Hour of Devastation: Jank Set Review
I usually try to avoid writing set reviews. About a million set reviews are published every time a new set comes out, and most sound relatively the same. Cards that seem good for Standard or Modern get a high rating, a huge group of cards get a middling rating because they might show up somewhere, and a handful of obviously bad cards get zeros (sometimes along with a pun). As such, I've never really seen the point of adding yet another set review to the mix.
Then I realized that maybe we could do a set review but have it feel new and fresh. Instead of writing about good cards and how they will break Standard, what if we looks at the set from an Against the Odds perspective? Instead of discussing how likely a card is to show up in a tier deck at the next Grand Prix or SCG Open, what if we we ranked the cards solely by the craziest or most flavorful things they can do, with no concern for tournament playability?
So today, we're reviewing Hour of Devastation but from a jank perspective. If you want to read about how Hour of Devastation cards can break Standard or show up in Modern, I suggest you find one of the million other set reviews out there, but if you want the Magical Christmas Land, "it will be sweet if we can pull this off 20% of the time" perspective on Hour of Devastation, this is the set review for you!
Before getting to the cards, I should tell you: we won't be talking about every single card—cards are just too good for our purposes. Instead, we'll go color by color and talk about the jankiest of the jank and hopefully have some brief ideas about what we can do with the cards!
Rating Scale:
- 5: Jank all-star. Usually one of the first cards we'll play for Against the Odds when the set releases.
- 4: Good jank. High likelihood of showing up on Against the Odds eventually but might not be one of the very first cards we'll play.
- 3: Medium jank: Does something interesting enough that it will probably end up on the Against the Odds poll eventually but might not end up winning.
- 2: Bad jank: Could be used in a janky manner but is either missing pieces to be a really jank deck or is a good enough card that it will show up in real decks.
- 1: Tournament staple or Intro Pack rare. Part of the fun of doing a jank set review is that the worst rating is for cards that are either really, really bad (especially vanilla creatures without interesting abilities) or really, really good. I challenge you to find another set review where Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Goliath Sphinx get the same ranking.
White
Crested Sunmare
Jank Rating: 2.5 of 5
Crested Sunmare is a hard card to rate because it will probably be pretty strong in Standard, offering 10 power and toughness across two bodies for only five mana with minimal work, which suggests a low rating. However, there's another way to go about abusing the mythic—Horse Tribal—which is why it's getting a 2.5. While I'm sure there will be plenty of naysayers because the tribe doesn't have a ton of support in Magic's history (especially considering one of the handful of rare Horses in Magic is Akroan Horse, which Donates itself to the opponent when it enters the battlefield), it's technically possible to build horse tribal. Sacred Prey is our Goblin Guide; then, we have reasonable two-drops in Armored Warhorse and Temur Charger, backed up by Timbermare and Thundermare to top off the deck with some hasty threats. Throw in some cheat-lords like Adaptive Automaton and Metallic Mimic and maybe Path of Bravery as a life-gaining anthem, and we have a deck. Can Horse tribal actually win games? No, probably not, but it's good for horsing around and could even steal a game or two in the right matchup.
Oketra's Last Mercy
Jank Rating: 3.5 of 5
Oketra's Last Mercy looks like a sideboard card against aggressive decks, but maybe it's actually a combo piece. Let's say we get a Sanguine Bond on the battlefield along with something like a Spellskite to protect our enchantment. Then, we simply activate Spellskite nine times targeting some random thing on the stack, drain ourselves all the way down to two life (or maybe one with the help of a fetch land), and cast an Oketra's Last Mercy. Not only do we go back to our starting life total of 20, but this technically counts as life gain, so our opponent is going to get drained for 18 or 19 from our Sanguine Bond, which will likely be enough to kill them on the spot. We can even pull off the combo in Standard with the help of Defiant Bloodlord, but figuring out a way to drain our life total down near zero is a challenge (although we can always let our opponent help by attacking us).
Overwhelming Splendor
Jank Rating: 3.5 of 5
At a massive eight mana, it's fairly unlikely that Overwhelming Splendor shows up in Standard, even though Humility has a long play history all the way back to Legacy. Part of being a good jank player is learning to enjoy unfun games, and Overwhelming Splendor is one of the most unfun cards that's been printed in a long time. Does it win us the game? Not necessarily, but it will be overwhelmingly annoying for our opponents and probably make them wish they had went to the movies instead of Friday Night Magic. While we could use Enduring Ideal to fetch out the enchantment, this is a little too Spikey—the more Against the Odds thing to do is go Curse tribal.
Solemnity
Jank Rating: 4 of 5
Solemnity is the wild card of the white cards in Hour of Devastation. While it can do some crazy things, it remains to be seen just how against the odds these things end up being. It seems possible that some of the locks, like Glacial Chasm in Legacy or Phyrexian Unlife in Modern, actually end up being playable because they are pretty efficiently costed. That said, there are enough interesting possibilities, ranging from Decree of Silence to random cumulative upkeep cards like Infernal Darkness to Lost Auramancers, that Solemnity deserves a high rating, despite the fact that it could end up seeing tournament-level play.
White "1s"
While I could imagine all of these cards showing up in Against the Odds decks (Adorned Pouncer in Cat tribal, Angel of Condemnation with Panharmonicon, Djeru, With Eyes Open in Superfriends, and Hour of Revelation in any deck that needs a sweeper), it's hard to imagine that any of these cards could ever show up on the Against the Odds Poll. While some of them are powerful and will likely see play in Standard, none of them do anything unique or janky enough to merit consideration.
Blue
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
Jank Rating: 3 of 5
Yes, Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign is great in Commander, either as a general or as part of the 99 in a Sphinx deck, and it could possibly show up as a one- or two-of in Standard as a finisher in a control deck (although it's unlikely to unseat Torrential Gearhulk, which is a concern), but what about in Modern? One of the upsides of the Fact or Fiction ability is that it fills the graveyard, which means we can play Sphinx's End!
The basic plan is simple: we use Heartless Summoning to start playing our Sphinxes quickly and then use the Fact or Fiction ability of Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign to fill our graveyard with more Sphinxes. This, in turn, helps us find our Living End and As Foretold. When our graveyard is overloaded with Sphinxes, we simply Living End them all back from our graveyard and win the game. The random haste-granting creatures make sure we can attack and close out the game right away, because when all of our Sphinxes enter the battlefield from Living End, we'll get a huge stack of Fact or Fiction triggers, which will mill our entire library, meaning if we don't win immediately, we'll die when we draw a card for our next turn.
Fraying Sanity
Jank Rating: 4 of 5
Normally, fairly costed two-card "I win the game" combos aren't that janky, and this is exactly the kind of combo Fraying Sanity forms with Traumatize. However, mill is janky by default, which means Fraying Sanity actually rates highly on our scale. The downside of playing Mill is that all of your cards do nothing until the opponent dies—I can't count the number of times I've ended up two or three cards short of milling the opponent's library when I died. Fraying Sanity has a further downside—it does nothing on its own, instead doubling up the milling power of all of our other mill cards. That said, doubling the power of mill cards is actually quite powerful.
The best way to think about Mill is like Burn, so let's imagine that Fraying Sanity were a three-mana red enchantment that doubled all of our damage. Would this card be playable in Modern? I'm not 100% sure. Now, imagine that card existed in a format with a five-mana, 10-damage burn spell. Things start to get interesting. The upside of Fraying Sanity is that it works with non-Traumatize cards as well. If we can cast two Glimpse the Unthinkables, we mill a massive 40 cards for only four mana, which means any additional mill spell should get our opponent's library empty. Can this make Mill a "real" deck in Modern? I'm not convinced, but there's no doubt that Fraying Sanity is one of the best cards printed for a mill deck in years.
Hour of Eternity
Jank Rating: 3 of 5
Hour of Eternity could certainly show up in Against the Odds, but I imagine it would be used in conjunction with jank all-star Panharmonicon, and while having access to the blue sorcery would impact the way we build the deck (playing some things to stock the graveyard like Grapple with the Past, for example), it would still be a deck built around Panharmonicon, which makes it hard to give Hour of Eternity a very high rating. The best jank cards are build-around-mes, and while it's certainly possible to build around Hour of Eternity, it's hard to imagine it will be much more than an Ever After in most decks, although there could be something sweet with Doubling Season and Anointed Procession!
Swarm Intelligence
Jank Rating: 3.5 of 5
While we've had similar effects in Eye of the Storm, Hive Mind, Mirari, and Cloven Casting, Swarm Intelligence is unique in that it only affects us and doesn't come with any drawback like only copying certain spells (or costing mana). It also makes an instant win combo with Searing Wind and Sorin's Vengeance (also Hidetsugu's Second Rite, although this one requires a lot more work). Unfortunately, it doesn't have many good targets in Standard (see: Wildfire Eternal, which we'll talk about in a minute), but it would be smart to keep the enchantment in mind because it's very possible Wizards prints something in the next year that could make Swarm Intelligence into the centerpiece of a super-sweet jank deck in a future Standard format.
Blue "1s"
Not much to see here. Nimble Obstructionist is a legitimately good card—Stifle plus Vendilion Clique doesn't exactly scream Against the Odds. Champion of Wits could end up being playable but isn't much more than a Catalog on a body. Meanwhile, Kefnet's Last Word is just a Mind Control, and while it could show up in some sort of "steal stuff" tribal, there are approximately a million similar effects available.
Black
Torment of Hailfire
Jank Rating: 5 of 5
Let's get this out of the way first: Torment of Hailfire is a horrible, horrible Magic card. Punisher cards (cards that have multiple bad options but lets the opponent make the choice) are almost always unplayable, and Torment of Hailfire is no exception. If your opponent has plenty of life, they'll take the damage; if they have some useless lands in hand, they'll discard them; and if they have some random tokens or Thraben Inspector on the battlefield, they'll sacrifice them, so it's very rare that you'll actually get full value for your mana.
That said, there are some ways of controlling the opponent's choice, at least to some extent. If we can wrath their board, they'll have a hard time choosing the sacrifice option, and if we can attack our opponent's hand, they'll have a hard time discarding, which leaves them taking the damage. Regardless of how competitive Torment of Hailfire might be, the more interesting aspect of the card is that we have a ton of punisher cards in our current Standard format, which means we can actually build an entire deck around the effect!
Dreamstealer
Jank Rating: 2 of 5
Dreamstealer isn't a great card. A three-mana 1/2 just isn't big enough to be a Standard staple. That said, it does offers some interesting possibilities for stealing wins by Mind Twisting away the opponent's hand. Menace makes sure it can get in damage, and then just one Giant Growth should get the opponent empty-handed on Turn 4—or even Turn 3 in Modern, with the help of Birds of Paradise.
Razaketh, the Foul-Blooded
Jank Rating: 4 of 5
Razaketh, the Foulblooded gets a high ranking for one reason: there's probably a super-sweet Shadowborn Apostle deck that can take advantage of the Demon. While I haven't figured out all the details yet, being able to sacrifice Shadowborn Apostle to get Razaketh, the Foulblooded and then use Razaketh, the Foulblooded to tutor up something like Return to the Ranks to get back all of our Shadowborn Apostles seems like it could have a lot of potential. There's probably some way to turn this into an immediate win with the help of mana from Crypt of Agadeem. The only thing that keeps Razaketh, the Foulblooded from ranking higher is that its most likely jank home is really a Shadowborn Apostle deck, rather than a deck truly build around the mythic Demon.
Black "1s"
Ammit Eternal, Bontu's Last Reckoning, and Hour of Glory are all pretty boring and tournament focused, while Apocalypse Demon feels a lot like an Intro Pack rare and is basically just a really big flyer without any interesting abilities.
Red
Neheb, the Eternal
Jank Rating: 3 of 5
Neheb, the Eternal is a really hard card to figure out. While the ability seems perfect for Against the Odds, I haven't really figured out a great way of abusing it. The best I've come up with so far is trying to chain together Fateful Showdowns in Standard or Molten Psyches in Modern, but I'm not sure how likely this is to actually work out because it requires a lot of really good running to make it happen. First, we have to stick a Neheb, the Eternal and have it not get exiled by Path to Exile or Cast Out; then, we need to have one of our Windfall damage cards in hand, and even after all that, we need to draw into additional copies to actually kill our opponent. Without some sort of combo kill, it seems unlikely that Neheb, the Eternal will be good enough for competitive play or splashy enough for Against the Odds play, which puts it in the awkward middle where no one can use it effectively (except for Commander players, where Neheb, the Eternal not only is legendary but has some interesting creature types).
Jank Rating: 2 of 5
Random effects always rank highly on the jank scale, although Hazoret's Undying Fury isn't as exciting as some because it has so many restrictions. Only hitting things with converted mana cost five or less makes it really difficult to build around, especially considering the downside of having your lands not untap the next turn, which means that trying to spin into Time Warp isn't a realistic plan. Some people have mentioned Storm as a potential home, but for six mana, I'm pretty sure there are less random ways for Storm to win the game. Being the red version of Mind's Desire is interesting, and without the restrictions, Hazoret's Undying Fury would have much more potential, but as it sits, there simply aren't a lot of (or any) good ways of abusing the effect, which means it's mostly just a bad value card, making it less than exciting for jank building.
Wildfire Eternal
Jank Rating: 4 of 5
Wildfire Eternal is actually one of the more interesting jank cards from the set because it doesn't have the restrictions of Hazoret's Undying Fury. In theory, all we need to do is make it unblockable and have something sweet in hand, and we should be able to win the game. Enter the Infinite seems like the most broken thing to do, since it draws us our entire deck, and in theory, if we draw our entire deck, we should be able to have some combo that wins us the game (a bunch of Simian Spirit Guides and Lightning Storm is an easy example, or perhaps something involving Laboratory Maniac), but we could also try to use Wildfire Eternal with extra-turn spells like Time Stretch, which give us additional attacks to keep triggering Wildfire Eternal and casting more free spells. This doesn't even include some powerful red options like Worldfire (which can win us the game with a suspended Rift Bolt or by retracing a Flame Jab), Warp World (which, along with The Great Aurora, can generate a ton of advantage if we can get ahead on permanents), or cards that give us an extra attack step.
Unfortunate, our options are much more limited in Standard, with the most expensive instants and sorceries being things like Spreading Flames and Serpentine Spike, which aren't even close to game winning. In theory, we could Behold the Beyond for the triple tutor, but I'm not sure what we'd tutor up that could just win us the game on the spot. The good news is that Wildfire Eternal will be in the format for a while, and Wildfire Eternal could get much more interesting if Wizards prints some crazy instant or sorcery that can win us the game on resolution in the next year. Making a creature unblockable isn't hard; we just need the payoff to be worthwhile.
Imminent Doom
Jank Rating: 2.5 of 5
There's no doubt that Imminent Doom is janky, but it isn't the good kind of janky that makes sweet things happen a small percentage of the time. Instead, it's the bad kind of janky where it just does nothing. While it's possible to play Imminent Doom with "X" spells like Burn from Within, Walking Ballista, or Endless One, the problem is there isn't really much of a payoff, and it takes at least four turns before Imminent Doom starts to get scary. In theory, we can double up counters with Maulfist Revolutionary or Quarry Hauler, but that's a lot of work to make Imminent Doom deal two damage instead of one, or four damage instead of two, and we'd still need to cast a spell with the right converted mana cost to trigger it.
Red "1s"
Chaos Maw is another Intro Pack-level rare, and while it could show up in a reanimator deck, it's not the type of card you would really build a deck around because there are better cards to reanimate. Meanwhile, Earthshaker Khenra is an aggro card that could show up in Standard if there's a Red Deck Wins build but isn't really exciting enough for Against the Odds.
Green
Majestic Myriarch
Jank Rating: 3.5 of 5
Majestic Myriarch would rank even higher if it weren't actually a good card—all you need to do to have a 10/10 on Turn 5 is curve out, and this isn't even including the upside of picking up random keywords. However, it's oozing with jank potential as well. Sacred Cat on Turn 1 into Nef-Crop Entangler on Turn 2 into Solemn Recruit on Turn 3 into Goldnight Castigator on Turn 4 gives us a 10/10 flying, double strike, lifelink, trample, hasty Majestic Myriarch on Turn 5, which is more or less guaranteed to close out the game in just one attack. While playing bad cards to make a good card better usually isn't a good technique when it comes to building competitive decks, it's a staple of building jank.
Green "1s"
Maybe the biggest problem with green cards for the last few sets is that they have been too good. Of all the other green rares and mythics in the set, none of them really move the needle on the jank scale. Ramunap Excavator is a Legacy and Modern staple (Crucible of Worlds on a stick); Pride Sovereign looks like it could be a staple in the surprisingly powerful GW Cats deck in Standard; and while Rhonas's Last Stand has a huge drawback (like the rest of its cycle), at its heart, it's still just a two-mana 5/4, which is very much a Spike card. Out of all these cards, Pride Sovereign is closest to being a jank all-star, but the fact that GW Cats could very well end up being a real deck in Standard ruins its chances.
Meanwhile, Hour of Promise is a good ramp card that could definitely show up in a jank deck, especially if we can use it to tutor up some land-based combo like Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage, but it's really just an upgraded Explosive Vegetation, and I just can't imagine putting Explosive Vegetation on the Against the Odds poll. Meanwhile, Ramunap Hydra is just a big creature. That said, if we end up playing Desert tribal at some point, it's possible that both of these cards will show up in the deck.
Colorless
Hollow One
Jank Rating: 4 of 5
Hollow One actually has a lot of potential in an all-in jank deck featuring cards like Burning Inquiry and Faithless Looting. In theory, with enough copies of Simian Spirit Guide, we can discard three cards on Turn 1 with Burning Inquiry, play a bunch of Hollow Ones, use Simian Spirit Guide to cast a Goblin Bushwhacker or Reckless Bushwhacker, and win the game on the spot. While this requires an incredible amount of luck, it will happen some small percentage of the time. Probably the best shell is similar to the Turn Two Tokens deck we played on Budget Magic a long time ago, with Kuldotha Rebirth giving us additional ways to go off on Turn 1 and make sure our Bushwhackers are lethal.
Mirage Mirror
Jank Rating 1.5 of 5
Mirage Mirror looks like a great jank card, but it's actually made in a way that it's actually really difficult to do anything degenerate with the artifact. Since Mirage Mirror is already on the battlefield when it copies something, we don't get the enters-the-battlefield trigger, and since it doesn't gain the "pay two: become a copy" ability, there aren't any interesting loops based around copying multiple things in the same turn. While there are some synergies, like copying Dark Depths or a huge creature to get in an attack, for the most part, Mirage Mirror is a fun value card but not especially powerful as a build-around-me.
God-Pharaoh's Gift
Jank rating: 1.5 of 5
I almost left God-Pharaoh's Gift off the list altogether because the ability itself isn't really that interesting. However, "assemble" cards are staples of jank deck building (think: Tomer's quest to assemble Kaldra on Commander Clash), so even though God-Pharaoh's Gift's ability itself isn't all that interesting, it's very possible that the challenge of tutoring it up with Gate to the Afterlife could end up being a sweet deck. When it comes to building and playing jank decks, it's more about the journey than the destination, and getting six creature cards in the graveyard for Gate of the Afterlife is enough of a journey that it might be worth taking, even if the payoff itself isn't all that exciting.
Abandoned Sarcophagus
New Perspectives is a classic Against the Odds card at this point, and Abandoned Sarcophagus gives us the potential for an entirely new build in which, instead of looking to combo off in one big turn, we just cycle through most of our deck and then cast random cycling cards from our graveyard. Being able to leave up Censor from the graveyard seems pretty fun, and there are actually a lot of good cycling cards in the format, so I fully expect that we'll be taking Abandoned Sarcophagus out for a spin sooner of later, perhaps in a shell like this:
Multicolor
Samut, the Tested
Jank rating: 1.5 of 5
Samut, the Tested is a pretty bland planeswalker, seemingly at her best in some sort of aggressive beatdown deck, perhaps with trampling creatures, which doesn't sound all that janky. However, her combo potential with Doubling Season means she's worth mentioning. While there are other planeswalkers that just immediately win the game with Doubling Season (like Nahiri, the Harbinger getting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn), Samut, the Tested offers several different ways of getting the job done by tutoring out Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Xenagos, God of Revels directly, finding Nahiri, the Harbinger to find Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, or using an entirely different combo altogether like Restoration Angel and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
The Locust God
Jank rating: 3 of 5
The Locust God is the only God to move the needle on the jank scale thanks to the potential for an infinite combo with something like Dire Undercurrents or Beck // Call allowing us to draw our entire deck and making forty-something hasty 1/1 fliers. If we can assemble the combo, all we really need to do is draw a single card (maybe with a Serum Visions or Thought Scour), and we start the loop! It's also possible that The Locust God (along with the other Hour of Devastation Gods) shows up in God tribal, which has come close to winning the Against the Odds poll in the past, so it wouldn't be a surprise if we ended up playing it sooner or later.
Jank rating: 4 of 5
Leave // Chance isn't a very good card when played fairly but has a lot of potential as a combo piece. The most obvious home in Standard is as a backup Paradoxical Outcome in Aetherflux Reservoir combo decks—while it doesn't provide all of the card draw that Paradoxical Outcome does, it still offers an inexpensive way to pick up a bunch of Bone Saws or Prophetic Prisms to up the storm count for Aetherflux Reservoir. It could also work in Modern, in the Puresteel Paladin Sram'O's combo deck, where it can do the same thing: pick up a bunch of free equipment to keep drawing cards. Not only does it work as a combo piece but it also offers a way to save Puresteel Paladin or Sram, Senior Edificer from a removal spell by bouncing it back to our hand. There are probably some other sweet combos as well that I haven't thought of yet, and as a result, it seems like only a matter of time until we play a deck that needs Leave // Chance to combo off.
Reason // Believe
Jank rating: 3.5 of 5
While certainly inconsistent, Reason // Believe has a lot of power, potentially cheating an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger into play in Standard or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play in Modern. In Standard, it can combo from the graveyard with Mortuary Mire to put a creature of our choice on top of our graveyard, while Telling Time can help set things up in Modern. More importantly, scrying three on Turn 1 isn't that bad, so when we don't have enough mana to combo off, we can use Reason // Believe to help find our land drops or the removal we need to stay alive long enough to put together our combo.
Multicolor "1s"
The rest of the Gods are a bit too Spikey to deserve anything more than a 1 rating—while they are powerful and could show up in God tribal, their abilities are more about generating incremental value rather than comboing off like The Locust God. Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh is one of the most powerful cards in the set, and while it costs a lot of mana, it has the potential to be a Standard staple in control decks, assuming the format isn't super fast. Not pictured are the rest of the aftermath cards, which are oddly efficient and Spike focused this time around, which makes them more likely to show up as utility cards in real Standard decks than on the Against the Odds poll.
Lands
Desert Tribal
Jank rating: 4 of 5
Tribal decks are popular, and decks built around lands are popular, which means that Desert tribal—which combines these two things—should be a pretty sweet jank deck. There are enough lands between Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation that we can play an entirely Desert mana base, and there are a bunch of Desert payoffs as well (although none of them seem exceedingly powerful on their own.) I'd be shocked if, sooner or later, Deserts didn't just find their way onto the Against the Odds poll but win it as well.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. What other crazy, fun, Magical Christmas Land things can we do with cards from Hour of Devastation? What other "we'll pull it off 20% of the time" combos exist featuring cards from the set? What card do you think we should play first for Against the Odds from Hour of Devastation in a couple of weeks? As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
