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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

The Wishes
Judgment 

Each color has it's own similar 
wish.

Pojo's Average Rating -
Constructed: See Below 
Limited: See Below
Reviewed May 21, 2002

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Fletcher
Peatross

The wishes definitely add some power to every format they are in. Oscar Tan recently wrote how none of the Wishes will make an impact on Type 1, but honestly who cares? These cards WILL see play and make for some insane things happening. Obviously much stronger in Constructed, its still very powerful and able to pull some situational cards in Limited. Constructed a 4, Limited a 3.5, Casual 5,000,000.


Rob
Lawing

Welcome to the brave new world of stupid, counter-intuitive, stall out, Magic. There is so much that it is wrong with wish cards being legal in tournament play that I can hardly describe it. In fact, Thursday I hope to have a full column for you loyal readers on why Judgement is bad for the game. You sort of got a preview with my COTD on Quiet Speculation yesterday. But today "Wishes are Fishes" so lets do some angling.
 
Overall, these guys are all playable but here is one of the common problems they all create. The last couple of sets have forced players to add many new considerations to deck strategy. Mechanics like flashback and threshold force you to think not just about the play board and your opponents hand but also about how everything effects the number of cards in your opponents graveyard but also what he can flashback from the yard and it's casting cost. Overall this has not been bad although it has certainly made games go slower (which we don't need) and forced a new dimension for deckbuilding. Now we get the wishes which force you to worry about what your opponent may or may not have in his sideboard. This results in more thinking during the game = slower play, more moving cards around from zone to zone which equals slower play plus more ways for cheaters to cheat. And even though I wish it wasn't, cheating is a huge issue today and whatever you hear about DCI doing at the Pro level be assured there is nothing happening of any scale on the local level.
 
Let me give you one example of why wishes are dumb. White has always had COP's and other damage preventers and even cards that let you not die (worship). The drawback was that you couldn't maindeck this stuff because you didn't know what you would play against and you couldn't use up too many deck slots for prevention anyway. Now you just need a couple of Golden (Showers) Wishes and not only do you get the right prevention but for 5 you get it right there in your hand.There becomes essentially no risk because you get almost anything you want. I have  other issues with wishes but this one seems obvious.
 
Will I play them ? Certainly the white, blue, and green ones are insanely good. The red is ok and the black's cost is high but it's out there waiting to be really broken. So yes I will probably play them. Are they good for the game ? Not at all !
 
Ratings:
Constructed
Golden, Living, and Cunning -4.75
Burning-4
Death-2.5 (for now)
 
Limited
All- 2.0

John 
Hornberg

 

MTJ

 

Doc
Mackerel 

The Wishes

The cycle of Wishes are a novelty that you won't see too often. The offical ruling is that in tournament play you can grab anything that has been removed from the game or your sideboard. Casual players can also grab a card from their collection. 

I think Living Wish will prove to be the most dramatic, allowing the Green player to fetch a Spellbane Centaur for matchups against Blue, a Nantuko Blightcutter for Black etc. 

Golden Wish is too expensive. 3WW for an enchantment or artifact is ridiculous, considering that artifacts are currently pants, and enchantments work best in combos, so you'd play them maindeck anyway. 

Death Wish is also poor - half of your life is too great a price to pay for diversity, so it's for emergencies only.

Burning Wish is OK, it allows you to get the finishing card that will work best for your current setup. 1R is a good cost too. 

Finally, Cunning Wish is probably the 2nd best. It's an instant, and Blue is the best at reacting to situations, so you can fetch a response easily to the current threat.

Burning Wish - 3.5
Cunning Wish - 4
Death Wish - 2.5
Golden Wish - 1.5Living Wish - 4


Aaron
Teare

(I'm rating all the wishes at one star in regards to limited play, they should never be useful in sealed... possibly in draft but not likely.)

Cunning Wish

Constructed Rating *****

My favorite wish, and in my opinion better than Mystical Tudor.  Cunning Wish puts the card directly into your hand so you get to use it immediately while Mystical puts it on top of your library.  The extra two colorless mana is worth it to me.

Of course "tudors" can only search for cards in your library, while "wishes" allow you to search thru your Sideboard.  BIG difference, as this allows you to game one play cards that you would hate to have in your maindeck (like Hibernation) because Hibernation is a dead draw versus a non-green opponent.  

Living Wish

Constructed Rating *****

Another 5 star wish IMO, Living Wish is actually cheaper to cast than Cunning!  Being able to wish up a turn 3 "silver bullet" creature that will crush whatever opponent your facing is a good thing indeed.  The option to search for land is just as useful protecting from land screw early not to mention going for any groovy non-basic you may have a need for.

Burning Wish

Constructed ****

Judgement has several additions to the already long list of useful Sorceries.  Several of the "punisher" cards are sorceries that give you a win/win situation almost every time.  Earthquake, Shower of Coals, Firebolt, Ghitu Fire all are proven to be efficient, having access to the one that is best in any given moment kicks boo-tay.  Use Recoup/Anarchist to recurse these "silver bullets" if you really want to be evil.  

(The above 3 Wishes have the added benefit of being undercosted and easy to splash into most any deck.  Playing with these wishes in a multi-color deck increases the usefulness of the wishes as you have access to more selections to wish for.)

Golden Wish

Constructed Rating ***

The casting cost is what hurts Golden Wish.  WW in the cost makes it tough to cast... and the total cost of 3WW means it'll have a tough time being effective in constructed play. The general rule is that a 5cc spell should win you the game... Golden Wish may find you your way to win but you won't be able to use 'till next turn!

It DOES have the ability to search for either enchantments OR artifacts... although the lack of good artifacts from R&D lately means this is gonna search for Enchantments nearly 90% of the time.  Having said that, there are plenty of good enchantments out there to wish for.  Having "main deck" COP: Red is a white mages dream come true.

Death Wish

Constructed Rating **

Yes you can search for anything... but is any card actually worth 10 life?  I say emphatically "NO" thanks to the "kinder, gentler" age of magic that is lacking of any broken goodness or any killer combo deck.

 

 

 

 

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