Kaldheim Limited Review

Published: 01/22/2021

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Main Themes

Foretell
Tribal
Equipment, Auras and Vehicles (Pants)
Snow
Exile a creature from your graveyard
Two spells

Common Ranking

White
Blue
Black
Red
Green
Other

Instants

White
Blue
Black
Red
Green

Main Themes

My first impression of the set is that it is a little less synergy driven than most sets. It almost feels like they forgot some enablers and payoffs. There's an 'exile a creature card from your graveyard' theme and a 'cast your second spell' theme which both seem a little half baked. There are cool tribes and changelings but not many reasons to care about them. There's snow in 3 colors but it doesn't look like it does much. No card will be sadder than a Kaldheim Snow-covered Plains .

Foretell

Cards with the Foretell mechanic can be exiled face down for {2} and then cast later for their foretell cost. It seems like a very skill testing mechanic to play both with and against. There's a cycle of 4 drop commons with foretell for 2 and I expect whether to foretell them on turn 2 or cast a two drop will be a hard decision which depends a lot on the texture of your hand and what your opponent is doing. In general they'll lead to a much harder puzzle of how to optimally sequence your spells.

Foretell matters isn't a thing. Only two blue cards reward you for having more foretells at all, Karfell Harbinger the only common. But with 33 total foretell cards and 17 commons for an as fan of about 2, spread evenly throughout the colors, they're sure to be a part of almost every limited game.

Playing against, every time your opponent foretells there'll be some partial information to factor into your decisions and a puzzle about what it could be. Note every color has at least one common instant foretell card as well, adding to the importance of deducing what the card is.

Every time you do (or don't!) foretell a card you're sharing some information with your opponent. Some plays to look out for:

If you foretell something that could plausibly be a trick and then you notice your opponent playing around that trick it may be worthwhile to leave it foretold instead of casting it if in fact it's a creature.
If you have a trick and you think your opponent will play around it if you foretell it, consider keeping it in your hand.

Tribal

Overall the tribal themes are much lighter than I would have expected from the appearance of changelings. The tribes to care about are: Elves, Dwarves, Giant, Berserker. In addition there are some cards which reward you for having matching creatures which is another reason to pay attention to tribe.

There are no elves matters cards at common. At uncommon Elderfang Ritualist , Thornmantle Striker and Elven Ambush are the main reasons to want to focus on elves. Similarly there are no common cards which care about dwarves and at uncommon there are Armed and Armored and Bearded Axe . There are a lot of elves and dwarves at common though so you don't need to work too hard to make these cards incidentally good. There are 8 elves at common split between black and green and 7 dwarves at common split between red and white.

There is a common, Squash , which cares about giants but it's good enough that you don't have to worry too much about enabling it. At uncommon there's Fire Giant's Fury , Giant's Grasp , Glimpse the cosmos and Invasion of the giants . There's comparatively fewer giants with only four commons split between blue and red.

There are only Berserkers matters cards at rare.

Littjara Kinseekers , Raise the Draugr and Bloodline Pretender also reward you for caring about creature types.

Snow

There are only 4 commons which reference snow and only 5 with snow mana costs. The upside of this is that you can probably get your Berg Strider s and Priest of the Haunted Edge s late. When I was looking at the spoilers as they came out I thought they'd be quite premium. I suppose there's a pretty big different between Bergy, who only needs one snow source and Priest which really wants your whole mana base to be snow if you can manage it.

Equipment, Auras and Vehicles (Pants)

Again there are no common payoffs for playing a pants style deck. Unless you count Giant Ox . For me the most emblematic card of the theme is Armed and Armored . The big downside to filling your deck with Vehicles and Equipments is they don't do anything on their own. So now you can play a card which doesn't do anything unless you draw the cards that don't do anything unless you draw a creature. The design is sweet but I don't think it'll come together very often.

Though not many low rarity cards call out pants specifically there are a number of RW commons which seem designed to be suited up. Specifically in white I mean Battlefield Raptor , Starnheim Courser and Story Seeker and in red I mean Fearless Pup .

Adjacent to this theme is the cycle of Runes and the Runed Crown . The cards seem a lot of fun to me. I guess an extra toughness makes Setessan Training an uncommon. I can't believe Inga Rune-Eyes has nothing to do with the cycle. Seems like a major oversight to me.

Exile a Creature from your Graveyard

In every color but blue there are two "exile a creature card from your graveyard" common or uncommons. I guess it's a clever way to make a card not be useful until later in the game without just making it more expensive. Or make an activated ability that can't just be activated every turn. They play well with Immersturm Raider

and Seize the Spoils

but mostly I think the intent is to hold them until creatures naturally trade and not build around the condition.

Two spells

There's a very strange mini-theme in black white that rewards you for casting two spells. Seems like a blue red thing to me but it's 2021. At common there's Infernal Pet . Codespell Cleric and Doomskar Oracle . I have to say the only one that I'm interested in playing is the Oracle. The cleric seems particularly bad as a bad one drop that doesn't really have much upside later in the game. I guess it wears pants though. At uncommon there's Firja, Judge of Valor , Bloodsky Berserker and Clarion Spirit which are all pretty exciting. Well maybe not the Berserker.

The theme plays well with foretell since it makes it easier to double spell. It also plays well with the runes. So I like how it slots in with the rest of what's going on but it still seems a little strange.

Annotated Ranking of Commons

Of course any given pick should depend on your previous picks and the synergies you are aiming at but to first order I think this is a reasonable ordering of the cards by power level. I include annotations by cards which I think have high upsides or have decks which really want them. Please let me know if you think I got any cards very wrong. I missed that Pious Wayfarer was great for instance.

Note I prefer rankings to ratings because there has been some drift in limited power level (I think this drift is most obvious when considering the number of 'unplayable' limited cards in 2010 vs. today) and what matters when making pick and inclusion sets is a cards relative power level in the set not in the history of magic.

White [+]

I might be overrating this card a little bit. I don't really like 4 mana 3/2 fliers that much and the line of text might not be that relevant. I'm imaging a play pattern where you and your opponent both play and trade two drops but that isn't super common and in foretell world it might be even rarer.

This is a lot of stats on a card which is essentially a 4 drop so I might be underrating it a little bit. It reminds me of cards like Watchful Giant which I generally don't like, but the primary mode of foretell turn 2 or 3 cast turn 4 is way less clunky.

I don't think I'm missing another Pious Wayfarer here. The upside is so much lower and it's not even good as a 1 drop.

This isn't even a Giant. Should have named it Regular Ox. Jokes aside I think it's a fine card for a pants style deck. It caries equipment and auras well in addition to crewing. But don't take it early.

Sort of a card for two spells decks. It also plays well with some sort of UW foretell flash deck I'm imagining, where you foretell a bunch of cards which you pretend are Iron Verdict s and Saw it Coming and then if your opponent doesn't play into it, or you're just bluffing, you cast cards like this. I'd rather have Behold the Multiverse play the role but you can't be too picky. In any case I'm not excited about this card.

This might be a main deck card in this format. But I think more often than not the non-pants decks will have no important targets.

Blue [+]

This card is really good friends with Pilfering Hawk and Battlefield Raptor .

I don't have a lot of faith in the snow deck but you really only need one snow source in your deck to play it and three to make it fairly consistent.

There's an obvious comparison to Zulaport Duelist which impressed me a lot in ZNR. That extra toughness goes a long way towards making it a 2 for one.

I really don't like 3 mana 3/2s. It's cute that it enables 'creature in graveyard' and can also fateseal. But I'd really rather not.

Does the text on this card make it better or worse? I guess if you have some weird control deck with lots of disdainful strokes and Iron Verdicts it comes in handy. But I think I'd rather just have a 5/6. At least it's a finisher for the UW flash-foretell deck that you can get late.

Black [+]

I might love Mind Rot a little too much. Aspect of Lamprey was one of my favorite cards in THB. What other cards gets better when you add a little marginal upside and increase the mana cost? This card even still has the cast on turn 3 mode. Though I don't think I'll opt for that one very often. Note this upside is extra important in this set because foretell means people will get hellbent a little faster than normal.

A common problem with 2 mana removal spells is if that's your two drop you don't really want to waste it on their two drop but you also don't want to fall too far behind if you don't have any other plays. I like how this one slows down their offense and can later trade for something good. It sort of asks for a lot though so I have it in the middle. In reality it'll usually be excellent or unplayable in a given black deck.

Reminds me of Rage-Scarred Berserker which I never liked. I think it was a little worse in THB because the set was so synergy driven. Two is so much more than one for this kind of effect though and I think it will enable a lot more hard to defend alphas.

This card reminds me a lot of Catacomb Crocodile which was fine. The ability will be valuable in board stalls but it's clunky.

I missed that Ill-Gotten Inheritance was great but I think losing the activated ability and the spectacle synergy makes this a fair bit worse. On the other hand end step is better than upkeep so maybe it's not too bad.

This is the only common which combos with Shackles of Treachery . It's certainly sweet if you can get that going.

Red [+]

Of course you don't really need any giants to play this card though they make it a lot better. There aren't a ton of giants, and the cheapest common is Craven Hulk . It's real best friends are Masked Vandal , Guardian Gladewalker and Mistwalker .

Being a 2 mana 2/2 is a lot better than being a 1 mana 1/1 so I think this card is significantly better than Bloodlust Inciter p>

I think this card is actually better than its two mana counterparts because of the cast your 5 drop on turn 4 thing. It's nice with Hagi Mob. It's a lot more painful to keep a 1 or 2 lander with this as your only castable though.

There is no common payoff for being a pants deck but there is a hate card.

Green [+]

Joraga Visionary didn't really impress me, but the extra toughness makes the card so much less likely to trade with a 2 drop. Also being able to come down on turn 3, make it a much more exciting card.

Englarge was a really good card. This is a little more conditional and will usually be a little less power but I think it'll still be good.

Eat your heart out Blossoming Defense p>

I love this card's combo with Sculptor of Winter. Also since there aren't that many snow cards I think you'll often want to be full Sultai instead of just two of them. Adding to this effect is how incentivized you are to take the snow dual lands and off color snow lands so I wouldn't be surprised if the snow deck was 5c by default.

Starting from this card I don't think any of the remaining cards are very good (and I'm also not excited about the previous two) which makes me thing green might not be a very good color in this set.