I like that the Core Sets have returned to the
philosophy of "reintroduce one old keyword
mechanic each set". I also like the new flavor
text on Return to the Ranks. And I especially
like what this thing can do in an aggro deck
like Boros or even White Knights. The "CMC=2 or
less" clause is a little restrictive, but it can
get back Soul's Attendant, Serra Ascendant,
Serra Avenger, Sightless Brawler, Wall of Omens,
and quite a few other intriguing cards-- and
that's just in White. Heck, you could Day of
Judgment even when you've got solid board
presence and follow it up with this just to mess
with everybody. And the ETB abilities firing off
all at once! The imagination boggles!
I still sort of can't get over that this is just
one card, and the X refers to the number of
creatures that get resurrected. Bringing back a
bunch of knights and whatnot that your opponent
spent resources killing would be devastating in
itself. But remember Humanimator? Remember
Cathedral Sanctifier, Alchemist's Apprentice,
Cartel Aristocrat, and if you go back to the
last decade, Saffi Eriksdotter? Convoke is
mostly a throw-in bonus on a card like this, but
it does make the second one easier to cast than
the first (assuming your opponent even survived
the resurrection of all those knights, Cartel
Aristocrat, and Saffi).
Today's card of the day is Return to the Ranks
which is a two White and X sorcery with Convoke
that returns X target creatures with converted
mana cost of two or less from your graveyard to
the battlefield. This is an excellent
middle to late game play for small creature
decks using White mana, particularly if combined
with Haste in a Boros or Slivers build.
For four mana, or two with two tapped creatures,
this is already card advantage that just
increases in value with each additional target.
It will be a very popular card across formats
and unless an opponent has countermagic,
graveyard destruction, or mass removal it is a
game-ending play.
In Limited there may not be many viable targets
in the graveyard, but even one creature for
three mana is playable and two or more is a
clear advantage. An easy first pick in
Booster and automatic inclusion when using White
in Sealed.
There's a similar card that I've tried to take
advantage of for a while now: Immortal
Servitude. It asks you to pay 3 hybrid
black/white mana and X to bring back all
creatures from your graveyard with a mana cost
of X. I tried to build a Festering Newt deck
where I had the newt and lots of 1 cost
creatures that tried to come back and wreak
havoc multiple times, but usually bringing them
all back at once was overkill, and the deck
itself had other problems. Another time, I built
a deck with lots of 3 casting cost enchantment
creatures - including Grim Guardian - and aimed
to dump them in my graveyard and recur them all
at once. If I could get Mogis Marauders among
them, they wold not only trigger constellation,
but gain haste and intimidate. Trying to do all
that at once proved to be too much to reliably
pull off.
I came to the conclusion that Immortal Servitude
was just not as good as I wanted it to be. I
think the same will be true for Return to the
Ranks. If you're going for a big, one time
combo, it's pretty hard to put it all together.
The best place I see for a card like this is in
the sideboard of an aggressive deck. If you're
playing against someone who's great at sweeping
away your weenies, side this in for a second
round of attacks. Convoke will sometimes be
helpful, but if you've got enough creatures out
to make convoke matter much, you're probably
just as well off attacking with those creatures.
