You know the old attige "Where there is smoke, this is fire" well in this case smoke and fire are a good thing as we return to Alara for the last time cause after this it is time to move on and discuss more sets, this set had 234 cards, 20 of those were lands, the other 214 cards were the start of something nice in the form of Mythic rarity levels including new walkers, new combo cards and hell even some new dragons, new abilites in the form of Exalted, Devour and of course Unearth as well as the triple shards such as Esper, Jund, Bant, Naya and Grixis so let us begin
Each of the shards in this set has a distinct triangle of colors, Bant has White/Green/Blue which has it's own uses, Esper has the White/Blue/Black shard which i am a personal fan of, Jund has the Red/Green/Black shard which there are a lot of dragons there, Naya has the White/Green/Red shard devoted to giant power creatures such as Woolly Thoctar and finally Grixis has devoted itself to the Black/Blue/Red shard with tricks and that to annoy the heck out of anyone in it's way, overall these five shards have various elements all throughout this block and set, but none more so then the lands based off them which i will discuss later in the article but first it's time to look at the mythics for this set once again.
15 mythics were printed for this set and 4 walkers were among the printed few let's see the list for this set's mythics. Ajani Vengenant, Elspeth, Knight Errant, Empyrial Archangel, Godsire, Hellkite Overlord, Kresh the Bloodbraided, Lich's Mirror, Mayael the Anima, Prince of Thralls, Rafiq of the Many, Sarkhan Vol, Sedris, the Traitor King, Sharuum the Hegemon, Sphinx Sovereign and Tezzert the Seeker were all the printed mythics for this set, there were 5 legendary creatures made in these mythics and there was one for each and every shard of the set, however the most impressive thing of this set was the fact mythic rares began here making planeswalkers mythic rares and other cards as well since we had 4 walkers in this first set alone. Out of the many mythics in this set only 6 saw play, the 4 walkers, Tezzert, Sarkhan Vol, Elspeth and Ajani were obvious enough, Mayael the Anima is a very big time general for EDH and she was featured in quite a few up and coming decks but the big guns belonged to Rafiq of the Many and Sedris since those two were prominent and very powerful with abilites no one was expecting, Rafiq making Bant's exalted mechanic more annoying to deal with and Sedris making unearth possible for your entire deck which is nice and all but the trend of expensive walkers began with this set, as Ajani, Elspeth and Tezzert all started out over 20 dollars a piece and did not go down during the time this set was in standard at all.
Time for the rares to get featured in this edition of the review and believe me there were some very powerful rares in this set, we saw a new cycle of rares called the Ultimatium's and of course some kick butt dragons, artificers and even some nasty new combo cards so let's begin with the list, Ad Nauseam, Archdemon of Unx, Battlegrace Angel, Brillant Ultimatium, Broodmate Dragon, Caldera Hellion, Clarion Ultimatium, Convenant of Minds, Cradle of Vitality, Crucible of Fire, Cruel Ultimatium, Cunning Lethemancer, Death Baron, Ethersworn Canonist, Feral Hydra, Flameblast Dragon, Gather Specimens, Goblin Assault, Hell's Thunder, Immortal Coil, Invincible Hymn, Kederekt Leviathan, Keeper of Progenitus, Knight of the White Orchid, Knight Captain of Eos, Manaplasm, Master of Etherium, Memory Erosion, Mindlock Orb, Minion Reflector, Myocoloth, Ooze Garden, Predator Dragon, Punish Ignorance, Quietus Spike, Ranger of Eos, Realm Razer, Sacellum Godspeaker, Salvage Titan, Scourglass, Sedxrais Specter, Sharding Sphinx, Sigil of Distinction, Skill Borrower, Skullmulcher, Spearbreaker Behemoth, Stoic Angel, Tar Fiend, Titanic Ultimatium, Vein Drinker, Vicious Shadows, Violent Ultimatium and Where Ancients Tread were the 53 rares of this set and out of those at least 14 saw play, all the knights, Ranger of Eos, hell even Ad Nauseam saw a combo deck in legacy due to the fact how good it is, Control got some cards like Canonist to do it's bidding, Broodmate Dragon became a staple after this set being seen in every ramp deck to date, so many cards made their mark here and proved there were worth it, we even saw 3 of the 5 ultimatiums being played in various decks at this time, making it one of the format defining sets in the past 5 years, not even time spiral block did this well.
However to be far this set did have a color scheme in the form of shards, with the fact most cards from this set turned out to not be Mono Colored and instead they were sometimes 2 or even 3 color cards, take the uncommon Tower Gargoyle from this set it costs 1, a blue, a black and a white mana to cast it and for a 4/4 flyer from this set it's awesome enough to warrant any deck builder's best creature choice award, well mine anyways, that's all for today, since i prefer to let the sets speak for themselves and all and remember artifacts are always waiting to be found in the wide world we live in, so enjoy it while you can this is vergil signing off.
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