Melira, the Living Cure – Phyrexia: All Will Be One
Date Reviewed: March 15, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.00
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4.13
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
I’m surprised that we’ve had a decade of Melira’s original card being played in eternal formats without me making a joke about 28 Days Later or The Last of Us. But it actually seems kind of unnecessary on her new card – I like her new look, and I like her new abilities, so she very much stands on her own merits. Granted, she doesn’t turn poison off entirely like her original one, but it still sets the poison decks’ clock to exactly ten turns, which is at least six turns longer than the fast versions like to take and removes the perennial fear of getting one-shotted by Giant Growth effects. And her activated ability takes a cue from one-time Standard rogue card Saffi Eriksdotter, and there are countless good targets for it across Magic. Melira has some strong prospects in tournaments, particularly in Standard and Historic, and perhaps even more in casual Magic.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Combining the anti-poison of her first outing with an effect that hearkens back to a particular lhurgoyf-fearing adventurer, Melira’s an interesting utility creature that comes with an efficient statline; the Watchwolf statline anymore isn’t as remarkable, but it’s still incredibly efficient out of the gate. She doesn’t completely stuff poison like the previous one did, but she does mitigate it by limiting you to taking one poison each turn, regardless of how much it might do otherwise. Hilariously, this does a good job of reining in infect creatures from Scars of Mirrodin, since they do damage in the form of poison counters, so that’s a nice upside, and she’ll still help keep toxic from going wild.
Her other ability is good insurance for bigger creatures against board wipes, and it can even protect artifacts. Self-exile constrains the ability for abuse, but this is still a solid effect, since it’s agnostic about how the permanent goes to the graveyard, just that it goes there. This helps her to have both late utility and early-game power, swinging effectively early and then protecting something bigger in a late-game scenario. She’ll prove to be a solid utility creature, and while I don’t think she’s indomitable in deeper formats, she offers enough as both anti-infect tech and toolbox reanimation to show up in sideboards.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.5 (you can use this to play politics, since it can hit any player’s thing)
Commander [EDH]: 4
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