Your first impulse is going to be to look at
this, see that you spend seven mana to draw a
variable amount of cards that can't exceed five,
and wonder how worth it that is, whether or not
you'll ever have enough mana to do it multiple
times per turn, worry that the ability is so
expensive you won't be able to cast what you
just drew, and so forth. Then you'll remember
that this a 6/6 with flying, and so the game
will be over before any of that really comes
into play. Unless your opponent answers it
almost immediately, of course, but even then,
you can exile it from the graveyard to get a few
cards back for your troubles.
Ravnica's member of this cycle always had to
be something to do with color; this particular
ability, though, would also not have been
particularly out of place in Shadowmoor. You'd
have to have a pretty crazy sort of deck to
consistently be drawing four to five cards with
the ability - you could perhaps use gods or
planeswalkers, but if you had such a
configuration of gods and planeswalkers (not to
mention the 6/6 flier itself), would you really
need to draw five cards over and over again?
It's certainly a powerful card, but it's not
quite clear right now what its correct role
should be.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
the blue member of the soul cycle. As a 6/6
flying body for six mana the base sets are
pretty efficient, the fact you have to pay seven
mana to draw a card with no other colored
permanents on the board is quite overcosted. In
standard outside of some five color deck I don’t
know if the mana sink is worth it. In two
colored decks your paying seven to draw 2 at
instant speed which isent the worst but I think
it’s a little slow and inefficient in all but
the most durdeley control decks. Outside of
standard this card won’t see much competitive
play in any format. In casual and multiplayer
Treasure Trove is an all right card I think
paying four to draw one at instant can be good,
this card has much more upside even playing two
color you get a slightly better Treasure Trove
and after that its pure profit from three color
to all five colors the graveyard ability just
provides extra value in longer games. This card
is a solid flying creature as well. In limited
it’s a bomb being able to draw is great even
when overcosted and such a large flying body is
worth running by itself. Overall a card with
more casual and limited implications and not
quite as powerful as other cards in the soul
cycle.
Today's card of the day is Soul of Ravnica
which is a six mana Blue 6/6 with Flying and for
seven mana you can draw a card for each color
among permanents you control or for six mana it
can be exiled from the graveyard for the same
effect. This is a decent creature as a six
mana
6/6 with evasion, but the effect is
underwhelming even as a repeatable draw engine.
The mana cost for the effect is high and it
requires multiple colors to really be efficient,
though hybrid symbols can help make it less
inconvenient and formats where three or more
colors are used increase the value.
Overall this isn't a bad card, but it is one
that is unlikely to see much play outside of
Commander as it lacks raw power as a finisher
and needs too much support for the effect.
In Limited this is a six mana 6/6 with evasion
making it an easy first pick in Booster that is
strengthened with any additional Blue creatures
with Flying that can be drafted. There's
no real drawback and the effect is a nice bonus
on turns with a dead draw as even if only one
card is gained it is much better than not using
the mana. For Sealed both the creature and the
effect are noteworthy and it encourages use of
additional colors as a splash, though with the
Blue mana in casting and effect costs the Soul
itself requires more dedication to run.
As I mentioned yesterday, when we see a card
with a lot of rules text, we tend to focus on
that. With this soul, as much as any card, don't
forget about the base abilities. You get a 6/6
flier for 6 mana. A lot of times, an opponent is
going to have no way to deal with that. This
makes him (her?) quite valuable before we look
at anything else.
Once we get to the rules text, it's a good
thing that the soul has good base stats, because
activated abilities that cost 7 are pretty tough
to use. If you've been hitting your mana curve
effectively, you should have 7 mana the turn
after you play this card, so you can use it, but
do you want to? How many colors of permanents
are you likely to have? Two? Three? Do you
stretch it to four or five? Do you really have
nothing better to do with seven mana than draw a
few cards? I suppose it's nice to have the
option, but I don't see it happening
particularly often. It's nice, like the other
souls, that you can do this from the graveyard
once if they manage to kill the soul, but I
repeat: do you really have nothing better to do
with seven mana? Is it really worth stretching
your deck to have 4 or 5 colors to make this
ability worthwhile?
