Eldritch Moon Token Review

Shockingly few "new" tokens here in Eldritch Moon. All the Shadows tokens will still be needed for the one pack of course but even in EMN only about four or five are being reused. Let's cover the newcomers as all your SOI needs can be found here

Eldrazi Horror

My god, it was Emrakul all along! And then an obvious joke about how obvious it was suffixed as a meta joke on the reveal. Whew. Interestingly, unlike the other Eldrazi tokens, we only have a single piece of art to work with here. Composition is decent, with a reasonable "ohhh, that could have been my best friend but now she's a twisted horror!" message. I'm a little unclear what happened with the legs. And I'm also a little unclear on how this is a 3/2. Let's play a game: what looks more like something that can end the game in 6 turns:

  

The Horror is clearly losing in this lineup, and one of those doesn't even have any power. I'm sorry, but that's going to cost you points. Full art only gets you so far.

Grade: C-

Human

(Hanweir Garrison)


  
(Avacyn Restored, Dark Ascension, Avacyn)

Full marks for the "some people just want to watch the world burn". Also the setting of burning city adds a little more pathos rather than the previous red version of some angry farmer charging you for pilfering some apples from his orchard.

Grade: B

Spider

(Ishkanah, Grafwidow)


 

Now we're cooking with some gas! Good callback to (what I'm told) was one of the more entertaining archetypes in original Innistrad. While the scale of the spider is unclear (giant 2/4 Spider or just a regular Spirit-eating 1/2?) the mists, skull, all work nicely.

Grade: A-

Wizard

(Docent of Perfection)


  

Huh, so we've had Merfolk, Zombie, and Fugitive Wizards, but never just a wizard-wizard. We need to break this down, pro/con style.

PRO: solid art direction. Nies Hamm does good work and frankly this does a good job of inspiring dread.

CON: The card type clearly reads HUMAN wizard when what we're depicting is looking a whole heck of a lot like a human INSECT wizard. And there's a token for insect. In this very set. I'm not sure how I feel about my subtypes getting scrambled like this

PRO: Works hand-in-glove with the relevant card, the Docent of Perfection

CON: Almost TOO good, it fits with the Docent and perhaps no future Hogswarts churning out wizards.

Grade: B

Zombie

   

Previously Seen
           

10th/2012, 2010/2011, Avacyn/Innistrad/Conspiracy/2013/2014/2015, DTK
Nyx, KTK, Mirrodin, Alara
Innistrad (2), Innistrad (3), Oath, SoI

Well the saved the best surprise for the last part of the alphabet. Three zombies and an extra */* zombie (for the Soul Separator). I'm always a sucker for multiple arts in a set; I blame Fallen Empires for that one. This is heightened by the clearly distinct art styles as well. Tough to rank them. Normally I'd let Tap-Tap-Concede talk me into ranking the haberdasher zombie the highest but I find his detached hand too distracting. The art style of the lich-king standing in his mausoleum is solid but not enough zombie there. The */* has great background and clearly the result of an experiment, but why the purple eyes? Wasn't his soul just ripped out leaving him with dead eyes? This leaves Anna's zombie winning Best Shambler and really one of the best overall zombies

Grade: A- 

R/B Vampires, 7/23/16 Draft

Time for the first draft of the set, also known as "I have no idea what I'm doing." So let's crack some packs and see where it takes us. Hopefully I crack some sweet mythic to help guide my draft!

But it's just like CoCo!

...I should really learn to be more specific with my wishes. What's funny is that I *did* end up taking it... as my ninth pick after it wheeled all the way around the table and there was nothing left in my colors. However, I did end up hitting back to back sweet removal in p1p1, p1p2

Pre-release Day! 7-16-16

It's the happiest day of the year! Pre-release day! Magic players come together to collectively peer at cards upside down and ask, "What what does that do?" and excitedly proclaim, "Well that is complete and total bullshit." Good times, good times.

Rocking out at the Gamma Ray and here is what I pulled together:

Yeah that's my yoga mat. I'm a double threat!

(Deck in tapped out)
In case that's a little unclear, here's basically what my deck did:

      



That's a fair amount of removal and removal-fetching. Open the Armory suddenly a useful card? Hardly thought it possible. So my deck would durdle around, knocking off threats and then maybe land a flier or sneak through. For one game I used the Stern Constable 5 turns in a row to tap down Gisela and let my army of skulking Farbogs through, 2 points of damage at a time.

No match for the awesome power of discarding 5 lands in a row

MVP 

 

Not a huge surprise, and would probably be better with token generation instead of having to kill real creatures. But, my god, wiping out their board and leaving a 6/5 flier for them to deal with is awfully tasty. Especially if the creatures on my side are crappy little 1/2 durdlers. Also the madness cost, while steep, plays nicely.

Sidenote

The five-mana to exile the creature is an ASTOUNDINGLY relevant line of text. As per above, it means you can clear it (eventually) to prevent your opponent from getting any sacrifice value.

Overperformer

Owen (from the last batch of LR) might be right, this little guy does some serious work. Shockingly useful evasion, good art, and will also trigger your Apothecary Geist ETB. Can't ask for too much more.

Other notes:

- One Merciless Resolve is always a nice way to help Delirium get going by sacrificing a land.
- The Dusk Feaster (4/5 flier for 7... 5 with Delirium) is a real card.
- I faced a guy with the Providence (your life total becomes 26) twice. It's not a good card. I would be winning on board, he would go back to 26, and then I would beat him down again in three turns.
-

Pre-Draft HW: Reading Pack 1/Pick 5 in EMN

As I continue to struggle with drafting something not-garbage, I'm trying to get better at reading the 'pack 1 pick 5'. My rule of thumb is to take the best possible card in the pack for the first few picks, regardless of color (unless it's REALLY close). Then starting in pick 4/5, I start looking for clues as to what color(s) might be open. So this is an informal list of commons & uncommons that have an above average chance of having been the best card in that color in that pack. For example, Clear Shot is instant-speed, high-quality removal. If I see it in pick 4, that means three people passed on it. They would have only passed on it if they picked three other cards they like more and it's HIGHLY unlikely that they would have picked another green card over it.

Now of course this isn't a foolproof metric. Obviously if Clear Shot and Prey Upon are in the same pack, seeing a Prey Upon pick 4 could mean someone snapped up Clear Shot earlier. But in general, the later you see one of these cards the higher the odds that said color is open.

That's the idea at least.

Green

    

Not sure on the Prey Upon but there are so many small toughness creatures that I think just having a 2/3 with a Prey Upon will net you a card most times, let alone when you have a flipped werewolf. Removal, a built in 2-for-1 (Wolfkin Bond), and mana acceleration that can flip late game (quadrant all-star) round it out.

Red

   

Well it's red. See direct damage take direct damage, I'm sure there are worse drafting heuristics out there.

Black

    

Removal removal removal and two creatures that I'm pretty high on. I think black is going to be grindy outside of B/R madness

White

    

Blessed Alliance is the weak sister of the bunch (it's not Silverstrike) that I have the least faith in being a 'signal'. The rest are highly reliable removal and a very high quality creature/trick.

Blue

    

Wow, I have no clue what blue is going to do. Drag Under is a reliable bounce that also draws you a card, so no complaints there. I suspect both the Grizzled Angler and Ingenious Scab are going to be very reliable 3-drops that almost every blue deck will run. As for the maniac and the cultist, I think blue is going to be either the 'mill yourself to delirium/graveyard shenanigans and/or the key emerge color' Both of these work(ish) for that.