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Hello Highlander players,
It seems to me that Wizards are following the trend of Core21 here: They're dialling back the power level, which I'm super happy about. There are still plenty of playables though.
Pretty weird that there are 6 of these instead of 5 or 10. The guilds that are missing are: Azorius, Rakdos, Simic and Golgari but these are to be printed in an upcoming set: "Six of them appear in Zendikar Rising, with the remaining four appearing in Kaldheim".
Mystic Sanctuary discouraged non-islands in Blue decks, but now that it's pointed, perhaps it will see less play and therefore Riverglide Pathway and Clearwater Pathway will be popular; Especially as a way to weaken Choke and Carpet of Flowers. There are similar tensions with cards like Vedalken Shackles, Gush, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Evasive Action, Wild Nacatl, Arcum's Astrolabe, the buddy land series, the rare Throne of Eldraine lands and Nissa, Who Shakes the World in their respective colours.
SPELL LANDS
The most exciting cards from Zendikar Rising. I've seen a lot of players talk about crazy builds with Balustrade Spy, Undercity Informer, Goblin Charbelcher and Hermit Druid, that technically run zero lands. That style deck makes all the spell lands playable, even the ones I don't mention below.
The mythic spell lands enter untapped at the cost of 3 life. These can be run in all archetypes. However, the rest of the spell lands all enter tapped and therefore aren't suited to Aggro decks.
Original Innistrad was the first set to have double sided foils; If you had a super sensitive set of scales, the kind that chemists use, you could weigh boosters to identify the ones with double faced foils. Wonder if that's the case here too.
Emeria's Call
This whole series of mythic spell lands are excellent with ways of returning lands to hand. I would advise against running Karoos though because Wasteland and Strip Mine are popular.
Much like shocklands, if you pay life to have them enter untapped and you don't spend the mana, you reveal to the opponent that you have some instant speed action.
Getting to seven mana is very realistic for Midrange, Control and of course Ramp decks. If your mana base can afford a single colour producing land, and your metagame doesn't have many Aggro players, then you should run this.
If you're running Mystical Tutor or Personal Tutor, then these are some extra utility; I've searched for land with Vampiric Tutor plenty of times.
Sea Gate Restoration
I think this is only playable if you can cheat-cast it somehow. For example, I have a Dream Halls deck, which wins by chaining a bunch of draw spells into a large Brain Freeze. All the Blue spell lands will probably make the cut in that deck due to their ability to fuel Dream Halls.
In a similar way, these spell lands work well with Force of Will and Force of Negation.
Agadeem's Awakening
Paying life is a bonus for Knight of the Ebon Legion, Scourge of the Skyclaves and Death's Shadow.
If you're also running Green, then Dryad Arbor will give Agadeem's Awakening a little boost.
Red decks will often have Blood Moon, which removes the downside of this card. I can imagine players casting it for X = 0 just to get Prowess triggers or similar.
Nice for increasing the spell count for Delver of Secrets and Seasoned Pyromancer. I suppose all the spell lands have that benefit.
Turntimber for what!?
I aim for at least an 85% success rate with cards like this, which means minimum 14 creatures in your deck.
Great as a mana sink for Gaea's Cradle.
If I can help it, I will choose to play my non-forest Green sources first, to play around Submerge postboard.
If you ever build a deck that runs Nourishing Shoal, then this is a nice inclusion for that.
Skyclave Cleric
I've run Arashin Cleric in sideboards before; good against RB Aggro.
Glasspool Mimic
I've put a lot of thought into Food Chain sequences the past couple years, and clones are great for copying Recruiter of the Guard or Imperial Recruiter so that you can gain mana as you combo off.
If you're running mostly creatures, this is simply a good value land to run.
I wonder what happens if you copy a Huntmaster of the Fells with this and cast no spells the following turn?
Good for combo decks based on Instants and Sorceries, e,g, Storm, Flash, Scapeshift, Time Walk recursion. Those decks don't mind the tempo loss of a tapped land or the three mana from casting Silundi Vision because they make it up when they combo off in one turn.
I think this replaces a land in every black Midrange and Control deck. Very common that the opponent won't have a basic land.
Some combo decks draw a lot of cards and need a low cost way to discard lands and useless spells to find their win conditions.
Perhaps a deck with Land Tax and/or Life from the Loam could use this to turn superfluous lands into spells.
Spikefield Hazard
I like this in Prowess and Drake decks that are trying to cast lots of cheap Instants and Sorceries.
If you're lucky you may ping a mana dork turn one, or later a Vendilion Clique or Hermit Druid. The exile clause is very significant in Highlander: Delve, Skullclamp, Reanimate, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, etc.
Bala Ged Recovery
Especially strong in Highlander where it returns broken pointed cards. If you're Green and tutoring for Time Walk, you should run this.
Kazandu Mammoth
This can go in any Midrange or Control deck, that's pretty amazing. Fetchlands make Kazandu Mammoth huuuuge.
Tangled Florahedron
Elemental Tribal.
WHITE
Archon of Emeria
Thalia, Heretic Cathar has alway been solid, especially if accelerated out on turn two. I expect Archon of Emeria to be a little better. 2 power instead of 3 makes it worse at attacking Planeswalkers but the Arcane Laboratory ability is a must answer for most combo decks and is good against cantrips.
Creature decks have few slots to use for disruption against combo, so any creature which performs multiple roles is valuable.
Archpriest of Iona
Felidar Retreat
All these Landfall cards are designed for single land drop in Standard, but in Highlander their power is nearly doubled by fetchlands.
Felidar Retreat can go in any deck with lots of disruption. It is especially good in Lands strategies.
Kor Blademaster
Fearless Fledgling
In three colour aggro decks it can be tricky to squeeze in enough basics to run Prismatic Vista, but that extra fetchland will help Landfall.
It looks like leftover art from Angry Birds - The Movie with a hedron in the background to hide the fact.
Luminarch Aspirant
Luminarch Aspirant is overall better than Tarmogoyf in my opinion. Remember how expensive Tarmogoyf got?
Can reset Kitchen Finks.
There's a bit of strategy involved with which creature to put the counter on. Mostly it will be correct to pump your worst guy first in case the opponent has removal, but you may want to get Luminarch Aspirant to two toughness if the opponent could have Liliana, the Last Hope.
BLUE
Anticognition
Jace, Mirror Mage
Blue decks tend to manipulate the top of their library too, allowing for more lands to be drawn.
Kicking him is a good source of blue devotion.
Sea Gate Stormcaller
The latest points change announcement put a point on Mystic Sanctuary but there was discussion regarding Ancestral Recall recieving that point instead. A strong arguement for Ancestrall Recall was that WotC keep making good ways of copying and returning Instants and Sorceries; Sea Gate Stormcaller is a great example.
Copying Time Walk with this is game over, and unlike most copy effects, you still get the copy if the original is countered. Also, unlike Snapcaster Mage, the thing you copy doesn't get exiled, which is a big deal.
Yet another great Wizard to return with Riptide Laboratory. That card is lonnnng overdue. People really should run it.
I'm very happy with this printing. I have a Merfolk deck, which is decent fair fun but it gets trashed by Umezawa's Jitte, so it's nice to have an answer.
Concerted Defense
BLACK
Feed the Swarm
Inscription of Ruin
Nighthawk Scavenger
That 'Power and Toughness box' makes mathematicians throw up a little.
Nullpriest of Oblivion
Nullpriest is not aggro enough for pure aggro and doesn't trade enough for control. Could fit into a midrange life-spending deck or Vampire/Cleric tribal though.
Death's Shadow №2 except you need to be aggressive as well.
Scourge of the Skyclaves
Death's Shadow is underplayed in Highlander. Perhaps two strong payoffs is enough to get people 'cutting themselves'.
I've been playing Scrapheap Scounger in Highlander since it was printed, and Skyclave Shade is even better. The number of aggro players in the metagame is small enough that you can maindeck this.
Scourge of the Skyclaves is a very cheap Demon. With several more, we could live the Liliana's Contract dream.
Skyclave Shade
Soul Shatter
Most other artists seem to just follow exactly what's in the card description briefing and rush it out quickly with software.
RED
Akoum Hellhound
Cinderclasm
Cleansing Wildfire
Looking at the opponent's lands, we can use effects like Leonin Arbiter, Aven Mindcensor and Ashiok, Dream Render, but there's not many.
Grotag Night-Runner
Relic Robber
Flavourwise he's not robbing at all. He should be called "Relic Rewarder" or "Goblin Giver". Unless the Construct tokens represent the gigantic turds that he does in your toilet whilst robbing you.
GASmtg now have a vice mascot.
Kargan Intimidator
This dude is way too clean to be a Warrior. No scars/blood/dirt/messy hair. Art for a price I suppose. I'm ok with 'quick art' for commons and uncommons, but rares should have more budget, if that is what's going on here.
A cheap threat which can answer big blockers is quite desirable.
Magmatic Channeler
Good Madness enabler.
Magmatic Channeler can block some creatures and not die, unlike most looters.
Moraug, Firy of Akoum
Roiling Vortex
Good sideboard card against Storm, Channel and super slow control decks.
Ok in Big Red. Pops Planeswalkers in the midgame and hits hard late.
Sideboard card for Ramp decks against Control. Hopefully they sideboard out Baleful Strix or don't draw it!
Shatterskull Charger
The single horse for scale is on the nose. Where's the horse token production? Too time consuming to put a crushed village under his feet I guess.
Valakut Exploration
Remarkable card advantage. Like a Phyrexian Arena that damages them instead. Castable off Ancient Tomb etc.
Crazy with Fastbond.
Skyclave Geopede
7/5 trampler with a fetchland! Very easy to remove but the huge potential damage is worth the risk.
GREEN
Cragplate Baloth
Tajuru Paragon
A blank 3/2 for 1G is barely playable. You really need tribal synergies to make it good enough.
Skyclave Pick-Axe
MULTI
Brushfire Elemental
Aggro has to make a comeback this set. Maybe there's a version with Undiscovered Paradise.
Cleric of Life's Bond
Kargan Warleader
Bramblewood Paragon
Unfortunately the best Warriors are evenly spread across four colours; The best payoff, Najeela even coaxes you into the full five. At least Unclaimed Territory and Cavern of Souls help with casting five colours of spells.
I think you can get a similar powerlevel non-warrior aggro deck with just two colours, but eventually that may change.
Nissa of Shadowed Boughs
Omnath, Locus of Creation
More like Flubber, Locus of Creation.
Well, they kept pushing Omnath more and more until it was playable. Have they gone too far? A little, yes. Omnath is a four mana 'titan', just a little hard to cast. It still trades very poorly with a Red Elemental Blast.If you have a fetchland the same turn, Omnath already recovers its costs and then some, that's amazing.
10 fetchlands, 10 dual lands and 5 other lands is enough sources of each colour to comfortably be 5 colours. This Omnath makes me relieved that Blood Moon, Price of Progress and Back to Basics are in the format.
To get a 'third time' landfall trigger you can leave fetchlands unsacrificed the turns before you cast Omnath, you can also run cards like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath or Growth Spiral for extra land drops.
Note that your fourth land entering in the same turn will trigger Omanth but have no effect, so no shenanigans with Scapeshift or Fastbond.
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant
And that's a whole lot of 'enters the battlefield triggers' to take advantage of.
Yasharn, Implacable Earth
Yasharn shuts down:
fetchlands
Birthing Pod
Channel
Black Lotus
Lion's Eye Diamond
and several other powerful popular cards. Yisharn's ability is symmetrical, so I would advise against running fetchlands of your own, and apodt cards like Leonin Arbiter and Suppression Field to maximise the benefits of your deck-building restriction.
Zareth San, the Trickster
Plays well with Brazen Borrower, which would go in the same deck.
COLOURLESS
Forsaken Monument
There are lots of colourless token producers available, some cool ones include: Hidden Stockpile, Awakening Zone, Dovin, Grand Arbiter, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Mirrodin Besieged, Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, Sai, Master Thopterist, From Beyond, Karn, Scion of Urza, Saheeli, the Gifted, Sram's Expertise.
Good beater for a Mishra's Workshop midrange deck.
Very strong in decks that produce a lot of mana.
I like the lifegain ability for counteracting Mana Crypt and Mana Vault.
Myriad Construct
Crawling Barrens
CONCLUSION
That's all the stand out cards in Zendikar Rising. Here's is my list of most powerful cards from the set in descending power order. I am glad and relieved that none of these are pointworthy:
Enjoy playing with the new cards. Hopefully we'll verse soon,
Luke
