What I Got Wrong About Ikoria Limited 

The cycling pay offs were so good in this set that the limited deck was basically the same as the competitive constructed deck, it was insane.

“A mediocre body with a cycling upside” turned into “a good cycling enabler with a mediocre body as an upside” that’s how good cycling was

Don't feel bad about underestimating the companions. WotC did so too.

Unfortunately for this set, you could have just said I was wrong about all the one mana cyclers and been done.

*All Card Correction Grades:* * 1. Flourishing Fox: C+ to B+ 2. Huntmaster Liger: B- to C 3. Imposing Vantasuar: C- to C+ 4. Snare Tactician: C to B- 5. Boon of the Wish-Giver: C+ to B 6. Frostveil Ambush: C- to C+ 7. Hampering Snare: D+ to C 8. Startling Development: D+ to C+ 9. Chittering Harvester: C to B- 10. Suffocating Fumes: C- to C+ 11. Drannith Stinger: C to B 12. Footfall Crater: C- to C+ 13. Prickly Marmoset: C/B- to B- 14. Raking Claws: D+ to C+ 15. Shredded Sails: C-/C+ to C+ 16. Spelleater Wolverine: D+/C+ to C+ 17. Zenith Flare: D/B to D/A+ * *Ultimatum Category:* 1. Eerie Ultimatum: B- to A 2. Emergent Ultimatum: B- to B+ 3. Genesis Ultimatum: B- to B+ 4. Inspired Ultimatum: B- to A 5. Ruinous Ultimatum: B- to A+ * *Companion Category:* 1. Gyruda, Doom of Depths: B+ to A+ (Now A-) 2. Jegantha, the Wellspring: B- to A (Now B+) 3. Kaheera, the Orphanguard: B to A (Now B again) 4. Keruga, the Macrosage: B to A+ (Now A-) 5. Lurrus of the Dream-Den: B- to A- (Now B) 6. Lutri, the Spellchaser: B to A- (Now B again) 7. Obosh, the Preypiercer: B- to A+ (Now B+) 8. Umori, the Collector: B to A (Now B again)

Have you ever done a meta-analysis of what types of cards you consistently get wrong?

Cycling broke limited and constructed because all of these nonrestrictive 1-mana cyclers. Yidaro was done right with 1 and a red , why would something like imposing vantasaur have cycling 1? Ridiculous

Id love to see your top 10 favorite and/or least favorite limited environments at some point as a video.

It's real easy to underestimate cycling pay offs. They're rarely the most amazing thing ever on paper, the kind of effect you'd be meh about putting in your deck as like an ETB, but when you get enough of them going suddenly you're turning a solid card selection mechanic into a 1 or 2 mana uncounterable cantrip that's doing a whole lot of minor effects and that really adds up in limited.

"What I got wrong about cycling"

I was once handed Jegantha pack 3 while I was drafting a W/B deck and ending up taking it anyway because my entire deck up to that point already fulfilled the requirement. Was able to cast it semi-reliably off of a couple of dual lands I picked up later in the pack.

Thanks for being a humble and objective content creator. I enjoy your take on things.

Honestly Flourishing Fox was almost A-. I first picked it over so many things and it rarely disappointed.

Im so shocked you didn't perfectly predict the limited format of the most complicated standard legal set ever, unsub. Sidenote: wow im so glad i missed ikoria limited this sounds terrifying

Subtle not-so-subtle Inspired Ultimatum is totally "inspired" by Hearthstone's Ultimate Infestation! Deal 5, draw 5, shield 5 (and summon a 5/5)

With most cyclers, the cycling ability was more of the card than the card itself. On imposing vantasaur, the 3/6 body was the upside that you would occasionally use.

This should be "What WE Got Wrong About Ikoria Limited". Lol.

I have a lot of respect for you regarding your set reviews. You give an honest thoughtful opinion about each card and then look back and see how you did. This is how we all become better.

Surprised at no Memory Leak! The premier 1 mana cycler in black!

I have been waiting for this video and while I think you missed the mark on cycling, you did great across the board. Keep up the great work!

Ruinous is kinda like what cruel was for people. I want to do nothing more in life than to cast that good shit

Did Nizzahon ever play humans in the set? I thought that was an archetype that deserved to be talked about. Whisper Squad was the card that most people were saying was greatly underestimated awhile back.

5 mana to tap 2 creatures - me, useless. -It has cycling for 1. - Shit man, that’s all you had to say.

I'm not surprised that the Wedge Ultimatium were better than you thought as the Shard Ultimatiums were also bombs back during shards limited

Drannith Slinger plus the Lifelink token fron Splendor Mare, oh boy, that was amazing.

Well, I was going to buy some Core Set 2021 this month, but I think I'll invest in some more Ikoria instead and complete my cycling deck.

I had multiple times when Erie Ultimatum just didn't work. I'd get my cards but couldn't select them to cast. So I avoided it like the plague

There was one Ikoria draft I did where I managed to pick up a ruinous ultimatum. I’m pretty sure the deck I ended up in there had a lot of cycling too, so I was feeling pretty good about it... that is, until I started playing it. In all the games I played with that deck, I saw the ultimatum exactly once, in an opening hand that I had to mulligan because it didn’t have enough lands. I think that was the worst that I’ve ever had a deck underperform.

Ah the cycling apology tour! Cycling 1 was probably a mistake in design. 2 should have been the lowest

"... but has cycling..."

Footfall Crater is good with Flourishing Fox to give trample if your opponent is chump blocking later in the game.

Not agreeing on Keruga, this is probably one of (if not only) companions who are better in your starting deck instead of companion zone

So... cycling was underestimated in general 😂

I think that I had the Madur ultimatum like 2 times and it did not do a lot. The problem is that is the opponents never had three or more creatures that could attack. So I had to use it and it didn‘t do a lot.

I disagree with Lutri being only an A- before the companion rules change. To fully utilize Lutri, you only needed to play a critical mass of low-to-medium cost instants or sorceries (and of course be singleton). I think my win percentage after copying a removal spell or Cathartic Reunion or even just Anticipate was at least 85%. Control decks could do that so easily it was laughable. With the fail case being a 3-mana Ambush Viper of sorts, I would've rated Lutri at least an A.

As someone who doesn’t draft at all. If you see a card you really want like an Ugin but you don’t think it would work for your overall deck. Would you still draft it?

Nizzahon needs a live video where he eat all the cards he got wrong. will get you easily to 100k sub.

Weirdly I found Umori really useful for a pure spell black red burn deck,

What about Reconnaissance Mission? Did the difference was only half a grade?

Is it all possible to for there to be a reference document that we can look up with all of your letter gradings for use during a draft? I really appreciate the videos but it's near impossible for me (and I assume many others) to remember most of them, especially if we don't draft often because of the heavy cost on Arena

Great video! Thank you.

23 mins. This gon b gud

Fun Fact: Lurrus was the first power level ban in Vintage since the new Vintage format was introduced. Then they banned many more cards in Vintage. So Vintage is a shitfest now where cards like "Invoke Prejudice" that are strong but not overpowered in that format are banned.

Nizzahon sounds so sad in this video. :(

Towards the end of the format, I was staying away from the cycling deck. I know it's the best deck but the 1 mana cyclers weren't free like they were in the beginning of the format. If you had to run wilt in rw cycling your deck wasn't that great.

Yes!

Ikoria limited was my least favorite in a long time.

No post-nerf Ikoria drafts!? :(

Shouldn’t zenith flare just be an F/A+?

I still think Keruga is best as a main deck card and not as a companion. Not affecting the board for two turns in this set could be pretty punishing. To be fair, besides the cyclers and companions you got most things right. I remember commenting on the original video that you overrated Archipelagore and it turns out you were spot on with that one. When you're evaluating a set you probably tacitly assume that there won't be too many outliers because the design team have done their job properly, but they slipped up pretty bad on this one.

I got silly value out of unexpected fangs

Awful limited environment, imo. My least favorite in many years. Cycling and the lack of removal ruined it for me.

Ha, everything goes up a grade because of a fox 🦊

So if they printed a 1cmc uncountable cantirp it would be a B

I personally think Zenith Flare should have cost 1URW and been a rare.

No updates for the human decks? I think the human anthem is A buildaround. I've never went less than 7 wins when I first picked it

Still think you undervalued a lot of human stuff, especially Whisper Squad (which you didn't even include in your Black video). Ikoria was a hell of a set to get back into MTG for the first time in about 25 years. Turns out the game has changed a lot since I was in elementary. Looking forward to M21, and thanks for your reviews!

Dranith stinger is a her not a he.

Your original rating of the Ultimatums was much more correct. They were really not too amazing and they were bad first picks. What you did underestimate massively was Barrier Breach.

So most cards are As

Y'all heard of cycling?

i still think ur wrong xD i would take snare over fox, snare is borderline broken no b- more like a- xD and in no world i would pick drannith over him xD

I am so damn tired of the stupid cycling deck. Who in R&D thought it would be fun to have a 100% linear, completely non-interactive deck that just digs to its 1 spell win condition every game? I just auto-concede to it at this point because I don't want to waste another 3.5 minutes of my life playing the exact same game. I think mutate was a genuinely fun mechanic, but in standard it's been ruined by Paradise Druid making so many games completely uninteractive. Would be much easier to mitigate a turn 5 Starrix, put your whole deck on the battlefield, if the damn druid didn't make the mutate pile impossible to interact with. My favorite deck out of Ikoria has to be the menace deck, since it's an interactive aggro deck that plays almost like control at times. Killing the opponent by whacking them with the giant threat they just played for 1 red mana is also pretty satisfying when you can set up the turn to do it.

What Nizzahon got wrong .... should have actually gone to investing instead of buying overpriced pieces of cardboard.

This is just listening to him make excuses.