QUICK DRAFT ZENDIKAR RISING GUIDE CRACK

It’s entirely possible that I have drastically underrated this card, as it presents a true puzzle (says so right on the box). Remember, the opponent can always tap their land before the bounce trigger resolves (or return an already-tapped land) if it’s really urgent to get the extra mana right away.

QUICK DRAFT ZENDIKAR RISING GUIDE CRACK

And if we were mainly interested in stopping fetch lands, they can easily wait to crack the fetch until your turn. Even Amulet could potentially make hay off the “virtual bounce land” effect of Conundrum, turning a land-light draw into an Azusa-fueled bonanza. Where it starts to get really awkward is when the game drags on, and suddenly the bounce trigger could actively hurt you: opposing blue decks will now have as many Mystic Sanctuary triggers as they want, to say nothing of picking up any flip lands they might want to reuse now as spells. And given that you already spent 2 of your early mana on this enchantment, it doesn’t seem likely that your deck is going to kill them any time soon. GQ, Path, and Trophy are still card disadvantage even with Conundrum in play all you are buying is time. So what’s the problem? Well, bouncing a land is not destroying a land. It interacts favorably with Yorion, Sky Nomad, and you can even stack multiple copies to double the effect. Key is that Confounding Conundrum replaces itself, setting its floor much higher than most hate enchantments. The same applies to Ghost Quarter, and to a lesser extent Path to Exile and Assassin’s Trophy. Field of Ruin in particular interacts beautifully with this, even opening up potential locks with Wrenn and Six or Crucible of Worlds. In terms of brewing potential, the hope is that Conundrum can perhaps do even more: anchoring some kind of proactive disruption package in the broad family of Hatebears / Taxes / Stax decks.

On your opponents’ turns the bounce will happen before any Valakut or Field triggers resolve, making this a slam dunk against any unfortunate Scapeshift players. The plain use of Conundrum is to tax ramp strategies: both the ever-present threats of Amulet Titan and Field of the Dead, as well as more commonplace fetchland activations and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath triggers.

David was quite high on this card during our initial set review, but I remain a skeptic.

Quick draft zendikar rising guide