Going in reverse order here as of now the next set on the chopping block for a formal vergil review is the Alara Reborn Set which premiered early in may 2009 which featured 145 cards in it's set all gold bordered no mono colored cards existed during this set, this was the only set to feature gold bordered cards for the entire set, not even the Ravnica Block contained a set with all gold bordered cards for your information i will be first looking at the rarities starting from mythic all the way down as per usual, so let's begin.
Mythics for this set had only had seen some minor play of course there was the obvious legends such as Jenara, Asura of War, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Sen Triplets, Thraximundar and even Uril, the Miststalker which were all the legends in this set, so 5 of the 10 mythic rares for the set were all legendary creatures, surprising but each one had it's own shard, Jenara for Bant, Karrthus for Jund, Sen Triplets for Esper, Thraxi for Grixis and Uril for the famous Naya color shard, now your probably wondering what are the other five cards in the set that were mythics hold your horses i will get to it now. 5 out of the 10 mythics were not legendary but they had a good balance and most of them were fair, all except for 2 which i will get to in a minute, they were Defiler of Souls, Dragon Broodmother, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Lord of Extinction and Maelstrom Nexus now the Nexus and the broodmother are so broken it's not even funny for this set though for attending the prerelease you got your hands on a foil dragon broodmother, which i do have in my collection for attending the event and competing in the shards of alara's final block of that season, some of the mythics from this set saw some play including the Broodmother for Jund and even the Lord of Extinction saw some minor play but not enough to warrant him to be at a decent price range, but i digress it's time to move onto the rares of the set which were plentiful and some of them had decks named after them.
Now of the rares of the set which were set to be 34 rares only about 8 of those ever saw some form of play but i'll go down the list for you all to look at. There was Aven Mimomancer, Blitz Hellion, Cloven Casting, Dauntless Escort, Deathbringer Thoctar, Engima Sphinx, Fight to the Death, Fliigree Angel, Finest Hour, Glory of Warfare, Identity Crisis, Knight of New Alara, Knotvine Paladin, Lavalanche, Lich, Lord of Unx, Madrush Cyclops, Maelstrom Pulse, Mayael's Aria, Meddling Mage, Mycoid Shepherd, Necromancer's Convenant, Nemesis of Reason, Predatory Advantage, Retaliator Griffin, Sages of the Anima, Soulquake, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, Spellbound Dragon, Spellbreaker Behemoth, Thought Hemorrhage, Time Sieve, Unscythe, Killer of Kings, Vedalken Heretic, Wargate. Now for the cards themselves the only 8 that ever saw some form of play was the Maelstrom Pulse, Meddling Mage, Nemesis of Reason, Lavalanche, Madrush Cyclops, Knight of New Alara, Wargate and of course Mayael's Aria which made EDH a standard ideal and was a win condition there but i digress, the rares were plentiful and the fact the Precons were a little lackluster was a dissapointment the only worthy one to get at the time was the Naya one which had a foil Spellbreaker Behemoth for me at least it was the only noteworthy one.
Uncommons had a lot to say about this set and determined how the metagame was run, Jund became a dominant force after the release of this set which had a lot in terms of uncommons including Bituminous Blast, Bloodbraid Elf and even other decks benefited from this set including a aggro style mill deck that had Mind Funeral to back it up and a rare in the form of Nemesis of Reason, plus esper was a dominant entity as well, with cards such as Time Sieve to give it extra turns, Tezzert the Seeker to turn on your engine and even Master of Etherium from the Shards of Alara set to make most of these popular decks easy to run, 40 uncommons in the set and even a extended combo was born because of this set, Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek would become a serious threat in Extended and become a staple deck for a year and a half after the release of the Alara Reborn set, overall we saw some defintions of new standard come out of this one and even extended and EDH always get their man in the form of new staple cards, Netdecking became popular due to this set and Jund quickly became a dominant force to be reckoned with overall making Alara Reborn a set like no other, Join me next time where i take a look at Conflux the second set of this block and examine it's ups and downs, till next time this is vergil signing off
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