Magic the Gathering

Strategy

Lee picks some Alara Reborn Powerhouses

By Lee Steht ⋅ April 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Ahh… It seems like yes­ter­day that I was just doing the Con­flux cards. Since we don’t have the usual Red, Green, Blue etc in Alara Reborn. I fig­ured I’d just review some of the cards I see as poten­tial powerhouses.

Inter­est­ingly, I found that I liked more cards from this set than usual. The bad part to that is that it will make my draft­ing choices even more com­pli­cated. Please work with me, as I have NOT seen all the cards I’m tak­ing this list from a spoiler just so I can get your minds work­ing ear­lier and faster :)

The forums are always a great place to debate and dis­cuss my wrongs or rights so I can’t wait to hear from you.

• Ether­sworn Shield­mage — With FLASH, this guy can be a game sav­ing play! Many of the Earth­quake/Fire­spout effects have spells cast in front of them to kill any of your trump cards in play that may pre­vent dam­age. The Shield­mage jumps in like a super­hero to save the day at the point you need him most.
  
• Med­dling Mage & Ter­mi­nate — These two cards are clas­sics and are VERY dif­fi­cult to find, UNTIL now. For their power and cost you won’t find much that are any better.
  
• Deny Real­ity & Bitu­mi­nous Blast — The Cas­cade mechanic has the poten­tial to be HUGE. Unfor­tu­nately, the lower Cas­cade cards are no where near impressive.
  
• Mind Funeral — The card can’t be true! In lim­ited this can be a HUGE turn of events for the poor soul who thinned out their deck of lands.
  
• Soul Manip­u­la­tion — Life is about choices and I like hav­ing my cake AND eat­ing it too :)
  
• Anath­e­mancer — 5 Color Con­trol decks beware! This guy can be used twice! 2/2 for 3cc isn’t too bad, let’s face it Ful­mi­na­tor Mage is pretty handy against all of those Non-Basics.
  
• Thought Hem­or­rhage — Imag­ine a world where Cryp­tic Com­mand doesn’t exist in a game of Magic. A world where Lee Steht enters the MTG Hall of Fame due to his good looks, unpar­al­leled charisma, and his accom­plish­ments after being THE most dom­i­nant MTG player for 5 years straight. Well, you can make the first one come true.
  
• Blood­braid Elf — 4CC Cas­cade with a healthy Power and Tough­ness. I like this guy for all of those reasons.
  
• Behe­moth Sledge — I like this card much more than Lox­odon Warham­mer. I’m not sure if it’s the +2 on the tail end or the Tram­ple, but this card will DEFINITELY find play.
  
• Daunt­less Escort — This guy works sim­i­larly to Shield­mage (see above) but as I said, usu­ally wrath effects are pre­ceded by anti-ANTI cards that remove pre­ven­tion or util­ity cards.
  
• Zeal­ous Per­se­cu­tion — Whether it be Alara Block Con­structed or Stan­dard, one will see a few tokens or 1/1s here and there. Much bet­ter than Dry Spell!
  
• Dou­ble Neg­a­tive — Key words here “UP TO TWO” I like this spell and I believe it works on Cas­cade effects or spells.
  
• Mael­strom Pulse — Vin­di­cate has been long missed, but I like this card bet­ter. Despite not being able to shank an opponent’s land, I do feel that get­ting mul­ti­ples of a card or per­ma­nent is much more advantageous.
  
• Intim­i­da­tion Bolt — Get rid of your oppo­nents 3 tough­ness guy AND the rest of the team can­not attack? Daddy likes.
  
• Sen Triplets — This card seems a bit ridicu­lous to me. The ONLY prob­lem I see with it is that it has a Power and Tough­ness. There­fore, eas­ily dealt with.
  
• Uril, the Mist­stalker — 5/5 for 5 is pretty com­mon now. How­ever, Troll Ascetic is arguably one of the all time greats and it’s merely due to it’s can’t be tar­get­ted. At a 5/5 body this guys big­ger but will he be enough? We’ll see.
  
• Bant Sojourn­ers — Cycling is a decent abil­ity. One that can cer­tainly win you a game. Add a 1/1 sol­dier to a cantrip gives you a per­ma­nent advan­tage that can really turn the tide.
  
• Jenara, Asura of War — Trick and I talked about this guy. Ide­ally a 5/5 flyer for 3 mana, nuff said.
  
• War­gate — Search­ing for Brood­mate Dragon or Ranger of Eos makes play­ers smile. Do I really need to explain?
  
• Slave of Bolas — I like the idea of using an oppo­nents crea­ture and then killing him. The cost is a bit higher than nor­mal, being a Sor­cery makes it even worse, but it is removal.

– Lee