Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Mirrodin Besieged EDH Set Review: Part 2 (Red)

This has such an awesome ability, I really want to give this guy a good review, but objectively, he's quite fragile. Also, I keep thinking he has Flying because of the art. Overall, I guess he's kinda bad, but if you build around him just a little, he could do some disgusting things.

I like him, and I hope he finds a good home.
Well, okay! This could actually be pretty good in aggro Goblin builds. I think he’ll do just fine there…

 Holy SHIT that is some amazing art. One of the best Dragon illustrations of the last few sets, easily. Unfortunately, it's wasted on one of the more disappointing dragons of the last few sets. His ability just doesn't line up with what most Red EDH decks want to do. And seven mana is just too steep for what is basically going to be a frech-vanilla 5/5 flyer with Haste.

... so disappointing!
 I don’t really see why this is Mythic. Next to Hero of the Bladehold, he just seems “meh”… it’s probably way better than I imagine, at least in Constructed, but I don’t see him being great in EDH at all. I’d rather have Flametongue Kavu any day.
 Good solid utility… this will see some play. It’s not exciting or anything, but it’s certainly good. “Exile” is so much better than “Destroy” in EDH, where virtually every deck has some form of recursion. And it’s a strict 2-for-1, unless you’re so desperate to nuke an opponent’s Sword of Fire and Ice that you’ll happily target your own Signet too (because this isn’t an “up to two” card – you HAVE to have two targets to cast this). Beware of sac effects, though, because a crafty opponent can sac one of the two targeted artifacts in order to save the other one… (Ed note: I guess I was wrong on that last part. Oh well, that makes this card even better!)
Ha ha ha, this is pretty bad overall, but it would be so frickin’ awesome to see someone “Threaten” an opponent’s Mindslaver and use it on them. That possibility alone is what makes this card awesome.
 I’m not a big fan of X spells that do damage in EDH. I like Death Grasp well enough, and Profane Command is simply fantastic, but Fireball and the like are pretty lame to me. I feel like if I’m not using it to outright kill an opponent it isn’t worth casting. I’m just saying this so you’ll understand that I’m not the best person to objectively rate this card, but if I had to guess I’d say this was fairly playable. The shuffle-back-in effect is nice and all, but it’s still just a boring card to me. Experienced Red Mages should be able to make up their own minds…
This card is much easier to rate. The “opponents” option is just pathetic in a 40-starting-life environment for one thing. The “creature” half is a tiny bit better, and will be fine against a few decks, but 3 damage is usually not enough to kill anything truly scary or important. Basically this is just more tech against tokens and that is all it will ever be.

2 comments:

  1. " Beware of sac effects, though, because a crafty opponent can sac one of the two targeted artifacts in order to save the other one…"

    As long as one target is still valid, the spell will resolve.

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  2. Oh, wow, thanks for clarifying that. I would have sworn that all targets must remain valid or the spell fizzles.

    I guess we've been playing Violent Ultimatum wrong...

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