Moving along from our review of white, we’re going to look at black and green today, twice as nice at half the price. Which is my way of saying “I only have so many interesting things to say about these colors.”
The Sibsig Ceremony: Boy howdy do I get Heartless Summoning vibes off of this card (go look it up, I can wait). This is the ultimate low floor/high ceiling card, it’ll either be one of those “try to break but can’t cards” like Carnival of Souls or like Bridge from Below-broken. I suspect it might even be better than Bridge from Below; there’s combo potential across multiple formats, from Standard to Pioneer to Modern and it wouldn’t surprise me if this became a Legacy all star in the right deck. The only thing keeping it in check is that triple black mana cost. Given that this card can be/will be good across formats, I’d suggest getting that playset early.
Strategic Betrayal: Apparently R&D thought “hey, you know what Standard needs? Even more ‘sac a creature’ effects.” A dedicated black deck has the tools to say “nah, you didn’t ever want to keep a creature in play, did you?” And the graveyard hate on the card is just gravy, sweet sweet Arclight Phoenix hating gravy.
(As a side note, Phoenix decks have been dodging graveyard hate for years, if you wanted to play “kill the graveyard, do something else too” cards, Go Blank remains the better choice).
That said, if there’s enough graveyard recursion out there to be a thing, you’ll see the various flavors of Dimir or Esper bounce running a copy or two, no doubt.
Avenger of the Fallen: Let’s talk a bit about the new mobilize mechanic, which is the one aggro element in the otherwise very midrange-y feeling Dragonstorm set. Like, is it any good? It’s interesting that the “go-wide” strategies for aggro tend to be W/G (sometimes W/R), now black gets to dip its toes into that particular strategy.
Squint hard enough, you could see an interesting take on a W/B weenie deck and this card could fill the Preacher of the Schism role, a big butt, deathtouch, and a powerful combat effect. You’d want a creature-creature heavy deck, maybe take a cue from the modern white weenie decks that run four copies of Ossification and that’s it. Speaking of which …
Rot-Curse Rakshasha: This guy would drop very nicely into a W/B weenie deck. Hits early for some damage, can sit in the graveyard to grow the Avenger’s mobilize ability, and late game, can be renewed to essentially remove all potential blockers. This is a card I’m definitely keeping my eyes on.
Scavenger Regent: Remember how I said most of the Omen/Dragon cards were pretty mediocre? That ends here. You have Black Sun’s Zenith stapled on to a very respectable 4/4 body that’s not easy to remove. This is the kind of card I could see in an old school U/B control deck along the lines of “counter everything, kill everything else” with one or two cards to win with. Very nice card here.
Qarsi Revenant: Slightly beefier Vampire Nighthawk analogue with a little extra graveyard oomph? Yeah, I’m down. Just wondering what kind of home there is for it.
Desperate Measures: If you’re old, like me, you might remember a little card called Skullclamp, one of those “R&D would have to be hit by a bus to print that again” cards. Remember what I was saying about there being a pretty nice B/W weenie deck out there somewhere? Hey, those mobilized Warrior tokens were gonna die anyway, might as well get some more use out of them…
Craterhoof Behemoth: Welcome back to Standard, big guy! If only there was a good place to fit you … well, at least they’ll be more affordable now.
Bloomvine Regent: Man alive I really wanted to like this card, but the omen ability only hits basic Forests, and the Dragon half has one of the most “meh” abilities of all the Dragons. We can do better.
Herd Heirloom: This would be insanely good if it wasn’t just limited to creatures or at least had “tap for colorless for non-creatures” stapled onto it. It’ll find a home somewhere, but oh man what could have been.
Dragon Sniper: The Joe Pesci of the set; small, annoying, and going to do a lot of damage before someone finally gets rid of it. Get used to having to waste a perfectly good removal spell on this card on a regular basis and hating yourself for it. Could be worse, it could be an Elf.
Nature’s Rhythm: Another take on Green Sun’s Zenith that isn’t Green Sun’s Zenith. It’ll be pretty house-worthy in draft but even getting two uses out of it isn’t that impressive outside of that. I tried squinting to see how I might fit it into an Amulet Titan deck and I did was screw up my eyesight even more.
Disruptive Stormbrood: I actually think this is a better constructed card than Bloomvine Regent to be honest, the two abilities aren’t awful and you get two bites at the proverbial apple. You may see this coming out of a sideboard in the near future and go “wait, what” because that’s the world we live in now, apparently.
Inspirited Vanguard: Wait, “inspirited” is a word? That can’t be right … checks dictionary … well I’ll be darned, someone up in R&D clearly got a word-a-day calendar for Christmas.
My take on these colors? You kind of have to look at them in the wedge-tastic whole in this set, but black has some real build-around goodies while green is once again relegated to the “support” color, even with the return of Hoof There It Is. If there’s some black rares you want, I’d suggest getting them early, because I suspect they’ll get expensive quickly.