As a devout Magic: The Gathering CCG collector and player, I really enjoy when a new set comes out. I hear all the time about how this game is a cash Black Hole and that if you don't have the dough then you can't be competitive.

I entirely agree with those opinions.

But let it be known: As long as I have a job and the cash to spend on my hobby, I will continue to shell out the big bucks. I'm not a Pro player by any means, but I must be up to date in order to keep up with kiddies and their trust funds.

I understand that times are tough all over, and for those of you who have a little less in their wallets here is a tip. Ebay can be a wonderful thing. I on the other hand love to open a brand new box (or two) and tear into the boosters. This year I did a rare thing and traded in a lot of my older card in order to save some scratch. I am purely a Type-2 and Limited (draft) player, so I do not play with the older cards at all. I usually bring my older binder to trade for the current Block. Well, I had a lot of old cards from Onslaught to Ravnica to trade to the dealers and got about $300 for my efforts.

Everybody loves a recycler! Anything to help the Environment.


Now, enough with the economy and onto the cards.

Alara Reborn is the first set to have all the cards be entirely multi-colored. Not a mono-colored card to be seen. Is that a good thing? Not quite sure about that yet. I enjoy a nice Gold-bordered card as much as the next guy. But all that glitters is not Gold. There will always be some shit sandwiches we will have to swallow in order to get to Dessert. No new lands in this set as well. So in order to play some of these monsters quickly we will need to keep using non-basic lands from previous sets.

Drafting Alara Reborn is going to be a bit different from previous sets. There are no "one-drops" in this set. No first-turn beasties to worry about. The only cards that can be played on the first turn are the Borderposts. They are artifacts that can be played outright for 3 mana, but you can also pay 1 colorless mana and bounce a basic land back to your hand to play them! They come into play tapped and provide 2 types of mana. They are just like the lands Salt Marsh or Shivan Oasis from 9th Edition. One other mana fixer of note is called Trace of Abundance. This enchant land card gives the land "shroud" (cannot be the target of spells or abilities) and when you tap the land for mana it gives an additional mana of choice. It costs 1 green and either a red or white mana. these "Hybrid" cards were introduced back in Ravnica block and there are several in this set as well.

Another card-cost to note is there are not a lot of two-drop cards either. Only around 16 in the whole set. So if you want make a quicker draft deck then you will need to take the two-drops when you see them.

Now, two-drops are not essential to have in a draft deck with this set. The power/toughness ratio in creatures has gone up, and mana costs have gone down. This is because all of the cards are very mana specific. To play a 2/2 creature, a minimum 3 colorless mana is needed. If you make the cost 3 colored mana you can have a 4/4 for having the right types of mana. Downside: If you are stuck with only 1 type of mana then it might be awhile before you get to play that 4/4 beatstick.

Example:
Nulltread Gargantuan
uncommon
1 green, 1 blue, 1 colorless mana
when it comes into play put a creature you control on top of its owners library.

5 power/6 toughness!

Good for a rare; Amazing for an uncommon! Get that creature "shroud" and it will be a while before he leaves the field.

Another Cheap creature I like is the Rhox Brute. A 4/4 common for 1 red, 1 green, and 2 colorless mana. Who needs a 2-drop when you can throw these bad boys at your opponents.

There are also some good abilities to go along with those nasty creatures. "Cascade" is a new ability for the Alara Reborn set. When you play a "Cascade" spell, you remove cards from the top of your library until you reveal a non-land card that costs less then the spell you just played. You may play the card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest of the removed cards on the bottom of your library in random order.

Can you see where this ability could go? I play a 6 cost Cascade spell and then reveal a 5 cost Cascade spell, then reveal a 4 cost Cascade spell etc. etc. etc. I see a lot of Cascade decks being built in the immediate future. Now you could also reveal a 1 cost and end the run there, but I am sure you are all better deck builders then that. If you can get 2 or 3 spells for the price of one it is well worth the cost.

A few examples:

Enlisted Wurm is a 5/5 uncommon for a white, a green, and 4 colorless mana and has "Cascade". Nothing like getting a 5/5 ground-pounder and an additional spell to go with it. If you play many creatures with Cascade then a good idea might be to put a few creature enchantments to go with them.

Another good spell is Deny Reality. It's a sorcery that costs a blue, a black, and 3 colorless mana. It allows you to return any permanent to its owners hand and has "Cascade". Nothing like bouncing your opponents creature and getting something nice for free from the top of your deck.

The few 2-drop creatures in the set like to key off of other multi-colored cards. Most are a blah 2/1 by themselves, but add another multi-colored permanent and they all get a +1/+1 and a special ability such as flying, shroud, haste, first-strike, or deathtouch. So if you drafting this set then you are more then likely to have another multi-colored card in play. The flying and first-strike ones are the best to have and go nicely in the same deck.

Each sibling-color (red/green,green/white,white/blue.blue/black,black/red) has an uncommon equipment to go with it. And there are 2 really good ones. Behemoth Sledge gives the equipped creature +2/+2, trample, and lifelink. Costing a white, a green, and a colorless to cast and 3 colorless to equip; its like the old Armadillo Cloak enchantment. And Mage Slayer costs a green, a red, and a colorless to cast and 3 colorless to equip. With that equipped the creature deals its damage to the defending player whenever it attacks. So a 4/4 with Mage Slayer equipped will deal 4 damage as soon as it attacks and if it is not blocked will deal another 4! Even if the creature is blocked it will still deal its damage to the opponent thru Mage Slayer.

Now a few cards that I think are really worth have a few or more of!

Terminate
A blast from the past (literally), costing a red and a black mana, Terminate is an instant that destroys target creature. One of the best removal instant spells. It's about time they reprinted this bad boy. Any red/black deck will need 4 of them. Another good thing is that it is a commom card and should be easy to acquire for cheap.

Spellbreaker Behemoth
There are few cheap 5/5 creature without serious drawbacks. One good one was Rumbling Slum from Guildpact. Another is the new Spellbreaker Behemoth who is a rare 5/5 for 2 green, 1 red, and 1 colorless mana. It cannot be countered and none of your 5 power creatures can be countered while it is in play. With a little mana acceleration it can come out on turn 3 and be a right nasty bastard for any counterspell deck.

Nemesis of Reason
Costing 1 black, 1 blue, and 3 colorless mana, this rare creature is a 3/7 that whenever it attacks the defending player puts the top 10 cards of his library into his graveyard. Since most Type-2 decks are 60 cards in size, this guy paired with some other good "Peel" cards (put from library to graveyard) have a really good chance of making some competitive Deck-em decks. (you can win the game if your opponent is not able to draw a card). That is why you use........

Mind Funeral
For a black, a blue, and a colorless mana, this uncommon sorcery "peels" cards from target opponent's library until 4 lands are revealed. This card is a peelers wet dream. Get 4! NOW!

Thought Hemorrhage
Not since Cranial Extraction from the Champions of Kamigawa set, or Extirpate from Planar Chaos has there been a better deck screw card. A rare sorcery for a red, a black, and 2 colorless. It lets you name a card and target opponent reveals his hand and takes 3 damage per that card revealed. Then you search their hand, graveyard, and library for all copies of that card and remove them from the game. For any deck that relies on a single card strategy, this card is total bone-age. Expect this card to get fairly expensive.

Meddling Mage
Another reprint; this 2/2 creature costs a blue and a white mana, and when played allows you to name a non-land card and that card cannot be played. Very popular when it was first issued and should be again. This is another card that hoses the single card strategy.

Maelstrom Pulse
Like card destruction? How about multiple card destruction? For a green, a black, and a colorless mana you get a sorcery that can destroy target non-land permanent and all copies in play. Very cost effective removal for multiple copies of permanents.


Now I would love to describe all of Alara: Reborn cards for you but the highlights are good for now. Look forward for new draft reports to come later. For a little personal one-on-one advice send me some GG and I might get back to you.

Great work. A group of our friends still get together to play Booster draft tournaments every set and this one looks awsome.This is really the only time we all get together because of our busy lives.With having families and homes we can become quite consumed by life.MTG has brought us together many times and will continue to do so as they bring out these sets.Combined I am pretty sure the 14 of us have a very nice collection of cards dating back to Revised edition.

Mind Funeral

Cheers!

The Gamer!!

Always love keeping up with MtG even though I'm not longer too active with it. Appreciate all the effort you put into these reviews and reports - and I like the level of detail you include. Enough to bring me up to speed, but without wasting a lot of time on basics. Good balance and that deserves GG!

Do note that the initial card goes on the stack first and then the random card from the cascade. This means the cascade card resolves first and then the initial card. On an empty board casting a creature with cascade and turning over an enchant creature will leave you unable to play the enchant creature as it resolves before it has an available target (or if your opponent has a creature, it technically goes to them) There is a 'may' in the cascade text so you're not forced into such a play, but you're still not getting the most out of the cascade.

Oh, that and the standard criticism of enchant creatures in that it needs to be a REALLY good creature enchantment to risk the instant speed removal in response to the casting of the enchantment (or removal of the creature afterward by various means, including bounce spells).

To be honest, I am a little disappointed with the pre-constructed decks. All of the basic lands are from Conflux; quite a few of the cards are from the tenth edition core set, Shards of Alara and Conflux. The pre-constructed decks seem more like organized booster packs than a usable deck. Most of the cards in Unnatural Schemes and Legion Aloft I already had.