Child of Alara – Baldur’s Gate
Date Reviewed: July 4, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed:
Casual:
Limited:
Multiplayer:
Commander [EDH]:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
There are a lot of things I find cool about Double Masters. Not only does the alternate art have a great range of styles – something Magic was lacking a few years ago – but there are a surprising number of cards in it from the Alara block. That is, as you may know, my favorite block of Magic’s modern era. If you like it even partly as much as I do, say so. Let everyone hear, including Wizards of the Coast, because we still haven’t had a full view of what that world looks like post-Conflux.
Child of Alara is a powerful card in the abstract, with efficiency that rivals the legendary Slivers and an eyebrow-raising ability that can save your position in a game, or take control of it. Both of them are held in check somewhat by that mana cost which definitely has to be built around, and doesn’t necessarily give you the tribal synergies of the legendary Slivers. It’s worth noting, though, that it originally shared a Standard format with Lorwyn‘s five-color Elemental cards, and that could be an angle for you even now – the destruction turns into an engine when you use it alongside Horde of Notions, and the fact that it doesn’t exile itself or anything like that means that you don’t even need to turn to Commander rules to exploit its death trigger.
Constructed: 2/5 (it was an option for rogue decks in Lorwyn-Shards of Alara Standard, but it’s a little slow for Modern)
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5 (needs you to draft the right support, but if you do, it’s hard to stop)
Multiplayer: 4/5
Commander [EDH]: 4/5
Any time you have a card costing one mana of each color, they’d better deliver. Child of Alara comes close to delivering on that promise, with a decently efficient body and an explosive finale if your opponents ever want to remove them. While the mana cost is awkward and hard to really make work at times (particularly in Constructed formats), Child of Alara is a pretty reasonable choice for a five-color Commander if you want a generically-useful body with nice upside, and taking things with it might force answers that are more creative in nature.
Constructed: 1.75 (a touch too slow for Modern, and there are better targets to reanimate or cheat into play otherwise)
Casual: 5
Limited: 3 (the color demands make this hard to really pull off)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (a good fallback for five-color, both as a commander and part of the 99)
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