Editor's Note: Many thanks to Hooah_Pepper for stepping in and helping us wrap up our First Impressions for Future Sight.  The last installment of First Impressions Future Sight will be published sometime between tomorrow and Monday. Also, the above banner was done by Michael_Zeora. ~Streetz~

Last time around, Chris Newton covered all of the black cards from Future Sight and he opened up his review with "Black has always inspired me to not play Black."  Boy did that spark some comments from new people in the forum.  Well, actually his entire article fueled some discussion, but that is besides the point.

But today! I'm not going to open up with "Red has always inspired me to not play Red."  No.  I instead will open up with "Welcome and greetings members of the MDV Community!"  You see, I am new to writing for Magic Deck Vortex - I am Hooah_Pepper, member of the Lorehold clan of MDV.  Join me now as I write down my thoughts and impressions of the block-ending set that is Future Sight.

Here we go!

Arc Blade 3RR
Sorcery (U)
Arc Blade deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Remove Arc Blade from the game with 3 time counters on it.
Suspend 3 - 2R

Recurring damage is something that a lot of direct damage decks need to prevent stalling out, but this is pretty expensive for 2 damage every 3 turns.

C-

Bloodshot Trainee 3R
Creature - Goblin Warrior (U)
T, Bloodshot Trainee deals 4 damage to target creature. Play this ability only if Bloodshot Trainee’s power is 4 or greater.
2/3
” Hrrngh! Someday I’m going to hurl this . . . er . . . roll this . . . hrrngh . . . nudge this boulder right down a cliff.”

Four damage will take out almost any creature – especially if you have some extra ways to deal direct damage. Unfortunately you have to make his power at least 4, but there are plenty of other cards to help out with that. It has potential, but you have to work for it. It is nice in Limited formats, though.

C

Bogardan Lancer 1R
Creature – Human Knight (C)
Bloodthirst 1 (If an opponent was dealt damage this turn, this creature comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Flanking (Whenever a creature without flanking blocks this creature, the blocking creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.)
1/1

A 1/1 Flanker for 1R is pretty good, and when you combine the bloodthirst ability (which is especially good on Red creatures, with Red being the best color for dealing damage), you have a 2/2 Flanker for 1R. I like this card a lot and think it’s a great second-turn drop.

B

Boldwyr Intimidator 5RR
Creature – Giant Warrior (U)
Cowards can’t block Warriors.
R: Target creature’s type becomes Coward until end of turn.
2R: Target creature’s type becomes Warrior until end of turn.
5/5

A 5/5 for 5RR is outclassed these days, even if it does have the ability to become semi-unblockable. I think its mechanics are interesting but not worthy of any play time outside of Limited formats.

C-

Char-Rumbler 2RR
Creature – Elemental (U)
Double Strike
R: Char-Rumbler gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Elementals flourished as Dominaria healed and new forms of life adapted to the land’s reinfusion with mana.
-1/3

Double Strike was a mechanic I always liked, and when the creature it’s on is pumpable it quickly becomes crazy. The big downfall of this card is its 3 toughness, which means it will always fall prey to an Incinerate or Lightning Bolt. Even so, it’s still a nice card.

B-

Emberwilde Augur 1R
Creature – Goblin Shaman (C)
Sacrifice Emberwilde Augur: Emberwilde Augur deals 3 damage to target player. Play this ability only during your upkeep.
Legends say a djinn gave the goblins a gift they could never hope to master.
2/1

BOO. This would be half decent if you could deal the damage to creatures as well, or even instead, but that coupled with the fact that you have to wait until your upkeep to sac it means this card sucks. Plus there are millions of better goblins out there.

D-

Emblem of the Warmind 1R
Enchanment – Aura (U)
Enchant creature you control.
Creatures you control have haste.
“It takes but one spark to ignite a parched forest. Our hearts, I fear, are too dry for this new visitor.”
—Elek Longbeard

If this was a regular enchantment it would be pretty good. As is there are too many ways to get rid of it, AND you can’t even play it until you have a creature out.

C

Fatal Attraction 2R
Enchantment – Aura (C)
Enchant creature.
When Fatal Attraction comes into play, it deals 2 damage to enchanted creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep Fatal Attraction deals 4 damage to enchanted creature.

Yay, more creature removal! I like this because it can get rid of most creatures as long as you can wait a turn. Or you could always put it on your own Fungusaur/Fungus Sliver and watch them grow. It’s nice in standard, but a little less useful in other formats.

C+

Flowstone Embrace 1R
Enchantment – Aura (C)
Enchant creature.
T: Enchanted creature gets +2/-2 until end of turn.
“The seventh symbol, the Mark of Stone, stores the power of ancient Rath.”
—Tome of Elemental Mastery

This is quite a versatile aura. You can kill your opponent’s creature or pump your own! It works very nicely with Bloodshot Trainee, and since it’s a common you can pull it off fairly easy in Limited formats.

B

Fomori Nomad 4R
Creature – Nomad Giant (C)
4/4

Eh, it’s a big Hill Giant. What else can I say?

C-

Gathan Raiders 3RR
Creature – Human Warrior (C)
Hellbent – Gathan Raiders gets +2/+2 if you have no cards in hand.
Morph – Discard a card.
3/3

My first thought about this card is that it’s nothing special. At a second glance, though, it’s decent because its morph cost helps towards the hellbent ability, making it 5/5 for 3, but it won’t always be worth your card to do that… unless, perhaps, you use Madness, but that’s another story.

C

Ghostfire 2R
Instant (C)
Ghostfire is colorless.
Ghostfire deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Only those gifted with the eye of Ugin, the spirit dragon, can see his fiery breath.

Nice against pesky creatures with protection from Red and great in Limited formats, but I would never play it constructed simply because of Incinerate and Lightning Bolt.

D+

Grinning Ignus 2R
Creature – Elemental (C)
R, Return Grinning Ignus to its owner’s hand: Add 2R to your mana pool. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.
“Take care what you offer the ignus. Food, perhaps. Coins. But nothing flammable!”
—Stovic, village eccentric
2/2

Storm’s best friend. With this, you can effectively pay R for a spell as many times as you want. It also works nicely as a mana accelerator, and if nothing else it’s a 2/2 for 3.

B+

Haze of Rage 1R
Sorcery (U)
Buyback 2 (You may pay an additional 2 as you play this spell. If you do, return this spell to your hand as it resolves.)
Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn
Storm (When you play this spell copy it for each spell played before it this turn.)

Wasn’t I just talking about storm? The buyback ability is nice but often not needed or used, except in the late game, and Red usually doesn’t intend to last that long.

C+

Henchfiend of Ukor 3R
Creature – Ogre (C)
Haste
Echo 1B
B/R: Henchfiend of Ukor gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
3/2

The fact that you have be playing Black in order keep him around is a huge drawback as is his 2 toughness. His ability to be pumped by Black or Red mana is neat but doesn’t come close to making up for the other drawbacks.

D

Homing Sliver 2R
Creature – Sliver (C)
Each Sliver card in each players hand has slivercycling 3.
Slivercycling 3 (3, Discard this card: Search your library for a Sliver card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
2/2

OH MY GOD! I hate Slivers, but this is easily one of the most useful ones I have ever seen. I see many Sliver Queens, Overlords, and Legions coming into play from the middle of decks in the near future.

A+ for Sliver decks, F for everything else.

Magus of the Moon 2R
Creature – Human Wizard (R)
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
Tidal forces of the blood moon wrench and buckle the land, drawing monoliths of stone and soil toward the flaming orb.
2/2

I hated Blood Moon and I hate Magus of the Moon, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. It’s arguably the best Magus of the block and will ruin many decks in all types of tournament play, excluding Limited of course. Its only drawback is its wimpy 2 toughness.

A

Molten Disaster XRR
Sorcery (R)
Kicker R.
If the kicker cost was paid, Molten Disaster has split second.
Molten Disaster deals X damage to each creature without flying and each player.

Earthquake with split second, HOORAY! It’s great for the win or for wiping out your opponent’s army of Saprolings.

A

Pact of the Titan 0
Instant (R)
Pact of the Titan is red.
Put a 4/4 red Giant creature token into play.
At the beginning of your next upkeep pay 4R. If you don’t, you lose the game.

Oh, the possibilities. With a Djinn Illuminatus you can get infinite 4/4 Giants for free! Give them haste and hope your opponent doesn’t have a Fog/Darkness/Holy Day or use Angel’s Grace to keep from losing. Otherwise, Pandemonium is a great choice. Good combo card but not that great otherwise.

B

Pyromancer’s Swath 2R
Enchantment (R)
If an instant of sorcery you control would deal damage to a creature or player, it deals that much damage plus 2 to that creature or player instead.
At end of turn, discard your hand.

2 extra damage is good, and direct damage decks often have a nasty tendency to topdeck. I don’t think that the trade is worth it in a good deck, though.

D+

Riddle of Lightning 3RR
Instant (C)
Choose target creature or player. Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. Riddle of Lightning deals damage equal to that card’s converted mana cost to that creature or player.

Red scry is good, but this card is just too expensive and there are much better burn spells out there.

C-

Rift Elemental R
Creature – Elemental (C)
1R, Remove a time counter from a permanent you control or suspended card you own: Rift Elemental gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
“It’s difficult to heal a rift after it begins wandering about on its own.”
—Teferi
1/1

Decent in Standard but nothing else.

C

Scourge of Kher Ridges 6RR
Creature – Dragon (R)
Flying
1R: Scourge of Kher Ridges deals 2 damage to each creature without flying.
5R: Scourge of Kher Ridges deals 6 damage to each other creature with flying.
Doom casts its own flickering shadow.
6/6

A 6/6 Flyer for 8 isn’t great, but the fact that he can wipe out your opponent’s creatures and even get around untargetable nasties like Troll Ascetic makes him that much better.

B+

Shah of Naar Isle 3R
Creature – Efreet (R)
Trample
Echo 0.
When Shah of Naar Isle’s echo cost is paid, each opponent may draw up to 3 cards.
6/6

Your opponents get to draw 3 cards if they choose, but so what? You have a 6/6 trampler on turn 4! He’s not quite as good as Shivan Wumpus or Argothian Wurm, but he’s still a big fat fattie for dirt cheap.

B+

Shivan Sand-Mage 2RR
Creature – Viashino Shaman (U)
When Shivan Sand-Mage comes into play, choose one – Remove 2 time counters from target permanent or suspended card; or put 2 time counters on target permanent with a time counter on it or suspended card.
Suspend 4 – R
3/2

Useless outside of Standard and limited uses in Standard.

D

Skizzik Surger 4RR
Creature – Elemental (U)
Haste.
Echo - Sacrifice 2 lands.
6/4

Haste is good; losing land is bad. And this guy doesn’t even have trample. Use Shah of Naar Isle or any other big creature instead.

D-

Sparkspitter 2R
Creature – Elemental Spellshaper (U)
R, T, Discard a card: Put a 3/1 red Elemental creature token named Spark Elemental into play with trample, haste, and “At end of turn, sacrifice Spark Elemental.”
1/3

I like Spellshapers, and this card can be an outlet for extra lands late game, but it’s nothing special.

C

Steamflogger Boss 3R
Creature – Goblin Rigger (R)
Other Rigger creatures you control get +1/+0 and have haste.
If a Rigger you control would assemble a Contraption, it assembles two Contraptions instead.
“Whip the Xs ! Pinch the Os!
What we’re building, no one knows!”
3/3

It’s a Hill Giant with abilities that do nothing except for other Steamflogger Bosses. I guess it’s a slightly better option than Hill Giant because it gives other copies of itself +1/+0 and haste at the expense of a rare spot in your booster.

D+

Storm Entity 1R
Creature – Elemental (U)
Haste
Storm Entity comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it for each other spell played this turn.
Dweldian magi don’t enter the Realm of Thrones when they die. Instead their souls are drawn to great works of magic.
1/1

I like it a lot. Now where did I put my stack of Grinning Ignuses? This puppy has the potential to get crazy big and has a cheap casting cost to help.

B+

Tarox Bladewing 2RRR
Legendary Creature – Dragon (R)
Flying, haste
Grandeur — Discard another card named Tarox Bladewing: Tarox Bladewing gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is its power.
Despising his siblings as insults to his line, he finds and devours each in turn.
4/3

Another cool Red Dragon, but this one has Granduer which means that having a playset is actually useful. Again, tons of potential.

B

Thunderblade Charge 1RR
Sorcery (R)
Thunderblade Charge deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, if Thunderblade Charge is in your graveyard, you may pay 2RRR. If you do, play it without paying its mana cost.

Reminds me of Hammer of Bogardan. It’s kind of expensive, but it is recurring damage which is often what Red needs to finish the game. It’s great late game when you have tons of mana and nothing to spend it on.

B-

Well, that concludes my first impressions for red cards from Future Sight.  Let's take a look at the grade summaries:

2 A’s
10 B’s
11 C’s
7 D’s
And Homing Sliver

Overall it’s not a bad showing for Red. There are a lot of average cards as well as some useless ones, but there are a couple that really stand out. There’s definitely enough fire to toast some Elves so I’m a happy camper.

That and I hope everyone enjoyed my review of Future Sight Red.  Let me know your thoughts in the forums! Remember, it’s always better to give than receive.

~Hoahh_Pepper~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
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The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
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Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
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