Imposing Sovereign – MTG Throwback Thursday Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

The best Human cards always seem to be 2/1 for two mana. There was Dark Confidant from Ravnica: City of Guilds, and later Snapcaster Mage from Innistrad; I’d hesitate to say that Imposing Sovereign is quite as purely powerful as either of those, but she is similar to them in that you will certainly lose to her if you don’t pay attention. She is costed for aggressive decks, and if your deck is aggressive enough, she essentially makes your opponents unable to block. This can be bad for aggressive decks, but at least they can race mono-white in some way (burn spells, etc); imagine if your gameplan against the white aggro decks is blocking with Thragtusk – or worse, with walls.

I also note that since the last time I talked about the Noble creature type, they’ve updated a whole bunch of creatures from across Magic, and added a lot of options to the Duel Decks: Peasants vs. Nobles design. Fun!

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Imposing Sovereign’s text is some we’ve seen before on several cards, and it’s a good way to slow down creature decks, be it through hasty creatures or through putting up a wall of blockers. Being one-sided also helps her cause a bit, though that 2/1 body isn’t winning any awards. Still, it is a nice effect to slow the game down or get it into a position more amenable to what you want to get done, slotting well into control shells and matching well against a lot of aggressive decks. It’s not a standard of any of the extended card pool formats where it is playable, though being a human means it might have some trickery up its sleeves if you want to use it as sideboard tech in a Human deck.

Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander: 4

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hey Everyone! Phat Pack Magic here with another card of the day review and today we have Imposing Sovereign!

The art looks great on this card, it’s literally ‘Karen, who Demands the Manager’ in card form, delaying everything around her so she can cash in her expired 2$ coupon for rotisserie chicken.

This card is great, it was great too!

Back in the day she was a strong 2-drop that played to race. It was around her time that Red was seeing haste become more pushed, and with her around it not only put off their ability to crack-back with haste back a turn, but it also gummed up the combat math.

She was a giant lightning rod for sure, but that meant there was plenty of other creatures that they had to deal with after her.

She sits mostly retired now, you can find her in Cubes that support White and W/x aggro decks, but she’s been collecting her coupons and it sounds like ol’ Karen could make an appearance at the Pioneer and demand to see the finals… or at least the top 8 maybe?

Standard: 4/5 – A White Weenie Bombshell

Pioneer: 3/5 – Hard to say but she might have a chance.

Casual/EDH: 1/5 – Not the best way to make friends at the table.

Cube: 4/5 – An All Star! Karen is clipping coupons and shutting down employees with her get me the manager stare!