Ruin Raider – Magic: The Gathering Card of the Day

Is Dark Confidant’s iconic trigger officially “old school” now? After all, he did appear in an expansion from 2006 – millions of people playing Magic now had never even heard of it in that year. The original version even had his face on it, because that was the rule of the Invitational card design back when that was still a thing! To be fair, this card does play slightly differently. There’s a big difference in the faster formats between two and three mana, but there’s another (and perhaps more favorable to Ruin Raider) difference between Wizards and Pirates. Both decks can use the card advantage, but there’s a different feel and a different level of aggression between the two decks. It’s sometimes better to get the extra card at the beginning of your turn rather than the end, just to have more options during the turn in question, but in practice there are very few wrong ways to draw extra cards. Ruin Raider is not one of them.

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

It’s hard to talk about Ruin Raider without comparing it to Dark Confidant, one of the most powerful black creatures ever printed. The advantage with Ruin Raider is that you can activate his ability the turn you play him, but due to his mana cost you end up drawing additional cards later than you would with dark Confidant. The biggest thing going against Ruin raider is that his two abilities are a bit bipolar. To trigger raid you want to run aggressive cards, yet since you are drawing the extra card at the end of your turn, chances are you want that card to be a control spell such as Fatal Push or Censor. The good news is that in both situations most of the cards you draw won’t hurt your life too badly, Torrential Gearhulk notwithstanding. Another card to compare with is Glint-Sleeve Siphoner. Both have their advantages, but considering how they interact with each other, why not run both? Ruin Raider isn’t as powerful as Bob, but that isn’t a bad thing. 

• Constructed: 4
• Casual: 3
• Limited: 2
• Multiplayer: 3
• Commander (EDH): 4