Yawgmoth's Destiny: Red
Brought to you by the Committee Hastening Everyone's Ash-causing Play (CHEAP), which wishes to thank R&D for all the really cheesy burn in Destiny.
Yawgmoth's Destiny: White (Part 1) Yawgmoth's Destiny: Blue (Part 2) Yawgmoth's Destiny: Black (Part 3)
June 10, 1999
AEther Sting 3R
Enchantment. Does 1 damage to your opponent when he casts a creature spell. All: Useless
Even if your opponent casts nothing but creature spells, this doesn't do enough damage to justify its casting cost. Shellshock may affect both players, but it costs less and does more than twice the damage. If you're worried about the damage to yourself too much, you shouldn't be using these types of spells in the first place.
4/4. T,sac a creature: Do X damage to any target, where X is the sacrificed creature's power. All: Useless The ability is nice, and sixth edition makes it a little nicer. But at six mana you need a lot more.
Cinder Seer 3R
1/1. 2RT: Reveal X red cards, do X damage to any target. EX,T2: Useless US: Weak
If one of the seer abilities was going to be good, this was going to be it. It can control the board and damage opposing players. But the cost is just too high considering its vulnerability. At a cost of four you're forced to hang back to use it well, and that means hanging back in the first few turns for a creature that is likely not to still be around. If you're not using it as creature removal, then a normal creature would end up doing more damage. When you are using it as creature removal, it's not bad, but you can't play both it and Cursed Scroll and I think it's clear which one you should choose.
1/1. Mountainwalk. R: +1/+0. All: Useless
If you want it to have mountainwalk it'll get killed. If you don't it's overpriced by a mana.
6/5 Flying. When you control no artifacts sacrifice Covetous Dragon. EX: Weak T2,US: Good
It's not good in Extended because there's no deck for it to go into. Combo decks are too good for you to play a deck focused on it. You can bring it out turn 2 with a Mana Vault, but you'll probably get killed or get it plowed. There's also too big a risk of running into various forms of mass removal. In type 2 this is a natural into some versions of Wildfire. In Urza's block the banning of Voltaic Key makes playing that kind of deck harder, but certainly far from impossible using a Ponza type deck. And the Dragon gives you enough of a mana discount and enough power for it to be worth the effort.
Flame Jet 1R
Sorcery. Cycling 2. Deals 3 damage to target player. EX,US: Weak T2: Good
Type 2 is where this is going to shine. In Extended you have more than enough better burn. In Urza's Saga there isn't enough other burn to make this strategy worth trying. The reason to play Flame Jet is if you're going for pure SRB, the 20-pt burn strategy. No longer is Sligh running as a control deck, although that's the direction most people are trying to take it in. That won't work. There are too many other decks that can overwhelm that strategy, or even just ignore it. The right path is to just try to kill your opponent as fast as possible, which means cards like Sonic Burst and Flame Jet. Creatures in the deck are included as a way to fill the one slot after including Shock and Cursed Scroll, to get some quick damage in and to fuel Reckless Abandon. It looks something like this:
You don't cycle Flame Jet. You don't burn their creatures unless you have to. You just go straight for the throat and don't let go. This is the second real tragedy of Urza's Destiny. The first is Yawgmoth's Bargain, of course, but that is easily fixed. This one isn't. Sligh was almost dead, and they went ahead and revived it. There needs to be an end, right here and for all time, to spells that damage players without them having done something. You want to damage them for casting white spells, fine. You want to damage them for playing non-basic land, also fine. You want to damage them for the general historical heck of it? That's not acceptable. These types of cards lead to 20-pt damage decks, and those are the stupidest decks in the game. If people want to play Magic: The Puzzling with combination decks, that's not ideal but I can live with a certain amount of it. If you want to play Magic: The Counting, I have a problem with that. Cards that damage players have to be bad, because otherwise these types of decks get too good. That makes these cards useless to other types of decks that aren't just minor variants on that theme.
2/2, first strike, haste. All: Useless
Oh, please. This is another creature out of homelands. If you're going to charge four mana for a creature whose purpose is to attack and block, you need to have a convincing argument that it's better than balanced cards costing one less, like Suq'Ata Lancer.
Enchantment 2: GF deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Flip a coin. If you lose the flip, target opponent gains control of GF. All: Fun
Rolling Thunder is a much better card. You get the same ability to distribute the damage, you get to do more damage (on average) and you don't let your cards fall into the wrong hands. This card's going to make draft and sealed tournaments a lot more fun, though. You're going to have situations where player 1 activates it four times in response to each other, the first causes a switch in controller, and the new controller puts three new activations on the stack. I think that's kinda funky. But you're still not going to put this in many tournament level decks, since doing more than 3 damage with it (on average) requires more mana than the effect is worth.
2/1. When it dies, destroy target land. All: Useless
Again, the power of this ability was probably just overestimated. Destroying a land is one of those abilities that needs to be done quickly, or it loses much of its value. The first use of a land is generally a significant amount of its value, and the first three are (as shown by Gemstone Mine) a majority in most cases. By the time you lose the Gardener in combat, destroying that land will often be of very little value. Avalanche Riders is good because the effect is immediate. This is bad because it isn't.
Goblin Marshal 4RR
3/3. Echo. When it dies, put two 1/1 red Goblins into play. All: Useless
Six mana for a 3/3 and two 1/1s is already too much. Add to that not getting the 1/1s until the 3/3 dies, and the need to pay echo, and you get one very bad card. At four mana it would be interesting, at five boring. At six it's just bad.
2/1. When Goblin Masons dies, destroy target wall. All: Good
This card has the very funny problem that if there's a wall to kill then that wall will just block them and therefore prevent them from being traded away. But this is certainly a step up from other 2 power creatures that would fill a Sligh deck's 2-slot sometimes, and it is a goblin. Reckless Abandon and Goblin Grenade give it profitable ways to die.
Hulking Ogre 2R
3/3, cannot block. EX: Weak T2,US: Good
Considering the types of decks that this is going into, not being able to block is a pretty minor point. This solves the problem of red decks having nothing good for their 3-slot creature, especially in US block where there were decks running Cathodian because there was nothing better.
Impatience 2R
All: Weak
Which is more likely: A player casts a spell or can't cast a spell? Which would you rather do, force your opponent to cast a spell or force them not to? I'm obviously comparing this to Spellshock. Still, 2 damage a turn is worth looking at, and decks with enough counterspells and lands will end up taking as much as one damage a turn from it no matter what. This could be a good SB card against decks you know won't be able to cast spells that often. If nothing else, most decks will eventually hit land. As usual, of course, the trick on your end is basically not to care.
Growing Enchant Creature. When it dies, do X damage to any target. All: Useless
You're counting on a creature living and then dying at the right time. This is a big issue. And you don't get that much in exchange. Like the rest of the cards in this cycle of growing creature enchantments, you should stay away.
Keldon Champion 2RR
3/2, echo, haste. When it comes into play, it deals 3 damage to target player. EX: Weak T2,US: Good
It's a little more expensive than Ball Lightning, but it sticks around if you want it to, and that's a big plus. In addition, it will do three damage even if it doesn't get through. The Champion can go in decks which couldn't use Ball Lightning because they didn't have enough red sources. Of course, I'm quite unhappy about this card because it's part of the Sligh revival.
4/1, Echo. When it comes into play destroy target artifact. EX: Useless T2,US: Weak
Uktabi Orangutan feels like it's missing echo, doesn't it? If it was printed today, it certainly would have echo. The Vandals were not so lucky as to be from Visions, so they're stuck with Echo. The problem is that they're not going to take the place of Viashino Heretic, which is a much better anti-artifact creature for 2R. Still, if you want to go beyond the Heretic this may be better than Rack and Ruin or Meltdown in many situations.
Sorcery. Sac X mountains to do X damage to target player. All: Weak
It's a bad card, a sorry excuse for a replacement for Fireblast. But it will be used anyway, because it's one of the player-damaging cards that go into the 20-pt damage deck. There's normally no reason to use this card unless it kills your opponent. What I have to say about this situation, I said under Flame Jet.
Enchanted Creature gains Haste. At end of turn, return Mark of Fury to your hand. All: Useless
You could think of it as more or less a sorcery with buyback 0, since it returns to your hand. This version has the advantage of being abusable with the Enchantresses, although if that's what you're after there are much better ways to go about it. The question is whether this effect is really worth it: It allows you to pay one more mana to give creatures you cast haste. The answer is it isn't. If it belongs anywhere, it's in a Sligh deck where you put it on Lightning Dragon, but it really isn't worth putting on anything else. The effect just isn't worth a card slot.
Sorcery. Sac a creature: Do 4 damage to target creature or player. EX: Weak T2,US: Good
This is a good card, and I'd like it if it didn't go straight into the 20-pt damage deck of despicable death. It's basically a controlled Sonic Burst, really, since the creatures you sacrifice will normally cost one mana. Creatures are generally valuable, but you have more control over the effect and can use it to build up your burn capacity better.
Repercussion 1RR
Enchantment. Whenever a creature is dealt damage, Repercussion deals that much damage to that creature's controller. All: Good
Fire Covenant, here I come! Pariah is another good idea. But you don't even really need a good idea. This card is like Bedlam in that it makes blocking irrelevant. You get to kill off creatures, but you still take all the damage. In addition, you can burn creatures while burning the opponent at the same time. A red deck that gets this out against a creature deck gets a huge advantage. If you manage to get multiples of it out, things get insane. Expect to see this become a staple in the sideboards of burn decks if creature decks remain around.
Reveal X red cards: Do X damage to any target. EX: Weak T2,US: Good
For Scent of Cinder to be good in Extended it would have to average more than three damage, and it won't. For it to be good in T2 and US it needs to average three, and it can do that. It can certainly do that on turn 2, when you have 5 cards left in your hand. Its power falls off after that but so did that of Black Vise, which became almost useless. If Scent of Cinder is messing up your Cursed Scroll, that means it does at least one damage and you have an active Scroll, in which cast you shouldn't be complaining all that much. The problem is that it doesn't fit into decks that aren't monored at all, and decks like Wildfire that would use it as removal would be much better off with standard burn spells.
Sowing Salt 2RR
Sorcery. Lobotomy target nonbasic land. All: Weak
This is for pure land destruction decks, and doesn't belong in any others. If you put it in a standard deck, more often than not taking three land from his deck will be something you would rather not do. And if you're playing a land destruction deck, this is very hard to fit. First, you already have Wasteland and don't want too many cards that can only hit non-basic lands, since many decks don't have any. Second, you have to pay an extra mana to remove the lands, and it's an important mana. In US block too much of your land destruction is already four mana: Lay Waste, Avalanche Riders. In T2 the need to start destroying land fast is huge, and when you get more mana you want to Plow Under and cast game-winners like Wildfire and Argothian Wurm.
All creatures get +2/+0 until end of turn. All: Useless
You can't use it in combat because all creatures get the bonus. You can only use it to boost creatures that are getting through. If two creatures are getting through, this gives you a small profit over pure burn to your opponent, but the risk and situational nature of the card more than make up for that. If you have enough creatures to use this, you'd be better off with burn that can remove blockers. In general, if this does a lot of damage you would have won the game with normal burn anyway.
Wake of Destruction 3RRR
Destroy target land and all lands with the same name. EX: Useless T2: Weak US: Good
In Extended this is often going to be less effective than Rain of Salt, and there's the problem that hitting mountains not only gets your own, it may not be as easy as it looks ( Fireblast). For this to be really good, your opponent has to be playing a monocolor deck with mostly basic lands, otherwise Rain of Salt would be better. Many US block decks will be like that, especially with the loss of the legendary lands and Voltaic Key. In Type 2, this is probably going to be a sideboard card.
Wild Colos 2R
2/2, Haste. All: Useless
Why do we get Suq'Ata Lancer without flanking? Where is the other trick this card has?
All right, that's it for red. I think red was a big disappointment in this set. The good cards it did get seem designed for a strategy of pure burn, and that's not what the game should be about. A lot of its creatures are downright horrible, with there being no explanation I can think of for their being so bad. For a lot of them, I didn't say much because there was almost nothing to say. Next, of course, is green.