Return To Ravnica

This was an interesting card. Somewhere I still have a copy of it. It's a reasonable blocker and potentially a game winning clock - but also one that in multiplayer would make you a massive target.

In Standard this got almost no use as it was almost impossible to prevent damage due to there being some very good value burn around at the time.

In EDH - target or not - there are ways to use this to win very quickly by working on the number of counters on the card with proliferate effects, Doubling Season or Vorel of the Hull Clade being examples.

If I was making an Angus Mackenzie deck I'd include this in there as an alternative win condition. All you have to do is have the mana to fog or prevent damage on each of your opponents turns as well as bumping the number of counters up to be sufficient to trigger the 'win' condition. This is actually quite do-able in a single 'go round' once it's had it's first counter put on it - at least it is in a Bant deck built around counterspell and fog effects and holding things like Vorel and Contagion Clasp in it.

If you cast doubling season and then this on the upkeep of the next turn it will get 2 counters placed on it. If you then use contagion clasp then it will get another 2 (one from the clasp and one from season) or alternatively if you use vorel it will get 4 (2 from Vorel and 2 from season) so all you have to do is have enough fog / counterspell in your hand to protect it until your next upkeep. Note that either of the boosting effects can be done at the end of your opponents turn leaving you mana to respond to anything they try to do first.

It's a clunky way to win but if you've got the mana and cards in hand you can get to it with a bit of effort.

I quite liked this one - for some reason I kept pulling them in prize packs.

If you could get it down and attack with it then things became progressively more unpleasant for your opponent the longer it was around. Also - being a standard card and not legendary - you could have more than one out at any time.

It didn't get a whole host of play because it does rather scream 'control deck' as being the only types of deck in the standard of the time that would survive long enough to have the mana to put into this - and they had better finishers than this.

But in limited it is a genuine bomb rare. If you cast it and it sticks it can change the game.

Moving on to EDH - I'd happily play this there. It is open to a hideous amount of abuse with things like Rite of Replication (Imagine six of these attacking at once - detain the world...) etc...

I like it.

I did like it - it's basically rakdos's bomb rare.

6 mana is a lot and in Standard the Rakdos decks of the time tended to run towards the lower end of the mana spectrum but in draft and sealed this was awesome. Potentially a 6/5 that could attack the turn it dropped and had first strike. Or a 5/4 blocker with first strike. However you used it by the time you could actually bring it out it WAS going to be useful somehow.

Yeah - I like this one.

Yep - ok it doesn't have haste but it is a big old flyer and if you don't care about blocking it's a bigger flyer with trample. Again - a genuine bomb rare in draft. You MUST have an answer to this within a turn or two of it's arriving or it will seriously reduce your chances of winning the game.

In fact this, and the Hellsteed before it, are both in my little box marked 'Marchessa the Black Rose Commander Deck' - read into that what you will.

Kind of yes. It won't turn the game around on it's own but it will help a lot. In BREAD I'd potentially take this as an 'Efficient' card - it lets you 'win more' rather than actually winning for you. I'd pick it quite high unless I happened to be into Selesnya colors in which case I'd take it as a first pick.

The problem is that you need creatures in order to use this - sounds silly but in draft where creatures are limited and may not always be in your colors so you wouldn't necessarily want to take it too early in a pack that had nothing but black and red creatures - just in case the other packs going around are the same.

However this card does turn Dryad Militant into a 4/4 for 1 which is rather nice - and Seller of Songbirds suddenly looks like a relevant card again.

So yeah - I wouldn't say it's a bomb as it needs other cards to pair with it but it's pretty damn good.

I play this in my Trostani EDH deck and if I get another copy of it I will probably play it in a Naya deck I am considering making.

I'd say it's excellent if you have some form of enchantment removal in your hand at the time - otherwise a bit of an issue. I suspect there are ways to abuse this but for 6 mana a throw I'd rather pay 4 for one of the various Clone type creatures and 2 for a kill spell on their creature.

I suspect that yes - it is probably used a bit in EDH in decks that want to do a lot of creature stealing but there are still 'tier 1' ways of doing that and this is perhaps 'tier 2'.

I agree, I have a great fondness for the set. I really got into the flavor of the guilds - to the point where I didn't play certain color combinations for a while because I didn't like the guilds...

That's pretty much it - I don't want to spoil too much for anyone who hasn't read the novella but the chain of events is being investigated by the guilds and independently by Jace. Around the time it is uncovered that there is a 'maze' laid through the city it becomes apparent that Ral Zarek is also involved and that Niv-Mizzet knows something.

I can't go into that too deeply without spoiling some of the plot. But this is essentially what Jace was also looking into.

I think that's pretty much it. New thread for Gatecrash and leave this one pending any card that is obviously interesting that we discover we forgot to bring out?

I'm happy to let you do it and follow your lead into discussions