I think that Opt might be a little bit better than usual, since while there are no spell-related themes, "draw second card" deck would favor an 1cc draw to trigger effects in your own turn, especially it can be cast in combat phase.

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Countermagic might be a bit better than usual in this set, since you can get extra value from countering adventures and, if you have your own instant speed adventures, you can cast them instead if your opponent tries to play around it. Blue looks very defensive too and if the format in general is slow (especially with the difficult/adamant mana costs) then I like countermagic better too. Remember also that it was deceptively good in the Guild sets recently. I also like Witching Well a bit more than Overwhelmed Apprentice. They both cost 1 mana and scry 2, but I value the possibility to draw 2 in future turns a lot more than a 1/2 body that isn't going to impact the board a lot. Sure, you get to mill 2 as well with the apprentice, but having a random artifact around might often be better, given some of the artifact/enchantment-based triggered abilities that crop up in places. Great overview as always. Keep it up!

19:52 the giant turtle has it in the text. FLAVOR

Blue has some very powerful high cost spells. Very exciting especially for two headed giant.

Vantress gargoyle and visions are perfect together, a 2 drop 5/4 flyer keeps u alive and on board to let you use visions without fear of dying or losing the board immediately

I feel like you're sleeping on the wish fairy, it can just grab something like true loves kiss or one of the crappy counterspells that suck but for an extra option are good. A 1/4 flyer as well is quite good in this format at stopping hard to deal with flyers that usually kill your one or two flying blockers

Merfolk Secretkeeper is a Wall of Lost Thoughts without defender, and clearly a superior alternative in a Dimir reanimator deck. Need to self mill? Adventure. Don't want to self mill anymore, but could still use the blocker? Creature. Works for me. I hate it when I need a blocker, pull out the Wall, and self-mill a Blood for Bones.

I love the flavor of this set so much, and seeing all the allusion to my favorite books and fairytales is great! I think my favorite reference is either Robin Hood, or The Snow Queen

Contentions/Additions: - Midnight Clock: (C+ -> B) -I see this as basically an ancestral vision but ... better? Maybe not, as it's much harder to "suspend" it compared to AV's 1 mana, but you draw a full new grip, and in the meantime it will help you cast the cards in your hand by being a mana rock. To me, this reads: 3 mana, do nothing. If you don't die in the next 5 turns, you win the game, and barring a very aggressive format, that sounds good to me. - Moonlit Scavengers: (C+ -> C-) -This is too slow for my liking for a bounce effect. Bouncing your opponents creatures usually is good for tempo, or to blow them out when they go for a trick or something. But this is at 6 mana, too late for tempo to matter much, and at sorcery speed so no combat blowouts. Also, it can't bounce your own creatures to re-use an ETB or free you creature from an aura.

I don’t think Gadwick’s mana cost is a problem... you would usually want to cast him for at least 5. Maybe you cast him for 4 if you’re desperate (or 3 if you’re really desperate and happen to have that mana). Having all 3 blue by the time you have 5 mana is pretty realistic, and as you said he scales, so as I see it his triple blue doesn’t hold him back at all.

I'd like to argue witching well should receive an equal if not better grade than unexplained vision. It can be used as a "one-drop" early game to ensure that the early parts of the game go well for you (due to how important early game is in limited). The draw 2 effect is also instant speed vs. the sorcery speed of unexplained vision, which is important to allow you to keep your mana up on your opponent's turn. In a top deck mode late game, the well scrying before the draw is important vs vision scrying after, and only if you have adamant. There will be times you don't get full value off of vision, which makes it less consistent. Well should be C+ imo.

Um... If you've got multiple copies of the Turtle, each can make the other unblockable. If you can reliably get two, or three, out an attacking... You're going to be feeling good.

The Magic Mirror is a build-around D. Any deck that runs enough instants and sorceries to cast it reasonably doesn't have the threat density to prevent it from decking them before they can win. Most Blue instants/sorceries in the set draw cards, so to run a sufficient density of them is to ensure you've drawn many extra cards by the time you cast mirror and those cards become dead draws after you've cast mirror. Casting Magic Mirror essentially says "lose the game in 5 turns", since by the end of those turns you'll be 20 cards deep, soon to draw 7 more (remembering to count natural draw).

Vantress Gargoyle is a B easily. Early Blocks everything while filling opponents graveyard. Late is a 5/4 flying terror for TWO!! mana. You stabalize then cast a card draw spell and him in the same turn.

These adventure's are a great mechanic.

Frogify is good in a deck running Massacre Girl. Actually, I don't think I'd run Massacre Girl anymore without this to set her up. So much potential for destruction

9:42 Possibly the kindest dismissal I've ever seen.

Great analysis as usual. I do have to disagree about folio though. Playing it on turn 2, activating it on turn 3 should mill your opponent 6-, turning on all your "opponent threshold" cards. Plus mill should be pretty easy in sealed because your opponent only has 33 cards after drawing their opening hand.

Soft disagree on Didn’t Say Please. UB is looking to be incredibly thirsty for effective means of getting opponent to 7+ card in the yard as the payoff is incredible (multiple removal/counters that are ONLY wanted by you) but few ways to do it potently. You’ll be getting caught up just fine from the tempo loss of cancel when it activates your 4-5 Drown in the Loch and your Into the Story. Not that I disagree with your stance on counters I just think that UB will basically always play at least one Didn’t Say Please meaning it’s probably a hard C to soft C+. As an aside this will also depend on how good a 0/4 blocker is in this format. If the 0/4 mill Merfolk winds up being good enough Please goes down in value and vise versa.

Magic Mirror seems like a card that's almost as likely to kill you as the opponent, since neither the add-a-counter ability nor the draw-cards ability are optional. You have probably 5 turns to win with it-- 6 max-- and most of the cards come at the back end of that. I think it's just an F, full stop. Conversely, Witching Well is amazing in blue decks; you should play it 100 percent of the time if you're blue, I'd play two or even three of them, and I wouldn't hesitate to first-pick it out of a weak pack. I don't know how much of the Brawl event you played but it was a real standout there. By the grading system used in this video I'd say it's a B-.

"That's probably wishful thinking" nice.

I think blue has enough ways to both reward card draw and actually draw cards that some of your hesitant grades like the gargoyle and the faerie will end up being too low. I think this will be a grindy format like Dominaria and that will give blue enough time to start holding lands, seeing graveyards fill up, and getting some of those respective payoffs. I don't think monoblue will be the best deck, but I think an adept control player will be pretty unstoppable in it.

Whelp, I look forward to seeing just how close the post review on folio of fancies comes to surpassing his score difference on helm of the dominator. The idea of winning to a turn 2 folio of fancies is kind of absurd.

There seems to be a fairly easy anti-aggro/control'ish scheme going on with Blue, with high'ish toughness creatures reasonably mana-costed, sometimes with flying doing basic hold-the-fort work, many of them being slightly tempo based with slightly expensive adventures, some tap-down available for when you can attack, with spells/instants and a bit of card-draw. It's kind-of dying for anthems or something for a don't-get-socked then rock'em with creatures deck, or an artifacts matter or mill matters deck. Not too much, just hold, then face-punch. Stupid, not-Blue, MtG, but it's there. Especially with green alongside. I don't think this will be *that* fast of a format, but I don't think it will be as slow as I made it sound. Swingy, with pillow forts and expensive bounce/slightly telegraphed tricks, until the massive sustain offered by adventures/creatures and later-game bombs nails it for you. So, a really enjoyable game of Magic I guess :) ((there's also so much mini-mill in the set, that mostly it's a "whatever" thing on spells. You weren't going for that, it just did that on top of what you were trying to do. To blue, it flicks this cause/effect thing when it happens to you into upside quite easily on a few cards you can get. *It's an unrevealed mechanic! "Unforeseen Consequences" (of milling)!* To portray what happens when people unborn, those that were sacrificed, be it kings or peasants, moves unmade, all destroyed before their time was due, from famine or magic or the Fey or lordly politics, so heroes must step in. Or the death gets stronger. Sometimes the tale untold, still gets told, by the loss felt by others))

I can just imagine attacking with mistford river turtle to get a big creature through and your opponent gang-blocks it with 3 creatures and than you cast a combat trick of a sort like the black spell that gives +2/+1 and deathtouch wiping out three creatures 3-for-1ing them AND getting damage through AND still have the turtle in play.

Oh wow Magic Mirror works during your upkeep. I thought Wotc was quietly trying to do away with upkeep.

I think something to note about Merfolk Secretkeeper and something I noticed while playing with the new Ashiok is that you can really demoralize an opponet with mill. Even if you just hit one or two of their big or favorite cards it can really tilt someone, especially in limited.

I really like Turn into a Pumpkin, because doing so will no longer be just an idle threat

before ive even watched the video i just wanna point out that for the example of F cards in the description, there's field of the dead. IDK if you're a draft specific channel or something but lets not pretend that scapeshift/field of the dead wasnt just dominating standard

Brazzen Borrower is the ultimate tempo play. I'm glad it's a mythic.

What time do you usually stream?

Im so excited for eldraine

If you can play Vantress Gargoyle on turn 2 when you're very likely to have 4 cards in your hand, that's a 5/4 flying blocker on TURN 2. Are you shitting me? That's awesome! With mills and draws, this is a VERY solid flyer.

Are there really 15-20 A's per set as shown in the description? Seems high.

yes we get a new copy enchantment for commander with mirror made :)

Well after watching most of your Eldraine Limited review, quite obvious you kinda have a hate on blue and it showed - also in a way showed your color affinity. Youre top10 reviews are awesome, but cant have everything great right? So i'll give you that.

Why not do them in an order. Like commons first, then uncommen, and then rare and finally mythics. Or by category - creatures, instants/sorcery, etc. Would be a way better viewing experience!

"Colored" is not the preferred nomenclature. Artifact Americans, please.

what about shimmer dragon?

great stuff

Where are Workshop Elders, Shimmer Dragon & Faerie Formation ? Did you just check Scryfall without looking at the bottom ?

Queen of ice C? Don't you usually give frost lynx a c+? I would say she's as good If not better. For 5 Mana you get to lock down a creature two turns and really make attacking a pain unless they got a 3/3 or bigger. I'd be happy to have 2 or 3 of them in my blue decks.

Im not a big fan of The Magic Mirror. I feel like it will mill you very fast...

You know, I know you’re talking about limited, but I have an Izzet artifact sacrifice deck. So basically Emry is a godsend.

Fae of wishes's adventure can get other creatures which are on adventure as well

Blue White is gonna be so annoying ...

cool

woooooo

For Gadwick, I believe with the current way the stack works when he ETB's you will draw 0 cards technically. Wizards is probably going to change the rules to affect this, but until this happens he only taps non-land perms, which isnt bad, but still not as good as drawing cards and being able to tap stuff. I could be wrong, but I believe that is the current way the rules work for him.

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Dude what are you smoking? If that first uncommon is C+ then everything else is trash in this format. It's a first pick remarkable card. This is a low power set.