Hello again, and welcome to the
Eldritch Moon Type 4 Set Review! Here,
we will be looking at the cards from the latest core expansion set that fit into the infinite
mana, 1 spell a turn stack. Let’s jump
right in!
Blessed Alliance: Cheap removal
with some other abilities stapled on.
Nothing exciting, but a decent role-player in lower powered stacks
Collective Effort: The Escalate
is pretty expensive here, as creatures are normally pretty good and tapping
them is not the best, but getting a 2 for 1 with some possible power boost
attached isn’t the worst of deals, and this screams for tokens to be involved
somewhere.
Long Road Home: Essentially a
counterspell for removal, this is a worse version of Otherworldly Journey
(because splice onto arcane comes up one in a hundred games). Still playable, though obviously weak.
Providence: Starting at 26 gives
you an extra hit from an 8/8 before you die, and the fact that this was in your
hand means you’ll get quite a bit longer before you kick it. Interesting design, and I hope they revisit
the leyline spell concept eventually.
Sanctifier of Souls: This guy is
pretty cool, allowing you to trade in your yard for a potential alpha strike
and a lot of creatures. Best in creature
heavy stacks, and obviously worse elsewhere.
Thalia’s Lancers: Once again, I
have to mention I run 0 search cards in my stack because they take a while and
can be really broken, but this one seems pretty fun. Decent body too. Try it out if you’re not opposed to the
concept.
Coax from the Blind Eternities: I
see 0 ways in which this can be both good and fun. Either you don’t care that someone just
grabbed 15 mana Emrakul, or you don’t want to give them that possibility. I’ll be avoiding this.
Fortune’s Favor: Obviously worse
than Fact or Fiction, but still fun, and I plan to mess with people endlessly
with the 3 face up 1 face down split.
Identity Thief: Exiling stuff for
a turn is nice, especially since this is a trigger on attack and thus hard to
stop. It gets even better when you get
to abuse whatever you exiled. Obviously
slow, but seems fun.
Lunar Force: This is probably not
even close to playable, but the concept of it is so interesting I feel the need
to try it. I can see people being
unwilling to cast anything if their hand is full of good stuff, and if you can
cast it with flash you’ll be able to protect your spell on your turn. Obviously needs best-case scenario, but a
pretty unique card.
Mind’s Dilation: The big
enchantment bomb of the block, this will almost always get countered, much like
Hedonist’s Trove and Lurking Predators before it, but when it resolves you’re
on a highway to gravy town. Playable in
almost every stack.
Niblis of Frost: Very small body
in our format for an attacking creature, but tapping stuff down seems interesting. Probably not playable, but worth a look at.
Scour the Laboratory: A more
expensive Jace’s Ingenuity, which was already playable, and cost doesn’t mean
much. Just be aware Parallectric
Feedback will deal more to you if you cast this.
Summary Dismissal: While this is
a pretty awesome counterspell, I can actually see picking about half a dozen
others over it (there are a lot of real good counters). That said, this is basically an autoinclude
in your stack, unless you’re on a no counters theme or something weird.
Unsubstantiate: Relatively
mediocre, but sometimes you just want to delay a spell rather than get rid of
it outright (like a wrath of some sort).
This can also get rid of a dude for a short time. Worth considering.
Dark Salvation: For the infinite
stack, where X spells and firebreathing are commonplace, here’s a kill spell
attacked to a wincon.
Graf Harvest: Much like the
spirit guy above, this makes the zombies you create harder to block and makes
2/2s instead of 1/1s to make up for the lack of another body. If you only want to try one of these, stick
to the white one, but this looks cool still.
Murder: Instant speed creature
removal. We play it, we’re meh with it,
it still does its job. Reprint if you
didn’t have it already.
Rise from the Grave: I’m a fan of
reanimator cards, and this is a super flavorful one. Reprint, but with worse art imo (because
rotting dragon is much more awesome).
Tree of Perdition: This looks
pretty fun, though most likely not good.
Though it is pretty fun with cards that reduce toughness so you can get
people real low (though not instakill, since they apparently changed that rule)
Bedlam Reveler: Getting a new
(albeit small) hand can be pretty powerful late in the game. Worth considering.
Collective Defiance: Ruin
someone’s hand (or rebuild yours) and deal a little damage. Seems fine.
Mirrorwing Dragon: Anything with
Radiate tacked on has to be great. This
one only affect creatures that the casting player controls, which makes
opponents less likely to kill it, while encouraging them to cast buffs on it so
their team gets bigger. Beware of token
swarms and pump spells, or play them yourself.
Nahiri’s Wrath: No, this does not
kill people. Move along.
Grapple with the Past:
Unexciting, but it’s instant speed regrowth for creatures, along with giving
you better selection and possibly some other option with the mill 3. Not terrible.
Ishkanah: This kills everyone in
a pretty cool way (spiders!) but still kills everyone, so infinite stack only.
Springsage Ritual: Another
Naturalize that gains life, perfectly playable.
You don’t want to overload your stack with these, but they’re a
necessary component to make sure that stuff like Mind’s Dilation don’t run over
everyone.
Ulvenwald Observer: Stuff dies in
Type 4, a lot. These things tend to be large. This is a pretty good way to rebuild after a
wrath for the aggro decks of the format, since those decks want to empty their
hands fast.
Gisa and Geralf: How good these
guys are depends on the number of zombies you have, which is likely to be low. I’d only advise trying this if you do a draft
of the entire stack at once so you can pick tons of zombies, and even then it’s
only good in lower power stacks.
Ride Down: They think they’ve
survived combat with a chump block (or even a real block) and you blow them
out. Real fun card, and can mess with
combats you’re not even involved in.
Reprint.
Decimator of the Provinces: A
fatty with the best abilities: trample, haste, and a way to cheat it out
without costing a spell. Great with
tokens (obviously) and can really screw with your opponents due to the cast
trigger. Looks fun.
Distended Mindbender: This guy
looks incredibly annoying to play against, you can really only counter him
(since his trigger is cast so targeted removal will be gone from your hand too
soon) but you still get wrecked. Plus he
can be free. Looks good.
Elder Deep-Fiend: I love flash on
big monsters (though this guy is smaller than most) and this does work to save
your life and let you get in some damage.
Solid card.
Emrakul, the Promised End:
Obviously a strong card, (but not gamebreaking like her previous incarnation)
Emrakul lets you wreck someone real hard.
The real question is whether you destroy the board of the person whose
turn you stole, or use them to weaken a third enemy, allowing their extra turn
to finish off that opponent (and probably try to kill your 13/13 flying trample
pro instants guy). Definitely going to
be fun.
Eternal Scourge: The last card to
be played from exile was Misthollow Griffin.
This one is smaller but dodges spot removal for days. Not sure how this is good, but it’s such an
uncommon ability it probably has uses.
Mockery of Nature: Getting a
naturalize with my 6/5 is a pretty nice deal.
Very playable.
Soul Separator: Now this is a
card, getting 2 bodies with one having the abilities and the other having the
combat power of the card. This looks
best used with utility dudes, as combat abilities look really bad on a 1/1
flier. On my to-get list for sure.
Geier Reach Sanitarium: A
Mikokoro that forces everyone to filter instead of straight drawing. Still looks good, free card draw is free card
draw,
And that wraps up the Eldritch
Moon Type 4 set review! Not much that
really sticks out to me, but the good cards are good and will see play for a while
to come. If you think I missed
something, let me know, and I’ll be back this coming week with Kaladesh, and maybe
some Conspiracy 2!
