Hello and welcome back to The General Zone's set review for Magic M15. I am your guide, Grandpa Growth, and today we are getting back on the horse to finish up our look at the threat cards.
You can find the previous part of this article here:
Threats Part One.
Today we are beginning right where we left off, with Red cards, and then finishing with some juicy Artifact Creatures.
So they press fit a
Goblin Piledriver onto a
Goblin Assault. I can dig that. With the notable exception of Protection from Blue, this has pretty much everything those cards had and, to be honest, those cards are surprisingly strong. A 2/2 is very easy to get rid of in Commander, but forcing your opponent to use precious removal on your early plays can clear a path for your haymakers to stick later in the game. Every deck needs a certain percentage of these medium impact, cheap plays, in order to be successful. Rabblemaster can fit that role nicely.
I am just glad that there is so much text on this card that they didn't have room print an idiotic joke.
At some point, marketing communicated to design that the customer base liked dragons. Since then they have printed a dragon in just about every set. Nowadays, when I look at a spoiler for a new set, I am not thinking: 'Oh wow, look at this awesome new dragon.' Instead I am thinking: 'Oh lord what abominable fan service have they had then unenviable obligation of printing this time.'
This dragon hoses walls. Not that anyone cares. There are many wall Creatures and maybe five are playable in Commander. Save me the trouble of ridiculing you and just never play this. I have only included it in the review because I want to mention the design decision that goes into printing something like walls.
For years design had been moving away from the subtype wall because, well let's be honest they don't make any sense. If it is a wall it isn't a creature. Even if it were some sort of living wall, it then isn't really a wall, it is just a strangely shaped creature. The Defender ability essentially renders the identity of walls obsolete while also opening of the creative space that they can occupy in terms of creature type and as story elements. I realize that Aaron Forsythe is the head of the R&D department for Magic and that he can essentially do what he wants, but...why do this? Why regress the game to an objectively less refined state by reversing previously established decisions.
Many cards have referenced Shandalar. There was even an old point and click style Magic game that took place on Shandalar. It is safe to say I have received enough disparate information about this place that I don't really know what it looks like. Is there ever going to be a block set there? Probably. Do I have any idea what this place looks like? No. There has been no presentation of a consistent thematic or flavor identity, just bits and pieces. This card makes me think that it is a place I am not excited to go. Mostly because it is horribly weak, not so much because of the lightning and such.
Starfall just got printed in Journey into Nyx and EVERYONE hated it. It was nigh unplayable in draft. Why would anyone want a walking Starfall factory?
Sure, this card's effect is substantially better than Starfall, but still. It conjures up an all-to-familiar image of poor cost/effect balance. I would say that this is the weakest in the cycle if not for the fact that it DIRECTLY counters and consumes the
Soul of Zendikar's ability. Tragic.
Geroge Fan of Plants vs. Zombies fame brings us, what else, a plant. Why is it a plant? Arbitrary creative. Why is it a hydra? Well, do you remember what I said earlier about dragons?
Mechanically, this card is very powerful. Getting stuff for free is an easy way to take over the game. It calls back to some very excellent cards like
Thicket Elemental and
Maelstrom Wanderer. Expect to see a lot of this at the Commander tables. It will have massive fan appeal for a short time after it is released, but then will likely fade away to some extent.
Of all the spiritual predecessors that this card has, only one ever saw any play at all in Commander:
Dungrove Elder. Why do these cards consistently under-perform? It is simple. As I have said many times before, if all your threat does is damage, that isn't enough. It doesn't matter how big it gets. It doesn't matter that you get two of them. If it is going to cost six mana it needs to generate card advantage. That is it.
I sometimes get asked, why does mono Green struggle, while mono Black thrives? On the surface it looks like Green has the better cards. The trouble is that 'swamps matter' cards are better than 'forests matter' cards. The proof is in the pudding. If you are going to be mono Green, you need a stronger incentive than this.
Previous
Nissa was a stone blank in Commander...and pretty much every other format. This card, however, is hot. It hits hard, making a 4/4 every turn is going to put your opponent under lots of pressure and allows you to effectively defend your planeswalker while you take the long journey up to seven loyalty. On the other hand, four is a big chunk of mana. Sure you can only untap forests, but I can think of some pretty good forests.
Bayou and
Tropical Island come to mind. This is going directly into several of my Green EDH decks, where I expect it to stay until something truly broken gets printed to replace it.
This is very comparable to
Liliana of the Dark Realms and
Garruk Wildspeaker, two of my favorite planeswalkers. In terms of mana generation, this is just about the most value you are ever going to get.
It is a plant that comes back to life! The dev team must have all gotten free copies of Plants vs. Zombies 2. I dig that it resists most mass removal. I can even dig that it has more power than it's cost so it can trade across with just about anything. However, it is a big bummer than they can take this 'titan' out of commission for a full turn cycle using just about anything they have laying around the house. If this got into a fight with a ham sandwich it would be a tie. That is kind of sad.
Someone needs to inform the creative team at Wizards that fungi aren't plants. This is like saying crabs are walnuts because they have a hard shell. Also, if this is supposed to give me the idea that an entire ecosystem is just an extension of one organism, this card should be legendary. If they are all part of the same thing, could there ever really be more than 'one' of them?
Reach has always been something of a throwaway ability to me. It adds some value to Creatures that need a boost, but it isn't anything substantial. I have never said: 'Oh no! You're guy has Reach?! Now my
Akroma does nothing!!!' But heck man, it makes 3/3s. A walking
Centaur Glade is pretty sweet.
Hands down the worst piece of art in the set. Possibly the worst piece of art to make it into a core set since the M10 reboot. I vastly prefer the promo art, which more clearly shows the hedrons on the beast's back...and isn't an arachnid.
This is very reminiscent of
Nicol Bolas, planeswalker. It provides an immediate answer to opposing pdubs and generates value even if they don't have one. It can also answer opposing Creatures and provide you threats of your own. This has a much more multiplayer friendly ultimate, but it is still only useful against one player. That is fine, I am simply pointing out that this and Nicol Bolas both share then weakness of having their ultimate essentially kill one player, but not necessarily win the game. Like the other expensive planeswalkers, and planeswalkers in general, this card is well positioned in Commander and will see a great deal of play.
So I was under the impression that, when Garruk got cursed by the power of the Chain Veil, that...ya know, it was a bad thing! Apparently it just turns you into a hulking master badass. I would like to sign up for this kind of therapy.
Well if Soul of Zendikar had the worst art, this thing has the worst name. You see, scuttle is a verb yes, but it is something that you do to ships. It is not how I imagine our terrifying robot overlords getting around.
A remarkably bland colorless threat that can't be chump blocked and is weak to exiling removal? I am not sure that there is enough room in the format for a worse
Wurmcoil Engine. Did I say worse? I meant terrible.
The final installment of the Soul cycle and the final card for this article, Soul of New Phyrexia offers something old to a new market.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope gave the power of unlimited indestructibility to White. Now, for a somewhat inconvenient price, every color can have this privilege.
This card will see a lot of play. More than it should. It isn't that good, but players are wary of board sweepers in Commander; with good reason. This will give other colors, mainly Green and Red, a way to work around
Wrath of God while still advancing their plan of smashing face. That is good enough for me.
I have trouble seeing this cycle really getting off the ground. Their activated abilities are so expensive that it isn't feasible for you to cast and activate them in the same turn. If you had that much mana you could be doing MUCH more powerful things. I would guess that most of the time this cards net effect will just be making your opponent discard two removal spells. So it is basically just a worse Mind Rot, right?
That's all for this segment. Thanks for sticking with us through a longer-than-average set review, but remember that we still have more to come. Check back later this week for answers, legends, and utility cards. As always, leave you feedback in the comments and I will see you next time.
-GG
This card drew a lot of attention when it was initially previewed. There were many opinions about its playability on both sides of the coin. I however, would like to take full credit here for correctly determining that it was, in fact, not good. 
I feel bad about this one, but when you're right: you are right. I think that everyone, from the design team, to the community, to the players, wanted Godsend to be good. It is just a really cool idea, but the execution falls short. 
