My Take on Limited Resources' Ixalan Rare and Mythic Rare Set Review

Continuing from My Take on Limited Resources' Ixalan Common and Uncommon Set Review, here are my nitpicky takes on their Rare and Mythic Rare Set Review.

• Ashes of the Abhorrent -- Given an F, and the first ability was said to literally do nothing. I was curious how many cards in the format it actually interacts with. I took a pass of the full set and there are two cards affected: Deathless Ancient & Repeating Barrage. I'm certainly comfortable with an F at that level of narrowness, but if you ever face a deck that somehow has two copies of those cards, or grindy control mirrors where one of those cards is known and your deck is unequipped to permanently deal with it in any other way, it's a conceivable hyperniche sideboard option to deal with part of those cards.
• Axis of Mortality -- The synergy with the two uncommon white vampires, particularly Glorifier of Dusk, was missed. Cast Axis, then with the trigger on the stack, make the Glorifier fly a bunch of times and threaten a lethal attack with it. Now, I don't think this brings the card into the good range, but I think it's a bad maindeck playable for decks with Glorifier. Particularly in lifelink mirrors, this combo could pull some weight. The normal use of the card will usually be a nonzero-value backup plan. Especially if our deck is slower in the matchup and we're likely to fall behind early before stabilizing, the Axis might conceivably be a good 6-drop in some game paths. Overall this looks firmly in the range of bad niche playable and I'd give it a Build-Around D.
• Legion's Landing -- Given a C+ for reasons I don't disagree with, but my gut is just a little higher. I think the value of the flipped land feels well-positioned in a combat-centric format and can take over a game to the extent where going out of one's way to flip it could be worthwhile sometimes. I'm at B-.
• Priest of the Wakening Sun -- This was given a Sideboard D. It's clearly at least a bad maindeck playable in many white decks, and I think the sideboard value is a bit higher. If it hits on turn 1 and triggers several times, it can pass the threshold of meaningful life gain, all while retaining the optionality of trading for an X/1 or cashing it in later for a card. I'm at C- overall, ideally mostly as a sideboard option (but I think it outperforms D out of the sideboard).
• Wakening Sun's Avatar -- Given a flat D. I think build-around C+/B- is far more accurate. LR throws around the build-around designation for far less, and this is clearly an impactful 8-drop in a format where a W/G deck might consider ramping to 8.
• Sanguine Sacrament -- Given an F, but I could see it playing two niche sideboard roles, admittedly at the Sideboard D level: (1) a midrange or controlling deck that can reliably almost fully lock down the board except for opposing slow reach elements (e.g. Lightning-Rig Crew) or (2) a midrange or controlling pure board stall mirror where decking with this is viable. These will depend greatly on the specific cards in the matchup, rather than just being a generalization to be made about archetypes or color pairs.
• Arcane Adaptation -- Given an F. For completeness, I looked at the tribal payoffs and... yeah, nothing is even close to being even a 0.1% niche application for this card. F!
• Dreamcaller Siren -- Marshall gave it a B and Luis an A-. My gut is definitely B. This doesn't block very many creatures in the format at all. Look at all of the fliers; Dreamcaller Siren trumps the few smaller fliers but trades off with Pterodon Knight, Wind Strider, Imperial Aerosaur, and is outright trumped by Shining Aerosaur, Air Elemental, Deathless Ancient, Glorifier of Dusk. The contextual size matchups make this a solid chunk weaker in a game where its caster is behind.
• Herald of Secret Streams -- They gave this a Build-Around B, but I think the ceiling is lower. This format feels like it devolves to creature races often, possibly even moreso with a U/G Merfolk deck, and unblockability is less critical in those cases, and that's where this card falls the most short of expectations. There aren't too many ways to make this grant unblockability to multiple creatures beyond River Heralds' Boon, Shapers of Nature, and Vineshaper Mystic, and if it's only giving ~1 creature unblockability, I don't think the average payoff for Herald is at the B level with the base rate on the body being so poor. I just finished a draft with 2x Herald and 4x River Heralds' Boon and I was still not impressed by the Herald. I think this card is closer to a Build-Around C+.
• Search for Azcanta -- This was given a flat D on the basis of a permanent Scry 1 every turn for two mana was not worth a card. I'm higher on the front side. I think two mana is about the right rate and that it should generate a card's worth of value, at least at the level of a weak playable. The flip side is some upside, at least in certain decks in slower matchups. I'd give this a C- and expect it to be even better in some matchups. LR went on to give Arguel's Blood Fast a  Sideboard C grade for use in control mirrors and from that perspective, I think this card is even better. 
• Sword-Point Diplomacy -- Marshall gave it a showy F and LSV a D. The F is clearly wrong, and a bad Browbeat should be a weak playable in aggressive decks. Worth noting here that consensus is emerging around this format feeling like one that's low on solid playables, so bad playables will happen more often. I'm on D.
• Captivating Crew -- Consensus seems to be that this is among the top cards in the set, so I was surprised that Marshall started it at B+ noting that it was clunky in his experience. LSV had it at A and they settled on A-. I can't imagine this card being worse than A- and my gut is with the masses that it looks like one of the best cards in the set. I vote A. A contextual point that I think they may have overlooked is that hitting 8 (enabling gamebreaking lines of cast+use, or threatening to use twice in one turn) gets easier with Treasure and with Explore.
• Tilonalli's Skinshifter -- This one got an F from LSV and a D from Marshall. This one's pretty bad and I don't think any sort of deck wants this, but it's not a blank card in any deck and isn't strictly unplayable... pretty close to that, though. D-.
• Shadowed Caravel -- Given a Build-Around F, which might just be right for this one, but I think it cracks into the D-/D range with perhaps 4-5 Explore creatures, particularly the repeatable rare ones. Granted, we're still talking about a card that's probably still worse than a Queen's Bay Soldier, but Build-Around D- seems more technically correct. The best kind of correct.

My Take on Limited Resources' Ixalan Common and Uncommon Set Review

To immerse myself in a new Limited format, I usually read through the full spoiler once or twice and then wait for the Limited Resources set review. It's very well-done and is a strong foundation for the draft format. (If you've found this article but not listening to Limited Resources, you are doing it wrong.)

I usually find myself disagreeing on a few parts. At the risk of my first post here seeming overly critical of Marshall & LSV -- it's not intended to be, I recognize the unattainability of getting every narrow detail perfect during an epic first take and that nitpicking pieces after the fact is way easier -- here's where I found myself disagreeing with the LR set review and the tweaks I'm making for my Week 0 baseline:

• Call to the Feast -- LR had this at B. My gut is that it's closer to C+; there was an assumption that W/B vampires will be a classic "go wide" strategy, but I think the payoffs are too thin. No pumping Vampire lords, just Sanctum Seeker and the one-shot of Bishop of the Bloodstained. No persistent anthem effects beyond Bellowing Aegisaur {EDIT: missed Vanquisher's Banner, which seems like a great thing for Vampires to wave}, and the only other mass pump is weak (Rallying Roar & Encampment Keeper). A sideways lord in Deathless Ancient, which may be the best combo with this.
• LR made a few instances of contextual card evaluation based on Vampires having a theme of life payments for effects, but there are only two such cards in the set, both at uncommon (Adanto Vanguard, Glorifier of Dusk).
• Raging Swordtooth -- Notably overlooked is that it hits all your Enrage creatures (and opponents' Enrage creatures, too). B+ still seems right, but this synergy seems substantial for many R/G decks.
• Dual Shot -- They also missed the Enrage synergy here. I think this will be an important part of Dual Shot's playability. They called it just for sideboard but I think I'll be actively wanting a maindeck copy in decks with one great Enrage target (e.g. Ranging Raptors) and a few other good targets. I haven't taken a hard look at the set's one-toughness density yet, so it could be even better. I'll start at C-.
• Emergent Growth -- D is probably right, but there's a small pocket of cards in R/G that might notch it up to C in some decks, with Raptor Hatchling as a particularly spicy Turn 4 target amongst the Enragers, plus natural synergy of this effect with tramplers (Dinosaur tokens, Thrash of Raptors and Colossal Dreadmaw). I'll be looking to try it when I've got those.
• Ixalli's Diviner -- I like where they're at overall on Explore, but Diviner at C+ could prove a notch or two too high. 1G 0/3 draw a card or 1G 1/4 Scry can never get too bad, but I can imagine formats where these bodies are too low-impact. In a vacuum, I might prefer Elvish Visionary to this, for example. So I'd start it at C.
• Bright Reprisal -- They're on C-, I think it's closer to C, albeit with a lot of matchup dependency. I think I'll start off as happy maindecking one in most decks. The downsides are real, but there are are some big creatures in this set and not a ton of ways to kill them, so even conditional removal should pull its weight. Minor note that every other color has exactly one other instant 5-drop to pair it with at common or uncommon (Wind Strider, Dark Nourishment, Unfriendly Fire, Snapping Sailback).
• Sheltering Light -- Given a knowingly-ambitious grade of B-. I think it might just be a flat C, but I'll go C+ for now. Gods Willing had a lot of format-specific synergy, so I think that's too high a comparison.
• Headwater Sentries -- No beef with the grade, but they mention that you might end up playing this because of its creature type. I don't think that's likely, as there are very few Merfolk payoff cards that reward going hard linear on tribal.
• Blight Keeper -- They gave it a D+, but I like it at C- and wouldn't be shocked to notch it up to C. The rate is good, it threatens a big amount of drain which self-synergizes with the Flying Men side of the card. Treasure will help some Black decks spike 8 mana, so the 1/1 could serve as a Flagbearer at the 7-mana mark in some lategames. I will feel fine including one or maybe two in my aggressive black decks. They also noted that it doesn't have Vampire synergy, but I don't think that matters too much, as there are very few payoffs for Vampire synergy.
• Grim Captain's Call -- They said that this will only work in decks that "give up on tribal", but, having not done the math, I suspect that the median normal deck will be able to hit 2 things with this fairly reliably, with a 5-10% chance of hitting 3. Just my intuition.
• Fiery Cannonade -- LSV missed the "Pirateclasm" pun that Design clearly seeded.
• Firecannon Blast -- Given a straight B, I'm way less excited about it than LR was. I'm closer to C+ than B-. The non-raid floor is clearly a playable rate, but after thinking about it, the raid part could be clunkier than it first looks. In a deck without evasive creatures to trigger Raid (not a lot of evasion in red), in order to turn on the Raid, you'll either have to wait for a clean attack past their big creature (making this closer to Assassinate) or often chump-attack a creature into the freshly-cast target (in which case the extra Raid damage might be moot). The biggest format-specific uncertainty there is on the "often", and I'll be paying close attention. It looks like both U/R and B/R could have enough density evasive creatures to enable Raid in some aggressive builds, which is what I expect will be necessary to make this card play completely categorically differently than the above. Double-red could also prove to be a substantial drawback given that the two red tribes are the 3-color tribes.
• Nest Robber - It was given a D, I'd put it at C-. The low-curve aggro deck seems supported in R/W and the Dino creature type matters at least a little bit there (Tilonalli's Knight, Imperial Lancer, Pterodon Knight). I think this will slot in fine.
• And then there are always a handful of cards given an unwarranted F grade, possibly for soapbox/pedantic reasons to hammer it home to less-experienced players. That probably serves the bigger audience well, but it's a pet peeve of mine. From biggest to smallest miss, here are the Fs that I yelled at my podcast about:
• Gilded Sentinel -- Many of the Fs I disagree with are because they are clear definitional Ds; F is supposed to be strictly unplayable, which is different from a below-replacement playable that will sometimes begrudgingly make the cut when a deck doesn't quite come together. This is blatantly the latter. 
• Elaborate Firecannon -- The rate is not atrocious, it has some flexibility in how it affects the board, and it has a slow Lava Axe mode. I think it's a D minimum that could prove to have sideboard applications, e.g. in a midrange/control deck with good ground defenses vs. a deck with a few unblockable small creatures.
• Encampment Keeper -- The body could have applications in a one-drop format, and the ability is one of the few mass pump effects to supplement the depth of token-making among the White cards. Those decks don't look like they should often have a lot of treasure or ramp, but it's no less than a D.
• Swashbuckling -- Again, it could be a one-drop format, and LSV's noted and maligned "combo" with Fire Shrine Keeper could actually be pretty legit if so. This could be a weak playable in those decks. D.
• Pillar of Origins -- Clearly playable in decks with enough Dinosaur density, particularly if splashing the 3rd color of dino. I think many Dinosaur-based decks will not be too upset to have to include one. D
• Hierophant's Chalice -- Rate is not that bad. Should have fallback application as a mediocre ramp piece in a deck that missed on the better options (likely including Pillar of Origins). D-
• Ritual of Rejuvenation -- No love for Reviving Quatro?? OK, it has no particular synergies or applications, maybe to swing some small creature races, but it's not unplayable. Definitely a D- and I'll probably cast it in some trainwreck drafts. But, then again, I'm continually biased by my love of all Invasion cantrips... (oh yes, we will be Opting)

My big macro-take is that LR is presupposing more hard linearity on tribal than I think the set dictates (see above: Headwater Sentries, Grim Captain's Call, Blight Keeper, somewhat Call to the Feast). There do not appear to be a lot of big payoffs for pushing hard for many of one's creatures to be of the same tribe, particularly in the two-color tribes. There are many more "Threshold 1" tribal abilities. On tribal synergy, I think Ixalan looks closer to Innistrad than to Lorwyn. 

So, going into prerelease weekend, I'd recommend we be careful to not blindly assume that we should stretch to play creatures of a certain tribe unless we actually have the big, scalable payoffs.

A deeper dig on the tribal support coming soon.