By popular request, here we go. First, white:

Next, blue (the emerger is technically colorless, this is by color identity):

Black. This is just a dumb picture, so the meld is not shown:

Red. You will have to imagine the transformed werewolf.

Green:

And the special bonus section, colorless:



Terrarion is probably one of the better commons in the set. And the colorless piker makes creature power creep very apparent.

For rankings, I heartily recommend the Reid Duke limited reviews on Channel Fireball (LSV is a bit pressed for time atm). Discuss!

I wanted to get a feel for just how good the fight spell is this time around, and it looks very bad. All the 2/3s. And green creatures are so small! Not that others are much bigger. The best common creature just might be blue. Actually two of the common blue creatures are in the running. And the next one seems to be the white Wind Drake. We'll see.

Thank you once again for the informative piece. Well done sir

so here's my take. If nothing else it's fun to go back and see how spot on or off we were after the end of the format












I can't really give a color ranking as they all seemed balanced, I suppose i wish red had another aggressive common and white seems like it's deeper, but all seems pretty balanced

Based on Johnny's picks

RED: I think you have the red cards backwards.
WHITE: 3rd best might be Guardian of Pilgrims
BLUE: You can't really run more than 2 emerge creatures unless you are really dedicated to it, and displace is bad.
I think cultist, drag under, and spontanous mutation are all OK.
BLACK: Gavony Unhallowed seems pretty strong if you are not trying to be vampire beat down
GREEN: I think you have this reversed as well. Prey Upon seems playable but not insane, and not something you really want multiples of.

White and Red look very good... although much of the power in this set is in the uncommons.

yeah I meant Drag under not displace, i must of been thinking of disperse when i wrote that

So, here's my take on white:

I looked at uncommons, and the things are even more unclear than before. Delirium, discard, BW bleeder, spirits, the best aggro combat trick ever, a little bit of everything, and a certain lack of focus. Looking back at commons, trying to see what white should be doing, I don't think it will be very aggressive. So, my picks for first three, in order, are:

Choking Restraints
Sigardian Priest
Fiend Binder

The first two seem clear, and we all agree on them, but the third one is much more open. I can see one of the two-drops ending up higher. Guardian of Pilgrims seems like it could do a lot of work. For some reason, Dawn Gryff does not seem very strong to me. Very playable, but I'd like to have a flyers theme going to include it. Steadfast Cathar is a very interesting card, it just might turn out to be very strong. It trades with a 3/2, and attack into a 2/2, which makes it very useful both on attack and defense.

If you get the Choking Restraints in multiples, then Ironclad Slayer is money. Had a great bit o fun in Friday draft with a deck that got 2 Restraints and in multiple different games was able to use Slayer to reuse the Restraints.

I think fiend binder is going to be good in aggro/tempo, but I have not seen it played much yet.

Slayer is definitely one of those cards that go up after the first Restraints. You might even pick it speculatively, there's nothing wrong with a 3/2 for three.

Fiend Binder is an interesting card for control, since it forces the opponent to leave back two blockers if they want to block. Add the tapper, and blocking becomes very hard.

White: Archetype dependent. Priest and restraints are obviously nuts, but after that, the pick order really switches up. If you have boons of emrakul, slayer is nuts, if you can reliably delirium or you're running emergers, sentry is nuts, and if you're an aggro deck, the 2 drops are really pushed, and gryff is just somewhat good in everything. Honorable mention to Lunarch Mantle for being not unplayable in this set because the hard removal sucks so you can get free wins, and it's a sick combo with bloodbriar. This is a format with a lot of 2 and 3 drops, so it's unlikely your opponent will do nothing until turn 4 and get rekt by fiend binder.

Blue: Most blue decks suck in this format. If you're in blue, it's because either you're building the emerge deck or you opened a bomb. With that in mind, maniac, cultist, and gryff are the best cards. Sure, they don't do anything if you aren't emerging, but if you're blue in this format, your whole deck doesn't do anything if you aren't emerging. Honorable mention to new time ebb + 1 shot howling mine for punishing the people who realized Lunarch Mantle wasn't unplayable.

Red: Brazen wolves is ridiculously overpowered. After that I don't really know or care what you pick, but remember that alchemist's greeting isn't actually good if you don't have enablers for it. Honorable mention to bold impaler for being a 1 drop that you can trade for a real card when it outlives its usefulness, and to Otherworldly Outburst for being the red combat trick that actually costs 1 mana.

Green: Captive and Prey Upon are obviously good, so let's talk about some that are less obvious. Backwoods Survivalists is pretty big for the format, even if you never get delirium. You won't have trouble finding 3 drops in the format, and almost all of them are better than Woodland Patrol. Bloodbriar isn't just an emerge enabler, it also triggers off of terrarions, clues, and lunarch mantle. Primal Druid is remarkably not terrible if you're an emerge deck, splashing, or just slow. It of the Horrid Swarm is good if you have the enablers, mediocre if you don't.

Colorless: Cultist's Staff is the sort of card I'll gladly play 1 of in almost every deck. Terrarion is an all-star, enabling delirium, bloodbriar, and splashes, at next to no deckbuilding cost.

It's funny how red is great in limited and terrible in standard. Blue is a good support color for red or white. Prowess watercourser is quite strong, and as you say the bombs are sick. I bet there is a decent UG deck if you get that nasty uncommon green punch spell, and just play fatty tempo.

The eldrazi werewolves are all good, except maybe the Gg2 2/4.

Control seems awful, but maybe there is a way.

It hasn't been long and i'd like to make a remittance of marking Ulvenwald Captive as top Green Common.

I also was going to add about how impressed i've been with the tradition red 5 common drop. this one is the most pushed i can remember, but i went to look an did not notice the picture under red commons Vildin-Pack Outcast
I had a board stall where i Flipped EOT and my opp was at around 10 +/- life and i had 14 lands out. I hard cast wretched gryff, and since we were playtesting he tells me, swing with the flipped Vildin-Pack Outcast and sync all your mana into it, I can block with my entire team and still die to trample damage.

Lastly I don't care how many top names Pro's mained Make Mischief at the GP. I just can't get behind it. But how can you argue with #1 ranked player in the world and other ranked players.

Vildin-Pack Outcast is in the bottom-right corner on the red commons picture.

I don't think the little werewolf is the best green common. Primal Druid is probably better. And it certainly isn't Prey Upon, I already made a few people sorry they played with that card.

From what I've seen this far, it's either Bloodbriar or Backwood Survivalists. They both have a high floor, you're not embarrased to just play them as a 2/3 for 3 or a 4/3 for 4, and they can be great in the right deck.

i see it now, my screen was minimized down and wouldn't scroll over.

Please list argument for said Primal druid because i disagree completely and will say it's no sakura tribe elder, and it attacks for 0, and it's good fodder with an emerge creature.

I've never lost or won to a primal druid on or once left the battle field, I did lose to double 1/2's that flipped into 4/6 on T5 , And i did beat opponents who played primal druid
I will say i think's it's a high pick in Soloman draft, we valued it over many top commons.

I'm not buying it, but i'm never one to shut the door on it either. I stay open minded and would like to see just cause for this move above Prey Upon and the mana dork.