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A Complete Review of TormentFlying, first strike ==> FUN: 3 Fun for an angel theme deck, but otherwise nothing special. White already has plenty of big flyers and first strike makes it a good blocker, but who wants to block with a 5/5 flyer when you could be attacking with it? Also, she's too expensive to dethrone Serra Angel as the angel of choice. -- Aven Trooper C, Creature - Bird Soldier, 3W, 1/1 Flying 2W, Discard a card from your hand: Aven Trooper gets +1/+2 until end of turn. ==> FUN: 1 This guy is either seriously bad or the spoilers are wrong. At least Carrier Pigeons from Alliances were a cantrip and they were pretty bad. Sure, Aven Trooper is pumpable, but it's expensive and costs a card. -- Cleansing Meditation U, Sorcery, 1WW Destroy all enchantments. Threshold - Instead destroy all enchantments, then return to play all cards in your graveyard destroyed this way. ==> FUN: 4 I've seen this rumored as an instant as well. Either way, though, this is too much a copy of Tranquility for my tastes, which should be green's territory. The threshold ability looks like it has possibilities, though. Draw a second card from your Frog Tongue, reset the cumulative upkeep on your Ancestral Knowledge, move your Pacifism to a bigger threat or just gain some life from your Scrapheap. -- Equal Treatment U, Instant, 1W If any source would deal 1 or more damage to a creature or player this turn, it deals 2 damage to that creature or player instead. Draw a card. ==> FUN: 5 At first glance, this looks like just another damage prevention card for white, but looks can be deceiving. Not only can it save a creature from direct damage in the right circumstances, it also protects against a kicked Urza's Rage, tones down the destructiveness potential of a big Earthquake, can double the effectiveness of cards like Simoon and Arc Lightning and can be a winning surprise in creature combat. If you have four 1/3s and your opponent attacks with four 2/2s, pumped to 4/2s because of a Trumpet Blast, a single Equal Treatment will allow you to block and kill all of your opponent's creatures and yours will survive. And on top of all that, it's a cantrip. What's not to like? -- Floating Shield C, Enchant Creature , 2W As Floating Shield comes into play, choose a color. Enchanted creature has protection from the chosen color. This effect doesn't remove Floating Shield. Sacrifice Floating Shield: Target creature gains protection from the chosen color until end of turn. ==> FUN: 2 Protection can be useful, but not useful enough to be on a creature enchantment by itself. Cho-Manno's Blessing is a much better version, because it can be played as an instant and thus counter creature removal. Floating Shield just won't be a surprise once it's in play. -- Frantic Purification C, Instant , 2W Destroy target enchantment. Madness W ==> FUN: 3 The madness mechanic means that whenever you discard the card, for whatever reason, you may play it at that time by paying its madness cost. At the moment it's unclear exactly how it will work rules-wise, but what is clear is that you better shelve your discard decks for a while. Frantic Purification is pretty bad when you compare it to Disenchant and even for the madness cost it's still worse than Erase. Still, just the fact that it has madness makes up for a lot, especially if you're playing cards like Tolarian Winds, which replace discarded cards with new ones. Instant card advantage. -- Hypochondria U, Enchantment , 1W W, Discard a card from your hand: Prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn. W, Sacrifice Hypochondria: Prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn. ==> FUN: 2 A useful card in combat situations, but not all that remarkable. Healing Salve works better as a surprise. -- Major Teroh R, Creature - Bird Soldier Legend, 3W, 2/3 Flying 3WW, Sacrifice Major Teroh: Remove all black creatures from the game. ==> FUN: 2 If you've read my previous set reviews, you'll know I hate rares which are really just color or strategy hosers. Major Teroh looks like a strong anti-black card, but against other colors or creatureless decks, it's nothing but a vanilla 2/3 flyer. Now, if there was also a Major Horet that read: "3WW, Sacrifice Major Horet: Return all creatures removed from the game by Major Toreh to play." That would make this a much more interesting card. Major Teroh may have some promise with cards like Shifting Sky or Darkest Hour. -- Militant Monk C, Creature - Cleric, 1WW, 2/1 Attacking doesn't cause Militant Monk to tap. T: Prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn. ==> FUN: 3 Just soak up the synergy here: a 2/1, not too expensive at 3 mana, which doesn't tap to attack and has a useful tap ability. Damage prevention creatures usually have to be held in defense so they can help your other creatures, but this guy can do both. It's like an extra toughness you can give to any creature which happens to need it and you don't have to plan ahead for it. -- Morningtide R, Sorcery , 1W Remove all cards in all graveyards from the game. ==> FUN: 1 A rare strategy hoser. Oh joy. Usually I'd rather have Tormod's Crypt, but Morningtide could do well in multiplayer if several opponents are relying on flashback or threshold cards. Plus, it'll help empty your graveyard for Gorilla Titan. Morningtide will probably be seen in a lot of type 2 sideboards. -- Mystic Familiar C, Creature - Bird, 1W, 1/2 Flying Threshold - Mystic Familiar gets +1/+1 and has protection from black. ==> FUN: 3 Because the flying is intrinsic, rather than threshold-activated, Mystic Familiar is a useful creature even before threshold kicks in. This is especially important because threshold isn't very easy to attain, unless you build your deck around it with cards like Tolarian Winds. And if you're going to build a threshold deck, you might as well play green instead, because it has much bigger and better threshold creatures. -- Pay No Heed C, Instant , W Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn. ==> FUN: 3 A good card against red decks, because it counters any direct damage spell and is especially useful against Earthquake and Pyroclasm. Pay No Heed can also come in handy in creature battles as a Healing Salve-type card, but in those situations it's usually better to have an extra creature instead. Pay No Heed is an interesting concept for a damage prevention card, because it focuses on the source of the damage, rather than on the target of the damage. -- Possessed Nomad R, Creature - Nomad Horror, 2WW, 3/3 Attacking doesn't cause Possessed Nomad to tap. Threshold - Possessed Nomad gets +1/+1, is black, and has "2B, T: Destroy target white creature." ==> FUN: 3 By itself, a 3/3 for 4 mana is pretty good for white, especially with an extra ability and a nice threshold as well. It's actually a little bit too nice for white, not to mention that it's a vanilla rare with a minor color-hosing ability. -- Reborn Hero R, Creature - Soldier, 2W, 2/2 Attacking doesn't cause Reborn Hero to tap. Threshold - When Reborn Hero is put into a graveyard from play, you may pay WW. If you do, return Reborn Hero to play under your control. ==> FUN: 4 The rebirth ability is a bit too hard to pull off reliably. Not only do you need to have threshold at the time Reborn Hero dies, you also need WW open. Still, any creature that doesn't stay dead has potential. You could even use it in a combo deck. Sacrifice Reborn Hero to an Ashnod's Altar, wash the 2 colorless mana to white with a Skyshroud Elf and you can return Reborn Hero to play as often as you like. With a Soul Warden in play, you'll get as much life as you want and with a Fecundity you get as many cards as you can handle. -- Spirit Flare C, Instant , 3W Tap target untapped creature you control. If you do, it deals damage equal to its power to target attacking or blocking creature an opponent controls. Flashback-1W, Pay 3 life. ==> FUN: 2 Too expensive. If you have a big untapped creature, you can usually just block with it for a similar effect. -- Stern Judge U, Creature - Cleric, 2W, 2/2 T: Each player loses 1 life for each swamp he or she controls. ==> FUN: 2 Karma with legs. Except that Stern Judge is a creature and thus a lot more fragile. Your opponent has a full turn to get rid of it before it starts to hurt him and black has plenty of removal available. -- Strength of Isolation U, Enchant Creature , 1W Enchanted creature gets +1/+2 and has protection from black. Madness W ==> FUN: 3 A Holy Strength with protection from black thrown in for one extra mana. As creature enchantments go, that's not good enough to cut it. Strength of Isolation could make it in a madness deck, though. -- Teroh's Faithful C, Creature - Cleric, 3W, 1/4 When Teroh's Faithful comes into play, you gain 4 life. ==> FUN: 4 Teroh's Faithful isn't an especially strong card, but I'm very fond of creatures with lifegain abilities, like Radiant's Dragoons and Staunch Defenders. Teroh's Faithful lacks a bit in the power department in comparison, but it's splashable and doesn't have a drawback like echo. -- Teroh's Vanguard U, Creature - Nomad, 3W, 2/3 You may play Teroh's Vanguard any time you could play an instant. Threshold - When Teroh's Vanguard comes into play, creatures you control gain protection from black until end of turn. ==> FUN: 3 I like insta-creatures a lot, but this one pales compared to Beast Attack, Elephant Ambush and Simian Grunts. I even prefer Benalish Lancer over this because it's cheaper and the first strike helps it survive. Teroh's Vanguard's threshold ability doesn't really elevate it to greatness either. Good against Crypt Rats, though. -- Transcendence R, Enchantment , 3WWW You don't lose the game for having 0 or less life. When you have 20 or more life, you lose the game. Whenever you lose life, you gain 2 life for each 1 life you lost. ==> FUN: 3 It's an interesting concept. Instead of counting down to 0, you count up to 20. The wording on Transcendence is very unintuitive, but apparently wording like this is necessary to prevent loopholes. I'm not that crazy about the resulting card, mostly because it seems too gimmicky. Sure, you're doing something very strange to your lifetotals, but the effect is very similar to "Your life becomes 20-X, where X equals your current life total." The only real difference is that you can Disenchant Transcendence for a reversed effect. Could be fun in an Academy Rector deck. -- Vengeful Dreams R, Instant , WW As an additional cost to play Vengeful Dreams, discard X cards from your hand. Remove X target attacking creatures from the game. ==> FUN: 4 A cheap way to permanently get rid of a couple of annoying Spiritmongers or Shadowmage Infiltrators (Finkels). Perfect in a madness/flashback deck so you can put those discarded cards to good use. It's not as good as it may seem at first, though. It'll cost you two cards to get rid of just one creature and once your opponent knows you're playing Vengeful Dreams, he'll be careful not to attack with too many creatures at the same time. I can already see myself topdecking one of these when my hand is empty and wishing it was a Wrath or a Second Thoughts instead.
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