#edhatoz

[edh-a-to-z]

Back at it

After a few years of taking a break, happy to come back to MTG blogging.

got plenty of dumb ideas of things to do alphabetically.

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Theros Beyond Death - Top 5 Black Cards

In almost every set, I am disappointed by White and Red, the colors least conducive to doing well in EDH. Luckily, there’s always black.

Combo pieces, removal, and reanimation. Always fun toys here.

 5) Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Grade: C+

Home: Combo Reanimation, Devotion

Range: Narrow

You know him, you love him, it’s Gary!

Bad case scenario is that you’re playing against 4 other players, you shock everyone with only Gary’s Devotion, and gain 8 life. From there, more devotion, and some monoblack reanimation combo aside some infinite mana combo, Nim Deathmantle, Ashnod’s Altar and the like.

4) Nightmare Shepard

Grade: C

Home: ETB Decks, Death Trigger Decks, Sac decks

Range: Narrow

A decent flying body, with a novel ability of token reanimation of a sort. Nightmare has some nominal tribal support (sorta but not really). Not sure how to break this, but extra bodies and abilities never hurt.

3) Gravebreaker Lamia

Grade: C

Home: Reanimator Deck

Range: Narrow

I love playing out of the yard, especially if I can get things cheaper. Flashback spells being cheaper is a start, and if we can play this cheap to, like Entomb to Reanimate, then being able to Entomb another thing. Lifelink on a medium sized body is also nice.

2) Drag to the Underworld

Grade: B+

Home: Black Decks with few colors

Range: Very Wide

Ideally, this is a cheap Murder. Black is always coming with a new 2 CMC removal with restrictions, and this is more of the same. Instead of being limited to creature types to target, limited cost type is interesting. Given how easy it is to activate even in multicolored decks, it’s a great option for any deck looking for another removal.

1) Erebos’s Intervention

Grade: B+

Home: Any Black Deck

Range: Wide

Spot removal that can blow past indestructible with nice lifegain, and some amazing GY hate - being able to single out specific cards across multiple graveyards, with an “up to” clause? Fantastic! And all at instant speed. 

Honorable mentions

Underworld Dreams - I was contemplating this and Gary as the number five as a reprint and combo piece, but since I like Gary more, I went with that. Assuming you can get an infinite draw, this can be a good instant kill option.

Woe Strider - I look at this as a bigger and nastier Blood Artist. Coming in bigger, able to come back, and bringing sac fodder. Definitely not a replacement, but a worthy comparison

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Theros Beyond Death - Top 5 White Cards

Welcome back folks to EDH, A to Z. We’re looking at the...I gotta say disappointing...white cards of Theros Beyond Death. 

Most of these are decent, but aside from the top choice, there’s nothing here I view as must have.

5) Archon of Sun’s Grace

Grade: C

Home: Enchanment Deck, Permanent Blink Deck

Range: Narrow

Pegasus tokens have an odd relation with lifelink, like with Storm Herd, a nice clunky card for Big Life decks. A 3/4 LL Flyer is solid, and the Lifelink anthem affect is self supporting. The potential to make a small army of Pegasi through conventional play, or a massive army with a dedicated blinky deck, is also a fun potential.

4) Transcendent Envoy

Grade: C-

Home: Voltron, Enchantment Decks

Range: Average

Discount cards, especially ones at such a low CMC, really help things snowball. Even better, it can be the target for what it enables, so a Voltron deck can really work with this

3) Banishing Light 

Grade: C+

Home: Any White Deck

Range: Very Wide

I love a O-Ring effect, and Banishing Light has been one of my EDH go-tos ever since Nyx. A catchall removal, even at sorcery speed, is worth 3 mana for - Unconditional removal that can deal with indestructible or otherwise hard to kill creatures is excellent.

2) Shatter the Sky

Grade: C+

Home: Control Decks, Board Wipe Decks

Range: Narrow

4 CMC wraths rarely get added to EDH these days, so every Shatter the Sky we get makes Fumigate and the typical standard legal 5 CMC wiper look like trash. The last board wipe I really liked was Wings of Abandon, and that was in Modern Horizons at 6 CMC.

1) Idyllic Tutor

Grade: A-

Home: Any Deck with Enchantments

Range: Wide

Since most every EDH deck packs enchantments for removal, utility, value, or win-con, Idyllic Tutor is an old friend we haven’t seen since Morningtide. A great reprint of an EDH beloved card that sees moderate usage but a two digit price is very welcome.

Highly recommend of buying a single when you can.

Honorable Mentions:

My fave cards that don’t quite cut it.

Eidolon of Obstruction -  A super niche card, but it can really annoy a superfriend player’s day. With good stats and a creature type for a 2 drop, it’s fairly solid - but in a format like EDH where mana

Elspeth Conquer’s Death - Dear heavens, this card is clunky and slow, but I love every step of it. Hard exile removal which can hit a lot of problem creatures is great. Messing with your opponents ability to spellcast is also nice, but niche. Resurrection with a buff is also nice, but your opponent had several turns to deal with the Saga or use GY hate. It’s like White getting The Eldest Reborn, but not nearly as good.

The Birth of Meletis -  A great card for a Control deck to have. It gets you land (fixing mana with Dual lands in Multicolor Decks), it has some early defense, and a touch of lifegain. It’s like a more specific Angelic Wall.

Sentinel’s Eyes - A very cheap, recursive-capable Aura has some potential

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Theros Beyond Death - Top 5 Blue Cards

Hi Folks, back at it again with my favorite five blue Theros Beyond Death cards. This list is highly subjective, and I’d love to hear your picks for your favorite blue cards of this set. Have any fun plays in Arena? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

5) Stern Dismissal

Grade: C-

Home: Spellslinger Decks

Range: Narrow

Finally, after all these years - a strictly better Unsummon! Since Unsummon is always at the verge of being played, and I think this pushes that type of card to playable. Blue has occasional problems with Enchantments, and the ability to deal with them, albeit temporarily, feels like a nice extra bit of functionality.

4) Thassa’s Intervention

Grade: C

Home: Blue Utility Cards

Range: Very Wide

Options are great, especially on Counterspells with “Cost Extra” which can end up dead in later turns. This insulates from that since the cost is pretty hefty, making it a spell I don’t mind playing at 4 or 5, which I hate doing for Counterspells. Digging for cards at instant speed and usually drawing the best two is a great fallback, especially at instant.

3) Thassa’s Oracle

Grade: B-

Home: Lab Man Deck

Range: Very Narrow

Alt Win-Cons can always be abused, and this can be redundancy for Lab Man decks. That alone gets a mention on the list.

Aside from that, the digging is rather tame.

2) Nadir Kraken

Grade: C+

Home: Kraken Tribal, Literally any Blue Deck, Draw-Go, Sac Fodder

Range: Narrow

Hello, annoying creature. Assuming you just keep paying, netting a decent sized kraken and an army of chump blockers is chief and efficient. Being able to do this at least once a round is nice. It’s also odd for other players to try to justify to themselves using single target removal on such a creature - it’s slow to become a threat, doesn’t have evasion, leave it for others to deal with.

1) Kiora Bests the Sea God

Grade: C+

Home: Steal Decks, Sacrifice Decks

Range: Narrow

Casting anything over 4 mana, especially when you get to 6+ CMC, always feels riskier thanks to the prevelence of counterspells in a multiplayer game. But sometimes, a card is so splashy you make an exception for it.

A hexproof 8/8 Kraken to start is great. That brings up all kinds of shenanigans for recursion and Flickering, like Sentinel of the Pearl Trident or Venser the Sojourner. 

The hard tapdown effect and stealing effects as well? Just gravy. Sure, it targets a player (not scaling well to Multiplayer), but opening up one player to get ganked by the table is a great idea. A finale of stealing the best permanent on the board makes this a godly card in a battlecruiser game.

More so than White, Blue has some great cards at all rarities - here are a solid bunch I felt worth mentioning.

Honorable mentions - 

Wavebreak Hippocamp, Stinging Lionfish, Naiad of Hidden Coves - A lot of decks like playing on other turns anyway, and Draw-Go can get some utility out of these. The fact that they’re all enchantment has some potential synergy with White tutoring or Constellation, but that’s just ambient synergy - I don’t see a build-around.

Sphinx Mindbreaker - Scales fairly into EDH, and flickering it like crazy is a good way to end a Mill game. 

Serpent of Yawning Depths - For all your Kraken needs! Kraken and Co support is rather rare, and for a casual Whelming Wave style decks, this can do some work

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Throne of Eldraine - Black

Sorry about the slow post - I left the draft for this open (alongside other work I had for MTG) and lost like 3 hours of work when it wouldn’t save. Oof.

Clackbridge Troll

Grade: C

Home: BBC (Big Black Creatures)

Range: Narrow

I typically view cards that let opponents tap down your creatures, or give your opponents things, or allows them to have choices, rather negatively. Clackbridge here has enough abilities and sheer power to muscle through value.

Most fun making some diplomatic scenarios - seeing if someone will sac something to save a player from dying. It makes it fun to ponder what fun can happen.

Compare with Boldwyr Heavyweight, another fun not-quite hug card.

It can also work well defensively in a pinch, played in the second main phase as a 5 mana 8/8 blocker, which is tolerable.

I also like following him up with a low to mid level sweeper, like Pyroclasm or Languish, to remove other players options to sacrifice, so even if they want to do so, they’re gonna have to lose something that matters.

Murderous Rider

Grade: A

Home: Any Deck. Really.

Range: Very Wide

IMO, the best card in the set.

Hero’s Downfall for 2 more life is worth it every day of the week, and it doesn’t lose a card slot in just being removal. The 2/3 lifelink body is underwhelming, but its bottom deck ability has some interesting possibilities with Divining Witch - Laboratory Maniac plays.

At the end of the day, I wish I could survive a non-aggro game in MTGA without getting ganked and stonewalled by this dude. Thems the breaks

- Me, playing Piper of the Swarm

Grade: A-

Home: Sac Synergy, Rat Tribal, Most Black Decks

Range: Average

This card goes to work.

In Rat (or changeling) tribal, it can quickly get to work in stealing the best creatures on the board. Sure, it can die really easy (not passing the Bolt test even) but since a lot of removal in EDH is unconditional or otherwise really good, then this guy is eating removal that would otherwise hit more important creatures you’re running.

Menace is a decent buff as well, especially if you’re running Ink-Eyes that can really benefit from it.

Even with zero support, it’s a decent growing threat to drop early and dump mana into.

Taste of Death

Grade: C+

Home: Most Black Decks as Board wipe

Range: Average

Scaling to EDH really makes it worthwhile - sure, WOTC stuck it into the Brawl deck, but if this is what we get, I’ll take that every day.

Going three creatures goes deep - unless I’m running tokens or a wide board, I may only have a single creature I feel like losing. The fact that this doesn’t care about targeting at all, and gets around every conventional form of protection makes it even more amazing.

A trio of food offers some nice life, or artifacts, or Food synergy. Makes a nice gift to stabilize with.

Witch’s Vengeance

Grade: C-

Home: -X Removal Usage?

Range: Narrow

I debated having this on the honorable mentions list, as it’s more niche than it could be.

Hitting one creature types makes it attractive against tribal decks - unless they’re packing lords (like Elves or Merfolk) or are too big to be affected (Angels, Dragons, Giants). 

I feel it better hits vocation style, like aiming for Advisors, Druids, or Clerics, and view this as -X removal, killing one target, and getting additional kills by happenstance. 

Blacklance Paragon - I view this as a Black kill spell with limitations - like Doom Blade, a conditional piece of removal, hitting attacking creatures that can be blocked by Black creatures and aren’t indestructible. 

Order of Midnight - I like playing Gravedigger in a lot of decks. Splitting the effect from the creature is an interesting choice - I lose out on ETB abuse for an easier to use piecemeal creature.

The Cauldron of Eternity - The replacement effect of messing with your graveyard is a deal breaker for me - what’s the point in doing a GY deck if you’re not restocking it? 

Chitterling Witch - It scales, but it’s a weak scaling. Removal is okay, but I think Phyrexian Plaguelord is a better go-to.

Specter’s Shriek - Nice for those control sadists who run a Thoughtsieze type package - for the same cost and speed, there’s way less restrictions on what can be 

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MTG Game Night 2019

 Still working on reviewing Eldraine. Probably will be done by the time we get to the next set. 

Keep in mind last year’s Game Night, of which none made appearances in my EDH meta, nor saw a lot of mention or usage at large. Of the five mythics, only Rot Hulk was particularly notable.

Highcliff Felidar

Grade: B

Home: Any White Deck

Range: Average

One of the better ETBs of the Game Night 2019 creatures. Removal that hits the biggest creature they run and scales with Multiplayer helps, and unlike most white removal, it doesn’t have a downside like them getting land or gaining life.

More importantly, you get to choose. No targeting. Sure, it won’t get shrouded indestructible creatures, but it’ll get the shrouded ones! Since it doesn’t target players either, good luck protecting against this!

Biggest downside is it’s prohibitive cost. It’s a phenomenal Resurrection target, and a 5/5 Vigilance is very attractive.

Sphinx of Enlightenment

Grade: C

Home: Any Blue Deck

Range: Wide

Drawing three is typically worth four mana, like Concentrate at Sorc speed. Adding on a 2 Mana 5/5 Sphinx flyer with some 1 card for an opponent is pretty solid. Straightforward and boring.

Like the Felidar above, it’s a good rez target, like most fatties with useful ETBs.

Calculating Lich

Grade: D+

Home: Token Aggro Deck

Range: Narrow

While this can synergize to multiplayer, given that A LOT of turns in EDH have either no creatures attacking, or few (Voltron) creatures attacking, or a game ending army hitting hard, there’s actually a smaller role for this than I initially thought.

Unlike Fiendish Duo below, this relies on mass attacks of creatures, hopefully attacking on multiple turns - it feels more attuned to Conspiracy multiplayer than EDH. 

I believe that when planning for EDH decks that will have effects that relate to opponents, like cloning effects, that can do well, can also have scenarios where they whiff. In my opinion, it’s best to build your deck to exploit those effect, and then 

Fiendish Duo

Grade: B-

Home: Damage Decks, Multiplayer decks

Range: Average

Carrying a Furnace of Rath that doesn’t hit you is pretty nice. Most Red damage doublers have to either be under your control, or just deal double damage to everyone. These double damage decks want to land more than one, so that the humble Lighting Bolt goes from 3, to 6, to 12 or more damage. Hitting anyone that’s not you for double makes it attractive for other players to exploit as well.

The baseline body is also nice, a 5/5 First Striker at 6 mana is excellent on defense as well as on offense. Notable it doesn’t double damage to permanents, so that’s reasonable if underwhelming.

Earthshaker Giant

Grade: C

Home: Ramp, 1v1 Decks

Range: Narrow

Unlike the others, this scales the worst in multiplayer - it’s a helluva buff, but it’s only hitting your creatures, and unlike similarly styled creatures like End-Raze Forerunner, which has Haste itself for swinging.

It feels the most boring of the batch, and becomes a Colossal Dreadmaw after it’s ETB.

That said, it’s a solid option. It grants buffs and evasions and requires hard removal to scour from the battlefield.

That’s my quick take on these fun creatures. IMO, there’s better fatties in each color available now, and easily so - 

For White I’d recommend Angel of Serenity or Sun Titan. 

For Blue I’d recommend Inspired Sphinx or Torrential Gearhulk.

For Black I’d recommend Noxious Gearhulk or Soul of Innistrad.

For Red I’d recommend Moonveil Dragon (for go-wide decks) or Utvara Hellkite (for dragon heavy decks)

For Green I’d recommend Avenger of Zendikar or Giant Adephage.

And for any color, I always recommend Wurmcoil Engine Soul of New Phyrexia for commanders on a budget.

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Throne of Eldraine - White

Been a while, but Eldraine has been...inspiring. The full set got dropped, and I’m pumped.

I love Disney, and the fairy tales their based off of. I’ve hopped into Magic Arena, so feels like the right time to blog again.

Eldraine doesn’t seem overpowered, and has far more that I hoped for for EDH.

Check out my Top 5 picks, and some honorable mentions. Let me know what you think. 

Top 5

All that Glitters

Grade: B-

Home: Voltron

Range: Narrow

For Enchantment based Voltron Decks, this is pretty great. Like Ancestral Mask this can snowball really well.

It’s a straightforward and elegant spell, and feels as balanced as can be hoped for - until you’re on the receiving side.

Giant Killer

Grade: B

Home: Any Deck, really

Range: Wide

Feels like Intrepid Hero’s cousin. I like Smite the Monstrous effects, and a tapper attached to that for W is fine - Fan Bearer is a decent creature in a pinch.

Harmonious Archon

Grade: B+

Home: Counters/Anthems/Buffs, Control Oriented Decks, Token Deck, Archon Tribal?

Range: Average

Effecting Base Power has always been interesting to me.

Playing this alone is 10/11 PT, some of which has flying, over three bodies, for 4WW, which is EDH playable on it’s own in my book. Given the large average creature size in the format, reducing base power to 3/3 is quite a damper on things. 

Buffing a potential army of 1/1 Saprolings, Humans, Soldiers, Goblins, or other tokens you have is also potent, functionally acting as a +2/+2 aura for them - like Dicate of Heliod!

Changelings and Archons won’t be affected, so there’s also some synergy with other archons, Blazing Archon and Silent Sentinel have seen some niche play in my group, so letting them stay big is nice.

Realm Cloaked Giant

Grade: B

Home: Board Wipe Indestructible, Giant Tribal

Range: Average

Giant tribal doesn’t get much love.

If you’re playing a big tribe like Giants, board wipes hurt a lot. So being able to slam down some sweepers that’s one sided feels pretty dope. While multiple copies are synergistic in Standard, we’ll have to settle for not killing our own dudes.

For the board wipes deck, it’s a sub-par board wipe, but offering a big body offsets that.

The Circle of Loyalty

Grade: B+

Home: Token Deck, Knight Tribal

Range: Narrow

This has it all. Legendary Synergy, token production, Tribal Buff, and Tribal discount. Being as cheap as WW is pretty great.

I’m a sucker for big flashy spells, and this is phenomenally fun to look at. A big buff, tons of Knight creation, all of it makes a Legendary Knight deck a serious subtheme option. Even as a 6 or 4 drop it’s very attractive. Sure, it’s a priority target for Shatter’ing things, but what big artifact isn’t? EDH lets you bring out the big toys - embrace it and make an army of knights.

Honorable Mentions

Archon of Absolution - It’s no Windborn Muse, but it’s another annoying defensive card.

Charming Prince - None of these modes are overwhelmingly interesting, but they’re nice, especially the slow blink.

Deafening Silence - there’s some serious utility as an Anti-Combo Control card, as well as players who wanna force others to play battlecruiser magic

Happily Ever After - every alt win con is inherently interesting, and the hoops to jump through here make it very fair. A great name for a fun card.

Hushbringer - Yet another control loving card, this will probably replace Hushwing Gryff in a lot of my decks.

Mace of the Valiant - Better in a token deck. Given the iffy time I had playing it in MTG Arena’s Brawl pre-con, I think the hoops to jump through as too much.

Silverwing Squadron - Scaling is always appreciated in EDH. While I’ve never likes “P/T equal to number of creatures you control” the Flying and Vigilance work well together, and dropping, say, three Knight tokens a swing, goes a long way to fixing that.

Worthy Knight - The low CMC knight enabler that makes plenty of “squires” for a knight army.

Youthful Knight - Honorable mention for giving me flashbacks to the XBOX game Magic BattleGrounds. YOUTHFUL KNIGHT YOUTHFUL KNIGHT

See you soon campers with more Eldraine.

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Throne of Eldraine - Blue

Top 3

While I normally have a top 5, I felt only these three were really EDH worthy. Plenty of cards are worth an honorable mention, but I felt the following are a cut above the rest.

Faerie Formation

Grade: C

Home: Token Deck, Faerie Tribal Decks

Range: Wide

A 5 mana 5/4 flyer is good, especially for a tribe that rarely gets that big - only Oona compares in P/T and cost. Making extra Faeries and drawing a card for 3U is nice as well.

The card is straightforward and usable in a lot of decks. Disappointing it’s only available from the Brawl precons.

Mirrormade

Grade: C

Home: Clone Decks, Artifact Decks

Range: Narrow

Ideally you want your own things to copy, like a Sword of X and Y or Propaganda  but what I really want to do is copy an even better card one of my opponents brought to the table that I need in the moment. 

Functionally acts as a duplicate for a lot of noncreature permanents that can’t be traditionally cloned in a singleton format allows significant versatility I haven’t seen before. 

The Magic Mirror

Grade: C

Home: Spellslinger Decks, Combo Decks

Range: Narrow

Potentially as cheap as UUU, this rolls together some massive draw potential with the utility of Spellbook (what every draw heavy player needs).

Synergizes easily into spellflinger decks, as it likes instants and sorceries in the graveyard. Also a good choice for artifact reanimation - another reason to play Argivian Restoration!

Drawing one, two, three, four, and so on cards makes it magnet for removal, so be prepared. A backup of a Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel helps if you get heavy handed.

Honorable Mentions

Animating Faerie - As the first Adventure card I was exposed to, I have a soft spot for this. Getting a 4/4 on turn 2 is still pretty good for EDH, especially if it’s a Mana rock or small utility Artifact - or that Sol Ring you landed early. Casting both sides is ultimately a 6/6 for 6 over two turns, some of which have flying.

Faerie is a relevant tribe as well, so this makes even better.

Brazen Borrower - There’s yakking back and forth whether this is a good mythic or not. Regardless, it’s an efficient card, and it looks to be a good workhorse.

Fae of Wishes - I love a good wish card, but I also find that it slows everything down. Being repeatable is nice for a big casual game, 

Folio of Fancies - Circular draw is fair, and milling that doesn’t hit you is great - if someone feels like drawing heavily into their deck, this may give them pause.

Frogify - Shutdown. Doesn’t always work, but monoblue could always use some more removal, even if it is soft.

Hypnotic Sprite - I’m not jazzed about the limitations of a counterspell, but being a counterspell + body makes it more attractive.

Into the Story - Draw 4 for 4 at instant Speed! Technically there’s another requirement, but 7 cards in any other players graveyard? Easy pickings in EDH, especially in a mill deck, discard deck, or against GY decks.

Midnight Clock - It’s just a rock until Cinderella’s Clock strikes 12, and then the spell ends! Hitting yourself with a Timetwister effect has always been powerful, but I think this is pretty slow, even with payments over time.

Shimmer Dragon - decent big blue creature in an artifact deck with lots of synergy.

Vantress Gargoyle - sure, it has limitations, but it’s still really big for a 2 drop, and it has flying.