I’m excited to close out Quiet Speculation’s Khans of Tarkir set review with the artifacts and lands of the set. As a Limited enthusiast, I don’t like to limit financial set reviews to just mythics and rares. I’ve written extensively about the nice bumps in value one can get by stashing commons and uncommons after drafts, so I’ll be covering the less rare cards of the set today, too.

Nonetheless, I’m going to go by rarity and we’re getting started with the one colorless mythic in the set.

Rares & Mythic

Ugin's Nexus

I do not believe for even one second that a card called "Ugin's Nexus" doesn't mean the Eldrazi will be making an appearance in this block. Eye of Ugin appeared in Worldwake in anticipation of the BFMs of Rise of the Eldrazi, and I would be surprised if that didn't happen here, too.

As for the card itself, this is not very good and will almost certainly be a bulk mythic. It's the same mana cost as Time Warp, and sure, you don't have to be playing blue to run it, but you do have to jump through a significant hoop to activate it.

There is probably a local Commander metagame where extra turns (especially infinite ones) are something one may want to fight against, but is a five-mana hate card with only potential upside worth it? I'd be surprised. This is a bulk mythic, not playable in competitive formats, and certainly not playable in Limited. The sole purpose of this card is foreshadowing story elements, if I had to guess.

Altar of the Brood

This card is intriguing because of its mana cost. Being able to play this on the first turn of the game and get incremental value throughout has its upsides. It is not capable of self-milling, so unfortunately, this won't work in graveyard strategies.

As always, milling strategies only actually do something when they win. Let's start with the Limited outlook for this card. If you play this on turn one after your first land drop, you're probably looking at roughly six additional land drops in the average game. Perhaps you'll play five creatures, an aura, and another artifact. So let's say that over seven turns, this will mill around 13 cards.

Added to the seven drawn in those turns and the seven in the opponent's starting hand, that equals 27 cards, which is nowhere close to milling your opponent out. In the meantime, you've potentially helped your opponent with delve costs. This seems pretty bad unless it's being supported with several other mill cards.

In Constructed formats, this is likely even worse. With 20 more cards in the opponent's deck, but likely the same number of permanents played in an average game, this just doesn't do anything. Then again, this card puts a much faster clock on in multiples. But can you spare so many slots for a card that does literally nothing until the lethal activation?

This could be reasonable sideboard tech in very long, drawn out control mirrors. Besides that, this seems initially intriguing, but doesn't really get there when you do the math. I would be surprised if this was ever priced higher than a bulk rare, even if it did see fringe sideboard play.

In the long term, however, this may be worth stockpiling away for the casual mill player. Demand in that market is often rather surprising, as cards from Glimpse the Unthinkable to Mind Funeral show us.

Dragon Throne of Tarkir

This is a very strange card that I doubt would have had any financial upside anyway, but by being a launch promo, it especially has no financial upside. This will likely be playable in Limited, but I have to assume it's too slow and unwieldy to do anything of value in Constructed. The awkward thing is that it gives the equipped creature defender, but since activation requires tapping, that creature can't block. A bulk rare here, folks.

Ghostfire Blade

Again, we have a Limited playable and a Constructed dud. Even if a morph deck took over Standard, it is very, very rare for an equipment with an equip cost of more than two to do anything relevant in competitive formats. Godsend is the most recent example of an equip cost that resulted in an otherwise powerful card seeing virtually no play.

On the other hand, the casting cost of one plus a consistent equip cost of one would make this fit reasonably well in a deck with all colorless creatures. This is nowhere close to Cranial Plating in power level, but if any deck wants Ghostfire Blade, it's Modern Affinity. I do not believe that deck does want this, for the record. It's just the existing deck that could best put this to use.

I do think it's interesting that Ghostfire Blade subtly references Ghostfire. Between that reference, the card itself, Ugin's name making an appearance, and other hints (like Tomb of the Spirit Dragon), I would not be surprised at all to learn that one or both of the next sets in the block were "colorless matters" sets. If that happens, maybe Ghostfire Blade does become relevant for Standard. Otherwise, I think it's a bulk rare.

Fetch Lands

I wrote all about the fetch lands here, and I'm hardly the only one with an opinion on them. To summarize, I feel that:

• The art is significantly inferior to the Onslaught fetches.
• The preorder prices for these are far too high.
• We should look at what happened with shock lands before we go stockpiling fetches at their current high prices (or even after they drop a little bit).
• They are, however, a good place to hold value if you can trade Standard cards into them.
• The time to stockpile will come, you can be sure. These see a lot more play than shock lands.

Uncommons

Whether the three non-creature cards above—Heart-Piercer Bow, Cranial Archive, and Briber's Purse—are even playable in Limited will highly depend on the metagame.

Cranial Archive will be decent out of the sideboard against delve decks, but costing four mana before even doing anything is not exactly exciting. Heart-Piercer Bow would have gone well with all the one-toughness hate in M15, but that may or may not even matter in KTK. Briber's Purse is tough to evaluate. I could see how it would be good, but I could also see how it would do nothing.

These are potentially bad in Limited, almost certainly bad in Constructed, and not worth pulling from draft piles, in my opinion. Straight to the bulk box for these three. Likewise, Witness of the Ages is a boring vanilla creature that isn't costed particularly enticingly, so it is also the bulkiest of bulk.

Tomb of the Spirit Dragon

Here's another "colorless matters" card. This will be one I pull out of discarded draft decks all day long. At worst, it's repeatable lifegain for casual players. At best (and this is ambitious), it will see a little play in Modern Affinity as tech against Burn and other aggro decks. I would not be surprised to buylist this down the road for 50 cents or more.

We already know from Shards of Alara that the tri-color lands are well worth pulling, and that doesn't change here. These lands are beautiful, powerful, and cool. That's a combination that will easily result in a $1 buylist price for these uncommons.

Commons

The only common, non-fixing artifact in the set, Lens of Clarity, doesn't do anything. I don't think it's worth playing in any format and is nowhere near close to setting aside from drafts. My disdain for it is so high that it's the only card in this article for which I will not be including a photo.

Banners

I discussed the Banners here, and I reiterate that I think they're probably going to be fighting for slots with your morph creatures. Unless you really, really need the fixing and/or ramp, I can't imagine that Banners will make the cut over creatures that come down and actually impact the board state.

Financially, my gut inclination would be to pull these just in case, but the Obelisks of Shards of Alara block and the Cluestones of Dragon's Maze suggest that these will likely be worthless. I'll probably ship them out with my bulk rather than storing them. I don't expect to draft these highly, so I will not likely be shipping too many of them.

New Refuges

I firmly believed that it would only be another year before I got a dime each on all my saved guildgates, but this ten-card cycle completely obliterates that plan.

I'm going to be pulling every single one of these with the same thought in mind—a couple years after this set stops being drafted, casual demand for cheap dual lands will push these up to a dime on buylists. Hopefully Return to Zendikar won't up the ante and give us two life per land drop.

Boring

Having my article posted on Friday means I got assigned the colorless cards for review, which is pretty darn boring in a three-color set, but that's how it goes sometimes. Besides the fetch lands, there's not a lot here that isn't pretty clearly bulk, but there's some interesting stuff for Limited play. I am excited to draft this set, and I'm looking forward to making some money on these cards, too!