Zendikar Rising Set Review: Blue

 Time for our second installment, covering Blue cards this time. Let's jump right in, shall we?

Blue

<-- LOL

Sweet! A cantriping anti-ramp card. Cool. 

The issue I have with these cards is, you don't run them for what they do for your deck, you run them for what they do to your opponents' decks. And, generally, in most decks, I'd prefer to run something that is either A) synergystic with or at least proactive toward my own game plan, or B) a more broad, reliable answer that can deal with a variety of issues.

Hosing one specific type of deck is a meta call, and personally I'd rather not have a dead card in my deck if that one type of deck isn't represented at the table.

Kicker support in Blue makes all those Hallar, the Firefletcher players sad. I was planning on building a Hallar deck myself. I still might of course. But it's definitely a feel-bad seeing all these card that would be GREAT in that deck being the wrong color for it.

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I don't hate this card - a 3-mana Clone is pretty swell, even if the restriction on what you can copy is a tad harsh. This is one of the few modal DCFs in the set I can really see myself playing and being happy with. Maybe.

Pretty darn expensive to play and Kick but pretty darn awesome if you do. Still, it's a pretty far cry from Blue's most ubiquitous and infamous Kicker spell - Rite of Replication. 

I really like this card, I just don't know how many decks are going to be able to find a slot for it. I'll almost certainly be able to make good use of it in my Teferi, Temporal Archmage and MAYBE something like Riko or Kalamax can do bonkers things by copying it. But overall it feels like one of those cards you keep slotting in, then cutting.

BONKERS.

Just fucking bonkers. 

HA HA HA HA! 

Basically a Glimpse the Unthinkable that you can Kick into a Traumatize... except it hits ALL YOUR OPPONENTS. This HAS to seem like a godsend to Mill players everywhere. 

I absolutely love it, and I haven't played any sort of dedicated mill deck in years. I might just have to rebuild Wrexial as an excuse to play this.

This one also features the newly-keyworded Mill mechanic, but in such a small increment, I feel like this card is much more exciting as both a Rogue for Rogue decks and a 1/1 flyer with some small value for Edric decks.

Party on, Wayne!

HA HA HA HA! AGAIN! This time they took Hedron Crab and made it strictly better for multiplayer games. 

HELL.

YES.

Mill might actually be a thing finally.

Ugh. I love this more than I should. I know it's technically bad, because if you have the luxury of taking a whole turn off to cast a 7-mana spell that doesn't impact the board in any way, then you're probably already winning, making this "win more". But God knows how greedy I am about drawing cards and the whole "PLUS ONE" part really tickles me!

That said, this actually CAN impact the board in something like The Locust God or Pyr and Toothy, so it might have legitimate homes in those decks, but I'll probably just jam it into any deck I can find room for it. 

Woof. 7 mana for a 2/1 just to copy a 1 or 2 mana spell twice? Yikes. Given both the steep Kicker cost and the severe restriction on what you can copy makes this a dud in my book. I'm sure it will have some kind of life within our format in some very specific decks, but I can't fathom any of my decks running this.

3 mana to steal a Sol Ring? Sure, I can see that maybe being a thing. Also, Rogue with Flying is fine on it's own.

Is it just me or does this seem a bit OP for an uncommon? Absolutely has a home in UR spellslinger decks, from where I'm sitting.