Today, we're talking about our favorites from Fate Reforged. We've had Prereleases, FNMs, Game Day- basically, plenty of time to affirm and destroy any opinions we may or may not have had when did the reviews a few weeks ago.
This week, it's just your core TGZ staff sharing picks, but that's not gonna stop us.
THIS IS THE STACK!
UNCLE LANDDROPS
What I love about this card is that it is instantly premium removal for us. I was shocked to see something so strong, particularly with such an aggressively costed 1U.
What I don't like about this card is that it feels colorshifted, and definitely not as color intensive. It's just hard for me to see Mastery of the Unseen and feel like this card shouldn't cost WW, GU, or some combination of these colors. It's just so much stronger than Rapid Hybridization and Pongify, which I already play.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
UL took mine. This card is insane. Even in the most Creature heavy decks, you are overwhelmingly likely to flip a noncreature. Most decks are nearly half lands. You can probably expect there to be ramp spells, artifacts, removal, counters, etc. to be at least 25% of their total deck. 25 Creatures is a lot in a Commander deck. In that case, many of them will be mana dorks. All in all, I estimate (roughly) that this will be excellent 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time, instead of being excellent, it will be interesting.
Tom- THUMBS UP
If you're running heavy Blue, there's no good reason not to run Pongify, Rapid Hybridization and Curse of the Swine. Mono-Blue spot removal is scarce - with good reason - but when it does appear it's always a shoe-in for Island-based EDH decks. Now we can add Reality Shift to the list of must-haves.
As GG says, most of the time the Manifested card is going to be less useful than what's being exiled, and even then running something like Lens of Clarity (probably a good idea now that there are going to be more face-down cards in the format) is going to clue you in as to whether the Manifest dude will be a problem later.
GRANDPA GROWTH
I have already gone on two rants about this card and how wildly entertaining it is, so I will spare you, but I am interested in hearing other people's opinions on the card.
Bonus audience participation challenge: In the comments, explain how to consistently turn this into card advantage.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
In a bizarre stroke of irony, this is the card I anticipated that GG would want, so I made other picks. Apparently one of those was Reality Shift, which Gramps wanted.
What I like about this card is that I don't actually care about "consistent" card advantage. Most likely, I am going to abuse it once and blow it up. Tormenting Voice is a card I already play in red decks. This is just extra icing on the cake.
Tom- THUMBS UP
Love it. Absolutely love it. It's a very flavourful Red effect. As Uncle Landdrops points out, it's not the usual Blue standard of repeatable tap-and-draw like Arcanis the Omnipotent. It's a one-and-done source of pure draw that fits very nicely with the Red theme of giving up something to get cards. It found an immediate home in most of my decks running Red, and the few times I've drawn it thus far have given me no cause to regret doing so.
UNCLE LANDDROPS
Really like this card. Working on a super-budget, common/uncommon Uril deck, and this fortifies card draw while also giving me the pumps. I don't have a whole lot of cards that are just pump effects, but if I've gotta have an exception, this is a nice one. Acting as both a Harmonize and a way to go lethal in conjunction with all the cheap little Auras that have static effects, Sage's Reverie will be a nice addition to Uril, and the better Aura-Voltron decks in the format.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
This is an easy shoe-in to Bruna decks, of which I have one. I liked flight of fancy in that deck quite a bit because you need a way to draw cards that plays well on theme. Sure you could cast Divination, but the ability to recur it with Bruna and Hanna, Ship's Navigator is important.
In that deck, this draws WAY more cards and has the added bonus of making your Creature into a legitimate threat.
Tom- THUMBS UP
Solid pick for Voltron builds, equally good for Aura-focused Enchantress builds, and, probably not a common opinion, but it's something I've been wanting to try out for a while: pretty damn good in an Heroic deck. Getting Anax & Cymede's pump effect and a few new cards in hand is value. Cheap White card draw with the potential to grab a whole new grip makes this card a serious contender for a few fun builds. The only downside I see is that it can't be run in any of these newfangled Tiny Leaders decks I'm hearing so much about.
TOM
Tom- THUMBS UP
Krenko has a new best friend! As does anyone else running Red aggro/weenies variants. Myself, I like it for a Prossh deck; throw the hungry dragon and his horde of kobolds at someone, play Dragonrage, then sac the Kobolds to Prossh and spend all the mana using his new mana sink to make him a bigger threat than ever.
What really makes this card shine is the flexibility - there's no overly-narrow specification that the mana generated must be spent on pumping your attackers, so you're free to drop this when Krenko's goblin horde is charging at one opponent and then use a supercharged Comet Storm or similar to blast a second unsuspecting foe out of the game. Boom goes the dynamite.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS DOWN
This card is very interesting, but I haven't seen any truly broken applications for it. This mostly just acts as a Red alternative to Overrun effects. The number one problem is that Creatures don't get Trample, so you really have to assemble an impressive board to make this worth casting. I can't advise using this strategy in a format where there are 50+ legal Wrath effects.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS DOWN
Magic may have invented a nice new compound word, but the card's mechanics are nerfed quite a bit, which feels reminiscent of a bygone Dragon Rage from a bygone Gyarados (For whatever reason, this attack in Pokemon only did 40 damage). Back to our card, I honestly don't see why it couldn't be RR for each creature. That still seems fair, considering that the attacking clause requires your creatures to be in combat, severely limiting time and place that this can be used anyway, and Trumpet Blast is literally 2R, "Creatures you control get +2/+0 until EOT." While not the same thing, short of having another few handy red Instants, I don't see this mana doing much but Firebreathing.
I'd also like to point out that of the 50+ Wrath effects, only a handful can be used or activated on an opponent's step without Quicken or a Vedalken Orrery, but there are many spot removal spells that hose this card. Still, if it does what it's supposed to do, this is an Overrun effect that navigates combat in a more compelling way. By being an Instant-speed trick of its own, the possibility to force trades exists, and that seems cool. My Thumbs still point down, but I'm sure I'll see an opponent beat my face with it, making it a little more optimistic.
That's all we got for this week, but it doesn't mean we don't want to hear from you! Feel free to share with us your favorite Fate Reforged tech for our favorite 40-life format in the comments below!
Pass.
-The TGZ Staff
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