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scottynada · 4 years

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Core Set 2021 Set Review - White

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ Besides the sad flavor, I like Selfless Savior. It’s super annoying to play against since it requires your opponent to throw two removal spells at your best threat and makes it very difficult to block your big creatures. It doesn’t work super well against Black since the common removal frustratingly works around indestructible. I still think this pup plays well.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Don’t get Brushwagg fever with this one. Five mana is a lot more to activate than four and there are no mutate synergies to boost this Chorister up. Pumping this does mean that you will gain four life for your “gain three life” synergies, but even then this is one of the worst ways to get there.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I’m treating Speaker of the Heavens as a 1/1 with Vigilance and Lifelink since I don’t think there are any games that you can reasonably hit 27 life that you aren’t already crushing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Cheap spells are nice to facilitate an aggressive draw, but this just isn’t an aggressive creature. It doesn’t even block that well. Note that it does hold +1/+1 counters, so if you have some Basri’s Acolytes and not enough early creatures to put the counters on, this might just do.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: B There are four common Dogs and two uncommon Dogs split between Red and White. Pack Leader pairs much more nicely with the Red dogs as attackers, but a 2/2 that can’t take combat damage on attacks is already pretty nice.My favorite Dog pairing is with Bolt Hound since that dog likes to attack, but rarely survives combat.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B Seasoned Hallowblade is very difficult to block or attack in to. The concept of ‘threat of activation’ is huge here. You never have to actually discard a card unless this is going to kill a creature in combat. Even when you do discard, you are spending zero mana to trade with a creature your opponent spent mana on.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C Tempered Veteran is slow and has miserable stats, but can make it difficult to interact with your +1/+1 counter creatures in combat and will eventually make a huge threat. I wouldn’t see this as a pull into a +1/+1 counter themed deck, but it’s a nice pick up if you already have those synergies.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Daybreak Charger dies to everything in combat, but in an aggressive deck this can represent a lot of damage. You can throw the +2/+0 onto a flyer later in the game or enable a small creature to make an attack into a larger blocker. Don’t be afraid to cast this on turn 2 with no target for the ability.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- The flying synergies in M21 are no joke. I normally don’t like this as a 1/3 very much, but I think this will be the common flyer of choice for certain Blue/White decks.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Alpine Watchdog looks trusty, but you really don't need to take this highly. If I'm lacking two drops near the middle of the draft, I'll be happy if a couple of these find me. Note that this card has specific interaction with Alpine Houndmaster. I think the Houndmaster combo is quite good, so this goes up a lot in value if you pick up a Houndmaster.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D It’s a flash bear.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Oof, I’m not huge on White’s three drops in M21. I think Celestial Enforcer is fine. It is very good when things are going according to plan for your flying deck, but this doesn’t perform well in every White deck. If your opponent removes your flyers you are also left with a mediocre body.'

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Vryn Wingmare used to be a rare in Magic Origins, but I don’t think it’s amazing. You can skew your deck to be less affected by the noncreature taxing ability, but I only expect it to be backbreaking versus the deck that is based around cheap draw spells and the draw synergies lying around.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- When you are curving out, Makeshift Battalion gets the job done. Same with Celestial Enforcer, when your plan gets disrupted, you won’t even be able to leverage your +1/+1 counter synergies because getting the counter in the first place is so conditional.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D In what board state is this swinging in for huge amounts of damage without being easily blocked by a small creature and results in you getting attacked back for too much? I think this wants to be paired with evasiono or +1/+1 counters. It’s risky to tap your blockers just to send this creature in.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I love walls. If this had 4 toughness rather than 3, I’d be hot on Warded Battlements. As is, this doesn’t block well enough to live the dream of sitting behind this and crunching in for a bunch of extra damage with flyers. You can try it, but I think you’d rather just have something with stats.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lots of stats. Don’t need other +1/+1 counters to make this good. Pick this.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: A Mangara doesn’t do much in the way of attacking, but it does slow the game down and pretty much halt any aggression towards you. After you cast this, your opponent probably just develops the board slowly and draws until they can point a removal at this. Meanwhile you are unhampered and can hopefully find some way to pull far ahead.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Basri’s Acolyte adds a lot of stats for just four mana and a pretty good blocker to boot. The +1/+1 counters can be seen as haste power that sometimes allows you to make attacks that you wouldn’t have had previously. This is a big board impact at common for White, so expect turn 4 to be pivotal when White is involved in the match. This card’s existence alone is enough to make it much better to trade off creatures early against White aggro.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Gale Swooper is decent stats with a conditional burn attached. White really has some powerhouse four drops at common. Like Basri’s Acolyte, this one also benefits from having creatures on the field, so make sure to trade off with White creatures while you can.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Falconer Adept is White’s worst four drop?! This card isn’t even bad. If you get two attacks in, you are getting great value. Look for ways to assist the Falconer in combat since a 2/3 attacker is not strong by the time this can attack. Combat tricks, evasion and +1/+1 counters will be key.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lotus Cobra, untap, fetch land, turn 3 Baneslayer Angel, your move.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B After collecting its trophy for most ridiculous (read:best) card name in M21, Syr Gagglemaster proved itself to be a beefy flyer quite good at winning race situations with only a weakness in blocking.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C- Putting 5/5 worth in stats on the board immediately is pretty decent. You don’t need many five drops in general, but Valorous Steed will never be embarrassing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D This is not a set where every deck will have great artifacts and enchantments to roll over, but if you see a couple good hits, bring this in from the sideboard and it will be good.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There are some synergies in this set with drawing cards, but I don’t think that pushes this over the edge of being a great include. It’s not super impactful and feels very bad when your creature gets removed in response.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D The Sanctum of Tranquil Light counts itself, so the ability will at most cost five mana. I don’t want to pay five mana to tap things. I don’t want to pay four mana to tap things. Three isn’t even that great - and you can only get there if you hit the jackpot with Shrines.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B I think the payoff for Griffin Aerie is strong enough to take this card early and build around it. Gaining three life is not as simple to put together as just gaining any amount of life, so be on the lookout for cards that get you there on their own.

Pick: 3-6 Shortcut: C+ The normal issue with cards like Swift Response that deal with tapped creatures is that they can never clear out blockers when you are the aggressive White deck. However, it looks like White does a lot of its aggression in the air in M21, which raises the stock on this.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Feat of Resistance is a very strong trick. It makes sure your creature never dies in combat, even if your opponent has a combat trick of their own. It can protect your creature versus removal. On top of all that it permanently boosts your creature afterwards. There are even +1/+1 counter synergies here. Great trick that will define how you interact with two open White mana.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C- Runed Halo will play out like an aura that prevents a creature from attacking you. It will still be able to block just fine. The dream of hitting multiple creatures with this is very unlikely, but will happen a couple times throughout the format. Send me your sweet screenshots of blanking your opponent’s army.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C The dream is to add something like 10/10 worth of stats can comepletely crush your opponent with your two mana card, but Basri's Solidarity will rarely play out like that. The most likely scenario is that you curve out with 2-3 creatures, then cast this to enable a couple of your creatures to make attacks where they wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's low mana cost also makes it a pretty good double spell with another cheap creature. It's not bad, but expect this to be a nice aggressive curveout card rather than a token go-wide payoff.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Angelic Ascension is not how you want to be answering your opponent's dangerous threats. A 4/4 angel is pretty close to a must answer threat, so replacing one must answer threat with another doesn't really get you very far. This is honestly going to be very frustrating to lose to, since I think the best mode for this card is to play a one drop, then exile it on turn two and hope your opponent doesn't have an answer to your angel.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I kinda like Revitalize here. That being said I think you want to be wheeling these if you find yourself in the life gain archetype. Gaining three life is important and honestly not the easiest to do in this set, so a card that triggers all your life gain payoffs on its own is valuable.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A All these "Basri's" cards are great. Why wouldn't Basri be great too? You want an assertive deck with a curve that can reliably get a creature out before you cast Basri, but it's really not a big deal. Basri will be powerful even if your deck isn't maximised for it.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Glorious Anthem is one of those cards that your opponent casts and you just know it’s going to be an uphill battle. This will add a lot of stats throughout a normal match and is only really dead if you have no creatures at all. Don’t fill your deck up with cards that don’t effect the board and you will be rewarded.

Pick: 4-7 Shortcut: C- Idol of Endurance is more of a five drop than a three drop. You will basically never cast this on turn three and want at least two creatures exiled to be reasonably happy. I see this is a pretty similar to some effects that Black gets, but unlike the Black cards you won't always be able to get back your best creatures. As far as card advantage goes, this has a pretty high best case scenario, but this isn’t a bomb or anything.

Pick: Nyan Shortcut: F Nine Lives will buy you a couple turns if you manage to cast it at a low enough life without dying unexpectedly first. I don't think this will ever be worth it over any card that more proactively progresses your game plan. After you cast this, it also gives your opponent the power to decide how quickly they want to take your lives, so you don't even get the surprise factor of Instant speed life gain.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There is a minor “4 power matters” theme in M21, but I still wouldn’t feel excited about starting this card in the main deck. I think you most want to play this if it is covering a weakness of your deck, like if you are an aggressive White deck that has no other ways of dealing with your opponent’s one large blocker on turn 5 or so.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Dubbing your two drop and attacking every turn is a pretty fragile game plan. It’s also a gameplan that sometimes just works. If your deck power level is low, adding a high variance card like Dub is sometimes your best option to beat stronger decks before they can get rolling.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I know I just want to slap this on a lifelinker and make a huge monster, but Light of Promise is slow, risky, and conditional.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: B Faith’s Fetters is no joke. The life gain text triggers all the payoffs in M21 and can help buy you a real turn to stabilize if you are getting beaten down. This answers most problematic permanents, including planeswalkers.

Pick: 4-8 Shortcut: C- Secure the Scene is a nice catch-all answer to have, but it will rarely be exciting. In an aggressive deck, clearing out a blocker is awkward because they can still save some life with the 1/1 Soldier. This works best if you are just looking to play the long game and need to answer a wide variety of threats from the opponent.

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scottynada · 4 years

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Core Set 2021 Set Review - Red

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- Goblin Arsonist can actually provide a pretty big roadblock for attackers. This will often be able to trade for a more expensive creature. Even chump blocking with this and killing a one toughness creature on death is very strong. All in all it's still pretty low impact so I wouldn't want too many of these, but I would sideboard in a bunch if I needed to live versus an aggressive deck. If you give this Deathtouch with Alchemist's Gift, the death ping ability will also deal lethal damage to any creature.

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ Chandra's Magmutt is just a really solid two drop. Even if it can no longer attack, it poses a threat to the opponent's life total. I'm pretty happy with this no matter what speed my deck is. It trades off early decently even in a more controlling deck.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Even if your deck is filled with Chandra's Magmutt, Chandra's Pyreling is still awkward to attack with. Without any sources for non-combat damage, this is really on the low-end of desirable two drops.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Having the top of your Library revealed to your opponent is a pretty significant cost. Any combat tricks you have will be face up for your opponent and they can plan combat around your next creature. There aren't many Goblins in this set, and the double R casting cost makes it significantly worse than just a normal 2/2.

Pick: 1-3 Shortcut: B Heartfire Immolator is probably the strongest Red two drop. It is very difficult to block and just having it on the field can shut down certain combat tricks by threatening to pick off smaller creatures in response.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- There really isn't a whole lot that I am happy to sacrifice to Hobblefiend in this set. That being said, this still trades and attacks early and sometimes growing at Instant speed can make combat a little awkward for the opponent.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- Igneous Cur's greatest weakness is that it does not fare well against other creatures in the early game. You basically never want to be spending mana on this to trade with a creature instead of just casting out your hand. Late game this does a decent job of threatening big hits and trading with large threats, but its early game weakness is a big drawback.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Bolt Hound can represent a lot of damage out of nowhere. The best thing to do is find an opportunity to sneak this in for a big hit, then back it up with combat tricks when the opponent leaves more creatures back to defend.

Pick: 1-3 Shortcut: B Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge is at worst a massive flying defender. It's not trivial to attack with this, but it is made a little easier with playable Artifacts like Short Sword. The Treasure tokens created by this have a pretty niche synergy with Havoc Devil in a format where getting sacrifice triggers is otherwise difficult.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Onakke Ogre is unexciting, but if you have some synergies with 4 powered creatures then you can do a lot worse than this. This can also surprise you in how much damage it can deal if your opponent stumbles or you back this up with cheap removal to clear small blockers that would otherwise love to jump in front of this.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B Spellgorger Weird is the anchor of a lot of spell based decks in M21. There are a number of cheap cantrips that will reliably grow this quickly and even creature producing spells like Goblin Wizardry. This can sometimes feel underwhelming against great White aggro decks since sometimes a 2/2 on turn three just doesn't cut it.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Subira, Tulzidi Cavanner is a great on curve threat that just naturally develops into a late game form of reach and card advantage. This card really does it all even if it doesn't seem overwhelmingly powerful.

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ Battle-Rattle Shaman helps your small creatures make attacks that they would otherwise be unable to make. Don't underestimate the ability to move the power bonus around from turn to turn as the game develops and your needs shift. Even though the 2/2 body is small, this will make combat much worse for your foes.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B In the right deck, Kinetic Augur is a huge threat that can also pull you out of mana floods or dig you towards needed answers in tough situations. In the wrong deck, this is a medium sized creatures that still has all the amazing card selection abilities.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- Turret Ogre is usually never too bad. It's a shame that still usually trades down against three drops, but you'll never be too unhappy casting these. Also it has Reach.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Once Brash Taunter hits the battlefield, you are no longer able to attack with ground creatures unless you want to take a load of damage. Flying and Trample still work quite well, but if you don't have those, Brash Taunter can take any stalled board and flip it into a huge clock to fighting your biggest threat without dying.

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ There aren't too many sacrifice synergies for Havoc Jester, but a 5/5 creature for five mana is pretty much good enough. You feel like you are getting away with something when you can go off with sacrifice triggers and maybe even the crazy combo of giving this Deathtouch.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Pitchburn Devils can make combat really annoying given its nice ability to split damage and most likely kill two things. You don't want to prioritize five drops, but if you end up with a couple of these you won't be too unhappy.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Big dragon.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I think Bone Pit Brute gets a little of a bad rap because it doesn't really fit into any deck. If you cast this, it will usually feel like you got your manas worth, but there will usually always be better alternatives.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Chandra's Incinerator is pretty close to 6/6 Trampler with no other text. Sometimes you will be able to play this faster with the help of Chandra's Magmutt. Sometimes you can deal bonus damage to your opponent by landing a burn spell at their face rather than just a creature. Most of the time it's a 6/6.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Hellkite Punisher is big. Your opponent needs to answer it. It's also seven mana and usually decks that want to ramp will be fine with any sort of top end so this isn't too special.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Crash Through has a nice home in this format enabling some sick Prowes decks and enabling evasive attacks from Green decks. You'll be happy to pick a bunch of these up in Blue/Red.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D If your deck is extremely aggressive and you need to close out the game before good creatures are cast, Furor of the Bitten is the card for you. You'll cast this and sometimes your opponent just won't be able to do anything about it.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B Shock is at its best this format. Defensive decks need a fast way to stay alive versus the strong aggro decks of the format. The aggro decks also have snowballing creatures that are important to kill early to disrupt the aggressive gameplan. Aggro decks want this to clear cheap blockers and multi spell efficiently.

Pick: 1-3 Shortcut: B Scorching Dragonfire is probably the best common in the set. Everything applies here about cheap removal like Shock, except this just kills an entirely new layer of threats.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- Sure Strike isn't exciting, but this is the go to tool for aggressive Red decks to cheaply push through large stabilizing blockers. I'm happy to play a handful of these in assertive decks and nowhere else.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- Thrill of Possibilities is getting a better amount of respect these days. It only takes the slightest amount of synergy for this to be a desirable card to smooth out your rough draws in mostly any style of deck. Between draw synergies and Prowess, I would love to pick up a couple of these and just enjoy flooding out less than my opponent.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Combat tricks like Unleashed Fury that don't help you actually win a combat without trading are usually undesirable. It may seem tempting to try and deal massive damage to the opponent with an unblocked creature, but the dream scenario for this is just too unlikely and the most common case for this is just trading two cards for one.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There just isn't enough tokens in M21 to warrant Burn Bright. Sure casting this will provide some amount of damage and trades, but I'm thinking you'd rather have any other combat tricks.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There are a surplus of 'all in' aggressive cards that you don't need to rely on Destructive Tampering since it's one of the worst options. The game state needs to be very specific to win off this and there are no high value Artifacts to hit with this either.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I really want to be drawing three or more cards off of Furious Rise to be excited about it. Even though high powered creatures may seem like they lend themselves to an aggressive deck, this incentivizes you to not trade off your creatures at all. This does suffer in a big

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D The best strategy to draft Shrines is to make sure to identify a Shrine in an early pack that you can potentially wheel, wheel it, and then pass it again because Shrines are bad. It just really isn't worth going for these with the mana inconsistency and the difficulty impacting the board. That being said, Sanctum of Shattered Heights is pretty much the only Shrine that can do something the turn it comes down, making it pretty unique in the lineup of garbage cards.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: B Soul Sear is relatively efficient and can answer a wide variety of threats. It fits into any Red deck, really. Not a ton to note on this.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Volcanic Geyser is extremely inefficient when it comes to removing creatures. You need four mana before you can even think about removing a 2/2 creature. This might be an okay emergency button for an answer in the late game, but don't expect to cast this and get ahead on board. The one saving grave for this is that it has the flexibility of burning the opponent directly. All that combined I think makes a very mediocre card, but sometimes you just need a way to interact.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C+ It's easy to see Goblin Wizards are four mana for 2/2 worth of stats, but in M21, it is easy to trigger Prowess where these little buddies can turn an empty board into a massive hit out of nowhere. This card is key for aggressive Blue/Red builds and can even do good work in spell heavy Red/White decks.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D The fact that Traitorous Greed is an uncommon means that you can't rely on it to build a sacrifice synergy deck in M21. If you happen to find three of these in a draft, sure, build a synergistic sacrifice deck around them, but that won't happen often. Without the sacrifice synergies, this isn't a super appealing card. There are better ways to punch through blockers in this format that relying on this card isn't really what aggressive decks want.

Pick: Scientific Progress Goes "Boink" Shortcut: F The dream with Transmogrify is to answer your opponent's large bomb and turn it into a two drop of something. The problem is that having a card that is good in only one specific situation isn't ideal and may even backfire on you if you turn the creature into just another problematic threat. Don't look at this card as removal.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A I've discarded my full hand before with Chandra, Heart of Fire. So. Don't do that.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C Double Vision has a potent ability, but the challenge is taking an entire turn off to cast this with five mana. This triggers on both your turn and your opponent's turn, so you can leverage this a bit better with Instants. If you have a Double Vision deck, make sure it has enough cheap removal so you don't fall too far behind.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C+ Turn to Slag, like other expensive removal, works best if you have a low curve to clear out a large blocker and keep up pressure. I can see this working well in tandem with Prowess creatures to get in large swings of life on your fifth turn. The only equipment that matters for this card is probably Malefic Scythe. There are some large threats that this isn't able to kill, so don't expect this to be your catch-all removal in a lower controlling deck.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Fiery Emancipation doesn't have an "enter the battlefield" ability, but it does have an immediate board impact since you can play this and just attack. Triple damage is nothing to sneeze at even though this card kind of reads like a joke. Every single one of your creatures will be relevant again after you cast this, and your opponent just can't afford to take many attacks. If you have this in your deck, you are a little more incentivized to not trade off your creatures so you can improve on them later.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: B It isn't difficult to cast Volcanic Salvo on the cheap. The only requirement is having creatures. The impact when you do cast this card is pretty massive. Killing your opponent's two best creatures will often times just win you the game. The only reason this isn't a bomb is that there is a fail case where you are under a lot of pressure from early creatures and are forced to trade off your board. At that point this card is literally uncastable.

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