Average Picked At: 5.01 Total Times Picked: 68 Average Last Seen At: 4.14 Total Times Seen 274
Pro Rating: 3.5 Pro Comment: The first mode on this is a nice removal spell, even if it is a little bit situational – and also a little dangerous if you try to use it when your opponent has mana up. Its also nice that this lets you have a real card in your deck that can also hate on Enchantments, or even be an instant speed divination.
Average Picked At: 1.64 Total Times Picked: 33 Average Last Seen At: 1.55 Total Times Seen 50
Pro Rating: 4.5 Pro Comment: This looks really good to me. Even without Blitz, coming with the ability to make a Blitzish version of one of your creatures in play is pretty darn good, because it means you can send in a hasty copy of your best creature that will also draw you a card when it dies, and that means you get back the card you discarded. And its going to die, because it has the same clause that Blitz creatures do. She herself also has Blitz, which sometimes will allow her to come down and finish off an opponent out of nowhere, or make a copy of something right away, but I actually think just straight-up casting her is the way to get the most value out of her. She’s a bit fragile, but it seems like she will be able to take over games.
Average Picked At: 7.01 Total Times Picked: 176 Average Last Seen At: 6.21 Total Times Seen 1006
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a good Common. A three mana 2/1 that makes a 1/1 – in a color that has lots of pay offs for going wide – is a pretty nice card – probably a C+. So, also having the Treasure option is nice upside – sometimes you’ll want it to help you ramp, and sometimes you’ll be in a deck that cares about Treasure than it does going wide, especially if you’re in Red/Green.
Average Picked At: 1.65 Total Times Picked: 23 Average Last Seen At: 1.58 Total Times Seen 38
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: This is really good. Obviously it has above rate stats to begin with, but then it can also Blitz out of the graveyard all game long. And sure, paying 4 mana and 2 life for a 3/2 with Haste isn’t amazing, but keep in mind it also draws you a card every time it comes back too – and its upside on a card that has probably already done something in the game. This is going to be a real problem for your opponent as the game goes on, as they have to account for this creature every turn, or you might might things even worse for them. The format has plenty of graveyard and sacrifice synergy too.
Average Picked At: 6.93 Total Times Picked: 15 Average Last Seen At: 5.62 Total Times Seen 114
Pro Rating: 1.5 // 4.0 Pro Comment: This has the potential to be downright absurd. The Blitz and Casualty mechanics provide you the ways to sacrifice things that are necessary to trigger this, and there are other ways to sacrifice your creatures too! I do think this probably needs a buildaround grade, because you can’t really play it in anything but a deck with 7+ ways to sacrifice creatures. If you play it in a deck with less than that, you are going to find this does nothing too often. I do think that looks very doable, though. Just getting something back the first time you sacrifice a creature on each turn is a big deal, as it really takes away the downside of sacrificing in the first place, and sometimes may even let you cheat something big into play.
Average Picked At: 6.99 Total Times Picked: 171 Average Last Seen At: 6.11 Total Times Seen 973
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: The ETB trigger here can be nice in a lot of situations, where it buys you more time or makes it so you can attack more effectively on your turn. Like with all of these, you get a pretty decent creature that has the upside of helping you fix early.
Average Picked At: 7.44 Total Times Picked: 146 Average Last Seen At: 6.52 Total Times Seen 1009
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This isn’t the most efficient removal spell, but at least its an Instant, and it comes with some extra value with the mill effect. The way this format is looking, you probably want to mill yourself more often than your opponent since you can get a lot of value going in that direction. This isn’t premium removal, but it seems like a solid Common.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: This has some pretty incredible upside – not only doing the Pithing Needle thing to a permanent but also stealing its activated abilities. Problem is, in Limited, there will be many instances where that part of the card is just irrelevant. There just isn’t always something around worth naming, and you don’t have enough knowledge of the opposing deck most of the time to name something relevant. Its still a two mana ⅔ with upside, and there will be times where it feels incredible – but other times it will just feel Vanilla.
Average Picked At: 7.61 Total Times Picked: 149 Average Last Seen At: 6.64 Total Times Seen 1100
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: True to his name, this Lackey is a pretty nice creature to sacrifice to a card with Casualty, since he can then make a Fish token from the graveyard – which you can also sacrifice. He also works well with Connive, because you still get value out of discarding him. They’ve been making a lot of one drops lately that overlap into multiple decks, and I think that’s what this is. This doesn’t exactly feel like the premium card you want to really abuse those two mechanics, but it does seem pretty decent there.
Average Picked At: 9.85 Total Times Picked: 53 Average Last Seen At: 6.84 Total Times Seen 460
Pro Rating: 1.0 // 3.0 Pro Comment: This looks like a solid payoff for going wide, especially because there are so many Citizens around. Now, it is still super situational – it basically does nothing until you’ve gone wide enough – but I imagine you are going to want the first copy of this in the Citizen decks in the format.
Average Picked At: 3.52 Total Times Picked: 168 Average Last Seen At: 3.44 Total Times Seen 559
Pro Rating: 4.0 Pro Comment: Murder at Common! As usual, it is premium removal you always want. It can’t be splashed, which is a bit of a bummer, but it is still worth a high pick. I’m giving it a 4
Average Picked At: 8.21 Total Times Picked: 140 Average Last Seen At: 7.24 Total Times Seen 1219
Pro Rating: 2.0 Pro Comment: As we learned in Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, slapping “draw a card” on this type of spell is a big upgrade. Just temporary altering your creature’s stats is a bit too narrow of a use to be something you want to use a card on all the time, but this makes up for that with the cantrip. The times where you use this as a trick that wrecks your opponent is pretty sweet. It probably won’t be quite as good as Suit Up was, since Ninjutsu made for an interesting environment in terms of how opponents would block, but this definitely seems solid.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: These offer good fixing, and being able to pitch them for a whole card in the late game is really nice, as it offers you some flood insurance and gives you somethign to do with all your mana. Like most duals, this is something you should value as a C+. It will really help your mana, and that’s more important than normal in a set with a big 3-color focus.
Pro Rating: 2.5 Pro Comment: Like the rest of this cycle, exiling this gives you some fixing that isn’t great, but because you can also just cast it the normal way and get passable value – or you can play it from exile in the later game.
Average Picked At: 3.52 Total Times Picked: 77 Average Last Seen At: 3.01 Total Times Seen 191
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: I always like Equipment that makes a creature for it to equip to automatically. Basically, this is a two mana 2/2 that leaves behind a reasonable piece of Equipment – or you can give up the Equipment to Disenchant something while you keep the creature token. Both of those outcomes are quite good for the investment.
Average Picked At: 7.52 Total Times Picked: 54 Average Last Seen At: 5.73 Total Times Seen 365
Pro Rating: 1.0 // 3.5 Pro Comment: This looks really well positioned in this format. Usually, Threaten effects aren’t something you’re that into, because they only have a temporary effect on the board that your opponent can often just ignore. They basically only do something if they let you do lethal the turn you cast it. However, in formats where there is a sacrifice theme, Threaten effects get a big upgrade, and that’s certainly the case here. The Maestros have a Sacrifice mechanic as their thing, and Black-Red in particular is very into sacrificing stuff. Once you have that going on, you can steal a thing, attack your opponent with it, and then sacrifice it for value, and that can be utterly backbreaking. This does cost 4 upfront, which is a bit steep – but it gives you a treasure back, which should help you do whatever you need to to sacrifice the creature that you steal. So yeah, this is definitely a build around – it is a 1.0 in your typical Red deck, but its probably at least a 3.5 in Cabaretti and Black-Red, and I wouldn’t be super surprised to see it overperform here. The fact they put this effect at Uncommon kind of tells me they knew it would be a little too good at Common, where we often see this type of card.
Average Picked At: 3.98 Total Times Picked: 208 Average Last Seen At: 3.76 Total Times Seen 596
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This is a nice White common. It is either a two mana 2/1 that lets you throw a land away for a fresh card, or a two mana 3/2 that makes you discard a real card, but the card you discard will often be able to give you some sort of value! Both options are pretty appealing.
Pro Rating: 3.0 Pro Comment: This brings a pretty solid body to the table while improving your next couple of draws and damaging your opponent – so the fact it can also fix your mana before that is no small thing.
Average Picked At: 13.07 Total Times Picked: 27 Average Last Seen At: 9.00 Total Times Seen 646
Pro Rating: 0.0 Pro Comment: This doesn’t look very good to me. The idea is that you put this on your creature and force your opponent to attack you. Sometimes that will actually do something, but it won’t do anything real far too often. If your opponent already wants to attack it doesn’t really matter, and if they don’t have something you can actually kill in combat it is also useless. It does eventually replace itself, but there’s just too much that can go wrong with this card.
Average Picked At: 11.00 Total Times Picked: 126 Average Last Seen At: 9.00 Total Times Seen 1528
Pro Rating: 1.5 Pro Comment: As is usually the case with this card -- it will have enough targets that main decking it isn’t the worst thing in the world, though it is much safer to keep it in your sideboard.