Card of the Day Home

Decks to Beat - Tournament Winning Decks!

Card of the Day - A single card reviewed by several members of our crew.  Updated 5 days per week!

Card Price Guide

Featured Writers  
Judge Bill
DeQuan Watson
Ray Powers - Monk's Corner
Jeff Zandi
Jonathan Pechon
Chrstine Gerhardt
Jason Chapman
- on Peasant Magic

Deck Garage
Jason's Deck Garage

MTG Fan Articles
Deck Tips & Strategies
Peasant Magic
Tourney Reports 
Featured Articles  
Single Card Strategy

Magic Quizzes & Polls

Community
Message Board 
Chat
Magic League

Contact Us

Pojo's Book Reviews

Links

 


Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Cunning Bandit 
Betrayers of Kamigawa


Reviewed January 28, 2005

Constructed: 2.63
Casual: 2.75
Limited: 3.50

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 


Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer
 Cunning Bandit

Woo hoo! Finally a guy I like from our first week of Betrayers reviews. Took all week to get here, but I love this guy. He's good in draft, potentially game breakingly so, and in Champions Block Constructed he has some fantastic potential as well. As a plain old 2/2 for two mana, I must admit he seems to be lacking a bit, but when you flip this guy he becomes a 5/2, and can steal two guys away from your opponent to remove blockers from him, create some blockers if necessary, and if anything on your opponent's side of the board has haste, this guy suddenly is twice as good. He's not the top of the heap, but he's a solid addition to draft and to Champions Block Constructed.

Constructed: 3
Casual: 2
Limited: 4


DeQuan
Watson

* game store owner

 Cunning Bandit - Friday

I'm not a huge fan of those new flip guys with the Ki counters.  However, this one definitely caught my eye.  If you can even take a creature once or twice, it could be really good.  The neat part is that you only need to remove one counter to steal a creature.  I also like the fact that you get to choose what turn to flip the guy.  It gives you a little more versatility.

Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Paul
Hagan
 Cunning Bandit –

I think Cunning Bandit is a cute card, but nothing special. There are enough decent spirit or arcane spells floating around that any deck built to utilize Cunning Bandit can do so with ease. However, the actual ability on Cunning Bandit is only OK. The reason Grab the Reins or Threaten were decent was because your opponent wasn’t sure if it was coming. With Cunning Bandit on the table, they not only see it coming, they have a turn to react to it. This is a *huge* detriment.

In limited, Cunning Bandit might make the cut if I don’t have any better red cards, but it wouldn’t be one of the first few cards into the deck. The lack of consistent removal in limited ups the quality of Cunning Bandit slightly.

Constructed Rating: 2.0
Casual Rating: 2.0
Limited Rating: 2.5


Chris
Gerhardt

* game store owner
(Shuffle and Cut)

 Cunning Bandit

Wow, this is some serious stuff. If you have enough Spirit/Arcane spells to play, you can create quite a collection of ki counters on this guy before you flip him. Then, you can pretty much take your opponent's whole army and leave them with no blockers. It's too bad it says "Until end of turn" instead of "At end of turn" since you could then actually take them during your opponent's end step and also use them to attack ;). He's a decent cost of 3 mana for a 2/2, and will undoubtedly see some unlimited play. In casual, if you like his ability, he's pretty solid and worth building around.

Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 3
Limited: 3.5
 

 

 

 

Pojo.com

Copyright 1998-2005 Pojo.com

   

Magic the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast.
This site is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast and is not an Official Site.