Coda: I love horror, as a genre. Whether it’s by Cronenburg or Shelly, told in movies or novels or video games, there’s just a part of me that revels in exploring the darker, more primal parts of human nature. Interestingly enough, the last three blocks of Magic seem to have been tailor-made for my sensibilities. Zendikar gave us the Lovecraftian Eldrazi, terrifying not just because they are so alien but also because they are fundamentally unknowable. The next block brought us to the doomed plane of Mirrodin, where we got to revel and squirm with body horror as its inhabitants and the plane itself were subverted, dissected, overrun, and eventually assimilated to form New Phyrexia. Now the horror is finally returning to its roots in Innistrad, where we get to enjoy classical gothic horror rooted in the myths and legends that kept our ancestors awake at night, staring out into the dark.
Frankly, it looks like Wizards hit it out of the park with the flavor of the set. Not just that, the mechanics of the set mesh so flawlessly with the themes of horror that you can’t help but admire how Wizards got it. Death, certainly, but also transformation, the subversion of the self by dark impulses, and the guilty liberation found in exploring one’s own dark side. I can only hope the rest of the block continues the incredible work they’ve done so far.
Oh, and the cards are pretty cool, too.
[card]Angelic Overseer[/card]
Coda: Indestructibility combined with hexproof is pretty sweet, but the human clause makes this a little weaker. She could be a nice companion for [card]Konda, Lord of Eiganjo[/card] and a solid angel for [card]Kaalia of the Vast[/card], but as a merely hard to kill 5-power flier I just don’t think she does enough to be a card you’re generally going to want in your deck.
[card]Angel of Flight Alabaster[/card]
Coda: Kind of a wonky name, but quite a snazzy card. A 4/4 flying body is decent, and returning a creature from your graveyard every turn is just stellar. It’s no secret that there are tons of good spirits out there, too. My personal favorite? [card]Karmic Guide[/card]. That’s right, it’s an Angel Spirit. Or you could just transmute [card]Dimir Infiltrator[/card] or [card]Drift of Phantasms[/card] over and over again. Or keep getting plains with [card]Eternal Dragon[/card]. Or just be a tremendously huge dick and keep bringing back [card]Yosei, the Morning Star[/card]. Any way you play it, you get some serious value.
[card]Champion of the Parish[/card]
Coda: If only soldier tokens were Human Soldiers…then you could drop this guy before making a bunch of tokens and then he’d be huge! Oh, wait, no, that’s right – a vanilla fatty isn’t worth a card no matter how little it costs. Remember, [card]Serra Ascendant[/card] can hit the board on turn 1 as a 6/6 flying lifelinker, and it’s still borderline unplayable. [card]Lord of Extinction[/card] often hits the triple digits in power and toughness, and it’s only really worth playing if you have ways to [card]Fling[/card] it or give it evasion.
[card]Dearly Departed[/card]
Coda: A 5/5 flier for 6 is pretty mediocre, but the graveyard effect is pretty neat. Sadly, most tokens created by white token decks are just Soldiers, not Human Soldiers, so I doubt this will be making it in many people’s 99 unless there’s a big creature token type update.
[card]Divine Reckoning[/card]
Coda: A wrath with flashback is nothing to sneeze at, but this isn’t quite a wrath, which makes it a little more nuanced in the way you want to cast it. I think it will be at its best in aggressive Voltron strategies where you can clear the way for your general repeatedly, although it should be pretty brutal against token decks as well. Whether or not it’s worth running as a wrath in just any old white deck, I’m not quite sure. Flashback is incredibly potent, and any deck that looks to abuse its graveyard probably should, but I can just envision times where your opponents all have single powerful threats on the table and this just rots in your hand. Or in your graveyard. Whatever.
[card]Elite Inquisitor[/card]
Coda: It’s sure to be a sideboard card par excellence in Standard, but it’s never going to make waves in EDH.
[card]Fiend Hunter[/card]
Coda: The little brother of [card]Duplicant[/card] and [card]Phyrexian Ingester[/card], this guy can actually do some good work. There’s the obvious combo potential with things like [card]Worldgorger Dragon[/card], but you can also use him as a repeatable exile spell by bouncing him with [card]Crystal Shard[/card], [card]Equilibrium[/card], and [card]Erratic Portal[/card]
[card]Geist-Honored Monk[/card]
Coda: It’s a decent, if unimpressive, card. It makes a couple flying tokens for you and has vigilance, so it can hold the fort while your token army goes to town on your opponent. In this sense, it’s a more defensively-minded [card]Cloudgoat Ranger[/card]. That said, I really can’t describe how much I love the art on this card. The artist, Clint Cearley, is a relative newcomer to Magic, having done the art for only three other cards before Innistrad, but here’s hoping he gets more commissions from Wizards.
[card]Intangible Virtue[/card]
Coda: And here’s a card that fits right in alongside the Monk. The pump effect is nice, but vigilance is one of the most powerful and underappreciated abilities in EDH, allowing you to maintain your defense while still pecking away at your opponents’ life totals. This may not give your actual cards vigilance, but in a token deck the tokens tend to be simultaneously the most powerful and the most expendable part of your arsenal so that’s not that big of a downside. This should see a great deal of play in white token decks of all descriptions.
[card]Mentor of the Meek[/card]
Coda: Now we’re talking! White’s biggest weakness has always been it’s relative lack of card draw, but this guy lets you draw cards for each token and weenie that you put into play. In a [card]Kemba, Kha Regent[/card] deck, for instance, you could be drawing multiple cards each upkeep for only a couple mana. The only problem is that you need to eschew the usual anthem effects to make him trigger – if your tokens come in as 3/3s instead of 1/1s then he’s gonna be nothing but a [card]Pearled Unicorn[/card].
[card]Mikaeus, the Lunarch[/card]
Coda: I’m not sure about this guy – white’s never had a hydra before, much less one as a general, but having such a flexible casting cost means that you should be able to bring this guy back time and time again without much trouble. That said, tapping your general to give him +1/+1 is the last thing you want to be doing, so any plans to use him really ought to focus either on pumping your team or just smashing face with a fatty. He’s not really that spectacular at either one of those tasks, so you might want to just run him as a utility dude.
[card]Nevermore[/card]
Coda: Have a general that really gives you a conniption fit? This enchantment’s here to the rescue. Just don’t count on it to stick around forever, even against monoblack players – I can think of at least five colorless answers to this right off the top of my head.
[card]Stony Silence[/card]
Coda: [card]Null Rod[/card] in enchantment form…this can be seriously backbreaking against some decks. It also turns into a pseudo-[card]Armageddon[/card] with [card]Mycosynth Lattice[/card] out. I doubt I’ll run this, but there’s definitely a contingent of griefers out there who are rubbing their hands together with glee.
[card]Back from the Brink[/card]
Coda: In a neat twist on flashback, this enchantment basically gives it to your creatures. In a deck that cares about it’s graveyard, this really isn’t worth the price. After all, you’re hoping to recur your creatures more than just once, and hopefully for less than their mana cost. In a deck that uses fatties and utility creatures, though, this can be a nice way to get some extra value from creatures that you otherwise wouldn’t get much use out of.
[card]Cackling Counterpart[/card]
Coda: The obvious comparison here is [card]Spitting Image[/card]. While this can’t be used more than twice, I rarely use [card]Spitting Image[/card] more than twice in a game, anyway, which makes this a pretty solid alternative. That said, it does suffer the limitation of only targeting your own creatures, which means that I doubt this will be seeing much play in monoblue decks. It has the advantage of instant speed, but aside from being able to keep countermagic up or somesuch I doubt you’ll be able to get much mileage out of that – after all, you’re just making a copy of something you already have.
Sam: I’m actually pretty stoked about this card because I absolutely love ETB effects. Cackling Counterpart is like a second [card]Momentary Blink[/card] that gives you a permanent copy! Seems quite powerful to me.
[card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]
Coda: At first glance, it seems like an overcosted [card]Impulse[/card], but it has the rather fantastic advantage of dumping all the cards you don’t put in your hand into your graveyard. In a deck that cares about such things, that’s almost as good as just drawing the four cards, straight up. Factor in the flashback and instant speed, and this should be a fantastic roleplayer in any UB deck that cares about its graveyard. [card]Dralnu, Lich Lord[/card], [card]The Mimeoplasm[/card], and [card]Sharuum, the Hegemon[/card] in particular should get some mileage out of this.
[card]Laboratory Maniac[/card]
Coda: Mr. Johnny? I believe your card is here.
Sam: The only reason I’m ok with this is because it’s pretty much winmore in the sorts of decks that would run it, plus it’s a hilarious way to win.
[card]Ludevic’s Test Subject[/card]//[card]Ludevic’s Abomination[/card]
Coda: Gigantic overcosted tramply monsters are a blue tradition going back to [card]Leviathan[/card], but they’ve never been particularly good. Ludevic’s baby lizard doesn’t really change anything.
[card]Memory’s Journey[/card]
Coda: A supremely flexible card, this can act as some nice instant-speed graveyard hate against your opponents or a way to recycle cards from your own graveyard back into your deck. I wouldn’t run it if all it did was get 3 cards, but the flashback makes this a nice rattlesnake that can stop your graveyard-abusing opponents cold.
[card]Mindshrieker[/card]
Coda: Fragile, conditional, and not even that powerful. Next!
[card]Mirror-Mad Phantasm[/card]
Coda: In a singleton format, this basically reads “1U: Put about half of your library into your graveyard.” That’s…kind of insane. The only cards I can think of with similar effects are [card]Traumatize[/card] and [card]Hermit Druid[/card], but this allows you to activate it multiple times per turn. For a deck that’s looking to abuse it’s own graveyard, that’s just fantastic. And hey, while it only has 1 toughness, 5 power means that it’s a decent beater when you need it to be. Sign me up.
[card]Rooftop Storm[/card]
Coda: Welcome…to Zombocom, the Zombie Combo. You can do anything with Zombocom, as long as you have zombies with ETB abilities and a [card]Cloudstone Curio[/card] on the battlefield. Combo applications aside, this should be crazy-awesome in any kind of zombie tribal deck, or any deck willing to run [card]Conspiracy[/card] ([card]Xenograft[/card] doesn’t work, sadly). [card]Thraximundar[/card] decks, in particular, should get a lot of mileage out of this card. Not only does it let you cast your general for free immediately, it means that you only have to pay the extra mana for subsequent castings of your general. In other words, your opponents ain’t never getting rid of him.
[card]Skaab Ruinator[/card]
Coda: Three mana for a 5/6 flyer is exciting, and being able to cast it from your graveyard is insane, but once you read the whole “exile three creatures from your graveyard” clause this guy begins to look a lot more mediocre. Most decks that seek to abuse their graveyards usually don’t want to exile big chunks of their graveyards every time they cast a spell, and as nice as a 3 mana flying fatty sounds, it’s not that good. I imagine this is going to see plenty of play in a Standard dredge deck of some description, but EDH players should leave it alone.
[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]
Coda: Tiago Chan gave us quite a card, here: a two mana creature that can give your spells in the graveyard flashback. Who wouldn’t want to cast a gigantic sorcery twice or surprise your opponent by flashing back a [card]Cryptic Command[/card]? It’s basically a blue version of [card]Eternal Witness[/card], albeit an instant speed one that doesn’t let you recur things infinitely. That’s still pretty good, though, and frankly, how many times do you need to cast Tooth and Nail before winning, anyway?
[card]Sturmgeist[/card]
Coda: Nothing special, really, but a nice addition to the “hand-size-matters” decks that I know are out there.
[card]Undead Alchemist[/card]
Coda: I actually like this card a lot. Milling your opponent usually benefits them, but this guy exiles all the nasty, easily-recurrable creatures while he does it and gives you delicious zombies in return. I doubt that you’ll end up milling someone out with this effect, but having key creatures exiled can be surprisingly debilitating to decks that rely on tutoring them up to answer specific threats (like my Jenara deck, for instance).
Sam: It’s like and upside down [card]Bridge from Below[/card]… kinda. Sounds fun in a U/B mill deck.
[card]Army of the Damned[/card]
Coda: I think a comparison to [card]Conqueror’s Pledge[/card] is in order here. Let’s see…the pledge gives you 6 power for 5 mana or 12 power for 11 mana. [card]Army of the Damned[/card] gives you 26 power for 8 mana and 52 power for 18 mana. I think the math is just a tiny bit in favor of the new hotness here, don’t you think? Black isn’t particularly known for token strategies, but even outside of it’s applications in a zombie tribal deck I have a feeling that this is going to occupy a similar niche as [card]Genesis Wave[/card] in green decks: a huge, potentially game-ending sorcery that almost every single deck in its color is going to run. You heard it here first – stock up on those zombie tokens!
Sam: Now all you need is [card]Intruder Alarm[/card], [card]Beast Master’s Ascension[/card] and any way of giving your team haste and you basically win…
[card]Bitterheart Witch[/card]
Coda: If they print EDH-playable curses, she’ll be playable. Until then, stay away.
[card]Bloodgift Demon[/card]
Coda: Basically a 5/4 flying [card]Phyrexian Arena[/card]. Card advantage is card advantage, and this guy is sized and priced perfectly to serve as a powerful yet only moderately threatening creature that should be able to stick around a while, maybe bash face a bit, and then trade with something. That’s pretty insane value for a 5-drop.
Sam: Every black deck just got one Phyrexian Arena better. Well… this is more accurately compared to [card]Graveborn Muse[/card], not sure if it’s better or not… depends on the deck I suppose.
[card]Bloodline Keeper[/card]//[card]Lord of Lineage[/card]
Coda: Vampires now have another lord, and he’s surprisingly powerful. Granted, all he’s going to be doing is pumping out little baby-vamps unless you’ve got a ton of vamps already in play, but once you do…+2/+2 is a sizeable boost. Unfortunately, vamps aren’t necessarily ones known for flooding the board with tokens, so you’re probably going to have to either get 5 honest cards’ worth of vamps on the table or wait a while until the Keeper poops out enough vamps to go critical. Also worth noting is that this guy is an infinite combo with [card]Intruder Alarm[/card]. Sure, [card]Godsire[/card] does the same thing, but the far less restrictive color requirements mean this should probably show up in more decks.
Sam: Personally, wont run it, feels really awkward at best. If you’re running tribal vamps, definitely get a copy.
[card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card]
Coda: [card]Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[/card] has taught us that -2/-2 is the sweet spot when it comes to this kind of effect, as a lot of random utility creatures have 2 toughness. Now, if this actually did give -2/-2, we might have something to talk about, but sadly the only thing that -1/-1 static effects are good for is hosing token decks – most of which have plenty of enchantment removal.
Sam: I’d run it if it cost BB instead of 3BB…
[card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/card]
Coda: While it doesn’t have the nearly universal appeal that its big brother [card]Army of the Damned[/card] has, this is probably going to be a must-include in every zombie deck. And hey, if the planets align and you get to cast [card]Army of the Damned[/card] with this out, well, that’s a lot of zombies. Combine it with [card]Paradox Haze[/card] for extra shenanigans.
[card]Falkenrath Noble[/card]
Coda: I can’t believe I missed this card at first, because the effect is just insanely powerful in EDH. Stuff dies all the time in EDH, whether it’s in combat, to removal spells, or a player’s own sacrifice outlets. This guy punishes everyone for it. Having one out is basically sweeper insurance, ensuring that you get to punish anyone who pulls the trigger on a wrath. And then of course, you get to gain ridiculous amounts of life in the meantime. I have a BG sacrifice token deck brewing that will be just perfect for this guy.
[card]Heartless Summoning[/card]
Coda: This gives you a significant discount on your creatures for the price of a small decrease in their size. On the face of it, that’s not a particularly bad deal – most utility creatures are 2/2s and most combat in EDH is surprisingly insensitive to the relative size of the creatures. But then again, you’re also giving up a card for the effect. [card]Cloudstone Curio[/card] shenanigans spring to mind, but this set also has Rooftop Storm, which seems like a much more powerful way to go about that. Until someone comes up with a way to break this, I say leave it out of your decks.
[card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]
Coda: Borderline scandalous card art aside, I doubt Lili V’s 3-mana incarnation is going to see as much play as her 5-mana one in EDH. Her discard ability is bound to draw a ton of hate, and she’s probably not going to take more than one hit to bring down. Using her as a 3 mana [card]Curse of the Cabal[/card] when you have a [card]Doubling Season[/card] down is kinda neat, but Magical Christmasland is not the place you want to aim for when you’re building decks.
Sam: I love this card in a reanimator style deck. Other than that… seems awful.
[card]Morkrut Banshee[/card]
Coda: The card may be only good in limited, but the art shows that Terese Nielsen is definitely a woman after my own heart.
[card]Reaper from the Abyss[/card]
Coda: 6/6 flying body for 6 mana? Check. Extremely relevant ability? Check. Sounds good for EDH to me. Definitely at its best in a deck that can abuse sacrifice effects, especially on each of its opponents’ turns. [card]Reassembling Skeleton[/card] should be a pretty amazing enabler here.
[card]Sever the Bloodline[/card]
Coda: Black is good at killing stuff, but it’s not known for being able to exile things. That makes this card somewhat unique, but it’s cost is still rather high. It is able to eliminate token swarms particularly well, though, and is a pretty stellar answer to someone’s [card]Rite of Replication[/card]. Again, flashback makes what would otherwise be a barely playable card much more palatable.
[card]Skirsdag High Priest[/card]
Coda: Another card that goes real, real well in a sacrifice themed deck. A 5/5 flying demon every turn is nothing to sneeze at. Basically black’s equivalent to [card]Dragonmaster Outcast[/card].
[card]Unbreathing Horde[/card]
Coda: Zombie tribal should be able to get some mileage out of this, but really, it’s nothing more than a hard-to-kill vanilla fatty. [card]Phantom Nishoba[/card] is essentially the same thing, and it’s definitely not warping the format around it.
[card]Unburial Rites[/card]
Coda: It’s a slightly overcosted [card]Zombify[/card], but with flashback! This should quickly become a staple for any deck that can run it. The off-color flashback cost is slightly limiting, but the fact that it costs less than actually casting the card like normal takes some of the sting out of it.
[card]Balefire Dragon[/card]
Coda: Now here is a motherfucking dragon. Some dragons kill a creature when they attack, others kill a creature when they connect, and others just sit back and kill stuff from a distance. This one says nuts to all of that stuff and just nukes the everloving hell out of a player and everything they hold dear. It’s basically a titan-sized flying [card]Flame Wave[/card] on a stick. Easily the new title holder of the Biggest Baddest Motherfucking Dragon award.
[card]Blasphemous Act[/card]
Coda: Red gets a bona-fide sweeper! Yes, I know, [card]Chain Reaction[/card] and [card]Earthquake[/card] are cards, but this is a lot more flexible and powerful than either of those. It may seem overcosted, but most of the time you’re going to be casting this for 5 or less mana, which is just fine. Frankly, this is the first red sweeper I’ve seen that I would actually consider running over [card]Day of Judgment[/card].
Sam: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH this is awesome! Soooo much better than [card]Chain Reaction[/card]
[card]Charmbreaker Devils[/card]
Coda: Sure, you’re returning an instant or sorcery at random, but getting anything back every single upkeep is pretty awesome. While just about any deck short of a creature-only deck will get plenty of mileage out of these guys, I imagine their best application is in a URx deck that runs a lot of inexpensive card draw spells – [card]Riku of Two Reflections[/card] would be a good fit.
Sam: Yes, I love this card all day. Recursion is the best. ♥
[card]Curse of Stalked Prey[/card]
Coda: This could be neat with [card]Animar, Soul of Elements[/card], but frankly I don’t think the benefit of making your team a wee bit bigger outweighs the fact that this doesn’t really do anything unless you’re connecting with your opponent. Token decks are the natural fit for this card, and there’s plenty of cards that I’d rather pump my tokens with than this awkward little enchantment.
[card]Devil’s Play[/card]
Coda: [card]Blaze[/card] with flashback. Not too flashy, but it should be a solid roleplayer in a monored deck or a nice way to snipe opponents who are already on the ropes.
[card]Falkenrath Marauders[/card]
Coda: While it’s deceptively small at first, this card grows fast enough to make it a genuine threat in pretty short order. I’m not certain I’d run it in any old red deck, but it could be a very solid player in vampire tribal.
[card]Instigator Gang[/card]//[card]Wildblood Pack[/card]
Coda: When it’s wolfed out it has a pretty tasty bonus for attacking, but unless you have [card]Silence[/card] at hand to shut up your opponent the turn before you plan on attacking, it’s probably not going to get big very often.
[card]Kruin Outlaw[/card]//[card]Terror of Kruin Pass[/card]
Coda: Werewolf tribal is going to depend heavily on the kind of support that it gets over the next three sets, but I honestly think it’s going to be underwhelming in EDH. People routinely cast more than one spell a turn, so unless you have cards like [card]Rule of Law[/card], [card]Ethersworn Canonist[/card], and [card]Arcane Laboratory[/card], I doubt your werewolves are going to be all that wolfy. Given that none of those cards are in green or red, well, you can see the writing on the wall.
[card]Past in Flames[/card]
Coda: The obligatory “apply X mechanic to everything” mythic for this set. That said, it’s essentially an instant-and-sorcery-only [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card] with flashback, which is pretty freaking awesome. You’re going to have to have a ton of mana in order to get much value out of this, so it’s probably best in a RGx deck of some description. Blue would give you card draw to flashback, black would give you tutors, and white would give you…well, not a whole lot.
Sam: This card is basically 90% of why Will is so epic. Permanents are a lot easier to recur than instants and sorceries. Since this has flashback, it’s nearly better than Will in certain decks and circumstances.
[card]Rakish Heir[/card]
Coda: All you dude-loving dudes and ladies out there…this art’s for you. For all you dudebros out there who are complaining about this card gaying up their magic decks…shut the fuck up and enjoy your Liliana cheesecake. For everyone with a vamp tribal deck…here’s your man.
[card]Scourge of Geier Reach[/card]
Coda: I bring this card up because people are going to see it and think it’s awesome in multiplayer. It’s not. Not only do vanilla fatties suck, your 55/55 vanilla fatty with no evasion is going to look really silly when your opponent swings against you for infinity with their token horde after chumping with a 1/1.
[card]Stromkirk Noble[/card]
Coda: Yeah, it’s going to be one of the new go-to red 1-drops in standard, but in EDH it’s just going to be plain bad.
[card]Creeping Renaissance[/card]
Coda: I never knew renaissances were things that could creep, much less move around, but hey, it makes for a pretty sweet Magic card. I imagine it’s going to be fetching creatures and sorceries most of the time, depending on what your deck wants to do. There are a lot of similar cards out there in the 5-8 mana range, though. [card]Praetor’s Counsel[/card] is going to be better most of the time, I think, and when you absolutely need a 5 mana sorcery then [card]All Suns’ Dawn[/card] and [card]Restock[/card] are probably a bit more flexible. Monogreen is probably the best place for this card – that particular archetype doesn’t need flexibility so much as raw power.
[card]Daybreak Ranger[/card]//[card]Nightfall Predator[/card]
Coda: Dealing 2 damage to a flier isn’t particularly impressive at the big tables, and a 4/4 is a little small to be thinking of getting much mileage out of its fight ability. Definitely something you should skip.
[card]Elder of Laurels[/card]
Coda: Kind of a [card]Kamahl, Fist of Krosa[/card]-ish effect, but worse in almost every single way. It’s still quite playable, since you can stack triggers in order to make a single creature truly gigantic. Just remember, though – Kamahl and his racist friend, [card]Ezuri, Renegade Leader[/card] get 3 times as much done with just one more mana.
[card]Essence of the Wild[/card]
Coda: A pretty hilarious effect, to be sure, but definitely not that great outside of a dedicated token deck. It actually could be kind of funny to donate this to someone, but 6/6s are 6/6s, so that might be a wee bit suicidal.
Sam: I have never liked vanilla dudes… and this forces all of my awesome dudes to be plain old 6/6’s? I’ll pass on this one, but Coda is right, could be strong in tokens, but I think [card]Beastmaster Ascension[/card] in still far better because you can drop it on top of your token army and surprise attack for 60 when it looked like you only had 10 power on the board (assuming ten 1/1 tokens).
[card]Gutter Grime[/card]
Coda: Interesting, but a lot of stuff needs to die before you get any real mileage out of this. Just pay the mana upfront and get the same kind of effect out of [card]Gelatinous Genesis[/card]
[card]Kessig Cagebreakers[/card]
Coda: The obvious comparison here is with [card]Hero of Bladehold[/card]. Both even have the same power and toughness. That said, while the Hero pumps your entire team, this guy has the potential to make an absolutely huge amount of tokens in the right deck. [card]Karador, Ghost Chieftain[/card] is the obvious fit for him, but even monogreen should be able to get a lot of mileage out of him, since they tend to fill up their graveyard with plenty of utility creatures and previous waves of fatties that have been wrathed away.
[card]Mayor of Avabruck[/card]//[card]Howlpack Alpha[/card]
Coda: Making a 3/3 wolf every turn is pretty neat, but I doubt this guy will ever do much more than be a very specific anthem on a very small stick.
[card]Moldgraft Monstrosity[/card]
Coda: It’s kind of entertaining how hard Wizards worked to make this card not incredibly broken. Not only does it exile itself, the creatures it chooses are random. No infinite loops to reanimate your entire graveyard for you Johnnies out there! That said, it’s a pretty fantastic deal, especially in a monogreen deck.
[card]Moonmist[/card]
Coda: If werewolf tribal is ever going to work, it’s going to involve this card and [card]Isochron Scepter[/card]
[card]Mulch[/card]
Coda: It gets land in your hand and creatures and spells in the graveyard. Seems pretty excellent for a deck that wants both.
[card]Parallel Lives[/card]
Coda: Time to jump for joy, Timmies! They’ve reprinted [card]Doubling Season[/card]! Well, half of it. The non-broken half. Still, doubling up on your creatures has always been the most ridiculous and entertaining half of the enchantment, so this should see lots of play in token decks.
Sam: It’s half as good as Doubling Season, and doubling season is insanely amazing, so I guess that makes this just plain old amazing.
[card]Prey Upon[/card]
Coda: Provided you’ve got some beef on the table, this might as well be a one-mana [card]Doom Blade[/card]. Probably best in [card]Omnath, Locus of Mana[/card], but any beefy general ought to do. Definitely a solid removal option for monogreen.
[card]Spider Spawning[/card]
Coda: This is actually kind of neat in a [card]Karador, Ghost Chieftain[/card] or [card]The Mimeoplasm[/card] deck. The obvious comparison is to [card]Worm Harvest[/card], which is probably a better card simply because it can be cast over and over, but the fact that your little spider army has reach makes it surprisingly good at chumping dragons and whatnot, or even taking them out of the air entirely. Given how many decks try to win with big flying fatties, I say it’s worth a look.
[card]Splinterfright[/card]
Coda: It may not draw on all the graveyards like [card]Mortivore[/card], [card]Lhurgoyf[/card], and [card]Bonehoard[/card], but it does have the distinct advantage of both having evasion and milling two cards into your graveyard each turn. Not only does this make it bigger, it also helps feed your recursion engines for no additional mana investment. That’s definitely worth the slight size downgrade.
[card]Tree of Redemption[/card]
Coda: Thirteen life really isn’t that much in EDH, so keeping this around as an extra 13 life for you to draw on really isn’t that great of a deal. I guess you could swap your life total right after you cast [card]Invincible Hymn[/card], but you’re still not getting a whole lot out of it. It’s a defender, too, so even Doran can’t go big with it.
[card]Evil Twin[/card]
Coda: A clone that can kill what it copies next turn. Sounds fine to me. [card]Clone[/card] has always been playable, and for a slightly more restrictive color requirement you get some additional utility on top of that.
[card]Garruk Relentless[/card]//[card]Garruk, the Veil-Cursed[/card]
Coda: Garruk Relentless isn’t always going to have 1/1s and 2/2s running around to play with, so it’s probably a good idea to pack along some of your own. That said, once he’s hulked out – look out. Deathtouchy blockers are awesome at discouraging fatties, tutoring up creatures for sacrificing a creature (probably a token) is insane, and the [card]Overrun[/card] ability is just icing on the cake. I have a feeling that Garruk is going to be a big part of any deck that can run him. Remember that he can’t go in just any green deck, though – he’s black, too!
[card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]
Coda: Saint Ghosty is a neat card and very flavorful, but he’s really not that strong. Hexproof is always welcome on a commander, but he lacks evasion on his own and his guardian angel doesn’t deal general damage. If bringing in fatties with your general is your thing, go with [card]Kaalia of the Vast[/card] and leave Saint Traft to rest in peace.
[card]Grimgrin, Corpse-Born[/card]
Coda: Frankly, this guy just seems like a bad [card]Thraximundar[/card] to me. A 5/5 that kills stuff and gets bigger when he attacks is neat, but having to sacrifice your own creatures to untap him is kind of annoying. Sure, blue has a ton of ways to untap him, but untapping this guy just to attack really doesn’t seem like that great of a deal. Thrax does more or less the same thing and has haste to boot, and [card]Merieke Ri Berit[/card] steals stuff instead of just killing it. In the end, he’s neat, but I doubt he’ll see much play.
[card]Olivia Voldaren[/card]
Coda: Yet another vampire that kills and/or steals stuff in a long line of vampires that kill and/or steal stuff. While her ability to steal people’s creatures is going to get most of the attention, the two biggest reasons to run her are her very reasonable mana cost (at just 4 CMC) and her ability to pump herself. Sure, you’ll steal a creature every once and a while, but don’t count on holding onto them for very long.
[card]Cellar Door[/card]
Coda: “Cellar Door” may be the most beautiful phrase in the english language, but an artifact that gives you a chance of making a zombie for 3 mana is pretty weak. That said, this does have the rather stellar utility in EDH of rescuing your general from the bottom of your library once someone has [card]Condemn[/card]ed or [card]Spin into Myth[/card]ed it. When it gets placed into your graveyard, you can choose to leave it there for reanimation or place it back in the command zone. If you’re running a deck that absolutely must have access to its general in order to function, this should be a nice tuck deterrent for you.
[card]Creepy Doll[/card]
Coda: Neat, but just not as good as [card]Stuffy Doll[/card]. Frankly, they just should have given it deathtouch instead of the whole awkward flip-a-coin business.
[card]Cliffside Retreat[/card], [card]Hinterland Harbor[/card], [card]Isolated Chapel[/card], [card]Sulfur Falls[/card], [card]Woodland Cemetery[/card]
Coda: At long last, enemy-colored M10 duals are here! I run the M10 duals in every multicolored deck I own that can run them, and these are going to be no different. Foils of these are going to be at the top of my wishlist for this set, without a doubt.
Sam: I absolutely love lands. As silly as it sounds, this is what I’m most excited for in this set. If I could have only five cards from Innistrad, these would be the five.
[card]Gavony Township[/card]
Coda: Holy shit. Can you think of a token deck that won’t want to play this? Can you think of a GWx deck that won’t want to play this? I sure as hell can’t. Make sure to bring some proliferate shenanigans along to the party.
[card]Ghost Quarter[/card]
Coda: The kinder, gentler [card]Strip Mine[/card]. Probably worse than [card]Tectonic Edge[/card], too, although I suppose you can use it on your own Darksteel Citadel or [card]Flagstones of Trokair[/card] if you’re desperate for manafixing.
[card]Grimoire of the Dead[/card]
Coda: This artifact reminds me a lot of the original [card]Lilianna Vess[/card]’ ultimate. Each comes down, charges up for three turns (both involving discarding a card!), and then they go off in spectacular fashion, returning all the creatures in every graveyard to your side of the table. It’s a powerful effect, no doubt, and I imagine one that will end games in pretty short order once it goes off, but I wonder if it’s worth it. As an artifact, the Grimoire is both more and less vulnerable than Ms. Vess. Yes, it can charge up in safety without having to fear creature beatdowns, but it also can be targeted by any of the plethora of anti-artifact effects running around. Given the fact that the card the Grimoire needs you to discard is your own and it’s lack of an alternate tutor-mode, I think Lilianna comes out the clear winner in all but one respect: color. The Grimoire is colorless, so your monoblue mill deck can finally get a little mileage out of your opponents’ copious graveyards.
[card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card]
Coda: This land is freaking fabulous. Really, what red-green deck doesn’t want to pump it’s general to ridiculous size and trample over for a kajillion damage? Okay, maybe [card]Riku of Two Reflections[/card] and [card]Mayael the Anima[/card] aren’t going to be beating much face, but [card]Uril, the Miststalker[/card], [card]Stonebrow, Krosan Hero[/card], [card]Animar, Soul of Elements[/card], [card]Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund[/card], [card]Rith, the Awakener[/card] and [card]Intet, the Dreamer[/card] certainly are. Also, note that it can be activated with X=0 to just give the creature in question trample.
[card]Manor Gargoyle[/card]
Coda: A pseudo-indesctructible 4/4 flyer should dodge most wraths, but it’s still going to be garbage in combat. I’d leave it alone.
[card]Moorland Haunt[/card]
Coda: As insane as this is going to be in standard, creating a seemingly endless stream of 1/1 flying sword-wielders, exiling a creature from your graveyard for a mere 1/1 is not that great in EDH. Sure, you can use it to remove cards that your opponent is trying to take advantage of with reanimation effects, but that’s what [card]Mistveil Plains[/card] is for.
Sam: I can totally see never running this ever, I would love this card if it was green instead of white/blue. Mostly because most of my white/blue decks don’t tend to have an overabundance of creatures, and or I’m running some sort of recursion.
[card]Nephalia Drownyard[/card]
Coda: A tad awkwardly named, true, and nowhere near as powerful as it’s Gavony and Kessig counterparts, but it’s not a terrible way to spend an extra three mana every turn. Use it to fill up your own graveyard or your opponents’ for [card]Mimeoplasm[/card] fodder or to set up a powerful [card]Living Death[/card].
Sam: This card is totally nuts! I would totally put this in any U/B deck just for sniping tutors and messing with people after they spin their Top. =D
[card]Stensia Bloodhall[/card]
Coda: 2 damage isn’t that stellar, and for 6 mana? No thanks. I guess a BR deck could run it just for the hell of it, but pretty much everyone else should leave it for the constructed players.
[card]Witchbane Orb[/card]
Coda: I doubt too many Curses are going to get pointed at players in EDH, but a colorless [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] is pretty neat.
Conclusions
Coda: Black, red, and green all got some absolutely spectacular cards in Innistrad, while blue received a solid number of powerful utility spells and the best creature printed since [card]Dark Confidant[/card]. White seems to be the redheaded stepchild this time around, with only a wrath variant and an angel with built-in recursion standing apart from the pack.
Coda’s Top 10 Innistrad Cards:
10. Divine Reckoning
9. Garruk Relentless
8. Parallel Lives
7. Blasphemous Act
6. Past in Flames
5. Kessig Wolf Run
4. Army of the Damned
3. Kessig Cagebreakers
2. Bloodgift Demon
1. Snapcaster Mage
Sam: I’m pretty sure that you should start running more graveyard hate if you aren’t already running some. I’m thinking 3-4 grave hate cards per deck wouldn’t be uncalled for these days. Just sayin’
Sam’s Top 10 Innistrad Cards:
10. Olivia Voldaren
9. Bloodgift Demon
8. Snapcaster Mage
7. Past in Flames
6. Army of the Damned
1. Cliffside Retreat
1. Hinterland Harbor
1. Woodland Cemetery
1. Sulfur Falls
1. Isolated Chapel