Keeping track of the new demons in Magic is a hobby of mine. We have a couple of new ones in Khans. Check this guy out: Butcher of the Horde.
A 5/4 flyer for 4 mana is a good deal, even if it is in three colors. The triple color combinations are going to throw off a lot of card evaluations. Even with all of the new color-fixing, getting three colors consistently is no walk in the park. I like my demons like I like my coffee: black. This demon is a bunch of colors. His ability is in-theme for demons, so that's nice.
Kheru Lich Lord, See the Unwritten,
I like cards that let me play stuff for free. Bonus points if it's random. Hey, I like spinning the wheel! Kheru would be sweet as a Commander, but alas he is not legendary. Still, if he's in your colors you can get extra mileage of your creatures. See the Unwritten feels "hobbled." Cards like Genesis Wave have a much bigger top end. But we only get one Genesis Wave, right?
I takes what I can gets.
Haymakers are what makes Commander fun, for me at least. Empty the Pits is one of those cards. Like Army of the Damned, it can give you a swarm of Zombies. It's awesome because it's an instant. For flavor reasons, Zombies have been coming into play tapped for a little while now. Thematically, I like it. But, it means waiting around for the clawing and digging Zombies to get up through the graves. Unlike in the movies, your opponents don't stand there, slack-jawed, while the Zombies come to life. With Empty the Pits, you can summon your Zombie army just before you untap. Evil.
Hooded Hydra
Dat art.
Lots of the art in Magic is questionable. It's gotten better over the years, but every once in a while there's a picture on a card that's just so damn cool. Hooded Hydra is one of those. The way all the heads are turned, like it just found it's prey. Woah.
Green creatures have also gotten pretty crazy over the years. It started a long time ago. Red got Lightning Bolt and Green got Giant Growth. All things being equal, you could cast Lightning Bolt as long as you had a Red mana. Giant Growth required a Green mana, but it also required a creature. So, to get the same amount of damage through, you needed a creature to target and that creature needed a way to get through.
If you only got to choose one spell for your deck, it would be Lightning Bolt. It's less restrictive. Even though Giant Growth can theoretically "do more" to save your creature in a fight, Bolt gets the job done with less fuss. (Besides, a well-timed Lightning Bolt can save your creature in a lot of situations, too.)
Things were out of balance. They knew it. They printed Shock. Effectively, they were saying, direct damage spells with no restrictions need to be "slower" and less versatile. That worked for a while. But Green still felt underpowered. I remember winning a small, local tournament with a mono-Green deck back in the day and feeling like a god. It was a big deal because Green was a joke.
As time marched forward, Green got better designed cards. The cards feel "more Green" now. Look at Hooded Hydra. It scales with how much mana you have. It leaves behind snakes when it dies. And it has tricks.
You know what it doesn't have? Deathtouch.
It looks like it should have Deathtouch, but there isn't room on the card for anything else.
It does have Morph, though. I can't wait for the confusion to begin. For a game with as many rules as Magic has, Morph is in the running for the most complicated. Explaining it and understanding it are relatively easy. Using it properly is tricky.
I'm not saying the card isn't cool. It's damn cool. I just would have traded Morph for Deathtouch. Cleaner card. More flavor.
Utter End
Oloro needed another way to deal with pesky permanents. Yeah, that's it. Oh, and look! A promo. Hell, it's even an instant. It can't target lands, but it does exile the target. Compare to Vindicate, Oblation, and Mortify. Pick your poison.
Banners
Color-fixing at common, one for each three-color combination. Can be turned in to draw a card. It's not super-exciting, but I'll take it.
Refuges
Okay, these aren't technically "refuges" by name, but they are lands that come into play tapped, tap for two colors, and gain you a life when they enter the battlefield. Slow lands aren't my thing, but these are at common and do color-fix. Plus, there's one for each two-color combination. The names they used on these lands are impressive and evocative of the areas they are supposed to represent. If they had reprinted true dual lands, these are what I would have wanted them to be named.
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