Thanks CricketHunter for putting this together. It's fun and interesting. But it only works if people use the scale consistently.
Please think about the scale before you vote. Heliod's Pilgrim and Raise the Alarm both received A- votes! Anything in the A range is a certified bomb. Many sets don't even have any As, and only a couple of rares hit A-. A common in the A range would be a development disaster.
Please think about the scale before you vote. Heliod's Pilgrim and Raise the Alarm both received A- votes! Anything in the A range is a certified bomb. Many sets don't even have any As, and only a couple of rares hit A-. A common in the A range would be a development disaster.
I'm trying to figure out how to export the data that I've gathered here, but the tables from the spreadsheet google forms automatically creates is hard to format for posting.
Yea exactly. And I've heard multiple people say they quit Vintage Masters draft because Battle Screech at common was too annoying. And it's still only like a B+ at best.
For voters, a card in the A range means you windmill slam it and do a happy dance. If you wouldn't be tempted to show everyone the card during the draft just to gloat about how luck you are, it's not an A.
Further, I'd say an A means "I am now playing this color," virtually regardless of what else my deck looks like.
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Yea exactly. And I've heard multiple people say they quit Vintage Masters draft because Battle Screech at common was too annoying. And it's still only like a B+ at best.
For voters, a card in the A range means you windmill slam it and do a happy dance. If you wouldn't be tempted to show everyone the card during the draft just to gloat about how luck you are, it's not an A.
For context, Elspeth in Theros block is pretty much an A. If the card isn't as good as Elspeth, it's probably not an A.
I suppose in retrospect, since we are rating commons only, perhaps an A should be along the lines of Lightning Bolt, not necessarily JTMS.
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Well you'd need to somehow find a way to stay on color - maybe just arbitrarily stick to the first 2 colors you pick. Not ideal, but if you're looking for an 'AI' way to pick...
The Controversial metric is innovative and the ratings are about what I would expect. Not surprised at all to see Ornithopter at the top. It's the poster boy for cards that inexperienced players consistently overrate because they haven't grasped the concept of card advantage yet.
But Radiant Fountain is an interesting one! What's the proper trade-off for a land producing colorless mana? We don't get a lot of those variants. Is 2 life enough? My gut reaction was no but I don't feel that confident. In a deck that's not too demanding in terms of double or triple mana costs -- why not gain 2 life?
I keep reusing this in other threads so ill just spoiler the commons here since this seems suitably communal and I don't think we need a 4th set review thread.
Divine Favor - D
It's playable, especially if you have a way to get extra value from the life gain, but it's nothing to write home about.
Ephemeral Shields - D
While being able to convoke it out for 1 after declaring a block then tapping the blocker is cool, simply becoming indestructible isn't a very strong trick since it implies you'd need to be able to at least trade where as a stat pumping trick will often both save your creature from a trade or allow a smaller creature to trade up. Probably most useful as a response to removal like a white ranger's guile.
Heliod's Pilgrim - D
The auras in this set just aren't good enough to warrant playing a 3 mana squire to tutor for one, and white has enough weenies that you shouldn't be scrambling for anything that costs less than 4 and has a body to convoke something or get the most out of an anthem.(my opinion of him has gone up somewhat since writing this, i voted him a C in the community doc for his use in fetching black negative auras which are basically removal and as a lynchpin in certain archetypes like RW auras, he's still not very good but he has uses.)
Kinsbaile Skirmisher - C+
Here's a nice bread and butter white weenie. A bear with upside. Probably not a first pick but you'll play as many as you can get.
Marked by Honor - D+
This is no knightly valor. It's arguably even worse than divine favor if all you need is to grow something past burn range, but vigilance isn't nothing and if they don't have the answer it can be something of a build it yourself midrange creature.
Meditation Puzzle - F
You and congregate should get together sometime cuz nobody wants you guys.
Midnight Guard - C+
a 2/3 for 3 is already a C, getting psuedo vigilance and a way to abuse granted tap abilities like is all just gravy, although burning anger is a far cry from what wolfhunter's quiver was in DA INN INN draft.
Oppressive Rays - C-
This wound up being a little better than I gave it credit for in JOU but it's still not great, especially if it's drawn late and the opponent has more than enough mana to ignore it.
Oreskos Swiftclaw - C
There's not a ton of ping type effects in this set so I'd normally give the nod to c+ as a 'better than a bear' but there's actually a lot of playable 1/1s that are perfectly willing to trade with this guy so i think it balances out.
Pillar of Light - B
This card is deceptively important to white as an entire color in this format. As a common that punishes you for playing the cards that are normally best to play since they outsize lightning strike and ulcerate it really solidifies white as a solid aggro color that can get in early then really blow you out for trying to stabilize with a big butt blocker. You don't want more than about 2 but you'll almost always find a use for those 2, and you can side more in against green who will just hate this thing.
Raise the Alarm - C+
It's basically a bear that does double convoke duty, but it can't attack into other bears. Overall i think the white convoke cards aern't that great but there's a few in other colors, feral incarnation comes to mind, that would like nothing more than for you to be playing multiples of raise the alarm. Also an instant which means your bear effectively has flash, which has further implications for things like midnight guard or kapsho kitefins. Just watch out for festergloom.
Razorfoot Griffin - B
Why yes, wind drake, I will play you a turn late in order to give you first strike. Thank you for asking.
Sanctified Charge - C+
If you are the person at the table with a bunch of raise the alarms and some two drops on top of that, clearly this is the card for you. But the removal suite in m15 is great and most creatures that aren't walls seem to have an equal or greater power than toughness so i don't think the format is too prone to board stalls where you can reliably expect to have 4+ creatures on the table by the time you want to cast this. The fact the first strike only effects your white creatures is mainly what keeps this from being a consistent combat blowout, and you probably don't want many.
Selfless Cathar - D
I prefer my cathars to be elder rather than selfless, but he's playable.
Solemn Offering - D
This is a pretty friendly environment for solemn offering. Theres a slew of playable artifacts and enchantments for it to take out and the life gain can also have some benificial side effects. Still probably sideboard, but a good sideboard that's actually on parity with naturalize.
Soulmender - C-
This guy is almost decent as just a constant source of health and crazy value if you have an ajani's pridemate or wall of limbs, and in a set with convoke any 1 drop can impersonate an elvish mystic.
Sungrace Pegasus - D+
While there are a lot of good equipemt and a few playable auras in the set there's surprisingly few ways to permenantly pump a creature's power and toughness. I feel like I'm overlooking this card but i also don't want to carry bad habits from theros block into m15, there's no feral invocation or heroic trigger that makes this thing more than a 1/2 lifelink, and for the people with an ajani's pridemate or two there's probably going to be plenty of soulmenders going late that you don't need to run this and hope they can't block it.
Tireless Missionaries - F
By vanilla test standards a 2/3 non evasive body is worth 3 mana. So you're paying 2 mana for 3 life. If it were 10 life i still wouldn't reccomend this card.
Triplicate Spirits - B+
Every way that raise the alarm is a good early play makes this a great mid to late game play. We'd basically pay raw 6 mana for a 3/3 flyer which is essentially what we're getting, but this has convoke which means you can get very dangerous by taking a turn off from aggro beats to force out a plethera of flying bodies then turn back around and anthem for the win.
Aeronaut Tinkerer - B-
This is an especially easy 2 card combo to pull off since theres a glut of playable artifacts in the set but I still figured I should rate it as not always having flying. There are no gauruntees and the dealer is fickle. (After a lot of people were down on this i looked him and the artifacts over again but I still think he's a B-. Blue seems like exactly the guy who wants the tyrant's machines and rogue's gloves and gargoyle sentinels that other players don't on top of the ones that everyone does.)
Amphin Pathmage - C+
This is a powerful effect on a just under decent body.
Chronostutter - C+
I get the feeling that the format's speed will be entirely determinate from how playable chronostutter ends up being. Putting an opponent's best creature not just off the field, not just on top of their deck but a card down on top of their deck is such a wildly effective tempo play it makes the prospect of reducing the blue players life total to 0 maddening. But it's entirely possible that it's just too slow. In fact blue as a color in m15 has mostly defensive stat spread creatures with low attack and high toughness and a wide swath of bounce or tempo style spells but almost no efficient counterspells or big laviathan type finishers. I have no idea if this will make them masters of grinding out advantage or just too slow with too few hard answers to keep up or better as a secondary support color than a primary color or what.
Coral Barrier - C+
For 3 mana you can normally expect a 2/3, and here we get a 2/4. While it's not particularly good at attacking it is doubley good at convoking.
Divination - C+
I get the feeling in this set blue is going to be great at stalling but not that it will necessarily have the kind of free time to cast raw card advantage like this. I feel like I'm often going to be faced with a turn 3 where I can divination or frost lynx and I'm probably going to lean frost lynx. I think blue will have to wait until the late game before it can devote a turn to raw card advantage and that once you're there the instant speed flexibility of jace's ingenuity is just a bit more desirable.
Encrust - B-
I'd rate it higher if there wern't so many ways to kill enchantments in this set. This and turn to frog are blue's bread and butter control cards that will let it live to see 6 mana and really stretch its wings.
Fugitive Wizard - F
This is not the convoke enabler you're looking for. Nor is it worth a card.
Glacial Crasher - D+
It's playable and it's nice that his attack condition can be met by playing mountains or by playing against mountains but he measures up poorly to almost every other playable 6 drop even when he's turned on. He only gets the nod up from a D here because blue is light on heavy hitters below rare but has the bounce and tempo plays that mean you'll probably live to see 6 mana. If at all possible look to your other color for your meaty beats.
Hydrosurge - F
Generally you wont need help keeping your 1/3 or 0/7 from dying in combat, and if your opponent is willing to go the extra mile with a pump it's probably not worth a card to stop him. At least not this card.
Invisibility - D-
There will be games where this crushes you utterly but I think most games it's a very blue heavy cost on a card that most blue creatures wont need because they already fly or suck too hard at attacking to bother enchanting. Its finicky and can win you games but it isn't great and you certainly dont want a bunch.
Negate - D+
It's not a creature answer which is what blue needs most in it's counterspells but negate is never bad because removal is never bad.
Nimbus of the Isles - B
This is how blue will close out most of its games. It isn't messenger drake level of value but very few flyers in the set outsize it and it comes out before the meatier land locked finishers that are mostly 6 mana. Susceptible to all kinds of removal but at common you'll probably get more than 1.
Peel From Reality - B-
I really like peel here, much more than i did in avacyn restored. In avacyn you really wanted a way to bounce the opponent's creatures to disrupt soul bonds but the time you wanted to do that was rarely the same time as you wanted to negate a removal spell or something so the self bounce became mostly a drawback. Here you can easily hold up 1U to respond to their removal while also tempoing their best attacker away or you can throw a coral barrier in front of one big attacker then bounce their other big attacker and save the barrier to make a new squid while taking no damage. It's exactly the kind of grindy gradual game blue seems geared to take advantage of.
Research Assistant - C+
Wizards is finally getting wize to how absurdly strong looting is. I fear we will never see merfolk looter again.
Statute of Denial - D-
While any blue deck that can get to the late game 'I have a 3/3 flyer and a clutch of cards and open mana' phase desires this effect, it's getting to that part that will make or break blue, and this sucks something fierce at helping you get to that part.
Void Snare - D+
Being able to hit any permanent is a nice touch but this is still marginally worse than into the void. However, unlike into the void it's so cheap you can keep throwing down weenies in the same turn you play it, so if there is an aggressive blue option it might shine.
Welkin Tern - B+
We've had this little guy for a long time and he's pretty much always the best agressive 2 drop you can draft. Also I think there's only 2 reach creatures in the set and one is a mythic rare.
Accursed Spirit - B-
Accursed Spirit is the premier intimidate guy, he's exactly reasonably costed and he's very easy to cast even if you're only lightly black. Good target for equipment and auras, just try to remember not to attack into bronze sable.
Black Cat - D
He wont combo with waste not the way you hope he will, but he is playable.
Carrion Crow - B
Transitive law. If wind drake = B rating and carrion crow = wind drake than carrion crow = B rating.
Child of Night - C+
It's a smidge smaller than a real bear but lifelink is something this set's black is desperately hungry for and most of the 1 toughness punisher cards are also in black so if you're drafting black there's less of that stuff in your opponent's hands anyway. There's still plenty of 1/1 tokens floating around though so try to get this evasive or buffed.
Covenant of Blood - B
This is not a lot of damage for the cost and I'm not sure black is creature heavy enough to abuse the convoke but it hits things lightning strike and ulcerate can't and all incidental life gain will be an important part of black's toolbox.
Crippling Blight - C
I think this is actually main deckable this time around, although you dont want too many. There's a metric butt ton (I think I used the phrase 'metric butt ton' like 4 times throughout the review, I need a thesaurus) of 1 toughness creatures in m15 and I think even if you aren't presented with one of those, shrinking a thing and removing it's ability to block is well worth a card, especially since there's a subtheme of walls throughout the set. Imagine getting your wall of frost or hornet nest crippled.
Eternal Thirst - D-
The best black stuff in m15 costs life so I have my eye out for anything with lifelink on it. An aura with no stat buffing really isn't worth it but it's cheap enough that you can save it for a combo play turn with removal to insure you start off with at least one +1/+1 counter which also translates to another lifelinked health back before your opponent gets to untap and deal with it, but that's probably 1 too many hoops to jump through.
Festergloom - C
I don't think this is quite as main deckable as crippling blight because it does pretty much nothing when the opponent lacks a 1 toughness creature but it's an amazing sideboard card, especially against white which is damn near mono 1 toughness in m15.
Flesh to Dust - B
Expensive but one of the only real kill cards in the whole set, and at common it's one of the best reasons to be in black. Give ancient silverback the middle finger.
Mind Rot - C-
Always playable but rarely exciting and with plenty of scenarios where you are getting limited value. I also don't think waste not is a real thing, even with this at common. This goes up depending on the speed of the format or the importance of 6 mana cards.
Necrobite - D
We just came off a format where making a big battlecruiser and protecting it or dealing with an enemy's big battlecruiser was the name of the game, and there necrobite was just the bees knees. But this is not theros anymore and bite is usually just a 1 for 1 trick that costs 3 mana, most of the set's combat looks like it will be simple bears and birds style combat and necrobite is basically better off being replaced by a body of the same cost that doesn't require a specific combat or removal scenario to 'Gotcha' the opponent. Playble but not what it was.
Necromancer's Assistant - C-
This thing is mana overcosted for its body but remember what i said about mind sculpt not being worth it even if you have a bunch of undergrowth scavengers? Well this IS more worth it if you have scavengers, at least in moderation. You probably dont want more than 2 to 4 of these in combination with satyr wayfinders but as soon as the combined grave count ticks up to 4 or more creatures, scavengers start being real powerhouse cards.
Rotfeaster maggot - C+
The average toughness across the set's playable commons and uncommons is around 2.5, and thats even offset somewhat by the subtheme of walls across the set inflating the number. The truth is almost everything can be killed by almost all the removal. Not so, rotfeaster maggot. He's got a booty that just don't quit and the life gain is a huge boon for a black card pool that focuses so heavily on self damage effects.
Shadowcloak Vampire - B-
Ignore the life loss and just imagine shadowcloak vampire was a 4/3 flyer for 5 and look at all the 3/3 flyers im giving Bs to and the 4/4 flyers I'm giving As to. Unfurtunately the life loss is real but is just one of many examples where it's probably worth it for the advantage it gives you, even if you get punished in response the threat demands the answer, as so many black creatures do, and they can't always have the answer.
Sign in Blood - B-
I like this more than divination for some reason, probably because I see black as wanting to get aggressive and sign in blood is the perfect way to either restock a depleted hand or sneak in lethal damage. Yet another reason why you really want to keep your eye out for lifelinkers and rotfeaster maggots because as long as you aren't killing yourself you'll definitely be killing your opponent.
Typhoid Rats - C+
While i don't expect it to do as much work as functional reprint pharika's chosen just did vs landlocked battlecruisers in theros, typhoid rats will still be very decent and is actually one of the few playable one drops in the set which is important for curve and convoke.
Unmake the Graves - D+
This gets better the later the game goes but also the convoke means less the later the game goes making this just a little awkward for its function. Even if it were a better costed non-convoke card it would still be a pretty late pick that you don't want more than 1 of.
Zof Shade - C-
I'm not as interested in the controlling slow black but shade has a decent rate of growth that will let him tussle with the big boys in the late game, he's just not too useful prior to then.
Blastfire Bolt - C
This is just barely not good enough to deal with 6 mana 6/6s and its so expensive that it really should, but its still removal for just about everything in the set and the equipment destruction is actually relevant i think, just not m13 rings cycle turn to slag relevant. It just might be more of a sideboard card as it probably sucks pretty hard against a white token rush.
Borderland Marauder - C+
Just treat it like it's always a 3/2 because the red guy probably isn't the one that needs to block.
Clear a Path - D
More relevant here than in dragon's maze but you'll still want to see multiple walls before you side this in.
Crowd's Favor - C
You will get blown out by this at the prerelease then you will learn to watch for it then you will forget about it and get blown out again. There's actually not a ton of toughness increasing tricks in the set so this is often a psuedo removal spell unless they have a very real removal spell to punish it.
Forge Devil - D+
For being a decent post combat gotcha a 1/1 is still underwhelming and combat math isn't always decided by the difference of 1 more damage. Good sideboard tech against enough 1 toughness things.
Foundry Street Denizen - D-
In limited neither your curve nor your color is so reliable that this guy gets to be a 2/1 more than a 1/1.
Generator Servant - B+
This is hands down the best common in the set, maybe the best common I've ever seen.
Hammerhand - D+
I don't think this is worth a card without some other synergy going on but it has more than one of those floating around the set.
Inferno Fist - B
I think this will be a 3 mana shock most often but it has the potential to be put it on something evasive for a few turns first which is a lot of value.
Lava Axe - C
I don't know yet where the stabilization point is, what creatures and spells for what cost are the real stop signs to aggression that make up most of the stabilization plays that keep aggro in check. The higher it is the less you want lava axes because a creature to go in under is better while the lower it is the more you want lava axes to give you inevitability since even a stabilized board cant stop a lava axe.
Lightning Strike - B+
This hits so many things in this set. This format is basically defined by this being common and like 80% of playables having 3 or less toughness. This makes you want to be red.
Miner's Bane - C
You can see my lightning strike rating right up there. That said, it's one of only 2 non-rares that can stand up to souls level threats in a punching contest and there's a decent chunk of ways to make it evasive. It also lives in this nice place somewhere between a creature and a lava axe since you can trade with it easily enough but you probably can't prevent all of its trample damage so its going to force something through in the late game.
Rummaging Goblin - C+
I'm not sure if there is a slow red archetype, m15 red looks like it would have much rather had academy raider, but rummaging is almost looting and if research assistant is a C+ this must be at least that.
Scrapyard Mongrel - C
Who's a good boy? Who's agoojoo poopoo and then he'd roll over so i could rub his belly and we'd be best friends forever. Also, strangely well suited to carrying hot soup.
Thundering Giant - C+
I kind of really like the look of this guy. A 4/3 for 5 is nothing special but the haste and coming down a turn before most of the set's heavy hitters gives it a nice kind of overwhelming your opponent's blocks one last time feel. Its a bit of a nonbo with generator servant's haste effect though.
Torch Fiend - C+
A 2 power creature for 2 is always at home in red, and the artifact hate is normally going to be relevant, although maybe not so relevant that you should avoid trading him off if given the oppurtunity.
Wall of Fire - C
Kind of like blastfire bolt I'm not sure if there's a slow red strategy, but if there is this is an important staple for it.
Carnivorous Moss-Beast - C-
In the realm of 6 drops this guy is decent but not overwhelming. He can grow out of control but I'd rather run souls and silverbacks than dump 20 odd mana into getting this thing going.
Charging Rhino - C
A decent thing to ramp into but without a way to pump him up his body will get outclassed quickly.
Elvish Mystic - B
Convoke makes any creature into a mana dork of sorts but there's still a lot of powerful expensive cards that lack convoke, and honestly green looks really weak in m14 in the 4 mana and less area so the faster you can escape that middling territory and start breaking out the big guns, the better.
Hunt The Weak - B-
Fighting for 4 at sorcery speed isn't too special, especially since green kind of sucks in the early game, but the +1/+1 counter can actually help a lot of things in the set get over that 3 toughness hump on top of the whole eating a creature thing.
Hunter's Ambush - D-
It's better than fog since it can be a potent combat trick but it's still pretty bad.
Invasive Species - C+
There are enough ways to turn this into an upside, but most of the benificial ETB creatures cost the same or more which can get awkward. At least unlike roaring primadox this effect only comes once and can't target itself which means you can't be super punished by it. That this so playable is a clear indicator of green's early game weakness, in most sets you can expect green to play this sort of thing without the drawback attached.
Living Totem - C+
Green's low drops may not be great but at least there's runeclaw bear. And where there's a bear, there's a turn 3 living totem which turns the bear into a 3/3.
Naturalize - C
There's so many important things to hit with this I'm half tempted to main deck 1.
Plummet - D
There aren't as many big flyers like serra angel and sengir vampire in this set as there was in m14 but there's still a lot of little wind drake equivalents running around to side this in for. That it's such a poor response to triplicate spirits also rubs me the wrong way.
Ranger's Guile - C-
I want to rate this lower but i know it isn't the card's fault that i never have this when my stuff is targeted by removal and my opponent always does, no matter how highly I draft it.
Satyr Wayfinder - C
This is more desireable if you get some undergrowth scavengers, but drawing a land and convoking something out is about worth the substandard body.
Shaman of Spring - C
This is a nice ETB to recur but the price is not quite right, especially compared to elvish visionary of old. A +1/+1 body is not worth 2 more mana.
Siege Wurm - C
He's small for a finisher in this set but he can be convoked out as a 5 or 6 drop which i think puts him just above rhino and moss-beast. Green has way too many of these middling 5-7 drops that kind of pigeon holes it into these ramp strats that force it to stretch between early board presence, sources of ramp, and late board presence in it's picks. If you have the early bodies to convoke something with reliability, you want feral incarnation. But you'll settle for siege wurm.
Titanic Growth - C-
pretty much the only thing that really pumps stats in the set, but it will be one of the first things people learn to play around.
Undergrowth Scavenger - C+
This is no spider spawning in terms of side strats but green really wants a straight 4 mana 4/4 to tie the space between losing tempo playing ramp sources early and actually ramping out fat creatures late. If you get a few support cards and trade some bears early this can be much much bigger than a 4/4 for 4, but without the support its just another big dumb vanilla late game card.
Verdant haven - C-
Theres a couple cards that value life gain but the ramp here comes in an awkward place, ramping you from 3 to 5 when most of the big plays are 6s. You'll normally want to be playing an invasive species or spider here but it's far from unplayable.
Vineweft - D-
It's long been established that a +1/+1 counter is not worth a card and a mana, and i don't think being able to re apply it for 6 mana puts it over.
Bronze Sable - C
2 drops are very important in this set, not just for the normal reasons but to convoke, and no pick is safer than a colorless one. Also being the only cheap colorless creature in the set makes him ideal to jump in front of one of the 2 toughness intimidate creatures.
Ornithopter - F
turn 1 this, turn 2 ensoul artifact, swing for 5, swing for 5, swing for 5, swing for 5. I know, we all heard you, we see it, we get it. It's still dumb, you wont always get both pieces and each gets less valuable the longer you wait to play them, and there's plenty of both artifact and enchantment hate to punish this kind of all or nothing strat. look at all the C or better artifacts here that are equally applicable targets for ensoul artifact but that can also serve a purpose when you don't have ensoul artifact. Draft those.
Tyrant's Machine - C
If you want to stall games than boy do i have the durdly thing for you. But seriously, games of limited are so often defined by bombs that it kicked off the now mostly erroneous BREAD acronym, and almost every bomb in M15 gets shut down by tyrant's machine. The problem is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum with white tokens, but you can always sideboard it out in that case. playing 2 is probably pushing it and 3 should never be done no matter how controlling your deck.
Will-Forged Golem - C
Assuming you manage to get out a couple bears, which you should, this comes down on turn 4. And that's really nice for a colorless 4/4, thats the kind of play green hopes to be making and here any color can make it.
Evolving Wilds - B
This is actually really good in this set. There's only like 3 playable 1 drops which means almost no one will have something better to do on turn 1 so an evolving wilds will fix your opening hands and thin a land card from your deck. It's not a good late draw but you probably wont get more than 1 or 2 anyway so i don't think you're hurting your late game or anything, and it can drastically improve your mulligan rate.
Radiant Fountain - F
Even if you have multiple ajani's pridemate, it isn't worth hurting your mana for a non-repeatable heal effect.
I reserve As for bomby finisher types, in m14 pretty much it needs a 4/4 flying body or better and to either resist removal or do something crazy valuable on top of that, so no commons went that high for me.
EDIT: i meant m15. maybe stop releasing products in year X named X+1, businesses. Boom roasted.
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
maybe stop releasing products in year X named X+1, businesses
Apparently target and other big box stores refuse to sell products dated the previous year (but are fine selling products from the future), and wizards wants them to keep selling M15 until M16 comes out
I suppose in retrospect, since we are rating commons only, perhaps an A should be along the lines of Lightning Bolt, not necessarily JTMS.
This. Rating scales are arbitrary and relative. The value of a scale lies in its ability to add resolution to the picture, to give better separation of the data. You could concoct a simple 3-point scale where windmill slam bombs like Elspeth get 3, other playable cards get 2, and unplayable cards get 1. The problem with such a system is it gives you ridiculously poor resolution. Kind of a "duh" moment. You can't extract much useful information out of it. Whereas a 10-point scale would allow you to have much better resolution (assuming the voters understood the set enough for that detailed of a rating to be meaningful), since you could more easily determine "ok so X is better than Y but not Z".
I went into voting assuming that it's pointless to have a relative grade that doesn't get used (it's just a waste of space and unnecessarily reduces the resolution), so I went in with the assumption that at least 1 card would get an A. There are obviously no "bombs" at common, so next I looked to "premium removal". There's nothing premium like Doom Blade or Onion Ring, but the best common removal spell is probably Lightning Strike. So I automatically assigned Lightning Strike an A and bell-curved everything else up accordingly. IMO that gives a ranking with better resolution since you're making better use of the available space to convey information. And Lightning Strike IS "premium" removal relative to the power level of commons in a core set, particularly with the direction core sets are going.
Unfortunately, the other issue is compatibility. Clearly a set of ratings that is shifted up will be incompatible with others that are not, making the histograms look wonky. My advice would be that if you want people to assign arbitrary ratings in a consistent manner, you should give an example of a card that you think would get that level of rating. E.g. "Elspeth is A, Battle Screech is B+, etc.". Otherwise an arbitrary letter is rather arbitrary and subjective and you risk people interpreting them differently and losing compatibility.
I think the idea was the use the Limited Resources grade scale so we could contrast and compare with that, and because you can translate that scale to the numerical scale that other popular magic personalities use like LSV is doing in his channel fireball articles right now.
For reference, the limited resources guys explain it as
A Bombs, wins games, super premium cheap inclusive removal. Planeswalkers and hastey dragons and such.
B pulls me in that color, first pickable. Cheaper flyers, higher cost/less inclusive removal, really efficiently costed bodies or invaluable abilities
C most cards, curve filler, happy to play it. Bears and centaurs and better combat tricks, useful abilities, low grade removal
D playable but not happy about it, sideboard cards, things you hope to cut. Gray ogres and plummets and vanilla 1/3s
F unplayable, never see yourself casting it.
In retrospect maybe lightning strike is a lower A in this format but it might be a kinda borderline thing until I get to actually play some games and see for myself just how many things it can hit. It's difficult in recent years to know what removal qualifies, the scale goes back to like dismember and doom blade and we just rarely get anything that obvious anymore.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
This gives you a view more like what you see from LSV's review (where you can see his top 5 commons in each color). However, I have not figured out how to get google forms to automatically make puns based on the cards yet - maybe next update.
I went into voting assuming that it's pointless to have a relative grade that doesn't get used (it's just a waste of space and unnecessarily reduces the resolution), so I went in with the assumption that at least 1 card would get an A.
Come on man, don't blame your inability to follow instructions on the scale. The scale is defined. Nowhere does it say you must give an A rating. You just made that up. Not the scale's fault.
I design and analyze surveys as a large part of my career, and the good news is that with a sufficiently large sample, individuals mis-using a scale get washed out. The larger the sample, the less it matters if individuals did something unusual.
Oh man the commons and uncommons lrcast is out and it's over 5 hours long
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
I think Pillar of Light is currently pretty overrated. Smite the Monstrous wasn't something you wanted in the maindeck outside of removal-less trainwrecks; costing 1 less mana and exiling are both positives, but keying off toughness rather than power should be a drawback overall.
I mean, it will get picked reasonably early because this is all white has for removal this time around (well, aside from Oppressive Rays). But unless I'm badly misreading the format, this is a thoroughly mediocre card.
Oh man the commons and uncommons lrcast is out and it's over 5 hours long
I've listened to some of it, and so far the free-for-all community averaging is doing pretty well. Everything has been within a half letter grade. For instance, Amphin Pathmage was a C+ in the community ratings; B- for LR. I've only listened to about 10 commons though - I'm sure the community ratings will be VERY at odds with LR on some cards.
I went into voting assuming that it's pointless to have a relative grade that doesn't get used (it's just a waste of space and unnecessarily reduces the resolution), so I went in with the assumption that at least 1 card would get an A.
Come on man, don't blame your inability to follow instructions on the scale. The scale is defined. Nowhere does it say you must give an A rating. You just made that up. Not the scale's fault.
I design and analyze surveys as a large part of my career, and the good news is that with a sufficiently large sample, individuals mis-using a scale get washed out. The larger the sample, the less it matters if individuals did something unusual.
Nowhere does it say you "must" use A. But I interpreted it as a scale for commons in M15, not a scale for all cards of all rarities from all sets, and the instructions never said otherwise. That makes a huge difference. A "bomb" common is very different than a "bomb" in general. Clearly no common will be as good as Elspeth unless they make a serious mistake. Same with a "premium" removal, especially when you're talking about a core set since they started making Doom Blade-type cards and O-Ring-type cards uncommon instead of common. So I just took A as any top-tier first-pickable common, i.e. the commons that would get picked above most rares and uncommons. It looks like that is meant to be more of a B+/B rating though.
I've done some consulting in experimental design and usually when you want individuals to not mis-interpret a scale, you just give clearer instructions. As I suggested, giving an example card for each rating makes the scale more consistently interpreted. Or at least saying that an A is a "bomb" card period relative to all of Magic, not a bomb common relative to the set. Or saying to use the Limited Resources scale. I guess most people just assumed it was that.
Luckily more people have replied now and the "outlier" data is getting smoothed out.
Or saying to use the Limited Resources scale. I guess most people just assumed it was that.
The first post clearly says:
This uses the LRCast.com rating system, so if you haven't listened to one of their set reviews here's a link to the Journey into Nyx review:
I swear it didn't say that before, but if it did then my bad, I just missed it.
EDIT: To be fair, linking to a website listing cards and ratings (or a definition of their scale) would be more useful than linking to a 4 hour podcast most people don't have time to listen to. If enough people are familiar with their set reviews though then maybe it doesn't matter.
I'll be honest, when I responded I had this thread open in another tab and referred to Actinium's explanation of the LRCast grading scale. I probably wouldn't have responded if someone hadn't posted that. If a thread like this is done again, it may be beneficial to write out the desired scale in the OP.
(And I hope no one takes that as a slight against CricketHunter, whom I'd like to thank for putting together this interesting activity. Just some constructive criticism for the future.)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1I0CqpP4yihJ4kPpp_NttyxdrdhXdN9Dhu43uQqfufGk/viewform
This uses the LRCast.com rating system, so if you haven't listened to one of their set reviews here's a link to the Journey into Nyx review:
http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-231-journey-into-nyx-set-review-commons-and-uncommons/
If you just want to see the results, you can just click here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1I0CqpP4yihJ4kPpp_NttyxdrdhXdN9Dhu43uQqfufGk/viewanalytics
or here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_ZdBVXiHLW55FUfFJsYBPgHnuUeXqgTii_PML9Px8VM/pubhtml#
And here's a link to the card gallery:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/magic-2015-core-set-card-set-archive-products-game-info
I just ask you try not to spam the results, and to the best of your ability do the rating in one sitting. Thank you!
Please think about the scale before you vote. Heliod's Pilgrim and Raise the Alarm both received A- votes! Anything in the A range is a certified bomb. Many sets don't even have any As, and only a couple of rares hit A-. A common in the A range would be a development disaster.
cough... cough.. Battle Screech... cough...
I'm trying to figure out how to export the data that I've gathered here, but the tables from the spreadsheet google forms automatically creates is hard to format for posting.
Yea exactly. And I've heard multiple people say they quit Vintage Masters draft because Battle Screech at common was too annoying. And it's still only like a B+ at best.
For voters, a card in the A range means you windmill slam it and do a happy dance. If you wouldn't be tempted to show everyone the card during the draft just to gloat about how luck you are, it's not an A.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
For context, Elspeth in Theros block is pretty much an A. If the card isn't as good as Elspeth, it's probably not an A.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_ZdBVXiHLW55FUfFJsYBPgHnuUeXqgTii_PML9Px8VM/pubhtml#
There is some delay between responses being added via the form and this link being updated (blame google).
"Sorted Set" shows the commons sorted by the average grade of each card.
"Controversial Cards" shows the cards sorted by how much we disagreed (the standard deviation).
I'm interested to just try the "wisdom of the crowd draft" and just pick the commons in the pack based on this and see what happens
The Controversial metric is innovative and the ratings are about what I would expect. Not surprised at all to see Ornithopter at the top. It's the poster boy for cards that inexperienced players consistently overrate because they haven't grasped the concept of card advantage yet.
But Radiant Fountain is an interesting one! What's the proper trade-off for a land producing colorless mana? We don't get a lot of those variants. Is 2 life enough? My gut reaction was no but I don't feel that confident. In a deck that's not too demanding in terms of double or triple mana costs -- why not gain 2 life?
It's playable, especially if you have a way to get extra value from the life gain, but it's nothing to write home about.
Ephemeral Shields - D
While being able to convoke it out for 1 after declaring a block then tapping the blocker is cool, simply becoming indestructible isn't a very strong trick since it implies you'd need to be able to at least trade where as a stat pumping trick will often both save your creature from a trade or allow a smaller creature to trade up. Probably most useful as a response to removal like a white ranger's guile.
Heliod's Pilgrim - D
The auras in this set just aren't good enough to warrant playing a 3 mana squire to tutor for one, and white has enough weenies that you shouldn't be scrambling for anything that costs less than 4 and has a body to convoke something or get the most out of an anthem.(my opinion of him has gone up somewhat since writing this, i voted him a C in the community doc for his use in fetching black negative auras which are basically removal and as a lynchpin in certain archetypes like RW auras, he's still not very good but he has uses.)
Kinsbaile Skirmisher - C+
Here's a nice bread and butter white weenie. A bear with upside. Probably not a first pick but you'll play as many as you can get.
Marked by Honor - D+
This is no knightly valor. It's arguably even worse than divine favor if all you need is to grow something past burn range, but vigilance isn't nothing and if they don't have the answer it can be something of a build it yourself midrange creature.
Meditation Puzzle - F
You and congregate should get together sometime cuz nobody wants you guys.
Midnight Guard - C+
a 2/3 for 3 is already a C, getting psuedo vigilance and a way to abuse granted tap abilities like is all just gravy, although burning anger is a far cry from what wolfhunter's quiver was in DA INN INN draft.
Oppressive Rays - C-
This wound up being a little better than I gave it credit for in JOU but it's still not great, especially if it's drawn late and the opponent has more than enough mana to ignore it.
Oreskos Swiftclaw - C
There's not a ton of ping type effects in this set so I'd normally give the nod to c+ as a 'better than a bear' but there's actually a lot of playable 1/1s that are perfectly willing to trade with this guy so i think it balances out.
Pillar of Light - B
This card is deceptively important to white as an entire color in this format. As a common that punishes you for playing the cards that are normally best to play since they outsize lightning strike and ulcerate it really solidifies white as a solid aggro color that can get in early then really blow you out for trying to stabilize with a big butt blocker. You don't want more than about 2 but you'll almost always find a use for those 2, and you can side more in against green who will just hate this thing.
Raise the Alarm - C+
It's basically a bear that does double convoke duty, but it can't attack into other bears. Overall i think the white convoke cards aern't that great but there's a few in other colors, feral incarnation comes to mind, that would like nothing more than for you to be playing multiples of raise the alarm. Also an instant which means your bear effectively has flash, which has further implications for things like midnight guard or kapsho kitefins. Just watch out for festergloom.
Razorfoot Griffin - B
Why yes, wind drake, I will play you a turn late in order to give you first strike. Thank you for asking.
Sanctified Charge - C+
If you are the person at the table with a bunch of raise the alarms and some two drops on top of that, clearly this is the card for you. But the removal suite in m15 is great and most creatures that aren't walls seem to have an equal or greater power than toughness so i don't think the format is too prone to board stalls where you can reliably expect to have 4+ creatures on the table by the time you want to cast this. The fact the first strike only effects your white creatures is mainly what keeps this from being a consistent combat blowout, and you probably don't want many.
Selfless Cathar - D
I prefer my cathars to be elder rather than selfless, but he's playable.
Solemn Offering - D
This is a pretty friendly environment for solemn offering. Theres a slew of playable artifacts and enchantments for it to take out and the life gain can also have some benificial side effects. Still probably sideboard, but a good sideboard that's actually on parity with naturalize.
Soulmender - C-
This guy is almost decent as just a constant source of health and crazy value if you have an ajani's pridemate or wall of limbs, and in a set with convoke any 1 drop can impersonate an elvish mystic.
Sungrace Pegasus - D+
While there are a lot of good equipemt and a few playable auras in the set there's surprisingly few ways to permenantly pump a creature's power and toughness. I feel like I'm overlooking this card but i also don't want to carry bad habits from theros block into m15, there's no feral invocation or heroic trigger that makes this thing more than a 1/2 lifelink, and for the people with an ajani's pridemate or two there's probably going to be plenty of soulmenders going late that you don't need to run this and hope they can't block it.
Tireless Missionaries - F
By vanilla test standards a 2/3 non evasive body is worth 3 mana. So you're paying 2 mana for 3 life. If it were 10 life i still wouldn't reccomend this card.
Triplicate Spirits - B+
Every way that raise the alarm is a good early play makes this a great mid to late game play. We'd basically pay raw 6 mana for a 3/3 flyer which is essentially what we're getting, but this has convoke which means you can get very dangerous by taking a turn off from aggro beats to force out a plethera of flying bodies then turn back around and anthem for the win.
This is an especially easy 2 card combo to pull off since theres a glut of playable artifacts in the set but I still figured I should rate it as not always having flying. There are no gauruntees and the dealer is fickle. (After a lot of people were down on this i looked him and the artifacts over again but I still think he's a B-. Blue seems like exactly the guy who wants the tyrant's machines and rogue's gloves and gargoyle sentinels that other players don't on top of the ones that everyone does.)
Amphin Pathmage - C+
This is a powerful effect on a just under decent body.
Chronostutter - C+
I get the feeling that the format's speed will be entirely determinate from how playable chronostutter ends up being. Putting an opponent's best creature not just off the field, not just on top of their deck but a card down on top of their deck is such a wildly effective tempo play it makes the prospect of reducing the blue players life total to 0 maddening. But it's entirely possible that it's just too slow. In fact blue as a color in m15 has mostly defensive stat spread creatures with low attack and high toughness and a wide swath of bounce or tempo style spells but almost no efficient counterspells or big laviathan type finishers. I have no idea if this will make them masters of grinding out advantage or just too slow with too few hard answers to keep up or better as a secondary support color than a primary color or what.
Coral Barrier - C+
For 3 mana you can normally expect a 2/3, and here we get a 2/4. While it's not particularly good at attacking it is doubley good at convoking.
Divination - C+
I get the feeling in this set blue is going to be great at stalling but not that it will necessarily have the kind of free time to cast raw card advantage like this. I feel like I'm often going to be faced with a turn 3 where I can divination or frost lynx and I'm probably going to lean frost lynx. I think blue will have to wait until the late game before it can devote a turn to raw card advantage and that once you're there the instant speed flexibility of jace's ingenuity is just a bit more desirable.
Encrust - B-
I'd rate it higher if there wern't so many ways to kill enchantments in this set. This and turn to frog are blue's bread and butter control cards that will let it live to see 6 mana and really stretch its wings.
Frost Lynx - B-
Gray ogres are okay and frost breath is cool, and frost lynx is a little of both.
Fugitive Wizard - F
This is not the convoke enabler you're looking for. Nor is it worth a card.
Glacial Crasher - D+
It's playable and it's nice that his attack condition can be met by playing mountains or by playing against mountains but he measures up poorly to almost every other playable 6 drop even when he's turned on. He only gets the nod up from a D here because blue is light on heavy hitters below rare but has the bounce and tempo plays that mean you'll probably live to see 6 mana. If at all possible look to your other color for your meaty beats.
Hydrosurge - F
Generally you wont need help keeping your 1/3 or 0/7 from dying in combat, and if your opponent is willing to go the extra mile with a pump it's probably not worth a card to stop him. At least not this card.
Invisibility - D-
There will be games where this crushes you utterly but I think most games it's a very blue heavy cost on a card that most blue creatures wont need because they already fly or suck too hard at attacking to bother enchanting. Its finicky and can win you games but it isn't great and you certainly dont want a bunch.
Mind Sculpt - F
Don't do it. I see those three undergrowth scavengers in your pile, it doesn't change anything. Don't do it.
Negate - D+
It's not a creature answer which is what blue needs most in it's counterspells but negate is never bad because removal is never bad.
Nimbus of the Isles - B
This is how blue will close out most of its games. It isn't messenger drake level of value but very few flyers in the set outsize it and it comes out before the meatier land locked finishers that are mostly 6 mana. Susceptible to all kinds of removal but at common you'll probably get more than 1.
Peel From Reality - B-
I really like peel here, much more than i did in avacyn restored. In avacyn you really wanted a way to bounce the opponent's creatures to disrupt soul bonds but the time you wanted to do that was rarely the same time as you wanted to negate a removal spell or something so the self bounce became mostly a drawback. Here you can easily hold up 1U to respond to their removal while also tempoing their best attacker away or you can throw a coral barrier in front of one big attacker then bounce their other big attacker and save the barrier to make a new squid while taking no damage. It's exactly the kind of grindy gradual game blue seems geared to take advantage of.
Research Assistant - C+
Wizards is finally getting wize to how absurdly strong looting is. I fear we will never see merfolk looter again.
Statute of Denial - D-
While any blue deck that can get to the late game 'I have a 3/3 flyer and a clutch of cards and open mana' phase desires this effect, it's getting to that part that will make or break blue, and this sucks something fierce at helping you get to that part.
Void Snare - D+
Being able to hit any permanent is a nice touch but this is still marginally worse than into the void. However, unlike into the void it's so cheap you can keep throwing down weenies in the same turn you play it, so if there is an aggressive blue option it might shine.
Welkin Tern - B+
We've had this little guy for a long time and he's pretty much always the best agressive 2 drop you can draft. Also I think there's only 2 reach creatures in the set and one is a mythic rare.
Accursed Spirit is the premier intimidate guy, he's exactly reasonably costed and he's very easy to cast even if you're only lightly black. Good target for equipment and auras, just try to remember not to attack into bronze sable.
Black Cat - D
He wont combo with waste not the way you hope he will, but he is playable.
Carrion Crow - B
Transitive law. If wind drake = B rating and carrion crow = wind drake than carrion crow = B rating.
Child of Night - C+
It's a smidge smaller than a real bear but lifelink is something this set's black is desperately hungry for and most of the 1 toughness punisher cards are also in black so if you're drafting black there's less of that stuff in your opponent's hands anyway. There's still plenty of 1/1 tokens floating around though so try to get this evasive or buffed.
Covenant of Blood - B
This is not a lot of damage for the cost and I'm not sure black is creature heavy enough to abuse the convoke but it hits things lightning strike and ulcerate can't and all incidental life gain will be an important part of black's toolbox.
Crippling Blight - C
I think this is actually main deckable this time around, although you dont want too many. There's a metric butt ton (I think I used the phrase 'metric butt ton' like 4 times throughout the review, I need a thesaurus) of 1 toughness creatures in m15 and I think even if you aren't presented with one of those, shrinking a thing and removing it's ability to block is well worth a card, especially since there's a subtheme of walls throughout the set. Imagine getting your wall of frost or hornet nest crippled.
Eternal Thirst - D-
The best black stuff in m15 costs life so I have my eye out for anything with lifelink on it. An aura with no stat buffing really isn't worth it but it's cheap enough that you can save it for a combo play turn with removal to insure you start off with at least one +1/+1 counter which also translates to another lifelinked health back before your opponent gets to untap and deal with it, but that's probably 1 too many hoops to jump through.
Festergloom - C
I don't think this is quite as main deckable as crippling blight because it does pretty much nothing when the opponent lacks a 1 toughness creature but it's an amazing sideboard card, especially against white which is damn near mono 1 toughness in m15.
Flesh to Dust - B
Expensive but one of the only real kill cards in the whole set, and at common it's one of the best reasons to be in black. Give ancient silverback the middle finger.
Mind Rot - C-
Always playable but rarely exciting and with plenty of scenarios where you are getting limited value. I also don't think waste not is a real thing, even with this at common. This goes up depending on the speed of the format or the importance of 6 mana cards.
Necrobite - D
We just came off a format where making a big battlecruiser and protecting it or dealing with an enemy's big battlecruiser was the name of the game, and there necrobite was just the bees knees. But this is not theros anymore and bite is usually just a 1 for 1 trick that costs 3 mana, most of the set's combat looks like it will be simple bears and birds style combat and necrobite is basically better off being replaced by a body of the same cost that doesn't require a specific combat or removal scenario to 'Gotcha' the opponent. Playble but not what it was.
Necromancer's Assistant - C-
This thing is mana overcosted for its body but remember what i said about mind sculpt not being worth it even if you have a bunch of undergrowth scavengers? Well this IS more worth it if you have scavengers, at least in moderation. You probably dont want more than 2 to 4 of these in combination with satyr wayfinders but as soon as the combined grave count ticks up to 4 or more creatures, scavengers start being real powerhouse cards.
Rotfeaster maggot - C+
The average toughness across the set's playable commons and uncommons is around 2.5, and thats even offset somewhat by the subtheme of walls across the set inflating the number. The truth is almost everything can be killed by almost all the removal. Not so, rotfeaster maggot. He's got a booty that just don't quit and the life gain is a huge boon for a black card pool that focuses so heavily on self damage effects.
Shadowcloak Vampire - B-
Ignore the life loss and just imagine shadowcloak vampire was a 4/3 flyer for 5 and look at all the 3/3 flyers im giving Bs to and the 4/4 flyers I'm giving As to. Unfurtunately the life loss is real but is just one of many examples where it's probably worth it for the advantage it gives you, even if you get punished in response the threat demands the answer, as so many black creatures do, and they can't always have the answer.
Sign in Blood - B-
I like this more than divination for some reason, probably because I see black as wanting to get aggressive and sign in blood is the perfect way to either restock a depleted hand or sneak in lethal damage. Yet another reason why you really want to keep your eye out for lifelinkers and rotfeaster maggots because as long as you aren't killing yourself you'll definitely be killing your opponent.
Typhoid Rats - C+
While i don't expect it to do as much work as functional reprint pharika's chosen just did vs landlocked battlecruisers in theros, typhoid rats will still be very decent and is actually one of the few playable one drops in the set which is important for curve and convoke.
Unmake the Graves - D+
This gets better the later the game goes but also the convoke means less the later the game goes making this just a little awkward for its function. Even if it were a better costed non-convoke card it would still be a pretty late pick that you don't want more than 1 of.
Witch's Familiar - C
That sure is a 2/3 for 3 alright.
Zof Shade - C-
I'm not as interested in the controlling slow black but shade has a decent rate of growth that will let him tussle with the big boys in the late game, he's just not too useful prior to then.
This is just barely not good enough to deal with 6 mana 6/6s and its so expensive that it really should, but its still removal for just about everything in the set and the equipment destruction is actually relevant i think, just not m13 rings cycle turn to slag relevant. It just might be more of a sideboard card as it probably sucks pretty hard against a white token rush.
Borderland Marauder - C+
Just treat it like it's always a 3/2 because the red guy probably isn't the one that needs to block.
Clear a Path - D
More relevant here than in dragon's maze but you'll still want to see multiple walls before you side this in.
Crowd's Favor - C
You will get blown out by this at the prerelease then you will learn to watch for it then you will forget about it and get blown out again. There's actually not a ton of toughness increasing tricks in the set so this is often a psuedo removal spell unless they have a very real removal spell to punish it.
Forge Devil - D+
For being a decent post combat gotcha a 1/1 is still underwhelming and combat math isn't always decided by the difference of 1 more damage. Good sideboard tech against enough 1 toughness things.
Foundry Street Denizen - D-
In limited neither your curve nor your color is so reliable that this guy gets to be a 2/1 more than a 1/1.
Generator Servant - B+
This is hands down the best common in the set, maybe the best common I've ever seen.
Goblin Roughrider - C
That sure is a 3 mana 3/2 alright.
Hammerhand - D+
I don't think this is worth a card without some other synergy going on but it has more than one of those floating around the set.
Inferno Fist - B
I think this will be a 3 mana shock most often but it has the potential to be put it on something evasive for a few turns first which is a lot of value.
Krenko's Enforcer - B-
Intimidate isn't flying, but it's close.
Lava Axe - C
I don't know yet where the stabilization point is, what creatures and spells for what cost are the real stop signs to aggression that make up most of the stabilization plays that keep aggro in check. The higher it is the less you want lava axes because a creature to go in under is better while the lower it is the more you want lava axes to give you inevitability since even a stabilized board cant stop a lava axe.
Lightning Strike - B+
This hits so many things in this set. This format is basically defined by this being common and like 80% of playables having 3 or less toughness. This makes you want to be red.
Miner's Bane - C
You can see my lightning strike rating right up there. That said, it's one of only 2 non-rares that can stand up to souls level threats in a punching contest and there's a decent chunk of ways to make it evasive. It also lives in this nice place somewhere between a creature and a lava axe since you can trade with it easily enough but you probably can't prevent all of its trample damage so its going to force something through in the late game.
Rummaging Goblin - C+
I'm not sure if there is a slow red archetype, m15 red looks like it would have much rather had academy raider, but rummaging is almost looting and if research assistant is a C+ this must be at least that.
Scrapyard Mongrel - C
Who's a good boy? Who's agoojoo poopoo and then he'd roll over so i could rub his belly and we'd be best friends forever. Also, strangely well suited to carrying hot soup.
Thundering Giant - C+
I kind of really like the look of this guy. A 4/3 for 5 is nothing special but the haste and coming down a turn before most of the set's heavy hitters gives it a nice kind of overwhelming your opponent's blocks one last time feel. Its a bit of a nonbo with generator servant's haste effect though.
Torch Fiend - C+
A 2 power creature for 2 is always at home in red, and the artifact hate is normally going to be relevant, although maybe not so relevant that you should avoid trading him off if given the oppurtunity.
Wall of Fire - C
Kind of like blastfire bolt I'm not sure if there's a slow red strategy, but if there is this is an important staple for it.
In the realm of 6 drops this guy is decent but not overwhelming. He can grow out of control but I'd rather run souls and silverbacks than dump 20 odd mana into getting this thing going.
Charging Rhino - C
A decent thing to ramp into but without a way to pump him up his body will get outclassed quickly.
Elvish Mystic - B
Convoke makes any creature into a mana dork of sorts but there's still a lot of powerful expensive cards that lack convoke, and honestly green looks really weak in m14 in the 4 mana and less area so the faster you can escape that middling territory and start breaking out the big guns, the better.
Hunt The Weak - B-
Fighting for 4 at sorcery speed isn't too special, especially since green kind of sucks in the early game, but the +1/+1 counter can actually help a lot of things in the set get over that 3 toughness hump on top of the whole eating a creature thing.
Hunter's Ambush - D-
It's better than fog since it can be a potent combat trick but it's still pretty bad.
Invasive Species - C+
There are enough ways to turn this into an upside, but most of the benificial ETB creatures cost the same or more which can get awkward. At least unlike roaring primadox this effect only comes once and can't target itself which means you can't be super punished by it. That this so playable is a clear indicator of green's early game weakness, in most sets you can expect green to play this sort of thing without the drawback attached.
Living Totem - C+
Green's low drops may not be great but at least there's runeclaw bear. And where there's a bear, there's a turn 3 living totem which turns the bear into a 3/3.
Naturalize - C
There's so many important things to hit with this I'm half tempted to main deck 1.
Netcaster Spider - B
This and elvish mystic are the main stand alone always reliably good low drops in green. This can block pretty much every flyer in the set, from welkin tern to avacyn, guardian angel.
Plummet - D
There aren't as many big flyers like serra angel and sengir vampire in this set as there was in m14 but there's still a lot of little wind drake equivalents running around to side this in for. That it's such a poor response to triplicate spirits also rubs me the wrong way.
Ranger's Guile - C-
I want to rate this lower but i know it isn't the card's fault that i never have this when my stuff is targeted by removal and my opponent always does, no matter how highly I draft it.
Runeclaw Bear - C
That sure is a 2 mana 2/2.
Satyr Wayfinder - C
This is more desireable if you get some undergrowth scavengers, but drawing a land and convoking something out is about worth the substandard body.
Shaman of Spring - C
This is a nice ETB to recur but the price is not quite right, especially compared to elvish visionary of old. A +1/+1 body is not worth 2 more mana.
Siege Wurm - C
He's small for a finisher in this set but he can be convoked out as a 5 or 6 drop which i think puts him just above rhino and moss-beast. Green has way too many of these middling 5-7 drops that kind of pigeon holes it into these ramp strats that force it to stretch between early board presence, sources of ramp, and late board presence in it's picks. If you have the early bodies to convoke something with reliability, you want feral incarnation. But you'll settle for siege wurm.
Titanic Growth - C-
pretty much the only thing that really pumps stats in the set, but it will be one of the first things people learn to play around.
Undergrowth Scavenger - C+
This is no spider spawning in terms of side strats but green really wants a straight 4 mana 4/4 to tie the space between losing tempo playing ramp sources early and actually ramping out fat creatures late. If you get a few support cards and trade some bears early this can be much much bigger than a 4/4 for 4, but without the support its just another big dumb vanilla late game card.
Verdant haven - C-
Theres a couple cards that value life gain but the ramp here comes in an awkward place, ramping you from 3 to 5 when most of the big plays are 6s. You'll normally want to be playing an invasive species or spider here but it's far from unplayable.
Vineweft - D-
It's long been established that a +1/+1 counter is not worth a card and a mana, and i don't think being able to re apply it for 6 mana puts it over.
2 drops are very important in this set, not just for the normal reasons but to convoke, and no pick is safer than a colorless one. Also being the only cheap colorless creature in the set makes him ideal to jump in front of one of the 2 toughness intimidate creatures.
Ornithopter - F
turn 1 this, turn 2 ensoul artifact, swing for 5, swing for 5, swing for 5, swing for 5. I know, we all heard you, we see it, we get it. It's still dumb, you wont always get both pieces and each gets less valuable the longer you wait to play them, and there's plenty of both artifact and enchantment hate to punish this kind of all or nothing strat. look at all the C or better artifacts here that are equally applicable targets for ensoul artifact but that can also serve a purpose when you don't have ensoul artifact. Draft those.
Tyrant's Machine - C
If you want to stall games than boy do i have the durdly thing for you. But seriously, games of limited are so often defined by bombs that it kicked off the now mostly erroneous BREAD acronym, and almost every bomb in M15 gets shut down by tyrant's machine. The problem is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum with white tokens, but you can always sideboard it out in that case. playing 2 is probably pushing it and 3 should never be done no matter how controlling your deck.
Will-Forged Golem - C
Assuming you manage to get out a couple bears, which you should, this comes down on turn 4. And that's really nice for a colorless 4/4, thats the kind of play green hopes to be making and here any color can make it.
Evolving Wilds - B
This is actually really good in this set. There's only like 3 playable 1 drops which means almost no one will have something better to do on turn 1 so an evolving wilds will fix your opening hands and thin a land card from your deck. It's not a good late draw but you probably wont get more than 1 or 2 anyway so i don't think you're hurting your late game or anything, and it can drastically improve your mulligan rate.
Radiant Fountain - F
Even if you have multiple ajani's pridemate, it isn't worth hurting your mana for a non-repeatable heal effect.
I reserve As for bomby finisher types, in m14 pretty much it needs a 4/4 flying body or better and to either resist removal or do something crazy valuable on top of that, so no commons went that high for me.
EDIT: i meant m15. maybe stop releasing products in year X named X+1, businesses. Boom roasted.
Apparently target and other big box stores refuse to sell products dated the previous year (but are fine selling products from the future), and wizards wants them to keep selling M15 until M16 comes out
This. Rating scales are arbitrary and relative. The value of a scale lies in its ability to add resolution to the picture, to give better separation of the data. You could concoct a simple 3-point scale where windmill slam bombs like Elspeth get 3, other playable cards get 2, and unplayable cards get 1. The problem with such a system is it gives you ridiculously poor resolution. Kind of a "duh" moment. You can't extract much useful information out of it. Whereas a 10-point scale would allow you to have much better resolution (assuming the voters understood the set enough for that detailed of a rating to be meaningful), since you could more easily determine "ok so X is better than Y but not Z".
I went into voting assuming that it's pointless to have a relative grade that doesn't get used (it's just a waste of space and unnecessarily reduces the resolution), so I went in with the assumption that at least 1 card would get an A. There are obviously no "bombs" at common, so next I looked to "premium removal". There's nothing premium like Doom Blade or Onion Ring, but the best common removal spell is probably Lightning Strike. So I automatically assigned Lightning Strike an A and bell-curved everything else up accordingly. IMO that gives a ranking with better resolution since you're making better use of the available space to convey information. And Lightning Strike IS "premium" removal relative to the power level of commons in a core set, particularly with the direction core sets are going.
Unfortunately, the other issue is compatibility. Clearly a set of ratings that is shifted up will be incompatible with others that are not, making the histograms look wonky. My advice would be that if you want people to assign arbitrary ratings in a consistent manner, you should give an example of a card that you think would get that level of rating. E.g. "Elspeth is A, Battle Screech is B+, etc.". Otherwise an arbitrary letter is rather arbitrary and subjective and you risk people interpreting them differently and losing compatibility.
For reference, the limited resources guys explain it as
A Bombs, wins games, super premium cheap inclusive removal. Planeswalkers and hastey dragons and such.
B pulls me in that color, first pickable. Cheaper flyers, higher cost/less inclusive removal, really efficiently costed bodies or invaluable abilities
C most cards, curve filler, happy to play it. Bears and centaurs and better combat tricks, useful abilities, low grade removal
D playable but not happy about it, sideboard cards, things you hope to cut. Gray ogres and plummets and vanilla 1/3s
F unplayable, never see yourself casting it.
In retrospect maybe lightning strike is a lower A in this format but it might be a kinda borderline thing until I get to actually play some games and see for myself just how many things it can hit. It's difficult in recent years to know what removal qualifies, the scale goes back to like dismember and doom blade and we just rarely get anything that obvious anymore.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_ZdBVXiHLW55FUfFJsYBPgHnuUeXqgTii_PML9Px8VM/pubhtml#
This gives you a view more like what you see from LSV's review (where you can see his top 5 commons in each color). However, I have not figured out how to get google forms to automatically make puns based on the cards yet - maybe next update.
Come on man, don't blame your inability to follow instructions on the scale. The scale is defined. Nowhere does it say you must give an A rating. You just made that up. Not the scale's fault.
I design and analyze surveys as a large part of my career, and the good news is that with a sufficiently large sample, individuals mis-using a scale get washed out. The larger the sample, the less it matters if individuals did something unusual.
I mean, it will get picked reasonably early because this is all white has for removal this time around (well, aside from Oppressive Rays). But unless I'm badly misreading the format, this is a thoroughly mediocre card.
I agree with you that it's mediocre. Honestly I don't think I'd want more than one in a deck.
I've listened to some of it, and so far the free-for-all community averaging is doing pretty well. Everything has been within a half letter grade. For instance, Amphin Pathmage was a C+ in the community ratings; B- for LR. I've only listened to about 10 commons though - I'm sure the community ratings will be VERY at odds with LR on some cards.
Nowhere does it say you "must" use A. But I interpreted it as a scale for commons in M15, not a scale for all cards of all rarities from all sets, and the instructions never said otherwise. That makes a huge difference. A "bomb" common is very different than a "bomb" in general. Clearly no common will be as good as Elspeth unless they make a serious mistake. Same with a "premium" removal, especially when you're talking about a core set since they started making Doom Blade-type cards and O-Ring-type cards uncommon instead of common. So I just took A as any top-tier first-pickable common, i.e. the commons that would get picked above most rares and uncommons. It looks like that is meant to be more of a B+/B rating though.
I've done some consulting in experimental design and usually when you want individuals to not mis-interpret a scale, you just give clearer instructions. As I suggested, giving an example card for each rating makes the scale more consistently interpreted. Or at least saying that an A is a "bomb" card period relative to all of Magic, not a bomb common relative to the set. Or saying to use the Limited Resources scale. I guess most people just assumed it was that.
Luckily more people have replied now and the "outlier" data is getting smoothed out.
The first post clearly says:
This uses the LRCast.com rating system, so if you haven't listened to one of their set reviews here's a link to the Journey into Nyx review:
I swear it didn't say that before, but if it did then my bad, I just missed it.
EDIT: To be fair, linking to a website listing cards and ratings (or a definition of their scale) would be more useful than linking to a 4 hour podcast most people don't have time to listen to. If enough people are familiar with their set reviews though then maybe it doesn't matter.
(And I hope no one takes that as a slight against CricketHunter, whom I'd like to thank for putting together this interesting activity. Just some constructive criticism for the future.)