First of all, I'm not going to talk about every card. I'd be here all night. If I don't mention something feel free to ask, but if I can't think of anything to say I'm just going to skip the card.
White:
Mastery of the Unseen-
This is a niffty little card. It is going to be expensive to use, but provides some nice advantage if you go through the hoops it sets up. Since it wants you to have lots of mana and lots of creatures it pairs really well with Gae's Cradle. Pairing with green also gives us access to Sylvan Library, which is powerful in conjunction with manifest already. Simply putting this with Rhys or an enchantress shell or something of that nature will pay off but I'm not too sure it would be worthwhile given you have to pay four to put it in play and then the creatures cost. You have to really want the life gain. The one place I can think of that this would be perfect for is Trostani. G/W, plays with lots of creatures, loves to gain life, plays with whole bunches of library manipulation.
Rally the Ancestors-
This is similar to Wake the Dead. There are several key differences though. The first is what your mana is buying you. With WtD you can pay 3 mana to pull up a 10 mana creature. On RtA you end up paying 2 more mana than the creature costs. So you would pay 12 mana to get that creature. However, you get everything that costs 10 or less mana, and you can cast RtA anytime you want, the thing stopping you from attacking with the creatures being an upkeep exile trigger. So you can keep the dudes around through a whole cycle of turns in EDH as blockers. That the card exiles itself and the creatures makes repeating the effect virtually impossible. Dodging the upkeep trigger through sacrifice and bounce lets you hold onto your dudes, and the timing on the trigger lets you have mana again before resolving the exile trigger. Also, if you manage to get some kind of global haste then you can use this to resurrect your graveyard and swing. The trade off being that you either need tons of mana or rather small creatures Altogether a good card that will see play in a variety of value based strategies.
Sage's Reverie-
This is just another good toy for aura voltron strategies. That said, its a very good card in those decks. It'll draw you 2-3 cards and be another +2-3 p/t.
Blue:
Frost Walker-
Why isn't this an illusion? Why does it look like an Eldrazi? Why does the flavor text talk about allies when it looks like the Frost Walker is about to straight up murder that dude?
Neutralizing Blast-
Most decks are going to have multicolor cards that you can hit with this. Its cheap and splash-able. I would rate this as playable if you have targets in mind that you want to hit with it. There are certainly enough 1U conditional counter spells that this is fighting for prominence so it won't see too much play, but don't overlook it.
Reality Shift-
This card just became my go-to removal in heavy blue decks. The odds that the manifest hits are really low, and then they still have to pay for the creature anyway. Reality Shift being an instant also makes it really flexible. It costs two mana so its easy to leave up for it, and there are no targeting restrictions. This is an answer to Eldrazi or other hard to deal with creatures. Marque blue removal, will get played everywhere.
Refocus-
I don't know what breaks this seemingly innocuous card, but something does, and its tremendous value in a Merieke Ri Berite, Dralnu, or other Tap ability focused deck.
Renowned Weaponsmith-
While I'm doubtful that his second ability is going to be used, tapping for multiple arifact mana could get this guy played in Sharuum, Esper Triplets, Teferi Planeswalker, or another artifact mana reliant deck. He's essentially a worse version of Chief Engineer. Still, decks like a certain density of effect and with the singleton nature of EDH additional printings of unique effects help with consistency.
Rite of Undoing-
This has potential to be good in a tempo oriented deck with lots of cantrips and spare permanents. I'm think of Rafiq-esque decks. It obviously pairs well with aggression and enter the battlefield effects.
Will of the Naga-
Another Delve card, this can wind up being very cheap and freeze effects are strong in EDH given how many turns happen between any one player's turn.
Black:
Dark Deal-
I have no idea what I'd do with this since it is about the opposite of all the wheel effects. Maybe it sees play in Nekusar? It is definitely the only thing that does what it does though.
Fearsome Awakening-
If you are in the market for a 5 mana zombify and have a bunch of dragons than this is a cool one.
Ghastly Conscription-
This is a big expensive effect that only promises you having to pay more mana to flip the creatures back over. Rise of the Dark Realms is only two mana more, steals all the creatures face up, and steals all the creatures. Even without a comparison point, I don't like this too much since you have to have the right color of mana to flip the creatures, meaning that the best target is pretty much always yourself. Targeting other players to strip out their graveyard is also likely not going to be useful since the creatures can all just die again. This seems cool but I don't like it all that much.
Grave Strength-
This has the potential to add a lot of power for very little investment. There's plenty of black decks that are based around the yard though, so this can even help enable some strategies.
Merciless Executioner-
Fleshbag Marauder reprint with a different name. Fleshbag has been a staple in EDH for years since it essentially reads each other player sacrifices a creature. I expect having access to two Fleshbags is going to come up a fair amount. Also, ORC TRIBAL.
Orc Sureshot-
This has some potential. Its like Noxius Ghoul, but instead of everything, its target creature. The trade off is that he triggers on everything, making him quite lethal in token strategies. At 4 mana he's a stretch, but he definitely can't stay on the board if your opponents have any desire to play with smallish creatures.
Qarsi High Priest-
I like this guy. He is repeatable Manifest and an instant speed sac outlet at a very small investment in mana.
Sibsig Muckdraggers-
This seems like a good deal, but to play it for 1 mana you essentially have to have 9 cards in your graveyard. It might be there's somewhere you want this but I have a dredge-based Mimeoplasm deck and even I think the price in cards is too steep.
Red:
Dragonrage-
This is a trap. It requires you to be attacking with four creatures to even generate mana. Decks that want to attack with that many dudes, or more, will get better use out of team wide effects. The firebreathing is interesting but not great. I don't see a home for this, unless you really want to Starstorm mid-combat.
Mob Rule-
This does a respectable Insurrection impression. Be prepared to get wrecked by this a few times just after the release and before it really gets on your radar.
Green:
Fruit of the First Tree-
Made for sacrifice/voltron decks as either value or insurance. Specifically, I like putting this in Uril as a way to draw tons of cards if you can't push through the enemy defenses.
Return to the Earth-
This is a really solid card that deals with tons of problems, as long as the enchantments and artifacts have flying.
Sudden Reclamation-
I love this card. I almost want to call it the green Fact or Fiction. Getting a creature, a land, and setting up you graveyard for more goodies is perfect. The four mana tag isn't too bad in the color of rampant growth. That it isn't limited to what you mill with it means you can essentially use it as a value raise dead at instant speed. Graveyard removal in response will stop you from getting back what you initially wanted, but provided you mill a land a creature you can still get full value.
I like this in a lot of places, like Borborigmos, Titania, Lots of Sultai decks, Jarad. Anywhere that you can reasonably expect the top four cards of your deck to have a land and a creature in it.
Temur Sabertooth-
Self-bouncing things is very strong. That you can do it as a non-tap ability for two mana makes it all the stronger. That by doing so makes this creature indestructible crosses the threshold into great territory. The 4 mana price tag to land him doesn't inspire confidence but I guarantee this guy becomes a real nuisance once he's on the battlefield. Anything with good etb effects will like him, but I think he takes on a whole new level of buillshit in Animar. He can easily go infinite in that deck with creatures that generate mana on entering the battlefield, and even without that, the value you'll generate and the number of counters you put on Animar will seal the game pretty fast.
Multicolor:
Tasigur the Golden Fang-
This guy is pretty awesome. He
provides card advantage at a reasonable cost considering that its
repeatable. As a general he gets to always cost one if you have the two
extra cards to delve away each time he dies. He's limited in the decks
he can go in, but most Sultai lists are going to appreciate a cheap body
and filling the graveyard. He is obviously mana hungry, so putting him
in Sidisi with Cradle seems like a solid way to grow cards in hand and
tokens on the table which translates into more tokens and more cards. I
like this guy quite a bit.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death-
This is one of the cards that I really wish the hybrid rules didn't pertain to. She would be an awesome R/W general, and I suppose you can play her that way, but she would also be great in R/W or R/B aggressive decks. I think the best card to nab with her right now is Karmic Guide since you can keep looping the Guide for crazy value. R/W really needs more low to the ground aggressive value cards to step up to the other colors. We are getting there as WotC keeps shuffling the effects and power of cards. The problem with that is that Red has been great in Standard and Extended/Modern basically forever, so they are trying really hard to find things that they can do for older formats. I would say that they've been pretty successful, but its still an uphill battle for EDH.
Her trigger is pretty demanding on your mana in an aggressive deck, and you'll need a whispersilk cloak on her eventually since you need to be attacking, but I do really like the direction of the card and the strategy it wants you to play.
Warden of the First Tree-
This guy is obviously supposed to be aping Figure of Destiny. I think he's an order of magnitude worse for EDH as it is an Abzan only card. If you could put him in G/W or G/B there might be some call for him but I can't imagine wanting to pour that much mana into a card that doesn't immediately win the game. To be fair, if you get to activate his third ability in actual magic you probably do just win the game.
Atarka, World Render-
The art is amazing. She feels like a Kaiju. If you want to basically do what Karrthus does, but with easier mana. Also, things like Berzerk or Wolf Run deal double damage, but she naturally has trample so something like Might of Oaks is often fatal on its own. The double strike for all your dragons is also super scary and letting your defenses down when she's ready to go full on beast mode will likely get you killed in a hurry. She also works well slotting into two of the most popular Jund decks, Karrthus and Prossh. I expect to be seeing this Kaiju pretty frequently.
Ojutai, Soul of Winter-
If he wasn't sooooo expensive I would love this guy. Sleeping things is, as noted above, really strong in EDH. Getting to sleep multiple things every attack step is crazy strong. A seven mana tag in non-red is going to make it much harder to build around him or put him into other things. The pay off is extreme though since vigilance makes him much more difficult to attack into.
Land:
Crucible of the Spirit Dragon-
This is a neat land but it is super narrow. I only see it being useful in Scion of the Ur-dragon as fixing, though the same could be said of any Dragon themed deck.
The Set:
Overall the set has a lot of neat toys, though its really going to boil down to how good Manifest ends up being when played with. The problem is that most of the cool cards are really limited to Wedge colors when they were not designed to be wedge cards. I made a case in the last post that the hybrid mana rules need to be adjusted in the light of the new set and the cards revealed since that post only reinforce that argument. I would be twice as excited for this set's EDH potential if Alesha could be played in Brion, or Tasigur in Jarad, or Mardu Hordechief in Oloro, or Soulfire Grand Master in Gisela. The rules really need to be updated for me to really fall in love with this set, and if they are then this is honestly one of the best sets for EDH.
Aside from the color issues, the cards themselves are very powerful. There are tons of applications to the printed cards including some of the best-in-slot cards for things like blue removal, white mass resurrection, and red value creatures. Tons of this cards will be staples if not especially deck defining. There are several cool legends that have build around properties. If you like EDH then you are going to want to pay attention to this set, I just wish you could slot more of the awesome cards into more places.
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