Shadows Over Innistrad (MTG) - Cryptolith Rite - Rare Card Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

When I first saw Cryptolith Rite, my first thought was: is this an actual Magic the Gathering card? When I read the comments that people were leaving about it, my thought was confirmed. This seems too good.

Turning all of your creatures into Birds of Paradise seems pretty broken to me. This seems like it could make Green builds of Eldrazi extremely quick. There's a lot of talk of turn 4 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. This with Scion tokens seems pretty busted.

There's really only one problem with this card. It's extremely bad to draw multiple copies. In Commander, that's perfectly fine since you're only going to ever play one anyway. But the power of this card can't be underestimated. With enough creature tokens on board, you can have all the mana you could ever want.

Many players called Cryptolith Rite a "win more" sort of card. What I mean by that is it's a bit tricky to build around it because if you draw more than one, it can be bad. Sure, there's enough enchantment removal around that having a back-up copy in hand is fine. But the best enchantments are those that actually benefit you in multiples. So while the power level of this card is undeniable, it's hard to say just how much it will impact Standard. It's probably a bit slow for Modern, but if Eldrazi Temple and/or Eye of Ugin get banned, this may be a viable option to keep the deck in contention.

There's one other deck that loves this card: Slivers. Gemhide Sliver in Legacy and Manaweft Sliver in Modern are 2 drops that gives all your slivers the same ability as Cryptolith Rite. You probably only would need this as a one-of or two-of to make it worth playing. But you already have ways of making all 5 colors easily in Modern, in Slivers and Allies both. So it's not a must for Modern.

Back to Commander, though, this card is absolutely busted in token decks that run Green. There are plenty of them, too. A lot of five-color decks will want this, too. Cards that are best as one-ofs tend to scale up in Commander. Also, if this draws out enchantment removal, it's probably worth the two mana. Really, mana fixing is so important in Commander that you can end up losing games just by not getting enough of one color. So at the very least, Commander players all over the place will buy it.

So, where does this card fit in Standard? I definitely see Green Eldrazi decks of all stripes seeing ways to plug it in. Losing fetch lands may make it necessary. I don't think it's really necessary in Modern. The good news about this card is while it has an inherently powerful ability, there are ways to do away with it fairly easily. Also, once you draw a second copy, it's most likely just going to be discard fodder, anyway., Still, this is a sweet card and I can't wait to get a chance to play with it.

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