Haazda Shield Mate

A reusable Pay No Heed? Great! Too bad that this card is overpriced. The fact that you both have to pay 3 for a 1/1 and pay an upkeep cost make this card too expensive to use in most situations. Basically, you're paying 3 for a Pay No Heed, which is really too much. Also, it's a 1/1 for 3, which is really too expensive. Still, if you've got the mana to spend, it can be useful, especially in formats like Limited.

Pros: Pay No Heed on a stick

Cons: Weak body for cost, upkeep cost

Rating: 1/5

Forgotten Lore

Many of you newer players may remember this card better as Shrouded Lore. I like the fact that they decided to time-shift this card because it's not all that bad. Late game, it's almost worthless, but in the early stages of the game it's great. Green can get a lot of different things back from its graveyard and, in fact, aside from this card, there are 13 other "universal" return cards (they can bring back anything without restriction). However, a lot of those cards have their own issues, be it they cost a lot (Elven Cache is 4, Restock is 5, Woodland Guidance is 4), they are not repeatable (Nostalgic Dreams, Restock), they don`t put the card into your hand (False Mourning, Reclaim, Salvage), or they have a ridiculous requirement (Reap, Holistic Wisdom). Now, I`m not saying this card is perfect, but in a situation where you only have, say, 2 cards in your graveyard, this becomes a Regrowth. Again, this card later in the game becomes pretty bad since your graveyard is going to grow larger than what you`re willing to pay if you`re looking for a specific card. If you`re looking for one of 4 or 5 different cards in your graveyard, this can still be pretty good because your opponent will have to pick one of those cards eventually. Still, it`s power mostly lies in the early game.

Pros: Universal return, really good early game

Cons: Pretty useless late game for grabbing specific cards

Rating: 3.5/5

Citadel of Pain

This card really suffered from the mana burn rule change, but it's still pretty good. It locks down other decks and basically works kind of like a poor man's Dosan the Falling Leaf, albeit it doesn't stop nonland mana sources like Manalith. Still, it works pretty effectively against counter decks. While it can hurt you, there are a lot of decks (burn decks for example) that can easily thrive playing playing only on their own turn (usually because they don't have a hand to play afterwards). One of the best decks that I've ever seen with this ran Pyromancer's Swath because the player could never keep a full hand anyway and never needed to keep land untapped. One that was really good before mana burn went away ran Chimeric Idol to avoid the aforementioned mana burn (also, it avoided the damage from Manabarbs, which is this card's best friend). All in all, a really good card that needs to be built around. It's not something that you can just throw into a deck willy-nilly.

Pros: Locks down Instant or EOT-based decks

Cons: Potential to hurt you

Rating: 4/5

Corpse Harvester

I really like this card. It's a very reusable tutor at Instant-speed that works well with its colour. Turn that Black Cat into a Boris Devilboon with a Swamp in tow! You could also use this to devastating effect with cards like False Prophet (you can get a good creature to play right after), Child of Alara, or Solemn Simulacrum for a huge card/mana advantage. I do have a couple of minor issues with this card though. First, it costs 5, so unless you're running mana ramp or some way to cheat it out (Entomb/Exhume for example), this card is going to be coming out in the late game, but that's not always a bad thing since it''ll give you a steady supply of lands and creatures. The other thing is that this only searches for Zombies, so unless you're running Conspiracy, this can only really go in a Zombie-tribal deck. Still, it's a good card for Zombie-tribal decks.

Pros: Instant-speed creature and land tutor

Cons: Requires sack, looks only for Zombies, high cost

Rating: 3.5/5 

Kashi-Tribe Reaver

I think this is my favourite member of the Kashi tribe and my second favourite non-Legendary Snake Warrior. To start, it has great art (that's always a plus). Then, it is a 3/2 for 4 with regenerate on it, so it has decent power and survivability. Finally, it has the Kamigawa Snake Frosting Effect (KSFE for short), which makes it even better. It's a fairly decent lockdown creature that can swing with little regard to an opponent's field. However, you do need the mana open to regenerate it and the KSFE is defeated by First Strike all day long.

Pros: KSFE, regenerate, decent costing
Cons: Defeated by First Strike
Rating: 3.5/5

NOTE: I'm well aware of the fact that the first creature with the KSFE was Mercurial Kite and not a Snake from Kamigawa, however "MKFE" sounds like an extra charge from McDonald's and therefore sucks (it's "kiss-fee" versus "mc-fee").

The Abyss

Grave Pact's best friend! If you've got some sort of non-artifact creature token generator going (I like Breeding PIt personally), this can be a really good lockdown card. I've only seen one deck that ran this (since it is a $200 card) and it ran mostly artifact creatures so that it couldn't be affected by its effect. Its only real downside is that, because of its cost, a lot of token decks can create enough tokens that it won't care about it. Also, the oracle text specifies that this isn't a sacrifice; the creature is destroyed, so it can't affect Indestructible creatures. Otherwise, it's a really good card.

Pros: Great creature lockdown card

Cons: Destroys instead of sacrifices, a little too slow

Rating: 4/5

Slipstream Serpent

This is a 2/2 for 3 colourless. If you flip it up, you're an idiot. It's a 6/6 for 9 (or 8 if you play it straight-up).. That's about all I have to say about it. Often, this will be a 6/6 Defender of 8 (minimum). A 6/6 Defender for 8. EIGHT. Islandhome was a flavourful mechanic, but not a good one.

Pros: Usable to disguise your other, better creatures with Morph

Cons: 6/6 Islandhome for 8-9, no evasion

Rating: 0/5

200th Post: Some EDH Should-Be Banneds

Well, for my 200th post, I thought I'd give you my opinion on some cards that I think should be banned in EDH. I won't be rating these cards, but I'll give the reasons why I think they should be banned. Now, I feel I should remind you that Worldfire was banned mainly of because Jhoira of the Ghitu. Since that's the case, if there's one general that can break a card, it was considered for this list. Finally, this list is not extensive. It's only the first 7 cards that came to mind.

Mind Over Matter

Why does this card need to be banned? Did you read what it does?! If a blue deck drops this card, it's pretty much game over. With Azami, Lady of Scrolls, it's infinite draw. With Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, everyone else is dead. With Temple Bell, you can dig for that Laboratory Maniac and force everyone to draw out (or until you win). Finally, with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, it's infinite (insert combo here). This is just too powerful for a format that usually isn't decided by turn 6, like what this was designed for.

Serra Ascendant

Another prime example of a card that wasn't designed for EDH that easily got broken. This is a 6/6 flying lifelinker for one. This is WAY too powerful! I can't really say much more about this, it's really stupid in EDH. A possible errata (which will never happen) could be: "If you have at least 10 life more than your starting life total, Serra Ascendant gets +5/+5 and has flying". You know, like Chalice of Life's wording?

Sorin Markov/Magister Sphinx

Sway of the Stars and Biorhythm are both banned because they set everyone's life totals to a certain number. Why are these two cards (one of which is extremely easy to put into play) not banned then? Again, these cards were not designed with EDH in mind and they were meant to halve someone's life, not to one-quarter of it's original level. I partially want these cards banned because they aren't fun to play against, but it's mostly because they aren't designed for this format and as a result, their power level shot through the roof. Maybe another errata to say "halve target player's life".

Transcendence

Why should this be banned? Because Zedruu the Greathearted exists, as does Donate. If a player is getting ganged up on, all they have to go is give someone else this card and that player loses. Once again, it's not a card that's meant for this format since everyone already starts way above the threshold of this card. 

Defense of the Heart

Once again, a card that was not designed for the format. Since EDH is a slower format, people tend to have bigger, more expensive creatures in their deck which means that this card gets a lot of value for its user. It's not difficult for an opponent to get 3 creatures either, which either means that your opponents won't play a third creature or they play one and trigger this card. Also, it's more repeatable in green than, say, Dramatic Entrance since it's a permanent.

Staff of Domination

This needs to be rebanned. It's a one-card combo machine. Plain and simple.

That's it. I'll be back to normal reviews soon.