Friday, April 22, 2011

New Phyrexia EDH Set Review: Part 1 - White

Lame, overcosted jank, but I love Equipment so much and it's always getting destroyed. Still, there are better options available to recur your Swords of Stuff and Junk.

I don't see this happening. Maybe if we get a 5-color Golem Legend down the road... nah, not happening.


I can actually see room for this. I play Spitebellows quite often, and this is similar. Wait, no... your opponent has to be dumb enough to swing into this with their Titan or other non-Flying house. On second thought, this sucks. 

I'm pretty disappointed in this, because the art was spoiled long ago and this card isn't what I envisioned for that art. Still, sure is a brutal ability. I'd be hard pressed to find an excuse to play this anywhere but in a Grand Arbiter Augustin deck, but it definitely could find a home there at least.

One of the more disappointing StP variants, this is definitely playable in the right decks, but too narrow to get excited about.  Then again, there are rumblings of a R/W Metalcraft deck with Jor Kadeen at the helm. If those decks pan out, this would be a fine stand it for Path/StP there too.

Too small of an effect to really make an impact in most EDH games, but it could be sweet tech against Living Death abusers. Take that Jund! Also pretty amusing as an Isochron Scepter target, if you're into that sort of thing.

Do I really need to spell this out? She will be played, and will wreck face. I don't think she's all that and a bag of chips, but definitely solid, fun and powerful. Token decks, meanwhile, just get less and less viable... which I'm fine with.
On the other hand, Token decks will probably be packing their own Elesh Norn, so I guess it comes down to who get's theirs first.
The obvious thing here is that in a Singleton format, this card doesn't do much. The less obvious thing is that it's an Oblivion Ring that DOESN'T give their shit back when it dies. Is that worth 6 mana? I'm inclined to say no, but I do play Duplicant in every damn deck ever, so I guess this is actually worth a look. If nothing else, it's a budget alternative to Duplicant (not that Dup is all that expensive).

Again with the Golems? Oh well, this obviously isn't meant for the EDH crowd. Here's a fun idea though: Run a Golem/Ally deck and Xenograph. Have one Xeno make all your Allies Golems, and another Xeno make all your Golems Allies. Yes, it's terrible, but it'd be funny as shit.

I'm on the fence on this one. If I'm already running Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse, I probably will be happy to run this one too, but outside of pillow fort decks like that, it's pretty underwhelming.

He he he, I'd love to see this be good, but I'm just not feeling it. It's basically just 10 extra life for 3 mana, which probably isn't great. Zur decks packing Necropotence will play the shit outta this, I would wager.

Fun! Free Argentum Armor equips are sweet, but who plays THAT card? LOL. Kemba decks and any other mono-white voltron decks should get their rocks off playing this, but it's pretty narrow in application. 

The first common I deign to comment on, and it's a card advantage/recursion peice. Shows were my prejudices lie, no? Still, that's the realm of commons in EDH: cheap utility. This is good. I don't see it being played a ton, but there are decks that could make use of it nicely. Not just Sharuum decks, though. I'd probably try to fit this in Rafiq, because my Equipments are pretty crucial and my opponents know this...

Meh. Neat, but rather underpowered for EDH. Pass.


Better than Congregate, or worse?  I'm leaning toward worse, but I dunno, but I don't even play Congregate. I'll just pass on this until someone comes and proves me wrong.
















That's it for White. Not a lot to jump for joy over. A few very specific decks got cool new toys (Zur, Kemba, Sharuum) but Elesh Norn is the only thing that jumps out as widely playable. I'm willing to eat my words later on Exclusion Ritual, based on the similarity to Duplicant, but as it's not an Artifact that can go into any deck, it certainly won't have the broad impact. Also, not being a creature hurts it. Next, of course, is Blue!

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