In Standard, I’m definitely adding this to my mono-black control deck.
In Commander, I can’t even count how many decks I’ll put this in.
I don’t play any other formats.
...Wait, what happens if I play this card with a Panharmonicon out? I think it will exile two target creatures, but what happens when he attacks? Does he give the total power and toughness, or do you pick one?
This card will be incredible with Kumena. The turn after you play him, you get a few tokens that can help you tap and draw a card. Frankly, I'm on the lookout for any Merfolk card that produces a few tokens, which will break him even further.
Personally, I think this card will be incredible in Standard. Remember Cryptbreaker? People mostly ran it for the card-drawing ability, as far as I can recall. The token-making part was pretty nice, I'll admit, but so is a tribal +1/+1 counter pump. Seems... incredibly playable to me.
Alright, so here we go. In the case of Kitchen Finks, Persist specifically states (As well as Undying) That when a creature with either of those abilities dies, it returns to the battlefield under it's OWNER'S control, not it's controller at time of death's control. So Kitchen Finks would return to whoever you took it from. Doomed Traveler, on the other hand, gives the spirit to whoever controls it at time of death, so you WOULD get to keep the spirit then.
In either case, a card can never be put into someone else's graveyard, so no, neither would go to your graveyard. They would go to their owner's graveyard.
BUT THE FLAVOR TEXT ON HALF OF THESE CARDS ARE AWFUL.
"Liliana always knew that Jace's illusions would come in handy." I honest to god threw up in my mouth.
"Bolas remade this plane in his image. He has the advantage here. We must approach carefully." Thanks captain obvious.
"I was promised an afterlife, not this. Samut was right. The God-Pharaoh lied." Did you need the second half? Honestly, the first sentence would have had a nice ambiance to it. It would have been short and sweet. But no... this set has some real trash flavor text. Why Wizards? Why?! This has been trending since at LEAST Dragons of Tarkir.
I'm just glad that they did give us a variety of additional answers in this set for both vehicles and copycat.
For Copycat, we got:
White: Some enchantments that can lock it for a time. Gideon's Intervention Protection of the Hekma (Awful, yes.)
Blue: A greater selection of counter spells than we've had in a long while. Essence Scatter for the kitty, Commit can interrupt the combo while simultaneously delaying a future activation, Reduce is no mana-leak, but if mana-leak were in standard we'd be having a very different problem.
Black: Some spot removal and a neat enchantment! Never is an interesting variant of Ruinous Path, though we would rather have had an Instant. Still, it's something. Lay Bare the Heart is an incredibly good discard spell, which incidentally hits all the Copy-cat pieces, Trespasser's Curse is a common that not only turns off the combo, but kills them for the attempt! For those wondering why they can't see the card, whoever it is that set up the card's page in the card index misspelled Trespasser as Tresspasser.
Red is a bit sad at not getting much for its Copy cat match-up, but it got more tools for Vehicles than most any other color, so there's that.
Green got one good answer for it, Manglehorn, which is a pretty cheap card, with an admittedly fragile body, that stops the combo.
All in all, everyone but red got something for it, and the pieces aren't so narrow that they are awful against anyone else.
Then, there's vehicles.
White: Decent spot removal and a combat trick with a body. Cast Out is pretty good against Gideon or Heart of Kiran, and has cycling to boot. Forsake the Worldly yet more proof that white gets better [card]Naturalize]s these days than green, XD. Good against most of the threats, while being especially good against Scrounger. Vizier of Deferment is an incredible combat trick that could let you focus your defenses on a few of the smaller threats while not having to worry about the biggest one.
Blue got another counter in addition to the counter spells listed above, for copy cat. Failure is pretty good in this match-up too, to throw off the other deck's tempo. Other than that, still basically the other counter spells.
Black: Hand/Deck disruption, mostly. Aggro decks are generally good against that, but black already had the best answer for Vehicles before, anyways. Dispossess is pretty incredible, though it does unfortunately come after Heart of Kiran in the curve. Lay Bear the Heart is still pretty amazing, though it can't hit Heart. Heart seems to be the largest problem here. I wonder why, it's as though it's even better than that card they banned, you know, for being too aggressive and fitting into too many decks... just my opinion, of course. Never is still pretty good here, for Gideon, while still hitting something else. The Return half even gets rid of Scrounger!
Red: Hoo boy, finally! By Force is a very cheap multi-target removal spell here. Harsh Mentor Every vehicle activation is pain, and... I think this counts Scrounger reanimations? It's still an artifact even in the graveyard, so I would assume so. Magma Spray can take out a lot of the smaller creatures, including Scrounger, permanently!
I'm still trying to evaluate whether or not Soul-Scar Mage will be good against this deck or not, seeing as -1/-1 counters won't fall off of Heart. Cut is still up in the air, honestly. Probably not...
Green: Manglehorn again, obviously and... uh...
...Dissenter's Deliverance?
Okay, so green didn't get too many answers in this set, but have you seen all the toys it got here? Yeah.
For a second I was thinking 'de-ferment', like, turning wine back into grapes.
You'll have to wait for the next Un-set. From what I hear, that card lets you take an opened pack of magic cards, seal it up, and sell it back to the store you're playing in.
This seems pretty good to me. It's not quite Flickerwisp, but Flickerwisp doesn't have flash without Aether Vial. It's flexibility will go a long way to making this constructed viable.
Yeah, but then again, Flickerwisp is a 3 power flyer as well. A bear for a body is a bit more... lackluster. Not dissing the card mind you, just pointing out a fairly key difference.
This seems pretty good to me. It's not quite Flickerwisp, but Flickerwisp doesn't have flash without Aether Vial. It's flexibility will go a long way to making this constructed viable.
Yeah, but then again, Flickerwisp is a 3 power flyer as well. A bear for a body is a bit more... lackluster. Not dissing the card mind you, just pointing out a fairly key difference.
What makes me hopeful about its limited potential is the amount of ramp we've seen in this set. It's decent! A properly drafted deck might be able to use it...
In Standard, I’m definitely adding this to my mono-black control deck.
In Commander, I can’t even count how many decks I’ll put this in.
I don’t play any other formats.
In either case, a card can never be put into someone else's graveyard, so no, neither would go to your graveyard. They would go to their owner's graveyard.
Hope that helps.
BUT THE FLAVOR TEXT ON HALF OF THESE CARDS ARE AWFUL.
"Liliana always knew that Jace's illusions would come in handy." I honest to god threw up in my mouth.
"Bolas remade this plane in his image. He has the advantage here. We must approach carefully." Thanks captain obvious.
"I was promised an afterlife, not this. Samut was right. The God-Pharaoh lied." Did you need the second half? Honestly, the first sentence would have had a nice ambiance to it. It would have been short and sweet. But no... this set has some real trash flavor text. Why Wizards? Why?! This has been trending since at LEAST Dragons of Tarkir.
Weirded me out, but hey, it was still at MSRP, so what the hell.
Everything inside looks metal as all hell though, so I think that was incredibly well worth the money.
For Copycat, we got:
White: Some enchantments that can lock it for a time.
Gideon's Intervention
Protection of the Hekma (Awful, yes.)
Blue: A greater selection of counter spells than we've had in a long while.
Essence Scatter for the kitty,
Commit can interrupt the combo while simultaneously delaying a future activation,
Reduce is no mana-leak, but if mana-leak were in standard we'd be having a very different problem.
Black: Some spot removal and a neat enchantment!
Never is an interesting variant of Ruinous Path, though we would rather have had an Instant. Still, it's something.
Lay Bare the Heart is an incredibly good discard spell, which incidentally hits all the Copy-cat pieces,
Trespasser's Curse is a common that not only turns off the combo, but kills them for the attempt! For those wondering why they can't see the card, whoever it is that set up the card's page in the card index misspelled Trespasser as Tresspasser.
Red is a bit sad at not getting much for its Copy cat match-up, but it got more tools for Vehicles than most any other color, so there's that.
Green got one good answer for it, Manglehorn, which is a pretty cheap card, with an admittedly fragile body, that stops the combo.
All in all, everyone but red got something for it, and the pieces aren't so narrow that they are awful against anyone else.
Then, there's vehicles.
White: Decent spot removal and a combat trick with a body.
Cast Out is pretty good against Gideon or Heart of Kiran, and has cycling to boot.
Forsake the Worldly yet more proof that white gets better [card]Naturalize]s these days than green, XD. Good against most of the threats, while being especially good against Scrounger.
Vizier of Deferment is an incredible combat trick that could let you focus your defenses on a few of the smaller threats while not having to worry about the biggest one.
Blue got another counter in addition to the counter spells listed above, for copy cat. Failure is pretty good in this match-up too, to throw off the other deck's tempo. Other than that, still basically the other counter spells.
Black: Hand/Deck disruption, mostly. Aggro decks are generally good against that, but black already had the best answer for Vehicles before, anyways.
Dispossess is pretty incredible, though it does unfortunately come after Heart of Kiran in the curve.
Lay Bear the Heart is still pretty amazing, though it can't hit Heart. Heart seems to be the largest problem here. I wonder why, it's as though it's even better than that card they banned, you know, for being too aggressive and fitting into too many decks... just my opinion, of course.
Never is still pretty good here, for Gideon, while still hitting something else. The Return half even gets rid of Scrounger!
Red: Hoo boy, finally!
By Force is a very cheap multi-target removal spell here.
Harsh Mentor Every vehicle activation is pain, and... I think this counts Scrounger reanimations? It's still an artifact even in the graveyard, so I would assume so.
Magma Spray can take out a lot of the smaller creatures, including Scrounger, permanently!
I'm still trying to evaluate whether or not Soul-Scar Mage will be good against this deck or not, seeing as -1/-1 counters won't fall off of Heart.
Cut is still up in the air, honestly. Probably not...
Green:
Manglehorn again, obviously and... uh...
...Dissenter's Deliverance?
Okay, so green didn't get too many answers in this set, but have you seen all the toys it got here? Yeah.
That's my analysis, anyways.
You'll have to wait for the next Un-set. From what I hear, that card lets you take an opened pack of magic cards, seal it up, and sell it back to the store you're playing in.
Not every deck cares about that, Animar!
Yeah, but then again, Flickerwisp is a 3 power flyer as well. A bear for a body is a bit more... lackluster. Not dissing the card mind you, just pointing out a fairly key difference.
This can be that for cheaper, in the right circumstances...