Onslaught Charms

Charm sets are my favourite sets!

Fever Charm

The second weakest of the charms, this card has only 2 usable abilities. The haste is "eh" at best since you're using a card just to give haste. At least with something like Accelerate, it replaces itself, and cards like Reckless Charge give another bonus. The +2/+0 is basically a Shock, let's be honest. The final ability is barely usable since it's a Lightning Bolt that can only target Wizards.

Pros: Gives haste or +2/+0

Cons: Only gives either haste or +2/+0, Bolt in almost unusable

Rating: 1.5/5

Misery Charm

This charm is, well, miserable. You can destroy a Cleric or Disentomb a Cleric. Yay? Outside of a Cleric deck, it's unusable. The life loss is similar to that on Inquisitor Exarch, but at least that comes on a bear. 

Pros: Instant-speed life loss

Cons: Targets only Clerics, life loss is small

Rating: 0.5/5

Piety Charm

Now we're getting into the good charms! Destroying target Aura is acceptable for a multiuse card. The +2/+2 can only target a Soldier, but it's far better than the +2/+0 from Fever Charm since it's a white Mutagenic Growth. Finally, the star of this card, mass vigilance. Mass vigilance for 1 mana is great, nay amazing! There aren't many cards out there that give mass vigilance for cheap.

Pros: Mass vigilance
Cons: Mutagenic Growth only targets Soldiers
Rating: 3/5

Trickery Charm
This is the second best of these 5 charms. Instant speed flying is really nice since it can give a creature quick evasion. Changing a creature's type is actually better than you might think. Just look at the rest of these charms! Finally, the Sage of Epityr effect is nice, especially at Instant speed. The reason that this card is the second best is because all three of its abilities can be used against any deck, but they're all average abilities.

Pros: Sage of Epityr effect, instant speed flying
Cons: Average abilities
Rating: 3.5/5

Vitality Charm
Finally, the best charm! Why is it the best charm? Well, the first ability is instant-speed Ted, which is always great for blocking those pesky Novablast Wurms.  Its second ability is the star however. You want to know how many other 1 mana, Instant sources give a power bonus and trample? Berserk, an extremely powerful card, and Unnatural Predation which is a less function reprint of this card. The final ability of this card is much better than the other charm's abilities since Beasts are extremely common in more than one colour (like Wizards, Clerics, or Soldiers).

Pros: Ted creation, powerful trample, Beast regeneration
Cons: Regeneration only targets Beasts
Rating: 4.5/5 

Announcement: Comments Change

Due to someone attacking me personally on a review (I deleted the comments, so don't go looking for them), I've decided to make it so you have to create an account in order to post a comment. I know this makes it a little inconvenient for those without accounts, but it saves me the trouble of having to deal with idiots. Also, the policy of "I get to review all comments before posting" is still in effect. 

Unified Will

I'm not a big fan of conditional counterspells. They just seem too situational for me to use in most decks and that is especially the case with this card. Blue is not known for being able to produce a lot of tokens (cards like Lullmage Mentor are few and far between), so this card is pretty useless. It might be usable in the early game if you can drop a Flying Men or something similar before your opponent can play something, but other than that, it's not that great.

Pros: Counterspell for 2
Cons: Relies on blue having more creatures, only usable in early game (if that)
Rating: 0.5/5

Misfortune

Giving your opponent a choice isn't usually a good thing, but in this case, it's not terrible. Basically, an opponent either chooses to self-impose a Golgari Charm and take an Aladdin's Ring to the face, or allow you to Borborygmos your creatures and get a cascadeless Captured Sunlight. The obvious choice is to take the damage since the +1/+1 counters will hurt more in the long run, but since your opponent gets to choose, it's makes it a less-than-decent card. Not terrible since it'll still hurt your opponent more than your, but not great.

Pros: Might be a hard choice for your opponent

Cons: Might be a hard choice for your opponent

Rating: 2/5

P.S.: Try and find the hidden name in the artwork!

Thalakos Mistfolk

This card could be a great blocker if it didn't have shadow. The modern-day equivalent of this card would probably be Lantern Spirit, but that card is much better. Why? First, it has a better form of evasion. Sure, shadow basically makes this card unblockable, but it also means it can't block, and cards with a built-in bounce effect make the best blockers. Lantern Spirit can also block flyers whereas this card cannot. The big difference however is where the cards go when they are bounced. This card goes to the top of your library, meaning that you'll only be drawing this card over and over which means you won't get anything new in your hand. Lantern Spirit, on the other hand, goes to your hand instead leaving you free to draw different cards in order to fix the problem. Still, not a terrible card.

Pros: Effectively unblockable, self-bounce

Cons: Bounces to library rather than hand

Rating: 2/5

Sack Double Lands

I like this set of lands. Sure, they're not the greatest cards to be printed, but they have their uses. With a Crucible of Worlds out, these lands can effectively double their output every 2 turns, which can really give you a leg up. The problem with this combo however (and these cards in general) is that these cards come into play tapped, which mean without something like an Amulet of Vigor, you'll only be using these lands every second turn. Other than that, these cards aren't bad.

Pros: Can be sacked for double mana

Cons: Enter tapped

Rating: 3/5

River of Tears

"Your corpse shall float away on a... RIVER OF TEARS!" - Some guy at a Future Sight prerelease, said while playing this card. This was the highlight of the tournament.

This card is... odd. That's not saying much since everything from Future Sight was odd, but this is especially odd. It's essentially a dual land, but since it shifts colours every so often, it can really put you in a spot. I've seen more than one occasion where a player has wanted to play something like Darkpact, but they didn't have enough black mana and the only land in their hand was a bounce land. Now it is possible to get around this issue (tap a land for mana, bounce that land), but in the heat of battle it can be easy to overlook. This land also can't produce black mana on someone else's turn (unless you have some serious tech). Aside from those two points, it's a great card!

Pros: Essentially a dual land, doesn't enter tapped

Cons: Requires landfall to produce black mana

Rating: 4.5/5

Abeyance

Yay! Silence's beta version! This card is actually situationally better than it's newer counterpart. Silence can't stop a Murderous Betrayal or an Iron Star whereas this card can. However, this card doesn't stop the summoning of creatures or the creation of artifacts or enchantments, so it's not that great on an opponent's turn. However, on your turn this card is great since it stops pesky activated abilities. It also replaces itself by drawing you a card, so that's nice too. The weakness of this card is that is doesn't stop permanents, but that's not a very big weakness.

Pros: Prevents non-permanent spells and abilities, self-replacing

Cons: Doesn't prevent permanents 

Rating: 4.5/5

Plague Dogs

I want to start off with an apology for the sporadic way that I've been posting lately. There's been some stuff going on in my life that's been messing with my free time. Hopefully, that's all been straightened out and I can go back to trying to actually reviewing a Magic card a day.

  

This card isn't bad. In fact, I kind of like it. It starts out a little rough by being an underwhelming 3/3 for 5, but it quickly makes up for it. When it dies, it's instant-speed Nausea, which can take care of those pesky token armies as well as lessen the damage from an attack or, conversely, reap a greater death toll during an attack. The icing on the cake (small cake though it may be) is the instant-speed draw that triggers the Nausea. There's not much instant-speed card draw in black that doesn't drain your life (and when I say "not much", I mean less than 50 cards and most aren't great), so having that on a chump blocker is pretty nice. This card is basically Yavimaya Elder's undead puppy! That being said, it does still cost 5, so it's a little expensive.

Pros: Instant-speed Nausea and card draw

Cons: CMC 5

Rating: 3/5

Skizzik Surger

Oh hai worse Craw Wurm! How are you doing today worse Craw Wurm? Seriously, this thing is BAD. Let's break it down and find out why it's a bad card. We'll use this as a class on card development!

First, the Power to Converted Mana Cost (CMC) ratio. A 1:1 ratio such as the case for this card (6 power to 6 CMC) is fine. Cards like Sea Monster and Archwing Dragon also pass this test since they too have a 1:1 ratio. Some cards, like Ball Lightning have a 2:1 or greater ratio and are seen as great since they provide more bang for your buck as it were.

Second, what are its abilities? For an uncommon, we don't want there to be too many abilities, but it has to be worth the 6 mana to play. Giving it haste is great, especially since it's in red. However, this thing has no evasion of any type, meaning that it can easily be blocked by Ted. Still, this is a slight step up from Craw Wurm since Craw Wurm can't attack when it comes out.

Finally, what are the drawbacks of the card, if any? Viashino Cutthroat, for example, has to bounce to your hand each turn. Ball Lightning dies at the end of turn. This thing... blows up two of your lands. Why?! This card has sudden;y been downgraded from "better Craw Wurm" to "worse Ball Lightning that costs twice as much" since no one in their right mind will pay the echo cost to keep this bucket of sadness around.

Pros: Faster than Craw Wurm for same price

Cons: Blows up 2 of your lands, no evasion

Rating: 1/5