This is the time it sucks to be a reviewer.
It's hard to rate a card like this without
trying it out and seeing its abilities in
action. I do think it could be useful
alongside cards like Pardic Dragon. In
limited, it's likely to have other uses.
I'm not sure what type of impact it will
have on constructed formats.
Rift Elemental
Given how important time rifts are to the
storyline, and how huge the things that get
suspended through them are (Deep-Sea Kraken and
Shivan Meteor for starters), I'd expect the
creature embodiment of a time rift to be... not
a 1/1. But there's a reason that this thing is
small, and its ability costs 1R and a time
counter. Removing time counters as a cost
instead of an effect is a huge ability. You can
block a creature with this and then remove
counters from a Curse of the Cabal or whatever
to make it resolve during combat. If you didn't
have to pay 1R per time counter, you could pull
a bunch of spells out of suspense, play an
enormous Storm spell, and have an x/1 to attack
with as well! That's why this card had to be
hosed. And hosed it was.
Constructed- 1.5
Casual- 2.5
Limited- 1.2
David Fanany
Rift Elemental
This is a very interesting creature and an
interesting use of the Suspend mechanic, but
it's not quite aggressive enough for constructed
play. It depends on your having lots of cards
with suspend and / or creatures with time
counters, many of which are less than impressive
in constructed. In casual or limited play, where
suspend creatures are often solid or even good,
Rift Elemental can be more impressive. It won't
ever survive long with one toughness, but it
will probably trade with a creature more
expensive than itself and accelerate out your
Corpulent Corpses and Viscerid Deepwalkers.
Constructed: 1/5
Casual: 2/5
Limited: 3/5
The Missing
Linc
Rift Elemental
Flavorific! While limited to be played in only
certain decks, the fun factor of this card is
super. I really like that the ability does not
have to be played as a sorcery or during your
upkeep. In this way, you can keep some pretty
big ground pounders out of your face or at least
make a fair trade with them. However, red does
not often leave mana open and often hopes to win
quickly. I am not sure if this will work but I
like its idea.
Constructed: 2 (good, but only in a few decks)
Casual: 3
Limited: 3/4 (cause there is lots of suspend
counters in limited)
Necro
nomikron
Rift Elemental:
This doesn't make suspend viable in constructed,
and hinges upon suspend, so, automatic low
rating there.
Casual, sure, suspend is ok here.
Limited: It's still a 1/1 for 1 here, most of
the time, which don't make much of an impact in
limited.
Constructed: 1/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2/5
PsychoAnime
Review by PsychoAnime
Rift Elemental can do some funny things with
Suspend that just might defeat
the opponent.
Turn 1: Suspend Mind Stab
Turn 2: Play Rift Elemental
Turn 3: Rift Elemental attacks and pumps,
discard 3 cards
Of course, I'm not saying Mindstab is a good
card but funny things like that
happens. Yet, my spidey senses continues to warn
my to stay away from running
a lot of suspend cards.
In casual, losing dosen't matter as much so go
ahead to start pulling crazy
combos with this card.
In limited, I don't think this card does enough
to be picked although it does
go well with some of those "activate then
suspend-itself" cards.
