Lands
There are only six lands in Master’s Edition, so I have the luxury of discussing each of them (briefly) without wearing my fingers down to nubs. That’s a bonus, cause I’ve already written a metric ton of words for this blog.
Diamond Valley: I really enjoy Diamond Valley’s effect. I also love Safe Haven’s and Arena’s. Here’s the rub: they don’t produce mana. I’m not so crazy about that. So when you’re constructing a deck with these guys, look at them as free, uncounterable spells rather than lands. Now Diamond Valley in particular is a cool reprint because, like Juzam Djinn, it costs an inordinate amount of cash for paper players. I imagine you’ll be able to snare this for a buck and change, though, which is kinda fun. The effect is good – both Helen Mirren, the Moaning Well and Starlit Sanctum saw play. Scoring some free life out of your dying creatures is quite nice, but I doubt you’ll want to run this as a four of. In Prismatic, it’ll be a great singleton for tutoring up with Tolaria West, assuming that particular card doesn’t get banned.
Island of Wak-Wak: Green mages and Moat players, rejoice. Wak-Wak is going to take care of you. Everybody else, you can probably just walk on by.
Lake of the Dead: This thing has supercharged some excruciatingly painful Drain Lifes, and it’s back online to continue this malicious practice. If you’re thinking about pairing this up with Crucible of Worlds, well, you wouldn’t be the first. Frankly, I don’t think it needs it – five mana from two lands is a nice exchange rate. Especially late in games when you’re topdecking unneeded lands, this will give you some added utility.
Rainbow Vale: You’d have to be pretty hard up for mana fixing to run this guy. It would probably have an ability that read, “Tap: Add 1 mana to your mana pool and don’t give your opponent a free land” if it were printed today, but alas, it was printed in the time of Fallen Empires, when men were men and bad cards were bad. But, as a guy who’s tried to make some really wonky rainbow decks work, I won’t rule out testing it a few times.
Thawing Glaciers: Man, I would have loved this card pre-errata. As it stands, it’s horrifically slow – which I suppose is fitting, seeing as it’s a glacier and all. But let me tell you about a combo that’s actually kind of good (surprising for both its components and its source, I assure you): Stone-Seeder Hierophant + Thawing Glaciers. Isn’t that elegant? I’m gonna trademark that right now. It’s like the cards were destined for one another – I suspect somebody on the Ravnica design team likes Thawing Glaciers and just wanted to print himself a combo. So for as long as you can keep both combo pieces in play, you can double your manabase each turn. Not only is that some great thinning, it can power out some ungodly huge Wurmcalls.
Mishra’s Factory: Wollpert and co. printing this as is was one of the more charitable deeds of Master’s Edition – I figured they’d bump this to rare and cackle maniacally. I’m a huge proponent of manlands because Draw-Go players can do nothing to them (except bounce). I’m really pleased with Assembly-Worker’s presence in Time Spiral now that we have the Factory – I’m thinking I’ll build a Brother’s War deck one of these days. All in all, cool card.
Gold
Old gold cards were always interesting. First off, their frames didn’t even approach gold when it comes to color – looking at one right now, I’d say we’re closer to vomit than anything. Early gold cards were so novel that Wizards didn’t even feel compelled to make them good or interesting- hell, they figured, they’ll play Jasmine Boreal just cause of the frame. And they were right. So Legends was chock-full of legends with terrible abilities and ugly manacosts. Which I love, by the way. Because multicolored legends are needed for my favorite format, Elder Dragon Highlander. If you don’t know what it is, follow this link and be enlightened. MED gives us 5 new prospective generals, and some of them are actually kind of intriguing.
Dakkon Blackblade is a huge favorite of players everywhere. I suspect this is because of Richard Kane Ferguson’s incredible artwork – I have no idea why that man didn’t get more commissions from WOTC. Dakkon’s a great card for EDH players who like the WUB color combination. Before Dakkon, your only options were Merieke Ri Berit (my choice), Zur the Enchanter (also viable), then Ertai and Dromar (both too expensive). When possible I like to build my decks so they really highlight and support my general’s abilities – it’ll be interesting to see how a WUB player might power out lands.
Jacques La Vert likewise opens up a new color combination in WGR. Sure, this combo already had Rith (and Hazezon Tamar) in there, but he’s hugely popular and hugely expensive. Jacques ability is pretty bland, but he’s a 3/4 for four, which isn’t awful, and he can toughen up Saproling tokens and the like.
Ditto Phelddagrif. Treva runs you 15 tickets, and I ain’t paying that to play some goofy EDH deck. It’s got a suite of abilities that intrigue Johnnies, and the purple hippo is a respectable beater all by itself. What’s unfortunate is that most of the cards which would combo with ‘Grif’s abilities, like False Cure, are out of its colors, which means you can’t play them in the deck. But I’m sure creative players will figure something out.
Now UBR has never been short on generals. You’ve got Sol’Kanar (featuring awesome RKF art), Nicol Bolas, and Garza Sol all as credible generals who can be had on the cheap. I’ve been having a ton of fun with my Nicol Bolas deck, using cards like Warp World and Spellweaver Volute, but that’s a story for another post. But Lord of Tresserhorn outshines them all in deckbuilding challenge and intrigue. The Lord is one of the most extreme examples of putting all your eggs in one basket, and the possible reward is tantalizing. A 10/4 regenerating beater online by turn 5 is certainly enticing. Let me mention now that Pandemonium is in the timeshifted cards. It’ll be interesting to see what cards you can run to neutralize his drawbacks, or even turn them into positives. I haven’t thought about it at any length, but if the price is right on this guy, I certainly will.
I actually already have an EDH deck that Adun Oakenshield will fit perfectly into – my Sekkuar, Deathkeeper deck. Before now, the Deathkeeper was your only option (excepting Darigaaz). Even with Adun’s printing, I don’t see why you’d pick him as your general – since Sekkuar already encourages an BRG deck focused on the graveyard, you might as well have him head up your forces. Because let’s face it, Adun’s not the best card around. He’s got the dreaded 1/2 body (made infamous by Squire and partially redeemed by Willbender) for 3, and a costly ability without much pop to it. I guess a Raise Dead every turn is nice, but I can’t see Oakenshield sticking on the board for very long – a stiff breeze could send this guy to the graveyard, and once he’s there, he can’t get himself out. Unless he’s got a twin. But then he’d be Stangg. P.S. Reprint Stangg.
As for non-General gold cards, you’ve got Energy Arc, Centaur Archer, Lim-Dul’s Vault (filled with nothing but circumflexes, I hear), Fire Covenant, and Hymn of Rebirth.
All I have to say is I don’t like Energy Arc. Centaur Archer is a nice card, with aggressive stats and the dubious honor of being the only red archer in Magic. Hymn of Rebirth I’m a big fan of, since it just makes sense to me that GW should be reanimating things. Fire Arc will sometimes be worth the pain to sweep the board, though Tempest’s Spontaneous Combustion probably does the job better. Fire Covenant is just one more Black and/or Red card that combos with Children of Korlis, though, joining Soulgorger Orgg and Infernal Contract. Lim-Dul’s Vault is a nice card that’s getting plenty of buzz from the Classic guys for its enabling of combo decks. I don’t really care about any of that, it’ll just be nice dig feverishly through your deck looking for that one answer you need.
Tribal:
Nothing to see here – Centaur Archer could see play in an extremely aggressive RG Centaur deck, however.
Prismatic:
Thawing Glaciers, Lim-Dul’s Vault, and Mishra’s Factory will all see some burn.
Whew. That’s it and that’s all for the Master’s Edition set review. I’ve got one more post coming up shortly on the rarities of the set, but other than that, you won’t hear me talk about it until the release date. I’ll keep hammering away at this blog, and with Lorwyn previews and some decks I’ve been tinkering with, this space should be pretty busy in the upcoming weeks.
