I'm a big chicken, I prefer to take individually powerful ("safe") cards at the beginning of a format until I know which synergy cards are worth it, I'd take Tail Slash here.
(EDIT: By "safe" cards, here I'm thinking of Tail Slash and Reduce in Stature. By synergy cards I mean the things like Blood-Chin Rager or Ambuscade Shaman that aren't as good as those two removal spells on their own, but enable certain decks that may or may not turn out to be powerful)
I was inclined to take the Rager at first, but black aggro doesn't look terribly strong to me. Reduce in Stature seems like a safe way to deal with big problems, so that's my choice. Elk Herd is also a possibility.
I also think Tail Slash is slightly overrated, though still solid. Fall of the Hammer was 1 cheaper and in a format with Heroic, while this format has pretty high overall toughness.
1) on opponents creature, it's pacifism.
2) on my creature, enter the battlefield effects,
3) unlikely but possible combo if we get the WG scalelord uncommon to cast on him and bolster giving infinite counters
Fair enough though the Bomby Dragons aren't as common as I thought. Also, since Pacifism isn't in the pack and blue is a sweet color in the third fate pack which we'll also be passing the same direction, it's still the best in this pack IMO.
Not the greatest pack 1, pick 1, ey? But makes the exercise more valuable.
Tail Slash and Reduce in Stature are the safest picks here as removal spells that will probably do work regardless. The elk herd could end up being very powerful as well; depends on how easy it is to set up a giant board stall state and then crush in. Mirror Mockery, Ambuscade Shaman, Scale Blessing all require a lot of setup and deliver a large reward. I went with Scale Blessing because I think it has the highest upside, because it's the only white card in the pack, and because I think bolster.dek is going to be very strong. Reminds me of Selesnya in RtR.
Ya I think I would have to go with Reduce in stature here as well. Its basically a blue pacifism. It's common downsides are of course that the target can still use abilities, chump block, and it can be removed with naturalize, return to earth, and the like.
Tail Slash is a one-sided, instant speed fight which is nice, but overall not as reliable as Reduce in Stature as you need a creature to use it and one powerful enough to kill the target.
Scale Blessing and Ambuscade have high potential but need to be built around to reach it.
Wasn't sure at first but looking over the set again I can say with confidence that Mirror Mockery is pretty terrible in this format. It has almost no use with the commons and uncommons of this set if casting on your own creature. And unfortunately even if used on a hasted creature, the token cannot attack as it comes into play after attacks. Its only reliable use is a pseudo pacifism when played on the opponents creature. Cant even sack the token to exploit since all but 1 of the exploiters are non-flash.
Just realized thati t does however work ok if put on an exploit creature as I believe they can sack themselves for their effect. So pop this on say a rakshasa cravecaller and build up some zombies.
The Elk Herd and Blood Chin are the best creatures and certainly consistent, but not as powerful as the removal spells I think. So ya I would have to agree with Tennessee and go with Reduce in Stature as the safest pick. As we get more play testing info with synergy cards like Ambuscade, we may see that these have the potential power to be 1st picks though.
I would take Mirror Mockery because I don't know the format well enough yet.
Blue has a lot of etb effects this time around (exploit)and Mirror Mockery can allow us to block large attacking creatures.
Tail Whip or reduce would be my second picks.
People complained about FRF packs, but if this pack is any indication you are going to be scrambling for playables in this format. This is a whole ton of chaff.
I would pick Tail Slash, I think it's easily the best card.
Reduce in Stature is not exciting as there are too many times it's not doing what you need. In fact, because of the presence of Exploit, I think Pacifism is going to be significantly worse than it is in the typical format. This format has a heavy +1/+1 counter theme as well. Most of the bomb rares have other abilities that this wont' deal with.
White and blue barely have any removal. If you suddenly stop taking those cards then you have literally no removal at common in those formats. You get a clunky 5 mana verdict and a sorcery speed bounce. I think bounce is a bigger enemy of those cards, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of bounce going around. Rite of undoing might end up being better though, but it is an uncommon.
Reduce in Stature and Tail Slash are the two best cards, I think. Blue seems like a deeper color in this format and gives a pretty good chance of wheeling something, so I like Reduce a little better. Power level wise they seem pretty close, though. Blood-Chin Rager could be pretty good if warriors is still a good deck, but I expect it to be substantially worse than it was in Khans.
I would probably take Tail Slash, though that may turn out to be wrong later. This pack does a pretty good job of highlighting how bad some of blue's commons are.
White and blue barely have any removal. If you suddenly stop taking those cards then you have literally no removal at common in those formats. You get a clunky 5 mana verdict and a sorcery speed bounce. I think bounce is a bigger enemy of those cards, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of bounce going around. Rite of undoing might end up being better though, but it is an uncommon.
I still think Pacifism is good, just not as good as it would be in other formats. I think Reduce in Stature is a card that is not going to perform well at all.
It might not perform super great, but in blue it is all you have and because of that is good. Grading on a curve and all. I'd rather have reduce than the bounce creature.
reduce in stature is a card that will vary wildly depending on which deck you're playing against. it will be one of your best cards against rg and stone cold unplayable against ub. which seems to be true for the entire format, good and bad deck matchups are more pronounced than ever.
I don't think it is unplayable against B. Maybe against U. I would be much more worried about bounce than I am about exploit. If they are saccing their bomb or evasive threat I can't deal with to get some other incremental advantage its not a huge deal. I have dealt with the bomb. Of course some cards like Silumgar (new one) or the UB sac dragon this card is just actively horrible against, but there isn't that many cards in this format with passive abilities.
I disagree on reduce in stature having significant variance in its effectiveness based on the colors your playing against. Its a removal spell no matter what they decide to with the targeted creature. Who cares if they sac it to exploit if you used it on a powerful or important creature. Yes it is slightly worse value because they were able to use it for something, but its still largely doing its job of disabling a big threat. If they don't have many strong creatures and you're playing against an army of much smaller threats, then yes it's worse, but that's the case for most removal except for the cheapest or twin bolt for example.
Oh ya thats true, eh? It's base 0/2 power but the +1/+1 counters still add to that. Well then I guess its not really close to the power level of Pacifism. In that case I may change my vote to Tail Slash. Hmmmm.
Blood-Chin Rager for me with Stampeding Elk Herd second. Evasive 2 drops are very good and this card has strong synergy BUT it's a good card in any B/x deck. Removal is always good to have but the options here are on the weaker side of the spectrum. Stampeding Elk Herd is a fine pick as a 5/5 for 5 and it is the only green card in the pack for signaling purposes.
It's hard to evaluate how good the 3 drop black uncommon but it might be a worthwhile build around card.
Rager gets my vote. There's a pretty decent number of warriors in this set and they're pretty much all playable. Even without them, though, a 2/2 that can't be blocked except by 2 creatures is great. 2 unblockable power is great, and even if your opponent has a couple morphs to block with, they're wide open for a combat trick ruining their whole day.
Tail slash is fine but not terribly exciting imo. 3 mana is a lot for conditional removal, you probably aren't gaining any tempo in most circumstances and you'll sometimes have to open yourself up to card disadvantage. mirror mockery is certainly playable as a usually-guard-duty but pretty far from exciting unless you somehow have a million etb creatures. ambuscade shaman is pretty close, but it seems more dependent on future picks than rager, although I'm sure I'll want to draft the dash deck a lot this season.
I'm a big chicken, I prefer to take individually powerful ("safe") cards at the beginning of a format until I know which synergy cards are worth it, I'd take Tail Slash here.
(EDIT: By "safe" cards, here I'm thinking of Tail Slash and Reduce in Stature. By synergy cards I mean the things like Blood-Chin Rager or Ambuscade Shaman that aren't as good as those two removal spells on their own, but enable certain decks that may or may not turn out to be powerful)
I also think Tail Slash is slightly overrated, though still solid. Fall of the Hammer was 1 cheaper and in a format with Heroic, while this format has pretty high overall toughness.
Cubetutor Link
1) on opponents creature, it's pacifism.
2) on my creature, enter the battlefield effects,
3) unlikely but possible combo if we get the WG scalelord uncommon to cast on him and bolster giving infinite counters
This card is good at any stage of the game!
Not the greatest pack 1, pick 1, ey? But makes the exercise more valuable.
Tail Slash is a one-sided, instant speed fight which is nice, but overall not as reliable as Reduce in Stature as you need a creature to use it and one powerful enough to kill the target.
Scale Blessing and Ambuscade have high potential but need to be built around to reach it.
Wasn't sure at first but looking over the set again I can say with confidence that Mirror Mockery is pretty terrible in this format. It has almost no use with the commons and uncommons of this set if casting on your own creature. And unfortunately even if used on a hasted creature, the token cannot attack as it comes into play after attacks. Its only reliable use is a pseudo pacifism when played on the opponents creature. Cant even sack the token to exploit since all but 1 of the exploiters are non-flash.
Just realized thati t does however work ok if put on an exploit creature as I believe they can sack themselves for their effect. So pop this on say a rakshasa cravecaller and build up some zombies.
The Elk Herd and Blood Chin are the best creatures and certainly consistent, but not as powerful as the removal spells I think. So ya I would have to agree with Tennessee and go with Reduce in Stature as the safest pick. As we get more play testing info with synergy cards like Ambuscade, we may see that these have the potential power to be 1st picks though.
Blue has a lot of etb effects this time around (exploit)and Mirror Mockery can allow us to block large attacking creatures.
Tail Whip or reduce would be my second picks.
I would pick Tail Slash, I think it's easily the best card.
Reduce in Stature is not exciting as there are too many times it's not doing what you need. In fact, because of the presence of Exploit, I think Pacifism is going to be significantly worse than it is in the typical format. This format has a heavy +1/+1 counter theme as well. Most of the bomb rares have other abilities that this wont' deal with.
I still think Pacifism is good, just not as good as it would be in other formats. I think Reduce in Stature is a card that is not going to perform well at all.
Oh ya thats true, eh? It's base 0/2 power but the +1/+1 counters still add to that. Well then I guess its not really close to the power level of Pacifism. In that case I may change my vote to Tail Slash. Hmmmm.
It's hard to evaluate how good the 3 drop black uncommon but it might be a worthwhile build around card.
Too bad that doesn't work since the token is exiled at end of combat.
You could put Mockery on your exploit dude and when exploit dude attacks, the generated token can then exploit itself.
Tail slash is fine but not terribly exciting imo. 3 mana is a lot for conditional removal, you probably aren't gaining any tempo in most circumstances and you'll sometimes have to open yourself up to card disadvantage. mirror mockery is certainly playable as a usually-guard-duty but pretty far from exciting unless you somehow have a million etb creatures. ambuscade shaman is pretty close, but it seems more dependent on future picks than rager, although I'm sure I'll want to draft the dash deck a lot this season.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Damnit, guys, now I want to play Mirror Mockery and a bunch of exploit creatures.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control