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A Complete Review of Judgment (blue)Flying When ~this~ comes into play, return target land to its owner's hand. I cover the land with blankets and it sleeps. ==> FUN: 4 Aven Fogbringer is the same cost and has the same ability as Glowing Anemone. However, instead of a boring 1/3, this is a 2/1 flying creature, which gives it more potential. It's still not all that strong, but bouncing your opponent's lands can be very annoying in the right deck, especially if you have a Warped Devotion in play. -- 35. Cephalid Constable R, 1UU Creature - Wizard 1/1 Whenever ~this~ deals combat damage to a player, return up to X target permanents that player controls to their owner's hand, where X is the damage dealt to that player. Cephalid don't police people. They police loyalties. ==> FUN: 4 Anyone who has been the victim of a Capsize lock knows that reusable bounce can get very annoying very quickly. Cephalid Constable isn't all that strong by itself, though. Most decks will be able to kill or block it with no problem, even getting card advantage if they're using Fire/Ice or Arc Lightning. Cephalid Constable is just begging for a good creature enchantment that gives it evasion and/or increases its power. Zephid's Embrace jumps out as a card that does both, but you really want counter-backup when you cast it, so something cheaper would be better. Something like Unstable Mutation. Sure, it'll kill your Constable eventually, but if you can get it through for the damage the first time, you can bounce all potential blockers and enough land to stop your opponent from casting them again. You'll only do ten damage in total if all your attacks go through, but your opponent will be left with few, if any, permanents, giving you plenty of time to win. -- 36. Cephalid Inkshrouder U, 2U Creature - Cephalid 2/1 Discard a card from your hand: ~this~ can't be the target of spells and is unblockable until end of turn. Cephalids shrink from the harsh glare of scrutiny. ==> FUN: 3 Before Odyssey, Cephalid Inkshrouder would have been a pretty bad card. Discarding a card used to be a very high price to pay, even for two nice abilities like untargetable and unblockable. Especially only on a 2/1. Now, however, with cheap flashback costs, madness and the incarnations, discarding is becoming a lot more profitable, especially if there are no additional costs attached to it. -- 37. Cunning Wish R, 2U Instant Choose an instant you own from outside the game, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Remove ~this~ from the game. He wished for knowledge, but not for the will to apply it. ==> FUN: 4 Cunning Wish is at least cheaper than Golden Wish, but it's also a lot narrower. Still, it allows you to get a Plagiarize in response to your opponent's Stroke of Genius, A Quash if you want to get rid of all of your opponent's copies of a spell or even an Evacuation if you're facing a weenie swarm. These wishes certainly reward knowing your collection and what each card does by heart. Note that Cunning Wish offers a nice opportunity for a challenge game: play a normal 60 card deck that wins by using Battle of Wits. All you need is Mirari to duplicate your Cunning Wish, so you can actually increase the number of cards in your deck by one every time you cast it. Make sure you have a way of getting these cards into your library and voila, you've done the impossible! Of course, it'll take a while to do it, but who cares! Besides your opponents, that is... -- 38. Defy Gravity U, U Instant Target creature gains flying until end of turn. Flashback: U Magical or not, it is still a cloud. ==> FUN: 2 Two Jumps in one card. Fun if you're going clay pigeon shooting (give one of your opponent's creatures flying and use something like Grapeshot Catapult to kill it), but otherwise boring. -- 39. Envelop C, U Instant Counter target sorcery spell. "What you made will be unmade. What you learned will be unlearned. And when you are done, you will be undone." - Ambassador Laquatus ==> FUN: 2 An Annul for sorceries. A pretty good sideboard choice, considering sorceries are usually big, sweeping spells that can swing the game in the caster's favor (Wrath of God, Armageddon, Overrun the wishes etc.) Splashable counterspells are always worth a second look. Envelop isn't something I'd play in a deck, though. It's too situational for that and in casual play one mana for Envelop or two mana for Counterspell rarely makes a difference. -- 40. Flash of Insight U, X1U Instant Look at the top X cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library. Flashback: 1U, remove X blue cards in your graveyard from the game. ==> FUN: 4 Flash of Insight is massively overcosted if you cast it the hard way. For one extra mana you could use Stroke of Genius and keep all the cards. Or you could use Impulse for a cheaper way to search. Still, the flashback has potential if you can get enough blue cards in your graveyard that you don't need there for other purposes like threshold. I wouldn't play with more than one or two in a deck, though, because paying the flashback more than once could be a problem. -- 41. Grip of Amnesia C, 1U Instant Counter target spell unless its controller removes his or her graveyard from the game. Draw a card. "Would you abandon your past to save your future?" - Ambassador Laquatus ==> FUN: 4 It's splashable, cheap and a cantrip. What's not to like? Sure, it's not going to be much use against decks that don't use their graveyards, but there were very few of those around here even before Odyssey brought us all this graveyard stuff. And you get to burn it for a card no matter what. -- 42. Hapless Researcher C, U Creature - Wizard 1/1 Sacrifice ~this~: Draw a card, then discard a card from your hand. Scholars possess such lofty knowledge that it shouldn't be surprising when they fall. ==> FUN: 2 If it's going to die from a Shock or from combat damage anyway, you might as well sacrifice it to get a look at another card. And get a flashback card or incarnation into your graveyard. Still, most of the time I'd rather just play with Merfolk Looter, to give me a steady supply of new cards to look at. It's a good candidate for the Patron Wizard deck I've been meaning to put together, though. -- 43. Keep Watch C, 2U Instant Draw a card for each attacking creature. "I see their moral dilemmas. I see their raw courage. I see their self-sacrifice. I see our victory." ==> FUN: 4 Is it just me or is that flavor text especially lame? It's so wanna-be poetic, I had to drop my rating of this card a point. The card itself is very nice, though. Any creature deck should be able to get two or three cards out of this with little or no problem. If you're using some good flashback token creators like Call of the Herd and Beast Attack or even Ordered Migration, you can get a lot of cards out of Keep Watch. And if your opponent happens to be on the offensive, you can draw your cards from his attackers. Keep Watch is a lot like Collective Unconscious for half the price and a little bit harder to use. This may even turn out to be a case of misworded spoilers and it could actually be "Draw a card for each creature attacking you", in which case it's a mediocre card at best. -- 44. Laquatus's Disdain U, 1U Instant Counter target spell played from the graveyard. Draw a card. "The first time was amusing, but now you're getting tiresome." ==> FUN: 2 There's not much to say about Laquatus's Disdain. It's a hoser and it's reasonably effective by the looks of it. The flavor text is nice and fits well with the card, which makes it the first flavor text of the set that I like. Laquatus's Disdain makes me wonder if there are any non-flashback spells that can be played from the graveyard. I'm not sure about the madness mechanic, because that involves removing the card from the game at some point and I'm not sure it's in the graveyard when it gets played. -- 45. Lost in Thought C, 1U Enchant Creature Enchanted creature can't attack or block and its activated abilities can't be played. Its controller may remove three cards in his or her graveyard from the game to ignore this ability until end of turn. ==> FUN: 2 A blue version of Arrest, one mana cheaper, but a lot less dependable. It'll stall an attacking creature for a while, but not totally. And you're not likely to seriously hinder creatures with strong activated abilities, like Royal Assassin or Mageta, the Lion. -- 46. Mental Note U, U Instant Put the top two cards of your library into your graveyard. Draw a card. Some minds are more open than others. ==> FUN: 5 Mental Note doesn't look like much at first, but it's cheap, an instant and a cantrip, so it doesn't have to be all that strong to be useful. A Mental Note on turn one gets you three cards in your graveyard, halfway to threshold, and it doesn't cost you a card. Plus, there's a reasonable chance to get an incarnation or flashback card into your graveyard. It's worth trying Mental Note out as a backup to Tolarian Winds in threshold decks. -- 47. Mirror Wall C, 3U Creature - Wall 3/4 W: Mirror Wall may attack this turn as though it weren't a Wall. "Breaking it would be about four hundred years bad luck." - Nomad sentry ==> FUN: 1 Another nice bit of flavor text, we're on a roll now! Mirror Wall is too expensive for a wall, even if this one can be made to attack. -- 48. Mist of Stagnation R, 3UU Enchantment Permanents don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player untaps a permanent for each card in his or her graveyard. ==> FUN: 4 A tricky card. Mist of Stagnation isn't really something you can just throw in to a deck and expect it to work well. You really need cards like Mental Note and Tolarian Winds to make sure you don't end up severely restricted as well. You need some way to keep your opponent's graveyard empty as well, but that shouldn't be too hard with a few Phyrexian Furnaces burning it down to the ground. In type two it's a bit harder to keep your opponent from building up his graveyard by just discarding every turn. You could use the advocates white got, but he'll just re-discard those cards. -- 49. Quiet Speculation U, 1U Sorcery Search target player's library for up to three cards with flashback and put them into that players graveyard. Then that player shuffles his or her library. "The best foresight is hindsight." - Empress Llawan ==> FUN: 4 Quiet Speculation isn't a card you'd normally want to use on other players, except if you're in a team game or if your opponent happens to be playing flashback cards and you want his or her graveyard to be as full as possible. That'll probably not happen very often. Used on yourself, Quiet Speculation looks like a strong card, maybe even a lot stronger than I think. Compare it to Ancestral Recall, which gives you access to the same number of cards, but Quiet Speculation doesn't just give you random cards, it allows you to tutor for three cards and makes them available for casting immediately. The only down side is that there aren't that many good flashback cards around and they're usually more expensive to cast from the graveyard. Still, I'd love to get three Roars of the Wurm with Quiet Speculation. Until I can manage to cast them all, they'll even help me get threshold. -- 50. Scaplelexis R, 4U Creature - Beast 1/5 Flying Whenever ~this~ deals combat damage to a player, that player removes the top four cards of his or her library from the game. If two or more of those cards have the same name, repeat this process. ==> FUN: 5 What a tongue twister of a name, Scaplelexis. It looks like fun, though. With a bit of luck, if your opponent is playing one color and has a lot of basic lands, you could get half his library removed from the game in one attack. The flying makes it hard to block and the five toughness hard to kill. Sure, it only does one damage per attack, but you can get your opponent out of cards much sooner than that if you're lucky. -- 51. Spelljack R, 3UUU Instant Counter target spell. If it's countered this way, remove it from the game instead of putting it into its owners graveyard. As long as it remains removed from the game, you may play it as though it were in your hand without paying its mana cost. If it has X in its mana cost, X is 0. ==> FUN: 5 What more do you want? You don't just counter a spell and remove it from the game, you even have the option of casting it for yourself without paying its mana cost. Ok, six mana is a bit steep and your opponent might even be able to get the card back with a wish before you get a chance to cast it yourself, but that's a small risk to take for the chance of giving your opponent a little taste of his own medicine. You can even use it to save one of your own spells that's about to be countered or rendered useless somehow. Simply remove it from the game and recast it later, for free. -- 52. Telekinetic Bonds R, 2UUU Enchantment Whenever a player discards a card from his or her hand, you may pay 1U. If you do, tap or untap target permanent. "Nature's been fired. The oceans are under new management." - Ambassador Laquatus ==> FUN: 2 Telekinetic Bonds looks like an attempt at a fixed Mind over Matter, but in the process of fixing it, it has become as boring as Mind over Matter was before it was discovered as a key card in Tolarian Academy decks. Telekinetic Bonds doesn't even do anything by itself, it just sits there. You can't use it unless you also have a way of making someone discard. Basically, you need a way to discard cards at will for a good effect, a permanent that's a good target for the Bonds, like Archivist and enough mana to use the Bonds. That's at three card combo just to get some use out of it. -- 53. Web of Inertia U, 2U Enchantment At the beginning of each opponent's combat phase, that player may remove a card in his or her graveyard from the game. If that player doesn't, creatures he or she controls can't attack you this turn. Cephalids specialize in lose-lose situations. ==> FUN: 4 It won't slow down threshold decks much, but normal creature decks have a hard time getting cards into their graveyard. As I found out when I tried to play a deck with threshold creatures but no way of filling my graveyard. I never got past three or four cards in my graveyard before my massively inferior creatures had either been overrun or had won in spite of the odds. Web of Inertia becomes a pretty strong lock when you combine it with cards like Phyrexian Furnace and Carrion Beetles. -- 54. Wonder U, 3U Creature - Incarnation 2/2 Flying As long as ~this~ is in your graveyard, and you control an Island, creatures you control have flying. "The awestruck birds gazed at Wonder. Slowly, timidly, they rose into the air." - Scroll of Beginnings ==> FUN: 4 The white incarnation had the effect of Knighthood, whereas Wonder has the same effect as Levitation. Wonder is definitely the more powerful one, because it grants permanent evasion to all your creatures. Of course, you do have to be careful in case of a Hurricane. -- 55. Wormfang Behemoth R, 3UU Creature - Nightmare Beast 5/5 When ~this~ comes into play, remove all cards in your hand from the game. When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed cards to their owner's hand. ==> FUN: 2 It's simply a 5/5 that's a little cheaper than 5/5s usually are. Wormfang Behemoth isn't very impressive, although it may well see play in decks that want to empty their hand anyway. -- 56. Wormfang Crab U, 3U Creature - Nightmare Crab 3/6 ~this~ is unblockable. When ~this~ this comes into play, an opponent chooses a permanent you control and removes it from the game. When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control. ==> FUN: 2 No pun intended on its creature type, but Wormfang Crab looks like a bit of a rules nightmare. As worded, your opponent will be able to pick Wormfang Crab as the permanent to remove. That removal will trigger it returning to play, at which point he can pick your Crab again etc. Heck, if Wormfang Crab is the only permanent you have, the game is stuck in an infinite loop. That won't be easy to achieve, but with enough lands you can tap eight for mana, four to cast Armageddon and then four to cast this. Besides those problems, your opponent is bound to pick the permanent you really didn't want to get rid of, so you'll only want to play Wormfang Crab in a deck where the only permanents are lands and one or two Wormfang Crabs. Unless you only plan on using permanents with good comes-into-play or leaves-play effects, in which case your opponent will just pick a land. An unblockable 3/6 for four mana is nice, but not good enough to be worth this drawback. -- 57. Wormfang Drake C, 2U Creature - Nightmare Drake 3/4 Flying When ~this~ comes into play, sacrifice it unless you remove a creature you control other than ~this~ from the game. When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control. ==> FUN: 4 Unlike the Wormfang Crab, Wormfang Drake shows a bit of promise. If you play with a few creatures with good comes-into-play abilities, this is a pretty good creature. If you pick something like a Flametongue Kavu or a Boneshredder to remove from the game, your opponent will be very reluctant to kill Wormfang Drake, because your creature will come back and kill another of his creatures. You can also get rid of bad creature enchantments or negative counters this way. Be careful, though, because if you cast it with only one creature in play, it can be Terminated in response, forcing you to sacrifice your Drake. -- 58. Wormfang Manta R, 5UU Creature - Nightmare Beast 6/1 Flying When ~this~ comes into play, you skip your next turn. When ~this~ leaves play, you take an extra turn after this one. ==> FUN: 2 On one hand you can use Wormfang Manta to store a turn until later when you need it more, but how hard will it be for your opponent to get rid of a 1 toughness creature if he has 2 turns to do it in? And he will have to try to get rid of it because of its high power. Wormfang Manta is a bit of a strange creature, because the reverse Nightmare mechanic is supposed to be a weakness, yet the Manta is costed as if it's a bonus on this guy. Seven mana for a 6/1 flier is simply bad. A better cost would be about four mana. Sure it would give the Manta a bit of a Ball Lightning feel, but your opponent gets two turns in a row to try to get rid of it and that shouldn't be a huge problem. There is a way to abuse the leaves-play ability, though. You can phase Wormfang Manta out, triggering the leaves-play ability. You'll get an extra turn and when Wormfang Manta returns to play, you _don't_ lose a turn, because phasing in doesn't trigger comes-into-play abilities. If you enchant it with Vanishing, you can get as many turns as you want. Not that you'll need many to kill your opponent with a 6/1 flying creature in play. -- 59. Wormfang Newt C, 1U Creature - Nightmare Beast 2/2 When ~this~ comes into play, remove a land you control from the game. When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control. Spawned by mages emulating the insane. ==> FUN: 2 Every other color gets bears (2/2s for two mana) with negligible drawbacks at worst. White and black get various 2/2 knights, green gets Grizzly Bears and red gets 2/2s that can't block. Wormfang Newt, with its rather serious drawback of possibly manascrewing you, pales by comparison. There isn't much in the way of tricks you can pull with Wormfang Newt either. About the only land that I'd want to remove from game to get back later is Glacial Chasm. And that's the only thing that saves Wormfang Newt from getting a rating of 1. -- 60. Wormfang Turtle U, 2U Creature - Nightmare Beast 2/4 When ~this~ comes into play, remove a land you control from the game. When ~this~ leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control. Chainer's admirers keep his dreams alive. ==> FUN: 1 How unoriginal. Wormfang Turtle has the same power as Wormfang Newt and for one extra mana you get two extra toughness. That's too defensive for an undercosted creature. If you want to play defensively, you're better off getting a wall. |
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