White:
The best sheep in MTG, definitely.
A 0/5 wall with a lifegain effect is pretty good against aggro decks, much better than Yoked Ox. Not a very high pick, but a card worth having in your sideboard.
Blue is not taking a break anymore:
A cheaper, flying version of Floodtide Serpent, this Chimera will rarely be playable on turn 3, unless you’re playing Nylea’s Presence. In a deck with not many enchantments, it will be a dead card, but if you can get enough cheap auras, the ability becomes an upside that lets you trigger heroic over and over, draw one extra card every turn, or get Constellation triggers. Nylea’s Presence is the card that works better with this.
Black:
This card is really interesting. A 5/5 flying body, as early as turn 3, is quite amazing in limited. Obviously, it needed to have a drawback, which is giving our opponent extra draws, and also extra chances of getting a removal spell. Now, in Constructed formats, where all decks have a lot of removal, that’s a huge drawback.
Theros limited, however, doesn’t have a lot of efficient removal, and most of it is either slow and overcosted, or not effective against this guy (like Lash of the Whip or Purphoros’s Rage). Also, keep in mind that the draw happens on your upkeep, so this dodges sorcery removal the first turn, so an Asphyxiate drawn from his ability won’t kill it. This is a card that needs to be played and tested in real Limited games to see how good it is, since we didn’t have a similar effect since Indentured Djinn, and that was long time ago.
Red:
This card is amazing. A double strike, trampling cheap body is great in a format full of auras. If that wasn’t enough, the creature itslef keeps giving card advantage every turn.
This card reminds me of the Polymorph spell that got spoiled two days ago. They both are rare strive spells with situational effects that can be really cool in the given situation, but are too limited to be versatile. It’s limited to creatures you control, and it can only make one copy of each creature. In the late game, this can help to get the lethal alpha strike, and it’s a decent heroic enabler, but it isn’t a high pick.
A Future Sight reprint with a really mediocre artwork, Riddle of Lightning has the problem of making you choose the target before knowing how many damage you’ll get, which means it’s not a very efficient removal spell. I’ve never been a fan of Lava Axe, and this isn’t even a Lava Axe most of the time, since the average damage is 3 or 4. If your deck is slow and has expensive mana costs, you can expect this to be a reliable removal spell with scry 3, but failing to kill something has to feel terrible.
Green is taking a break today.
Multicolored:
And finally, the God we were missing. I have to say that having a second 3-mana god really surprised me. When talking about limited, cards that provide long term card advantage (in this case, tokens) are usually good, but Pharika’s ability won’t work more than three or four times in a long game, and that’s being lucky. Gods are only good in Draft when they have relevant abilities, since it’s really difficult to animate them, and Pharika only works when your creatures start to die. The two-color gods have the added disadvantage of forcing you into two colors, so I wouldn’t P1P1 her.
Cheers,
Beu
Limited Intel 