Friday, March 25, 2016

Shadows over Innistrad Review: White

I will leave double-faced cards, or DFCs, for a separate section.


Always Watching: solid anthem. Every anthem you add to your deck needs to be better than some other card you took out, and you need to have enough attackers in a white weenie deck. Its a good cousin of Intangible Virtue  [(1 White):Creature tokens you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance]. It costs one more mana, yet it is also more versatile.
Angel of Deliverance: limited bomb, could be useful in Standard constructed. 8 mana for a 6/6 flyer isn't the best costing, but the exile clause can be really powerful. Reads well for Standard constructed.


Angelic Purge: useful in limited.
Apothecary Geist: useful in limited.


Bound of Moonsilver: block card, the extra mana is an unneeded extra cost in any other meta than Standard or Block Constructed.
Bygone Bishop: me likes. In a white/green deck with tons of mana floating around, this card reads 'card advantage' all the way.


Cathar's Companion: good in limited.
Chaplain's Blessing: good in limited.


Dauntless Cathar: interesting and fun in a white/black graveyard matters deck.
Declaration in Stone: I need to do the math when I play this to determine how good it is to use against an opponent or to use it on my own creatures. The 'nontoken' clause is very important. This means you can exile a bunch of your opponent's tokens with no drawback. Reads like a solid rare.


Descend upon the Sinful: can end the game in your favor in Standard, I am not sure if in Modern.
Ethereal Guidance: limited battle trick.


Eerie Interlude: I love this effect, and the card is aggressively costed. In an ETB (enters the battlefield deck), while it will stall all your creatures for a turn, it can net you all those ETB triggers, AND, its 'any number' and that means you flicker the ones you want to flicker and leave your attack bombs alone.
Devilthorn Fox: limited.


Drogskol Cavalry: could be good in a slow Standard constructed, but it seems destined to be a junk rare.
Expose Evil: limited battle trick.


Emissary of the Sleepless: limited.
Hope Against Hope: love it. It had me at 'for each.' Must play.


Inquisitor's Ox: limited.
Gryff's Boon: worth a try in a white/black graveyard matters constructed deck.


Humble the Brute: too heavy for the benefit, but it could be useful in limited or in Standard with a lack of other cards in white with a similar effect.
Inspiring Captain: limited.


Militant Inquisitor: worth checking out in constructed, even Modern constructed. Anything with 'for each' is worth a second look.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal: another Odric, ahh? I am sure he is worth trying once. He is legendary, and that's a limitation, yet he reads Johnny deckbuild. After it goes down to a very low price (if it does), I should check it out just for fun.


Moorland Drifter: limited.
Nearheath Chaplain: Another card for the white/black graveyard matters constructed deck.


Nahiri's Machinations: neat pinging ability, not sure how useful it will be outside of limited.
Open the Armory: I like it a lot. In the eternal formats it can be one of several very broken auras or equipments. Is this one of the set's eternal plants?


Puncturing Light: limited.
Not Forgotten: reads very useful. It should go well in the white/black graveyard matters constructed deck, and it can also be sideboarded against it or any other graveyard matters constructed deck, and in any format.


Silverstrike: solid limited battle trick, could even be a constructed battle trick.
Paranoid Parish-Blade: goes in whatever deck has cards that either self-mill or let you drop cards from your hand, but the effect is small for the effort.


Reaper of Flight Moonsilver: for the white/black graveyard matters Standard constructed deck
Thalia's Lieutenant: reads very solid. Also reads like one of the money rares in Standard. I will have to be done with the set review to know if it ranks as one of the chase rares. (Some sets only have one, some even have zero!).


Spectral Shepherd: that Spirit better have some useful effect. Reads OK. Reminds me of the two-color plants in Innistrad for synergy with Return to Ravnica. If we get a guild block next, I will not be surprised.
Thraben Inspector: reads too good to be a common. I wonder if I will find out that Investigate sucks after all... Must try to find out. Abilities can only best be evaluated in play. In a set review, except for something crazy like Phyrexian mana, its hard to tell. OK, you get a card, but you have to spend two mana. If you do this early in the game, that two mana is precious indeed. I loved Investigate at the pre-release, and that's a very positive sign.


Stern Constable: limited, and a heavy cost unless you are in the white/black graveyard matters constructed deck. Discard outlets to trigger Madness or Delirium will be very useful.
Survive the Night: limited battle trick.


Strength of Arms: sounds solid in the way Ethereal Armor [White (1)] Enchantment — Aura (Enchant creature; Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control and has first strike.) was. Its a one-time deal, though, which will likely mean limited only.
Topplegeist: there definitely is a white+something graveyard matters deck in here. Let's keep reading. Oh, and this is definitely a solid uncommon for constructed.


Tenacity: limited battle trick.
Vessel of Ephemera: limited? its a one time thing... yeah, limited it is.


Unruly Mob: nice reprint. If you have beneficial sacrifice in your deck, this thing can get big. I have seen it happen back when I was a total n00b, and it was shocking to see this little thing get big and then proceed to kill me, especially in limited, but I think you can even get it to be big in constructed. All along white has really peaked my interest for a graveyard matters deck. Gifts Ungiven on my mind as I type this.

Link to Blue Cards