Usman’s Set Reviews

I’d had some requests for older set reviews I’d done, and figured that I should list them out as well as making this an easy-to-find repository of set reviews that I’ve done over the years, which made up the bulk of my content from 2015-2024.

I didn’t always do this in the early years but I’ve incorporated winning/3-0 decklists into my articles, so that I can note how cards play out based on real-world experience rather than anecdotes/speculation which (still) tends to drive discourse for card evaluation.

Nobody’s perfect, myself included, but I’ve mostly called what’s been good/bad in these cube reviews.

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

  • Guilds of Ravnica. This ended up being my longest review at around 14000 words. Decklists tend to inflate that number but I remember the document was about 25 pages, and only about 5 were decklists. It took me forever to find how I wanted to articulate my thoughts on Risk Factor (I had an outline entirely for it) but I’m very happy with the overall review.
  • Battlebond and Commander 2018. Some sets with some wonky cards. Najeela’s great though.
  • m19. Skimming through it, I remember seeing some minor hype about Demon of Catastrophes, but knew it’d be mediocre. Turns it out that it is.
  • Dominaria. All praise lord Karn.
  • Masters 25 – Pauper and Peasant. I’m still stoked that they downgraded Jackal Pup to common.
  • Rivals of Ixalan. I still agree that Skymarcher Aspirant is the 3rd 2-power white 1-drop behind Kytheon and Isamaru. So so good.
  • Unstable. I’d say Sword of D&D may be one of the better swords rather than one of the worst. Set has some nice stuff for cubes. I’d love a GO TO JAIL type of card to be printed in a “real” set.

2017

2016

2015

2014

  • Journey to Nyx – I found Dictate of Heliod to be good in testing but unfortunately taught me some lessons in terms of cards making the final 40 (and how this usually didn’t.)

Of note: SCG’s older articles have no commas. No idea why, but some articles read oddly because of this.

2013

2012

2011

2010