Adventures in the Forgotten Realms - 7point Highlander set review

Greetings traveller,

This is my adventure into the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.

DUNGEON MECHANIC

When players remember this set they'll remember the dungeon mechanic, but no way am I remembering all the rooms! The mechanic is a little awkward; It's like when you're unsure exactly what's on the other side of a flip card but you can't check because you'll reveal information.

None of the dungeon venturing cards are breaking the format but some are playable.

Combos with Aluren, letting you run through the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the Lost Mine of Phandelver as many times as you want to almost certainly win the game. Also works with infinite black mana or Rooftop Storm.

Avoid running 1toughness 2drops if Wrenn and Six is popular in your metagame. You practically lose the game on the spot if that happens. Otherwise I like ~ in human or knight tribal.

Rogue tribal perhaps. Or at least a good card to have in the sideboard if you're running no creatures maindeck and you expect the opponent to side out their removal.

THE CREATURE LANDS

Lands which have some nonmana ability which gives value, always have some kind of drawback. This new series is no exception. However, there are very few value lands which enter untapped and produce coloured mana. There is the series of Hour of Devastation uncommons and the horizon lands, but they also cost life. There is the legendary series from Kamigawa but they only work on legendary creatures. These new AFR creature lands fit nicely into decks which can't afford colourless lands or lands which enter tapped.

Good if your deck produces a tonne of mana.

Sacrifices to Skullclamp, Transmogrify and Natural Order.

The best of the 5 lands. 

Most aggro decks can run this.

Especially good in Goblins where lords pump ~ and the tokens it produces.

You can activate multiple times for extra triggers a la Raging Ravine. You effectively need 9 mana to get two tokens, so we're talking super late game.

Inefficient but if you're monowhite or two colour, you can run it for little drawback.

Helps the average creature deck fly over Moat or Island Sanctuary for those final points of damage.

Requires a lot of mana and therefore isn't good at finishing off planeswalkers like most creature lands are. 

The high activation cost of ~ can be a blessing and a curse: a curse because you can't afford to activate and hold up a counterspell but also a blessing because it conceals information, e.g. if you don't attack with Creeping Tar Pit on an empty board, it tells the opponent you probably have a counterspell, with ~ you don't have that problem until 7 mana.

Menace is good for finishing off planeswalkers.

Exiling an Uro or Kroxa can save you the game.

EQUIPMENT

Skullclamp, etc.

Can reduce equip costs to zero and therefore combos with Cephalid Illusionist.

Very niche. I think he's only good if using him to cheat expensive equip costs like Colossus Hammer but at the moment that's the only one. Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist performs a similar role.

I'd like to make an all-in Valduk deck one day.

ZOMBIES

Goes infinite with Liliana, Untouched by Death and something that sacrifices for value. You can get a similar combo with Phyrexian Altar and Gravecrawler. 

Mono black aggro or Zombie tribal.

You wouldn't run it in straight two colour aggro because in those decks you can have 2/2 1drops, which don't die to Wrenn and Six.

Decent beater in tribal zombie aggro or soldier aggro.

ARTIFACTS

Easy to miss as an artifact land, very sneaky. A big addition to artifact strategies.

Later in the game you can dump mana into making treasures to boost Tolarian Academy, Cranial Plating or sacrifice to Arcbound Ravager.

The original image is not on Gatherer, only this foil version, weird.

This is a huge printing for artifact strategies because it's the first playable artifact which deals with Null Rod et al. Before now you had to blow up your own stuff too with Culling Scales, and even if you tried, you probably died before the Scales hit Null Rod.

There are plenty of blue tutors for ~ but you'll need nonartifact colour sources to ensure you can cast them under Null Rod.

Birthing Pod for artifacts. 

• Manifold Key and Time Vault
• Painter's Servant and Grindstone
• Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith
• Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry

Pretty sweet with Sword of the Meek, especially if you search for artifacts which produce 1/1's, e.g. Breya's Apprentice or Desecrated Tomb.

Time Vault.

There are many creatures which do this now:

Aphetto Alchemist

Rimewind Taskmage

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

Synod Artificer

Captain of the Mists

Kelpie Guide

Vizier of Tumbling Sands

4/4 haste turn3 is great. Pop Wrenn and Six or a Liliana

Amazing with nontoken artifacts that give you value even if they die, e.g. Chromatic Star, Arcum's Astrolabe, Terrarion, Ichor Wellspring.
If you can copy the ability you can produce multiple 4/4's at once.

Krark-Clan Ironworks, Semblance Anvil, Second Sunrise, Open the Vaults.

She's far too clean to be a blacksmith, I don't trust her.

Replaces itself and becomes a significant threat.

GOBLINS

One of the best 2drop goblins ever printed. In my goblin deck I would say Goblin Recruiter and Conspicuous Snoop are clearly the best and then it's close between Battle Cry Goblin and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden.

I've played a lot of goblins but I haven't tried this one. The competition for 3drops is tough. I imagine ~ is fine in an aggro build.

Same comments as Hobgoblin Bandit Lord.

I ran Boggart Ram-Gang a long time ago and was happy with it. Those were different times though.

I would've dismissed this card but Tyrone killed me with it in his RW token deck. Seems inefficient by today's standards.

DRAGONS

Unlike Cavern of Souls or Unclaimed Territory, you can use mana from ~ on anything you want.

Dragon tribal is a long way behind other tribes in number of tribal payoffs. Also, dragons are traditionally 4 or more mana, making the curve difficult to fill out. Lately they have been printing cheap dragons though, e.g. Sprite Dragon, Smoldering Egg and Scion of Draco.

The most exciting possibility is Descendants’ Path. One day I’ll break that card.

If you aren't Black, this gives you cheap removal for big creatures.

Not good enough unless you're abusing the Dragon creature type, e.g. Descendants' Path or Crucible of Fire.

Not at its best in dragon tribal because you don't have lots of little creatures that die, but I can see it performing well in creature decks which produce a lot of mana, especially against control where entering tapped is not a problem.

Dies easily but you'll probably get one hit in, which is enough.

Great at killing planeswalkers.

Hard to imagine beating ~ in a race.

Pisses me off that blue has creatures as big as green. What popular green creature is bigger than Murktide Regent?

Ward4 is excellent. All you need is counterspells to protect ~ when it taps to attack, then you win. Giving it vigilance also works.

Probably needs some powerful yet conditional support cards for it to be chosen over other threats, e.g. Sarkhan, Fireblood.

LIFE GAIN

Level 2 is infinite with Spike Feeder.

Gets huge. Ajani's Pridemate is a premium threat.

Curves well with Seeker of the Way, Intrepid Adversary and Glory-Bound Initiate.

The dream is to turn something difficult to kill into an Angel and book it, e.g. Mutavault.

With fetches and shocklands it's easy to lose 2 life at will. Fits into a Death's Shadow strategy. 

You'll want some amount of lifegain to keep the zombies coming late game.

Good black devotion for Nykthos.

You can get something funny altered on the book in the art.

Fuels Contamination.

Eye of Vecna and Hand of Vecna are passable cards in a Death's Shadow strategy. Maybe combine them all with Second Chance and Marchesa, the Black Rose.

MISCELLANEOUS

Her whip covering the text really bothers me.

The +1 needs to be effective for ~ to be worth running. She ultimates fast. The 1/1's are great with Skullclamp.

Possible addition to High Tide combo if they're trying to go fully instant speed.

In competition with:
Titania, Protectr of Argoth

Ghired, Conclave Exile

Regisaur Alpha

Thragtusk

Deep Forest Hermit

Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves

I like this in metagames with lots of graveyard abuse. Unfortunately delve creatures will eat up the graveyard before ~ gets a chance, also those delve creature will probably be bigger than ~. To make ~ work you'll need removal for big blockers. Bounce works also, because ~ will stop the graveyard getting big enough to recast the delve threats.

I can imagine growing this for a couple turns with lots of 1drops and other cheap spells like Mishra's Bauble, Urza's Bauble, Gitaxian Probe and Manamorphose. If it gets to a 3/3, that's a good deal.

Super powerful. Excellent in the UR maximum spells deck, which I like to call 'Drakes', except all the drakes have long since been cut from it. Of course Demilich is competing with delve spells, of which there are many premium ones. I think the recursiveness is worth it; One of the weaknesses of Drakes is it only has room for so many win conditions because so much space is taken up by cantrips and therefore if your win condition gets removed you may be left spinning your wheels.

~ may be so demanding on cards that it may be correct to go over 60 cards maindeck. You'd need to test a tonne to find the correct number. 

I've tentatively added this to my Scapeshift deck as the last spell. That deck is hungry for self contained land accelerants because it needs one to keep a hand. The deck already runs Diligent Farmhand. The problem with Neverwinter Dryad is that it clashes with Field of the Dead: Currently I'm running one Forest and two Snow-Covered Forests. I've decided the risk of having no basic forest to search with ~ is worse than missing a zombie because I have two lands with the same name.

Fill your deck with creatures that are free with level 2 and go crazy. Mox Amber goes in the deck, which is a super powerful addition.

When you're building around ~, it becomes powerful enough that you would run Enlightened Tutor for it.

You can have X be zero to effectively sacrifice creatures at will. Until now we were relying on Varolz to be our sacrifice outlet for persist combo to find with Green Sun's Zenith. Now we have an upgrade provided that we can cast Minsc. He is quite tough on mana requirements. I would avoid basic Swamp or any colourless land.

A 3/2 body is worth a card, so this doesn't feel like the usual on-top tutor.

I've been running ~ in my Yorion Combos deck and have been very happy with it.

Some combo decks, e.g. Storm, dig whilst producing mana, but they don't want to draw their Emrakul or whatever win condition until they have critical mass. In that case 'wishes' can be good win conditions because if you don't have critical mass yet, they still find something useful.

You can run ~ in a noncombo deck if your sideboard contains a lot of super cheap bullets like Massacre, Mogg Salvage, Grafdigger's Cage, etc. You may need more value like multiple prowess triggers or getting Lava Dart to flip Erayo.

Effectively Village Rites in an Aristocrats deck.

I like this at the moment because there are lots of delve creatures to bounce.

Metagame dependant. Right now I wouldn't run ~ becaise Murktide Regent is a dragon. There are a bunch of '1B mana kill target dude' instants that have some condition. On any given week one of them is better than the others, e.g.:

Go for the Throat

Doom Blade

Heartless Act

Cast Down

Eliminate

Infernal Grasp

Ultimate Price

Decent threat that takes over the game later when you have mana to sink into it.

Works with Transmogrify et al.

Right now there isn't a good reason to run mono green, but that could change in the future.

Elf tribal.

One of the best mill cards printed. Eventually there'll be a metagame where mill is viable, even if only for a month.

Resilient threat for mono red. If you are two colours I think you can find a better threat.

Spending 3 mana to not effect the board is a tempo loss you'll need to recover from. Serra's Sanctum and Balance would be good at doing so.

I didth for thee lolths.

You can win the game with much cheaper threats these days but perhaps there's a Contamination deck for ~ to rule over.

I used to live in Yarraville and walking under the Westgate at night felt like a scene from Blade.

Good curve topper for Vampires. Nice to have some big vampires for Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord.

SIDE BOARD

Option against red aggro that runs Eidolon of the Great Revel and Sulfuric Vortex.

Decent sideboard against aggro. Especially if their 1drops are recursive like Gutterbones.

There's already Aegis of the Gods and True Believer. Possible hatebear against specific combos.

Good sideboard in Shape Anew/Reality Scramble.

Dwarf tribal or Shape Anew/Reality Scramble.

Dwarven Recruiter has potential to make Dwarf tribal a reality.

CONCLUSION

Here are my picks for best cards in the set. No points here, which is good. They're all roughly the same power level, which is a testament to the set designers:

Den of the Bugbear

Treasure Vault

Portable Hole

Hive of the Eye Tyrant

Demilich

Oswald Fiddlebender

Monk of the Open Hand

Bard Class

The Blackstaff of Waterdeep

Ranger Class

See you on the glorious field of battle,

Mulch.