Throne of Eldraine Weekend Round-Up

Twitter conjecture had me believing this to be a fast format.  This is an incredibly common early sentiment, as it's just easier to figure out proactive/aggressive strategies than slower ones, and they also prey on stumbling players much more effectively.  It's not.  The above deck easily went 3-0 6-0, and I wouldn't describe any of my draws as of high quality, although I did draw Lochmere Serpent more than average.  Value is important here, but you still need to do something on each turn of the game, just like in every Limited format of the past 5+ years that I've been playing.

Despite my pristine record this deck has some notable flaws and I made multiple clear mistakes during drafting.  I did some classic waffling between White and Black as second colors, and didn't commit hard enough once I had 2nd Covetous Urge and Lochmere Serpent.  There was some early speculation on U/W with Shinechaser and Dance of the Manse (with ants in my pants, no less), which I'm not unhappy about, but once I open Lochmere Serpent in pack 2 I should have committed.  Lochtwain Gargoyle, Jousting Dummy, and Mystical Dispute shouldn't have made the main deck, the first two if I draft correctly and don't miss playables with needless waffling, and the 3rd if I use my noggin and run 18 lands, as this deck is incredibly interested in playing a land every turn.

Covetous Urge was substantially better than I expected it to be, and makes me feel a lot more confident that the format is relatively slow (a 4/10 on the scale I'd say, with 10 as fastest).  Every game I was able to cast it on curve as I wasn't getting pressured enough by early creatures, and once I took a spell from my opponent and cast it myself it felt like I was miles ahead.  As when it misses it still can grab anything out of the graveyard, the only real downside is when you're getting beaten on hard enough that you can't afford to spend that much mana not affecting the board.  That seems relatively rare, and the card is incredible as a result.

Midnight Clock

In my set review I panned this card heavily, and this is easily the card I was most wrong about already.  As this triggers during each upkeep, as long as you're paying attention this is 40%ish faster to trigger than it would be otherwise.  Getting this a pile of turns sooner is incredible, as the effect is so gamebreaking that it usually wins you the game right then and there.  It's much better than I thought even in the late game as well, as triggering in both upkeeps means that it often won't be too slow if you draw it late, as long as you're not dead in the water.  While I don't think this card is incredible in Draft, in Sealed I think this is one of the best Blue rares.  It's still good in Draft, don't get me wrong, but it's closer to a 3.0 vs. a 4.0 in Sealed.

Random Prerelease Musings

• Deck building in this format is incredibly hard.  I've been mono color multiple times in Sealed, which I wouldn't have expected, but I also played against the classic "Bad Mana but Powerful" Sealed decks and they looked quite playable as well.  18 Lands should be a hard default, as hitting land drops is so important, and games generally revolve around the expensive cards.
• Probably choose to play?  The format is slow but proactive, I believe having the extra turn does wonders for most decks.  Only about 1-2% worth of wonders, but it's hard to turn down win percentage that you receive by answering a yes or no question correctly.  The jury is still out on this one, and I wouldn't be shocked if play/draw was 50/50 and it was irrelevant what you choose generically.
• Absolutely maindeck the first Disenchant effect, but not the 2nd.  I was incredibly happy having the ability to kill problem Artifacts/Enchantments during game 1's, but not so much so that I would have liked a 2nd if I had one.
• Black is king, White is really bad, all of the other colors feel good but seem to exist on a similar level.  I'd had Green 2nd early on but a lot of the strengths I thought it had haven't seemed to matter much, such as using Rosethorn Acolytes to do lots of splashing.  Splashing is rough without Spinning Wheel/the rare Evolving Wilds, so I'd try to avoid it unless I have Garruk specifically.
• The Royals Scions, speaking of Planeswalkers, was incredible for me.  I opened it a bunch like an incredibly skilled magician, and it was both easy to protect due to the massive loyalty and gave me multiple effective attack angles at the same time .  While there's definitely some deckbuilding constraints involved, The Royal Scions should actively pull you toward splashing it or playing U/R.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Prerelease Time! Fatigue and (Me)

This really isn't the article I planned on writing tonight, so try to bear with me.  Today's topic is fatigue in Magic, especially when it comes to testing.  It's easy to grind for constant hours playing as much Magic as possible, but all of the work drains your energy, and as time goes on the ability to learn, enjoy yourself, and play good Magic diminishes sharply.  If I had to poke the biggest hole in my Magic game, it'd be with how large of a percentage I'm playing Magic under the effects of fatigue.  Tonight as I struggled through a deck build and then two additional rounds of Sealed, it dawned on me that I have to accept when I'm too tired to play Magic.

U/r Control

At my prerelease I registered an U/r control deck based around Irencrag Pyromancer and The Royal Scions.  While I was relatively happy with my overall build, I largely chose the deck I did because playing with my cool Planeswalker at the prerelease is fun, and not because I explored every option and choose this as the optimal one.

Embracing fun in Magic is very important to me as it helps me continuously explore new avenues as well as keeping burn out at bay.  There's a pile of reasons why I play Magic, but as a game I've had fun playing for years, enjoyment is king.  So despite my less than competitive reasoning leading to my inevitable deck choice, I still tried to maximize my win percentage from there, as that's also important to me.  Winning is still great, even if it's not everything.

As I had a lot of incentive to play a deck heavy one one color, I ended up playing 12 Islands 6 Mountains.  I had nearly twice as many Blue cards as Red cards, with numerous 1UU and 3UU cards in my deck.  My assumption was that Blue was critical to my deck's performance in addition to making cards like Witching Well, Didn't Say Please, and Charmed Sleep the best I could, and that in a pinch most of my Blue spells could help me find Red mana.  While I certainly could have hedged a bit and ran 11/7 in favor of Blue instead, at the time that wasn't a consideration.  Mana bases in this format are much more variable and complicated than usual, and I expect that to be a major way to gain an edge in this Sealed/Draft environment.

Running out of Gas

Two hours in I was exhausted, as a combination of sickness, lack of sleep in general, and far too much caffeine as of late really diminished my already low energy levels quickly.  Maximizing the amount of time you play close to your peak level will win far more matches and lead to much more productive testing.  As I was going into an event that was for fun/testing, I wasn't in a position to have fun or get quality testing as I just didn't have the energy.  Importantly I could have avoided this predicament in a variety of ways, but I could have also decided a good night's rest was more important than one of five prereleases I could play in at my local store.  Some more consistent hydration and some extra healthy food could have gotten me past my cold a bit faster, too. While it's best to not get into a situation where you'll be incredibly tired while testing, at some point it's better to just skip it and rest instead.

Bad Lessons Learned

Say you've made what you think is an incredibly good Sealed deck, but you're in no real condition to play good Magic.  Although you could perform above expectation and perform well with the deck, odds are that you'll not do your deck justice, and you'll lose lots as a result.  Losing repeatedly with decks you think are good is going to undermine your confidence levels, and lead you toward false assumptions about what actually constitutes a great deck in a given format.  While the reverse is also often true, as feeling overconfident after a string of wins with a deck can lead to it's own problems, at the very least that is often enjoyable, where the opposite end never is.

More importantly and much more quantifiable is your ability to retain and learn information while well rested and ready vs. tired.  It took me a grand total of 1 minute to find this supporting article from harvard.edu, here, which links lack of sleep to trouble learning.  Lack of rest will stop you from recalling that great sideboard pivot you came up with, or a trick you picked up to identify when your opponent has a specific card. 

Rest

Going forward I aim to manage my fatigue better, including skipping out on things I want to do when I'm just too tired. As I know a lot of chronically sleep deprived Magic players, I hope this sentiment will have some use for others.  Many of, maybe even the vast majority of us, already know everything written on this page, but it's incredibly important to take seriously if you're serious about improving in Magic. 

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Throne of Eldraine 1st Sealed Impressions

The above is the first Sealed deck I registered for Throne of Eldraine, to a resounding 3-2 success.  This deck felt busted, and I definitely punted both rounds I lost off of fatigue.  Although I don't think R/B is a good place for the Draw Two synergies, I had a huge amount of cards that contributed toward the archetype, with a bunch of very strong pay-offs.  My cards were strong individually as well, and with their flexibility gave me plenty of different options to win games.

Reaper of Night

I was motivated to try this out off of some decklists/speculation I got from Twitter.  While I still expect this card is far too slow for Draft, in Sealed it felt incredible, as both halves of the card are particularly well postioned.  There's a lot of incentive to hold onto cards in this format, with cards like Forever Young often sitting in player's hands for a while.  I was on the receiving end of a "Harvest Fear" while holding onto a Forever Young, and it completely obliterated me.

Color Heavy Mana Base

In an attempt to maximize Witch's Cottage, I played 12 Swamps total.  I tried to rely on Golden Egg + some selection to help me consistently cast Red spells, and I felt like jumping through the hoops was worth it.  Witch's Cottage felt powerful for me as it gave my relatively flood prone deck with lots of cyclers and cheap cards a viable late game to play towards.  Once I drew one of my few big creatures I could often rebuy it, generating a pretty large cascading advantage over a couple turns.  In the absence of my powerful rares like Clackenbridge Troll and Irencrag Pyromancer, I'm not sure how worthwhile playing the Witch's Cottages would be.  Nearly every game Witch's Cottage was awkward, and it often forced me to either hope like hell that I drew my 3rd Swamp or to miss an important spot on the curve with it coming into play tapped.

Curving Out

No deck I played against had nearly as high a density of cheap spells as mine.  I often played games where my opponent played their first spells on turn 3-4, and those games were very easy to win when I was consistently curving 2-3 and a few times 1-2-3 and beyond.  I had to play some pretty weak Sealed cards to enable this, as I'd rather not include 2/1s with Lifelink in my deck, although with all of my other Knights and other ways to deal direct damage they were a game plan all on their own.  While I expect a deck like this to have a very atypical curve, where I get to play a pile of value creatures that also enable aggression, if I had a similar strategy again I'd be stoked.

Takeaways

I definitely didn't do this deck justice, this deck was easily capable of 4-1/5-0 and I punted enough to earn the classic 3-2.  The Draw Two synergies felt powerful, and I felt like my cards had enough play that I could adapt to everything. My lowest point of confidence was in the mana, as it might have been better to play a deck heavier on Red, likely cutting a Witch's Cottage in the process.  Normally I try to build a few decks before I settle on a final build, which often comes in handy during sideboarding to pivot in strategy.  As I neglected to build other decks once I started experimenting with R/B, I lost a lot of equity especially after sideboarding.


Until next time,
Kevin

@Sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Milking an Interaction for All it's Worth

My Cow Discarding Obsession

Lately, I've been obsessed.  I can't stop thinking about one Limited interaction and it's driving me crazy.

Discarding Bartered Cow.

All I ever want to do in Limited is to get something for nothing.  Free spells are my jam.  Cantrips? Love 'em.  Mulligans? Hate 'em.  Bartered Cow reminds me so much of Madness, particularly Basking Rootwalla, which merely asks you to discard it to get it into play for free.  Bartered Cow itself should be left to pasture, but Merchant of the Vale and Thrill of Possibility are both great cards.  Imagining a deck where I've got a pile of ways to Discard cards, I can most easily rationalize jamming a bunch of uncastable Hill Giants into my Red decks.

A Reason to Jump Through Hoops

Instead of the classic "Chicken vs. Egg" problem, here we have a "Cow vs. Food" one.  Make no mistake, the entire point of this exercise is to see if it can be done.  As with every wacky Limited idea I've ever had, the point isn't to win more often but to test my creativity and have fun.  While I often intend to use this to become a better Magic player as a process, the primary drive comes from "What if?".  Back to our bovine friend, it's obvious to see that with multiple common enablers, discarding Bartered Cow is as easy as losing when you've mistakenly cast it. 

Our question once we've decided to explore this interaction should be, "Why bother"? We aim to find a point for our pointless exercise, some synergy or small interaction that gives us a reason to want to discard Bartered Cow for value.  As Red is lacking a single Food pay-off card, we'll have to look into another color.

Pay-offs

Living the mono-Red dream requires Elite Headhunter, and as we're interested in building our entire deck around this interaction we want more than one.  Getting two copies of a specific uncommon will be quite the stretch, although this one's mediocre and difficult for most players to cast, so less difficult than at first glance.  I've explored every color in my quest to include Bartered Cow in decks that can't cast it, and Black seems to have all of the pay-offs we can use.  Syr Konrad will ping our opponent whenever we can discard a Cow, but Bog Naughty is the real pay-off as it allows us to kill something for every Food we make.  It's much more compelling to make free Food when it's actually free copies of Terminate.

R/B is the most obvious and most probable path we can take, as it's got all of the best cards that can discard cards and the Food card we want.  It also gives us access to Elite Headhunter, meaning we're likely to find multiple pay-offs for our free Food engine.

Fleshing it all Out

Cauldron's Gift shares Bartered Cow's incentive of wanting to discard, and our deck as is won't contain enough cards.  As much as I'd like it to be worthwhile, we'll never return Bartered Cow with this, so we'll need some big idiots to discard.  We already want to play a bunch of enablers for reanimation, so putting 1-2 copies of a weak spell like this won't cost us much.  If we've got the card selection, we can always play the Harmonious Archon or Feasting Troll King we first picked, continuing our theme of putting cards in our deck not to cast them.  Much more often, we'll return Reaper of Night or Prophet of the Peak, cards well worth it with an extra +1/+1 tacked on.

While there's no real way of knowing if this is actual way to build R/B yet, it would be cowardly if I didn't try it.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Throne of Eldraine Initial Impressions

I just want to start out by saying thanks to everyone who looked at my set review.  I know there's a nearly infinite amount of ways to spend your time on the internet, and I'm glad some of that got devoted to my review.

Color Rankings

1. Black 
2. Green
3. Red/Blue
4. White 

• Black contains a huge density of removal spells, and has high card strength among each rarity.  Black is extremely deep and versatile as well, as there's only a couple really weak cards at common.  Multiples themes are well supported, with Food and Knights the obvious standouts.
• Green is a very close second, and falls short as its a bit weaker at common and lacks good removal aside from Outmuscle, which is risky in context.  Green rares make up the majority of the best rares in the set, meaning you'll often start drafts wanting to commit to Green.  Adamant is well supported here, and Crashing Drawbridge makes up for a lack of good 2 drops.
• Red and Blue look to be relatively even in strength.  Red has very good commons but the drop-off in power is steep.  Blue has lots of strong commons and has some fliers that will be very difficult to deal with the other colors near complete lack of them, but it suffers at uncommon and above as there's not a whole lot of raw power there.
• White continues its dominance as running worst color in the set, although here I think it's not by as large of a margin as any of the past few sets.  There's lots of good two drops and strong rares/mythics, but everywhere in between White lacks power and flexibility.  Multiple weak one mana creatures really hurt White, as well as the extremely over costed  Lonesome Unicorn.

Format Speed

On a 10 point scale, where a 10 is original Zendikar, the fastest format I've ever played, and 1 is an old set not intended for Limited like Beta, I'd rate Throne of Eldraine a 4, as I see it playing out a notch slower than an average format.  Most Adventures incentivize playing for the long haul, as they give various value oriented bonuses.  Food gives every deck access to life gain, leading to games ending with burn effects less common.  Removal is incredibly good and cheap creatures in general die to it consistently, and it get outclassed by more expensive cards earlier than usual.  Evasion is less common than usual, with Flying taking a major dip once you're not counting the legion of 1/1 fliers for 1.  Taking all of this into account there are some powerful aggressive decks and tricks that give large stat bonuses, so short games will still be common enough.

Land Counts

In general I'm looking to always start at 18 in Sealed and at 17 in draft here, as decks will have much more to do with their mana in general than in most sets.  Games also will skew a bit longer due to all of the value oriented mechanics, and Adamant incentivizes playing lots of colored sources, which will often mean more lands.  I expect to play 18 lands in draft more often than normal, especially if I'm heavy on Adventure cards.

Unusual Incentives

There's so many Artifacts/Enchantments running around that you should always maindeck the first True Love's Kiss or Return to Nature, and strongly consider a second.  True Love's Kiss is particularly powerful as it draws a card as well, meaning that it won't even need to hit a real target to generate an advantage.

Play vs. Draw

Extra ways to spend mana incentivize playing first, as you'll win games less on raw resource count vs. having the time to turn all of your mana/cards into usable resources.  Adventure is key here as just having 4-5 Adventure spells in your deck will give you a ton of extra places to put extra mana. While I don't advocate playing 18 lands in draft yet, I would be hesitant to run 16 unless my deck was casting lots of 1 and 2 mana spells with nothing above 4.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter 

Throne of Eldraine Set Review Hub

Use the following links below to access all of the set reviews, everything is below and links back to another page on this blog.

BLACK
WHITE
BLUE
RED
GREEN
MULTICOLOR, ARTIFACTS, LANDS

Hey Reddit/Twitter!

If you're wondering who I am to be posting an entire set review, I'm Magic Online player kdellagrotte and Magic Arena player MayorOfMungertown.  I qualified for MC1 in Cleveland winning a Sealed MCQ, I've been able to get over 1900 Limited rating on MTGO a whole bunch, and I've held rank 1 on Magic Arena.  While I'll be happy to have a 50ish percent hit rate on my impressions of cards. Any questions or inquiries whatsoever can go to my e-mail, sealedawaymtg@gmail.com, or you can always hit me up on Twitter or Reddit where I'm happy to talk.

Thanks for reading,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Throne of Eldraine Set Review: Gold, Artifacts, and Lands

Due to some poor planning on my part, expect this article to be long, and I mean really long, almost twice as long as any of the other five.

BLACK
BLUE
WHITE

RED

GREEN 

Multicolor

Dance of the Manse

My goal with this one is always going to be to cast it for X 6 or greater after milling myself a whole bunch.  With the non-basic common Island that returns Instants and Sorceries to the top of your deck, it shouldn't be tough to find this and subsequently force yourself to draw it so you can cast it for big numbers.  Without building around this heavily it's really weak as your Artifacts and Enchantments won't die often enough unless you're getting them in the graveyard yourself.  I like that this encourages me to build a deck full of cards no one wants, but it's too restrictive to be generically good.

Rating: 2/5

Doom Foretold

At first, second, third, and 15th read I thought this was asymmetrical, and forced your opponents to sacrifice a permanent every turn.  This card is so heinously bad that I can't even believe it's real.  I'm sure there's a time and place for this, but I'm not going to be the one to find it.  Unlike other bad rares this isn't even a fun build around.

Rating: 0/5

Drown in the Loch

Two in a row that I've been misreading up until now, Drown in the Loch should be incredible if you're milling your opponent and acceptable otherwise.  I wouldn't work too hard for this one, as there's so many removal spells in this set that don't require any work that you shouldn't really need this.

Rating: 2.5/5

Escape to the Wilds

In a deck full of cheap cards this is absolutely unbelievable, as the more of these cards you can expect to cast over the turn cycle the better this gets.  You'll generally be able to get two lands off this, it's just a matter of getting to cast 2 spells off this the following turn to find the power.  The longer the game gets, the better this will get as most draw spells do, but I'd always prefer if this was the most expensive card in my deck to maximize it.

Rating: 3/5

Faeburrow Elder

Turning this into a 5/5 Vigilance for 5 that taps for 5 mana will take a ridiculous commitment, but if I'm the one who has to try it so be it.  On the absolute floor this is a much better Gyre Engineer, as it will tap for two mana naturally and even has Vigilance to try to chip in for free points.  It takes very little work to make this exciting as it just makes so much mana, but the dream of making this bigger and thus tap for more mana is worth putting some small effort into. 

Rating: 3.5/5

Garruk, Cursed Huntsman

Marry yourself to this if you pick it early, as this card is absolutely unreasonable and should win the vast majority of games it gets cast in.  It slices, it dices, it makes two wolves at a time; chef Garruk does everything you could possibly want from a card in Limited.  I already love Green and Black in this set, so I'll take any excuse to draft them both together.  Generating 4/4 worth of stats a turn for nothing is incredible, but this can also kill a creature in an emergency and has an ultimate that makes blocking or trading with the wolves early on awful.

Rating: 5/5

Grumgully, the Generous

Nothing's more generous than giving things away for free, and Grumgully is all about giving free 1+/1+ counters to any non-Human you play.  As Humans are killing the planet he's not a real fan of them, but he doesn't hold more of a grudge than that.  While being endlessly generous Grumgully has real stats, as he's also a 3/3 for 3.  Everything about this card is awesome and it's a massive pay-off to both be R/G and to care about not putting puny Humans in your deck.

Rating: 4/5

Improbable Alliance

Once you've committed to a Draw Two lifestyle, this is as close to Bitterblossom as it ever gets.  You'll have to fill your deck with Opts, Haggles, and Thrill of Possibilities to maximize that, but getting a pile of "free" 1/1 fliers is worth it when the up front cost is only 2 mana.  Once you hit 6 lands in play you can activate this to generate Faeries, meaning that if you draw this after a long, drawn out attrition battle it'll still function well enough.  

Rating: 3.5/5

Inspiring Veteran

Adorable picture aside, this is a really powerful card in any R/W deck with lots of Knights, just like all of the two mana gold lords before it from Ixalan block.  This'll often be too valuable to rumble with in decks where it's worth playing, so it's more fragile enchantment than real creature sometimes.  

Rating: 3.5/5

Lochmere Serpent

This is an incredibly powerful and resilient creature, that will almost always act a 6 mana attacking creature removal spell in addition to all of the other things it does.  The ability to come back repeatedly really gets me here, as a 7/7 will be of utmost importance to kill, but once you do it just comes back without caring.  Normally I'd appease this with a 3.5, but I think in Throne of Eldraine it deserves a higher grade.

Rating: 4/5

Maraleaf Pixie

Although I'm already happy about a 2/2 flier for 2 mana, this will accelerate you early in the game as well while still always having the option to get aggressive.  U/G looks to be incredibly mana hungry this time around, as it's so good at drawing cards and playing expensive spells, so any dork Faeries I can get my hands on, I'll take.

Rating: 3.5/5

Oko, Thief of Crowns

Aside from making opponents play like headless chickens, 3 mana Planeswalkers that repeatedly generate value translate into an awful lot more winning.  While I'm not super stoked to just sit back and make Food every turn, we can also make a 3/3 every other turn while we're at it, all while continuously gaining loyalty.  The ultimate lets us trade a Food for a reasonable creature of theirs, and it's cheap enough that it'll be possible to do it more than once in a game.  Unless your opponent has Murderous Rider, I can't see losing if you ever manage to cast this on turn 3, and it's really easy to protect this if we can cast this once the game's progressed a bit.

Rating: 5/5

Outlaw's Merriment

Outlaw's Merriment combines all of the fun of a value generating Planeswalker with some healthy variance.  After this has made a few tokens it'll feel insurmountable in short order, as each creature is pretty nice to create, even though each one has it's own spots where it's best.  I guess the outlaws are pretty depressed generally as it's mythic rare for them to be merry, but this card is unreasonable and you should work hard to get it into your deck.

Rating: 4/5

The Royal Scions

Will and Rowan Kenrith have combined their power for one card, that has only plus abilities just like Oko.  Unlike Oko this doesn't really do a whole lot except fix your draw and give you some extra damage.  The ultimate here is really important to the overall power, as protecting this until it gives you a pile of cards back and kills a creature or your opponent is going to be the primary play pattern.  If it wasn't for my soft spot for discarding cows I would probably pan this a bit more, but all I want with this is to generate me some really annoyingly produced Food.

Rating: 3.5/5

Savvy Hunter

The size is right here, and as we get our Food before combat damage is deal we'll have a pretty easy time turning this into an extra card as long as we have another Food lying around already.  Savvy Hunter snowballs out of control very easily when backed up by a bunch of removal or tricks, as it acts an awful lot like an Ophidian (or Scroll Thief for you newer folk) with much better base stats.  It's not always easy to turn Food into much of substance, but this card fulfills that role while generating her own.

Rating: 4/5

Shinechaser

Controlling an Enchantment or Artifact makes this a reasonable card as a just good enough Wind Drake variant.  Once you've got both, however, a 3/3 flier is massive in this set with very few other fliers.  White and Blue are flush with both Artifacts and Enchantments, so you should be able to empower this with cards you already want.  Try to avoid playing cards like Fortifying Provisions alongside it.

Rating: 3/5

Steelclaw Lance

Many Knight creatures specifically call out Equipment as something to pair with them, but very few of the Equipment has seemed powerful or efficient enough outside of Embercleave.  Enter Steelclaw Lance, the answer to all of a Knight's problems.  This is a cheap and effective power and toughness jump for any Knight, and it can always hit your non-Knight creatures as well for a few extra mana.  The Gold cost is steep, but if you've got a Tournament Grounds or two I'd potentially try to splash it if I had enough Knights.

Rating: 3.5/5

Stormfist Crusader

Howling Mines don't exactly have a great Limited resume, but as this is stapled to a real creature, and triggers in your upkeep rather than the opponent's, I'm willing to give it a shot.  As long as you're the aggressor the 1 damage dealt to each player will benefit you substantially, although it'll feel like a real downer whenever you're getting beaten up.

Rating: 3/5

Wandermare

With a singular Adventure this is quite powerful, and with the sheer number of Adventures available in Green and White I expect this to be quite the workhorse.  Even if you draw it real late in the game it's still a 3/3 for 3, so this Horse will always be welcome to the battlefield.  Adventure decks seem rife with pay-offs and enablers, and looking to build one seems like a winning strategy in Throne of Eldraine.

Rating: 3.5/5

Wintermoor Commander

Enough Knights in play makes this impossible to block effectively, and he can sneak in his best buddy every turn without much trouble.  Having scaling toughness is really strange and it doesn't get interesting until you have 4+ Knights in play total. I'm a bit unimpressed with this compared to other gold Knight cards, but I'd still play it in my B/W decks based around Knights, and it's good enough on its own to just jam it into any B/W deck at all.

Rating: 2.5/5

Hybrid

Arcanist's Owl

4 mana for a 3/3 Flying draw a card out of a selection is extremely enticing, and in multiples it can even act like a much bigger and more efficient Squadron Hawk.  This is quite the pay-off for its three respective directions, although you'll want to include enough Artifacts and Enchantments to give this a reasonable hit rate, about 8+.  When this misses you still have a big flier in a set that lacks them, so you can't be too sad.

Rating: 4/5

Covetous Urge

Covetous Urge will never miss completely, but I'm not exactly stoked to pay a 4 mana tax on one of my opponent's spells.  With the restrictive mana cost fighting against how time sensitive this card is, I think this is a great card if 100% of your lands tap for the mana cost, but I'd never splash if I was putting this card in my deck.  Drawing this late is pretty awful, but hopefully by then you've got enough lands to cast whatever you want during the same turn.

Rating: 3/5

Deathless Knight

Alongside Food this card is horrifically annoying, as a 4 power creature might trade down the first time but it'll demand an answer every time it comes back as well. I'm most excited for this for it's cow based synergy in Red decks where you can repeatedly discard this and pick it up only to use it as an uncastable Squee.  No matter what home you've found for Deathless Knight it'll settle right in, and I expect this card to get complained about an awful lot before Throne of Eldraine rides off into the sunset.

Rating: 4/5

Elite Headhunter

Food and other disposable Artifacts will fuel this the best, as getting a large supply of repeatable Shocks will make it easy to mow down all of your opponent's creatures.  Without a bunch of sacrifice fodder this card is awful, as all it is is a 4 mana 2/3 menace that's heinously hard to cast.  Elite Headhunter won't perform without some deck building concessions, and as such I'm not super excited about it.

Rating: 2.5/5

Fireborn Knight

Attacking like a 6/4  is bananas at this cost, and if you ever get to 8 mana you're acting like an 8/5.  The starting body is big enough that this will scale incredibly well with pump spells and equipment, although in R/W you're not exactly full of great options.  Fireborn Knight will often draw me closer to the archetypes that can cast it as it's very powerful.

Rating: 3.5/5

Loch Dragon

Turning on Draw Two repeatedly is a lot of the power here, so if you're not interested in that this loses a lot of value.  You're going to get lots of card selection for as long as you control Loch Dragon, but as we're not repeatedly looting you won't always be able to get much value out of this.  3/2 Flying isn't amazing stats, but it's passable once you include everything else you're getting.

Rating: 3/5

Oakhame Ranger

Eight mana is the total asking price here, all of it G/W Hybrid mana.  While there's plenty of total power on this card, the cost is as steep as a vertical incline.  Oakhame Ranger performs a function that G/W decks really want itself, so I'm willing to include it once I'm already in that deck, but I can't see myself casting Bring Back very often as it's just far too slow unless the game has grinded to a halt.

Rating: 2/5

Rampart Smasher

Flavor is on point here as none of the components of a Rampart can get in the way of Rampart Smasher, although I'm still suspect on the complete lack of Walls in the set for this to smash.  Have they all been smashed already?  Were they all blown down?  I've counted 3 total walls in this set, and unless I've missed a bunch the text seems completely meaningless.   Not being blocked by Knights is incredibly strong as somewhere from 25-35% of all creatures in the set are Knights.  As these abilities are tacked onto a 4 mana 5/5 I'm not going to complain too much and I'm ready to get behind this guy while he works.

Rating: 3.5/5

Resolute Rider

Once you untap with Resolute Rider it's an absolute nightmare to play against, as if you block it it just kills your creature, and if you don't it gains its controller 4 life.  Having some way of killing this will be paramount, as this will continue to get more annoying the more mana its controller has, especially once it's at the point where it can gain both abilities and still have an extra 3 mana left to activate Indestructible again in case of funny business.

Rating: 4/5

Thunderous Snapper

Right after this comes down it can start to generate value, making it so as long as you have expensive spells to cast you'll never run out of things to to.  As this is already a 4/4 for 4 you're already doing something great on the first trigger, and every subsequent one is burying your opponent with cards.  Thunderous Snapper is big enough that it can end games by itself or with a little help before it draws too many cards, pressuring your opponent on multiple axis.

Rating: 3.5/5

Artifacts

Clockwork Servant

Adamant decks of any colors will want this, as it generates a free card while serving as an acceptable body on curve as well.  Seeing one or two of these early is a lot more likely to get me to draft a mono Color deck than any of the colored cards with Adamant, as this still leaves you with some flexibility and can be filler in decks where the Adamant is a big ask.  Blue and White specifically like this as they care the most about Artifacts, and Black can bring this back from the dead to get even more cards.

Rating: 3/5

Crashing Drawbridge

Playing offense and defense well is something I put a high value on in Limited, and this does a great job of that and can be played anywhere.  Anytime you can cast more than one creature in the same turn this gets really powerful, as it can give them all haste at once.  Once you've created a life total advantage for yourself you can keep the Drawbridge closed to keep your opponents creatures at bay.

I'm not sure where this is best but I like it in Green decks, as the Green two drops aren't very strong in general.

Rating: 2.5/5

Enchanted Carriage

Expensive as this is it can still generate a few Mice in advantage if it gets destroyed or trades off.  I expect this to largely fill out decks trying to be mono color, rather than something you're often riding over the finish line.

Rating: 2/5

Gingerbrute

Supposedly this isn't creature type Food, but has the Artifact subtype Food?  I'm not exactly sure how this card even works although it looks an awful lot like a 1 mana 1/1 to me.  If you can use this with Food pay-offs it gets substantially better, although I'm still not inclined to pay a card for a Food token when they've been shown to only equal that much value with Bog Naughty. 

Rating: 1/5

Golden Egg

Unlike Gingerbrute I'm confident that this works with all of the various cards that care about sacrificing Food, and as this can fix mana and replace itself I like it far more.  I wouldn't be too shy about cashing this in to help an Adamant spell or to cast an Adventure spell's halves together, but if you're particularly Food motivated keep Golden Egg around for the long term.

Rating: 2.5/5 

Henge Walker

Henge Walker's got nothing on Clockwork Servant, as losing out on that card drawn is a lot worse than having a single extra point of power when turned on, but having less toughness when turned off.  Once again I expect cards like this to help enable the 1-2 mono color drafters at a given table, but you'll never be going out of your way for a 3/3 for 3 that's easier to kill.  Any deck that can't cast this for adamant 90% of the time and greater should avoid this, as a 2/2 for 3 is just far too weak to see play.

Rating: 2/5

Heraldic Banner

While I'm expecting the power anthem to act as the main selling point here, tapping for a mana is never going to be turned down on cards like this.  White decks seem sorely lacking in a pay-off for putting lots of creatures in play so I like it there most, but this will be good filter for anyone heavy on a single color or looking to ramp.

Rating: 2.5/5

Inquisitive Puppet

I find this puppet incredibly relatable, because it makes me feel quite inquisitive myself.  Why did Wizards decide to put so many 1/1s for 1 in this set?  I'm sure Inquisitive Puppet would like to know as well, as it's a glorified 1/1 for 1 as well.

Rating: 1/5

Jousting Dummy

The mediocre artifact creatures keep on coming, although this one's at least a non-Human Knight for tribal bonuses.  I expect this to see some real airtime in Sealed in pools without 2 mana creatures to go for, although I think at this point they'd rather have Crashing Drawbridge on average.  Try not to let this make your deck as it's just generally weak, but it's not embarrassing if it does.

Rating: 2/5

Locthwain Gargoyle

Don't stoop this low if you're mono color, there's much more to Magic than casting a 1 mana 0/3, which while awful similar to a 1/1 for 1 doesn't even trade with a 2/1 or attack for the occasional point of damage.  For 4 whole mana you can pump this and give it flying, but it's incredibly difficult to get to a point where you can activate this twice when you have cards this bad in your deck.  The Artifact/Enchantment pay-offs get enabled pretty easily enough by Food as well, so you shouldn't have to stoop this low there either.

Rating: .5/5

Lucky Clover

Green and White decks will use this best as they've got the most Adventuring to do.  Any deck with 8+ Adventure cards will love this, and I'm terrified of the game where my opponent casts Edgewall Innkeeper into this on the play.  Considering how many colored Artifacts are in this set, it's surprising to me that this maintains the typical generic cost.

Rating: 3.5/5

Prophet of the Peak

Wizards has been rumored to have implemented colored Artifacts to stop the 2nd coming of Smuggler's Copter, so I wonder how this made it through the balance team.  Any deck at all can play this giant Cat, and it even has Scry 2!  Sarcasm aside this card is incredibly mediocre, and if I wasn't aware that the next card on the list was Roving Keep, yet another incredibly overcosted artifact, I'd be much more welcoming of something with this effect for Sealed.

Rating: 1.5/5

Roving Keep

My initial impression of this one was alongside Jousting Dummy, where I speculated about a design shift toward keeping sealed more balanced by making sure every pool had access to acceptable 2 drops and dorky win conditions.  Now that I've seen the set I've got no excuse for this massive hunk of junk whatsoever, as Prophet of the Peak fulfills the exact same role but doesn't need 7 mana to attack.  This even dies to Blow Your House Down and can't block Rampart Crasher as it has the much hated Wall creature typing.  I hate this card with a burning passion.

Rating: .5/5

Scalding Cauldron

For a removal spell that anyone can play this is actually not bad.  Before the recent design shift toward having Limited removal pack more of a punch, 4 mana for 3 damage was an acceptable rate.  With no color restrictions around I expect this to help Blue and Green decks shore up their removal suites, while the remaining copies opened help out players who couldn't draft any removal at all.  Casting this will never feel great but the price is just good enough.

Rating: 3.5/5

Shambling Suit

Rather than casting Inquisitive Puppets and Locthwain Gargoyles to pump this it's much better to lean heavily on Food generation.  As a 3 mana 1/3 to start it's nothing I'd ever want anywhere near my 40 card decks, but you only need to control a few Artifacts and Enchantments for this to be a very efficient and threatening creature.  As Blue and White are the biggest Artifact and Enchantment colors I expect it to largely end up there, although Black and Green are best at Food generation and usage so you'll often find room for it there as well.

Rating: 3/5

Signpost Scarecrow

A bigger Prismite with Vigilance still won't cut it at 4 mana with stats that are effectively even less efficient.  This has keyword "creature" so you'll begrudgingly play it to make a 40 card deck sometimes, but this is another in a long line of awful Artifact creatures you want to avoid playing with if you can.  As this has such an expensive up front cost I'm even less keen to splash off this than Prismite, as you're often waiting an entire extra turn to unlock your splash color because of how expensive this is.

Rating: 1/5

Sorcerer's Broom

There's quite a few ways to create more Brooms, and they'll all gain the ability to copy themselves as well once you do.  Food is by far the easiest, turning every piece of Food into 5 mana to gain 3 life and make a 2/1.  You need approximately a billion mana to go off with these, so don't expect to create more than 2 Brooms per turn in a reasonable game of Magic.

Rating: 2.5/5

Sorcerous Spyglass

Every Planeswalker in this set is a major threat, so having this in the sideboard just in case has some real value against some of the scariest cards in the set.  After a quick skim of the set there doesn't seem to be enough activated abilities to hose to ever main deck this, but when it comes in it should perform exactly as advertised.

Rating: .5/5

Spinning Wheel

Mana fixing stapled to an expensive tapper looks great to me, as once you run out of things to spend your mana on you can use this to lock down your opponent's best creature, or use the tap on end step tap on main phase trick to try to attack for lethal.  This is the only colorless mana fixer in the set that can get you every color without committing to just one, so any deck trying to do nonsensical things will put a high premium on Spinning Wheel.

Rating: 2.5/5

Stonecoil Serpent

X cost creatures generally over perform in Limited as it's so important to have something mana efficient to do on any given turn, and games bog down into top deck wars when both players draw a big pile of lands.  While the power here isn't off the charts, there's enough to like here that I expect to first pick this a disproportionate amount of the time.  All three abilities are quite powerful, and mean big Stonecoil Serpents will be incredibly scary from the other side of the table.

Rating: 4/5

Weapon Rack

Decks that lack any late game punch might want a copy of this if they fail to get a decent equipment, as this can turn a bunch of creatures into threats even if it's a bit slow.  The stats here are awful for the price, so I only ever want to play this if I'm missing a vital piece.  There's a cute combo with Animating Faerie where you can turn this into a 7/7s, but as that still costs 7 mana and a card I'm not too keen on it.

Rating: .5/5

Witch's Oven

Last but not least we have this combo enabler that should work well in lots of different decks, as it's a colorless sacrifice outlet that doesn't cost mana.  This works well with Cauldron Familiar specifically as a repeatable way to chump block and drain the opponent when you've got nothing better to do, and it makes your opponents removal much worse if you've got any Food synergies going on.  The first copy is much more important that subsequent ones, and although I think this is a great card I'm not picking it that aggressively unless I've got other combo pieces.

Rating: 3/5

Land

Castle Cycle

As long as you've got enough of a given color to activate the corresponding Castle it's worth a real pick, as these will add a lot of power without taking away much at all from your consistency.  Overall the White looks to be strongest by a bit, but each earns its keep in their colors.

Rating: 3.5/5

Three other Lands Cycle

Contrary to the above cycle, these are incredibly tough to make use of as you need to previously control three of the corresponding lands to turn these on.  If these counted themselves for the restriction I would like them far more, but needing to have effectively 4 of a certain land type to do anything is incredibly restrictive.  If you happen to be mono color these are largely incredible as strictly better basic lands, but don't expect these to trigger very often in 2 color decks.

Rating: 1.5/5

Fabled Passage

As this format lacks mana fixing we've been seeing a lot of lately, the sole powerful mana fixer in the set gets really high marks.  Unlike the common nonbasic cycle this does count itself, so as long as this is your 4th land or greater it comes into play untapped.  While you'll still occasionally have this annoy you on the first few turns of the game this is unbelievable further down the road especially if you're in the market for Adamant costs or you're trying to turn on a nonbasic land.

Rating: 4/5

Tournament Grounds

If you're lucky enough to see a few of these drafting a three color aggressive Knight decks starts to look real, and as there's a lot of powerful but difficult to cast cards in the Mardu Wedge this land gives you a massive boost.  This doesn't help cast Instants/Sorceries at all so keep in mind that you'll have to keep your interactive spells to the color you have an adequate amount of regular sources for.

Rating 3.5/5

Look out for the next article where I'll post my initial color rankings and a few other tidbits, this article is already prohibitively long.

Until next time,

Kevin

@sealedawaymtg