Rienne, Angel of Rebirth – Core Set 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Rienne reminds me a lot of Knight of New Alara and the cycle of creatures that included Esper Stormblade and its friends. Multicolored creatures are not very common as targets for “lord” effects, but there are certainly ways it can be exploited. A card like Rienne requires that most or all of the creatures in your deck be multicolor, which can be hard to make work in constructed. There is obviously an angle suggested by the current Ravnica-centric Standard format and its dual lands, but it can still come out as kind of a constraint: many of the best generally-useful creatures are always single-colored. Her ability to make other creatures never die is very well suited to long, high-attrition games as you often get in Commander and other multiplayer settings.

Being red and green in addition to white is also a huge deal. From a design and flavor point of view, there are very few red angels and even fewer green ones. And from the perspective of Commander’s deck construction rules, red and green offer a lot of great options that work well with her abilities.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Rienne, Angel of Rebirth is the Buy-a-Box promo, so she cannot be played in Limited. No Limited score today as a result.

Talk about a multicolored lord of sorts, the kind of creature that might be at home in Alara block. Rienne is pretty straightforwardly powerful: make your multicolored creatures stronger, and give them a second life (usually) after death. Sparing your big bombs makes removal less impactful (though Rienne does not protect herself like that), and even if they cast a board wipe, you’ll still get the creatures back. She’s even a competent-enough creature in combat, thanks to a reasonable body and wings with which to swoop.

I think Rienne is a creature ill-suited for Constructed; she doesn’t do enough when she resolves and has trouble protecting herself, though her payoff can be good for grinding out games if you get her out. She’ll have a home in Commander, though, and Naya colors suits her well as part of an Angel-centric deck.

Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander: 4.25