Theros EDH Set Review, Part 3: Black

And... we're back with part 3 of this here EDH-focused review of the new set, Theros. Today's color is Black, another of my favorite colors. Let's see what we've got to work with this time around.

Probably the worst of the Ordeal cycle, and the best of this cycle isn't exactly playable.

Really weird card. Great art. Not sure what to make of this since there aren't a lot of mass-Haste enablers in Mono-Black, but this seems to conditional to be all that great. I'd give it a pass.

Seems very playable in right decks. It can get very big in Multiplayer games, works well with cards like Greater Good, and can easily enable one-shot General Damage kills. Like most Lhurgoyf-style cards, though, this is pretty mediocre if all you are planning to do is play it as an aggressively-costed beatstick. Your best bet is to sacrifice it for value or give it evasion - Trample,  Swampwalk, or whatever.

One of the most delightful designs in this set has to be Rescue from the Underworld. It perfectly captures the Greek mythology trope it's trying to emulate, and it happens to be a pretty powerful-looking card to boot. Yeah, it is a 5-mana Instant, and it does exile itself upon resolution. These are marks against it, but it's such a cool card, I highly doubt that will stop it from getting played.

I've mentioned a few times how much I don't think Heroic is well-suited to EDH, but this guy has an ability that might, might just be worth putting forth some effort. The effect is obviously very powerful, but it all just depends on if you can find ways to trigger it that don't suck.

This is a bit of an odd effect, and I am not sure what the best use might be. I'm definitely skeptical of the playability of this card, but it might have some niche use I'm not seeing. 

Very much a Limited card.

Wow that's a lot of mana. I feel that way about most of the Monstrosity cards, but this one really feels way out of reach. I mean, yes, EDH games tend to get to the point where you COULD Monsterize this thing, but would you? There are just better things to do at 7 mana.

I don't like any of the cards in this cycle - they are way too narrow.

Decent effect, but way to expensive for such a marginal one-shot effect.

Actually seems really good in Mono-Black. Less likely than Exsanguinate to just straight up end a game in "Oops, I win" fashion, which is a positive thing. Also, doesn't become degenerate when fueled by Cabal Coffers, so there's that.

I am looking forward to playing this in Savra. Sac outlet that also provides its own fodder. Seems perfect for that deck. It's probably not terrible elsewhere, but there are, overall, more compelling Demons to play.

Meh.

Yay for $30 cards that are terrible in EDH! My advice: Open lots of these.
Trade them for shit tons of EDH staples.
???
Profit.

Not really any more playable than the  baby gorgon above, but she's Legendary so that makes her cooler, right? Well, at least this Monstrosity ability feels like it might be worth close to the 8-mana asking price.

I must confess, I am quite the fan of this God. I mean, he draws cards, so of course I'm going to love him. Lifegain hosing is relevant in my metagame, though not always. Still, I have decks that will happily play him just for the decent draw ability, and if he does more, it's gravy. I'm really liking him for Kaervek and Vish Kal especially. 

Dreadbore 2.0 is a huge improvement. Nevermind that it costs one more mana - it's also and Instant, and Black-only, so it can go into way more decks, and kill that much faster. Very playable. 

Hell yeah dawg lets trick this whip.

Okay, okay. I'm a bit iffy on this. I mean, it's certainly good and I think it will see a fair amount of play. My hang up is that pesky Exile clause that is very hard to get around. If I'm going to be re-using my creatures, I want to be able to do it over and over and over. Phyrexian Arena is just straight up better than this, in the majority of cases.

However, the lifelink part is probably better than most would give it credit for. I'm not going to be playing this a ton, but I definitely see it getting sporadic use here and there.







And, as is now the new customer, our Top 5 picks for Black:

5. Abhorrent Overlord
4. Thoughtseize (trade it for loads of EDH goodies!)
3. Rescue from the Underworld
2. Hero's Downfall
1. Erebos, God of the Dead

Overall, I'm not super-pumped for the Black cards in this set, but there are still quite a few that are likely to get used. A few of them are near-perfect fits for decks looking to plug some holes.

Theros EDH Set Review, Part 2: Blue

I'll let you in on a secret: I may hate on Blue from time to time as the "jerk" color of Magic. But I am a Blue mage at heart. Yeah, I'm one of those guys. I don't necessarily find it fun to sit behind a wall of countermagic and do nothing but disallow my opponents doing things... but I do love to play Control, in general, more than any other archetype.

Very cool card, but sadly not EDH material. Although, he could act as a pseudo-Enchantress in an Aura-heavy Voltron-Enchantress deck that includes Blue - every time you cast a Rancor, targeting this guy, you draw a card. Combine with Faith Healer or Auratog for a nice little draw engine.

Oh, hell yeah. Definitely digging this God. Scry 1 every upkeep is pretty dang good folks - obviously not as good as just drawing a card, but still... really good. Super-cheap Rogue's Passage effect is also pretty darn compelling. This is the one God of the Cycle I'd probably play in decks that have very little change of ever achieving 5 Devotion, because she's good enough as just an Enchantment. She goes in way more decks than just Edric, but I can't think of a deck more perfect to slot her into.

This may not break the color pie, but it sure as hell pushed the boundaries of what Blue can and should be able to do. This card almost feels like cheating - it's just flat out better than some White or Black board-sweepers. The Exile part is what pushes this into ridiculous territory. That all said, this is obviously one of the most universally EDH-worthy cards in this set. There is no way this card isn't getting tons of play.

I already mention Edric once, and like Thassa herself, this is playable in a decks that aren't Edric decks - but that was still the very first thing I thought of when I saw this spoiled. Overall, U/G seemed to make out very, very well in this set, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, this is definitely good in any U/x deck that has lots of attackers.

Protip: Combine with Aetherize for the lolz. 

Very cool card, I can't wait to play around with, but not the best EDH card, I'm afraid. Seems good on paper, but in EDH it's too fragile and low-impact and won't often have any real presence on the battlefield.

I normally wouldn't bother with such jank, but I see this having potential in Edric. I really like how this card's abilities combine with Edric's to provide evasion and filtering to really power up Edric's card drawing capabilities. That's probably still a flimsy use for it, but I think it at least bears mentioning.

Nope. If you want to hate out the Blue mage while hypocritically playing Blue yourself, you can do better than this.

Barf. I'd rather play Cryptic Annelid that this, by several orders of magnitude, and the Annelid hasn't made it into any of my decks in years. I get that this is pushed just about as hard as it could be pushed for Limited purposes, but c'mon... 

That's really weird wording. I mean, I totally get the purpose behind it, and it does have some potentially cool applications, but there are less-restrictive spell-copiers out there, so this really doesn't have a lot to recommend it. It's new and cool and has some interesting multiplayer implications, though so it is not likely to be completely overlooked in this format.

Meh.

Interesting, I guess, but not really my cup o' tea. Seems to narrow, generally speaking, for EDH - creatures are often the most relevant type of spell, but even when that's not the case, I'd just rather have a flat-out Counterspell or similar card.

 Meh.

You probably thought I'd recommend THIS for Edric, too, right? Nah, it'd be weaksauce even there.

Surprise! Here's a counterspell I actually like! Most folk will point to Hinder/Spell Crumple as being the better picks here, but while I agree that those cards are certainly the more powerful option, I happen to think General-tucking is a dick move and I don't endorse such behavior. Thus, I like this a good deal more, because it isn't nearly as unfun.

Outside of an Ula's Temple type deck with a "giant sea monster" theme, this just seems weak. It is a 5/5 for five in Blue, which doesn't often get such efficient beaters, and many opponents will have Islands quite often... still, it just seems mediocre at best.

This is such an oddball card, but I kinda like it. I don't think I will ever actually play it in anything, which is a shame, but ultimately this just feels too mediocre. Guess I'm spoiled by Consecrated Sphinx. Oh well.

I'd play this as an Instant, maybe. Definitely if it were an Instant and had Scry 2 instead. But, as-is I can't see where 6 mana wouldn't just be too steep a cost for such a potentially minor effect.

Heroic enabler for Limited. Not much more to tell.

 Phew, that Monstrosity cost is rough. Beyond that, though, this isn't exactly terrible. It is a 6/6 for six, with no drawback - something Blue doesn't get all the time. And the tap-down part of the Monstrosity effect is cool. This is probably pretty good in metagames where stuff like Hundred-Handed One is playable, but it's not ready for prime time just yet.

I don't like Clones with awkward hoops to jump through, when stuff like Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image exist. Just seems like too much effort for not enough reward.


















And now, we wrap up our look at the Blue cards of Theros with my Top 5 picks:

5. Prognostic Sphinx
4. Dissolve
3. Bident of Thassa
2. Thasa, God of the Sea
1. Curse of the Swine

Honestly the top 3 are the only ones I'm likely to ever put into any deck. Dissolve seems really solid, but I just don't play countermagic. And the Sphinx makes the cut on cool factor alone.

Theros EDH Set Review, Part 1: White

Sorry, folks. I meant to start getting these up sooner, but it just didn't work out that way. I dream of the day when I no longer start every other post with an apology for not posting more often. Anyway, I'm here now, and that's what counts right? So let's get on with our regularly scheduled Set Review.

I have to tell you I've been super excited about Theros. Return to Ravnica block was awesome and exciting in many ways, but in others it strangely left me wanting. Well, I haven't had a chance yet to play with any of the Theros cards, and there are some aspects of the set that don't thrill me, but overall, there are a ton of cards that caught my eye during the spoiler season and I cannot wait to start jamming some of these cards into decks.

As per the routine you are all probably used to by now, we'll start with White, and work our way onward from there.

There's no denying that being able to block exactly 100 creatures - one per hand - is awesome flavor. This card is certainly good for a laugh and dripping with flavor, but is it playable? At 4 mana, it's reasonable, and the Monstrosity ability/cost isn't the worst in the set. Still, I think this is fine for casual/budget EDH play, but falls short in even a semi-serious metagame. Still, it's exactly the kind of fun card casual EDHers should appreciate.

Bestow is one of the mechanics I'm least inspired by, but I also think it's the one that might surprise me in actual play, by being a bit better than it reads. This guy certainly seems like a bomb in Limited but will he make much sense in EDH? Outside of an Enchantress or Voltron style of deck, I doubt it. Again, he seems fine for very casual, non-competative decks, but falls just short of serious consideration.

Combat tricks are generally pretty terrible in EDH. Awesome interactions with the Heroic ability notwithstanding, I can't see this being good in any EDH archetype.

Overcosted removal is WAY overcosted.

Jank.

Definitely not a bad Planeswalker - both of her first two abilities serve as built-in defense against attackers, meaning the ultimate is one of the more realistically-achievable ultimates I've seen. Shame, because it's also one of the least exciting ultimate abilities ever. Obviously, she's best in Token decks like Ghave, or white weenie decks.

 Turrible.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those annoying cards that just keeps being annoying. Kinda like the Sun Titan/Emeria engine where you kill shit and it won't stay dead, ever. Oh, and it costs 3 so it works with Sun Titan! Great.
Also, seems great for certain kinds of Zur decks.
All in all, I like it, despite the headaches I foresee this giving me.

 Neat ability, but my God, who in the hell wants to play a 1/3 for six? Yeah, yeah, get enough tokens off it, and it should be worth it... but it's still a 1/3 for six. I can't get past that. Sorry.

Small, efficient Double-strikers are neat, even in EDH. Problem is, the Heroic thing is less likely to work out in EDH due to the fact that one-shot pump effects are terrible. Auras are slightly better in that they are permanent, but also have potentially horrible card-disadvantage issues. I can see this guy making the cut in, like, a Bruna deck or something, but he isn't widely playable.

 Too restrictive. Unless you somehow find that White is the most commonly played color in your group, this is likely to be stuck in your hand, useless, 90% of the time.

Neat. Not a fan at all of Oblivion Ring type effects because they tend to be more liability than solution.

 Absolute garbage in EDH. Elsewhere, seems pretty awesome. But, yeah, not at all designed for EDH.

Again, not liking Heroic much for EDH purposes. Solid card overall, but horrible in our format.

For me, this is probably the least-exciting of the Gods in Theros. His abilities are solid, but not sexy. Also, does anyone else find it vaguely annoying that he makes 2/1 cleric tokens? Why not 1/1 or 2/2? That just seems absurd to me, but whatever. Heliod is definitely playable, but limited in what kinds of decks he actually fits into.

Limited fodder.

Luckily, I like the Spear more than I like it's wielder. It's a decent rattlesnake card combined with a Glorious Anthem, at the original GA's mana cost. Not too shabby. Now, it doesn't go into just any old deck, but it's applications aren't super narrow either.

Ugh, that Bestow cost... major turn-off. Not sure what it'd have to cost for me to consider this playble, but seven sure as hell ain't it.



















Well, that's it for White... but hold on! I have a new feature I'm introducing to these Set Reviews. As a sort of TL;DR summary, I'm ranking my Top 5 cards in each color at the end of each segment. So, here are my Top 5 picks for White (again, for EDH specifically), assuming I can find 5 cards worth listing.

5. Hundred-Handed One
4. Heliod, God of the Sun
3. Elspeth, Champion of the Sun (Fighter of the Nightman!)
2. Spear of Heliod
1. Gift of Immortality

For me, cards like Hundred-Handed One and Celestial Archon represent the power level where I wish EDH stayed - casual, but not bad. As it stands, in my group at least, which is FAR from being competative, really, those types of cards are still largely outclassed, and rarely get played. The only exceptions are when a specific deck archetype makes a cool-but-mediocre card better than it should be by virtue of synergy.

I used to be okay with this, but lately it's been bugging me. No clue how to fix it though.