Average Picked At: 10.89 Total Times Picked: 53 Average Last Seen At: 7.47 Total Times Seen 550
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: We see 5 mana reanimation spells a lot, and they tend to be kind of mediocre. This is because you don’t often have something in your graveyard that is worth paying 5 mana to reanimate. In other words, you not only need a large enough creature, it also needs to be in the graveyard. When you add +1/+1 counters to the mix, like this does, it does become easier to feel like you’re getting your 5 mana’s worth out of the card. However, you do need to have an Artifact and Enchantment to get those. I would be much happier with this card if it gave you one +1/+1 counter if you had an artifact, and another if you had an Enchantment, but it is all or nothing – and that certainly hurts it a little bit, even in a format where it seems getting one of each of those is fairly doable. If you have a couple of crazy good bombs, it does get better than that.
Average Picked At: 12.39 Total Times Picked: 57 Average Last Seen At: 9.19 Total Times Seen 700
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: This gives you some nice card selection, but most of the time you’re going to just be spinning your wheels – getting one card from casting it for three mana – and most of the time its just going to feel worse than Divination. If you’re not adding to the board, you’ve got to be getting something pretty significant out of this. The upside on cheap spells is nice, and will make it feel a little more efficient, but its still just one card. I think you’ll find yourself cutting this card more than you’ll play it.
Average Picked At: 7.78 Total Times Picked: 162 Average Last Seen At: 6.52 Total Times Seen 1094
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This is a very nice defensive creature. A two mana 3/3 with Reach will slow the board to a grinding halt in the early game, and the fact that you can use it as a Plummet sometimes is nice upside. It isn’t exactly the kind of card all decks will want, but grinder Green decks will probably be happy to play a few of these – while aggro decks probably aren’t playing it at all.
Average Picked At: 10.89 Total Times Picked: 100 Average Last Seen At: 9.05 Total Times Seen 1404
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is a pretty neat design for an Equipment. It isn’t nearly as discounted as most of them are, but it is also massive and very easy to crew – coming with Trample and Haste generally means it is going to wreck face pretty significantly the turn it comes down, and it’s a big enough threat that your opponent will usually need to find a way to deal with it. I don’t think the most aggressive decks will be remotely interested in this, but as a top-curve win condition for grindier or controlling decks, I could see this pulling some weight.
Average Picked At: 10.74 Total Times Picked: 149 Average Last Seen At: 9.23 Total Times Seen 1456
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a nice little Common. A 3-mana ⅔ with Menace is a decent starting point, and adding an “attack alone” payoff to the card is nice, and the one you get here is going to be pretty relevant, especially if you play the Samurai on turn 3. It is likely to help you either double spell or play a 4-drop on turn 4, and either of those are pretty appealing.
Average Picked At: 4.96 Total Times Picked: 56 Average Last Seen At: 3.79 Total Times Seen 286
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: A 3-mana 3/2 with Vigilance is usually reasonable playable, and this one comes with a very nice ability. You won’t always have an Enchantment in your graveyard of course, but there are enough Enchantments in this set that you’ll have them reasonably often, and obviously casting one off of this ability is like drawing a card, and that’s pretty darn powerful. Like with all of these, its great that they designed them so that they can trigger the ability on their own – but you can also use other Samurais/Warriors to trigger the ability if you’ve got them around.
Average Picked At: 12.66 Total Times Picked: 104 Average Last Seen At: 10.22 Total Times Seen 1728
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: There’s a lot of counters in this set, so taking them away from your opponent or adding them to your own things is definitely relevant, but it still won’t always actually be able to do a thing, and when it can’t it will still be a 4-mana 2/4, which is pretty bad.
Average Picked At: 1.50 Total Times Picked: 30 Average Last Seen At: 1.46 Total Times Seen 36
Pro Rating: 5.0 Pro Comment: So, even if you don’t have the capability of paying for the five-color ability (and you probably won’t be able to), Kyodai is very powerful. A 4-mana 3/3 with Flying and Flash is already like a 3.5 – those stats are good and allow you to ambush plenty of creatures. The fact it also grants indestructibility to something else is pretty awesome, and could really allow you to generate some serious blow outs that will ultimately result in a 3-for-1. You can of course also use it to protect a permanent for removal. You may not always be able to take advantage of that ETB ability, but when you can its going to be awesome.
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: Its a little bit sad that the Outlaw doesn’t count itself, as modifying it would be incredible if it did! Still, Red has lots of ways to curve out with modified creatures, making this hit pretty hard.
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This looks pretty good. Even if you only pay 3, you are basically getting an Instant speed divination, which is a pretty darn good deal, and the more mana you pump into it, the more card selection you get. You won’t ever get more than 2 cards though, so it almost seems like paying 3 is going to give you the most value. I like that you don’t need to invest a ton of mana into this to make it really do something nice – but you still have the option to pump a bunch of mana into it if you’re desperate to find a particular card.
Average Picked At: 5.17 Total Times Picked: 88 Average Last Seen At: 4.78 Total Times Seen 323
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: Because it can sacrifice itself, it is – at worst, this is a two mana 1/1 token that drains the opponent one life. That’s not exactly exciting, but that’s pretty much the fail case here. This can also be a pretty sweet engine, since you can just keep giving up the same 1/1 every turn to drain the opponent one life, since it allows you to sacrifice tokens, and that’s pretty spicy – it will feel al little bit like getting Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven together – and you have it all on one card! It is obviously a bit slow at what it does, but the engine aspect seems pretty sweet to me.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: Like all cards that do phasing things, this has a variety of uses. You can use it to blank opposing creatures for a turn, you can use it to save some of your stuff from removal, you can use it if your opponent tries to put an Aura on one of their creatures, and so forth. I think this can phase enough things at once, and there’s enough different ways to use it, that it seems like a pretty reasonable card, though it isn’t super powerful or anything. There will be times where using this just doesn’t do anything, and that always hurts a card’s stock.
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: This has great stats and a couple of great static abilities. You do have to have Jeskai mana to cast it, which isn’t going to be the easiest to make happen. If it were in one of the green shards or wedges, it would be a little easier. It is both difficult to cast and not exactly game-ending when you do manage to. Sure, it has the nice stats that are relevant all game long, and the abilities matter too – but the abilities will have waning value as the game goes on. I still think you can take this highly and try to get fixing together, but it probably isn’t very close to being a bomb.
Average Picked At: 1.55 Total Times Picked: 38 Average Last Seen At: 1.61 Total Times Seen 60
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: This looks quite good. A sweeper that just always blows everything up is generally a bit awkward in Limited, because there are so many situations where it doesn’t really work out the way you want it too. Awkward or not, though, wrath effects do reshape the board in a way basically nothing else can. This comes with the added upside of being a bit more customizable. Like, if your opponent’s creatures happen to mostly be Enchantments and Artifacts, and you don’t lose nearly as much, you can name those two for a much better effect than you would get if you just wiped the whole board. And there are lots of different choices you can make with it that allow you to come out ahead more than you would with a normal wrath effect – AND, in a situation where what you need is a complete reset button, it still has the very real upside of doing that.
Average Picked At: 7.06 Total Times Picked: 18 Average Last Seen At: 5.23 Total Times Seen 109
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: Like all cards that do phasing things, this has a variety of uses. You can use it to blank opposing creatures for a turn, you can use it to save some of your stuff from removal, you can use it if your opponent tries to put an Aura on one of their creatures, and so forth. I think this can phase enough things at once, and there’s enough different ways to use it, that it seems like a pretty reasonable card, though it isn’t super powerful or anything. There will be times where using this just doesn’t do anything, and that always hurts a card’s stock.
Average Picked At: 2.57 Total Times Picked: 63 Average Last Seen At: 2.46 Total Times Seen 161
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This is premium removal. Even if you always had to pay 4 mana for it, it would be premium – so the fact that it lets you decrease the cost all the way down to only 2 mana is really nice. It isn’t going to be easily splashable which is a little sad, but its still a great card.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This has a pretty neat design! It is a 4-mana ¾ when untapped, and an unblockable 1/1 when tapped. Coming with the ability to untap is pretty nice too! Even if we’re just talking about the Agent, you can choose to untap it after your opponent doesn’t block, which means they take 3 now, and you have a ¾ blocker during their turn. One of the big applications of this card, though, will be setting up your Ninjutsu. It does cost 4, which is certainly pricy to recast, but the fact that you know this will get past blockers means you can really find a nice way to utilize ninjutsu with it. Now, there are some downsides too – if you don’t plan on untapping it, it is incredibly vulnerable, dying to virtually everything in the set. It also only attacks for one, which is pretty dismal for a 4 drop.
Average Picked At: 2.38 Total Times Picked: 24 Average Last Seen At: 2.27 Total Times Seen 42
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: This is a really good Bear. It will get bigger throughout the game, and it can return from your graveyard if an Enchantment goes to the graveyard. That’s going to happen a lot in formats with lots of Enchantment creatures.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: If you can give it either of these keywords, you’ll be pretty happy, and if you can give it both, it will feel quite formidable. Menace and Deathtouch are pretty nasty together, since you can kill both things that block it
Average Picked At: 8.79 Total Times Picked: 163 Average Last Seen At: 7.69 Total Times Seen 1273
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: This is another card where the trigger only requires it to leave the battlefield, so it getting blinked, or going back to your hand for ninjutsu will also give you the option of paying 2 to draw a card. You won’t always have the mana vailable to do it of course, but I think you’ll have it often enough that this is a pretty solid two drop in most decks.