The grading scale

Just like college, or Limited Resources, each card gets a letter grade, with A for AWESOME! and F for FAIL! Mostly for limited play. Let’s get started!

Others: Blue

Adanto Vanguard

Grade: D-

So this kid attacks as a 3/1, which is a great deal for 2 mana. However, you pay 4 life to keep that attack safe! Which mean on average you lose a life each time this attacks. Never run this card unless you need some vampire shenanigans, or even just a 1/1 body. Why is this an uncommon?

Bellowing Aegisaur

Grade: A-

This is the dinosaur set. This is a dinosaur, and it permanently pumps your entire team. A limited bomb, if there ever was one. Imagine this scenario – opponent controls a 2/2 with first strike, and you attack with all your creatures. Assuming this is the biggest creature, your opponent will be forced to block it. The way combat works, the first strike damage to this bad boy will mean that in regular combat, the rest of your creatures all have an extra +1/+1 counter!

Bishop’s Soldier Grade: D-/sideboard? Another vampire already? This one is mediocre. At best it’s a polar bear that will buy you a couple of life even as it sacrifices itself to some dinosaur. Essentially it’s nothing more than a pure lifegain spell, and that is not worth running. Maybe side it in against hyper-aggressive decks. Also, vampires go to church?

Bright Reprisal Grade: build-around B- Even with the card draw, this card is nigh-unplayable. You’re essentially waiting around with 5 open mana, while your opponent continues to develop their board, and when you finally manage to find a window of opportunity, your opponent will use a trick to give their attacking creature hexproof or something. Clearly best in a draw-go-style deck with instant speed card draw, where this will shine.

Demystify

Grade: sideboard

Everyone says this is sideboard. There’s no reason to question the good players.

Duskborne Skymarcher

Grade: D-

1/1s for 1 are widely regarded as unplayable. Unlike Trained Caracal from Return to Ravnica, this has flying, but is missing the lifelink. Given the life gain / life use theme that the vampire tribe seems to have, wouldn’t the Trained Caracal have just been better? Maybe a vampire caracal or something? Flavor fail! The ability could be useful if you are heavy vampires, but that means you are not attacking with this flyer, which is more likely to get through because of built-in evasion. Of course, if you could give it vigilance, this card would get a lot better. It’s of course useless on defense. All in all a classic 23rd card.

Emissary of Sunrise

Grade: C-

A 3-mana 2/1 is sub-par even with first strike. On average, you are ~58% to make it a 3/2 first strike, at which point you ought to ask yourself, …are those Bolas’ horns behind it? Because (approximately) a coin-flip from a bad deal to an ok deal might be something gambling persons would put in their decks, but the truth is, EV is better for the safe play, or something like that. Also, why does white care about lands? Explore should probably have remained in green, with just the +1/+1 option for white. But I guess what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Encampment Keeper

Grade: B+

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way – that is one ugly brute that you would not want to have in your yard, so don’t put it in your deck. That said, this will often end games. Sure, 8 mana is a lot, and the dog itself does not live to see the benefits – a 3/1 first strike is something I would really want. So the best strategy is to draft as many of these as possible. Remember, you can play all the copies you draft – there is no four-of restriction here! Assuming you hit all your land drops (and let’s not forget the treasure tokens!), your opponent would be left staring at an army of 3/1 first strikers on turn 8. The grade gets a knock because you might not always be able to pick up critical mass of Encampment Keepers, so pick these early!

Glorifier of Dusk

Grade: D+

That you have to pay the first 2 life to make her evasive in the first place is a major knock against this young (old? you cannot tell with vampires, can you?) lady. Also, why is white paying life for (kind of) bonuses? That’s black’s job, MaRo! My theory is that, adjusting for rarity, there are more white vampires with lifelink than such life-paying abilities like this one and Adanto Vanguard, so they probably get away by looking at the average life-gain or something. The second ability makes no sense. If you need vigilance, it’s presumably because you are looking at serious damage coming from the other side the next turn. But then why are you attacking?! People need to pay more attention to the theory behind magic. I would highly recommend Mike Flores’ Who’s the Beatdown. The man message is, someone is always the beatdown, ergo, “races” are quite rare. If you are the beatdown, one can make a case for paying life for evasion. But if you are behind, you still need to pay life for vigilance – a partly defensive ability! This is a win-more card. Give it a miss unless you’re desperate for playables.

Imperial Aerosaur

Grade: D+

Pushing the biological plausibility of dinosaurs to it’s natural limit, here is a flying “dinosaur” with what looks like a cutlassed pirate hanging on. But don’t let the artwork fool you! Your creature will not have flying for as long as you control this bit of fake news. What a royal disappointment. That’s one more Whippoorwill in your pocket, MaRo. The 1-turn effect makes this far less attractive than what the art suggests. I’ll pass for a creature with a more permanent effect, thank you! This is an example of just gravy!

Inspiring Cleric

Grade: C-

Life gain is generally bad. That it is attached to a reasonable body should make you pause. And an uncommon? Seems to be a clerical error.

Ixalan’s Binding

Grade: sideboard A

This is the answer to the Encampment Keeper deck, as lomg as you play it before turn 8! While a sideboard card for the E.K. matchup, I would consider main-decking it if I have not seen a single Enchantment Keeper all draft long – presumably someone has the nut deck among the players at your table. Of course, in a league all bets are off, so it’s almost a no-brainer to main deck this bad boy. The same holds for sealed.

Kinjalli’s Caller

Grade: build-around A-

It’s easy to dismiss a 1-mana 0/3, but notice that this one does not actually have defender, and this slots readily into that fabled Encampment Keeper deck. It also makes your alternate dinosaur payoffs cheaper, but by not much. After all, a turn-2 Bellowing Aegisaur is far more potent than the turn-4 one that this card promises. “But what if you don’t draw this card?” I hear you bleat. Well, mathematically, I am as likely to draw the dinosaur first as I am to draw the Caller. Sure, it’s a 50% chance, but you have to sometimes live life to it’s fullest, and that includes taking some risks. That being said, I would only pick this if my instincts warned me about several white dinosaurs coming my way in packs 2 and 3. That makes it a perfect build-around.

Legion’s Judgment

Grade: necessary-evil A-

Weak to Cancel.

Looming Altisaur

Grade: B+

‘Alto’ is Italian for “high.” And it’s hard to keep a high creature from looming. so the name is a bit of a tautology. What is not a tautology is 1 and 7. The stats ensure that your opponent can rarely attack profitably into it, and the Altisaur can even hold it’s head high in battle against what is shaping up to be a terrifying Encampment Keeper archetype. There is natural combo with another green dinosaur (that we will get to in a later post) that seems completely broken. This alternate win-con makes this more than merely a sideboard card. Also, why does this not have reach? I guess since all the ‘power’ is in the butt?

Pious Interdiction

Grade: B+ in vampires

Four-mana pacifism with the most minor “upside” in the entire game of magic, and it’s probably still playable. Creature enchantments are generally not that great – they bounce the creature, and you have just lost four mana and a card. That downside apart, I would pick a couple as curve-toppers for a vampire deck, where the extra life could be turned into some of the very black-feeling vampire effects. Outside of vampires, the value plummets sharply, but would still consider it.

Pterodon Knight

Grade: B for boring

What is the flavor here supposed to be? Sure, a small number of biologically implausible dinos fly in Ixalan, but surely she cannot gain flying unless the dino flies? Or are dinos sending her sailing through the air, whipped by their powerful tails? In any case, a 3/3 for 4 (a Hill Giant, as they say) is fine in white, but so boring, let’s give an average grade and move on.

Queen’s Commission

Grade: sideboard D

Here’s an easy way to give your opponent’s Dual Shot some real value! Feel free to bring it in post-board if the opponent is not playing red, and you desperately need a 3-drop.

Raptor Companion

Grade: B-

Compare this to Adanto Vanguard. You don’t need to be attacking, or spending life with this little guy. This is one of those occassions where a simple common will be picked higher than a somewhat comparable uncommon. Also, I would like very much to see how Pterodon Knight flies on this little guy though. *Flavor sigh*

Ritual of Rejuvenation

Grade: C+

This is the kind of card that can sneakily turn the tables on an unsuspecting opponent. They attack for lethal, you pop this off, survive the combat, get an extra card, and then crack back for your well-deserved win. Of course, you should not pack too many of these, a couple should suffice.

Shining Aerosaur

Grade: C in a Pterodon Knight deck

I can get behind the Pterodon Knight riding this diving dino. And that’s a nice sequence – the Knight at 4, this dino at 5, attack with a 3/3 flyer ftw. But still, 5-mana for 3 power? We could do better.

Skyblade of the Legion

Grade: D-

This might seem fine, but a 1-powered flier is not really what I’m looking for. Sure, it can block 2/2s and eat X/1s, and maybe enable raid or something, and even wear equipment and auras, but at the end of day it’s a 1-powered attacker that needs a whole list of things to go right before you would be happy with it. Yet another grudging 23rd, if you are a chance-taker.

Slash of Talons

Grade: temporarily, sideboard

It’s hard to evaluate this without looking at the entire set, and since we are just starting with white, we see a fair number of targets. But we know there are a ton of big beefy dinosaurs, so for now we can side this in for white mirrors and suspend judgment till we find how many targets there are.

Steadfast Armasaur

Grade: B+ (pick up some Cutlasses!)

A 4-mana 2/3 fails the vanilla test, and vigilance is not enough to give it a passing grade. It’s not great as a blocker the turn it comes in, what with the mana and tap requirements, but the turn after that, this becomes quite the house. Attach the Pirate’s Cutlass or Dowsing Dagger that you should have played on a previous turn, and this is a 4-powered attacker that smacks a blocking creature for a hefty 4 for just 2 mana. Take that, Slash of Talons! A repeatable, better version of Slash of Talons is guaranteed to end the game quickly. Make sure to pick up some Cutlasses (the dagger is a rare).

Territorial Hammerskull

Grade: C-

Everyone agrees this is good, presumably because they believe they will only be attacking, game in and game out – typical best-case scenario mentality! How is a 2/3 for 3? Meh.

Vampire’s Zeal

Grade: C, C+ with vampires

Obviously synergises well with vampires, but recognize that while it costs W, this is not a 1-drop. Do you really want to mess up your curve of 1-drop into 2-drop into 3-drop etc? Board presence is king, and all this does is essentially time-walk you a turn, perhaps helping you win a combat or something. Does nothing against exile effects, and you better already have some big dinos up for when the red/green fatties come trundling along. In those situations, you should definitely side it out.