Welcome to the Daily Dose of Guilds of Ravnica where today we celebrate the full spoiler being released for the new set by talking about some of the remaining cards that I’m excited about. Each guild seems to have some powerhouse cards to build around and my choice for what guild I’m going to play at my local prerelease still isn’t made up. Today I want to help you decide if Boros is the way to go for you by talking about some sweet cards that you can use in your Boros deck. I have a nice variety of cards to talk about today with an instant, an enchantment, and a legendary creature. Boros is known as the guild you want to be playing if you want to have an aggressive start and overwhelm your opponent. You will notice that one of the cards I’m going to be talking about today is an Izzet card, but I think it will be better suited in a Boros deck as a finisher.
Before I get to the Izzet card, I want to talk about a card that will help you gain some card advantage after you’ve unloaded your hand to get an aggressive start early in the game. Here is Experimental Frenzy.
The subtle parts of this card are amazing. Being able to play the cards rather than cast them means that you can play lands off the top of your deck. This also means that unless the top of your deck is stacked with two lands in a row, you’ll be able to play two or more cards every turn. Its drawback is that any cards you draw (like in your normal draw phase) you won’t be able to play until you destroy the enchantment, but the card advantage you gain because of Experimental Frenzy should outweigh having dead cards in your hand. If you really need to cast them later, you can destroy the enchantment and be able to start playing the cards from your hand. I love this card because Boros has the habit of emptying its hand quickly onto the battlefield to try and get in as much damage as it can. With an empty hand, this is a great spell to cast to start rebuilding your resources.
Usually when I see cards that provide your opponent a choice between two options, it doesn’t work out well for myself or most players. This card will change that thanks to the new Jump-Start mechanic. Here is Risk Factor.
I’m looking at this card as one spell having 3 possible options:
1) You get to draw 6 cards.
2) You get to draw 3 cards and your opponent takes 4 damage.
3) Your opponent takes 8 damage.
I personally am fine with all the above options. This is a card that you want to build your deck around. If you have an aggressive deck that gets in some damage early, your opponent will be left with a tough decision later in the game. Their life total will be so low that they might not have any choice but to let your draw 6 cards. That amount of card advantage from one card is ridiculous. What makes this card go from good to great is that it can be cast as an instant. Just imagine you have six mana available at the end of your opponents’ turn and you cast Risk Factor twice. The design of this card is great and one of the best Jump-Start cards that I’ve seen in the set so far.
Finally, I want to talk about a Boros legendary creature that I’ve been waiting for with two abilities on the same creature, haste and Mentor. Here is Tajic, Legion’s Edge.
Now this is the Mentor creature that I’ve been waiting for all set. The combination of haste and mentor is so devastating if you can play some creatures on turns one and two. To top it off Tajic, Legion’s Edge give you even more reasons to celebrate. It can give itself first strike, allowing it to survive combat against creatures that would normally trade with it. This allows you to attack multiple turns to start adding those +1/+1 counters to multiple creatures thanks to Mentor. It also protects your other creatures from noncombat damage. This means that if there is a sweeper that deals damage to all creatures, Tajic, Legion’s Edge will basically take all the damage and allow your other creatures to survive. At only three mana it fits very nicely on the mana curve for aggressive decks who will most certainly have plenty of one and two drop creatures already in their deck.
Do these cards make you want to get some damage early and try and finish off your opponent before they can do anything? I know I’m ready to use these cards next week. Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of Guilds of Ravnica. Join me tomorrow as I finish off my last look at some of the new cards from Guilds of Ravnica. Next week I’ll turn my focus to prerelease week to help you get ready to open your prerelease kit.
