Welcome to Battle for Zendikar, already in action! Are you ready to get your Battle on and fight for what’s right and just and colorful? Or are you a thrall held in the grip of the Eldrazi assault on our good adventure world?

I like playing Magic casually. There’s something to be said for shuffling it up and playing some games at lunch or before I go on duty for my university. I’ve always felt a certain fondness for decks and concepts at the apartment table compared to the tournament one. It’s a comfortable, game-night feel rather than a tortured and hectic cutthroat night.

And the cards that Battle for Zendikar brings to Casual Land are certainly intriguing. Whether you are playing sixty-card duels or hundred-card multiplayer, multiplayer Draft or rocking giant, two-hundred-fifty-card, five-colored decks, there’s something to be said for adding a few cards from the latest set to your nightly beatings.

What are the top ten cards from this set?

A lot of the cards in this set are just colorless or awaken versions of typical support cards—these include Scatter to the Winds, Coastal Discovery, and Ruinous Path. It's certainly a normal thing to see cards with the block's mechanics, but Battle for Zendikar seems to have a larger number than normal.

Then there are the insular abilities of the pro-colorless cards, and those usually don't make a Top 10 list like this. And finally, I'm not sure how the ingest creature that exile cards will work alongside the Processors and other Eldrazi-themed cards. Do the ingest cards (and other similar effects) have enough critical mass to allow the Processors to work? If so, cards like Wasteland Strangler and Ulamog's Nullifier are powerful entries into casual decks. If not, they aren't going to do a whole lot. I need to play around with them and find out before I can comfortably predict their value.

With that preamble out of the way, here are ten cards I really can recommend!

10 — Vampiric Rites

Black has always had a bit of a self-sacrifice theme ever since Lord of the Pit was in Limited Edition Alpha. And as Nether Shadow demonstrated, we had creatures to sacrifice as well. Ever since, we've had cards that want you to sacrifice for various effects (from Gate to Phyrexia all the way to Smothering Abomination). We also don't lack for great creatures to sacrifice for the cause of all that is impure and unholy. Vampiric Rites is the next contestant in that genre of card. But it gives you some interesting paths. Sacrificing a creature for a card is pretty unusual in black. There are a few permanent that give you multiple shots (Infernal Tribute is an example), but not many. And here, you layer onto the card-draw a smattering of life-gain as well. And don't ignore that life-gain—it's something useful. Every little bit helps. This is the sort of quiet engine that I expect to see here and there for a long time moving forward in Magic-dom.

9 — Brutal Expulsion

Removal rocks. Bouncing and tempo rocks. Having a card that can both Shock and bounce for 4 mana in red and blue is highly reminiscent of Jilt. The Expulsion is a nice upgrade from a variety of angles. You can bounce a spell if you prefer, in lieu of just a creature, and that’s really flexible. Many spells are situational, and bouncing it can act as a soft counter. If someone paid a cost to pay the spell such as life or a sacrifice, it hurts even more. Meanwhile, you can Shock a creature or a Planeswalker if you prefer, and you can exile it if it dies, removing any major shenanigans. Finally, because the spell is colorless, it slips past color based protection, so you can target things like Silver Knight, Iridescent Angel, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. It’s a great tool to use.

8 — Ob Nixilis Reignited

Phyrexian Arena has long shown itself to be a staple card-draw engine for Commander and other formats at the kitchen table. So netting a +1 ability on a Planeswalker that Arenas you is certainly something you'll find useful. Meanwhile, you can -3 to Murder something. Again, that's a strong bit of flexibility. You probably won't reach ultimate value that often, but what you can have is a ’Walker for your team that plays a strong support role. Now, Ob Nixilis is never going to be an amazing card. Drawing cards at the cost of life or a Murder for a 5 mana investment is not exactly world-beating. But it works. He’ll never make a Top 10 Planeswalkers list. Who cares? He fits what you wanted to do already, so Ob Nixilis gives you repeatability and a flexible package. He’ll hit the ground running.

7 — Scour from Existence

Way back in Arabian Nights, we gave green a powerful answer to a lot of problems: Desert Twister. Sure, it cost 6 mana, but it saw play in play of decks for a long time because green makes mana, so it's okay. There were flexible cards later, such as Creeping Mold, that were compared to the Twister, and even Vindicate was good because it was half the mana of a Desert Twister. Desert Twister was always a card in the back of your mind, even though most decks today ran variants of Naturalizes and cheaper Twister variants like Maelstrom Pulse. Green killing creatures by itself was always the problem with a mono-green removal spell. How about exiling it instead? And what if it’s no longer green? Red can exile enchantments, black artifacts and enchantments, blue creatures or lands, and so forth. And for just 1 more mana than Desert Twister, you can exile, at instant speed, any permanent that you can target, and from any color. Scour from Existence basically eschews all concept of the color wheel. It strikes me as very, very wrong, and not in the New Phyrexia "wrong" that they tried to give cards to demonstrate the rebirth, but color-wheel wrong. It's powerful, it's great for slower formats like Commander, and it's a tool we'll use from here on out to shore up issues in your color.

6 — Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Gideon is a great card for your deck from a few angles. First of all, he can use all three abilities when he arrives, giving you a useful dosage of medicine. Want to just pump up your team? Gideon will give a great speech to drop a permanent emblem and then head on out to another flank of the war here on Zendikar. Would you prefer to bring some 2/2 Knight Ally tokens instead? He can call out some friends for your team one by one. And if you prefer, Gideon will grab his sword and shield and go out there to mix it up for himself. He doesn't lead from behind, that's for sure!

5 — Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

I like creatures that are great to ramp up to and have some form of built-in protection like indestructible. I like it when my big bad also gives me some card advantage, such as blowing up annoying permanents. So a card like Ulamog, Part 2: Eldrazi Harder is going to really resonate with me. There are a lot of things here to like about our good friend Ulamog. While the Eldrazi's "cast" line helps against countermagic, it hurts elsewhere, by not working well with effects that put the creature into play (reanimation, Defense of the Heart) or blinking effects. Neither way works to push your creature's triggers (whatever they may be), so they really only work in ramp-esque builds, which limits their usefulness. Only Ulamog is strong enough to break out of those chains. The Chains of Love.

4 — Kiora, Master of the Depths

Ah yes, Kiora (No Longer Atua). She’s probably among my favorite Planeswalkers—she uses all of the nastiest ramp strategies imaginable to get to play: Leviathans, Sea Serpents, Tidal Kraken, and similar creatures. She’s like the perfect Timmy in Planeswalker form! She really gets that Magic is about having fun, and if you are going to ramp up, do it to drop some really fun and flavorful stuff, don’t do it drop Eldrazi after Eldrazi or extremely annoying stuff. So I have a certain . . . affection for Kiora. I want to admit that right away. This iteration of good Kiora is pretty interesting. You can drop her for 4 mana and load up a +1 counter to bring her to 5 loyalty immediately. She has a very flexible +1 to untap a land and/or a critter. That works with a ton of stuff (Birds of Paradise, Simic Growth Chamber, Maze of Ith, Arcanis the Omnipotent, Temple of the False God, Kiora's Follower, Llanowar Elves, etc.). Then, you can -2 her to perhaps draw a land and a creature. You’ll probably hit at least one, so you always gain a card from it. She’s just really flexible, and she fits into many different shells, but she plays a stronger role in them than Ob Nixilis or Gideon, This Time It’s Zendikar would do. Kiora is a real deal of steel—and Timmy face-smashing.

3 — Zada, Hedron Grinder

Zada is like a Radiate on a stick, and since you can build around her, you have the needed flexibility to make her work from multiple angles. You can put her into a rebound R/G Commander deck around Wort, the Raidmother or drop her in a Narset, Enlightened Master deck that seeks to play instants and sorceries for free. Izzet can drop Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and company with tricks like replicate or storm. Zada has a lot of different ways of building, and each is different, but fun. This is the dawning of the Age of Zada!

2 — Part the Waterveil

I like playing Magic. What about you? My favorite part is probably turning creatures sideways and swinging at folks. I love untapping, drawing a card, casting spells, attacking with creatures, and, of course, playing Magic. That's why I've always been fond of taking extra turns. I'll play Time Vault as intended, sorting a turn here and then taking another later. I picked up Temporal Manipulation before it was legal. I like taking more turns because I can play more Magic. There was a common thought years ago about how some cards were aspects of Time Walk. If I bounce your land, I Time Walk you. If I Remand your spell, I Time Walk you. But do you know what's better than these pseudo-Time Walks? Time Walk! We have a new Time Walk variant with Part the Waterveil, and it offers us a lot of useful options. You can cast it like a normal Time Warp card. You are so cool; you deserve to take another turn! And if you want another creature for the red zone or have the extra mana in a control build or a ramp build, why not awaken and make a big 6/6 beater and swing again?

1 — Emeria Shepherd

These ten cards will make immediate impact on your games. From the common Scour from Existence to the mythic Kiora, Master of the Awesome, we have a lot of great cards at all price points and rarities. Are you ready to get your Battle on? What cards are you most looking to grabbing and rocking at your casual night?

P.S. I feel like there tends to be a few flavor-reprint misses in many of the recent sets. For example, I felt that Warrior's Oath would have been a great reprint in the Theros block as an ideal way to convey the Spartan concept of coming back with your shield or on it. (You come back victorious, or dead and with honor, but you don't flee.) Taking another turn and dying at the end of it is a perfect bit of flavor.

I enjoy the reprint of Giant Mantis in this set from Mirage. I think that was a great choice! Crumble to Dust is extremely similar to Sowing Salt, a card printed twice before. But I understand how the concept of "sowing with salt" may not fit the Zendikar theme. So Crumble to Dust is fine. But I don't see why Reclaiming Vines couldn't just have been Creeping Mold, with the same concept and flavor text. I feel that way with other cards, too, but we’ll just wait until the next set and see where it goes before being fully disappointed.