Khans of Tarkir Set Reivew I) A 2nd example of card evaluation

Hey Magicers.

Last time I spoke about the process I used to evaluate cards in a set. I find myself very interested in how other players evaluate cards and wanted to share my own thought process. I'd still love to hear back about yours. When you read a card and immediately thing "Wow! This is amazing"...what makes you react like that? What are you thinking when you read the card. In essence, HOW do you evaluate?

I explained my "aim to be as quantifiable as possible: cost - return approach" before and gave a bit of homework in my previous post regarding Abzan Charm in constructed

So here's my take.

From examining the mana, we know you need not be immensely lucky to be reasonably expectant to have access to this on turn 3 if you wish. What's reasonably? Well, here's an example of an Abzan mana base I've been testing in an Abzan Aggro Midrange deck:

2 Swamps
4 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
3 Plains
3 Forest
2 Tample of Malady
1 Temple of Plenty
1 Caves of Koilis
2 Mana Confluence

So 7 untapped sources of black, 11 of white and 11 of green. You've also got an additional 4, 5 and 5 sources from tapped lands respectively. I've not calculated specific probabilities of having specifically WBG available on turn 3 (those calculations are for another time and another post) so I can't say precisely if how expectant you can. I can say from my experience of building and playing with complex mana as well as referring proven mana bases from previous formats (like here) as templates, that something like the above is more-or-less right.

So step 1 is that we know we expect to be able to cast Abzan charm from turn 3 onwards. So what does it cost us?

• A complex mana base

This is a given with many spells from Khans. You've not gong to be able to cast them without paying some cost in b uilding your mana base, typically thought pain lands, meaning you start an average game on less than 20 life and / or enter tapped lands, meaning you may not be able to curve out as you always want to. This is a non-zero cost!!

• WBG mana and a card from out hand

I've spoken above about the cost of such mana but it also involves spending a card from our hand

• Not casting a spell on our own turn

This might seems strange but I believe it still can be an inherent cost. The card is an instant. Instants are often best cast at the end of your opponent's turn, allowing to maximize the time you have to gain information about your decision. If you want to do this, you'll need to keep mana open, which is a cost. You're not spending that 3 mana on a board impacting permanent or sorcery. Perhaps this suggest it is best used in a more controlling role???

Those are some high costs but what do we get in return. Well, first and foremost

• Options!

The charm cards have the upside of giving options. They allow flexibility. They also allow a deck to be build with a larger variety of spells as more than 1 spells is crammed into this card. If you did want to be build a deck with both Sign in Blood and a pump spells, both are present in this card potentially allowing more space in your 60 for different spells. This charm is not the best example for this but still works.

• First option: Exile a 3 or greater power guy

On the surface, 3 mana for a removal spell is about what we expect to pay these days so the cost is not too high in that respect. It is significantly situational though in not killing smaller creatures. The return for cost here is almost forcing good play though, as you generally prefer to cast expensive removal on better creatures, and ones with 3 or greater power are..well, "better" than those of 0, 1 or 2 power (at least on the surface). My difficulty is that in black, and white, if you want a creature removal spell, you have significantly better options in Heros Downfall and Banishing Light. Both perform the creature removal job in a far better way (not caring about the creature's stats for the same converted mana cost); the latter does have the cost of not being a sorcery though. This would mean that for a creature removal spell, Abzan Charm might find itself fighting at 3 mana with other spells.

• Second option: Sort-of sign in Blood at instant

I say sort of as there are corner cases where Sign in Blood can target an opponent to kill them but they are just that, corner cases. The rules and not the exception is you want to cast it on yourself. Abzan Charm can't be cast on your opponent - again, a kind of "force you to play it right" mode. 3 complex mana for this is about what we expect to pay for an instant. Compare the cost to Read the Bones and Divination. Both are played and both end up giving you 2 cards for 3 mana. Most players see this as quite acceptable. To that end, so  is Abzan Charm. The card draw mode is another suggestion Abzan Charm plays a more controlling role as a spell

• Third option: 2 extra power and toughness

I would be willing to make a substantial bet this is the least used option. It does have an additional implied cost that was not listed previously; At least 1 creature you can beneficially target. I'm sure most reading this will have a solid baseline for what a conditional 2-power at instant speed costs and it is considerably less than WBG. Many a 2-power flash creature has been costed at 1X and not seen play (please don't mentioned Snapcater Mage here....). The ability is also at odds with both the other 2 options which are primarily controlling, and with the colour of the spell. It has a big G in the cost. Generally, creatures with these little symbols in the top right are a bit bigger than ones which do not have such a symbol. Which means an extra little bit of pump - even continuous +1/+1 counter based pump - is not what you need or want in a card.Your monsters already are better in battle! For me, this iption is certainly better than not having it, but actively choosing to use it will only occur in some very rare, very specific circumstances, not those which will occur in a typical game.

Overall, the cards has some pros and cons. The cost is not prohibitive,but you need to jump through a few hoops to pay it. The return is about what one would expect from that cost for the first two modes, and considerably more for the third. In the context of other cards at the same converted cost in those colours, Abzan Charm is fighting for space in your 75. It does have the bonus of being flexible though. So on a scale of 0-10 or "functionally unplayable" card to "best card legal in standard", I'd place Abzan Charm at something like a 5.0 with a margin for variation of about a 1/2 point on this scale. I would roughly equate this to the card seeing a little play in standard in a dedicated Abzan control deck or possibly as a niche sideboard card outside of that.

I'd be very interested if any readers came up with any different take on this card when evaluating it for standard play. Please comment if you did!

I won't go through each card in such detail, instead hoping the 2 example given will suffice to make the rating I give each meaningful. Instead, I'll post images of cards I consider playable from Khans later today with ratings besides them based on the above evaluation approach.

'till later,

- AJ


OH! I almost forgot. I'm looking for a good catchy possibly witty but actual title for this blog instead of the filler-title I use. Suggestions apprecaited!