Zendikar Rising - Limited Set Review - Blue
Welcome back to our next chapter of the Zendikar Rising Limited Set Review! In today's article I will be making my predictions for how strong each of the set's Blue cards will be in Limited. As always, my 5-point scale is as follows:
1.0 = Unplayable
2.0 = Not often desired
3.0 = Decent filler to round out most decks
4.0 = High priority, finishers
5.0 = Top Pick, must have
And as always, all opinions and card ratings in this article are my own. Let's jump in!
Anticognition
A creature/planeswalker tax in the early game, but a hard counter late game or in a Mill deck. I think this card will most often be a late pick since it doesn't contribute to Mill's game plan, but I still expect to see a creature get countered every now and then.
Rating: 2.0
Bubble Snare
Like similar cards before it, I expect this card to be a great inexpensive and effective removal spell for blue. Adding this card in decks that care about Kicker will make it that much better.
Rating: 4.0
Cascade Seer
A 3/3 and minimum scry 1 for 4 mana is fine. I expect this card to be filler and not much more common than a one-of when it is played.
Rating: 2.0
Charix, the Raging Isle
Better pack a lot of Islands for this Leviathan. Sure to be a great candidate to pick up Equipment or other buff, but the more lands in play means fewer ability activations to make this monster a heavy hitter. Pair with protection spells to really tax your opponent's mana.
Rating: 3.5, crab butts are the new crab legs
Chilling Trap
I've never been a fan of similar blue cards, but the card draw workaround seems great. I won't prioritize this card, but I could definitely see playing a copy or two in decks where the card draw is almost guaranteed.
Rating: 2.5
Cleric of Chill Depths
A decent effect, but it probably only buys one turn when it matters. Not a finisher or finisher-enabler, so I am not going out of my way to play it.
Rating: 1.5
Concerted Defense
Being that creatures are what usually win games in draft, this is not the type of counter I want to focus on in blue. Probably a great sideboard card if the opponent has a flashy game winning sorcery, but otherwise disappointing.
Rating: 1.0
Confounding Conundrum
The bad hits keep coming. While it draws a card on entering the battlefield, the main attraction effect on the card is irrelevant when playing against anything other than green decks that ramp.
Rating: 1.0, bad can trip
Coralhelm Chronicler
Blue has a vague Kicker theme, although Kicker is present across the board, and this is a great bonus for playing those cards. I think this card would be worth playing with as few as 2-3 kicker cards in the deck.
Rating: 3.5
Cunning Geysermage
3 mana for a 2/2 that bounces a creature to hand on entering the battlefield is a thing of the past. Decent stats for an early game attacker with late game versatility is fine, and I don't think this is a card worth holding in hand to capitalize on kicker unless there are better spells to play sooner.
Rating: 2.0
Deliberate
Helps find the cards you want and that's it. Filler or enabler for spells matter decks.
Rating: 2.0
Expedition Diviner
A 3/2 flyer for 4 mana is pretty good, and replacing itself when it dies if you have another wizard is great. I wouldn't stack a deck with these, but I might play 2 or 3 copies in a deck with enough wizards.
Rating: 3.0
Field Research
Drawing two cards for 3 mana is pretty normal for recent standard sets, and the optional Kicker is nice but probably not likely for just one extra card. I expect to rarely see the kicker paid without some additional bonus.
Rating: 3.0
Glacial Grasp
