Average Picked At: 11.39 Total Times Picked: 44 Average Last Seen At: 8.24 Total Times Seen 610
Pro Rating: 1.0 Pro Comment: I don’t love this. Yeah, it is an Artifact that just replaces itself, and there are some artifact payoffs in the set, but the effect just seems underwhelming. You can’t really count it as a source of fixing, since even in Limited looking at the top 5 is no guarantee to find the color you need. It is definitely good at making sure you hit your third land drop or whatever, and that matters sometimes – and I like that you get a card even if you whiff, but I’m still not very impressed here. It doesn’t do enough.
Average Picked At: 11.45 Total Times Picked: 111 Average Last Seen At: 9.12 Total Times Seen 1506
Pro Rating: 0.5 Pro Comment: We see this card all the time, and generally it is more of a sideboard card. Most decks only have 4 or so things this can actually target, and that just isn’t enough for it to be a main deck card. When you know your opponent has plenty of targets for it, though, it becomes a pretty nice sideboard card.
Average Picked At: 5.48 Total Times Picked: 146 Average Last Seen At: 5.18 Total Times Seen 763
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: We see a Common Black card in virtually every set lets you return two creatures from your hand to your graveyard – and this is one of the best versions of that we have seen. The fact it gains you life helps make up for how slow this effect can be, and when you KICK this, it is actually a pretty powerful spell. You get back a creature, one other permanent, and gain that 2 life for three mana. If this was ALWAYS just a Black-Green card, it would be pretty good, but the fact you can cast it as a different spell without the Kicker is pretty nice
Average Picked At: 3.08 Total Times Picked: 50 Average Last Seen At: 2.62 Total Times Seen 153
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: So, this is going to be a two mana ⅔ with Trample a decent chunk of the time, and that’s a nice creature to have around. It will occasionally only be a ⅓, and in the mid-to-late game it might be a 3/3 or 4/3, and that growth does matter, as it makes it stay relevant all game long.
Average Picked At: 1.00 Total Times Picked: 11 Average Last Seen At: 1.00 Total Times Seen 13
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: Unsurprisingly, this Phyrexian Praetor is quite strong! A 4-mana ⅘ with Deathtoutch is already at least a B-, so adding in the life loss and life gain effects is sweet. It is nice that it punishes those extra draws from your opponent, while rewarding you for yours! She can quickly shift a game in your favor, as every turn cycle she creates a gap of 4 life in your favor.
Average Picked At: 1.86 Total Times Picked: 28 Average Last Seen At: 1.81 Total Times Seen 39
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: It is pretty cool they are giving White this type of effect on creatures of late, because playing a three mana 3/3 with Vigilance that significantly disrupts your opponent is a pretty nice deal! Slowing down whatever spell you are the most concerned about by two full turns is a very real thing. The information you get can be useful too.
Average Picked At: 6.46 Total Times Picked: 13 Average Last Seen At: 5.27 Total Times Seen 117
Pro Rating: 1.5 // 3.5 Pro Comment: There are a good number of Elves in this format, and obviously enough, if you can pair this with some of them, this is super powerful, between buffing them and letting you draw extra cards. I think there are enough Elves that your typical Green deck in the format will probably have 2 or 3 of them. Unfortunately, the baseline here is awful as a two mana 1/1. So, I think it is doable to make this card work, but it won’t just happen organically either.
Average Picked At: 4.34 Total Times Picked: 169 Average Last Seen At: 4.24 Total Times Seen 612
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a nice reprint from the original Invasion Block! The Rager is often a 2-for-1, since it is big enough to trade and draws you cards.
Average Picked At: 6.51 Total Times Picked: 61 Average Last Seen At: 5.67 Total Times Seen 357
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: A one mana 1/1 with Flying and Haste that can’t block is probably a 2.0 at worst. Overall it is a decent rate, and a great place to put equipment/auras/counters, and so on. But what really makes the card good is its ability to return from the dead as a 2/2.
Average Picked At: 6.21 Total Times Picked: 170 Average Last Seen At: 5.48 Total Times Seen 864
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: The fact that these have land types is a big deal, because it will really make Domain decks in the format far more functional. I also think that means that, even though these come into play tapped, they are going to be a little bit higher on your pick order than the pain lands are – at least once it is clear you’re going with one of the domain decks, because just jamming these lands into your deck is going to be a big deal. I think these will be valued similarly to how we valued snow lands in Kaldheim – which means they are pretty darn important! They are also useful of course in decks without a Domain theme because of the fixing they provide, and lots of decks in this format will be looking to splash at least a third color, because there are lots of cards in the set that have off-color Kicker costs
Average Picked At: 10.59 Total Times Picked: 112 Average Last Seen At: 8.91 Total Times Seen 1393
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: Sure Strike is always a decent trick, and this is strictly better because it tacks on Scry 1. +3/+0 and First Strike will allow most creatures to win combat, which is definitely quite nice. It has the usual problems tricks have of course – because they are both risky and situational. You’ll run one of these in some of your aggressive Red decks.
Average Picked At: 3.84 Total Times Picked: 55 Average Last Seen At: 3.50 Total Times Seen 208
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This might be the signpost Uncommon I’m the most disappointed in – don’t get me wrong, it is still pretty nice. After all, its a 4-mana 2/4 with Flying that has some real upside! But I do think the upside is underpowered compared to the rest of these signposts. If you don’t have a full five land types, it just gives you a bit of card selection. And that’s nice, for sure, but certainly not that strong, especially because he has to get in for damage. If you do have a full five land types he gets to be pretty crazy, though.
Average Picked At: 2.71 Total Times Picked: 21 Average Last Seen At: 2.28 Total Times Seen 58
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is a neat design. So, if you pay 5 or less mana total, you get to do it at instant speed, and 5 mana draw three at instant speed tends to be pretty nice. It doesn’t add to the board of course, but the fact its an Instant keeps that from feeling too clunky. I think most of the time you will prefer to play this at Instant speed for that reason, although the upside of it being able to draw way more cards is good. You don’t want to jam too many spells into your deck that don’t actually do something on the board, but this is certainly worth one of those few slots.
Average Picked At: 7.79 Total Times Picked: 42 Average Last Seen At: 6.22 Total Times Seen 393
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Making your opponent’s life total go down just by casting spells is pretty nice – as is the fact that you can bring Rona back from the graveyard. It is a bit costly of course, and isn’t the kind of thing you should just always do when she dies, but in the late game if you’re flooding out, it does give you something fine to do with your mana.
Average Picked At: 10.33 Total Times Picked: 110 Average Last Seen At: 8.43 Total Times Seen 1294
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: A one mana 1/1 Flyer is passable, so the upside this has of becoming a 5 mana 3/3 Flyer in the late game and fixing your mana and helping with domain makes this a pretty nice Common!
Average Picked At: 6.35 Total Times Picked: 43 Average Last Seen At: 4.91 Total Times Seen 289
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This looks pretty good! It brings reasonable stats to the table, especially because it can’t be blocked by smaller creatures, so adding Enlist to the mix is pretty sweet – it will be hard to block and able to swing really hard.
Average Picked At: 11.52 Total Times Picked: 112 Average Last Seen At: 9.24 Total Times Seen 1428
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: Paying 4 mana for a 3/3 with Flying and Haste is definitely a nice card, and its great that it also scales all game long. You can also pick the exact right spot with it to get in for lethal – it will feel like Fireball in a lot of situations!
Average Picked At: 6.48 Total Times Picked: 21 Average Last Seen At: 5.01 Total Times Seen 102
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: These offer good fixing and always come into play untapped. It is nice that you can produce colorless all the time, so having to damage yourself for the colored mana isn’t a huge deal.
Average Picked At: 5.39 Total Times Picked: 67 Average Last Seen At: 4.30 Total Times Seen 274
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This is another very sweet signpost Uncommon. Its ability will trigger when you attack – or if you Enlist – and that’s great. Now, actually buffing Zar himself isn’t going ot be easy, since you would need a full 5 basic land types, but the ability will be able to buff a huge chunk of your board in a lot of situations. Obviously you can’t do it over and over b because the creatures will get too big, but buffing all of yoru 2/2s and smaller seems like it will go down a decent chunk of the time, and that’s going to be plenty strong.
Average Picked At: 10.08 Total Times Picked: 13 Average Last Seen At: 6.63 Total Times Seen 169
Pro Rating: 0.0 Pro Comment: It seems like Red always gets some wacky chaotic Rare that does cool stuff, but is unplayable in Limited..and I think that’s probably the case here. Obviously, this can result in you getting a bunch of upgraded permanents, but it can also result in you downgrading your permanents. Sure, the ideal thing is to exile tokens or cheap things, and then upgrade them all, but actually creating a board state where that works out isn’t that easy. If you really like gambling, this card might be for you – but for every time it lets you cheat your best permanent into play, it will also effectively lose you the game. You can also exile your opponents stuff, and if they have something insane on their side, obviously you know you can downgrade it – but the situation is equally hard to manipulate in your favor when it comes to your opponent. So yeah, you can choose your opponents best permanents and your worst permanents when you cast this, and that’s cool – but the effect this actually has on the outcome of the game is usually not going to be in your favor, especially because you’ll end up spending a turn just sort of switching things around.