantress builds I’ve seen don’t even play Blue.
Halcyon Glaze and Hunted Phantasm
These would both be good in a Blue Skies aggro deck. Hunted Phantasm plays very nicely with Echoing Truth or Powder Keg, the former being utilitarian enough to be useful maindeck in quantity. If you’re into casual decks, Hunted Phantasm also works well with Avatar of Might and Defense of the Heart, but I don’t think that would be very competitive. (More later on that.)
Muddle the Mixture
This could be decent. As a maindeck disruption spell, I can’t see how this could cut it, but I suppose it would be good in Landstill mirror matches; where it could fetch Disenchant, Boomerang, Echoing Truth or Standstill when not countering the opponent’s draw, removal or permission. Alternatively, it could be used as a multipurpose slot in a wishboard, in case you needed to counter something or fetch a removal spell. In any case, if you play this in a deck running White, it might be a reason to consider the inclusion of a singleton Reprisal or other two-mana removal spell.
Spawnbroker
I doubt this would be playable, since most of the time it’s inferior to Gilded Drake; but in more casual decks, I could see it being fun to use with a really dangerous creature like Demonic Hordes, Flesh Reaver or Dross Harvester. Like I said, not really playable – when was the last time someone played Sleeper Agent against you in a Legacy tournament?
Telling Time
This will undeniably be compared by the masses to both Brainstorm and Impulse by everybody that talks about it, as Flores already demonstrated on the site of Ravnica’s Thieves Guild. (SCG joke – those who get it, get it; those who don’t, don’t.) I will pause to let you mentally rehash everything everybody else has said on the subject.
No really, go ahead. I can wait.
Now that you’ve done that, I’ll say this: Meh. At two mana, I would rather have Impulse, but I could be wrong. I suppose it’s a “budget” replacement for those who can’t find the Visions original, but that’s not exactly a legitimate reason since Impulse isn’t so hard to get. Whatever.
Terraformer
This is interesting. Besides being a color filter for Blue decks (R&D: I know this was flavorful, but c’mon! Is there anything that Blue doesn’t get? Sheesh), this is a semi-playable answer to Blood Moon. It’s obviously not better than Hydroblast or BEB, but at least you get a Grey Ogre out of it.
All in all, Blue gets some okay items. Muddle the Mixture, Halcyon Gaze, Hunted Phantasm, and Telling Time all seem like possibilities. We’ll see if any of it pans out.
Black
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. (No relevance to the discussion, I just like typing it.) Black gains a number of interesting items from Ravnica, some of which are quite strong. Borrowing from both the Dimir and Golgari guilds, Black has some decent spells in each mechanic, but ultimately the more traditional mechanics make their way into its arsenal.
Repertoire. Gamut. Collection.
See, Geordie Tait isn’t the only one who knows how to use a thesaurus!
Dark Confidant
We all know this card is hawt – hawter than Flores and Knutson in speedos. It will be awesome in MBC decks that use it with Sensei’s Divining Top (or not), or in SuiBlack decks (which will probably always suck in Legacy). Either way, expect this to make its way into Black decks everywhere.
Darkblast
Here’s some potential. As a one-mana instant, it can hit first-turn Goblin Lackeys and kill Faerie Conclaves. In comparison with similar cards like Lose Hope and Funeral Charm, it seems to be just another ho-hum card. The real kicker is that it can recur; and dump goodies into your graveyard. As a mechanic, Dredge is pretty scary in Legacy – there are plenty of ways to use your graveyard; whether that means feeding a hungry ‘Tog, flashback, reanimation, or something else entirely. Any good recursive spell or creature can be utilized effectively.
As a side note, Planar Birth looks much, much better with Dredge around.
Disembowel
When I first glossed over the spoiler, I ignored this card, since it’s basically overcosted removal. Until I realized the following:
- It’s an instant – it can’t be all that bad.
- It knocks out manlands for one mana, which is a good thing in Legacy.
- It kills creature tokens for only one mana. Bye-bye that 19/2 Kiki-Jiki-ed Piledriver token. Goodbye Hunted Lamassu Horror tokens.
- It’s still pretty efficient if you need to knock out cheap creatures – two mana to kill Basking Rootwalla, Grim Lavamancer, and Kird Ape; three mana to hit Wild Mongrel, Goblin Piledriver, Nantuko Shade, Werebear, Quirion Dryad, and all sorts of White Weenie critters.
So even though this isn’t the best removal around, it has some potential in a format that uses so many efficient creatures. As a result, it’s not really as awful as it first looks.
Helldozer
Now this thing is a monster. At six mana, it’s only going to see play in control decks; and with triple Black in both the cost and activation, I doubt it will see play anywhere else but MBC. If you untap with this thing in play, you will almost certainly crush an opponent with a heavy nonbasic land selection. Against Landstill, if you have a Cabal Coffers in play, you can decimate their entire threat base, Crucible of Worlds or not. It’s still vulnerable to Swords and other removal spells, and it doesn’t have evasion, so it may not be used in the long run; but it’s definitely a great tool.
Hunted Horror
For those who know me originally from the SCG forums (quite a lot of you, actually), you will know that I am a huge fan of SuiBlack. Huge, as in Kareem-Abdul-Jabar-standing-on-stilts huge. Well, if there was ever a perfect card for SuiBlack, this is it.
Just make sure you maindeck plenty of Diabolic Edicts, Engineered Explosives and/or Powder Kegs; since the drawback will negate most of the advantage. A well-timed Swords to Plowshares will put you in a very early hole, so be prepared. If you can give it fear or some other sort of evasion, this will end games very quickly if unanswered. If you are more of a casual player and are really concerned about the two pro-Black Centaurs, play Dross Golem; which can come down early and trade with them, or attack past them with evasion.
I don’t think Hunted Horror will invigorate SuiBlack anytime soon, but this is a very fun card for those who love playing the archetype. For those less concerned, playing this in U/B with Echoing Truth is possible, even quite good. You could also play a first-turn Seal of Removal as a means of simultaneously mitigating the drawback and increasing your advantage. Ultimately, Hunted Horror seems like it’s begging to be abused, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some spellslinger make good use of it.
Heck, you could follow with a turn 4 Mutilate and it would live. You could even use a Mox or something and have Mutilate clear the Centaurs out on turn three. You could even play this on turn six and then cast Mutilate and it would still live to trash the opponent the next turn. Sounds like it has some potential, don’t you think?
Keening Banshee
Keening Banshee is what happens when Nekrataal dates Gloomdrifter. Seeing as neither of those have really seen tournament play in Legacy, I doubt the Banshee will either. Unlike the assassin, though, the Banshee has flying. At the very best, this may prove to be a useful consideration; but I doubt it will see play in Legacy.
Last Gasp
More instant-speed removal. This kills most creatures in the format for little, and it can hit black creatures too. Interesting, but moving right along. (Those of you who remember how to sing it can give yourselves a star.) [Dugga-dum, Dugga-dum footloose and fancy free-ee… – Knut, who still thinks a bear’s natural habitat is a Studebaker]
Shred Memory
This is one of the few transmute cards that I see as truly useful. A single maindeck graveyard removal spell could help out in quite a number of matches, and the ability to tutor for a Diabolic Edict, Nantuko Shade, Night’s Whisper, Naturalize, etc. could be very useful. It might even be a good reason to run a lone copy of Distress.
In reality, it’s probably too tempo-stealing to bother with, but of all the transmute spells, I could realistically see this in an MBC build as a singleton.
Woebringer Demon
The Abyss on a beatstick, but most likely inferior to any of the alternatives. The Abyss doesn’t kill itself, and you can play artifact creatures or cards like Morphling to work around it. Call to the Grave costs the same except that it can be made asymmetrical when you play zombies, and it’s an enchantment (which is generally harder to kill).
I suppose Woebringer Demon could help Hunted Horror get rid of the Centaur tokens, but that’s hardly a reason to include him.
If you have some sort of way to generate tokens, it’s possible that this could be better than the alternatives, but I would probably prefer to play Call to the Grave in a Zombies shell. You could then take advantage of Withered Wretch, Rotlung Reanimator, and Graveborn Muse; which is pretty good with Cabal Therapy for those of you who wanted to know. (Yes, I know you all know. Just nod your head and move on.)
So Black gets Bob Maher, Hunted Horror, some creature removal and Shred Memory as possible pickups. Not bad in comparison to the others.
Red
Char
Ooh, a red Psionic Blast. A.K.A. Another three-mana burn-for-four spell. Yay. I can hardly contain myself.
It will have to contend with Fireblast. Good luck.
Flame Fusillade
This may be part of the first combo to get the R&D axe since Wizards redid the format. See Stephen Menendian article today for more info.
Hunted Dragon
This is mean. Very, very mean. At five mana, this is a very affordable way to end the game right then and there. You could use this to kill an opponent before they even have a chance to attack you with their Waylay Knights. (“White Lightning rides again!”)
It’s also in the same color as Pyroclasm, and for the casual, Aether Flash and Powerstone Minefield. The Defense of the Heart trick works, too; and in Red/Green could actually be viable, in a tier-46 kind of way. (Disagree? Prove me wrong. That would rock.)
Sparkmage Apprentice
Yawn. I suppose this would be cool in a Wizards deck that ran Lavamancer’s Skill, Grim Lavamancer, Voidmage Prodigy and Patron Wizard. Or not.
War-Torch Goblin
Another one-mana gobbo. Nothing to see, really, but it can take out opposing Call of the Herd tokens.
Red gains the least of all the colors in Ravnica, but that may also have to do with the fact that Legacy red is so overwhelmingly strong. Out of all of them, I suppose Hunted Dragon may see play, but at five mana it would be hard to see it in any deck other than MRC, which is most often a Lightning Rift deck.
Green
Green gets convoke, a mechanic that at first glance seems impressive, but then begins to reveal its more balanced nature. As a whole, convoke isn’t that strong without a way to create lots of creatures. As a result, it seems unlikely that you will be able to use it effectively, especially since it’s easy to hate on such strategies.
As everyone and their monkey’s uncle likes to reiterate, convoke is a victim of splash damage everywhere. Pyroclasm, Wrath, and Disk all hose it; and all of the hunted creatures in Ravnica inspire most players to be prepared for weenie hordes.
The one exception is probably Wirewood Hivemaster in an Elf deck. Elves is not the strongest deck in Legacy, but many of Ravnica’s cards become much more playable when you realize that you might have hordes of insect tokens lying around.
I know that Jamie Wakefield hates Ravnica green, but I think he might be pleased to see how it can potentially impact Legacy. Ravnica Green has a lot of goodies that have a big “if” string attached – they may help out flailing archetypes enough to bring them to a point of viability, but they may not. Ultimately, I think that while Ravnica Green could have been better, it’s not as awful as Wakefield implies; at least when you view it from the world of Legacy (which I know he’s not doing).
Chord of Calling
If you think this will be seeing play in Legacy, you should tell your doctor what you’ve been smoking. (He might want some.) Tooth and Nail will see Legacy play before this, but to be fair, it is an instant. I should note that it costs the same as the first use of Survival of the Fittest, but that doesn’t really matter; I would be very skeptical that this will see play.
Chord of Calling only has two shots at seeing play: if you find that a lot of your opponents start playing with Hunted Phantasm or Hunted Troll (below), in which case the convoke clause could become relevant; or with Wirewood Hivemaster. The latter is more likely, in which case Elves could use it to tutor out something huge in response to a Pyroclasm like Iwamori of the Open Fist or Kodama of the North Tree without much difficulty.
In a “Secret Force” deck with full playsets of Llanowars, Fyndhorns, Priest of Titania (who looks more like a Priestess than anything else), and the famed Quirion Ranger, I would imagine that it would be easy to generate enough mana early on to make Chord of Calling possible to hard-cast for something good.
Consider the following opening: Turn 1 Wirewood Symbiote, Turn 2 Hivemaster, Turn 3 Llanowar amd Fyndhorn Elves, bounce and replay an Elf for another token. That leaves you with seven critters – the Symbiote, the three Elves, and the three insect tokens. If your opponent plays Pyroclasm, you can tap every creature you’ve got to play Chord of Calling with X=4; enough to get Iwamori, Loxodon Hierarch, or Ravenous Baloth.
If they cast Wrath, you’ll need to be a bit more creative, but I’m sure there’s something out there for four or five mana that they don’t want to see hit the graveyard with all of those other creatures. If anyone knows of anything interesting, be sure to let us all know in the forums. Faye Valentine would appreciate it.
Gather Courage
This may be good, it may not be. It’s hard to say. It can save your first-turn Rogue Elephant from a Lightning Bolt, and save blockers in combat for nothing, but I don’t know if this will be played. In order to get the most use out of it, you need an almost entirely Green deck with lots of cheap creatures. Stompy isn’t exactly the most dominant deck on the block, if you know what I mean, although it may get better with some of the goodies from Ravnica.
Again, Elves will be able to use this easily. Time will tell whether or not decks will win big because of this addition. I err on the side of caution.
Hunted Troll
It’s big, no doubt about it. Again, it works well with Pyroclasm and the like, or for the more casual it works well with Tropical Storm. The biggest problem is that it has no evasion; so it can be chumped ad infinitum, and regeneration isn’t a big deal in Legacy.
Sure, you can slap a Rancor on it and go to town; but without Rancor, it’s not really all that good. As strong as it may be in other formats, I don’t think it’s up to snuff in Legacy. If someone proves me wrong it wouldn’t be surprising, but I don’t see it happening.
Life from the Loam
This card is begging to be abused. It lets you mill four cards into your graveyard, and then pull back a bunch of lands you probably milled away. If you could take advantage of the extra lands in hand, even something like Stormbind or Seismic Assault, you could wreck some serious havoc.
I don’t necessarily think that Life from Loam will be easy to break, but it has some potential that would allow it to be quite strong. Note that it allows you to easily recover nonbasics – so you can reuse Wastelands, fetchlands, and dead manlands; or even cycled lands if you are running a Lightning Rift deck.
Will it ultimately have an impact? I doubt it. Yet it is a powerful tool in a niche area of the game, which means that it could find its way into various points of play as new ideas get explored.
Scatter the Seeds
Possibly useful, but I doubt it. Compare this to Siege-Gang Commander and you can see that it leaves a lot to be desired. In multiples, though, they could get out of hand; but that’s not likely to happen enough to make it worth it.
If you were aiming to make a Convoke deck, then perhaps, but that’s probably not likely in the realm of tournament Legacy. Even with a Hivemaster, though, this seems like a waste of space. You would be better off playing a more capable threat then just creating more dorks at that point.
Even though this may be one of the better convoke spells in other formats, in Legacy, it leaves a lot to be desired. Think of it this way: it’s like printing a Dark Ritual Variant that costs 3BB to generate BBB. It’s hardly worthy of play.
Scion of the Wild
The only reason I mention it is that it plays very nicely with Wirewood Hivemaster and the rest of Elves, which gains a lot from Ravnica already. (Compare to Lord of the Hunt, which can only name Elves or Insects but not both.) Outside of that, I doubt it touch any top tables, if you know what I mean. I doubt it will even make the cut in Elves, but stranger things could happen.
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
With Gaea’s Cradle, Crop Rotation, and fetchlands, it’s possible that this may get played if someone was very adventurous. As a four-mana 1/1, Stone-Smoker Hierophant is a very risky investment. A Lava Dart in any graveyard or a Mogg Fanatic in play makes this moot. But if you’re wacky like that, then yeah, it could work. Sort of. Just keep telling yourself that, Johnny Combo.
Sundering Vitae
Free utility is good. Again, this has to compete with Naturalize, but it could catch a few players off-guard. I don’t expect it to be used, but hey – it’s out there.
Transluminant
This is a cute little critter. In G/w midrange beatdown deck, this could be decent. It leaves behind an evasion critter and means that opposing Swords to Plowshares don’t always save them from this little bear, and if you have Umezawa’s Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice in play, then the evasion can be quite significant. Will it see play? Probably not, but anything’s possible.
Trophy Hunter
This is a solid option for Green decks to take out annoying fliers. This makes a nice duo with Hunted Troll, too; as the “vampire” ability means this can get very large very quickly when provided enough targets.
More likely to see play in Type Two, it’s important to note – because as a 2/3 for three, it’s already at the top of the size curve. The added ability – cheap, repeatable direct damage, even with targeting restraints – is rare for the color, which is the real plus. The Sengir bonus is just gravy. If it does make Legacy, I could see it as a weird anti-Fish foil for hitting Cloud of Faeries and the like, or some obscure situation like that.
Ursapine
Strong, yes. At five mana, though, this will most likely be relegated to Standard. If it cost four, then maybe it would have seen play in Legacy, but I its current form I doubt it.
So as you can see, Green does get some goodies if you are willing to play the dreaded Elf deck (which still has problems with Goblin Sharpshooter). Chord of Calling, Gather Courage, Scion of the Wild, and possibly others like Sundering Vitae may find themselves into Legacy green decks, but we will wait and see. There are more tools found in the multicolor section that will help green out as well, so green may very well get a boost from Ravnica after all.