Black cards are up next...
This Zombie has a pretty compelling set of abilities. His power and toughness aren't so exciting. Still, if you can boost him with tribal pump effects or equipment, he could be pretty good. He's pretty niche, and won't make much of a splash, but I can see him in Zombie decks, and maybe a few others.
Holy wow, that's a lot of zombies. Sucks they come into play tapped, but that won't stop this from being played. You could always use Amulet of Vigor or Intruder Alarm if the whole tapped thing is a deal-breaker.
This card is awfully parasitic. I would just say "awful", but she does have faint echoes - very faint - of Academy Rector, which is an insanely good card. Problem is, she only gets Curse enchantments, so her playability is strictly tied to the playability of the Curse cards in this block. So far I haven't seen anything that really makes this Witch desirable, but by the time the block is complete, their might be enough playable curses to make her playable too.
This card should be pretty obvious. It's really good in just about anything, but definitely a must for Kaalia decks that tend to have pretty limited options on card-draw. Phyrexian Arena that beats in the air for 5, and can, in dire circumstances, start targeting opponents with it's Arena effect. Versatile, useful and very cost-efficient, this should see tons of play.
Good against tokens. -1/-1 doesn't really kill much else in EDH, the format of big fat creatures. It is a Curse, it's worth noting. And it effects only the cursed player's creatures, so that's cool. It just depends on weather or not -1/-1 will have significant board impact or not.
This shouldn't be worth mentioning, except that I am legitimately scared that my group will start running this. Just a week or so ago, I was getting hosed badly by a Jotun Grunt, and this is a comparable effect.
Wish this was an Enchantment instead of a dude, but sac outlets are very useful in EDH and the life-gain could be pretty useful as well. Definitely not a format-wide staple but clearly playable in specific decks.
You'd need a minimum number of zombies in your deck before this becomes playable, but once it passes that threshold it gets really good, really quickly. MaRo said this card had his absolute favorite art in the set... I'd be hard pressed to disagree. It's beautiful and the concept is brilliant. This card will undoubtedly be a casual staple, but it's role in EDH will be a bit more limited. Zombies are a popular tribe, though, so it will make those decks for sure.
I'll be playing this in Vampire Tribal, and I would definitely consider it for a Kresh or Savra deck, too. Beyond that it's a bit lacking in power. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it is somewhat better in multiplayer, because it triggers off ANY creatures dying. A significant fact that some noobs might overlook.
Oh, okay I get it. It helps me cast creatures, but weakens them in the process, creating a kind of tension. You want to get the most benefit possible out of it's cost-reduction, while finding clever ways to minimize the effect of it's downside. Meh. I guess this will be cool in something, but I will pass on it, and I don't see it getting much play in EDH. Though the fact that it effectively mitigates one payment of the general-tax is not lost on me...
New Liliana is hot stuff. A terrific Planeswalker for sure. I don't think she qualifies to just be slotted into every black deck ever, but the decks that will make the best use of her are probably fairly numerous. Wrexial, obviously, will love this.
Meh. Not a bad card for the die-hard Zombie fans. Flashback is nice, too. It's basically at the ideal cost for this effect - any cheaper and it'd be too good for other formats. That said, the effect of making two 2/2 zombies isn't all that big a deal in EDH.
Flavorful and powerful, but with a certain amount of tension built-in. His ability isn't a "may" ability, so this guy could turn on you, if the situation warrants. But, he's a demon, so that makes sense. You could always safe-guard your own guys by playing Xenograft or Conspiracy set to "demon".
It's hard to get excited by a four-mana spell to exile one creature, and flashback of 7 is a bit much to RFG one dude. Still tokens do tend to all have the same name, and Rite of Replication alone makes this sort of a "Sideboard" kind of card.
Seems pretty good in a Ghave deck, where your general provides ample creatures to tap, and a handy sac-outlet to fulfill the Morbid trigger. Overall, this guy is cheap enough that he could see quite a bit of action, but he's not going to warp the format.
Not bad, but I'd rather play Consuming Vapors. For 1 more mana, we get Rebound, making Vapors a 2-for-1 instead of a one-for-one. The art on this one is about a million times better, though. This is definitely playable in 1v1, but less so in multiplayer, by several degrees.
Definitely requires a zombie tribal theme, but definitely worth playing if you are going for that. God the top-down design in this set just doesn't stop! I'm a big fan of this card even if I never play it in a single deck.
Oh I love me some Zombify. Well, okay there are plenty of cards that I'd run over Zombify, but the basic effect is what I'm after. Reanimation is awesome. Flashback is pretty good. This pairing makes perfect sense, and the Black/White thing is a cool flavorful twist. I will likely run this in every deck that meets the color identity requirements.
Well, that wraps up our look at Black in Innistrad. I'd say Bloodgift Demon is likely to be the most widely-played among these cards, but there are definitely some good cards besides that one. Unburial Rites is my favorite of the bunch, simply because I've been a die-hard Orzhov fan ever since I first laid eyes on Ghost Council. And I just dig reanimation spells.
No comments:
Post a Comment