Tuesday 29 January 2013

Meditate

Meditate
What does Lighthouse Chronologist do on a Saturday night? He meditates! If you can get extra turns somehow, this card can be great, especially if you have nothing to do on one of those extra turns. In slower formats like EDH, you can also drop this really early game for extra cards since losing that one turn probably won't be that detrimental. Opportunity can also draw you 4 cards, but since it costs 6 mana, it may be too expensive in certain situations. The major problem with this card is that you do have to skip your next turn. However, there is a deck that I have on Lackey (a great deck-building program you can find here) that loves this card. The star? Chronatog.

Pros: 4 cards for 3 mana at Instant speed
Cons: Causes you to skip your next turn
Rating: 2.5/5

Sunday 27 January 2013

Ornithopter

Ornithopter
I don't care what anyone says; this card is a champion. To start, it's free. FREE. Who doesn't like free things? Second, it flies. That means it can block almost every kind of creature. Thirdly, it's an artifact. Anyone like metalcraft? Sure, it can't do damage on its own, but it's there to either be a blocker, add to your storm count, or get you metalcraft quickly and it does all three quite well. Put some Shuko or a Bone Saw on this card and you've got a 1/2 flier for 1. There aren't many flying creatures for 1 that are much better than that.

Pros: Free, great blocker
Cons: Can't attack without support
Rating: 3.5/5

Qasali Ambusher

Qasali Ambusher
There's nothing I like more than a surprise lion. This card is great because, in most situations, it'll be free. You just have to wait until that pesky Aesthir Glider swings at you and, BANG! There's a cat in the way. Other than that, it's a 2/3 with reach for 3 which isn't terrible. Not great, but not terrible either. The free clause is what makes this card good. Yes, a creature does have to be attacking you and you do have to control a Forest and a Plains but those conditions aren't exactly hard to meet. In a dual-colour deck you should have both basic land types on turn 2 (or turn 1 if you're running fancy lands) and your opponent will probably swing at you at least once during the course of the game so this card will probably end up being free.

Pros: Can easily be free
Cons: Not a superb creature, conditions have to be met for it to be free
Rating: 3/5

Monday 21 January 2013

Riftstone Portal

Riftstone Portal
This card doesn't get enough credit for how awesome it is. This can easily win you the game if you have a Selesnya-coloured deck. Here's how:
Turn 1
Play Plains
Give Tireless Tribe +0/+4 by tossing this
All your lands are now Savannah in addition to their other types
Read that last line again. All your lands are now Savannah in addition to their other types. Well, I lie a little bit when I say that since they're neither Plains nor Forests so those pesky Graceful Antelopes and Shanodin Dryads aren't unblockable for you. This card allows you colour-fix your deck really easily if it's in you graveyard but therein lies the problem with this card: getting it into your graveyard. Green and white aren't short on spellshapers but there aren't as many cards that cause you to discard in these colours as there are in, say, black (maybe this is where Anurid Brushhopper can shine?). Still, the sheer potential of this card is astronomical, especially in formats like EDH.

Pros: All your lands become pseudo-Savannahs if in your graveyard
Cons: Slight problem getting it into your graveyard
Rating: 5/5

Wirewood Elf

Wirewood Elf
Why? Why why why why why? Why is there a worse-in-almost-every-way Llanowar Elves? I understand that if they printed only good cards, we would have massive powercreep but still, why?! The reason I say this is only worse-in-almost-every-way is that it can survive an unsacrificed Disciple of Tevesh Szat whereas a Llanowar Elves will die. But the extra point of toughness doesn't really matter in the long run since odds are you will neither be attacking or blocking with your mana base. It also costs twice as much as Llanowar Elves. Even though that's only 2 mana, that's an extra turn you have to wait before you get your extra mana which can easily destroy your tempo..

Pros: Tougher Llanowar Elves
Cons: More expensive Llanowar Elves
Rating: 0/5

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Rune of Protection: Lands

Rune of Protection: Lands
Yeah, this card... exists. It's not actually a terrible card per se, but it's just so situational that it comes off as a really bad card. Regular lands can actually deal a ton of damage depending on what's going on (see Natural Affinity or Koth of the Hammer) but again, it's really situational. There are some man-lands that do see a lot of play, but this card is sideboard material at best. The main failure of this card is not actually the fault of the card itself; this card is bad because you probably aren't going to be hit with a lot of lands.

Pros: Protects against man-lands or animated lands
Cons: Land damage is fairly few and far between
Rating: 2/5

Friday 11 January 2013

Mercadian Atlas

Mercadian Atlas
I love this card for EDH decks since those games tend to run long. Drawing extra cards is always a good thing and, if it's caused by you missing a land drop, it allows you to dig deeper to find that land. There's not much else to say about this card aside from that. It does cost 5, so it comes out late game, but that's usually when you'll be missing land drops.

Pros: Gives extra card draw
Cons: Requires missing land drops
Rating: 3.5/5

Dramatic Entrance

Dramatic Entrance
Yay! A non-restricted version of Flash! Sure, it's a little more expensive than Flash, but it lets green get a solution out really quickly. Your opponent has a vital piece of a combo out and is close to going off? Sounds like you need a Woodfall Primus right now. Getting the smackdown from a big creature and need a blocker?  Surprise! Progenitus decided to join the party a the start of a declare blockers step. Finally, if you need to lay the smackdown on someone, a good ol' Worldspine Wurm seems like a great choice. Now, an issue with this card is the double green mana which makes it a little more difficult to splash, but it really does need those two symbols in order to balance it. It also only lets you put a green creature into play, so multicolour decks may be left stuck staring at a great non-green creature that you'll have to play.

Pros: Pseudo-Flash for green
Cons: Green creatures only
Rating: 4/5

Wednesday 9 January 2013

Winter's Chill

Winter's Chill
Okay, let's simplify the text on here first:
- Cast only before blockers are declared
- X can't be more than the number of snow lands you have
- Attacking player pays either 2 (nothing happens), 1 (Deftblade Elite's ability), or 0 (Murder) for each of X attacking creatures. The corresponding effect happens to that creature. 

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at the card itself. First, the "X can't be more than the number of snow lands you have" thing. In a deck built around this, that is not a problem since snow lands are still basic lands and therefore you can easily have all your lands be snow. As for the rest of the card, it's not bad at all. Blue doesn't have very many sources of destroying creatures (Pongify is the only one I can think of off the top of my head right now) so this gives blue a way, albeit soft, to permanently deal with problem creatures. It also creatures a mana-sink for your opponent since they can pay for the creatures to save them at the cost of being able to play things they wanted to after combat. Now, the major problem with this card is that it's also a mana-sink for the caster since you may end up having to dump a lot of mana into this if you're being alpha-striked. Still, it's something for theme decks to keep in their back pocket.

Pros: Blue creature destruction, kind of blue fog
Cons: Mana-sink
Rating: 3/5


Sunday 6 January 2013

Mending Hands

Mending Hands
OHMYGAWD!!! It's a better Healing Salve! That being said, it's a better Healing Salve. It's not that great. Why? Well, preventing damage to yourself is just like gaining life so why don't you just gain life instead? Play Cathedral Sanctifier instead and that way you can gain life and have a blocker for later on! Preventing damage to a creature is useful, but in the long run it won't do much. If it's preventing damage from a spell, why not just counter it? If it's from a creature, you've just delayed the inevitable for 1 turn. It's just not worth it.

Pros: Improved Healing Salve
Cons: Just an improved Healing Salve
Rating: 1/5