Since most of my days are centered around prepping for constructed formats including Modern preparation for last season's PTQ Dragon's Maze and now Standard for the PTQ Theros season, I haven't been able to draft as much as I normally would. This saddens me greatly.
Since the perspective on Limited is generally focused on what powerhouses you can find at Rare or Uncommon level, I like shine some light on the little guys that aid in unlocking the grand potential of our 40 card Limited monstrosities. I hope to write one of these for every set release before the set's Prerelease so everyone can get a good survey of what the set has to offer and hopefully it'll help when you're trying to build your Sealed deck and take down your LGS's preree. Without any further ado, UNLEASH THE COMMONS!
Normally, I dislike sleeving up creatures with 1 toughness. Cards like Trained Caracal and Daggerdrome Imp from Return to Ravnica were really frail creatures that in the grand scheme of the game, didn't really apply any reasonable pressure and couldn't do a whole lot in combat without the help from an Ethereal Armor. Return to Ravnica block Limited also has a large amount of X/3s and X/4 creatures that will often brick wall your 1 toughness guys and make combat relatively abysmal every time. Tithe Drinker is one of our few exceptions.
Although her stats in combat are a little lackluster, she has two abilities that more than compensate for her size. Lifelink allows this 2 mana, 2 power creature to dominate creature races against aggressive decks, similar to Knight of Meadowgrain in Lowryn Limited. When your opponent taps their creatures sideways for an alpha strike, Tithe Drinker allows you to stay offensive while buffering your opponet's onslaught with a bit of health as an added bonus. Lifelink also helps you stall and buy time if you're trying to stabilize against an opponent's Rakdos Shred-Freak or Gore-House Chainwalker opening from hyperaggressive decks. Tithe Drinker's Exort ability is also really huge since the ability stacks with other Extort permanents you control and the ability's relevance increases as the game progresses when you have more mana to use the triggered ability. Although this card is relatively straightforward, I like it's flexibility in different matchups and you'll always be happy to sleeve one of these up in your Aggro or Midrange deck.
I really enjoy blinking creautres with Enter the Battlefield triggers and Deputy of Acquittals is here to entertain. This Azorius bringer of justice is a beautifully designed 2 mana, 2/2 creature with Flash and a 'rescue my own dude' clause attached to it, which is super reminiscent of Whitemane Lion from Plana Chaos. In addition to being extremely cost efficient, this creature can be cast on your opponent's turn and can help you rescue one of your creatures in response to an opponent's removal spell or to save one of your creatures in combat in response to one of your opponent's combat tricks or Bloodrush cards.
I think my favorite part about this card is the 'fixed' version of his Enter the Battlefield trigger including the clause 'may.' Unlike Whitemane Lion, you may choose to return a creature you control back to your hand. If Deputy is your only way to block a huge creature that's threatening lethal on your life total, you don't have to return him back to your hand and.. not die. I really like this sublte change and I think it refines combat tricks with this creature very nicely. I definitely expect to see this card see serious Commander play as a U/W piece of utility or in Bant Aluren decks.
This guy is just raw power. A 2/2 Haste creature for 3 mana already has reasonable stats, but Viashino Firstblade gains +2/+2 when he Enters the Battlefield and brings on some serious damage in the early game. Similar to Skyknight Legionnaire from Gatecrash, Viashino Firstblade helps turn on Battalion triggers, which can help give your creatures a plethora of added bonuses a whole turn earlier, which can really disrupt your opponent's ability to stabilize against the onslaught.
Unlike most 3 mana creatures, Viashino Firstblade can reasonably trade up with many X/4s in the format if your opponent is at a low enough life total and are forced to block to stay alive. The idea of 'trading up' is always beneficial because of the concept of Opportunity and Mana Spending/Mana Efficiency. If you're opponent dedicates more resources to a creature that trades with your smaller, less mana-intensive creatures, you will always have more mana to spend overall, which allows you to cast spells at a higher rate and generally apply enough pressure to their life total to outright kill them. This concept is a bit advanced for a Top 8 Common article, but I felt it warranted mentioning.
Fortunately for us, we can already see Viashino Firstblade's strength as he seems a few copies scattered through various Naya Blitz decks in Standard. I definitely expect to see this card rock some Limited games as well as see a strong amount of play in Constructed while it enjoys its stay in Standard.
You'll often hear the phrase: 'removal is at a premium' which essentially means prioritize removal spells. Runner's Bane is a well-designed removal spell (similar to Ice Cage from M12) that is very efficient at 2 mana and has the small downside that it can only enchant creatures with power 3 or less. Although Runner's Bane doesn't rid the creature off the board, it effectively removes it from combat, which is generally good enough. The beauty of Runner's Bane is that it not only serves as a removal spell, it can also serve as a piece of Tempo advantage by preventing your opponent's early creature from attacking you. This could buy you ample time to cast your slightly more expensive spells or allow you to effectively race your opponent with your own aggression. Runner's Bane can also shut off your opponent's Battalion creatures and Dimir creatures that have been Encoded on by Cipher cards because the Dimir and Boros creatures are generally smaller.
Runner's Bane has a few downsides: If the creature enchanted by Runner's Bane has a power above 3 at any point, the enchantment will fall off. Although your opponents can't pump their enchanted creature with a Bloodrush card, Return to Ravnica Block Limited contains many combat tricks at the Common and Uncommon level so removing the Runner's Bane isn't terribly difficult. Furthermore, Runner's Bane doesn't 'hard' kill a creature, so it still allows Guildmages to run wild with their activated abilities.
4) CluestonesCluestones.. really? At Common level, these mana fixing artifacts are super sweet. Since Dragon's Maze contains a lot of powerful and mana hungry spells, having the ability to generate more mana and fix your mana is really important. Fortunately, all of the cluestones do both! They're also really great for getting you from 3 mana to 5 mana on turn 4, which is really huge in a format of giant 5 and 6 mana spells.
And obviously once your Cluestones has outlived its usefulness and you have all of your mana fixed and plenty, you can cash in your Cluestone to draw a card. I think the design on these mana rocks is perfect and taking a page out of Mind Stone's book was perfect for Return to Ravnica Block Limited.
This is definitely my favorite Common card from Dragon's Maze. As an honorary member of the Simic Combine, this card pleases me because it is a 2/2 with an extremely efficient pump ability for +2/+2 for 2 mana that you can use once each turn. Emphasis on 'each' which includes your opponet's turn too! This card is really similar to Frilled Oculus from Gatecrash, a card I wasn't really excited about until I actually played with it. Creatures with natural combat tricks attached to them are extremely miserable for your opponents to fight against becuase you can attack and 'bluff' the pump and get in extra points of damage that normal creatures of inferior guilds could only dream of doing. GO SIMIC!
The natural pump ability also allows you to trade up (similar to the discussion on Viashino Firstblade) on your opponent's creatures which gives this creature a ton of extra mileage when in combat. Furthermore, Bettleform Mage can escape a ton of removal spells in the format such as Annihilating Fire, Punishing Fire, Fatal Fumes, and Runner's Bane which makes this creature very resilient and an awesome Human, Insect, Wizard to enlist in the army de Simic.
In Return to Ravnica Block Limited, finding cards to gain 'value' is paramount and Punish the Enemy will punish many a foe if your opponent doesn't keep this card in mind. With the ability to snipe a creature and a Planeswalker in one violent firey sword swipe is nothing to scoff at and its instant speed application will take down creatures in respone to Enchantment buffs, Bloodrush activations, and Beetleform Mage activations (nooooo!) and allow you to easily 2-for-1 your opponent. This card is great when you're ahead and helps even out the playing field when you're down on creatures. Punish the Enemy is also very flexibile since its mana cost only requires 1 Red, so you can easily splash this as a 3rd, 4th, or even a 5th color with the support of Cluestones and Guildgates.
The only downside to this removal spell is the large amount of X/4s in the format that this burn spell cannot kill outright, so saving your creatures for a block plus burn spell is something you may have to keep in mind as one of your outs to an opponent's bomb creature.
Zhur-Taa Druid is definitely one of the defining commons in Dragon's Maze Limited. This card not ony accelerates your mana, but immediately puts your opponent on a clock. Although you can't necessarily speed up this 1-damage/turn clock like Lobber Crew from Return to Ravnica Limited, being able to cast it a turn earlier than Lobber Crew and accelerate your spells from turn 2 to turn 4 is huge in Tempo-style decks. Zhur-Taa Druid is also the perfect 2 drop creature in aggressive decks because it allows you to commit a creature to the board that generates more resources and while not compromising your damage output. Aggressive decks that can generate more resources can also increase their Tempo and cast more spells/more costly spells per turn which will apply an unreasonable amount of pressure for any type of deck trying to stabilize against it.
Zhur-Taa Druid's only downside is his frail 1/1 body and unfortunately, he dies to most removal spells. Fortunately, your opponent will have to use a removal spell on this Druid, that's one removal spell they don't have against any other bomb creatures you may be holding. This Human Druid is an all-star common and I expect him to be on the winning end of most matches he sees play in.
I hope you guys enjoyed this article and are feeling hyped to draft some Dragon's Maze. I know my writing is a little rusty, so bear with me as I recuperate from my 2 month (wow, it's been that long?) hiatus from the blog. I put back the Commons in the vault and we'll release it once again before the M14 prerelease. Until next time, Magic players!
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-David J.
