Can You Rate the Magic Card, According to Gatherer? Quiz #4

1.288 — Riptide Chronologist

Chronologist is the friend who wants to go out drinking, but always forgets his wallet and needs you to cover.  He’s the guy who comes over for a miniatures battle, but fails to tell you he’s bringing his kids.  He’s a fun guy, but he asks for too much.

To Arms! gets the job done with , and replaces itself as a bonus.  Playing and activating the Chronologist costs —and you still only untap one brand of creatures.  Maybe you can use a late game 1/3.  Personally, I’d prefer to draw a card.

I’m willing to give Chronologist some chumpy bonus points for being a creature you can resurrect, though.  I’m sure someone out there is wracking their brain over a strained infinite combo for this guy.  Stop working so hard, pal.  I got one for ya: Hell’s Caretaker, Gemhide Sliver, Conspiracy and two Presence of Gonds enchanting two other creatures.  Set Conspiracy to ‘Sliver’.  Then, during your upkeep, activate your two creatures with Presence of Gond, sacrifice the Chronologist calling ‘Sliver’, and activate the Hell’s Caretaker-Sliver in response sacrificing an Elf-Sliver to return the Chronologist.  Rinse/Cycle/Repeat.  You now control an infinite number of Elf-Slivers, and as a bonus you can tap them to add an infinite amount of mana to your pool during your upkeep.  Why not add Comet Storm to this combo?  As the great sage, Miley Cyrus once said, “If you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

1.731 — Incite

From Studoku, in the Gather discussion thread:

“Guy in the back: What’s going on?
Guy in the front: It’s that idiot. He’s playing really shit cards.”

It’s never a good sign when a basic effect is put in a core set, then never reprinted.  Incite may be versatile, but it isn’t good.  Most times you aim it at your opponent’s small utility creature (assuming those creatures don’t tap to activate) so you can block.  You know what else works well for removing small utility creatures?  Shock.

I’ll give Incite props for moving big butts like Rotting Mastodon so you can swing past them (you’re not forced to block target creature, after all.)  It’s also good for moving a group game along, or killing a black creature when there’s a Doom Blade in your hand.  Or better yet, use it as a mini plate for hors d’oeuvres the next time you host a party.  I can find a use for any card.  Okay, maybe not Bog Hoodlums, but almost any card.

2.821 — Tarpan

I was shocked—simply shocked—when I saw this card’s star rating.  2.8 is almost the realm of ‘playable’.  It’s the bar where Centaur Courser and Cancel hang out.  Tarpan, meanwhile, is worse than every one-cost green creature.  And yes, I’m including Aisling Leprechaun in that list (though, I really hope you forget that Willow Elf exists.)

Give props to Margaret Oran-Kean for this one.  Her work is some of the rare good art in the early years of Magic, and Tarpan’s got the bonus star to prove it.  Well, that and diminished Pleistocene horses.  Equus ferus ferus wasn’t something you rode; it was roughly human-sized and resisted domestication.  Who wouldn’t want a feral horse buddy that followed you around for added protection?

2.929 — Spirit Away

From a card with a surprisingly high rating to one that seems low to me.  Sure, it’s expensive.  But I would think the EDH crowd would like this ultimate answer to your opponent’s Commander.  Guess not.

We talked about this problem with Eternity Snare in The Ten Most Revolting Blue Cards, According to Gatherer.  It isn’t that the casting cost is inappropriate considering the price you need to pay to get both effects.  A deck, however, can only contain so many seven drops; sometimes, you can only choose one.  Would you rather play the potential dud Spirit Away, a card that can be defeated and used as a trick against you by a simple piece of enchantment removal?  Or would you rather get consistent value for money in the form of Keiga, the Tide Star?  Spirit Away only works if your opponent isn’t holding an answer in hand.  You want to crush your opponent in the late game, not give them an out.

3.152 — Valakut Fireboar

Need to block? 1/7.  Want to attack? 7/1.  Valakut Boar is Kami of Old Stone when you need it to be, and a Raging Poltergeist +1 when you need it to be that.  It’s a Shapeshifter that costs less, gets +1/+1, and is correct 80% of the time.  And this isn’t even counting silly tricks, like the extra boost you can get from a single Slagwurm Armor.

But most of the time, Fireboar is two vanilla creatures confusing players into thinking it has an ability.  It adds complexity, but not value.  Not bad.  We can do better.

3.229 — Wall of Fire

Roar!  Wall of Fire was only ever printed in the core set, yet four different works of art graced this card.  Starting with Richard Thomas in Alpha:

Which looks great.  But by fifth edition, Magic development wanted their game to be more reminiscent of fantasy art, and less reminiscent of the suncatcher hanging in a New Age store window.  So Tony Roberta whipped up this:

Which makes a cool Max Ernst inspired Surrealist landscape, but doesn’t bring us any closer to fantasy art.  Sixth edition reverted to the alpha art.  So they tried again in Seventh Edition, called up Ron Spenser and ended up with:

Which looks more like fantasy art.  I think.  To be honest, outside of the geysers of lava not forming a wall, I’m not sure what I’m looking at.  That’s a vaguely human-shaped Terminator melting in the foreground and… some sort of… flaming dinosaur (?) in the background… I’m not sure.  I can understand why the art team tried one more swing at the bat for tenth edition:

Which looks like a proper wall of fire summoned forth by a powerful wizard (though, someone should tell the wizard that enemy soldiers are standing right behind him.  I suppose you miss a lot of details when you stand in front of a blazing wall of fire.)  Wizards sure put a lot of effort into getting the artwork right on such a mediocre card, eh?

3.556 — Abyssal Specter

“Hello, I’m Mr. Baseline Specter.  When designing new specters, the good folks at WotC first think of me, then tweak me, because my predecessor Hypnotic Specter is a smidge too intense.  That’s okay.  He can do what he wants.  He gets to be the better card while I get to wear this kick-ass armor, wield a flaming ebony axe and ride around on a surprisingly comfortable skeletal unicorn.  Kee-Yah!”

3.778 — Dismantling Blow

Now we’re getting somewhere.  Disenchant was both powerful and flexible.  If the new Standard rolled out with a Disenchant that cost , I would be happy to play it.  When you add Dismantling Blow’s blue kicker, however, you’re lined up to swing for some serious card advantage.

A friend of mine used to play Tsabo’s Web in white-blue control back in the day, even when Rishadan Port was phasing out.  His reason?  The Web replaces itself, and provides a target for Dismantling Blow.  If his opponent showed no sign of providing a target, he’d crash the Web and draw two cards.  It was an expensive and roundabout way to cast Inspiration, but it worked.

4.011 — Timesifter

“All hands, prepare for Multiball!”
—Captain Jean Luc Picard, of the U.S.S. Enterprise Pinball Machine

4.057 — Sun Droplet

Anyone who thinks Sun Droplet isn’t powerful never had the pleasure of playing with it.  As opposed to Ajani’s Mantra Sun Droplet gains you one life for every player’s turn, assuming you took damage.  The ‘taking damage’ part may seem like a drawback, but it isn’t.  If your opponent isn’t dealing damage to you, then you don’t need the life gain, do you?

In a two player game against an aggressive deck, this card nets two life per turn.  In a five player game, if the player to your left Lava Axes you, and no one follows through, you will heal completely by the time their turn begins again.  Now consider what happens if you’re playing Star Magic, Bang!, or Attack Right: games where only one or two opponents are even capable of attacking you.

If you control Sun Droplet and an opponent attacks with an Enormous Baloth three turns in a row in a five player game, a single Holy Day can reset you to 20 life.  If he attacked another player at the table with no defenses for those three rounds, they would be dead.  Compared to your open friend, you are a very discouraging target to attack.  In many multiplayer games, the player who casts Sun Droplet on round two never takes a single point of damage.