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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