Kaldheim Limited Set Review: Blue

Drifter

I’ve been enthralled by Limited ever since I began playing Magic, almost ten years ago now. With a particular fondness for flashback and cube drafts, I’ve drafted more sets than I can count on every platform through wildly different eras. On Arena I draft infinitely, having profited 40k or so gems from it at this point, and have made top 100 mythic many times. Self-reflection and forming good habits are paramount to Limited improvement, and those themes feature in many of my articles and in each session of the Limited coaching service I provide; consider booking a session today if you’d like feedback tailored to you that you can really put into practice!

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Drifter: B+

This card is a little less impressive that it might first seem, because you need to be ahead to really make use of the extra turn – you need to already have good attacks or cards available in hand to cast to capitalise on it. Still, given you’ll have other foretell cards and less 2 drops in your deck than in most formats, I don’t foresee that being that being much of a problem – you won’t be out of gas as quickly, if you have a bunch of expensive spells waiting in the wings. The bird tokens are a really solid upside, since those will present an immediate clock and mean you always get something good with this.

This foretell cost is solid upside, because the difference between 6 and 7 mana isn’t always just one turn – having to draw that extra land often takes quite a while. I consider this a low B+ overall, and it will be much worse if the format is faster than it appears right now.

Drifter: F

Don’t play this card in the maindeck. This is a medium sideboard card at best, since it will harm your curve and waste your time to have the 1 mana up just in case they play something, so just take it on the wheel when there’s not much else left if you’re playing best-of-three.

Drifter: D-

Since the basic land slot contains snow duals and snow basics, you only have 24 shots at getting snow lands, which shouldn’t be too bad if you’re looking to use double snow abilities, but at the point where you need triple and then quadruple snow, you’re looking at the really late game. With eight snow lands, which isn’t a paltry number, you’re less than 50% to use that second ability by turn 6 (to learn how to calculate this stuff, check out my article!) and about 20% to use that third ability, rising to 43% on turn 10. I think this becomes a fine card when you have 11-12 snow lands (with 11, it’s more like 75% to use the second and 47% to use the third by turn 6, and 75% to use the third on turn 10), but that’s literally half the lands you’ll see in the draft, you’ll probably have to play off-colour lands, and the payoff for all that work is still not that great. Card draw and snow fixers will help increase these %s but you still won’t get to activate that third ability very often.

Even in a dedicated snow deck, this will be a 2/3 for most of the game (that you have to sink 3 mana into and will often be a 1/1 instead), and then have a good but not broken effect in the really late game, which is a fine card but not super exciting. I do think Blue has a lot of incentives to be snow and some decks will have 11-12 sources including land searchers like Horizon Seeker, Glittering Frost, Spirit of the Aldergaard, and Sculptor of Winter, but this is too many hoops for too weak a payoff for me to give it a high grade, and this is unplayable outside a dedicated deck.

Drifter: B-

4 mana 3/3 flier is above rate, and the Foretell is cheap and will come up a lot. This is one of the best commons in Blue.

Drifter: B+

This is a 2 drop that is an absolute must-kill, or it will take over the mid to late game by itself, and it can still block fine early. There are enough snow lands, between the 24 you open, that picking up a few will be trivial, though this does need at least five or six to reach its full potential. This card is good at every point in the game, a fantastic uncommon that competes with good removal as an early pick.

Drifter: C+

4 mana draw spells are often sort of clunky – you have to spend your whole turn casting them, and even at instant speed holding that much mana up can be tough. This card fixes that, because foretelling it early and then getting it out for 2 mana will still let you play stuff that turn, so you’ll be loading up on gas while adding to the board, which will win you late games in short order! This is a solid rate even at 4 mana, and lets you hold up counterspells and interaction alongside it.

This is the kind of card that will be a lot worse if the format is more aggressive than it currently seems (so will this entire colour in fact), but I’m starting at high C+.

Drifter: B-

Blue seems to have no shortage of good commons! This effect is fantastic, and will enable your attacks or gain you a bunch of life. It’s better used offensively, since then you get two attacks instead of denying them just one turn of attacks, but doing both will swing so many races into your favour. White and Red are going tall rather than wide this set, which makes this even better. All that value attached to a solid body that will make the second attack much more frightening… I think the first copy of this is an easy B-. You won’t want too many 5 drops in your deck, but I’d happily play multiples of these.

Drifter: B

I think a lot of people were surprised by how bad multiple copies of Feed the Swarm could be, and this card is very reminiscent of that, but there’s one big difference – it costs 1 mana. The tempo swings with this are reminiscent of Bubble Snare, which was an absurd card – being able to play this plus a 4 drop on turn 5 can give you an easily gamewinning advantage. Still, Feed the Swarm was in a colour with more lifegain than Blue has, so I deliberated between B and B- for this, because you need to compare it to other removal spells that won’t hurt you – in the early picks, that comparison will come up. Still, Blue has less removal than Black does, so you will need this more, sometimes even in multiples.

This is the sort of removal spell where you shouldn’t wait around too much – be happy to pick off a 3 drop with this, because big stuff will really hurt you and you’d rather use other answers for that. The second copy is more like a C+, and beyond that starts to get very rough if you’re not a beatdown deck – this kind of effect is better in those, since your life total is less likely to be under pressure if your deck plans to be ahead most of the time.

Drifter: D+

The problem with this card is that the body is unplayable, so you really need to kill something to get value, and you won’t always get the right boards for it to do that – in fact, I’d say that happens only about half the time, and not necessarily on the creature you want or when you need it to. Still, with the double spell mechanic, and in a colour full of card draw, I think some decks will be okay to play this, if never really enthused – it does eat 2/1 and 3/1 attackers for free, and the creatures in this set are quite top-heavy.

Drifter: B+

This is one modal card where I’m really happy with both sides. The Omenkeel side is the aggressive side, which crews really easily and hits hard for this investment. It’s hard to block and getting lands for free is a powerful form of card advantage, especially in a set where Blue will be playing a lot of expensive stuff with foretell.

I do think Blue is on the defensive side this set, so I expect to play Cosima more, at least outside of Azorius/Izzet. Cosima is fantastic, but it takes a while to do anything, and you need the time and space to make it happen. The really nice thing about Cosima is that you can have it block for a while, and then as soon as the tides turn or it’s not useful in that role, you can exile it and start accruing your advantage – it can play both modes, and it’s a really powerful card in a slower deck or even when you have a slower draw in a faster deck.

I expect to play both modes frequently, and deciding which one is right is really dependent on how my hand is set up and what role I foresee playing this game – if I need a 2 drop or my hand can apply further pressure/clear the way for it, running out the Omenkeel will be far more impactful than a 3 mana 2/4, but at most other points Cosima will be better. One issue with this card is it’s not an amazing topdeck in either mode, and both sides are a lot worse in the late game, so I wouldn’t be inclined to splash it very often.

Drifter: B

A 4 mana 3/3 flash flier is a fantastic rate, whether you foretell it or not, and Blue has enough other foretell cards that this ability is a lot of upside, and will help enable your second spell per turn synergies – sometimes you’ll even be able to trigger those on your opponent’s turn with this card!

Drifter: B+

There are plenty of other Giants and Wizards in Blue, but even you don’t have those, you’re going to be a 7/7 ahead after you play this card, and you control when you play it so you can always pick your spots. This is an absurdly powerful effect, and will save many games for you which otherwise looked lost – it’ll take them so much time to replay their cards, that they’ll almost always be behind afterwards, and removing all their tokens and counters is pretty sweet too.

Drifter: C

This effect without the foretell would usually be worth about a C, but in some recent slower sets, more like a C- since card disadvantage is worse in those. Still, getting to bounce auras and equipment rather than just creatures is a powerful upside, and this set is one where people are going tall rather than wide, which makes this sort of card significantly better. I think this makes it to high C, but not higher, and you certainly don’t want more than 1-2 copies in decks that aren’t tempoing out too much.

Being able to bounce for 1 mana at sorcery speed is a fine way to enable your second spell per turn synergies in Azorius/Dimir, but the danger there is that you’re going to run out of cards quite quickly, since that kind of deck should naturally have more cheap spells than most.

Drifter: D+

Disdainful Stroke tends to be too narrow in Limited, really bad against some decks and good but not busted against others – remember that holding it up is a very real cost. Foretell will lead people to play fewer 2 drops and more expensive cards, and to you hopefully having more stuff to do at instant speed (which makes all counterspells better) but I think this kind of card would be a D in most sets. Here, I consider it filler in most maindecks, but some Blue decks will certainly have a lot of other instants and want it more as a result. It is a solid sideboard card so take it higher in best-of-three.

Drifter: C-

This is a medium statline, and while it’s easy to imagine the really good cases for it, it’s mostly just a 3/2 for 3 that scries 1. Targeting your opponent is only good in topdeck mode, since for most of the game you won’t have a clue what they want, so you’re just going to be bottoming any cards that look good. This is a fine filler card, but not super exciting.

Drifter: B-

This card is interesting and powerful. Snow is one of the central themes in Blue, and you’ll want to take snow lands highly in it, so I think this will be really good in the dedicated decks. 1 mana to draw a card is an absurd rate, even if it only happens around 40% of the time – and with 10-12 snow lands (which isn’t as hard as it sounds with the common snow duals and a basic every pack) and some combination of the three common snow creatures in Blue, two of which are actively good and one which is medium, I don’t think that’ll be too hard to set up, especially if your count is bulked up by green and black cards. In the really dedicated snow decks, it’s closer to 50%, at which point it’s pretty absurd.

This is a card you take early much higher than late (unless you’re in the snow strategy) since then you can build around it. I consider it a high B- but it does require plenty of work, so I’m leaving it at that for now.

Drifter: C-

This card has a mediocre statline, and the ability isn’t that exciting – Seafloor Stalker was better than this because it also had pseudo-firebreathing. Being snow is worth something, since it will bulk up your snow permanent count, and I do think some decks will want it, but they’ll want to pick it up on the wheel.

Drifter: C+

To make this consistently draw, I think you need 2-3 sets of duplicate spells, and preferably for them to be cheap. Looking at the Blue spells in this set, they tend to be more expensive because of Foretell, and there are more narrow instant and sorceries than in a usual set, so I don’t think Blue is actually that well set-up to take advantage of this. This kind of card is better in Izzet or Dimir, where you can tutor up removal spells, but having to play the spell before this is also awkward, and there’s some tension because the best spells you can get back, you’re not as likely to have 2 of. There’s only one Wizard and one Giant (which is more expensive than this, so doesn’t really help) in Blue at common, but do note that changelings help this, and there are a couple each in Blue and Green at common. Still, the failcase of having to run it out as a 5 mana 2/5 with no ability is going to come up sometimes, especially since Green doesn’t have tons of good spells for it to recur. A 4 mana 2/5 blocker is still nothing super exciting, though it can be nice if you have other giant synergies.

I see this as mostly an Izzet or Rakdos gold card that has a lot of conditionality to it, and a pretty mediocre failcase, so I think it’s a bit of a trap to take this early. I consider it a low C+, since the power is there if you do get there.

Drifter: B-

This is almost always going to be cast for its 5 mana mode, which is very good – a 4/5 hexproof for 5 blocks really well and is very hard to interact with, and you get the value of still having the equipment if it dies. It’s worse that the hexproof fades when you attack with the creature, but you can always attack with other stuff and leave the equipped creature back as a blocker, or just wait until they blow their removal on something weaker.

The equipment by itself doesn’t do enough to be worth a card, but sometimes you can run it out if you don’t have much to do with your mana and it enables a good block, or if you have something really important to protect. The flexibility is very sweet on this card, but most of its value comes from the initial creature.

Drifter: C

This is good card if your deck has Giants in it, and pretty mediocre if it doesn’t, but the upside is big enough that it’s worth it with only a few. One problem I have is that many of the set’s giants are pretty expensive, so even though there are quite a few, this is a pretty late game proposition and if your deck is full of expensive cards, then you need cards like this less. Getting free value is always good, especially since you can just cast this whenever, but this is a bad card to begin with so there’s always a cost to running it. The other problem is that some of them require you to be beating down to reach their full potential – and skipping your 2 drop to cast this card is really bad in that sort of deck. Ultimately, I’m not sure this is the kind of card Giant decks especially want or need.

What really saves this card for me is that changelings are in the set, there are a couple in Blue at common, and they’re at much cheaper mana costs than the giants, so I actually see this as more often slotting into the Blue-Green decks than the Blue-Red ones. Ultimately it’s just a fine filler card to play in many blue decks, but you should ponder how well it fits yours because the failcase is quite bad.

Drifter: B

This is a solid draw spell with a great rate at instant speed, and it gets a lot better if you have snow permanents – in some decks, this can reach the lofty heights of scry three or four then draw three cards, at which point it’s pretty absurd. Still, you can’t afford to run too many slow cards in your deck and Blue has other options for card draw, so I’m starting it at low B and will reduce it significantly if this set winds up being faster than I think.

Drifter: B

Icy Manipulator is an awesome card, and this one costs 1 less. I don’t think having one snow mana will be too big a cost in most Blue decks, but not being able to use this some amount of the time will happen and be really bad if you’re not heavily committed to the strategy – it’s like a splash source that you won’t always have at that point, and will make some of your other snow cards more awkward.

Drifter: D

The point where I’m happy to play this card is when I have four snow lands in play if I have some ramp (so in Simic), or five if I don’t. Five is much harder to get than four, but both require you to be a very dedicated snow deck – we’re talking over a dozen lands, and you only get 24 to pick from, so you’ll end up having to pick half of them and probably include off-colour snow lands in your deck. Still, I do think this is a good card if your deck is really dedicated to that strategy – it probably just wins the game the turn you play it, and if not then it’s really hard for them to survive the next turn. Belonging in one deck and requiring a pretty harsh commitment is not enough to give it a higher grade than this, however – this is about where I would first pick it, but I would take it much higher if I were on plan to get twelve snow lands.

If you have cards like Horizon Seeker, Glittering Frost, or Spirit of the Aldergaard, then this card gets massively better, so basically “be Simic Snow”.

Drifter: C+

This is a pretty mediocre body, but Scry 3 is decent, and significantly better than Scry 2, so this is a lot better than a card like Cascade Seer. That second ability is mostly flavour text if your opponents are playing well, but maybe they won’t, and it’ll certainly be a small cost for them to play around it. I’m starting this at low C+, because scry 3’s ability to set up multiple draws is pretty nice.

Drifter: C

Vodalian Arcanist is a fine card, and being able to foretell with his mana a nice boost.

Drifter: C

This strikes me as a pretty good common, buffing your other tribal synergies, and having a good deal more value in the late game. I suspect you’re almost never going to be able to trigger it turn 4, except maybe outside of a Simic deck with lots of changelings, but scry 1 gets better late anyway.

Drifter: C

This sort of removal spell tends to overperform, because giving an opposing creature -3/-0 is usually enough to render it incapable of attacking profitably at all. This is a powerful card in any slower deck, and a lot worse if you’re attacking on the ground, since them having a creature essentially with defender is still going to hinder you. Flash can allow you to shrink the creature then eat it immediately with your bigger creatures, and that’s really what you want to aim for with this card, but it won’t always work out that way. I would take the first copy at low C+, and subsequent copies lower.

Remember that the more instants you have, the better each one becomes, and there are a lot of common instants in Blue!

Drifter: B-

This is the kind of card that is deceptively powerful, because it blocks well when you need it to and then has the potential to hit very hard – for up to 4 in the late game. It’s a fantastic bearer of equipment and auras (which will allow you to pump it up even more if you have crazy amounts of mana), and should slot particularly well into the Azorius decks. Changeling is solid upside, since we’ve already seen a bunch of cards that care about giants and Wizards. This is a premium common.

Drifter: C

Downgrading one of their creatures isn’t killing it, and upgrading one of yours into the best creature on the board is nice, but not usually worth two cards. Foretell is really nice for ensuring you don’t miss opportunities to cast this situational card at good moments, and if you ever get to cast a token producer (not that there are many) afterwards then you’re doing pretty well, so I think the upside is here but I’m not going to rate it that highly because the failcase is very mediocre, especially if there’s not something good to copy.

Drifter: B-

Orvar is powerful with tricks and fight spells, since copying one of your creatures is ridiculously good. Blue doesn’t actually have very many of those, but you’re going to run a second colour and every other colour has plenty, especially Green, which is probably going to be the best Blue pairing anyway, and has Snakeskin Veil, Struggle for Skemfar, and King Harald's Revenge at common, all of which are pretty decent cards anyway. It won’t always happen, and the failcase of a 3/3 Changeling for 4 isn’t great, but I think the effect is powerful enough and works off enough cards to merit a high grade.

There’s two good discard cards in Black at common this set, and you only need them to play one, so it won’t always happen, but be an absurd blowout when it does. I think the combination of two situational but powerful effects on an okay body is pretty good, especially when you can build around the first one.

Drifter: C+

This card is very decent – it chips away early in the game when you don’t have snow mana, or when they’re on a low life total, and then improves your draws significantly for a cheap investment later on. Looters are usually good in Limited, and this is no exception. Being a snow creature also buffs your snow permanent count a little, which matters this set.

Drifter: D+

This card is much worse than it looks. The problem is that a 1/1 flier is still a very real threat, and will chip away at you, especially if you happen to run into a stall or attrition/topdecking game (which are pretty common in Draft). Even if you have your own fliers, this will make you think twice about attacking with them, and might even force you to have to leave something back. Being a sorcery also limits the power level of exiling artifacts – being able to two for 1 their equipment by then blocking the creature would be really nice. There are some commons like Mistwalker and Pilfering Hawk which help mitigate this downside, and I think I would be okay to run one of these in a Simic deck, where I might not have that much other removal, but I wouldn’t be happy to start two in any deck, and I’d stay away in Black and Red decks. This is also a better card in a deck with big creatures, since those can race the bird token more easily and won’t be vulnerable to it blocking their creatures, so that’s Green decks again, or perhaps a Giant deck with lots of overstatted stuff.

Your deck needs to be applying pressure or to have lots of its own fliers to want this card, and Blue is pretty slow this set.

Drifter: C-

This is the kind of card that you can only play when you really get there on a tribal synergy, because the goal is to get to the point where you’ve copied two creatures and it’s not worth it until then – I think the minimum is about ten creatures of a single type, which Changelings do count towards at least. There’s some tension within the card, because it wants you to play big stuff to copy, but you don’t need to play it as much if you’re winning the late game with lots of big stuff anyway – copying two drops on turn 6 with this isn’t that exciting because you’re not going to have loads of cards in hand by that point.

Ultimately, I can’t give a card that doesn’t belong in the vast majority of decks, and isn’t that good in the decks where it does belong, that great a grade. Still, what saves this card for me is the fact that if you can follow it up with any big creature and copy that creature, then you’ve lost some tempo but all your future draws are better, and Foretell makes that easier to do. By design, there are more tribal cards in this than most sets, and each colour has lots of creatures of only a few types even if there’s not direct synergy with them – like there are plenty of Warriors in White, even without synergy. All in all, I wouldn’t normally like this card, but I think this is a particularly good set for it.

Drifter: C-

I don’t tend to like this sort of card as much as most people, because I find it doesn’t do enough when you’re behind – you just buy yourself a little time, but don’t actually improve your position. You already have to have a good board to make best use of this, by attacking and doing a bunch of damage. I also mostly find it doesn’t do that much more in its good case than playing a decent 6 drop creature, and that is better in more circumstances. That being said, this is the best of this kind of effect we’ve seen in recent years, since instant speed is a huge boon and can really blow out some combat steps. Usually it’s easy to see a 6 mana instant coming, but this set has more instants than usual so it’ll be easier to conceal it.

Ultimately, I’m still not happy with this card and don’t think you should pick it highly, but in a deck that cares about tempo and is usually going to be ahead, it will be solid enough.

Drifter: C+

I don’t expect to have the option to put this on an equipment most of the times I play it, but it will be really good when I do! If I have a couple of Runes, I’ll be certainly drafting common ones like Goldvein Pick and Tormentor's Helm, which are fine by themselves, a lot higher.

Most of the time though, you’ll just use this to make a creature fly and be happy enough, since it’ll turn a medium card into a real threat and you’ll get your card back. You usually want to avoid putting it on your best creature that was already doing good things for you, because it’s still a 2 for 2 if it gets removed, and you want to diversify your threats. The creature being removed in response is also a big problem for Runes, but most of the removal in the format outside Red isn’t of the sort that really punishes this – either it’s at sorcery speed, or on an aura itself, or only hits tapped creatures, or whatever.

Drifter: C

Counterspells tend to underperform in Limited, because you usually don’t have other ways to use your mana, and wasting it if they don’t cast a spell is really bad. That being said, this card has two things going for it over Cancel: a) the Foretell cost makes it much easier to hold up, even if it is kind of costly at that point and b) Blue in this set has a lot of instants and ways to use your mana, some of which also have Foretell, so you can hold them up together. I consider this a high C, and am pretty happy to have the first copy.

Drifter: D

There’s a minor graveyard theme in White and Black, but this is a really bad rate so I’d need a lot of cards that synergise to want it. Blue has plenty of ways to draw cards and dig for action this set, and those cards will have much more of an impact than this.

Drifter: D

This loses the ability to ambush, which is probably the single best thing about flash on a big creature, but nonetheless it gives you a good way to use your mana while holding up other stuff, like counterspells and interaction. The surprise factor can also be worth a decent amount, since your opponent probably wasn’t prepared for a 5/6 attacker next turn. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t really combo with card draw, because you’d almost always rather play this first, if you have the mana available for both (unless you have a 7 drop you’re trying to dig for lands for, or whatever).

Overall, it’s just not that exciting a card though, and I’d rather be double spelling foretell cards on 6, or foretelling one card and then using the rest of my mana to hold up those instants (which almost always cost less than this anyway). You can do so much better, by just playing any other 6 drop, than a mostly vanilla 6 mana 5/6.

Drifter

Blue seems fantastic this set, with a really high power level across the board, and not too many duds at common. Compared to previous sets, it seems to lack its usual weaknesses: it has plenty of good removal, great blockers, and tools to win races, while maintaining its classic strengths: card advantage, lots of evasion, the ability to play at instant speed, and tools to swing tempo. Blue plays an unparalleled long game in this set, with so many efficient card draw spells, ways to slow your opponent down, and creatures that play the defensive and offensive roles both really well, like Mistwalker. Blue’s main weakness is that many of its common creatures are sort of understatted and underwhelming – it’s very reliant on opening a few specific creatures that will be in high demand. Even its good blockers might not get the job done in a format full of Foretell and giants, where creatures will naturally be bigger. It also has a real glut of 4 and 5 drop plays, but not as many good early ones.

Blue might seem like it has to play a slow game as a result, but I don’t think it needs to with the right support – cards like Augury Raven and Berg Strider are really good at beating down, and commons like Bind the Monsters, Ravenform, and Run Ashore all get significantly better when you’re applying pressure. That being said, almost all its other creatures are defensively statted, so you will need to rely on your other colour to pick up the slack and give you decent offensive 2s and 3s. Still, Foretell helps a lot here – being able to land an Raven on turn 3 is a fine failcase, even if it won’t be better than curving 2 -> 3 -> Raven.

In terms of synergies, it’s going to be important to pick up at least three or four snowlands if you’re in Blue, since you need to enable your Berg Striders and Pilfering Hawks, but honestly it’s mostly specific uncommons that want you to really have loads, so many decks won’t have to worry that much beyond getting three or four (and the duals will be valuable picks anyway). Where it’ll really start to matter is in Simic, which is probably the most natural pairing for Blue anyway, since Green gives it some fantastic early plays, will simply outsize the opposing big creaures that Blue struggles with, has ramp to pair with its busted late game, and many of its own snow payoffs.

I suspect Blue will be good in any colour pair though, because it’s so deep and has such high card quality that it can support many different strategies – it’s not like you’re unhappy to play Mistwalker in a beatdown deck, even if in an ideal world, you might prefer a different 3 drop. If the format ends up faster than it looks, and the weakness to big creatures proves too costly, then Blue might suffer a bit. If not, its main weakness may simply be that it ends up overdrafted and there’s too much competition for its really good cards, so you’re left with medium playables too often…