“Deathrite Domri Kiki Pod?”
Yep, like trying to eat a Brushwagg, it’s quite a mouthful. What I’ve done here is throw a glut of seemingly disparate cards into what’s become one of my pet decks. To a modicum of success.
I’m not really selling this well, am I?
Brushwagg
But let’s back up. Read more
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for blue. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
Blue’s has some pretty solid offerings in Dragon’s Maze, starting with a couple noteworthy commons. Runner’s Bane is a better removal spell than blue has been getting lately, an easy-to-cast conditional removal spell that fits into both tempo and control decks. Blue has some very bad commons to go along with the very good ones, but since we’ll be dipping into multiple colors in this format, I’d almost rather have it that way.
In constructed, Aetherling, a nearly unkillable curve-topping beater, is blue’s flagship card. Morphling 2.0 is a bit clunky, but could easily be a good win condition for Standard control decks for a long time to come. Uncovered Clues is a new draw spell that may not prove good enough, but is certainly interesting.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:
Aetherling
The spiritual ancestor of this card was one of the most dominant creatures of all time, so there are going to be some serious expectations for Aetherling. Morphling comparisons may actually be pretty apt in this case. That versatile, shifty closer came down and strangled opponents you already had on the ropes, being basically unkillable and presenting a fast, hard-to-stop clock. Aetherling is a very similar card. It costs more mana, but it’s not like you’re trying to curve out with him anyway. When he hits the battlefield, he’s a true menace. There are basically no Magic cards in Standard that can deal with him if you have a few Islands untapped, and he can bash your opponent’s life total (or planeswalker suite) to the tune of eight unblockable damage a turn.
Things I don’t like: Aetherling is a worse blocker than Morphling. Note that Aetherling can emulate Morphling‘s pseudo-vigilance by flickering itself when it becomes tapped. However, when you have to flicker out of existence for a few phases to shrug off a removal spell, you obviously miss some combat action, which can be a pretty huge deal if you’re trying to use your six-drop to stabilize or race.
Still, I think this card is very solid and will see play as a one- or two-of in slow Standard decks that want to use minimal deck space for win conditions. Esper control comes to mind, and gives that deck a good way to ignore Psychic Spiral and one-shot opposing Jaces.
In limited this thing is pretty sweet. It won’t dig you out of a massive hole if you’re already in one, but it’s quite capable of smashing the game wide open in any sort of stall or attrition battle. I don’t think the format will be as tempo-oriented as Gatecrash, so you can view Aetherling as a pretty awesome bomb.
Sealed – 4.0
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 2.5
Hidden Strings
This seems like a pretty low-impact card. It can help you force through an initial cipher strike by tapping down two blockers, which is nothing to be sneezed at, but not always worth a card. Then you get to make contact and most likely untap two things – maybe giving your creatures pseudo-vigilance, or maybe untapping two lands to deploy another creature. Untapping two lands is actually pretty powerful (Sol Ring…) but you have to split the mana between your main phases, meaning you can’t actually ramp up to big spells. Beyond the first tap-down, I don’t really think the utility of vigilance / bad Sol Ring makes this card all that playable, so I look at it mostly like a bad tempo spell. Maybe you want one of those spells in your tempo deck, but it’s not a high priority, and something like Lyev Decree is much better.
Dedicated cipher wasn’t a great archetype in Gatecrash, and I don’t think that’s suddenly going to change with fewer Dimir cards in the Draft, although a slower format could make room for cards like Shadow Slice to shine. Still, I don’t think this will be a big player in the limited format, and it definitely won’t see constructed play.
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Maze Glider
Maze Glider has the worst stats of any of the maze elementals but it has the best ability. Fat flying creatures have a strong pedigree for a reason – they are great at almost everything. Racing, blocking, suiting up with auras – you name it.
Maze Glider‘s “buddy” ability is also the most dangerous of the maze elementals. If you have a couple of 3/3 gold cards, giving them trample might not make much difference at all – but giving them flying could end the game in on the spot.
Of the cycle, Maze Glider is the one you want to pay a little bit of attention to, and once you have him, maybe even change around your pick orders a little bit. Still, what we have here is a three-power six-mana creatures, so I wouldn’t bat an eye at leaving him in my sideboard or passing him for a tempo spell or an on-curve creature.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
Mindstatic
Cool art and concept, but Mindstatic is a pretty garbagey counterspell. It’s obviously worse than Dissipate in constructed, even in decks that have trouble getting to UU. In limited, it’s nice having access to a counterspell, but four mana is a lot to ask. Cancel is already not a great card, and adding a mana to the cost is really a kick in the teeth.
I’m sure I’ll end up running one of these in my four-color blue Draft decks every once in a while, but it will be without relish and with the intent to sideboard it out against more aggressive opponents. In Sealed, this can be useful for answering opposing bombs, and you can side it in and out as you see fit with that in mind.
Sealed – 1.5
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 0.0
Murmuring Phantasm
My favorite take on this card was a comment on the Mythic Spolier forums where someone just said, “Not enough mouths.”
Indeed.
Two mana is pretty cheap, and this blocks a lot of things. In constructed you can shut down everything up to and including Loxodon Smiter. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really match up well to the aggro decks, which can spit out a bunch of attackers really quickly (Burning-Tree Emissary) or build up one huge attacker very early Champion of the Parish). I don’t think it’s destined to see any play anytime soon.
In limited this isn’t that bad, blocking your opponent’s two-drop, then his three-drop, then even his four- or five-drop. Having this in your deck is seriously limited, though, and it is a depressing draw if your opponent is stumbling and you just want to put him away. If you need a roadblock while you assemble the pieces for your powerful late-game, this is a fine card, but don’t value it too highly.
Sealed – 1.5
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.0
Opal Lake Gatekeepers
Opal Lake Gatekeepers, like the rest of the cycle, starts off as a decent limited playable – even if you don’t hit the trigger, you can always play these to hold off opposing Gore-House Chainwalkers.
When you do hit their triggers though, the gatekeepers become quite good. The question is whether your pool has on-color gates / whether you can draft a deck (perhaps three or four colors) that wants four to five gates. (Go to our set review for white and read that gatekeeper review for more analysis). If you’ve got the gates, this card is solid. Not great, but better than “playable.”
As with all the other gatekeepers, you can’t play Opal Lake Gatekeepers in constructed due to the fact that gates are basically unplayable (give or take).
Sealed – 2.0 (3.0 if you have three or four gates)
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Runner’s Bane
This is a pretty nice Claustrophobia variant. While it can’t lock down the hugest of monsters, there are a LOT of creatures with power three or less in this set and in the block as a whole. Runner’s Bane is just as adept at shutting down a controlling deck’s Court Hussar as an aggro deck’s Ember Beast. And since it proactively taps opposing creatures when it enters the battlefield, it’s pretty good in aggro decks, as opposed to Paralyzing Grasp, which really only fit in control decks.
This unfortunately isn’t very good against bombs or creatures with static abilities like extort, but it’s cheap and versatile, so I’d call it “good” removal nonetheless.
This is a terrible choice for constructed when you have alternatives like Searing Spear or Detention Sphere, so stick to locking down creatures in games of limited.
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 3.5
Constructed – 0.0
Trait Doctoring
I understand why they have to print cards like this, but it’s not very applicable to any of the formats I play (or at least not winning in them). It’s interesting having Mind Bend as a repeatable effect, but I doubt that will make it playable anywhere. Chime in in the comments if I’m missing anything.
It’s also totally useless in limited, especially at sorcery speed.
It seems like they’d at least let you chance the color(s) of the target, so you can interact with things like Renounce the Guilds. Oh well. Just move along here, and nab any copies you see for the casual crowd.
Sealed – 0.0
Draft – 0.0
Constructed – 0.5
Uncovered Clues
This one is a bit of a puzzler. One part Divination, one part Peer Through Depths, Uncovered Clues certainly has some interesting ancestors.
Divination has occasionally been constructed playable, but never good. Is Uncovered Clues better than the most baseline draw spell in the book? One one hand, it sometimes only hits one – or even zero – cards. On top of that, you have to build your deck full of instants and sorceries to leverage this. It also can’t help you dig for land drops early, which is one of the main reasons to evoke Mulldrifter, and a big deal in a control deck that wants to be progressing the game toward Sphinx’s Revelation.
On the other hand, Uncovered Clues does a great job of digging you deeper in your deck. It’s great at finding combo pieces or specific answers. It also isn’t as likely to just churn up two lands when you want gas, as Divination sometimes does. Sometimes you’ll cast this late in the game and see land, land, spell, spell, and feel like a genius.
If this were an instant I could see this card fitting into a shell like the aggro-control UWR Augur of Bolas decks, which already want to have a critical mass of instants and sorceries for their Augurs and Snapcasters. At three-mana, this card is a bit on the voluptuous side though, and as a sorcery I worry about slotting it into blue decks full of great instant-speed effects. I’m not totally sure about this card, but I’d peg it for sporadic Standard play with maybe a tiny smattering of Modern combo enabling.
In limited, this is pretty unexciting. Unless you have 15 or so instants and sorceries in your deck, this isn’t really playable.
Sealed – 0.5
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 1.5
Wind Drake
One of the most iconic limited creatures of all time, Wind Drake is a staple for blue mages, especially in Sealed, where evasion is worth its weight in gold. Or at least in, like, nutrient-enriched gold substitute.
In Draft, vanilla creatures can sometimes be a bit too “core set-ish” to be high picks, and Assault Griffin ended up being pretty bad in Gatecrash Draft on account of how fast and synergistic the format was. Still, I think this format will be a little more “good stuff” than Gatecrash, and we can go back to playing our Vassal Souls and being happy about it. This will be a solid, easy-to-cast pickup that doesn’t commit you to a particular set of colors.
Meanwhile, no person has ever cast a Wind Drake in constructed.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 0.0
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for black. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
Black certainly has some selling points among its commons. It has the best gatekeeper and one of the best maze elementals, both of which are pretty big sells. It also has a decent removal spell in Fatal Fumes and an all-in flier in Rakdos Drake. Nothing spectacular, but black has plenty of ways to kill creatures and apply some beats if you look in the right places.
In constructed, Blood Scrivener is a very exciting little dude. While he’s no Dark Confidant, I expect him to get some serious playtime, possibly in multiple formats.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System guide, then check out the ratings:
Bane Alley Blackguard
This is as vanilla as they come. In some sets (M12 comes to mind), this would be a fine as a way to lock down opposing 2/1s, but Dragon’s Maze limited has an abundance of three-mana 2/3s and four-mana 2/4s, meaning you really don’t need this guy. He’s not the absolute worst, and you can’t go too wrong with him as your 23rd card, just make sure he’s not your 21st card.
By the way, it’s pronounced “blagg-urd.”
Sealed – 1.5
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 0.0
Blood Scrivener
Dark Confidant this is not. Bob can come down on turn two and start drawing you into more action immediately. If he lives, he changes the whole tenor of a game. Your opponent gets one draw step; you get two.
[care]Blood Scrivener[/card] is much less dominating. Even if you have a deck adept at emptying out its hand quickly, you still have to wait a few turns to start drawing extra cards. If you draw two lands in the same turn or need to hold onto a Dissipate, you skip your next “extra” draw. These are serious limitations that make Blood Scrivener a much more realistic creature than his cousin.
I do still think this is a fine card. Blood Scrivener is among the best topdecks you could hope for in a game of Magic. He also represents a pretty negligible life loss, and can be happily played in a deck with seven-drops or Emrakuls, if you wanted. Lastly, I like that fact that he has one and a half relevant creature types that can let you recast Gravecrawler or, uhh, save him from a removal spell with Riptide Laboratory (?).
Like I say, I like this card, and think he has a shot at seeing play in Standard alongside Gravecrawler, Modern alongside Bump in the Night, and maybe even Legacy in the same deck as Dark Rituals. I don’t think he’s going to be an instant staple though, and I can easily see decklists that only want two or three copies in the maindeck. If B/R Zombies reemerges as a deck to beat in Standard, this will be the go-to two-drop.
In limited, this is mostly a Goblin Piker with the upside of being an insane topdeck. It’s almost like a bomby seven-drop that you can cycle early for a two-drop (a very valuable commodity). It is of course quite fragile and not very dependable, but it can win you games by itself, which is what you look for in your Sealed pool and your early Draft picks. If you have this in your deck, just remember to never get cute and hold extra lands in your hand.
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 3.5
Constructed – 2.5
Crypt Incursion
This is obviously a narrow, sideboard-only type of card. I’m never keen to play pure lifegain spells except against burn decks, and I’m never keen to play pure graveyard hate cards except against the most dedicated of graveyard combo decks. Mashing these effects together doesn’t make maindeckable, although it does make Crypt Incursion a slightly more versatile sideboard card.
In constructed, this is a pretty bad answer to Unburial Rites decks. Sure, it’s nice to polish off all their targets at once, but three mana is a LOT more than the one mana it takes to cast Purify the Grave or Grafdigger’s Cage. I don’t see this getting used. Likewise, there aren’t many burn spells in Standard, and I don’t see this getting played against red decks. If it cost one, it would be good against Hellspark Elemental decks in Modern, but… no dice.
In limited, this is similarly narrow. You could bring it in against a heavy scavenge deck, but using a whole card to deal with a bunch of their half-cards is sketchy at best.
Sealed – 0.5
Draft – 0.5
Constructed – 0.5
Fatal Fumes
This isn’t even close to constructed playable (c.f. Murder), but it’s a decent little limited removal spell. I wish it gave -2/-4, so you could kill all manner of gatekeepers (and bombs), but as-is, this can still deal with about two-thirds of the cards you’d want to deal with, and can shrink something bigger like an Obzedat, Ghost Council down to a more manageable size where your Rubblebelt Maaka can kill it in combat.
I can’t in good conscience give this a 4.0, because much of the time it’s just so much less efficient than something like a Mugging, but it’s still a fine removal spell you’ll be happy to have.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 0.0
Hired Torturer
Following in the footsteps of Tavern Swindler, another nice top-down design for black. Cool, but not that good. The ability is too expensive to rely on – sure, he can put away a game that’s seen both players beaten down to low life totals or slowly chip away in a board stall – but you really want the body to be good on its own before you are happy about playing him.
Unfortunately, the body – a 2/3 wall – is very meager, unable to bring the beats and barely able to block anything bigger than a two-drop.
I think I might want one of these in my Sealed deck to have a way to win through board stalls, but I’m more likely to start it in the sideboard and side it in against aggressive decks full of 2/2s or evasion-light opponents where the game is likely to stall. In Draft, this really just doesn’t fit into any good archetypes.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.0
Maxe Abomination
Maze Abomination is one of the better maze elementals. Not only is a 4/5 deathtouch for six a somewhat decent rate to begin with, deathtouch is one of the better abilities to grant to random gold creatures you have lying around. I also just like the ability of this guy to push through all the X/4 walls in the format without dying to double blocks from the 2/xs.
You can probably take this a little higher than you’d take the other elementals, just keep in mind that you don’t have to take him anywhere near “early.” There are tons of serviceable six-drops you can wheel.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
Pontiff of Blight
As we all saw in Gatecrash, almost any creature with extort is playable, and drafting a whole deck with them could be deadly. With only one pack of Gatecrash and fewer extort creatures in Dragon’s Maze, you won’t get to draft that deck anymore. Unless, that is, you open Pontiff of Blight.
Giving your whole team extort (in some cases twice) is pretty nuts. If you have three other creatures out, even a simple Bane Alley Blackguard becomes an crazy topdeck, tacking on a Kiss of Death when you cast it. Oh, it also has seven toughness. This is a bomb in limited, especially in Draft, where you can craft your deck with it in mind, prioritizing cheap creatures and ways to get multiple spells.
I’m less keen on Pontiff of Blight in constructed, and I find it hard to believe I should be casting this six-drop when I could just be overloading Mizzium Mortars and swinging with all these creatures I apparently have. But this does seem like a card Travis Woo could brew up a deck with (a potential Heartless Summoning partner?). It plays nice with cards like Lingering Souls, which both provides a ton of bodies to extort with, and multiple spells to extort.
Sealed – 4.0
Draft – 4.5
Constructed – 1.0
Rakdos Drake
This is a fine aggressive creature. It’s not as good as some of its unleash cousins, because if you’re giving up the ability to block, you really want to go all-in with a really high power-to-CMC ratio, which this card doesn’t present. However, I do think an aggressive B/R/X deck with some unleash guys, you will be happy to have a durable flier to help punch through the final few strikes after you’ve beaten your opponent down.
I don’t think this is the greatest common, as you really aren’t happy to leave this leashed, making it a Wind Drake with a minor toughness boost and a major drawback. But even that is still a pretty fine card that will always find its way into your more aggressive decks.
As to constructed – there are loads of better fliers than this in the format, and this would just get eaten by Restoration Angels anyway.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 0.0
Sinister Possession
I’d say this is better than Contaminated Bond, which was pretty bad but situationally useful. Don’t think of these spells as being removal, because they’re usually not. They’re more like weird burn/tempo spells that can force your opponent to detain their creatures for a turn or two. If you, for instance, are swinging in through the air while your opponent is pounding on the ground, this can come down to make them completely reconsider their racing math. Likewise, if you cast this on your opponent’s Murmuring Phantasm, it becomes a much worse blocker, only able to absorb a few points of damage here and there.
These cards can be serviceable little chippy tempo spells, and I think this type of effect is exponentially better at one mana than at two. Just remember that if you just put this on your opponent’s 2/2 and then attack with a 2/2 of your own and get blocked, you just used the spell as a small Lava Spike. Sometimes you’ll want that card, but only in the most aggressive decks.
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.0
Ubul Sar Gatekeepers
This is the best gatekeeper, and is a really solid argument for picking up your black guildgates pretty high in the Dragon’s Maze pack. Flametongue Kavu was always an all-star, and this isn’t all that far off, assuming you actually have a deck with four or five gates.
I won’t beat a dead horse in case you’ve already read some of my other gatekeeper reviews, but just remember this is a decent blocker sans the requisite gate count, never constructed playable, etc.
Sealed – 3.0 (2.0 if you don’t have at least three gates)
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 0.0
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for green. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
All green’s playables in Dragon’s Maze are about one thing – beef. Green got some pretty loose combat tricks, and only one good square-jawed common in Thrashing Mossdog. There’s plenty of meat to fill out your curve if you’re looking to beat down, but it doesn’t look like the most exciting color for limited.
It’s rares aren’t raising too many eyebrows either. Skylasher is commanding a lot of attention, but I don’t see it getting much play unless Delver decks pick up some steam.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:
Battering Krasis
This isn’t the most aggressively-costed evolver, and it doesn’t do a good job of curving out with Simic’s best two-drop, Shambleshark, as the two share a power and toughness.
I’m also inclined to believe the value of evolve creatures is going to go down as a whole (although demand for them might go up). The best evolve Draft strategy in Gatecrash was to just have as many evolvers as possible to ensure a devastating curve. With fewer evolve creatures in Dragon’s Maze and none in your Return to Ravnica pack, you’ll be evaluating evolvers more on their own merits, rather than as synergistic curve-enablers (or else scrambling to pick up every one in sight).
As a three-mana 2/1, Battering Krasis doesn’t pass the eyeball/vanilla test. Still, this guy can get pretty big, as there are a lot of high toughness cards in the format for you to pump it with. If it grows up to 4/3 or so, this dino-hammerhead will bring some serious pain, making it worth the effort.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
Kraul Warrior
A cross between Stonewood Invoker and Knight of the Skyward Eye, this will be a perfectly serviceable two-drop in limited. This card is a little worse-positioned than its predecessors, but having a two-drop that can be relevant on into the late game is very nice. This isn’t going to synergize with your Draft deck particularly well or blow anyone out in Sealed, but it’s a good meat and potatoes playable. This will be a less important card that if it were in Gatecrash, where hitting your two-drop critical, but you’ll still play this pretty often in Sealed and won’t be able to count on wheeling it reliably in Draft.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Maze Behemoth
A 5/4 flier for six would be a very strong card, so a trampler, as a sort of semi-evasive creature, shouldn’t be that much worse. In practice though, that’s not the case. You can’t really take over most games with your Maze Behemoth, as a simple double-block with two gatekeepers is a one-for-one trade. The chance to give a few of your dudes trample doesn’t hurt, although that situation won’t be very common or even very important usually.
Play this card if you need a late-game steamroller, just know that your excitement and energies are better spent on your two-drops and spells.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Mending Touch
This is a pretty bad trick. You’re never going to get card advantage out of it. At best, you counter your opponent’s removal spell, which is pretty good but not exactly game-winning. More often though, you’ll just be “trading” your 3/3 for your opponent’s 3/3 and then saving yours. Those plays can save you some mana at the expense of leaving a Forest untapped for a few turns… but that’s really not that exciting a way to derive some minimal tempo.
That said, this is playable. In Sealed, it can help protect your bomb, and is a decent include against any deck with some of the ponderous removal spells in the format like Punish the Enemy.
I don’t think this will see play in constructed, but if you need it, it’s there. Ranger’s Guile and friends have all seen some play at varying levels, but this is much worse, failing to protect against exile effects and toughness reduction.
Sealed – 1.5
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.5
Mutant’s Prey
This is a pretty middling version of Prey Upon. The core set classic is an excellent card, letting you remove fliers and utility creatures for just one mana. Making the ability an instant is also pretty awesome, allowing you to fizzle your opponent’s auras, etc. However, the restriction on this card is a pretty enormous blow. Whereas before you always got to target your biggest guy, now you’ll have to target whatever evolvers you have lying around – and there’s no guarantee that you’ll have and dudes with +1/+1 counters on them at all. There’s also a reduced chance that these evolvers will be as big as you need them to be at the right time.
Cards like Crocanura should grow fast enough and be plentiful enough to make Mutant’s Prey playable, but often you’ll have insufficient beaters to make this any good.
I like this a little more in Draft, where you can attempt to get all the evolve creatures in packs one and two and maybe some scavengers in pack three. But even then, this is the kind of card you’re hoping to wheel, not take early.
Sealed – 1.0 (2.0 if you have about four-five good evolvers, 2.5 if more than that)
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
Phytoburst
Obviously this not being an instant is pretty bad, and makes it much more conditional. The most common use for this will just be “enchanting” one of your 2/2s to force your opponent to choose between getting Searing Fleshed and getting Diabolic Edicted. Giving him a choice is the key problem there – and despite those two cards being pretty good, Phytoburst is not.
There are some uses for this though. If you have Armed / Dangerous and a boatload of mana, you can easily kill their whole team (or just your opponent) with this. In Modern, this could also be applied to infect creatures to dish out a pretty quick six poison counters (but I think it’s too expensive to actually work well). Not the worst card, but certainly doesn’t have a ton of applications. The most useful this will be is in hyper-aggressive green draft decks, which I’m not sure are going to be that easy to put together (but if you do, this card is actually good in multiples).
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.5
Renegade Krasis
This many-headed goop-dragon can quickly go all Gaea’s Anthem on your opponent’s ass if – and only if – you have a bunch of evolve guys in your deck. That configuration doesn’t really exist in Standard at the moment, and I haven’t seen a lot of cards that are going to make me want to jam Cloudfin Raptors (although I still think that card has yet to see its peak of playability). The standard for three-drops in Standard is very high already (hello Boros Reckoner) and I don’t think Renegade Krasis is going to convince anyone to shelf their Burning-Tree Emissarys to play with Shamblesharks. There are some already-good “evolve” cards like Experiment One, Gyre Sage, and Quirion Dryad, but not enough to make this guy interesting.
In limited, this really just isn’t fair at all in a Simic deck. Anthem effects are very powerful in both Draft and Sealed, and this fella lets you turn every Wall of Wood into a Travel Preparations. Pure Simic aggro won’t exist in Dragon’s Maze Draft the way it did in Gatecrash, but Renegade Krasis is probably a good reason to jump into those waters and commit to picking up a bunch of evolve guys and the occasional Slitherhead.
He’s also perfectly fine as a three-power three-drop with some upside (which is what he’ll be in Sealed), but he’s only a bomb if you can fill your deck with eight or more evolvers.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 0.0
Saruli Gatekeepers
While Saruli Gatekeepers doesn’t give you value like its white, blue, and black cousins, its ability is still quite strong. Good Magic players have been trained to think “lifegain is bad” because cards like Healing Salve and Angel’s Mercy are unplayable. But in reality, lifegain is very good. Gaining enough life is almost like killing a small attacker, and when you tack it onto a body or a cantrip, it’s one of the best ways to steal tempo back against an aggressive start. It just so happens that a 2/4 body is pretty decent for these purposes.
The Saruli Gatekeepers are not as good as some of their brothers, but they will be good in some situations. Don’t hesitate to play it, but feel free to side it out in games that will be decided by card advantage rather than tempo, and obviously don’t play it if you have insufficient gates to trigger the ability consistently and don’t need the 2/4 body.
Sealed – 2.0 (a little better if you have the gates)
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Skylasher
This reminds me of a card that would’ve been the best creature in Invasion Block or something. Since those days, counterspells have gotten a lot worse and creatures have gotten a lot better, and a Grizzly Bears just doesn’t cut it anymore, even a hard-to-kill one able to block Insectile Aberration all day long. In every format, there are better options for green two-drops that provide more raw power or more synergy with their decks, from Burning-Tree Emissary to Tarmogoyf to Scavenging Ooze. If an Unsummon-based Delver deck goes back to being a dominant deck in Standard, Skylasher could see heavy play, but I don’t think it’s an all-star or anything like that.
In limited, meanwhile, you already want Grizzly Bears half the time (although, you’ll want them less in Dragon’s Maze limited than usual). This is much better than a Grizzly Bears, skittering past blue walls and ambushing Wind Drakes in about half your matchups. Not a super early pick or a reason to play green, but a nice maindeck card that can sometimes be almost unanswerable.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 2.0
Thrashing Mossdog
A nice Hill Giant for limited. Korozda Monitor wasn’t that impressive in Return to Ravnica (I gave it a 2.5, which was a little high, at least in Draft). But Thrashing Mossdog is easier to cast, has an arguably better ability, is cheaper to unearth, and has way cooler creature types, all of which combine to make me pretty optimistic about this card. This is best in Sealed, where it’s one of the best ways to shut down opposing fliers, occasionally a very important task.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for red. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
Red comes to bat with a couple very strong bloodrush cards: In limited, Rubblebelt Maaka may be be as good as the red common removal spell, Punish the Enemy.
In constructed, even if Rubblebelt Maaka doesn’t see play as a Giant Growth variant (which it might), Pyrewild Shaman figures to be pretty solid.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:
Awe for the Guilds
A simple Falter effect can be pretty good at breaking stalls, but this one costs a bit much (two for Gruul Charm is much more attractive) and it also fails to lock down a good number of potential blockers. There are a ton of good multicolored blockers, especially in Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash.
Most of the common dudes with big butts in Dragon’s Maze are monocolored, so this will be a bit better at the prerelease than in the average draft. Either way, if you’re an aggressive deck needing a few ways to push through damage, you could do worse than this. Just not much worse. Keep in mind that this is a card to side in and out depending on how many monocolored blockers of your opponent’s are causing you problems.
Sealed – 1.5
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 0.0
Clear a Path
There are three commons with defender in Dragon’s Maze, and the only one that’s a pressing issue is Nivix Cyclops. If you open things up to full-block draft, there are a few other good cards too, from Ogre Jailbreaker to Basilica Guards.
You would never maindeck this, as those cards aren’t that common, and even siding it in just because you saw one or two of those cards is pretty bad. But if your deck is going to have trouble cracking through a couple of ogres or defending against a quick cyclops, then it’d be okay to side this in. You won’t always have a target, but when you do, it’s going to be a pretty decisive tempo swing.
There are no defenders worth killing in constructed formats.
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 0.0
Maze Rusher
Maze Rusher is nothing special – his stats are pretty good compared to to some of the other Maze creatures, and a six-power haste creature certainly presents some problems for your opponents if it comes as the last volley of an aggressive start.
If you have a pretty aggressive deck, feel free to pick this up (pretty late) and play it. Just realize that it’s nothing special in most circumstances, as your opponent can usually just kill it with their four-drop. Its second ability is also unlikely to ever prove relevant (although if you follow this up with a Boros Battleshaper, more power to you).
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Possibility Storm
I guess it’s like a family tradition now: printing an unplayable red enchantment that creates a semi-random global effect in each new set. Don’t worry, this one’s still bad. This time we get a Spellshift-like effect that applies to all card types cast by any player. If you cast a Farseek, it could get transmuted into a Worldfire! If your opponent casts a Thragtusk, it could get downsized into a lowly Arbor Elf. Sure, there are ways you can take advantage of this symmetrical effect, i.e., by playing lots of expensive things and hoping your opponent gets screwed by flipping Sphinx’s Revelations. But just using this “for value” isn’t worth a card and five mana.
Possibility Storm doesn’t force you to shuffle your library, so you could theoretically put a Griselbrand on top with a Gravepurge, then cast this enchantment, then cast a creature to get… a “free” Griselbrand. Trust me, it’s not worth it. There are more horrible cards in that deck than I can count. Even when you port this list to Modern and upgrade to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, this just isn’t good at all.
Theoretically you could employ this in limited. If your opponent has an aggro deck with bad creatures and you have a bunch of fatties, this might be an okay card… but you really don’t ever need to go that deep.
Sealed – 0.0
Draft – 0.0
Constructed – 0.5
Punish the Enemy
This is obviously a lot more expensive than Searing Blaze, but Searing Blaze is awesome – it is a double scoop of tempo: removing a blocker and bringing the game closer to an end. When you have to pay five, the damage to the dome becomes a lot less exciting, making this card a little more one-dimensional. I don’t think this card can even sniff constructed play.
In limited, this is a pretty good removal spell, and I like it just a little better than something like Fatal Fumes. Five mana is a lot to pay to kill a 3/3 (which would usually cost four). To wit, Angelic Verdict has a more powerful effect but didn’t prove itself to be cheap/fast enough to be great in a speedy Gatecrash limited environment. But being an instant helps Punish the Enemy a lot, the format is going to be slower, and the three damage to the dome is another nice bonus.
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 3.5
Constructed – 0.0
Pyrewild Shaman
I like this card a lot, and I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t end up being pretty good in Standard, although it’s too expensive for older formats. You can use this as a quick Lava Spike, a recurring Hammer of Bogardan, a sort of slow Ichorid, or even a pretty good blocker. It doesn’t do any of these things particularly efficiently, but it can do them over and over, grinding out certain types of decks.
Jacob Van Lunen made a good point in his preview article that Pyrewild Shaman that decks in Magic tend to have powerful endgames (hello Angel of Serenity) that can ignore measly 3/1s. Luckily, Pyrewild Shaman is pretty damn good and preventing games from getting to that phase. He’s not the most efficient creature ever, but three power for three mana is certainly playable, and bloodrushing him is great too. As that article mentioned, he’ll also be good at trading himself off in aggro mirrors, then being re-bought for card advantage. I may be rating him a little too high, but I have a pretty good feeling about him.
I think this is a very strong card that can fit into a few different aggressive decks. If you can pick them up cheaply in trade this weekend, do so.
This is obviously pretty nuts in limited, where there is no obscene late-game to overpower the threat of a repeated pump effect or a recursive attacker/blocker. I don’t think this is a mega bomb, but it can be very annoying to play against. Even without the buyback ability, it would already be good.
Sealed – 4.0
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 3.0
Riot Piker
Goblin Piker is the poster child for format-defining (but not necessarily great) limited two-drop. This is obviously a descendant of him, and is neither strictly better nor strictly worse. First strike is great, and helps him make his way past any number of X/2 blockers. Obviously needing to attack every turn makes this fella likely to suicide himself into a random Hurloon Minotaur at some point, but there are ways around that, especially when you have frist strike. Riot Piker is an amazing guy to give an aura to, and I can’t imagine losing many games where I get an Unflinching Courage on this guy by the third turn. He’s also good in the Gruul bloodrush Draft deck. But this is a pretty narrow card, and I’d rather just have a 2/2 in most decks.
In Standard, there are already a bunch of decent two-drops in red, including some with first strike. Not going to happen.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 0.0
Rubblebelt Maaka
This is a great addition to your army, and probably would’ve been a little too good in Gatecrash. A Russet Wolves is nothing special, but quite playable. Brute Force is an awesome combat trick, and giving +3/+3 represents one of the highest toughness boosts to be found from bloodrush cards. When you combine them into a split card, you have a very strong common that can get very aggressive or help you clog up the ground.
It’s worth noting that this is at least a consideration in Standard. Both Giant Growth and Ghor-Clan Rampager see play in hyper-aggressive decks, and you have to figure that this cat is a slight upgrade over the former, or perhaps something to play alongside it. You never want to be casting Hill Giant, but no one has a gun to your head. Sometimes you just want more pump spells.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 2.0
Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers
This is easily the worst gatekeeper, a defensive 2/4 with a traditionally hyper-aggressive ability. Mark of Mutiny effects can be powerful if you can make use of cards-for-tempo exchange they provide, but in a deck full of guildgates and four-mana 2/4s, you’re not starting off in the right direction. I wouldn’t hate playing this in a semi-aggressive three-color deck with three guildgates, but I’d be looking for other options first.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.0
Weapon Surge
Kindled Fury wasn’t very good, and Rally the Forces wasn’t either. It’s safe to say though, that Weapon Surge is better than either of those. You can use it on defense to give your whole team first strike, letting you gang-block and kill a 7/7, which is an added mode neither of the above cards had. This still isn’t a great combat trick (and certainly isn’t playable in constructed), but it’s probably a fine maindeck inclusion in an aggressive deck, especially if you have some synergies like Guttersnipe or Nivix Cyclops.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for Azorius. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
Azorius has got this on lockdown. Its limited offerings are pretty strong, with one of the best guild commons (each guild only has one multicolored common) and two very strong uncommons in Ascended Lawmage and Jelenn Sphinx.
On the constructed side of things, the best bet is Council of the Absolute, an unprecedented card that could soon be naming Sphinx’s Revelation in Standard.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:
Ascended Lawmage
I’m not sure what happened to this guy to make him so sparkly and awesome, but it did NOT happen to me when I was in law school. Whatever the explanation, this is an excellent uncommon. It’s not quite Skymark Roc, but that card was better than a lot of rares. Phantom Monster has always been a beastly limited card, and Ascended Lawmage compares well. Although you’ll run into the occasional Wind Drake or Rakdos Drake to ruin your day, hexproof is very nice on this class of threat. If you can get some sweet auras to throw on him (Unflinching Courage, please!), it’s game over.
This is a high pick in Draft, a card you’d consider splashing for in Sealed, and might even have an outside shot at seeing some constructed play (although I highly doubt it and think that Geist of Saint Traft, Invisible Stalker, and friends are plenty).
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 3.5
Constructed – 0.5
Council of the Absolute
There are some things to really like about Council of the Absolute. Don’t think of it as a powerhouse staple or build-around piece. Rather, realize that these are just two very powerful abilities that can play well in a few different decks. Sisay’s Ring is a pretty powerful thing to be doing in Standard right now, and although Council of the Absolute only lets you ramp to a certain card, that can still be quite a beating if that card is Sphinx’s Revelation, Omniscience, or something nutty like Army of the Damned.
You can also cast this as a Meddling Mage, naming a key spell you don’t want your opponent to resolve, perhaps protecting your hand and planeswalkers from Rakdos’s Return or shutting down the Unburial Rites engine out of Junk Reanimator. This effect will be most powerful in control mirrors, where creature removal might even be sided out and Council of the Absolute will have the ability to come down and break parity in the Sphinx’s Revelation battle.
All this utility comes at quite a cost – four mana for a 2/4 is a lot in this word of Boros Reckoners and Ghor-Clan Rampagers (if only you could name creatures…). But I think this card has a shot to be pretty good in Standard, most likely as a strong option against the Sphinx’s Revelation mirror.
In limited this isn’t a real removal spell since it can’t deal with your opponent’s bomb creatures, but it’s still quite serviceable. A 2/4 for four isn’t bad to start with, but don’t pick this highly for that reason alone because there is a superabundance of those in Dragon’s Maze and plenty more in Return to Ravnica. The ability is also narrow – you aren’t likely to have expensive non-creature cards, and your opponent isn’t either. Obviously if they have a Clan Defiance, then this becomes a great Duress effect, and you can generate some nice tempo by casting an Avenging Arrow for W (or juking your opponent by naming something you don’t actually have). Maybe they even have like three Punish the Enemy in their deck and this becomes a hugh blow. But it’s not the type of card that can dominate most games.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 2.0
Deputy of Acquittals
This is a fine little card, and could even have some constructed implications.
Its first use is obviously saving your creatures from removal spells and combat tricks in limited. Depending on the format, this type of effect can be extremely valuable, as it provides a 2-for-1 (you counter a removal spell and get a Grizzly Bears). However, D/G/R figures to be a fairly ponderous, splashy format, so I doubt mana-intensive 2/2s will be up to their usual standards. Still, it’s pretty obviously a good card.
Worth noting is that this gets pretty powerful if you can pick up a few Azorius Arresters and brethren to chain detain effects. Also, if you have two Deputies, you can chain them back and forth to chump block your opponent’s 9/9 indefinitely. Lastly, it plays pretty nice with evolve in a Bant deck.
In constructed, you can think of Deputy of Acquittals as the worst Restoration Angel ever, which still leaves room for it to make a minor splash in some sort of creature-heavy Bant value deck. I’ll plead the Fifth on whether that deck needs a two-mana 2/2 though.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 1.0
Jelenn Sphinx
This is quite a spell in limited. Five mana is a pretty reasonable, if not sexy, cost to pay for a flying 1/5 roadblock that can slowly bleed your opponent. When you add on a Glorious Anthem (albeit one that only works on offense), you’re really in business. Anthems can really make a huge impact on the game, not only doing extra damage but sometimes causing your creatures to slightly outclass your opponents’ to the point that its almost like card advantage. When you put the two on a single card, you have a nice, easy-to use playable that will always be pretty damn good. In Sealed it always makes every Azorius deck ever. In Draft it’s pretty good too, fitting into aggressive decks as a curve-topping buff and into defensive decks as a wall. I’ve given it a 3.0 but it might be better than that.
This isn’t good in constructed, although its huge toughness might make it an interesting, if underpowered, option in some sort of controlling tokens deck. The fact that it’s not good at blocking Thragtusk bodes ill though.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 0.5
Lavinia of the Tenth
Lavinia of the Tenth doesn’t immediately cry out as a constructed playable with her relatively humble stats, but she has potential. She brings a screeching halt to the assault of aggro decks, holding off any number of creatures your opponent has in play and even doing a pretty decent job of holding off hasty beats (most haste creatures are red, right?). She also does a number in blue/white tempo/aggro decks, forcing through attacks and shutting down opposing planeswalkers, although not being able to lock down five-drops like Thragtusk and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage stinks. Lavinia also gets nasty when you can reuse her ability, say, with Restoration Angel or Cloudshift. I doubt Lavinia is going to be a staple or anything like that, but she’s a possibility.
In limited, Lavinia is a house. Cards like Choking Tethers are important to break stalls, but I don’t love running them because they represent card disadvantage and can be dead when you’re behind. Lavinia solves this problem by providing a very solid body to go along with a crushing tempo swing. This is a deceptively powerful card and should be valued highly.
Sealed – 4.5
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 1.5
Protect / Serve
This isn’t a constructed playable card, so it’s only role is going to be as a versatile but overcosted limited combat trick. It’s basically Show of Valor/Downsize. The best half is the white pump spell, and it’s not great. Show of Valor is nothing special to begin with, and adding a mana really makes it forgettable. Paying three mana for combat tricks takes away so much of what is good about them.
Downsize is even more situational. You can use it to gain a little life or create an unfair combat situation where your opponent’s “trade” goes south, but I don’t love playing these cards.
If you’re Azorius and have access to both sides, you can potentially get some 2-for-1 situations with this card, making it a decent card to include if you need more value, but five mana is a lot to pay for the honor. This is totally playable, but not very good. Don’t forget that you can just play the blue half in a Grixis deck or the white half in a Naya deck if you just need playables.
Sealed – 2.0
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Render Silent
I’m not sure how relevant SilenceCancel is. Sure, this card interferes with one of the traditional ways to beat counterspells: I bait out your counter by playing my bad creature, then when you counter it, I play the creature I actually wanted to resolve. While stymieing that line of play is is nice, it won’t often be enough to induce to you play this card over Dissipate or other options. I suppose this is a nice answer to Modern Eggs, but oh, that just got banned. At three (awkward) mana, there are better options in all formats.
In limited, this is basically just a hard-to-cast Cancel. Sometimes you’ll counter a Giant Growth in combat and make your opponent skip his post-combat play, which is nice, but most of the time it’s better to just save this for the actual threat. Render Silent is probably fine because you want some ways to answer bombs in this format, but I think it’s just worse than Cancel, considering the mana requirements in this format.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 2.5
Constructed – 1.5
Restore Peace
I tend to overvalue cards like Aetherize, and even I don’t think this looks good. The ability to bounce multiple creatures is powerful in principle, but if you have to let them smack you around first, the number of situations where this is useful plummets. Using this for pure defense is bad because if you want to not just take lethal damage, you’ll have to pull the trigger pretty early on, meaning you’re just going to bounce some two-drops. I guess this is a pretty fine tempo spell if you’re attacking in with fliers and getting pounded on the ground, but that’s a pretty narrow application, and Azorius isn’t even really a “skies” guild, preferring to swing in on the ground with detain creatures.
Keep in mind that this will bounce your creatures too, so you can’t just make some blocks and then Restore the Peace profitably unless you have some 187 guys. You also can’t use this like Unsummon to flizzle auras or counter removal spells unless they are after combat (which would be pretty rare). There is a lot of versatility here, but most of the applications are very narrow. I wouldn’t want to play this in any of my decks unless I were abusing 187 abilities like Ubul Sar Gatekeepers‘.
This is pretty terrible in Standard, where it gets laughed out of the room by Burning-Tree Emissary.
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 1.5
Constructed – 0.0
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for Boros. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.
There are some very nice white/red options in Dragon’s Maze. In limited, Boros’ common, Viashino Firstblade, is a huge beating, while a two uncommons (Warleader’s Helix and Blaze Commando) can make a huge, splashy impact on games.
The card people seem most interested in for constructed is Legion’s Initiative, but I’m not sure there’s a place for it. The two-mana enchantment may be good, but I’ve got my eye on Warleader’s Helix and even Viashino Firstblade too.
To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:
Blaze Commando
This is a pretty cool card. Note that it triggers whenever a spell you control deals damage to anything, not just to players. So when you Searing Spear your opponent’s Augur of Bolas, you’ll get two hasty soldiers for your troubles. As we’ve seen, a 5/3 for five that produces value is playable (*ahem*), but this one requires some support spells to get there. There’s even some combo-esque potential with cheap burn spells and/or sacrifice outlets. I’m not gaga for this dude, but he’s pretty interesting.
In limited, this is very good – the type of card that can win games by itself. Obviously damage-based removal spells are going to be a bit harder to come by in limited, but if you do fire one off while controlling Blaze Commando, you’re way ahead. Otherwise, he’s a solid beater that can punch through some of the walls in the format, just not an especially aggressively-costed one.
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 1.5
Boros Battleshaper
At seven mana, this isn’t going to make it into constructed. The combat-centric ability is more geared toward limited anyway.
In limited, the ability is very strong, acting a bit like evasion and a bit like removal. You can just “detain” your opponent’s best creature each combat, and that’s already pretty awesome. But you can also do things like force your opponent’s utility creature to block and then swing with a random 3/3, or make his flier attack and block with a Steeple Roc. Speaking of which, Boros Battleshaper‘s 5/5 body is certainly good at eating opposing attackers. Left unchecked, this card will absolutely tear apart a game of limited, and you at least get one Master Warcrafted attack step the turn you play him before your opponent gets a crack at using a removal spell.
Costing seven is a bit of a turnoff, but I think this format will be slow enough that this is a pretty reliable bomb.
Sealed – 4.5
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 0.0
Gleam of Battle
[This was left off the initial publication of this page. Added 4/24/13. -Bert]
This is a very powerful effect, but costs a lot of mana. Even it it cost a mere 1WR, I’m not sure it would see play in constructed. (Although it would have lots of potential…).
But at six, this is going to be confined to limited, where it’ll be decent in any sort of aggressive/midrange deck, especially ones with fliers, first strikers, or other hard-to-block creatures. Six mana is too expensive for this to put much pressure on your opponent, and it’s terrible when you’re fighting from behind, but it does provide you with a pretty powerful effect. Once you’ve made your Wind Drake a 3/3 and your Nav Squad Commandoes a 4/6, it might be too late for your opponent.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 2.0
Constructed – 0.0
Legion’s Initiative
This has got to be the most versatile battlefield-oriented enchantments ever. A short list of what this can do:
This probably isn’t a comprehensive list, but it should give you a good idea of how versatile this card is. It should go without saying that this will be pretty great in limited, where its main purpose will be as a half of a Glorious Anthem. If you snap this up pack one, you may want to eschew all this three-color nonsense you’d expect from Dragon’s Maze and just try to pick up as many Wojek Halberdiers and Skyknight Legionnaires as you can. You can also frustrate your opponent terribly by just leaving WR open all the time, threatening to dominate both the battlefield and the stack. It is just a support spell, and it requires you to leave some mana open, but it’s good.
In constructed, I’m not as high on this as others seem to be. Sure, you can bounce a board of Thragtusks and Restoration Angel to gain a massive… wait… you already had a battlefield full of Thragtusks and Resto Angels? Sounds like you were already in pretty good shape, and didn’t need this at all.
The best use seems to be as an Orcish Oriflamme for red dudes, with bonus points if you run red guys with enters the battlefield effects (Zealous Conscripts? Keldon Marauders?) or if your opponent’s game plan revolves around removal and sweepers. I don’t have a good picture of what other uses Legion’s Initiative might have, but given how versatile the card is, I may be overlooking something. Maybe there’s a sick deck where I want to blink a board of Cathedral Sanctifiers and Kessig Malcontents.
Sealed – 3.0
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 2.0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Pretty disappointing from a design/Vorthos standpoint if you ask me. I also don’t think Tajic is constructed playable. Battalion in constructed hasn’t had a good showing thus far. At one mana, it’s already hard enough to reliably trigger Boros Elite‘s ability, which leads me to belive Tajic, Blade of the Legion will mostly get stranded as a 2/2. If Tajic had haste, things might be different, but as-is he’s just far too slow. You also don’t want to be using him as a 2/100 wall, as there are just better options for removal-resistant defensive options.
In limited, on the other hand, Tajic is quite nice. Wall of Stone/Armored Transport split card is already pretty good, and then you factor in the ability to turn into The Abyss when you get the right mix of attackers and you have a very solid card that probably isn’t very fun to play against. He’d be one of the best rares in triple Gatecrash draft, but I’ll have to mark him down a few notches now that we’ll have fewer chances to pick up dedicated battalion attackers.
Sealed – 3.5
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 0.5
Viashino Firstblade
I really like this guy. In limited, which is where he’ll primarily earn his keep, he’s a Gray Ogre with a big upside. Gray Ogre has always been pretty bad, but let’s dream a little bigger. Skyknight Legionnaire is a Gray Ogre, and he’s just about first-pickable.
Having haste is a big deal, letting you trigger battalion early (admittedly, this is less important with only one pack of Gatecrash) and generally muddle your opponent’s combat math. Having +2/+2 for a turn is also good. Not as good as flying, but the temporary buff can resemble evasion (after all, there aren’t many blockers that can profitably block this three-drop the turn it comes down).
After his first attack, Viashino Firstblade dwindles considerably, but he’s quite good at doing his job – applying pressure and triggering battalion. You won’t always want him, but to any aggressive deck with plains and mountains, this card is butter.
In fact, I think Viashino Firstblade is so good at his job that he could potentially have some (minor) constructed implications. Three mana for a spell that just deals four and leaves behind a 2/2 token doesn’t sound bad. It’s possible to block him of course, but with haste even that becomes difficult. Consider that you can also mainphase a Restoration Angel to trigger him again, making him functionally similar to a hasty Loxodon Smiter over the course of multiple turns. Not really a good card, and I’d be a lot more excited if it were a human, but maybe it could be part of a “Big Blitz” style deck.
Sealed – 2.5
Draft – 3.0
Constructed – 1.5
Warleader’s Helix
Lightning Helix this ain’t. There are two mana costs for constructed playable removal spells, with very few exceptions: one and two. One of the best removal spells of all time, Lightning Helix is a Modern staple at two mana, but what happens when you double the price and increase the effect by 25 percent? I have a hard time thinking this card becomes completely unplayable, but it gets worse to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Four mana is so steep that it’s almost not even “removal” – can you imagine trying to kill a first-turn Champion of the Parish with this? Still, there are some big numbers on this card. It can kill some of the key creatures in Standard pretty profitably, including Restoration Angel and Loxodon Smiter. Chaining two of these in a row could also represent a 16-point life swing. I’m not sure what exactly lies ahead for this card – maybe just unplayability. But I bet this will crop up in the 75 of a few Standard decks down the road.
In limited, this is a very good removal spell. You’d probably rather have a Warped Physique or something like Turn / Burn, but let’s not get too greedy here. This kills the vast majority of creatures you’ll face in a game of limited, gives you a nice little tempo cushion with the lifegain, deploys at instant speed to offer chances for 2-for-1s, and can always go to the face to end things.
Sealed – 4.0
Draft – 4.0
Constructed – 2.0
Wear / Tear
This may be the split card I’m most excited about. I’ve always been a huge Hull Breach fan, and this is one of the best versions ever. If nothing else, it’s a multicolored Disenchant that gives you a discount when you just need to kill an enchantment. Paying 1WR to kill a Stony Silence and a Tidehollow Sculler won’t come up often, but when it does, it will be spectacular. Wear / Tear will immediately settle into Modern as a viable sideboard card for decks like UWR Midrange and Affinity. It may also see sideboard play in Standard and Legacy – possibly even lots of sideboard play.
Wear / Tear‘s applications in limited are more… limited. There aren’t really a ton of artifacts that require your attention, and it’s often wrong to side in your Sundering Growths even if you see a few keyrunes. However, if your opponent has a couple different targets of each card type (say, a few auras, a keyrune, and an Armored Transport, you’ll definitely want to side this in to try and get your 2-for-1.
Sealed – 1.0
Draft – 1.0
Constructed – 1.5
From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.
