Having fully explored the mythic rares last time, today we're moving on to rares, though this will be the first of two parts in which we do so. No long preamble this time either. Let's get right into it.
While this probably has some pretty cool niche use cases, I think this is just a bit overcosted, or rather too low-impact to be worthwhile. There are just more efficient ways to this sort of thing.
A niche mana rock, probably good in like Sram or something, maybe Breya? I don't think the reanimator half of the card is super great because exiling your own stuff as a cost is quite painful and risky, so you're probably only using it when you expect to be going in for a win or out of desperation.
Interesting and versatile removal spell. Giving your opponent two Map tokens shouldn't be too painful overall. I definitely see this getting a lot of Brawl play, but I think I'd need a more compelling reason to play this in EDH beyond simply needing any old removal spell.
Kind of a weird selection of options on this one. Seems kinda iffy though. Could be meta-dependent but I think the graveyard nuke is the most likely to be relevant in EDH. Seems like it was designed for 60-card formats.
I think this could have been an uncommon in another set. It's fine, but asking a three mana 2/1 to survive even a single attack step? Surely this just gets chumped on the first swing 9 times out of 10, right? The only reason I might even try this in Edgar Markov is because I can Skullclamp it to draw 2 if there are no good attacks open.
Another double-sided novel to read. Sigh. I actually made it through this one, however, but it wasn't worth the effort. Sure, if you flip the card, the land side is potentially quite powerful, but the front side literally just makes one mediocre token and has the flip condition. This is high risk, high reward, but as good as the Land half might be, I think the risk outweighs the reward by miles.
Oh, hey, a DFC that actually doesn't turn into a land! Also a shitload of text. This one seems pretty decent, but it doesn't really do anything White can't already do.
I initially wanted to write this off as a card for 60-card formats, but I can actually see a use case or two for this in EDH. It might be decent in Emmara, Soul of the Accord, for instance, though it needs a bit more than just itself and Emmara to get anywhere, so even then it's a "maybe".
The latest in a long dynasty of mono-Blue Artifacts Matter guys, but this one seems downright weak in comparison to most of them. I'm not even sure it'd be worth a slot in most U/R Artifact decks. It just doesn't really do that much. Probably finds a home in Emry decks, where milling your artifacts is super relevant, but otherwise this just seems weak.
Hylda decks, maybe? Seems too durdly for anything else, but Hylda decks live for the durdle, so it should be fine there.
Holy shit, this would have been bonkers in Llorwyn. Tribal cards like this are boring to review, because they're basically auto-includes if your playing the tribe, and unplayable otherwise. But, yeah, this is crazy good; almost single-handedly has me itching to build either UW or UG Merfolk.
Three mana to mill 2 and draw 2 seems quite good, and it doubly counts as a Historic spell for things like Jhoira. And artifact decks typically have a very easy time getting a lot of little cheap artifact cards into their graveyard.
Way too easy to just kill this thing and get your stuff back. Cool card, but not a good EDH card.
Seems cute until you realize this is just going to be mono-Blue Extra Turns.dec.
I'm still not a fan of Vehicles but this one seems aggressively stated enough, and the fact that you get value out of the act of crewing it is a nice benefit as well. I actually like this one.
Meh. Boring.
So it's basically a Living Death attached to a 6/6 flying body. And it's a Vampire Demon, so that's rad. Yeah this is cool, and for once I am actually glad they put the "if you cast it" clause on there. Looping Living Death over and over is annoying. Anyway, cool card, but the eight mana price tag is probably going to kill almost all enthusiasm for this outside of very casual, battlecruiser-y playgroups.
I want to get off Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.
Very good vampire, will absolutely play this in Edgar Markov or any other vampire deck. If you're a bit behind the 1/1 lifelinker probably isn't going to catch you up all on its own but it helps. If you are ahead on life, the draw effect is quite nice.
Vampire-specific reanimation is fine and dandy, but most vampire decks have a low enough curve that you'll often be reanimating a 2 or 3 mana guy with this and it just kinda doesn't seem all that worth it to me. That said, I can envision going Bloodline Keeper or Nocturnus on four, it eats removal immediately, and you just play this on T5 and now they basically have to have a boardwipe or your just way ahead. Eh, still, I think this is very medium.
Oh, cool, Tarmogoyf's ghost.
Doesn't seem all that relevant to EDH especially since most goblin decks seem to be mono-Red now. Of course you can play this outside of Goblin Tribal decks, but I don't see a compelling reason to do so.
I can see this being decent in many Golgari/Sultai self-mill shells. I like it but I wouldn't bend over backwards to play it. If it just happens to slot in somewhere, great, but if not, no biggie.
I appreciate this for the cleverness and uniqueness of the design, but discarding my whole entire hand is just a non-starter for me, unless of course the phrase in continued by "draw 7". But this WILL get disenchanted in response to you attempting to activate it, and it will be devastating.
This will be great for my Gitrog deck on Arena, but it plain sucks in comparison to Damnation/Toxic Deluge/et al in paper Magic. It's probably a fine budget replacement if those are out of reach, of course. Again, probably best in a Golgari/Sultai self-mill situation.
Working backwards from the land side, we see a very, very cool ability on the land. Giving every spell you cast with it Discover is just beautiful. The trick is, flipping it before you're too far behind for it to matter. With the ETB effect, you're almost guaranteed to get the first Bore counter right away, but how quickly can you get the next two? The answer to that question, I feel, will determine the playability of this. It seems worth trying to make it work, though. That payoff is real.
If only this said "whenever a Pirate
or Goblin attacks...", I'd be much more interested, but then again that's probably because I'm more interested in Goblins as a tribe than Pirates. Pirates are WAY cooler, but so far MtG hasn't reached the point where I personally feel Pirates to be a compelling tribe to build, but I do hope they keep expanding the tribe. Anyway, this one seems solid.
There are so many bomb ass equipment cards in Magic now, I feel like it's one of the most crowded card types for highly playable cards, so most equipment need to really have something special going on to warrant their inclusion. This is actually probably more likely to get used in just generic aggro decks than in things like, say, Boros equipment voltron.
Badass. Surprised this isn't a Mythic. Fantastic card for Maelstrom Wanderer, as it costs 7, slotting it nicely into MW's cascade range, and giving you the chance to hit something
even bigger. If you miss and hit a Signet or whatever, you get a bunch of Treasure to try and cast something else. Gambling is fun, especially when it comes with a sort of insurance against whiffing.
Wow. Impressive design here. It's aggresive and cheap, but attacks well, and has built in card draw (ish), to keep the gas on. Yet again, I'm less certain how it will fare in proper EDH but in the 1v1 format of Historic Brawl I think mono-Red players will be happy to give this a shot.
And we have another Vehicle that I don't hate! Curious. I like the Blue one we looked at a bit more, but this is solid. Five mana for a 5/5 and 5 damage ETB is not a stellar rate, but it is solid. The "Treasure Trample" ability is weirdly cool, too. Good fit for Jolene, Prosper, or just about anything that cares about Treasure tokens, and wants more multi-purpose cards.
Ah yes, Dinosaurs are notorious for hiding their hoards of treasure and gold... oh wait, that's dragons. Well, we have at least one Dino-Dragon hybrid creature in the set, so I guess it's fine. Weird card, though. Really wants you to run a lot of Artifact ramp in your Dino deck, which I guess is fine, but the payoff doesn't seem all that inspired.
He's a big ol' boy. Nothing too noteworthy here, just a fat body with some extra value tacked on. Will be solid in just about any Dinosaur list, but kinda falls short elsewhere; for instance, I don't think I'd even bother with this in Maelstrom Wanderer. There are better, splashier 6-drops.
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