Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: So, a three mana Sorcery that gives you a tapped 4/1 with Menace is probably pretty close to playable. If it came into play untapped it would actually be pretty solid! But it is really nice you can get that 4/1 body and then get the Altar, and the Altar is actually a pretty nice little reanimation engine. The problem there can be actually setting up the reanimation, so this kind of card can do stone nothing for awhile – but the Adventure gets you around that downside. Exiling something in play to reanimate something is certainly situational, but it will be worth doing often enough – and the card will already have impacted the board.

Pro Rating: 5.0
Pro Comment: The whole hexproof part makes it hard for your opponent to find a way around it at first, and then when you start cranking out food you end up netting mana and gaining cards, which is pretty darn powerful. The mana can only be used on Blue creatures, but that’s what this Polar Bear will be getting you, so it works out quite nicely. Many of the creatures in the spellbook actually cost three mana or less, so you can even cast one of them right away! Basically, this is a value engine that can pretty effectively fuel itself – and a creature with great stats.

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This is another reprint from Forgotten Realms. It is a decent little two drop. If you’re the life gain deck, it can get those triggers going, and the format has enough artifacts and Enchantments that those modes are reasonable too.

Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: So, Two mana to cast and three to equip for +2/+0 and Reach isn’t amazing. That card is probably a 1.5 at best. The whole damage part of the card is pretty spicy, though, and definitely provides an upgrade! Because it bumps the power of the creature, it is likely that it can do some significant damage. So you Equip this to your creature and attack, and your opponent kind of just has to take it, because blocking could lose them a creature and result in a bunch of damage. It is nice that it adds Reach to the mix too, so you can use it somewhat defensively as well. The ideal situation is probably putting this on something to attack, and then moving it to something else that you plan on blocking with. That does cost a whole lot of mana to do of course, so you won’t always pull it off. But yeah, I like the idea of attacking with something with this equipped, since your opponent will be in a world of hurt. You can also do some wacky stuff by damaging your own creature when this is around too!

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This is a pretty neat design. So, a counterspell that lets your opponent ignore it for two isn’t usually great in Limited, since you have to have the mana up at the right time and your opponent also has to not have the mana to pay for it. But they soften the blow of your opponent paying 2 to ignore it, since you weaken a creature when you target it with this, whether the spell actually gets countered or not. Now, that’s mostly just a consolation prize, but it does at least mean this does something when your opponent has the mana, unlike most counterspells like this. I think you’ll still cut this reasonably often, though.

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This is premium removal. This format does have a lot of legendary creatures, but this can still kill a massive percentage of creatures in the set for only two mana, and that’s really great.

Pro Rating: 4.5
Pro Comment: This looks quite good. It has some passable defensive stats and a very powerful effect. It either substantially mills your opponent or draws you a card, and that’s pretty good! I’m not a huge fan of straight up mill win conditions, but because this synergizes with itself, I’m pretty happy. This is going to draw you a card a decent chunk of the time the turn you play it, and it will basically guarantee you draw one off of it every other turn, and that seems like a sweet value engine.

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: So, like a lot of cards in this set – this is pretty wacky – so wacky that the whole text doesn’t even fit on the card which…probably not a good thing! Anyway, a 6-mana ⅚ with flying and Ward 2 is already pretty good. Then you add the card’s ability to basically be cycled while also tapping down a permanent and you have something really interesting – and it gets even better, because you get a copy of the Djinn in your deck that you can draw later! Now, in your typical game of Limited you’re not going to reach the point where Calim can come back from the graveyard, but getting the value out of one extra Calim seems pretty reasonable. It does cost triple Blue, and that kind of cost can be a pain, but this seems pretty great over all.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This starts as a Gray Ogre, and that’s always a pretty awful statline – mostly because plenty of one mana cards can deal with it. However, it likes it when creatures go away, whether they die or get blinked, and that means it will be useful in both BW and UW. Still, it probably isn’t the payoff that really makes those decks good, it is just sort of a decent card.

Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: If ramp is a viable strategy in this format, this is a pretty spicy win condition! You need to have something on the board, but if you just have a 4-drop in play this is usually going to do some serious work! Sure, you don’t pick what gets sought, but it kind of doesn’t matter at that point. There is enough ramp in Green that it seems like this might actually be a possibility. This card could end up 0.0 or a 4.0, depending on how viable ramp is.

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: So, Blue/Red is into both Dragons and Adventures, and boy – this is a super powerful payoff for both. A 5-mana 4/2 Flyer is actually a solid stat-line, so the fact it staples removal spells to your Dragons and Adventures is pretty insane. It also helps that there are two dragons in the format that are common that ALSO have adventures. So casting either half of those is amazing, and casting both will be close to unbeatable.

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This ended up being surprisingly solid in Forgotten Realms, but that format turned out to be fairly aggressive, and there was an Equipment deck. Without that synergy, this is basically a one mana trick that gives +2/+0 and then the boost sticks around. That can definitely be good, but because it doesn’t offer any boost that will assist your creature in SURVIVING combat, it is a bit more limited. Your creature will usually just go down, even if it takes another creature with it. Then, you have to deal with Equip 4, which is pretty ugly. I mean, you definitely end up playing one of these in really aggressive Red decks, but you cut it a fair bit too.

Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: So, this is the usual “Crushing Canopy” type effect we see, but it is actually a little bit better. This is because instead of paying three up front, you can choose to pay in installments. It is also better because it can also just be cycled away for one mana. This card does suffer a bit from the fact there are some adventures in this set that let you deal with the same sorts of things, and they turn into creatures, so those are probably just better than You Line Up the Shot. But still, any time you add Cycling to a card that can be situationally useful, it tends to be playable, and I think that’s what we have here.

Pro Rating: 1.0
Pro Comment: Three mana rocks usually aren’t that good in Limited, even if they can add mana of any color! And this one can only add Blue. The upside, of course, is you get to scry when you cast a Dragon with it. But that isn’t the most exciting payoff. Sure, Scry 2 is nice, but it isn’t something that pays you off for playing this three mana card that doesn’t add to the board in any real way. I guess if you have some really big dragons to ramp into this gets a little more interesting, but there are better ways to ramp in the format.

Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: This is a pretty solid source of fixing, although paying 5 total mana and not impacting the board might be brutal. It is basically a 5 mana colorless cultivate, and that isn’t amazing.

Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: Looks who’s back! This was arguably the best Uncommon in Forgotten Realms Limited. It can really get Pack Tactics going pretty easily thanks to its pump effect, and if you have other Goblins around it becomes even more absurd – and there are definitely some other ones around – one of which we’ve already seen in this video. What really makes it great is that it is basically a two drop that scales all game long – he tends to basically feel like an X spell, because you can just play it and use all your mana to buff it and your other goblins, which usually also means you get a token – so he basically always come down as a very relevant creature. Forgotten Realms was certainly a different format than this one, but I think this is an amazing Uncommon in basically any Limited format.