Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Limited Set Review – Black

Drifter: C+

This card is at its best in Orzhov and Rakdos, but honestly it’s not too bad a 3 drop in the average Black deck – it gives you some sacrifice fodder, and over the course of the game will add up to a bunch of drains. It’s pretty medium in Golgari and Dimir, and it’s not that great a topdeck anywhere, so I’ve left it at mid C+. I could see moving it down or up, as the format shakes out.

Drifter: C+

This is a solid 6 drop. Removing all counters is great in this set, since you can remove abilities like flying and ambush the creatures, -2/-2 is enough that it’s going to be difficult to attack or block well if they fear this card, and this card is often an easy 2 for 1. A 5/2 flash body really just trades with anything. That being said, it’s not that hard to see coming and play around it at 6 mana, which is its main weakness, but even then it will be delaying them and giving you value, and you can just force them to do something disadvantageous by attacking. As the format goes on, this kind of card gets worse since more people play around it, but overall it’s still very solid; it also pairs really well with counterspells, and I expect Blue decks, especially those with Farfinder, will be happy to splash it.

Drifter: A

Why wouldn’t I just want to make one of my creatures much more threatening for free with my premium removal spell? This is the format’s best common. It’s funny that it actually hurts Black that it only costs B because with the advent of Human drafts, people will be snapping these up to splash. This is not a card I expect to see past third pick.

Drifter: C+

This is strong early and late; good against both aggro and mutate. You’ll go for Deathtouch late most often and Lifelink early or if you’re looking to mutate onto it; I think Deathtouch will be more common, but the versatility makes this card really shine.

Drifter: C+

1 mana to do this is a fantastic rate. This is a high C+, pairing especially well with Orzhov (where it’s more like a low B) but just being a good card to have in most black decks. Unlike other cards of its ilk like Soulreaper of Mogis, it can also gain you a ton of life, so you can use this to stave off aggression or flying beats for quite a while.

Drifter: C+

Giving a creature deathtouch and menace is super strong, even if you’re just returning one 3 drop. If you can actually return a 1 and a 2, that’s fantastic value, but the average case of this card is just good, as long as you have plenty of things to bring back. I leave it at high C+, since it doesn’t scale quite as well into the late game and does take some time to get going, but I could see moving it up.

Drifter: C+

Dreamtail Heron is a good comparison to this; it doesn’t scale as well into the late game since discard is much worse there than draw, future mutation triggers matter less, and it has a slightly worse body. That being said, it’s still a pretty good card – being able to attack immediately on t4 with a 4/4 Menace and discard them is really good, and the failcase of a 5 mana 4/4 menace isn’t terrible.

Drifter: C+

Edict effects generally aren’t that amazing in Limited, but as we saw with Pharika's Spawn which was a busted card (far better than this) in Theros: Beyond Death, repeated sacrifice really adds up. This combines with a pretty solid 4/6 body, and all of your other mutates will trigger this – your opponent is really incentivised to remove this card even after they’ve lost a creature, because it makes future mutates so much better. This is the sort of mutate synergy card you really want on that basis; it’s not as good when you’re not stacking mutates with plenty of them, so I’ve left it at C+ but I think that dedicated mutate decks will really want this, especially in Golgari.

Drifter: D

This is a weak form of 1 for 1 recursion, since in most decks it doesn’t give added value. It gets a lot better if you can make use of the graveyard, so I think it will be playable in some decks, especially those with the great Golgari uncommons like Back for More and Boneyard Lurker, or with Call of the Death-Dweller/Unbreakable Bond. Here’s a list of cards it synergises with – in decks that play 3 or more of these, I’d be reasonably happy to run the first copy of this card, and I’d take it at C- in Golgari in general. It’s still a D, but a very high one.

Drifter: C

The first copy of Dark Bargain was great in Dominaria; I expect it to be a bit worse here, but not too much. It’s a decent amount better than 4 mana draw two to pick the best two cards, and sometimes even the other card can produce some nice graveyard synergy. I’ve left it at C because I think that cycling cards fill this role to some degree, so there’ll be less space for cards like this.

Drifter: C+

Dead Weight remains a fantastic card against aggro, and still has a reasonable effect in the later game, shrinking bigger creatures by a significant amount.

Drifter: A

Whatever you do with this card, it’ll be great for you. You’ll often want to wait till t6 to get the big blowout, but even just eating a 2/2 in combat is fantastic, and if you want to run it out there early and pressure them if you’re ahead, it has a fantastic body for that too.

Drifter: C-

I like how many of the 2 drops this format have a reasonable effect late game; I don’t really think things have gone wrong for you if you’re using this effect – it’s common in the late game to not have great ways to spend your mana, and this is just value there, especially if you’re milling it directly into your graveyard (which Golgari has a lot of ways to do) or looting it away. This sort of card can buy you a lot of time if you just recur it each turn and use it to trade for/double block things.

Drifter: B

Growing your lifelink creature every turn for only 2 mana is a great rate, and will quickly overwhelm your opponents if unchecked. There aren’t tons of other lifelink creatures in the format, but they’re all good, and as always having two creatures to hit with this is busted.

Drifter: C

This would be terrible without cycling, but the fact that you can ditch it when you don’t have a good target really saves it. Still, it’s cycling 2 rather than 1 which hurts a lot, and really you never get to kill what you want with this kind of card; there aren’t tons of high value targets with CMC 2 or less, so you’ll have to cycle it a significant amount – in the mechanics section of the introduction, I talked at length about why cycling is a real cost outside of decks dedicated to it that are getting a great effect out of it. You can replace a medium 2 drop with this, but should never really be that happy to have it.

Drifter: A

This is a really cool and intricate wrath; it has some downsides because your opponents can just have a split of odd and even creatures, but you have full control over it – you can trade your odd creatures with their even, you can wait for the right opportunity, and it’s really hard to see this kind of card coming.

Drifter: D

This is too expensive to be a good dedicated blocker; cards in the Mutate format are more likely to exceed 5 power since you choose the biggest one of them. It’s cute with deathtouch counters and I would certainly take it higher if I already had a couple of Void Beckoners, but it’s a really mediocre card overall. This is the kind of card you want to side in, if they’re aggressive or have a lot of x/1s though, so I’d probably take it at high D in best-of-three.

Drifter: A

This is a low A, but really whatever you do with it is fantastic. The most common pairing will be Menace/Deathtouch, the best one for attacking, but being able to give it Lifelink/Deathtouch if you’re looking to block, or Lifelink/Menace if you’re looking to mutate onto it makes this card a house in pretty much any situation. It drops off in the late game a bit, but really not thatmuch.

Drifter: B

There are more counters than usual this set, but this card is still going to hit the vast majority of the format with that first mode. Still, sometimes you won’t be able to kill what you want, so it’s merely a high B – the counters mode is okay, can sometimes ambush things with flying counters, but overall isn’t that exciting. This is a good splash card, so I expect to see it less in human drafts.

Drifter: B

This is a really powerful card on turn 3 – if your opponent misses their 2 drop, they’re incredibly far behind. It can still be decent late game, since the hope is they have to double block it with whatever you give deathtouch to, but it does drop off a bit there. It pairs especially well with Blue, which has a bunch of ways to give it flying.

Drifter: C+

4 mana 3/3 deathtouch is an okay rate. The mutate effect doesn’t matter by itself too much, but it benefits all your other mutate cards just by having it – when you’re stacking effects, this kind of card gets a lot better. This card gets a lot worse if you’re not doing that, so it’s a lot better in say Golgari or Dimir than as a standalone card.

Drifter: C+

The combination of Flash and a 4/2 body which can trade for basically anything together make this the best card of this ilk we’ve seen. It’s exceptionally good in Orzhov and Rakdos. It’s really nasty with first strike, so watch out for that!

Drifter: C

This is another one of those cards where Cycling 1 makes it much better, but you don’t want to play this unless your deck is likely to get some good additional effect out of the cycling, since you’ll be doing that a lot. Still, this has a more relevant effect early than Imposing Vantasaur, and you can just cycle it away late, so I consider it significantly better.

Drifter: C

This card is wildly divergent in how good it is in your deck; it all comes down to whether or not you have fodder. Antisynergy with mutate makes this a bit worse than it ordinarily is; that mechanic really wants fodder, and you’re expending it for this. Even so, it’s usually good in Orzhov and Rakdos, great with Nightsquad Commando in a deck that supports that card well and with Daysquad Marshal, and really bad if you’re trying to play it in your random midrangey decks without fodder. The flash text is worth a bit since there are three commons with it in Black.

Drifter: A

I wouldn’t splash extra colours just to enable the second half of this, since it’s great anyway and it doesn’t add that much. If you’re splashing already, hey it’s a little bonus. In games 2 and 3, if you see some good targets where you really want the nonland part of this, and have Skitting Surveyor 2.0 (Farfinder) in your deck, you can just swap a Plains in (I don’t have a bet to see how many times I can mention Farfinder in these comments sections, I promise, the card is just really good!).

Drifter: C+

You won’t always be able to get the 1/1 out of it; you do need to be able to beatdown, but if you have a good 2 drop density, most decks will be happy to have it. 3 mana for 3/4 of stats is great, and the Orzhov Humans deck go from happy to overjoyed. This also makes Mutual Destruction a lot better.

Drifter: D

This card seems like total trash to me – I didn’t consider Garrison Cat particularly good, but a 1/1 is worth much more than draining them for two. I don’t foresee myself ever playing this card really; things have to have gone really wrong and I need to really be desperate for cheap mutate fodder, but when that can be just any nonhuman creature, I’ll be able to do better the vast majority of the time. This is a low D.

Drifter: C+

Cycling 2 makes this card a lot better, but honestly -1/-1 to only their stuff at instant speed is decent to begin with. I would be happy to main deck one of these in most of my Black decks since between killing x/1s and really diminishing their attacks and blocks, it will do plenty.

Drifter: C

This card is a very reasonable 1 of: lifelink is a great thing to put on the creature you’re reanimating and transforms medium into good threats. In this format specifically, you’re more likely to get back a high value thing since you can just cycle away gigantic creatures early to get back with this. It gets worse in multiples, but I think most Golgari decks will be reasonably happy to run 2 since there are some self-mill cards in Green too.

Drifter: C-

A lifelink counter by itself isn’t worth a card, and +1/+1 doesn’t threaten to ambush most creatures. Put together, this does enough to be worth it but not really something you’re excited to play; it’s better in Golgari where you can just win most races with this + a big creature.

Drifter: C-

Unlikely Aid was an okay card in War of the Spark, never anything particularly exciting. It looks to be slightly better here, since it protects your Mutates, and having bigger creatures means they’re more likely to have to double block. It does net you some value against removal spells too, since if you ever get to counter one for 2 mana, you’re super far ahead. It also gets better with cycling, since you’re less likely to waste mana holding this up. All in all, this is just an okay filler card that some decks will be happy to run 1 of. It’s worse in Orzhov since White just has better tricks, and you don’t want too many in your deck. You rarely want more than 1.

Drifter: B

This cycling ability is absurd – unlike with Bladebrand, even if they kill your creature in response, you still draw a card so it’s still just a 1 for 1. Granting deathtouch permanently really just means you can cycle this whenever you have time; you don’t need to ambush a creature for it to be good since it’s just free value. This is all coupled with the fact that sometimes you’ll get flooded or sometimes a game will go long, and the giant creature side of this will just win you the game. This card couples great versatility with staggering power.

Drifter: D

The problem with cards like this is you only ever want to draw one, no matter how many you play. A 1/1 for 2 is very unexciting so if you ever draw two, you just end up a full card down. Rather counter-intuitively, you don’t really want too many of these if you do choose to play it; you want like 3 at most, and then maybe with sacrifice outlets/cards like Bastion of Remembrance or in Orzhov Humans with Sanctuary Lockdown, it’ll actually be a reasonable card in your deck. It’s still not something you ever want to prioritise, and you do need a lot of synergy for it to be worth it.

Drifter: C

This is a hard card to rate without seeing how the mutate decks play out; if you really want a lot of them in your Black decks, then this card is great, since it is cheap and strong mutate fodder, and helps mitigate mutate’s downsides. Remember that you can attack with your creatures first and then use this to trade up, and -2/-2 will not only kill their small creatures but really mess with thier blocks. It’ll be especially good in Golgari and you should take it at C+ if you’re already there.

Drifter

Both colours are great in both regards, but Blue has slightly better uncommons and Black has significantly better commons, and the latter matters more. It’ll be interesting to see which ultimately wins out, but with the advent of Human Drafts (!), it’ll be hard to get some of the really good Black commons like Blood Curdle and Blitz Leech since people will also take them highly to splash/pivot into. Still Black is no one trick pony, with good mutates and synergy cards, and it has fewer weaknesses, so I expect it to be a really hard-fought competition against Blue. I’ll do a proper colour ranking at the end, but I’m really happy with Black; I suspect it will also have far better synergy with the other colours than Blue, which is kind of off doing its own powerful thing but still really needs support from them – Rakdos and Orzhov look pretty menacing, and Golgari Mutate is definitely loving the bag of Nightmares Black has to offer.