And we’re off! Thanks to readers for pointing out some errors in reading the plain English on the cards. I definitely have a newfound respect for the content creators churning out the grades. It is not easy.
Ritual guardian
3/2 for 3-mana is a card that has been a classic underperformer. It regularly trades down on mana with the 2/2s & 2/1s while not being powerful enough to really tussle with higher curve creatures. But this has the Coven ability, which rewards a diversity of power among your creatures. While adding lifelink to 3/2 isn’t that exciting, I suspect that having a 3-power creature to turn on other Coven cards will be a useful slot to fill.
variable playable
Candlegrove witch
Here’s a good example of Coven payoffs. A 2-mana 2/2 flier is *extremely* good. A 2-mana 2/2 flier that gets flying in 60% of the games is still quite good. The–currently unanswerable–question is “what percent of decks with Plains are going to care about Coven?” If all of them can use Coven at least as a subtheme, then this is in the running for top common. If there are more controlling/lower creature count decks running around with white mana, then it’s just a solid playable with a home. Given that this is an early blocker (at worst) and an evasive threat (at best), this is still something the theoretical control decks would be interested in.
signal
Burly breaker // dire-strain demolisher
Might as well just call this card “vanilla test”. 5-mana 6/5 that turns into an 8/7 is just a brutal beater. Yes it can be chumped, but it’s hard to kill with damage spells and has Ward for additional protection. 5-mana can be a congested slot in the deck, but at the end of the day this card can be a finisher for slower decks or a nice top-end for the aggressive ones.
power
turn the earth
Hmmm, interesting. I don’t think this card will be on interest to the Golgari decks to cast on themselves. So that leaves casting it on your opponent to thin out their graveyard that they are relying on as a resource. With flashback, this removes 6 cards from their graveyard and gains a little incidental life which could be worth it… if you *knew* that they were utilizing the graveyard. This makes it a potential sideboard card in Bo3 but unplayable in Bo1.
avoid
defend the celestus
I always thought Might Beyond Reason was an underrated card in Shadows over Innistrad. I have a fondness for “enchantment” cards that can do double-duty as a combat trick as well. The risk for enhancement cards is that you’re opening yourself up for a 2-for-1 when oppo points a removal spell at your newly-built battlecruiser. But if you already got a card’s worth of value via the combat trick, then that’s not so bad.
Defend the Celestus has all of this in spades, plus the significant upside of being able to distribute the counters. 4-mana is *a lot* to ask of a mana trick, but its sheer flexibility means it can do work in almost any situation where you have creatures on the battlefield.
power
Grafted identity
Now this is a very interesting spin on Control Magic. What makes Control Magic so powerful is it’s just the cleanest possible 2-for-1. And not just ANY 2-for-1, but you get to take their best card in play while also demanding that they use either a creature of equal-ish value or a removal card to answer it. But Grafted Identity requires a sacrifice, which calms the situation down a little. If you have good sacrifice fodder, like any Decayed zombies shambling around, then we’re back to CM’s ceiling. On an empty board state, it is literally unplayable (and that’s one of the situations where Control Magic shines, catching you up by stealing their best creature to stonewall their remaining creatures). The +1/+1 is a good little bit of gravy on top.
This adds up to a genuine Draft-Shifter. Cards that churn out lots of sacrifice fodder (via Disturb, Flashback etc. etc.) make this one of the best cards in the game. Build a bomb; worth drafting around.
draft-changer
immolation
When is a Shock not a Shock? Immolation (OG Legends) is a card that 9 times out of 10, it being used to kill an enemy creature. And it’s a perfectly fine rate. There’s a problem though:
It’s not an instant or sorcery! If it was, it would be solid gas in the RU “spells matter” deck. And the enchantment version could still be sleeved up to help provide some early defenses in a pinch. But it’s not going to be as good as Shock could have been in that slot.
Benalish Dad 