Reviewing M14: Answers

Welcome back to The General Zone's review of Magic 2014. I am your host Grandpa Growth. In the last installment we discussed the threats. In today's exciting episode we will be taking a look at the few, the proud, the answer cards. Answers stop your opponents' threats. Pretty simple. Let's dig in.

This a templating update to Fiend Hunter and so similar that I considered not even writing about it, but I don't want to let good cards go undiscussed. Its predecessor sees play, so I would expect this to see play as well.


This is about a million light years behind Wing Shards in power level, but this is a common and edict effects are pretty decent. The typical White attacker/blocker targeting restriction has a lot of interesting play here. It lets you focus in on killing the dangerous creatures in combat, but you won't be able to say...kill a Soul of the Harvest while another creature is on the stack. All together this is a reasonable card and an interesting one at that. I don't think it will see much play even in Pauper lists, but it has some potential.




In the spoiler week article where this card was spoiled...I was betrayed. I was excited. I admit it. There were a lot of comparisons getting thrown around. This was the new Cowardice. The better Cowardice. The art was sick. The card was going to blow my mind, right? And then....this. Seven mana? It doesn't even do anything! Please. I have seen toe nail polish with more Magic than there is in this card. I hesitate to even call it a card.



Answers to answers?! Heck yea, we got that stuff! I really dig this card. Reanimation effects are very powerful and usually not available at Instant speed. It requires a target...a restricted one, but this card still appears to be very strong. Post-Wrath you reclaim the biggest threat on the table. That is reason enough to run something like this I think.



I wasn't sure where to stick this guy. It can be a threat I guess, but the real win is getting to munch on an opponent's best threat. A three power evasive guy is just an excellent bonus. With more players at the table you are more likely to find a good duder to RFG with the ETB trigger. The only comparisons I can really make here are Sin Collector and Vindilion Clique. I like both of those cards quite a bit, even though I only play one of them. 1BB is a much less restrictive cost than 1WB so you should expect to see a little bit more of this guy. If you manage to shanghai a solid creature with this then it's all gravy from there. Suit this thing up with a sword and go to work.



I have mixed feelings about this card. On the one hand: I only ever played Manabarbs in aggressive mono Red decks. Those decks have tons of basic Mountains and not much else so you won't have to take as much damage off of your own lands. On the other hand: this card is much easier for your opponent to play around. It will be completely blank against a small number of opponents and sticking it early lets your opponent(s) fetch/play lands such that this isn't as much of a hindrance. I like that this card made it to print, but I just can't be sure it is good yet. Time and testing will tell.

Oh boy. This art. This flavor text. Does your deck want this? Is your deck ready for this jelly? Is mine? I don't know about you, but usually when I have a creature I want to be beating down with it. This is a solid two drop that shuts down prospective blocks, but if you are the control deck and you want to block their dudes...just...kill it. Like anything else, right?


Sweet! Green removal. Playable in Pauper. That's a win in my book. I would like to see a little bit more bang for my buck here. Compared to Prey Upon we are paying 3 for a +1/+1 counter, but I am willing to overlook that because we haven't yet reached a critical mass of quality fight effects. This shouldn't be cracking into any top decklists, but should be a big hit in Pauper. Might just work its way into my Pauper cube.




This card is cool, but also very strange. It goes off the script for typical anti-counter spell interactions. So you have a threat, right? And you want to protect it, so you play a second, less scary card at the end of their turn. If they counter it you get to resolve your threat. If they don't, now you have a thing that you can do damage with while you wait around for another opportunity to resolve something sweet. With this card you want to play it ahead of your guy to give it Flash and un-counterable-ness. This is a bit different than say Autumn's Veil, where you want to trick them into trying a counter spell so you can 'get them'. The weird thing with this line is that, since they can't counter it, they just have the counter spell for whatever you were going to do on your turn. That may be great. Maybe not. You get a slightly higher upside at the cost of being more situational. These kinds of cards tend to be tough to evaluate because, in any other format, they would be sideboard material, but in Commander they seem to creep their way into the main decks of people who have grudgy/scrubby play styles. The guy you know who really hates playing against counter spells will play this because his sleeping hours are dominated by Cryptic Command nightmares. BUT there isn't really a reason to play this. There are enough quality threats. Just play another threat.

Thankfully, this was a somewhat shorter piece than the previous installment. I expect the third installment to be shorter still. Thanks for sticking with us this far and I hope you'll join me for the thrilling conclusion: Mana and Utility!