Hour of Devastation - Cards That Are Better (or Worse) Than I Thought in Limited

For most Magic: The Gathering releases, I publish some form of content evaluating individual cards for limited, constructed or both. For Hour of Devastation, I released a Prerelease Primer and a Draft Pick Order list and, while I think I was correct about most of my choices, there were enough cards that I wildly misjudged to spur me to write this article. With a number of MTGO drafts along with a handful of Sealed pools and prereleases under my belt, here are some of the cards that I overvalued or undervalued in my initial assessment.

1. Pride Sovereign - Overvalued

When I saw this card, I was immediately impressed. Makes two 1/1 lifelink cats every other turn? Damn, that's spicy! Well, I played it and when it survived for more than a turn or two, it was great but honestly, it dies to literally every single piece of removal. Then the cats that it sometimes leaves behind are usually too inconsequential to make any lasting difference either against speed, size or evasion. They are only 1/1's after all. Don't get me wrong, this cards is still great but I initially put it on the level of the broken gods of Hour of Devastation and it's nowhere near their power level.

2. Ammit Eternal - Undervalued

You know what I should have put on the level of the gods? This totally bonkers zombie crocodile demon. A 5/5 for 3 mana is totally absurd and if you're opponent stumbles at all against this monster, the game is over. Combined with the fact that it has afflict 3 so it can't be profitably chump-blocked and the fact that if it does connect, you get to remove all the -1/-1 counters on it is ridiculous. I drafted this recently in a mediocre zombies deck and I won every single game where I cast this on turn 3. Even in the late game, it's still a 5/5 with Afflict 3 that dominates the board if your opponent ran out of gas. Yes, sometimes, you'll cast this and your opponent will immediately deal with it but, if they don't, they'll generally just scoop in a couple of turns. This card is nuts and should have been Tier 1 in my Pick Order List.

3. Rhonas's Last Stand - Overvalued

I've drafted or played with this card three times now and it has never failed to disappoint. A 5/4 for two mana is gross but the drawback is real. Not untapping your lands is a serious downside and even when I cast it on turn 2, it got immediately Unsummoned and left me wide open for two turns. I lost that game because I could never regain tempo. Listen, I get it, if they don't have a way to deal with this token then you're getting a ton damage in but most removal crushes this play early and, in the late game, it's not strong enough to hold it's own. I'm still going to go for it on occasion but I'm probably taking Desert's Hold or Abrade or Open Fire over it in most drafts. 

4. Apocalypse Demon - Undervalued

I'm honestly surprised that I'm bringing up this demon because he just looks so bad. Hear me out though. So far I've been able to play with him twice and both times he's won me games on his own. Typically, you'll need to have some sort of synergistic deck to make him a great addition (I played him in cycling and G/B value) but I found that he overperformed. Sacrificing a creature sucks but generally, in the games where he is good, you're just sacrificing something locked down with Desert's Hold or a Dune Beetle or a Doomed Dissenter or Feral Prowler or some other creature that's disposable. The best part of it is that you get to choose. You don't have to sacrifice anything if you don't want to. Maybe you can untap it with a Vizier of the Tumbling Sands or Spidery Grasp. I've also never played him where he's not the biggest creature in the skies, basically ensuring that you get to smash with him if he does untap. I'm still not sure if I'm first picking this demon but I'm definitely going to be giving him a little more stock.

5. Uncage the Menagerie - Overvalued

When I first read this card, I felt like the value of drawing three 3-mana creatures was pretty solid for a 5-mana investment. However, there's a lot that can go wrong here. What if you draw two of your four 3-mana creatures before you get to play Uncage the Menagerie? What happens if the turn you take off to cast this, you just die to an aggressive attack? What about when you cast this to go find your bomb rare and it immediately dies? You just spent two turns and a ton of mana for a removal spell. I'm not almost entirely off of this card. It is still playable in most decks but I will certainly not be prioritizing this slow, situational, creature-only draw spell. 

6. Torment of Scarabs - Undervalued

I was really skeptical of this uncommon. I don't like giving my opponent options, I don't like that this card does basically nothing the first turn you play it, and I don't like that discarding eternalize creatures seems totally awesome for some opponents. However... once you cast it on turn four, as long as you can maintain a stable board, Torment will win you the game. Not obviously, not with any flash or pizzazz, but sure as shoot, it will win you the game by afflicting incremental diminishes. Sometimes they just take the three damage, sometimes they'll sacrifice a token or discard a land but all of these things add up faster than I thought they would. Taking six off of this curse makes attacking riskier, discarding lands makes eternalizing more difficult and, by the end of the game, sacrificing chump blockers or tokens clears the way for your army to get through. Obviously, this card will do nothing if you're behind but if there is parity of any sort, this will break it in your favor. 

7. Hour of Eternity - Overvalued

While I'm still convinced that this card is good, I'm less convinced that it deserves to rank among the likes of Crested Sunmare and Nicol Bolas. I have not had the chance to cast this card in limited yet but it's been played against me numerous times and each time I though it was good but not great. The first knock to it is that you need to have something worthwhile in your graveyard. If your creatures haven't died or they've been exiled or they've been tapped on board then Hour of Eternity does absolutely nothing. Hour of Eternity then asks that you have good creatures in your graveyard. This means you want your 4/4's to matter with flying or lifelink or menace so you need to set that up. Furthermore, it produces tokens which immediately die to Unsummon, Winds of Rebuke or anything of that nature. So, while I still believe that this card is solid, it also has a ton of hoops for you to jump through if you want your mana's worth.

8. Hazoret's Undying Fury - Undervalued

Phew. This card is bad. It's a bad card. Basically, it asks you to pay twelve mana for an average of 9-mana worth of cards. Bad. So, why am I saying that I undervalued this? Because, technically, it's not always bad. Sometimes its even pretty good. I've had this card cast against me twice and both times by an inexperienced player and both times it was great. He had run out of cards in his hand, I was winning on board with a card or two in my hand and then he cast Hazoret's Undying Fury spiking two creatures and two removal spells, smashing my board and free-rolling a bunch of monsters into play. While I'm certainly an unlucky person, it did win him the game. I asked it about him afterwards and he told me that he didn't put any spell into his deck that the card couldn't hit. So, after thinking about this a little more, I'm breaking it down like this: Casting Hazoret's Undying Fury as the last card in your hand with a deck loaded with cards it can hit is good value. It basically just slams spells that you may or may not have top decked for the next couple of turn all into play at once. Still, this puts a lot of restrictions on your deck building, sits dead in your hand for multiple turns if its in your opening hand, and, most importantly, doesn't guarantee anything. You could hit four lands and then just die. So while I'm bumping this card up to playable, Tier 7ish level, don't be fooled and first-pick this in any draft. Unless, of course, you don't care and you just want to watch the world burn. Then go for it.

9. Overcome - Overvalued

Yes, this card is nuts. Yes, it will win a ton of Magic: the Gathering games. But with the infusion of Hour of Devastation's removal, it feels like there are less and less creatures that stick around on board. I've had multiple experiences where I had Overcome in my hand with only one or two creatures on the battlefield because the rest had been killed or countered. By the way nothing is more depressing than have a board filled with tokens and creatures, passing the turn with Overcome in your hand for the win next turn, and getting blown out by Bontu's Last Reckoning, Hour of Revelation, or Hour of Devastation. The proliferate nature of removal in this set sort of negates the power of Overcome and I would no longer put it on par with the best uncommons of the set. Again, take all of this with a grain of salt because it's still a great card and people will continue to win with it. All you need to do is open an Oketra's Monument and you're really doing it.

10. Endless Sands - Undervalued

Talk about a first-pickable land. This card has impressed me so much that I'm playing it in all of my non-control Standard decks. Seriously, it's all upside here. Here's something that happened earlier today: Exiled a Decimator Beetle and Ramunap Hydra, both which were locked down by Unquenchable Thirsts. Then exiled a Gravedigger for flavor. Then brought them all back, instant speed, at the end of my opponent's turn returning a Greater Sandwurm to my hand. Suffice it to say, I'm a huge fan of Endless Sands and you should be too. It's a desert for the desert-matters cards, it's blanks your opponents removal and it triggers multiple enters the battlefield abilities. I can't say enough good things about this card. Forget that it looks innocuous, it's an entire library of value. Pick it highly and only let it slip by in favor of top-tier removal or bomb rares. 

Thanks for Reading and Good Luck!