I think White has changed in interesting ways. The Anthem is almost certainly an upgrade over Crusade, interestingly it makes the Bears strategy stronger as the Anthems are good in matches against other Rebel deck. Addition of Worship is almost certain to also benefit Bears more than CounterRebels. On the other hand the loss of Geddon takes the main sideboard strategy away from Bears, but I think creative sideboarding will help. Bears potentially also gains from Hibernation. Retaining Longbow Archer is key. Have to see what it is that is keeping Bears from Tier-One at the moment.
Gerrards Wisdom is a very strong white addition that many people haven`t mentioned - with FOF to fill your hand at their EOT a Wisdom for somewhere around 20 life is quite conceivable. Wisdom strengthens a slower Wrath-based strategy by giving the deck what it was missing most - time to survive until it can get 6 mana and Wrath/Counter on the same turn. Might also be a factor that many Fires cards are Fading and so lose potency rapidly and so Fires is likely to struggle to bring down a Wrath deck that begins the game on something like 60 life thanks to Absorbs and Wisdoms.
Blue gets some nice tricks, but I`m afraid that they might not quite add up to the loss of Power Sink, which is a truly awesome bodyblow to many blue or blue-splash strategies. Force Spike WAS once the second best counterspell after Counterspell, but I don`t think it`s as good at the moment, although I might be wrong (god that sounds awful. I really don`t know about Force Spike - it COULD be bad, or it COULD become the reason blue strategies are amazing - it certainly won`t be average it`s either bad or superb).
I think Thieving Magpie decks are likely to be marginal - the idea of a mono-blue deck is still unlikely (but not impossible, a mono-blue deck came 3rd in a Spanish regional last week) adn so I see Magpie in direct competition with Lin Sivvi in UW decks and Nether Spirit in UB decks. Tough opposition.
Speaking of Opposition, this card is good. I`ve not looked at the potential for this card properly yet, but I always found that Opposition decks played slightly worse than you expected them to.
Black - stop moaning. Duress is godly, Persecute is strong even in multicolored T2 and Unholy Strength is a valuable add (probably better than Sinister Strength). But black is bad right now, and this does nothing to help it - you`d often play Addle over Duress we have found in testing, Persecute is not maindeckable, and Suicide is still poor. Black was bad before 7th, and is still just as bad after 7th. Loses Perish, keeps Tsabo`s Decree and Nether Sprit (the
real reasons to play Black). Ignore Megrim - Urza`s Guilt is just like Memory Jar except that it costs more to cast, and only does half as much damage - Megrim/Guilt decks are just the next generation of Ankh/Tide deck (ie the best bad combo deck).
Red - Hammer goes
. I finally sold my 4 Hammers, which I have owned since a week after the Mirage pre-release.
Keeps Pillage (unexpected), Pyroclasm returns (v strong), Wildifre is a very good and I`m happy to see it replace Haups. Keeps Boil - important. Otherwise very little changes for red. I think the gain of Pyroclasm possibly outweighs the loss of Hammer, at least while Urza`s Rage is available.
Green - the bad stuff. Gets good monsters, surprise. Big hitters are Elven Lyrist, Reclaim, and the retention of Creeping Mold. Might Of Oaks is ok, but I think that the dual-coloured nature of green decks devalues that sort of spell and they can take better impact spells from other colours. Yavimaya Enchantress eh? hmm...
Artifacts. Ensnaring Bridge is unkind to Fires. VERY unkind. Static Orb is a poorly understood card, we might see it become much more heavily designed for - we proved during TSE that it was possible to make effective use of the card.
