The Planeshift Premium Preview - First, the Bad
**After a long wait, they're finally here: All the cards that don't matter! With that information in hand, it's time for the Premium Planeshift Preview to begin in earnest. Time is of the essence, so this is based off only a spoiler that clearly has a few 'issues' but has just the right air of "why did they bother printing this" that it has to be basically real. To start off, I'm going to dispose of as many useless cards as possible with one possibly useful one thrown in. Consider this the "rant" portion of the PPP, or the equivalent of the "Worst Movies of the Year" specials. Also note that the spoiler had no flavor text, so I made that part up so the cards would at least be worth reading, although I didn't have much time for this so hopefully WotC did a better job. (If you read Seth's Chicago report you know what to do). As good a place to start as any is:
Creature - Griffin
UT: Target creature gains flying and is blue until EOT.
2/2
"Why do I take under my wing the world's most useless Griffins? Because otherwise my status as a Legend would never fly." - Kangee, Aerie Keeper
This is where in past reviews I would have to think of something to say. First thoughts might be something along the lines of Kangee being for the birds and still not giving this thing a bonus before finally stating that 2/2s for 3 that do basically nothing will never see play. That might morph into a discussion of flying, and that discussion is actually somewhat interesting, so I think I'll do it anyway. The basic question is how much flying is worth, and whether an ability like this one is worth more or less than normal flying. For the ability to be worth more would require that there's reliably a creature worth giving flying to, and that giving it flying is worth tapping a 2/2, and then the deck involved must be U/W. That means the deck must include a lot of very big creatures and get into a complicated creature battle on a consistent basis. Even in a battle where that would seem worthwhile, for example Skies against Fires, if Fires was somehow both white and blue without any mana problems, the Disciple is clearly not an efficient choice due to the need to hold back a mana, the Disciple, and a target in order to even attempt to block.
As usual, I'm going to spend way too much time talking about the first creature with a basically useless ability and then allow such commentaries to get shorter and shorter until I finally get to the point where I just say "Don't" and move on. That whole train of thought above can be boiled down to the need for creatures to perform well as the only creature in play. This card is one of many that was designed to be played in Limited without anyone giving a second thought to it in Constructed, even Block Constructed. I know the reason for this kind of thinking, but it's still really frustrating to me. Turning to limited play, the card seems to be solid enough. Still, this is the beginning of that good old useless card box.
Dominaria´s Judgement W2
Instant
Until end of turn, creatures you control gain protection from white if you control a plains, from blue if you control an island, from black if you control a swamp, from red if you control a mountain, and from green if you control a forest.
[It knows just how powerless it really is]
It took me a little while trying to put my attacks on this card into precise words to realize that I can't totally dismiss it. It's not one of Magic's stars but it might actually sneak into some sideboards. Here was my train of thought:
The first line of attack on this card is that protection from more than one color is rarely required, making this cost too much even if all five colors were guaranteed when compared with (for example) Reverent Mantra. That wouldn't rule it out in Block though. The real way to go after this card is to think about what deck would be able to use it. Is the deck one of those with all five basic land types? (Hereafter these decks will be called "5CL"). In that case, there's almost certainly not going to be room for this. Giving creatures protection is an inherently weak idea, with the only variants that ever saw play being Cho-Manno's Blessing and Reverent Mantra. This is not in the same league as either one of those. Even if it was, it's never going to find a place in a 5CL deck, because these decks have too many mana sources to be able to use up a slot on a card like this.
In case that wasn't entirely clear, in order to get the right mana in play on a reliable basis a 5CL deck is going to have to play a lot of mana sources. Even before other cards are considered, the deck is definitely going to use four Harrow, and that means having enough lands to get to three reliably. Already that's probably at least about 28 mana sources and adding even Quirion Elves (or Birds of Paradise if not staying in block) will push the situation over 30 and into Fires territory. The deck will then need to make up for having fewer spells by insuring all of them are powerful, which in practice means high casting cost. Dominaria's Judgement costs only three mana and can't be used until after the heavy hitters are already on the table, so it doesn't help smooth out the curve or make up for the deficit of power. In short, cards in this type of deck need to do more than this if they're not providing mana. In addition to that, this kind of deck is going to find it almost impossible to save three mana when putting out its creatures, as it will be behind on time and hopefully be putting out some heavy hitters.
Given that the card doesn't belong in a 5CL deck, it will only give protection from the colors the deck casting it plays basic lands for. At most this will be three of the five, and that alone forces it into the sideboard. That in turn raises the standard needed for the card to be good - there have to be two creature decks with the same base colors facing off and likely to get into a stalemate situation. In the Fires mirror there are better combat tricks. The Countersliver mirror matchup? Somehow I don't think that's going to be worth it. But it's really strange that for most of these cards that revolve around basic land types the only decks that should be thinking about them don't actually run any basic lands at all. Still, this card at least can't be totally dismissed on the spot.
Guard Dogs 3W
Creature-Hound
2WT: Choose a creature you control. Prevent all damage target creature would deal this turn if it shares a color with the chosen creature.
2/2
- Keeps your friends away, and their friends even farther.
Oh sorry, I fell asleep when I saw that it cost three mana to use it and all it did was prevent damage from a creature, and didn't really stop to think too carefully about the whole color interaction problem. It might actually be a decent limited card, but taking away the color restrictions and the activation cost still wouldn't make this worth thinking about for constructed. At the least it's a sideboard card, because this will start running circles around creature combat if it works on the creatures it needs to work on.
Enchant Creature
Enchanted Creature gets +3/+3 unless it shares a color with the most common color of permanents or one that is tied for most common.
The odds are against us and the situation is grim.
Guess what? They just got worse. This card needed to be green to be any good. It didn't need to actually cost green mana, it just needed to be green. If it was, then putting this on a non-green creature would give it at least a chance to be livin' large for a little while. As it is, the chances are not good. Not only is it a creature enchantment and therefore automatically vulnerable, it also requires the commitment of additional creatures! The other option is to face off against multiples from another color, but that strategy is flawed. Suppose the best case scenario happens: The opponent will chump block and the Defiance will shut off again. On top of all that, there's one simple question. Why not just Cloak up the damn creature already?
All right, it's time to switch tactics. 'Proving' that all these cards are worthless is a waste of time once the basic idea becomes clear. Instead, I'm going to skip ahead to the truly awful. There's something for every useless taste here, as an example comes from all the usual worthless card types:
Enchantment
3W:Target player reveals a card at random from his hand. You gain life equal to the converted mana cost of the revealed card. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.
"Why isn't anyone laughing?"
It's not suprising that they finally decided to stop printing good life gaining cards. For a while life gainers started out horrible and progressed from there to simply bad all the way up to fairly decent cards like Gerrard's Wisdom and the overplayed but relevant Peace of Mind. Even Scent of Jasmine actually fit into the puzzle as part of Anakin (one of the Bargain decks), but since then we've had to sit back and enjoy the likes of Blessed Wind, and now this. Why do we get these cards? They're part of cycles. Blessed Wind was part of the Wind Cycle, dedicated to all those little kids who don't realize what it means to have a 7 in the upper right hand corner of the card. The Jasmine Seer was part of the Seer Cycle, which also didn't create a single playable card. But even in limited, white got worthless junk while other colors got effects well worth the price. Cinder or Nightshade Seer will never make constructed but they're great in draft.
What does this boil down to? White's 'theme' for cycles is life gaining. Red gets Planeswalker's Fury for the same price, and it does damage to the opponent instead of giving the controller life. In the past when the two cards were priced the same at least the white one gave more points. This one doesn't even do that. Damage is far more powerful than life and it should be cheaper. For four mana a shot players can draw a card (for example, Treasure Trove or, for white, even the ludicrous Armistice) so this has to be on a similar plane. As a Sorcery, there's no way to even guarantee that there will be a spell in the opponent's hand on a regular basis even if he isn't intentionally holding back lands. In the long run this will fizzle more and more as the opponent plays around it, even more so if they know about it from turn one. This is disgraceful, and making it playable as an instant and giving its controller a choice of cards in hand would be only a decent start towards borderline playable.
Sea Snidd 4U
Creature - Beast
T: Target land's type becomes the basic land type of your choice until end of turn
3/3
The terrain shifted again as the Weatherlight fled the oncoming Planeshift, but at this stage it was doubtful anyone noticed.
Once again it's the case of the downhill borderline ability. Remember Vigilant Drake? Not only did it fly, it had a rather useful additional ability. Still, that was the age of Morphling for virtually the same price. Then there was Coastal Hornclaw, which only flies when a land is sacrificed and had no additional ability. Now Sea Snidd doesn't even fly, and its ability doesn't either. It is laughable at this price. Changing land types is worthwhile for creatures that cost one or maybe two mana. Early on off-color mana sometimes doesn't show up, and it's early enough and the creature small enough that it's worth thinking about trying to interfere with the opponent's lands. With a 3/3 in hand and five turns gone by, there's really no point anymore. That doesn't mean that a player foolish enough to play this card would never use the ability; somehow even the most minor abilities manage to come in handy every now and then. In limited it will definitely happen.
Enchant Creature
When Sisay's Ingenuity comes into play, draw a card.
Enchanted creature has "2U: Target creature becomes the color of your choice until end of turn"
"These are your options?!" - Gerrard, to Sisay
This falls into multiple categories. The first is the obvious standard dismissal of all creature enchantments short of an Armadillo Cloak. Then there's the "worthless cards made into equally worthless cantrips" problem, which is more fun. At the Invitational this year, I was one of those who had the distinct honor and privilege of notifying the entire Magic community that I had voluntarily drafted and was playing with Dream Coat in my draft against Ben Rubin. That draft was all about manipulating colors and protection from colors - my plan was to stall him out and win with Grindstone, and frankly Mark Rosewater could make Jon Finkel play with Saprazzan Raider if he wanted to and after hearing that I wouldn't be surprised if he did. It's all in good fun, and having to draft a card that Oracle has clearly not decided to adopt a "live and let live" policy towards while trying to divide Solomon piles in sixty seconds on a table we've been moved to because we were kicked out of the central room for a GP trial is, well, an experience, but that doesn't change the fact that the card is horrendous. (breathe) Applying the "cantrip formula" of adding two mana to the casting cost generally gives a card of similar power level. Whether the result is better or worse depends on which card offers what a deck needs, and whether the card needs to be fast or can afford to be slow. Instead, here a useless card was actually made worse by giving it an activation cost of three mana instead of zero.
Death Bomb 3B
Instant
As an additional cost to play Death Bomb, sacrifice a creature.
Destroy target nonblank creature. It can't be regenerated. Its controller loses two life.
Two agonizing demises for the price of one.
At least this time the original was worthwhile. Killing off opposing creatures is a good cause, and I really didn't want to dislike any card called Death Bomb. Before this have come Terror, Dark Banishing, Snuff Out and Vendetta. Even the bad variants like Feast or Famine have had their virtues. This card smells like it has a Kicker cost of sacrifice a creature to get the life loss effect, doesn't it? Then it's still a lousy card, since creatures are generally worth a lot more than two life and that fourth mana in the cost is going to be vital, but it's definitely interesting if in practice completely useless, given the alternatives. Making an opponent lose life is a nice ability but the sacrifice of a creature is an extreme cost, so much so that I don't think that adding the cost to Demonic Tutor to get Diabolic Intent creates anything particularly exciting. Requiring the sacrifice of a creature can allow a deck to ignore casting cost (Recurring Nightmare, Natural Order) and any effect that doesn't basically allow cheating one of the game's rules isn't going to be worth it. As always with kill spells that doesn't mean I won't use it in limited, but the rules there are pretty relaxed. Life loss is actually a stronger add-on in constructed than limited, although additional mana costs hurt more. If this is part of a campaign to make sure that creature removal becomes unplayable, it's a good start. A good spell with the mechanic of the set that just plain got away.
Sorcery
Target player loses X life and you gain X life, where X is the number of basic land types among lands you control.
A little something special from every corner of the world, but it hardly seems worth the effort of assembly.
What's par for basic land types? Tribal Flames would be priced for the modern world at three. That means it's lousy and every time it gets cast the controller will be looking at it wondering why it isn't better, but it gets played anyway because direct damage is direct damage and if nothing else I have to watch Seth Burn kill me from 14 life in playtesting. At four it would clearly be broken. Worldly Council becomes Impulse at four, so clearly it too is about right at three - players would grumble about how back in the old days they got to look at four cards but it would be in a lot of decks anyway. Wandering Stream is what WotC calls a 'skill tester' and basically requires all five to be any good, but that was intentional.
Collective Restraint looks like it's fair somewhere around three when it's compared to Propaganda. Strength of Unity is about right at three (Divine Transformation), Exotic Curse at three, Wandering Giant at three given how stingy the market is for mono-white creatures, et cetra. And here Exotic Disease is clearly clocking in as fair when X is four (Soul Feast). It gets worse when Soul Feast's role is considered. There were two types of decks that used Soul Feast. One was monoblack decks that needed a way around Worship or other damage prevention, and in general it did a pretty bad job here. Some rush decks played it in general but I always felt that was even worse. The other role for the card was in Bargain decks. There's no way in hell this card is going to get a chance to fill either of those roles. What use do five color decks have for life draining? And God help us if the problem was this card was getting into Necro decks that used 16 Duallands and Mirage fetch lands.
Shrick of Dread 1B
Instant
Target creature can't be blocked this turn except by black and artifact creatures. Draw a card.
"It's the same old trick, but you'd be surprised how often they believe it."
I added those last three words and the flavor text, which were missing from the partial spoiler. At least, they'd BETTER be missing. This card is a skill tester as a cantrip. Consider unplayable alternatives like Traveler's Cloak, which for one more mana grants something very close to permanent unblockability as a cantrip. For some reason cards that concern unblockability end up overcosted even in limited over and over again, as if the same 'test' has to be posed in every set so it isn't missed by the next generation of players. The good news on the set is that there wasn't anything that looks like it might be a mistake, and this is actually the card that most makes me want to hack in and change the print. In Invasion that card would probably have been Fact or Fiction. By the way, in case anyone doesn't know yet, I'd like to take back any doubts I had about that card - it's a great addition to the game and is only broken when players don't know how to divide it. But back to Shrick of Dread. It's fair to say that if this card isn't a cantrip, if it's ever not a fifteenth pick then someone is trying to send a color signal.
Razing Snidd 4RB
Creature-Beast
When Razing Snidd comes into play, return a black or red creature you control to its owner's hand. When Razing Snidd comes into play, each player sacrifices a land.
3/3
No one's ever seen one with an empty stack.
And finally, we have a tale of paranoia. Razing Snidd is not a creature. Razing Snidd is actually a buyback spell, a weakened version of Raze, hence the name. If this card is meant to actually stay in play rather than returning itself for a future casting then there really isn't much point. A buyback spell that destroys lands is obviously a very dangerous idea, but Raze cost one to cast. The new version costs six. That's not totally outrageous for a buyback spell, but there's a small problem. Not buying this one back isn't really an option - full price must still be paid. If I have to pay for two way shipping I want my spells back!
Those are the really terrible cards. It's harder than it looks to be ready to outright dismiss a card from all future use, although as always I could probably list off half the set as being overcosted. I'm not mad about that since I'm used to it by now, but the top end is lacking this time. If Invasion was the safe stand alone where we'd more or less seen and done everything before, this is truly Invasion's expansion. That doesn't mean there's nothing of interest in the set, but compare it to (for example) Nemesis. When Nemesis came out, I liked it a lot and didn't understand why everyone else didn't seem to.
- Zvi Mowshowitz
** [**](#top)