Wussup my Highlanderers!?
This is my 7-point Highlander set review for Throne of Eldraine.
In all zones except the stack, they have the properties of the main card. Hilariously Gatherer displays these as if the adventure was on the other side of the card:
Playable in all archetypes. In control (R.I.P) you can hold up counterspells and if they don't cast anything worth countering you can instead cast Petty Theft or Brazen Borrower to gain tempo. If you happen to not draw any counterspells and just have Brazen Borrower, is it good enough? In Highlander I'd say you're happy if a 3/1 flier cost you effectively one mana. In that case you need to bounce something the cost four mana, which is rare. I think that's oversimplifying it though. Brazen Borrower's strength is it's flexibility. You can set up some nice lines with it. A true faerie-style card.
UR and Grixis have trouble dealing with enchantments. This lets them bounce the enchantment and counter it on it's way back down. Or Grixis could use discard to hit the enchantment from hand.
Plays interestingly against Wrenn and Six. Petty Theft will bounce Wrenn, then for the rest of the game you pass the turn with three mana up and if they recast Wrenn you cast Brazen Borrower EOT and knock Wrenn to 1 loyalty, which means she'll have to kill herself to kill Brazen Borrower.
Notably Petty Theft only bounces your opponent's things, which reduces utility, e.g. you can't protect your stuff from removal or get another trigger from your ETB creatures (or bounce your other adventure creatures).
Bouncing delve creatures is nice.
Spellstutter Sprite is a strong card which wants more faeries around.
If you're already playing a few creatures and therefore don't mind turning on your opponent's removal, then this is a decent card in non-aggro decks. Early on it blocks and protects your planeswalkers, later on it finds a game winning effect from your sideboard ("outside the game" means 'sideboard' unless you're playing casual, in which case you can find any card in your collection!
Some combo decks like Tolarian Academy combo can generate heaps of mana. Those decks would be happy to play this as a tool box card. With enough mana and cards to discard, this can keep going on adventures and bringing you back multiple things from the sideboard.
If you're running this, you should have some super cheap hate cards in your sideboard, e.g. Massacre, Tormod's Crypt, Submerge, Mindbreak Trap, etc.
You want some buff effects like anthems or equipment to make her 1/1 body relevant.
All these adventure creatures allow creature-dense decks to play more interaction. They also allow crazy stuff like using Spellshift to cast huge instants or sorceries like Enter the Infinite or Dragonstorm. In that particular case you want the adventure to be as cheap as possible. Funnily that combo only works in Highlander or at least when you only have one Spellshift (otherwise you might hit another one off the first and fizzle).
What troll art haha! Can't wait to shush people when casting this. Glad it's playable, at least as a sideboard card. It looks like a bad 90's music video.
Tocatli Honor Guard has a better body but this also stops death triggers, which is a unique effect. That means it also shuts off popular cards like Skullclamp, Protean Hulk and Academy Rector.
Beware that Hushbringer shuts off your own cards too.
Rankle, Master of Prankle
Flying + haste is great at taking down planeswalkers but note that you don't get the trigger when you hit a planeswalker. That tension is interesting.
Good with dredge, especially since you discard before drawing.
Good in Recurring Nightmare style decks since you're happy to sacrifice your own creatures and also to discard cards.
Good with madness because you'll have all your mana available on the second attack and you're probably also running Bloodghast to sac to the trigger.
Another Sai, Master Thopterist / Saheeli, Sublime Artificer except higher stakes. Artifact decks have trouble justifying three colours because there are so many desirable colourless lands (or off-colour artifact lands), so Alela may not have a home, but the power level is there if you run lots of cheap artifacts.
She also triggers off enchantments and comes with a free froghurt, but there are much fewer cheap enchantments than artifacts. Also, most of the good cheap enchantments are green, although they do typically fix your mana.
Thopter tokens are often found in multiples, so Alela's buff to fliers is better than first glance.
Only available in the preconstructed Brawl decks.
Shouldn't this be a strix since it's an artifact creature? Guess it's a flavour thing.
Very niche. Probably not playable due to its mana cost but I want to believe. My god, this turns on Thassa, God of the Sea all by itself. It can even find her because she's an enchantment! Although a blue devotion deck probably won't have enough enchantments and artifacts to hit with Arcanist's Owl. Shame that Loch Dragon and Thunderous Snapper are weak.
The other mono-colour devotion gods cost four, so they don't curve well with this series of 'HHHH' costing creatures.
Note that hybrid mana doesn't count twice towards devotion of the two-colour gods like Ephara, God of the Polis.
This set looks like it will give a nice boost to mono-coloured strategies, which is great for Highlander deck diversity.
Filler for decks where all lands can tap for the same colour.
Another creature that combos with Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Enlightened Tutor can now find both sides, i.e. Corridor Monitor or Splinter Twin.
A big winner from this printing is Prime Speaker Vannifar. Previously, to combo from a green fetchland + Vannifar, you would execute the following chain:
- Sac the green fetchland finding Dryad Arbor.
- Sac Dryad Arbor to Vannifar to find Quirion Ranger. Return a forest to untap Vannifar.
- Sac Quirion Ranger for Scryb Ranger. Return a forest to untap Vannifar.
- Sac Scryb Sprite for Renegade Rallier which returns Scryb Ranger, which untaps Vannifar by returning another forest.
- Sac Scryb Sprite for Pestermite, which untaps Vannifar.
- Sac Renegade Rallier for Restoration Angel blinking Pestermite to untap Vannifar.
- Sac Restoration Angel for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and make infinite dudes.
The biggest benefactor of this printing however, is Birthing Pod; Corridor Monitor also untaps artifacts. If you have enough mana/life you can execute a similar chain to above, e.g. one-drop into Corridor Monitor into Renegade Rallier into Restoration Angel into Kiki-Jiki. That's four sacrifices, i.e. minimum 4 mana and 8 life. You can go turn-one mana dork, turn-two Birthing Pod, turn-three combo off, as long as you haven't taken more than 9 damage from sources other than Pod.
Glad Pod is pointed!
Possible addition to a 'Bridgevine' style graveyard deck. That is a deck with Vengevine and other creatures which return from the graveyard, plus Bridge from Below and ways to sacrifice creatures like Dread Return and then lots of cheap mill creatures like this one and Stitcher's Supplier.
Another Insolent Neonate. Probably good enough for a dredge deck.
Even though he rummages, he feels more blue than red. Not aggressive at all.
Even though he rummages, he feels more blue than red. Not aggressive at all.
Another egg for Krark-Clan Ironworks combo.
Decent in Channel combo for converting colourless mana to black mana for tutors.
"When you discard it, create a Food token". That's a unique effect.
Seems great in an artifact reanimate deck that loots/rummages a lot and wants artifacts to sacrifice to Trash for Treasure, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Welder etc.
Blue has better options, but if you're not blue then this could be good for reanimating creatures or artifacts. Decent for dredge too.
The discard is an additional cost like Tormenting Voice, so there is risk that you'll get 2for1'd by a counterspell. However, decks which run Thrill of Possibility prefer certain cards in the graveyard anyway.
Wow, Emry definitely goes in all blue artifact decks. A cheap must-kill threat.
Comes down as early as turn-one. Works very nicely with Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble. I wouldn't be surprised if Urza's Bauble shoots up in price. Mox Diamond is probably capped on price but it's also good with Emry, particularly if discarding an artifact land.
Emry turns on Mox Amber.
She could have no mill ability and still be strong.
Expensive but still a near unbeatable bomb for artifact decks. There have been so many powerful non-artifact payoffs for artifact decks lately, e.g. 4cmc Karns that I can totally imagine an artifact deck without Workshop. This is still playable in Workshop decks, it just effectively costs an extra mana because Workshop won't contribute, or you simply haven't got your Workshop.
Only available in the preconstructed Brawl decks.
I'm surprised the elk making ability is also +. Oko is pretty ridiculous.
If you have a removal spell in hand, you basically can't lose unless they already have multiple creatures or they're a combo deck.
If they play a ≤3 power creature you swap it for a food. If they play something bigger, you turn it into an elk or use your removal. If they play a planeswalker, you turn your food into an elk and bash the planeswalker.
Even if they already have a creature when you drop Oko, he has so much loyalty that he's very hard to kill. If they have a 3 power creature it will take four attacks to kill him. If they have something bigger, you turn that into an Elk and it will take three attacks to kill him. That gives you plenty of time to play removal and save him.
You can get a little extra value from his -5 exchange ability by bouncing the things you give them or by giving them things that return to the owner.
Oko doesn't just play with his food; Anything you drop before him can become a 3/3 haste. You can get some really aggressive hands if the things you elkify are cheap enough.
You can also go for a long grindy game by elkify'ing things that give you value, like Arcum's Astrolabe or anything with a useful ETB trigger.
Oko makes this card look like a joke, but the beauty of Highlander is that even the runts get some game time.
I can imagine running all the good 'draw when enters/dies' artifacts and all the ways to animate them.
Here are the artifacts:
Arcum's Astrolabe
Chromatic Star
Implement of Combustion
Implement of Ferocity
Implement of Improvement
Terrarion
And practically infinite two-cost 'ETB draw' artifacts
Here are the animators:
Ensoul Artifact
Skilled Animator
Oko, Thief of Crowns (yes the artifact loses abilities but you don't really care)
Tezzeret's Touch
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Ok, that strategy is too low on animators. Perhaps this strategy could be a transformational sideboard for an egg combo deck.
Good win condition for Eggs combo. You'll probably draw enough cards to combo kill them, but even if you whiff, all those 4/4's will do the job. Sometimes you may want to under cook the Dance as to not give your artifacts summoning sickness.
Also a good backup for Time Vault + Voltaic/Manifold Key combo. 2cmc makes it transmutable with Muddle the Mixture et al.
Seems great in an artifact reanimate deck that loots/rummages a lot and wants artifacts to sacrifice to Trash for Treasure, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Welder etc.
The discard is an additional cost like Tormenting Voice, so there is risk that you'll get 2for1'd by a counterspell. However, decks which run Thrill of Possibility prefer certain cards in the graveyard anyway.
Comes down as early as turn-one. Works very nicely with Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble. I wouldn't be surprised if Urza's Bauble shoots up in price. Mox Diamond is probably capped on price but it's also good with Emry, particularly if discarding an artifact land.
Emry turns on Mox Amber.
She could have no mill ability and still be strong.
Only available in the preconstructed Brawl decks.
If you have a removal spell in hand, you basically can't lose unless they already have multiple creatures or they're a combo deck.
If they play a ≤3 power creature you swap it for a food. If they play something bigger, you turn it into an elk or use your removal. If they play a planeswalker, you turn your food into an elk and bash the planeswalker.
Even if they already have a creature when you drop Oko, he has so much loyalty that he's very hard to kill. If they have a 3 power creature it will take four attacks to kill him. If they have something bigger, you turn that into an Elk and it will take three attacks to kill him. That gives you plenty of time to play removal and save him.
You can get a little extra value from his -5 exchange ability by bouncing the things you give them or by giving them things that return to the owner.
Oko doesn't just play with his food; Anything you drop before him can become a 3/3 haste. You can get some really aggressive hands if the things you elkify are cheap enough.
You can also go for a long grindy game by elkify'ing things that give you value, like Arcum's Astrolabe or anything with a useful ETB trigger.
I can imagine running all the good 'draw when enters/dies' artifacts and all the ways to animate them.
Here are the artifacts:
Arcum's Astrolabe
Chromatic Star
Implement of Combustion
Implement of Ferocity
Implement of Improvement
Terrarion
And practically infinite two-cost 'ETB draw' artifacts
Here are the animators:
Ensoul Artifact
Skilled Animator
Oko, Thief of Crowns (yes the artifact loses abilities but you don't really care)
Tezzeret's Touch
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Ok, that strategy is too low on animators. Perhaps this strategy could be a transformational sideboard for an egg combo deck.
Also a good backup for Time Vault + Voltaic/Manifold Key combo. 2cmc makes it transmutable with Muddle the Mixture et al.
Solid if you have lots of same-colour token generation and mana sinks.
Good dude for Mishra's Workshop stompy. Three mana is particularly sweet if you're using all the four-mana land tutors, e.g. Pir's Whim.
It scales well. Those scales are rock hard. Hardened Scales. This goes well with Hardened Scales.
Protection from multicolour means it can't be Dack Fayden'd, Teferi, Time Raveler'd, Baleful Strix'd, etc.
The Flash + Protean Hulk kill of Mogg Bombers + two dorks and five 0cmc's can now play all 'good' 0's, i.e. Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Endless One, Chamber Sentry, Ugin's Conjurant, Dryad Arbor and Stonecoil Serpent (it plays extras in case you draw them). Shield Sphere is probably next in line.
They keep printing these persist combo cards.
Now we have:
Grumgully, the Generous
and if you want to stretch:
You also need a sacrifice outlet to complete the combo but each individual piece is good enough that you can play a decent game without the combo, and if you happen to draw all the pieces you win; especially against low disruption decks.
Below is yet another persist combo card, albeit totally 'win more':
Only good against Midrange and Aggro where you can reliably untap with a big creature in play. I'd say a 4-power creature makes The Great Henge an acceptable mana cost. You can use pump spells and equipment to reduce cost but with intrinsic risk. Gurmag Angler into this is a nice combo.
Gideons are the surest way to cast The Great Henge.
I've built mono green Workshop Stompy already. This is a perfect fit. Lately I feel blessed with some of these printings.
In the fair world you can chain flicker/bounce/control effects to keep gaining value, e.g. Dack Fayden, Flickerwisp, Teferi, Time Raveler, Brooding Saurian, Aminatou, the Fateshifter. The latter are the most exciting because they keep going.
Storm, Flash, Channel and Reanimator can all play this turn two and then win turn-3 provided they already have one half of their combo in hand. I'm sure it's a welcome addition to lots of other combo decks too.
Most combo decks are not fun to play against, so I'm not happy this card got printed but it is what it is.
Channel used to run Demonic Tutor in order to turn all the transmute-twos into Lich's Mirror tutors. Now Demonic Tutor's 3 point allocation can be split into Mystical Tutor + Sensei's Divining Top or Lim-Dul's Vault.
I'm glad Collector Ouphe exists. I'm also glad that the following card exists:
It does say "noncreature", so Aluren and Food Chain combos aren't effected. They may even get a small boost since players will replace one of Rule of Law/Eidolon of Rhetoric/Arcane Laboratory/Damping Sphere for this.
Ayara is a kill with Aluren and Cavern Harpy. Is she better than Corpse Knight/Parasitic Strix/Skymarch Bloodletter/Kalastria Healer? She's probably the most powerful card but she's also the most difficult to cast. The easiest to cast is:
Nice to Karakas.
Good devotion to blue for Nykthos and draws a bunch of cards if casting with Nykthos.
Definitely maindeckable in my opinion.
A tiny bit better in Painter's Servant combo since you can paint their spells blue :P
These cards are all 'fine'. I haven't got the motivation to look into a Knight deck yet. Hard to imagine it being much different to Soldiers or Warriors.
Even though there are a lot of Knights with double strike and protection from colour, Knights the tribe don't have a strong identity.
I predict the payoff isn't great enough and the deck is too low on disruption.
Mirrormade
Copy Artifact
Sculpting Steel
Phyrexian Metamorph
Clever Impersonator
Flicker
Felidar Guardian
Ghostly Flicker
Possible inclusion in Affinity style aggro.
Better on curve than Manic Vandal but doesn't synergise with blink effects like Vandal does.
In general, instant-speed artifact kill is better because you really want to stop equipment from getting any value or to kill Time Vault in case they play both pieces at once. However, getting a 2/1 body at the cost of sorcery-speed is acceptable.
I'm glad that Bonecrusher Giant shocks you if you target it, adds more strategy to deck building and play, rather than making everything asymmetrical easy mode like they've done for the past few years.
Bonecrusher Giant is just an all-round solid card.
Note that if Stomp gets countered, or doesn't resolve because the target is no longer legal, Bonecrusher Giant will go to the graveyard rather than going on an adventure.
Particularly good with Sunforger.
You need to build your deck to immediately kill a Leovold, Emissary of Trest.
Narset, Parter of Veils is a nuisance, and she'll be tough to kill because they'll just leave her at 5 loyalty. The best course of action is to ignore her and go for their face.
Like all the castles, not worth it unless they rarely interrupt your curve. Mono-colour and three-colour manabases are fine. Two-colour manabases use more 'non-landtype' lands and won't always run the castles.
Rises in value if you have anthems, equipment or creature sacrifice requirements.
The swarm-ier your creatures, the better.
Many red decks want to run Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors for early Blood Moons and Magus of the Moons. Even though Castle Embereth technically allows a turn-two Moon, missing your one-drop might be a deal breaker.
Good in decks with lots of ETB creatures to retrigger.
That life gain is very strong against aggro.
Handy for retaking stolen creatures.
I'd run this with lots of instant untap effects, so even if they sac a goat you can untap the troll and swing. If you don't have the untap effect it's still fine.
Decks with the Splinter Twin combo naturally have instant untap effects, so could find a home there.
Niche in so many ways: restrictive casting cost, aggro stats and requires life gain. Playable nonetheless. I imagine it in the company of Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, Kitchen Finks and Survival of the Fittest.
Lots of crossover with Smokestack, Braids, Cabal Minion and Contamination. Worst part about this card is the time lost from your opponents reading it two or three times whenever you cast it. The best part is your opponent still misplaying because they misinterpreted.
Fetchlands should turn this on most of the time. You won't always be able to counter/kill something turn two but the versatility later on is really nice.
This is bad against delve spells, especially instants like Dig Through Time and Magmatic Sinkhole in response. Pick your spots carefully against delve decks. Those decks often play discard too, so they may see Drown in the Loch in your hand and use their delve spell to create a window.
This series is pretty exciting. Entering tapped for the three most important turns of the game is a big strike against them, but if your deck plans to go long, then these give your fetchlands utility. With that in mind, the ones with effects that control decks want, are the best.
Dwarven Mine is like a mid to late game Dryad Arbor.
Putting +1/+1 counters on creatures is what aggro/midrange decks want to do; Having lands enter tapped is really not.
However, this is worthwhile with persist creatures.
By far the best of the series. Nice for putting any powerful instants and sorceries back on top. Lots of combo potential with Time Walks and ways of returning Mystic Sanctuary to hand.
Using Cryptic Command to bounce this and then put Cryptic back on top of your library over and over is pretty sweet.
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror was a powerhouse in Standard. He hasn't seen any love in Highlander. Perhaps this is his chance.
Not only can you find this with your blue fetchlands, you can also return it to your hand with Gush and Daze.
If you want to maximise the number of Mystic Sanctuaries (or any of this series), in addition to the Onslaught and Zendikar fetchlands there are also the Mirage fetchlands. They enter tapped, so they're significantly worse but a reasonable option.
A fetchable Mortuary Mire.
Handy for setting up cascades into preferential creatures; or Nissa, Steward of Elements or Domri Rade or perhaps a huge Erratic Explosion. Of course the three-swamp clause is difficult, but the power level is there.
If you have a fourth colour of permanent then you can also go infinite with:
This all seems very bad and it is.
Very powerful. Basically doubles your mana at the cost of all your spells being sorcery-speed and not being able to combo off. Many decks were in that situation anyway.
If you build your deck right it's like your mana gets tripled! This card is pretty crazy.
Activated abilities and additional costs like kicker, multikicker, entwine, replicate, extort, escalate and buyback are good ways to maximise your mana. For spells with additional costs, you won't need to pay the mana cost in the top right corner of the card but you will need to pay the additional cost in the text box. Jump-start cards from Guilds of Ravnica work particularly well because the additional cost is discarding a card, so you never need to pay mana.
You won't need to pay any mana for Aftermath and adventure cards either.
With Flashback cards you will get the regular cast for free but you'll have to pay the flashback cost. This is because both flashback and Fires of Invention are alternate costs and you can only choose one alternate cost.
Fires of Invention gives you enough mana to use echo spells to their full effect.
You can bounce Fires of Invention to 'unlock' your tertiary spells for the turn if you want.
So many things to abuse. Very exciting.
Another unbeatable planeswalker. Having multiple Garruks on the battlefield to receive the wolf trigger is realistic but quite 'win more'.
Many 4cmc planeswalkers can win the game on their own, so it can be hard to justify the 5 and 6cmc ones. If your deck naturally ramps well, then paying for more strength is reasonable.
Good sideboard card against control decks, particularly Blue Moon and Grixis which struggle against enchantments. Obviously you need a lot of draw card effects to repeatedly make faeries. Most blue decks play enough cantrip effects to keep the faerie procession going.
Turn-four drop her and a cantrip, or crack an egg. Very strong in decks with lots of draw effects. The worst that can happen there is they 1for1 kill her in response to your card draw. If she does live to trigger, you probably kill something with the 3 damage and you're well ahead.
If your deck has the possibility to draw multiple cards in the opponent's turn her potential increases, but getting the trigger on just your turns is easily enough to win the game.
Very clunky and slow but he dodges Fatal Push and all the removal which can't destroy black creatures, and he's too big to burn out.
Yes, there are many other removal spells like Terminate and Jace, the Mind Sculptor that deal with him efficiently. You do get a little value when he enters though, and there's potential for drawing a lot of cards by sacrificing fetchlands and eggs etc.
If you're running Korvold, ideally your curve should max-out at 5 mana because against control decks the only permanents you'll be able to sac are lands, thus leaving you unable to cast anything >5cmc next turn.
He's cute but I wouldn't fault anyone for playing him.
Hero's Downfall is just below par for Highlander but 'drawing' a 2/3 lifelinker as well for 2 life seems like enough value to be good.
Against Aggro, losing that 2 life is a big deal. If you cast Murderous Rider after Swift End in an attempt to regain the life, you aggro opponent will probably bolt it. That's 3 damage that wasn't at your face but Swift End probably cost more than its target and a bolt costs less than Murderous Rider, so you're probably too far behind. Against aggro you're better off not sending Murderous Rider on an adventure. The good news is that aggro is a minority in the metagame and most of the time you'll be happy with your 2for1.
Note that Kess, Dissident Mage bizarrely allows you to cast adventures from your graveyard.
Reminds me of the Shaman in Hearthstone. You gotta admit it's pretty funny when either player is really hoping for a certain merrymaker.
A good sideboard card against control decks that can't deal with enchantments, i.e. non-white non-green.
Possibly maindeck in a Human tribal deck.
I predict the convention for randomisation will be 1-2 (warrior) / 3-4 (cleric) / 5-6 (rogue) on a D6.
Lots of buzz around this card on all platforms.
This is how I see it; you're over 90% to see a land in five cards if you're playing at least 22 lands. I'm happy to substitute this for a land in basically any green deck that plays creatures. That's pretty crazy. That's like Brainstorm levels of play for green decks.
Obviously it's not all upside, if you draw this later you'll have to pay full, and two mana is significant. Two mana early on means a lot more than in the late game, especially for green decks, which can't regain tempo as easily as decks with lots of removal.
If you're an all-in combo deck relying on key creatures and you're aiming to end the game in 3 turns, then this gets way better.
It's nice for fueling delve cards and contributing to Tarmogoyf and delirium.
Highlander naturally has huge gaps in the power level of cards, making the card selection of OUaT (this card is too good to not have an acronym) better than in other formats.
It's easy to focus more on how OUaT finds creatures, but finding lands is huge too:
- It finds missing colours.
- Green decks often rely heavily on Strip Mine and Wasteland for disruption.
- Green decks often ramp with Gaea's Cradle, Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors.
Hypothetically if all the payoff cards in your deck were noncreature nonland, with the rest being support cards of roughly the same power, then OUaT would be bad.
I'm gonna need like five OUaT's for all the Highlander decks I'm putting them in.
Fuck me, too many words. Horrible design. It doesn't even seem legendary, they just made it so as a power reduction instead of removing some text.
I do like how this hoses planeswalkers though, brings the needle back towards creatures a bit. The "can't be blocked blah blah blah" even makes it so planeswalkers can't poop out chump blocking tokens. Questing Beast will be very popular. It could change which planeswalkers see play, e.g. Serra the Benevolent over Elspeth, Knight-Errant.
Lets you crash into True-Name Nemesis and kill it if they block.
It has the magical 4 toughness to not get Bolted.
You'll need pump effects to make him big enough to survive combat, and you'll need to cast them before blocks to get the extra pump from the trigger. That means the opponent can choose not to lose their blocker to your Ghor-Clan Rampager or whatever, but it's so much extra damage that you don't care. This card can get fun when the potential blocker has a lot of value to the opponent, e.g. an unflipped Thing in the Ice. If you don't pump before the pump trigger you could trick the opponent into thinking you don't have the pump.
Is a cheap legend for Mox Amber.
Reasonable aggro creature. If Wrenn and Six proves too intimidating for aggro decks to exist, it may get pointed in the future.
Mediocre early but gets huge later on. Not super efficient but you probably have enough unused mana each game that it's good.
Once Wildborn Preserver is on the battlefield you'll need to not play a creature on any turn that you want to hide instant-speed interaction. Will look very suss if you don't tap out for a creature. You could use this to bluff a Sword to Plowshares if you don't want them equipping their Jitte or whatever.
If your opponent isn't paying attention you might get them with a fetchland finding Dryad Arbor, or you can bluff that you have Dryad Arbor in your deck. Magic is great.
Maindeckable in my opinion. Will hit the meat of decks more than the rice.
Strip/Waste locks have gained a lot of popularity, so breaking that up is nice (mice).
Bit weird flavourwise, having two characters on one card. Shouldn't all the loyalty numbers be even? I imagine Will draws the card and then Rowan discards it, "Great idea Will! This other shitty idea of your's can go in the trash". Are their backs stitched together? When Will gets turned into an elk does Rowan need to ride him forever facing the sky?
Strategically their loyalty is high enough for a three-mana planeswalker that they don't need to defend themselves.
You'll be an aggro deck to utilise the +2/+0 ability, so your curve will be low enough that you can loot lands away early.
You can trample through a True-Name Nemesis.
Free discard each following turn is nice for madness.
Has a lot of power but there is risk of losing tempo to removal.
You could simply play a swarm of red dudes and treat Torbran like a Glory of Warfare. If you're swarming, Goblin Bombardment gets particularly scary. Dwarves and Goblins working together! Tolkien would turn in his grave.
Cindervines works well.
Unlikely but you could pull off a huge Grapeshot.
I've noticed a trend of fewer reactive cards being printed these days. This is only the third reactive card that I like in this set; perhaps that's just my bias.
Only good in the sideboard. Potential one-sided Plague Wind. Kills True-Name Nemesis.
Alright! those are all the playables in my opinion. There were a few close omissions. Would be interesting to discuss why they didn't make it but I need to reduce scope somehow. This set review felt too big already.
Here are, in my opinion, the most powerful cards in the set in rough power order:
Here are, in my opinion, the most powerful cards in the set in rough power order:
Tier 1:
Once Upon a Time
Wishclaw Talisman
Fires of Invention
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Questing Beast
Tier 2:
Mystic Sanctuary
Castle Locthwain
Mystical Dispute
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
Corridor Monitor
Deafening Silence (sideboard only)
That concludes the set review. Glad to see Channel Fireball added a Highlander event to the Sunday schedule at GP Brisbane. I will see you there (unless I'm doing well in the main event, win/win!).
Cheers
Cheers
