Hopefully I will have resolved some issues with the formatting for the article and eliminated the annoying white space between paragraphs. Also we will be moving through the set alphabetically instead of by color this time.
This card is a bit low on the power level, but it reminds me a lot of Silhana Starfletcher. It helps ramps your mana, fixes for all 5 colors, and it blocks most 1 and 2 drop creatures that will come at you early. This creature isn't an Elf, which is a bit of a knock against it, but Human is becoming much more important as a creature type. It won't be too long before we have a Human lord and Human theme decks.
Also it is important to consider why you are playing mana acceleration. If you have important 3 drops, then you need 1 drop accelerants. If you have important 4 drops, you need a GRANDPA GROWTH. 3 drop accelerators ramp you into 5 drops. So remember that and make sure you only play this guy where appropriate. The power level is too low to just slam it in every 3 or 5 color ramp deck. Also...try not to get Wrathed.
AZORIUS CHARM
This card is very strong, as are many of the charm cards. The first ability basically guarantees you will win any race situation. Gaining 6-10 life for 2 mana is actually worth a card at instant speed. I find the second ability to be the most powerful.
The power of cheap card draw effects is related to the power of what you draw with it. In a format like Commander you are digging into a Legacy sized card pool. Cycling is constantly underrated and A-charm gives you the flexibility of two other modes along with it.
I like Time Ebb effects. The restriction of only hitting attackers and blockers is pretty hefty, but remember that this card is an INSTANT. Which is a huge upgrade to sorcery only effect.
Psst: Snapcaster Mage. Done.
GUILD KEYRUNES
These cards have a decent power level. They compare pretty favorably with the Totem cycle from Time Spiral. They also bear obviously similarities to the dual color manlands. They can help accelerate you, but they are more vulnerable to removal. It is important to use your mana every turn and these Keyrunes give you small threats in the late game after you have traded off all your bombs and removal.
I sometimes play these cards in proactive mono color decks, but I am hesitant to include them in control decks. Particularly multi-color control brews. The reason is that board sweeping effects are very common in Commander, especially in multiplayer games. You don't want your mana sources to get caught in a Planar Cleansing. This problem is true of every "mana rock" and "mana elf". They tend to die at some point in the game and when that happens you are suddenly behind on resources. I prefer my acceleration to be more resilient. If you have Green, then you don't need these. If you don't have green you will probably end up playing these most of the time.
In the same line of thinking: Izzet Keyrune is the best. Looting is insane. Azorius and Rakdos Keyrunes are good. The Selesnya and Golgari models are not likely to be relevant in competitive games of EDH.
This card is certified insane. Ready for the Truth? The truth is: IF YOU HAVE 3 OR MORE COLORS YOU ARE PLAYING THIS. PERIOD. You will always do it or always be wrong. I will also be packing this in some two color decks. Enemy color combos typically have worse mana than the average deck. Blue and Black based control decks typically have worse accelerants than their White and Green counter parts. Look out for this in basically any non-Green multicolor deck. Chromatic Lantern is an instant format staple. Pick up copies whenever you can. They will be hot trade material for Commander players and should hold decent value.
I have a friend who is chronically plagued by the desire to make a Blue-Black-Red self-mill deck. Flashback spells. Recursive threats like: Bloodghast or Gravecrawler. Probably Sedris, the Traitor King as a general. The major limitation of this deck is that what you're doing isn't inherently unfair and you typically have to invest a card to get your milling started. The enablers for this deck got significantly better during Innistrad block; along with the addition of Flashback spells to add value to your milling. Chronic flooding is decent. I would rank it somewhere between Nephalia Drownyard and Increasing Confusion. Much like Drownyard though, Chronic Flooding allows your opponent to disrupt you with cards like Wasteland, which are included in essentially every deck.
This seems like it would fit in the same decks as Chronic Flooding, but I don't think that is true. It's really too slow to use as a self mill tool. The upside is that eventually you will recoup the card you invested when you played the Shredder. I can see the Shredder finding a home in a Glissa value deck or a Sharuum "all artifact" deck. Both of these decks are strong tier two control decks and utilize a tool box of artifacts to produce a variety of effects. Codex Shredder adds something new for the Glissa deck and adds some redundancy to the Sharuum brew. It won't be an auto-include, but it is worth testing out. I expect it to be a roleplayer in decks that want to dig out of their own graveyard.
This card is worse than basically every other Overrun effect that is in print. The sad truth is that it will still get played in all sorts of token decks. Although you are unlikely to lose with this in play, I have serious misgivings about its playability. I would rather have Titanic Ultimatum in a Hazezon Tamar token deck. Beastmaster Ascension is better in a mono green deck. AND if you are Green-White play Rhys....and just activate your Rhys. Don't mess around with Collective Blessing. You only want 2-3 cards like it in your starting 99, and there are 12-16 better options depending on your colors.
This card is very flexible, very powerful, and is going to have an impact on several formats. At face value, it is a 1 drop accelerator. It is a persistent way to swing life totals every turn. It plays extremely well in multiplayer. It is also a powerful graveyard hoser. If all that wasn't enough, it can attack, block, and pick up equipment. I think more often than not this card will be stuck at home removing cards at the end of your opponents turn. It will help jump the curve early in the game by stripping your opponents fetchlands, helping you power out plays on turn 3-5. Later in the game it is essentially a reusable extirpate effect that stops graveyard decks from doing pretty much anything. This is a hard counter to Crucible of Worlds.
Important points to remember: Each ability requires a target and can therefore be countered by removing that target from its current game zone. The first ability is NOT A MANA ABILITY. It needs a target and can be responded to. Lastly, Shaman cannot remove artifacts, enchantments, or planeswalkers. Plan accordingly.
DEATH'S PRESENCE
Many players love to include cards like this in their decks. You can expect to see at least a few of these in the coming months. At some point I will explain why these cards are terrible and should never be played, but that is a story for another time children. Lookout for a discussion of Investment in a future post. Until then, DP (eww....) is good enough for EDH, but don't just jam it in your deck. There are several other cards like this that have been printed recently. Many of them are good enough or very close to being good enough for competitive play, namely Gutter Grime. The problems with Death's Presence are twofold: it requires set up AND follow through. First, if you have multiple large guys in play why aren't you just going to cast Overwhelming Stampede and kill them? Sticking threats in EDH is tough and most of the time you just win if you do. So why do you even need this card? Just attack with your giant monster and leave up mana for counterspells. Setting up a board position where this is useful is very difficult in a format where you can expect a board sweeper every 1-2 turns. Which segues directly into point number 2. Wrath of God straight owns this card. They kill all your dudes and turn your Death's Presence into a stone blank. If you can get past all that and still feel like playing this card, make sure you are packing a resilient threat. I would recommend: Predator Ooze.
This card...is certainly explosive and powerful. There are some really great flips if you can get x past 6 mana. The major problem is that it just misses so much. Counterspells, lands, creatures, planeswalkers, enchantments. This card is no Genesis Wave. Better leave this one on the sidelines unless you are running the creatureless Grixis deck.
ETHEREAL ARMOR
It is unclear whether or not this will be a roleplayer in the Zur deck, but I think Uril definitely wants to grab this. It is cheap and scales up pretty quickly.
Now we are officially in business. This card has value written all over it. Isn't it beautiful how a card is STONE UNPLAYABLE as a sorcery, but the STONE NOODLE-BOODLES as an instant? Even if you just want random card advantage this is disgusting. Whisper T^2 BSZ ...yea...totally fair. Other fun stacks include Spell Buster Storm No, thank you! and GG! NO RE. How about Mystikal Research Intuition?
Blue-Red combo decks like Jhoira and Firemind combo can't wait to get a hold of this. The only really important things that this doesn't hit are C^2, Gifts (if you allow it), and Teachings ...and sorceries I guess, but who wants those anyway? You will play against this card and probably lose to it, I promise.
GATECREEPER VINE
This card is perfect for me. I prefer my land fixing to present card advantage. This can fetch a one of the new gate lands. Even if it doesn't it is still a second copy of Sylvan Ranger. This is a good little man that deserves a place in multicolor green builds like Riku or Bant Blink.
GRAVE BETRAYAL
Yea, this is a pretty sufficiently sized game. This is invest-chantment that I can get behind. It reminds me of Debtors' Knell, which is a huge beating. Black decks tend to kill a lot of creatures and this is even more true in EDH where games go long and graveyards get big. This stops things from getting into the bin, which stops your opponents from digging them back out again. They now come back a bit bigger and a bit darker, which helps shut down Doomblade style removal. It is very large and very expensive. Expect this to make you a huge target in multiplayer.
GRISLY SALVAGE
What in the world? Impulse is now B/G? This is incredible. This card might just push Glissa over the top. There are just too many things to put on an Isochron these days. How am I supposed to choose?
This is the card I am most excited to play with out of the entire set. It is obviously restricted to a pretty narrow color combination, but that color combo happens to be one of the funnest and most powerful. I see every BG and BWG deck running this and loving it.
GROVE OF THE GUARDIAN
I guess this is good. It doesn't tap for any color, which definitely hurts its chances. Also the idea behind manlands being good is that you DON'T need to have a threat late in the game. This requires extra effort at the beginning, but you don't have to pay every turn; you just get a huge guy. I think this will be an easy include in GW decks, but don't be surprised when you draw an opening hand of four spells and 3 colorless lands.
GROWING RANKS
What do you know...another investachantment that loses to Wrath. People will play this, lose, and not understand why. There are easier and better ways to get a free dude every turn. Have you even heard of Elspeth?
Even if this is the type of effect that your deck needs, there are better options. You can only ever get 1 dude a turn off this. That is not what I would call a token swarm. More like..a token dribble.
This card makes me wish that Populate worked the same way tht Proliferate did. Then this card would be doing it real big.
GUILD FEUD
This card is guaranteed to end the game in a hurry, but you aren't guaranteed to win. There are so many goofy red spells that make the game a coin flip. If you don't know what I am talking about just wait till the next set comes out. There will probably be another one.
It is pretty easy to stack your deck with Eldrazi and try to work someone over. In fact, its so easy I will probably try it, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. On the other hand if you have a deck full of dudes with comes into play effects like...I don't know Terrastobomb. That could be worth looking into.
This card is neither fun, nor fair and is way to slow and unpredictable for competitive formats....which makes it perfect for EDH.
JARAD'S ORDERS
This card is pretty insane. It is no Diabolic Tutor, but what it lacks in quality it makes up in quantity. In Black decks, a creature in the graveyard is almost as good as one in the hand. Which has no correlation to the relative value of birds in bushes. If you can produce BG, then you will start this card in your 99 pretty much every time.
I know this sounds strange, but I wish you could choose whose library to look through. Finding a huge bomb to put in the opponents graveyard to steal later and giving them a crappy random dude in their hand seems pretty sweet. Oh well, maybe next time.
KOROZDA GUILDMAGE
This card is a nice one. It's a powerful two drop, which is an underrated quality in a format dominated by 6-8 mana spells. It gives your big dudes Intimidate to punch through in the late game and protects your threats from removal. I am not sure what decks really want to snatch this up, but if you are new to the format or have a dedicated BG token deck then this is what you're looking for. It does everything I want my creatures to do except draw a card.
MANA BLOOM
There are many of these "battery" effects that see a lot of play in EDH. Some of them are very good, helping you jump dead spots on the curve. This one...is awful. Unplayable, in fact. You can only use it once per turn. So...why didn't you just call in a favor from old Grandpa Growth? Next.
This guy is just as insane as his Golgari sister. This thing throws your big guys into the air so they do get blocked by tokens. He also TOTALLY OWNS PLANESWALKERS. Every EDH needs multiple answers to Pdubs. This one even goes the extra mile by attacking for 2. Sign me up.
NIVIX GUILDMAGE
Looting is very powerful in EDH. With a singleton restriction and such a diverse card pool, your deck is going to be full of situational cards. Trading them in to get relevant spells or to hit your land drops is very important. Unlike other looters, this card can be used multiple times in one turn, but takes a substantial mana payment. Another big knock on this card is that it can't copy your opponent's spells. You also need a ton of mana in play before you can start going Fork on everything you play. This isn't an auto include, but I think it is enough better than some other card filtering effects that it will see play in UR combo decks.
On a side note: I consider Rix Maadi Guildmage to be unplayable.
PSYCHIC SPIRAL
This card is very niche, but it is a late game kill card in Bruna decks and will likely see some play in the aforementioned self-mill decks. I wish it could be used to shuffle in your opponents library as a counter to graveyard shenanigans, but alas...it wasn't meant to be.
RACECOURSE FURY
Some decks really want this card. There are so many creatures that would be playable if they just had Haste. Which is why cards like Fervor and Fires of Yavimaya see so much play. Paying one extra mana to bring your eldrazi into the red zone a turn early will often be game-ending. Don't underestimate this card. When they play it, kill it. Don't sit around to find out what they are going to do with it.
RAKDOS CHARM
This is my pick for best charm in EDH. It hoses graveyard decks, it removes pesky artifacts (an almost universal component of EDH decks), and it literally kills token decks. This is a powerful, flexible, and potentially broken answer card. In fact, I would have saved it for part 3 (where I will discuss the answer cards from RTR), but I think the third mode lets this card span the gap from answer to FACE-MELTING BURN SPELL well enough that I will flex into this article.
More importantly: this is a hard counter to a favorite card of mine. Nice Storm Herd.
RAKDOS RETURN
I literally always play Mind Twist in my Black decks and the same is true of Mind Shatter. This is at the very least, a third copy. Sometimes you will even be able to pump this to 10+ and just burn them out. Hand disruption is extremely powerful if you can use it early. Combine with Sol Ring for best results. Ask Uncle Landdrops how fun it is to have this cast on you on turn 3.
ROGUE'S PASSAGE
What an insane beatdown. I saw a lot of people losing to this at the pre-realease. This is so much better than Joven's Tools I can't even stand it. The power creep is just insane. Now it is free and even taps for mana when you don't need it. This is going into every voltron deck immediately. It is going to enable you to rack up Sword hits and general damage in a hurry. Don't be the last guy to jump on board with this card. It is for real.
SELSNYA CHARM
This card isn't nearly as good as the other charms I have mentioned, but it is still playable. It gives your big guys Trample which, if you read part 1, you understand why that is important. In the early game it gives you a vigilant blocker and a guy to suit up with equipment. It also plays great with Rhys and Populate effects. In the late game it is a fine removal spell. Your GW deck has to be very strong in the force before you leave this card on the side(board)lines.
SPHERE OF SAFETY
This is the worst War Tax yet. As I have said before, you have to have answers to token strategies if you plan to be competitive. Unfortunately, this is not the droid you are looking for. On the upside it does also protect your planeswalkers, which previous iterations typically do not do.
I do not consider this card to be a strict upgrade to Blue Sun's Zenith. First, it doesn't shuffle back in, which is a good protection against (admittedly uncommon) Mill-you strategies. Second, this cannot target them, so it is less useful in said Mill-you strategies. Now that the obligatory strategic considerations are over...THIS CARD IS BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! The biggest problem with Mind Spring? It's a sorcery. Biggest Problem with BSZ? Sometimes you just die before you get to use your new cards. This give you TONS of cards and life and still lets you play around counter spells. I have seen some decks running Kiss of the Amesha, particularly in budget builds. This card means you don't have to be embarassed to gain life anymore. Rejoice my children and draw.... DRAW TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT! Fifteen years and a color change later my little boy is all grown up!
TELEPORTAL
Boom! GO GO GADGET DISTORTION STRIKE! I like this card. Usually, UR decks don't have a ton of guys sitting around clogging the board, but RUG decks certainly do. Hello there, Riku!
Also...what in the world is that on his back? A propane tank?
My backpacks' got jets. I'm Boba: The Fett!
THOUGHTFLARE
This card is a little bit worse in my opinion than Careful Consideration, but a little bit better than Jace's Ingenuity. Realistically though, if you are playing any of these 3 cards...your deck isn't very good. There are just so many good card drawing spells that something like Thoughtflare isn't going to make the cut. This maybe has a shot in budget lists as a substitute for FoF, but don't bring it to the big boy table.
I play a lot of these kinds of cards. I am not sure where this one stacks up, but I will be testing it to find out. It is unfortunate that it exiles, which probably means it is worse than it looks. I will usually have 3-4 Regrowth effects in my decks though and more in this color combo. I wouldn't be surprised if this card gets a lot of play. I am pretty sure it is either a solid roleplayer or it is just outside the cut. It is definitely powerful and deserves to be looked at.
Additionally: If your group allows Side Boards or Wish effects then this might not be so bad, since Burning Wish can grab it back out of the aether.
UNDERWORLD CONNECTIONS
You will always play Phyrexian Arena right? This gets hit by the same kinds of removal plus land destruction, but you get to use it immediately and potentially more than once a turn if you can untap the land it is stuck to. In mono black that means you can use Deserted Temple. In green you have many more options, like Garruk. I like this card quite a bit and expect to play a lot of it.
An interesting point of consideration: There is consensus that 1 life is a small price to pay for drawing a card, but two life and a mana is too much. What if I offered you a compromise: 1 life, 1 mana, but you can only reliably do it once a turn?
VITU-GHAZI GUILDMAGE
This is quite a bit weaker than the other guildmages and I am not even sure if this is EDH playable. There are much cheaper ways to make tokens. This can attack and pick up a Sword, but I'm not sure that is good enough to include it over the other available options.
WILD BEASTMASTER
As far as Anthem effects go, this is pretty bad. It can get blocked and killed or hit by spot removal. Speaking of which, do you know what happens they respond to the attack trigger with a Dismember? That's right! You cry.
This card just isn't what you want to be doing in a format like Commander.
Well! That was a long one. I think that is enough for today young ones, your old Grandpa Growth is tired. I will be back soon to finish off the RTR set review with a look at the Answer cards and Sideboard material.
Until then,
Draw...Tank......Tank some more....
Your turn.
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