Welcome to another edition of Spoiler Season by Hipsters of the Coast! Every Wednesday and Friday during spoiler season we’ll post all of the officially revealed cards so far and have our panel discuss each one. First let’s meet our panelists:
Carrie is the editor-in-chief for Hipsters of the Coast and writes a weekly column focusing on her experiences playing Limited and high-level competitive Magic.
Curtis is a contributor for Hipsters of the Coast who enjoys studying the mysteries of world history when he isn’t grinding local Magic tournaments.
Dana is a mainstay of NYC’s competitive Magic scene. You can catch her streaming Magic and other games at twitch.tv/danaflops
David is the technical genius behind Hipsters of the Coast and Team Draft League and has been known to sling some spells from time to time.
Matt is an artist who has had gallery shows in Paris, Berlin, and New York. He used to play Magic, but now just likes to write commentary about the artwork.
Nate is an avid Legacy and Vintage player and is also co-hosting the Eternal Durdles podcast with Hipsters of the Coast founder Zac Clark.
Jess is the content manager for Hipsters of the Coast, writes a weekly column on Commander and/or social issues, and is a former contributor for Star City Games.
Rich is in charge of this whole mess.
Zac is the founder of Hipsters of the Coast and is a regular contributor and has recently launched the Eternal Durdles podcast.
Zach is a game designer based in New York City whose weekly column on Magic design has been featured multiple times on Wizards of the Coast’s daily update.
Thursday, July 7th
Sorcery
Return all land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Carrie: Self-mill Scapeshift? Is Zuran Orb legal in Modern? This might crack my top ten favorite cards ever.
Kate: Umm I don’t think there are enough ways for me to describe how much I love this card. There are about 200 things I want to try this in.
Rich: This card is going to be very, very popular.
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, sacrifice Power of the Moon and counter that spell.
Carrie: I’m not sure how good this actually is. It’s no Standstill. But it might be good in Enchantress or with Replenish or whatever. Do people still play those cards? Other than Curtis?
Kate: This seems pretty weak to me in basically every format but honestly outside of Legacy you should probably ignore me.
Rich: This kind of says 2U: Your opponent discards a non-land card and pays its mana cost. I’m not impressed.
Matt: My favorite Fleshmad Steed variant!
Carrie: Discard your hand! This is One With Nothing but it costs two and comes with a flying bear!
Dana: Any card with a repeatable ability and no mana cost bears respect, and knowing these are floating around the table will definitely induce me to draft madness cards more highly.
Rich: It’s a whole cycle of Wild Mongrels!
Jess: I have always enjoyed tribal synergies, and there are some great Humans out there. This will make it into those tribal decks, but probably not elsewhere.
Matt: That horn is legit. Wonder which animal it came from or if it was hand crafted from a tree or other material.
Carrie: More lantern, less lifelink. Great limited card, though.
Dana: This feels like a limited reward for drafting humans, but I can’t see passing it if I’m in white just because the body is such a good rate.
Kate: Seems okay I guess, maybe a bit overpriced. Though I totally dig Tribal as well.
Matt: I like this idea, that Emrakul is trapped in the moon (an often mythically female figure, so not a male imprisoning a female). The more I look at this image the more I realize it’s four female figures on one card, all are doing powerful awesome things, and not a man among them taking control, telling them what to do, being heroic, or other obvious lousy storytelling device.
Jess: I think Matt highlights something that is casually awesome. I also like this as a card, because this is decent removal. So far green had only seen this effect, but I think it works better in blue. That having been said… the flavor of Emrakul makes no sense. She’s an extinction-level threat who is as big as Ludevic’s Abomination. The three had to be locked away on Zendikar for reasons and yet Emrakul fits nicely into the Innistrad moon. And the scale of this art doesn’t make a lot of visual sense to me.
Carrie: So what do herons have to do with all of this?
Dana: Strong removal for blue, though it feels a little weird for them to print it at rare. Was arrest really that good?
Matt: Pretty sure the horse’s head was painted using a loaf of bread for reference.
Jess: Solid tribal lord. I would think it somewhat weak were it not for the flash, though.
Carrie: Moon Heron. Heron’s Grace. Helvault. Sorin. That’s no moon!
Dana: I expect to lose multiple drafts to this card.
Kate: I know 4 CMC is a bit high for D&T but I’m curious if this will see play in the already existing G/W variant.
Creature – Spirit
Whenever another spirit enters the battlefield under your control, Mausoleum Wanderer gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Sacrifice Mausoleum Wanderer: Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless its controller pays X where X is Mausoleum Wanderer’s power.
Matt: I really like the word “mausoleum”.
Jess: I am less attached to the word “wanderer”. That double “er” at the end always sticks in my craw. Anyway, this is a neat card and I imagine I’ll see it a fair bit in Commander. Elsewhere? Who knows.
Carrie: Judge’s Familiar and Cursecatcher have had their days in the sun. This one probably will too.
Dana: So we have our curve-out now for constructed spirits. Will it be good enough?
Kate: I could see this being really interesting in decks that run ‘Lingering Souls’ I guess.
Enchantment
You may cast aura and equipment spells as though they have flash.
Whenever an equipment enters the battlefield under your control, you may attach it to target creature you control.
Matt: I have always loved Sigarda and was wondering where the hell she was. Looks like she’s incorruptible and awesome. Perfect.
Jess: It’s a little weird this is Sigarda because Bruna was the one with the aura synergies and Nahiri is the one with equipment flavor, but beyond that this is a great card for Commander artifact decks. Leonin Shikari is getting a bit pricey, and this is way better.
Carrie: So Avacyn is going to be replaced with Sigarda as the protector of humans. They’ll worship the Heron now. Sorin is dead/gone/irrelevant. And there are a lot of zombies around.
Dana: Auto-include in my Sigarda Enchantress EDH deck. Can’t see it getting played in other formats though, since it doesn’t effect the board and doesn’t say “draw a card”.
Kate: This seems like it could be stupid good in well most things. I’ll be shocked if this doesn’t see play in D&T or Deathblade, I feel like it could really improve the kind of equipment being run in those decks.
Wednesday, July 6th
Rich: Five mana seems pretty steep…
Carrie: Knightly Valor minus vigilance is still pretty good.
Matt: I wish I had a wolf buddy. I wish I had a wolf buddy more than I can possibly express in written language.
Jess: I imagine tribal synergies and color will make up for the loss of vigilance. Green hits five mana more easily than white does, after all.
David: It will be interesting to see how much worse the lack of vigilance makes this card.
Kate: I’m bad at guessing how cards will be outside of Eternal but I can see this not being awful in limited but I agree with Rich, five mana is pricey.
Dana: Those eyes are pretty fantastic. Why not make the enchanted creature a werewolf, though?
Rich: Technically not Wild Mongrel because you can’t change it’s color to protect it from Terror. So there.
Carrie: Climbing a tree does not give you reach.
Matt: Don’t be … constricted … by rigid definitions of “reach,” Carrie.
Jess: Wild Mongrel isn’t really good enough for Commander, although I am excited for any splash this card might make in Standard. I feel like that might be fun to watch.
Dana: I don’t understand why they didn’t just reprint wild mongrel, but this card is good. I still don’t see enough upside to playing madness in constructed however, unless my feel for the power level of standard is way way off.
Carrie: I guess the dream scenario (as the opponent) is you see one decent card and three lands. You put the decent card and land face up and hope they think you are baiting them to take the sure thing and pick the two face down lands instead.
Matt: This card is sweet. I like cards that fuck with the way the game is played and make randomness a thing. Or mind games. Mind games beyond “do they have such and such a card? No? Yes? Shit, what do I do? Oh no! They had it. Scoop.” These new mind games are interesting.
Jess: It’s at its best when you’re digging for a certain type of thing. I’d still prefer Fact or Fiction, but I probably run both in a Commander deck. Plus, unlike Fact or Fiction, this does not so readily lend itself to suggested splits from the political crowd.
David: Mind games!
Kate: I want people to cast this against me just so I can have fun screwing with their heads. I’m a bad person.
Dana: This one is going to be a lot of fun to play against. I look forward to leaving two lands in the face-down pile.
Carrie: I like that you can cast this for one mana if you already have a bunch of zombies.
Matt: Is there another kind of salvation?
Jess: Meh.
David: Meh is right.
Kate: I’m going to third that Meh.
Dana: Boring card. Feels like it should have a graveyard-based cost reduction or something to make it more playable. XX is pretty oppressive, especially when the effect is as limited as this one.
Carrie: Style points for anyone who can kill this to get back a timely spell that was countered earlier.
Matt: Purple looks strange when it’s used in the illustration for gold cards.
Jess: Yeah, it makes the top left of the card, with the ghost in it, look pretty muddy.
David: 😍😍😍
Kate: I want to see Aaron jam this in his blue/white death and taxes.
Dana: I feel like WotC wants UW spirits to play the faeries game in standard, and that’s a dangerous path to tread. The role players are all definitely there now, though, so it remains to be seen how viable this tribe is without a bitterblossom-style effect.
Carrie: Nahiri found the Master Sword and a life potion.
Matt: Rich explained to me who Nahiri is, what her feud with Sorin is, and all that jazz, just last night. I really don’t care about planeswalkers. They are variants on Superman and Superman is the biggest snore in the multiverse. Usually I feel that nothing is actually at stake, all the planeswalkers are babies, and that I’d rather focus on the lives of legendary MTG multiverse inhabitants. The blue background in the illustration is nice tho.
Jess: I think it’s a neat card, though it would probably be bonkers if you could target players.
Kate: Jess read my mind, if it could target players I’d immediately want to run it in Post or Tron.
Dana: I look forward to watching Conley Woods try and break this card.
Carrie: So does Sorin die now? He seems like more of a pain in the ass than anything else, and the Gatewatch replaces his “fixer” role.
Matt: This illustration reminds me of Washington Crossing the Deleware.
Jess: I grew up near there! I have seen that painting in person, I think (honestly all the Washington’s Crossing paintings look alike to me). As for the card? It will probably be good in black/white token decks as a backup lord effect, but otherwise I don’t anticipate seeing a ton of it.
Dana: Sorin’s really a big fan of giving up on his projects, huh?
Creature – Devil Horror
Chaos Reveler costs 1 mana less to cast for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.
Prowess
When Chaos Reveler enters the battlefield, discard your hand, then draw three cards.
Rich: Now that’s a pretty sweet Prowess creature. Casting it for RR in Delver decks seems like a lot of fun, no?
Carrie: You gotta do some work to make this pay off, but it sounds like fun and worthy work!
Matt: I have no complaints about the art. It’s beautiful looking.
Jess: Yeah, this card excites me for Legacy. It’s not amazing for Commander, but plenty of decks will still want to run it, since you have access to more mana and thus need to run fewer spells for this to be decent. Also, more red card draw! Very nice.
Kate: This card seems awesome in Legacy, I can’t stop thinking about all the decks I want to jam it in and I don’t even like playing red!
Dana: It’s probably delver-playable, but I don’t know why you’d want this instead of goyf or gurmag angler unless you’re pure Izzet.
Tuesday, July 5th
Rich: Woodland geists conduct weird scientific studies.
Carrie: Fixed but slow version of Humility.
David: This mechanic seems a lot more fun on Modo than in paper.
Matt: I keep reading “Permeating Moss” and cracking up. Then, the reality of what it actually says hits, and I’m like, “Meh”.
Jess: Yeah, I don’t know that I quite get the name. Also, I do not love how it ping pongs between players. Still, it’s an interesting rattler.
Rich: Vampires getting aggressive.
Matt: Real missed opportunity for “Vampire Bear” to be a real thing.
Rich: I needed to read this card more than once to get what it means and I have a feeling most players will need more than that. This feels like it’s trying to be clever and doesn’t need to be.
Carrie: So you spend seven mana to make the opponent afraid to cast a spell because you might get to cast one of their cards for free? No thanks.
Matt: But the art is computer generated!! That’s gotta count for something, right?! No. No it doesn’t. I play video games for computer generated imagery.
Jess: This card screams Commander. It will be enjoyed by jujitsu players and disdained by the rest of us.
Rich: Now that’s a devious take on hexproof/shroud.
Carrie: This is a weirdly half-offensive, half-defensive ability.
David: I still find the idea of dragons on Innistrad very strange.
Matt: Judging by the illustration, this card was called Eidelon of the Purple Dragon and belongs on Theros.
Jess: I have yet to see this ability work well in Commander. Still, its defensive aspects are interesting. It may die to Doom Blade, but it takes your opponent’s board with it.
Rich: Uh, okay. I’m sure my 2/2 with Trample is going to connect frequently. Yikes.
Carrie: This is mythic? The ability is good, if you can trigger it, but an efficient body with a card filtering ability that grows late game is not mythic.
David: This guy looks could be Garruk’s little brother.
Matt: I like this card. I like that he is in the middle of eating a goddamn bird. A white bird. And its bird blood is all over his forearm and hand. Oh and he’s got Garruk’s axe but totally didn’t need to use in on this dumb bird that he killed by snatching it out of the air with his MOUTH. Or maybe it’s not a bird. Maybe it’s just a white glove because he’s about to go test the cleanliness of Innistrad’s art museums. You know, the white glove test. Christ, I dunno. This card is totally awesome but should only be a rare.
Jess: This is not a Commander card, just because that body will get outclassed ASAP and there are better ways to fuel a graveyard.
Rich: It took me a moment to realize this was a reprint.
David: Boros was so fun in Gatecrash that I almost exchanged my Selesnya Collective membership for a commission in the Boros Legion.
Matt: These two are the cleanest horse and warrior combo ever. They must’ve just left Saint Traft’s house after a proper fitting, grooming, and primping.
Rich: That’s a weird ability on a black/green creature. I really thought blue/red were the ones that prevented blocking.
Carrie: This is the archetype card for green/black? Not what I would expect.
Matt: So many words … I don’t play Magic to read. Well, I don’t really play Magic much, but I defintely never played it to read. Luckily, the art on this card is amazeballs and I can just stare at this ridiculous plant skeleton with chest and shoulder skulls for, like, ever, and feel pretty damn good.
Rich: They should have just taken a screencap of the scene from Ghostbusters where the containment unit explodes because that pencil-neck from the EPA had a personal vendetta against Dr. Venkman.
Matt: Walter Peck. That’s the EPA guy. I love Ghostbusters so much. Anyway, I’m kind of a huge fan of this art. I mean, it’s really hitting the blue/red mana thing home. It has a super weird composition. The greenish background really works with the geist colors. Like, really works. A little diversity in illustration goes a long way.
Rich: Emerge is growing on me as a mechanic. Or it’s this tentacle sticking out of my back. Meh’mrakul.
David: We’ll see if Emerge plays well but it looks pretty clunky to me.
Matt: I love this illustration. I think when I get to the studio this Friday I’m going to straight up copy this painting. The purple/green color scheme is absolutely B O M B. So good. I love the floaty way the tendrils are expressed. I love that they feel heavy but are still convincingly able to float in the air. So good. Maybe my favorite art of the set thus far.
Jess: I see major potential for these emergent Eldrazi in my Five-Color Colorless Reaper King deck. That having been said, they’re more solid than exciting.
Monday, July 4th
Rich: Could it be? The missing link to make Dredge a Tier 1 deck in Modern? Pretty please?
Carrie: This is a lot easier to kill than Pack Rat, and does not escalate as quickly. Still might be one of the best one drops ever!
Matt: Dies to Dismember.
Jess: Oh my goddess I love this card. A zombie draw engine with a discard outlet stapled to it? Purrrrfect.
Rich: The flavor text is cute but it’s going to get old real quick. Or maybe it’s already old. We get it. Chandra burns things. Gideon likes structure. Har har.
Carrie: Chandra controls all manner of fire. Whatever mana cost and damage output you want, she’ll get to it eventually.
Aaron: For a young, unpredictable and erratic fire mage, Chandra isn’t pulling her weight with this one at sorcery speed. No wonder the gatewatch was losing before Liliana joined the battle.
Dana: Feels like yet another development card included as a safety valve but rendered a little too weak to include in your starting 60.
Matt: “What’s your plan?” Gideon asked. “I wish to be represented by mediocre illustration,” Chandra replied.
Rich: The level of flavor fail when you use this to put Nicol Bolas into play in your mono-white cube deck is going to be priceless.
Carrie: If you build a super super super friends deck, this might actually be sweet. Even then, you have to pick two different walkers to get full value, so you’d want a wide mix.
Aaron: I like it. The flavor of the card is nice. The CoCo aspect is a lottery at best. If you were able to pull any combination of Ob Nixilis, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Sorin, Grim Nemesis off of this I don’t believe you could lose from there.
Jess: Seems good with Scroll Rack in that cube deck, Rich.
Dana: Aaaaand we have our control deck finisher-of-choice for the next standard season. This card is VERY strong, and in a dedicated walker control deck should be able to put most games away, as any good 6 mana spell should in constructed.
Matt: Did WOTC get “Gatewatch” from a 90s superhero team name generator? I just used a superhero name generator and got the following gems: Wonder Cat, The Aqua Wave, The Fusion Shadow, Turbo Blade, Spark Enchantress, Mind Beast, Rabid Arachnid (actually, I made that one up), Shield Gal, Luminous Trace, Ghost Spider, Wolf Mage (just tried to buy wolfmage.com but it’s already taken), Imperial Amphibian, Howl Auger, Ember Falcon, Sting Comet, Hound Fraud (yikes), Arctic Spider, Beam Tracer, Chemical Pierce, Cyan Chop, Dark Net, Giant Slash, Glue Glare, God Insect, Iron Hawk, Jackal Spark, Meganoble, Psychic, Carapace, Punch Fist (new favorite), Robot Bomber, Screamo, Slash Magician, Stone Dog, Vermillion Bombadier, Watervore, Wing Shaman, …
Jess: It does seem awfully reminiscent of Stormwatch, with the color/moral scheme of WildCATS.
Creature – Spirit
Flying
Sacrifice Selfless Soul: Creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Rich: Oh look, they turned Saint Sebastian into a Magic card. Well done.
Carrie: Because white needed the help. Or Collected Company. At least this doesn’t stop Languish.
Jess: I like it, it has Commander utility.
Dana: Is tribal spirits a thing? Is WW a thing in standard or modern? It loses to terminate and sulfur elemental in legacy, so those are the only places where I see this being useful. That said, the evasive body is a nice upgrade from Dauntless Escort.
Matt: I’m glad this spirit has a lantern attached to its ass.
Carrie: Does that mean it should have lifelink?
Rich: I think this is the first Liliana planeswalker art that isn’t 50% cleavage or midriff. Amazing.
Aaron: Honestly, I have always loved Liliana. Her character, the cards, etc. I play a lot of Pox and while this may not fill the Liliana of the Veil role there she seems great for decks like Deathblade, or any other deck where you want to always add loyalty but not have to discard useful cards in hand. The nice thing is that she can every turn answer a threat or nerf a threat by always ticking up in loyalty, whereas Liliana of the Veil takes 3 turns to answer another threat without killing herself. The last hope also has an ultimate that actually has inevitability to end the game.
Carrie: Sign me up. Shrink some stuff then rebuy threats.
Jess: The Lilys that don’t involve tutoring or forcing discard tend to be more multiplayer-friendly than the ones that do.
Dana: I adore this art, and the flavor of the card. Unfortunately I don’t think her abilities here are especially strong or synergistic. Lily of the Veil kept your opponent hellbent while building to her ultimate. This plus, while it protects her somewhat, is not strong enough to take over a game on its own, and the minus is very expensive for unearth, even with the self-mill. That said, if she ultimates I can’t see you losing the game, which is not something you can say for her predecessor.
Matt: We’re gonna learn that Liliana and Emrakul went to highschool together, were both in math league, and had matching purple team uniforms. She’s gonna switch sides last minute and wrap Innistrad in purple spaghetti.
Rich: Wait, it’s more Liliana art that isn’t overly sexualized? Also yes, we’re all thrilled to learn you’ve joined the Gatewatch to stay close to cloak-boy.
Aaron: I love the fact that Liliana swears Oaths to no one… until Emrakul comes knocking at her door, then all bets are off. Love the sass in the flavor text!
Dana: Finally my OCD can stop hurting over the Oath cycle. Also this card seems decently strong for standard.
Matt: I’m glad they did away with three set blocks and turned them into four set blocks.
Carrie: At least this one wasn’t as obvious as the Emrakul thing. Still fairly telegraphed. Good card though.
Rich: Wizards must have really pushed discard as a viable Standard deck in order to put protection from it right into the set. I guess this could also be impactful in Modern and Legacy.
Carrie: Fun for the Reality Smasher mirror.
Jess: I’ll probably end up putting one of these in every Commander deck that can support another colorless nonbasic… because why not?
Dana: I can’t see this being good outside of casting miracles, and the fact that you can’t abuse it with your own discard hoses that, so… hard pass.
Matt: Finally the home of purple mana is discovered.
Sorcery
Escalate 1
Choose one or more:
- Target player discards all cards in his or her hand, then draws that many cards.
- United Resistance deals 4 damage to target creature.
- United Resistance deals 3 damage to target opponent.
Rich: Looks like the cavalry arrived just in time to ruin our cosmic horror story and turn it into another Michael Bay film.
Carrie: Too bad the escalate cost on this one isn’t “discard a card” hah! Card looks great as is.
Jess: Online someone pointed out that this can be nasty with Spirit of the Labyrinth. I think it’s useful but hardly exciting.
Dana: With a super-low escalate cost I see this fitting in a lot of constructed decks. Each mode is decent save winds of change and even that will come in handy occasionally, I suspect.
Matt: Michael Bay is the worst.
Rich: I guess a legendary spider is a thing people have been asking for but I thought Hydra was the green iconic creature and if this means no legendary Emrakul-Hydra I’ll be sad.
Carrie: So good.
Aaron: I hate spiders…so creepy!
Jess: it’s a Spider Rock commander finally! I like it, and will probably include copies in other decks due to its general utility.
Dana: I’m calling dibs on this fine lady for my next commander. Spidering up is by far my favorite multiplayer strategy, and this thing is sweet.
Matt: Where’s the light coming from? Does she have a green Bodhi in there?
Sunday, July 3rd
Rich: I like the flavor text but it kind of implies this is a demonic/eldritch gift in which case, where’s the drawback?
Carrie: It’s 10:30, we’re calling from Providence, Rhode Island. Did you find your shit?
Aaron to Rich: If they reveal a card that makes someone lose half their life… Triskaidekaphobia! “Thought you were safe, bro?”
Dana: While this will let you take two hits from Emrakul, I suspect you’ll just concede after the first.
Matt: Yes, we found our shit.
Rich: Team Werewolf going on the defensive? Seems a bit out of character, no?
Carrie: Nice Languish, bro.
Dana: Another development-requested card(I suspect) that feels like this was printed for standard sideboards.
Matt: At least the art is good.
Rich: We could start fresh, or we could stop trying to make incredibly narrow counterspells? I guess it synergizes with the Eldrazi processors.
Carrie: Nice stack you’ve built up there. Would be a pity if something happened to it.
Jess: I have literally never seen one of these spells snag a whole stack.
Dana: This will seem like a great card to someone new to eternal formats, right up until their opponent casts flusterstorm.
Matt: I’ve got some Flusterstorms available if anyone wants them.
Saturday, July 2nd
Rich: I wonder if you can channel them to trap an Eldrazi titan and then incinerate it like they did on Zendikar. Just wondering…
Carrie: Has this ever been good?
Friday, July 1st
Rich: I don’t think anyone expected Bant colors for Tamiyo but I’m excited. That ultimate ability is bonkers. There looks to be a lot of skill and versatility in playing this planeswalker.
Matt: Tamiyo is my favorite non-Garruk planeswalker. She just does cool shit. She looks cool, and she reads a lot. Aces.
Carrie: I love Tamiyo in general, and this version seems sweet, but three-color planeswalkers are not my jam. I guess with Oath of Nissa it’s no big deal, though.
Zach: Tamiyo is my favorite planeswalker. I loved her recent story, one which made me both love her as embodying the best of blue (as compared to Jace, a character I’m reasonably fond of, depending on the writer, but one who still makes so many rash decisions heedless to consequences), but also made me feel she had a strong streak of green. Now I see why. I wish that her being Bant wasn’t a development decision (as opposed to being a consequence of her character development), but I’m elated that she’s getting a second card.
Matt: Zzzzzz. More run of the mill zombies.
Carrie: I hope zombies are good in limited now and this seems like a good one. Seagraf Skaab was already solid and this is likely to be much better because of all the graveyard recursion in zombie decks.
Zach: Seems good enough to play and even mildly desirable in the likely supported zombie deck.
Matt: The remixed art for this card is awesome. I’m not usually one to like such plays to the crowd, but this art-remix sub-theme is really something.
Carrie: Welcome back, friend.
Zach: It’s good to have you back. One-sided fight is more powerful, but this is more mana efficient and leads to more interesting decisions.
Rich: The last time this card was legal in limited and Standard I hated it with a passion. Now that it’s legal with Madness I’m sure it won’t be any less annoying.
Matt: Seems appropriate that I’m typing this to “Hey You” by Pink Floyd. Maybe it’s the “It was only fantasy / the wall was too high as you can see / no matter how he tried he could not break free / and the worms they enter his brain” lyrics.
Zach: Hypochondria is back. Woo.
Rich: Is hand disruption back on the menu for Standard control decks?
Matt: Even eldrazi purple can’t help this illustration.
Carrie: This card bores me. It’s probably good, but meh.
Zach: This is card is too Spikey for me. Carrie gets it right again.
Rich: What’s the over/under on “Well, that escalated quickly” jokes being told at your pre-release? One million? Two million?
Matt: Skip pre-release! Hear zero “escalated quickly” jokes!
Carrie: Crazy good in a madness deck. Outside madness decks, it’s not as ridiculous, but still versatile. Escalating useless cards for a bonus is nice, though.
Zach: In Standard, this probably lives or dies based on how good madness-based decks are. In Limited, this is a two mana, sorcery speed Disfigure; good, but not at all amazing. I’ve heard folks be very excited about for Legacy Reanimator (since it gives you the most important part of Duress and is guaranteed to bin a creature, plus can kill Deathrite Shaman), but I don’t expect that same enthusiasm for it in Limited.
Rich: Oh right, Nissa is going to be in this set. The flavor text on double-faced cards is usually pretty clever but this one falls short.
Matt: For just 9 mana you will be able to generate two colorless mana. What a deal!
Carrie: Mana dork with late game upside is good.
Zach: This card could be outstanding, because Carrie is right. Any creature that’s decent early and late is worth having.
Matt: I’ve always imagined this is what actual church is like.
Carrie: At least they got the flavor right and don’t let you sacrifice scions to this. As for power, this card is basically a 3/2 for three that blanks a removal spell. Maybe you have sacrifice shenanigans or make your team bigger, but that seems hard to pull off.
Zach: This seems blah. Scoure of Skola Vale was similar: a 3-drop with meh stats that let you sacrifice creatures for a small improvement to the board.
Creature – Vampire Horror
Trample
When Stromkirk Mystic deals combat damage to a player, exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Madness – 1R
Matt: Her hair is tentacles! Oh, wait, everything in this set is tentacles. NBD.
Zach: Prophetic Flameseeker wasn’t a strong enough card, and this card comes out at a time where red is almost unplayable. I have very low hopes for this creature (unless madness is just nuts), and can’t imagine it’s better than the thirty or so other playable 3-drop red creatures in cube.
Thursday, June 30th
Rich: Hymn to Tourach for 1B? At least the odds of triggering Delirium on turn two are very, very slim. This is still brutal on turn three or four or whenever.
Matt: I love “at random” when it’s in rules text. It tilts other people. Huzzah.
Carrie: I doubt this will be very good.
Zach: This card is almost certainly bad. Hymn is a powerful effect, but it’s at its most powerful on turn 2, when you wreck your opponent’s careful plans. The later in the game you get, the better Mind Rot gets, and then the worse that all discard inevitably becomes. This is not a good enough spell without delirium (particularly since it helps your opponent achieve delirium), and it’s likely to achieve delirium too late to do much. That said, it’s a smart design that echoes a powerful card of old.
Matt: The illustration is a remix of the illustration for “Make a Wish” and it’s damn fine.
Carrie: Green is the new blue. I anticipate playing a copy of this is all my green decks.
Zach: Corpse Churn’s back and better than before. I wonder how R&D will look back at this time where green has the best card draw, card filtering, and card advantage (though Courser of Kruphix did all of that with fetchlands).
Rich: Fantastic flavor text. Bravo.
Matt: Excellent unusual Magic illustration perspective. The blue with the hints of orange is real nice, too.
Zach: Murder is back! Is that the guy from Murderous Compulsion getting Murdered? If so, AWESOME!
Rich: Ah, the game winner for the new hand-disruption deck. Weird.
Matt: Robo-wolf is pretty sweet looking. I’m not sure what powers this guy. Geralf got some special robo-batteries? Does it tap into its life force? I’m often confused by robots in MTG and what the justification is for them. Golems make sense because there’s a history there, but just jamming cyborg parts onto a wolf doesn’t make much sense.
Carrie: What does the drawback have to do with the flavor of the card? Sure, it’s a prototype, so it doesn’t work very well. But what does being out of cards have to do with anything? More evidence of a One With Nothing bet at R&D.
Zach: This card has amazing flavor and none of it lives in the downside. I guess the robot likes it if someone is all out of good ideas?
Creature – Eldrazi Horror
You may cast Eternal Scourge from exile.
When Eternal Scourge becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, exile it.
Rich: The Eternal Scourge is your eternal frustration with how easy it is for this creature to be removed.
Matt: This Eldrazi Horror is no Eternal Master. Sigh.
Carrie: This is basically a variant on hexproof. Seems like a sideboard card for eternal formats.
Zach: So, the Eldrazi gets scared and hops into the Blind Eternities? Okay. This card is a slightly better Petrahydrox, and that card is awful.
Rich: I love that Wizards keeps printing green creature tutors. One in every five or so is going to get banned in Modern.
Matt: They should roll dice to decide which gets banned when. The illustration has very good, economical use of purple.
Carrie: This is going to do some work in Standard. Maybe Modern too.
Zach: I want to say that this would make decks turn towards more ETB/LTB effects, then I remember how little Pod needed that. This is a very nifty and very dangerous card that could be anything between useless, powerful, and broken.
Rich: Better flavor text would have been “All are we’mrakul.”
Matt: Yes, Rich. YES!
Carrie: Love it, although it seems better is aggressive decks, which aren’t my favorites.
Zach: Crazy Mikokoro is crazy.
Rich: MADNESS!
Matt: I can’t remember the card that this illustration is remixing. Shit.
Carrie: Not quite Pack Rat, but you can win a lot of games with this on turn two.
Zach: This card seems amazing. I can’t wait to give it a try in the cube. It’s almost certainly worse than Looter il-kor and Merfolk Looter, but if you have a solid graveyard theme, it can do a ton of work.
Creature – Eldrazi Boar
Emerge 6GGG
When you cast Decimator of Provinces, creatures you control get +2/+2 and gain trample until end of turn.
Haste, Trample
Rich: Bonus Vorthos points to the first person who casts Craterhoof Behemoth and then sacrifices it to cast Decimator of Provinces for 1 mana on the same turn.
Matt: In.
Zach: I guess your opponent is far less than a province, ‘cause this board plans to kill all of them with its attack, not just ten percent.
Rich: Eternal Players before Harmless Offering: “Get rid of the reserve list!” Eternal Players after Harmless Offering: “How could you so flagrantly ignore the reserve list?!”
Matt: I bet Zac Clark doesn’t have much to say about this card. (Also: cute kitty! Gnarly tail!)
Carrie: Is there anything worth donating in Standard?
Zach: I don’t imagine that this’ll make Demonic Pact good (enough or again), but it’s nice to the Reserved List get circumvented again.
Matt: Christ in hell, give them flying too. WTF. A non-flying vampire is hardly a vampire at all.
Zach: I do not look forward to playing against this in Limited. Vampire Hounds is a frightening card on its own, but this is a far bigger threat. There’s a real opportunity cost to using it, so I expect the threat of its activation will hurt blocks more often than its activation, but that’s the hallmark of a powerful ability.
Wednesday, June 29th
Dana: Huge amount of flavor here. Is it good? Really hard to say. It feels like something that could’ve been printed in Antiquities or The Dark, right down to the ol’ wall of text.
Carrie: This would be awesome if you could use it repeatedly. As it is, it’s a weird reanimation spell that most of the time will be worse than using a card like Unburial Rites. My guess is there are some fun creatures to split apart like this, if you aren’t into that sort of thing, and you’ll be able to get cheap copies of this to try that out.
Rich: I’m looking forward to seeing this in action in Cube/Commander. The flavor is really sweet.
Jess: I really want to see how they do that Spirit token.
Matt: Me too.
Zach: I expect a lot of folks to put this in their decks at prerelease. I also expect it to be terrible, but I’m fine with being wrong about such a flavor win.
Creature – Zombie Horror
Prowess
U: Ingenious Skaab gets +1/-1 until end of turn
Dana: Zzz…. I guess this is pushing complexity for a common under new world order, but it’s also just very blah. 3 toughness for 3 isn’t a bad rate for limited, but I can’t see picking this too highly.
Carrie: This card is great. It’s not quite Frostburn Weird, but close enough.
Rich: Prowess continues to impress me with its design space.
Matt: Bravo(ur)!
Zach: This card is fantastic. Watercourser is already a fine common, but the addition of prowess lets this threaten more damage and be harder to block.
Creature – Zombie
When Haunted Dead enters the battlefield, put a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying into play.
1B, discard two cards: Return Haunted Dead from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Carrie: Four mana is about half a mana more than I’d like to pay for the 2/2 plus 1/1 flier, but if four is the going rate these days, I’ll pay it. The discard recursion is quite good, making this a premium uncommon if you have reasons to want to discard two cards.
Rich: Seems like a pretty solid Madness/Delirium enabler.
Matt: I like the choice of yellow but on the whole this is welcome to Snoresville as far as the illustration is concerned.
Zach: If there weren’t a recursion ability, this could cost three mana and be an excellent common (like Eldrazi Skyspawner and Sandsteppe Outcast). Given that Stichwing Skaab is decent, but not decent (though in the worst color in SoI), I have low expectations of this weaker card.
Dana:I guess they’ve reconciled? The family that slays together stays together, after all.
Matt: I bet Carrie likes this card.
Carrie: These two finally show up, and they aren’t messing around. Four mana 4/4s are apparently available in all five colors now. I look forward to playing with this frequently.
Rich: I kind of wish it did something cooler but I guess it’s pretty effective as a four-drop.
Zach: Two of my favorite flavor text characters get to team up? This might get me to make a Commander deck.
Dana: A 4/4 for 4 is always good. The rest of the text is all upside. No idea if this is going to be constructed playable but I’d first pick it in draft and splash one of the colors.
Carrie: There must be some bet among Wizards R&D over who can design the card that finally makes One With Nothing playable.
Rich: Madnessing out a 4/4 for 3 is even better.
Matt: Boring art.
Zach: Being hellbent is rarely easy or desirable, but this card is absurd if both can be achieved.
Dana: OMG! Wizards finally printed my invitational card! Seriously though I love this guy. She’s adorable, even eldrazified.
Rich: Is it okay to talk about how good a decision the colorless mana symbol was yet or is it still too soon? Also is this good with Delver decks in Modern?
Carrie: This is the sort of Eldrazi I can get behind.
Matt: This art is goofy as all get out and I love it. BOTH sides. So good. Reading is fundamental!
Zach: OGLOR GOD!
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature gets +3/+3
When equipped creature attacks, it doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.
When Graft Stapler becomes unequipped from a creature, sacrifice it.
Equip 2
Dana: Ew.
Rich: That can’t possibly be the card’s name in English right? Also this seems terrible.
Matt: Stephen Colbert should do a segment on the Late Show about the various MTG translations into other languages.
Carrie: I believe you have my stapler.
Zach: Seems real good on Sylvan Advocate and alongside Always Watching. Seems awful in Limited.
Tuesday, June 28th
Matt: Uh … I like this card and the art is ok. Daarken was kinda snippy/mean towards me when I asked him to draw an ogre for me on a Hipsters business card once and he did the crappiest job of any artist I’ve ever asked. This is much better than that.
Zach: Lifelink feels weird here; there doesn’t seem to be anything magical going on here, but a lantern is good enough to justify Lantern Scout’s lifelink, so I guess a lantern means lifelink. I wonder if we’ll see yet another WB lifegain theme or if this is just going to be an okay creature on its (and pretty great with combat tricks).
Carrie: This is like a souped-up Cloistered Youth. I like it, assuming there are reasonable ways to gain more life.
Jess: I feel I will be saying this a lot this set, but gross.
David: A bad day at the office, indeed.
Zach: Neat. I wonder how many cheap colorless creatures will be in this set.
Carrie: The 2U 2/3 with upside is always solid in limited.
Jess: This cycle is terrible for cube and Commander and thus I will likely never play with this card outside of limited. Had it only said “creature or player,” we may have seen this showing up in Burn decks. But it doesn’t.
David: I loved Kindle as a kid and I’ll love Galvanic Bombardment as an adult.
Zach: Hooray for Kindle and the return of Shock! This is a neat counterpart to Fiery Impulse (and very probably worse in Standard), but a welcome addition to Limited.
Jess: Again, as a practitioner of singleton formats this card does not float my boat.
Zach: Accumulated Knowledge is now sorcery speed, Modern legal, and has modern templating. It’ll be interesting seeing what effect this has on Standard and Modern. The Limited format will really have to slow down or have some excellent self-mill to reward you for going in on this.
Carrie: This seems fairly costed as a sorcery.
Zach: So, every time something happens, someone falls out of the collective stocks? Neat. I like this as weird Quest For Five Zombies. I also expect that this will fall apart at unexpected times in combat.
Carrie: This is begging to be abused. Mostly I expect it to be a six mana 5/5 that makes a 2/2 when it dies to immediate removal. Will be very good in a lot of limited matches, but not unbeatable.
Matt: This card is pretty sweet. Not Huntmaster of the Fells sweet, but still pretty sweet. Needs more trample tho.
David: Woof
Zach: So, the wolves are now highway-robbers. Take that, Emrakul!
Jess: It’s no Soul of the Harvest but I will pretty much always sign up for the green six drop that draws you cards.
Zach: What’s the over-under on a four mana 2/4 or three mana 1/3 that draws a card when it dies? It’d be a great Emerge enabler.
Matt: Agreed.
Jess: Nega-prowess? Otherwise, the numbers on this card are all a little too expensive for constructed.
Matt: I like that as he shits out spirits he gets bigger.
Zach: Unless you’re in the late game, this is usually going to be a 3/4 for four, which ain’t bad but isn’t stellar. I expect this card to be worse than it looks, just because of how mana-intensive it is; that said, it should still be quite strong in the late game and reasonably aggressive in the mid game.
Carrie: This would be ridiculous if it had flying or lifelink. Even as a mediocre ground body, the token ability will take over the game.
Influence of Emrakul – 2GG
Enchantment
Whenever you cast an Eldrazi creature spell with converted mana cost 7 or higher, draw two cards.
Matt: Is this the poster for the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie?
Jess: I guess I’m putting some more colored cards in my five-color colorless Commander deck.
Zach: Normally, I’d expect this to do very little, but Emerge allows some potentially neat shenanigans. Also, cards like this normally only draw 1 card, requiring you to trigger their effect at least twice to get their full effect. This gets you value the first time, which might just make this a good enough build-around.
Carrie: This feels like a card that doesn’t fit into the decks that want it. But “draw two cards” might make this worth building around.
Dana: Aww, delver’s recruiting now! This card reminds me a whole lot of Bloodline Keeper, and it looks like almost as big of a bomb in Limited.
Jess: I don’t know that I’ll ever play the other two iterations of Delver of Secrets in a Commander deck, but this is doing the type of thing I like to do in Commander. This will make it in a couple of decks, including Azami, Lady of Scrolls.
Zach: The vertical Delver cycle is likely complete here. I wonder how many Wizards will be in the set to help transform this, granted, a 5/4 flying for five is the real meat here.
Jess: Wait, this cycle is amazing. Delver is common, right? So some Delvers survive to become the uncommon Aberrant Researcher, and then some of them make it to the final incarnation, which is rare. The rarity tracks the winnowing! That’s awesome.
Carrie: I don’t see how this makes sense as an Eldrazi but whatever. Still awesome.
Monday, June 27th
Dana: I love this card. Very clean design; It’s just about the purest example of a tempo card ever printed. The art looks sweet as well, and we even get a good flavor quote. I expect to see this reprinted periodically going forward.
Matt: That’s not a real word, Wizards.
Zach: A solid spell for Limited that I’m excited to play with.
David: Seriously, I can’t get past the name of this card. What does it even do?
Carrie: Venser lives on! This is a great effect to have access to.
Carrie: Too bad this can’t fetch Westvale Abbey. I expect Avacyn will be better in Standard than playing this to go fetch Avacyn. Maybe you get lucky and have two sweet white rares in limited, but overall this looks like a 4/4 first strike for five.
Matt: That white horse is going really fast and that brown horse is just sitting there. Weird storytelling decision. Maybe the long hair on the brown horse is leading the way via pointing out which way they’re going and the knight on the white horse is like “OK! That’s the way to go! Let’s do it!” And then the white horse long hair is like, “Yeah! Cool, see you there!” and just checks out to get a beer because war fucking sucks.
Rich: Which horse do you think is summoning a Legendary card? This one seems like a flavor fail. I guess it can fetch Thalia? Are some lancers in the story going to fetch Thalia to save Innistrad? Maybe Thalia should have considered the ramifications of opening the Helvault for Liliana back in the original Innistrad story.
Zach: A 4/4 first strike for five is solid in Limited and random upside will be decent. I expect that this card will be most fun in Commander and Cube, where white has plenty of sweet legendaries to fetch. No idea how the art is conveying the flavor, and the flavor text does not help. Perhaps this was a last-minute change where art had to be quickly reappropriated?
Dana: Auto-include for White Commander decks. In limited it seems ok, depending on how many legends are in the set. Too expensive for standard play.
Jess: I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s an auto-include, but had they not fixed the tuck rule it certainly would have been. As is, it’s only going to be a meh tutor in some decks, and I am not a huge Tutor fan in the best of times.
Carrie: I love this for limited. Might be versatile enough for Standard too, given how strong white is these days.
Matt: I think any time white folk can align themselves with blue folk to defeat spaghetti demons it’s an obvious YES.
Rich: I’ll never cease to be impressed with how many ways Wizards can write “Kicker” on a card. For six mana, choosing all three will swing any game of limited.
Zach: This is a strong card with upside that’s both amazing and hilariously awful against GW tokens. Celestial Flare was never a very strong card (and usually very easy to play around), but this loses the restrictive mana cost and gains a whole lot of flexibility.
Dana: I fully expect the next version of this to just allow you to pay the additional cost as many times as you like, a la multikicker.
Matt: Oh I get it. Thanks, Flavor Text. After this knight battled a bunch of eldrazi, vampires, werewolves, demons, and zombies, he comes back a changed knight and all he has to show for it is a lousy +1/+1 counter.
Rich: Today I Learned that Roger Hodgson did not have an amicable breakup with Supertramp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKGOCOAI_2c
Zach: Otherworldly Journey is a solid card, and this being an uncommon likely reflects that. I’d say this is pretty neat for its ability to break up meld creatures, except there are three meld creatures in the set and it’s not very good at doing that.
Carrie: Dawn Gryff is a saint!
Matt: You beat me to it!
Rich: Once again the reserved list makes white a bit more powerful in limited.
Zach: Dawn Gryff is a- d’oh!
Dana: So is this just Hushwing Gryff’s noisier cousin?
Matt: That’s a good hand.
Rich: I’m not an artist but I think there’s something wrong with the perspectives in this one. Am I doing this right, Matt?
Zach: That thing’s arm is wrong, and not in an Eldrazi horror way. Oh, and Frost Breath with upside is probably pretty good.
Dana: It’s always interesting when they cost the madness higher than CMC. Makes me wonder what discard outlets have yet to be spoiled.
Carrie: Zombies have to be getting better in Eldritch Moon. If so, this card is great.
Matt: Also, Liliana looks pretty awesome here. She doesn’t seem to be super sexualized (just a little with that neck thing and the corset, but covered up and not in a pornographic stance!).
Rich: Is this set going to make Liliana more likable? I hope so.
Zach: Hey, it’s Ghoulcaller’s Chant, but different. Unless there are a bunch of solid common zombies (which, with Liliana headlining the set, is quite possible) I don’t expect much of this card; it’s fine, just like Macabre Waltz.
Dana: I can maybe see this having a place in modern dredge if that’s a thing. Buying back a Gravecrawler and dredging Golgari Grave Troll seems like a sweet play.
Jess: I would play this in Tribal Zombies.
Matt: What’re you gonna do with the malevolence once you’re done using it? Give it back. Horse shit. Once it’s used it’s straight to the graveyard. Malevolence Given to Me So I Could Use It This One Time, that’d be a better name for the card. “Can I borrow a napkin?” No, you cannot, you can have this napkin. You try to give it back to me and I’ll be pissed.
Rich: So you’re saying this card should have had Buyback instead of Escalate? Can you escalate your malevolence?
Zach: Entwine is too good of a mechanic to use as infrequently as it has been. Now it just have a little bit of Strive or Confluence in it.
Carrie: Black has needed a good one mana -1/-1 so this is nice. Also, compare this to Zealous Persecution. That card is ridic.
David: *Makes the obvious Nimble Mongoose comparison*
Carrie: Fantastic. Becoming a 3/3 is a total freeroll. Shadows limited was full of small enough creatures than a 1/1 deathtouch wasn’t as amazing as it often is, but I hear we’re getting some bigger threats under the new moon.
Matt: There cannot be enough dryads if you ask me.
Rich: Cue Guns ‘n’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle”
Zach: Strong card is strong. This ain’t a Nimble Mongoose, but it’s not on the other side of Gavony, either.
Jess: Like, I thought Hanweir, the Writhing Township offered the potential of something interesting for Commander, but now knowing that I’d have to also run Hanweir Garrison I think I’m going to take a pass in most of my decks.
Matt: Christ, this seems like a lot of goddamn work.
David: Ugh, the requirement of two specific cards to take advantage of meld really limits your deckbuilding options. 🙁
Carrie: Both the land and the creature are strong on their own. Is it worth playing them both? In a Standard red-based aggressive deck? Yes, probably.
Rich: Are meld cards inherent card disadvantage? Sacrificing a land to turn a creature into a better creature is definitely a steep cost if that creature gets hit with a removal spell.
Zach: The flavor here is off the charts, and Hanweir Garrison is probably a good deal better than it looks. Still, I don’t expect folks to want to meld these often; a land that grants haste is fine, and a tiny Hero of Bladehold is fine, but every part of this animal is super weak to a single removal spell.
Dana: OK, I love this mechanic. Not because it’s good. I think it’s gonna be terrible in limited, and incredibly parasitic. I love it because you literally put the two cards together to make ONE ENORMOUS CARD. Unlocking that achievement is gonna feel awesome. Trying to get there and failing is going to make the set way more frustrating to play, though.
Jess: This is more along the lines of what I was hoping to see in two-faced Eldrazi cards. This will make a good addition to Five-Color Colorless Eldrazi.
Matt: This is less work and much cooler than the previous cards.
David: Double-faced cards are awesome and this is awesome.
Carrie: So good in a super slow deck. I hope I get to play with it a lot.
Rich: Back in my day we only had to pay two mana for our mana rocks and they came into play untapped. Etc., etc., etc.
Zach: This is like Chalice of Life and Chalice of Death, but the two halves have very, very little mechanical relation with each other. Still, it’s good; ramp early on when you need and a finisher/blocker later on when everyone is vampire-bloodied.
Dana: I like the flavor here. The fragment is tainted by Emrakul and her vestige eventually escapes, runs amok. Very Eldrazi. Much Wow.
Jess: I also like this way of getting around devoid and its Zendikar-specific card frame. It’s interesting, the relationship between Emerge, Meld, and the overall flavor of Emrakul’s conversion. Emerge would have been more appropriately flavorful if you had to sacrifice the right type of thing to get the emerged beast. Having an Eldrazi Hippogriff burst out of some Graf Rats, for example, does not fit the broader narrative of corrupted evolution. But that would have made the ability worse, less interesting, if you had to basically do a “Fox Offering” upgrade where the type of sacrificed creature was relevant. And that would have been practically unwieldy. On the other side, meld is insanely flavorful, but it is even more unwieldy because you don’t just need a certain card type, you need a certain card name. Meld is flavor over function, and while I hope to be mistaken, my guess is the mechanic will have all the longevity of surge.
Matt: This card’s art is gnarly and reasonable.
David: Gnarly is spot on haha
Carrie: I think this will be good in limited. If you’re emerging it on turn four, the card draw only offsets what you sacrificed. Jumping through some hoops for an early 3/4 flier sounds great, but if you’re getting beaten down this might not be fast enough.
Rich: Meh. I’m not a fan of this card disadvantage theme. Maybe it helps with Delirium?
Zach: It’s neat to see Offering brought back in a more modular form. I expect that this card may be worse than it looks, just like Gryff Vanguard was. I also expect some folks will sacrifice a token to Emerge something and be disappointed at the tiny cost reduction.
Dana: Welp, so much for that Dawn Gryff
Jess: So we get to corrupt them ourselves. Fun. I think, if you wanted to make them into a Commander deck, you would run Bruna, the Fading Light as your Commander, despite it being of the lower rarity. Gisela, the Broken Blade is just not a very interesting creature to build around. Honestly, were it not necessary to flip Bruna, the Fading Light, I wouldn’t run it at all. This whole meld mechanic is annoying. Also, I would assume that Brisela, Voice of Nightmares does commander damage no matter which of the two you choose, but I can’t say that for… Wait are you fucking kidding me? These cards will only have half a face on the back of each one? Is that what that line is on Brisela and Chittering Host? That’s even worse! I hope I’m wrong.
Matt: Zzzzzzz.
David: Jess, I hope you’re wrong about the cardbacks…
Carrie: Gisela is stupidly efficient. Bruna is a strong but unexciting expensive angel. The fused form is cool, I guess, but why bother? The meld seems like more of an achievement to unlock than something you want to build around or actually care about.
Matt: Definitely a line there …
Rich: The line that shattered Jess’s hopes and dreams. I think I like Meld as a mechanic but obviously I’ll wait to see it in play.
Zach: The storytelling here is off the charts and Bruna’s design is great for making this happen. Frankly, I wish Gisela were a bit different; I’d rather for Cube that there were just a 2WW mini-Baneslayer Angel that didn’t look like you were missing out on something better.
Dana: Whoever wins the lottery and manages to get this on-line at the prerelease will feel like a dark god of darkness.
Sunday, June 26th
Rich: MaRo finally did it. He figured out how to put the Big Furry Monster from Unglued into a Standard-legal set. At least that’s why we’re all assuming is happening here. If that’s not what’s happening here I’m going to be super bummed out.
Zac Clark: I’m was thinking more along the lines of Spirit of the Night. The cool part is at common you’ll actually see this happen somewhat often in Limited! I like Meld a whole lot better than Megamorph, even if it’s a slightly up graded versions of the “Flip” mechanic. Also if I don’t get to see some kind of play of of TMNT in this set I’ll be bummed. Bebop or Rocksteady or BOTH!
Jess: Gross, I hate this mechanic. Incredibly parasitic, weak in singleton formats, too situational for constructed, and can leave you stranded or running subpar creatures if you miss out on a specific card piece. And what you get for all that effort is good, but not so good as to be worth all the hoops? I think this was a bad development.
Matt: The art is getting generic again. Cut it out please. Everything looks the same. Everything sucks.
David: I appreciate how Midnight Scavengers can get back the Graf Rats and enable Meld, but otherwise…
Carrie: Ooh, let’s do DOUBLE TRANSFORM! This is definitely something you can do with Magic cards. I hope it turns out to be fun.
Matt: You’ve gotta admit that the word “chittering” is funny.
Zach: I’m looking forward to playing with meld. I just wish that this weren’t the only common with meld. Having three meld cards is a bizarre choice (though I guess a consequence of them coexisting with DFCs).
Nate: Obviously a common implementation for the Meld mechanic, so it’s novel if not spectacular. I think one interesting thing to look at with these cards is how good each is on its own: do you always have to have the Meld payoff for these to be worth it? Scavengers is an interesting card in that it’s a 3/3 that draws you a card. Would be interesting if Birthing Pod was still a viable Modern deck perhaps, though there’s likely a similar effect on a stronger dude somewhere.
Wednesday, June 22nd
Rich: Just when you thought there weren’t any horror tropes left for Wizards to turn into new Innistrad cards.
Carrie: This seems pretty brutal for your opponent. They can’t play anything awesome unless they can outrace you with it, but as an 0/3 it demands they play a creature with at least three power if they want to attack you on the ground. It seems too slow for constructed, but in limited it will give you a lot of power to dictate the pace of the game.
Jess: More interesting clones for Commander
Matt: This art is so bad it borders on old school Magic art (which is to say, good). Not sure tho. Might just be bad. It’s so hard to tell.
Zach: Good flavor, weird card. It’s a Galepowder Mage that’s not a 3/3 flying.
Dana: Very cool card. Using its ability to remove their strongest creature from blocking and then attack them with it is brutal. That it’s a flavor win on top of that is just icing. Sweet, delicious icing.
Tuesday, June 21st
Rich: Finally a new card to add to my Stasis deck!
Curtis: Did someone say heresy?? The historical Cathars were not a militant arm of the Church, as on Innistrad, but in fact a quasi-Christian, sorta-pagan heresy that flourished in southern France from the 12th century CE to the 14th, and ended up being eradicated by the French crown and the Papacy in a late-stage political Crusade. The term “Cathar” was related to “elite” or “elect,” referring to their ruling class, a noble caste who eschewed meat and sex to attain salvation. I guess the “elite” meaning is shared by Innistrad’s religious knights, rather than all that other baggage.
Carrie: Is it good that Thalia is a heretic? I hope so. Everything she does in play is good, though. That’s for sure.
Matt: Do any of you remember Heretic? The old FPS game based off the Doom engine? I think about that game all the time.
Zach: Three mana is a lot to ask of a hate-bear (hate Gray Ogre?), but Thalia should be awesome in Limited and Cube.
Dana: Three mana kismet attached to a very nice body that doesn’t die to sulfur elemental seems like something that D&T could use. Seems very good against Delver.
Monday, June 20th
Rich: Surprise? Maybe what’s more surprising is the top-down horror design for Emrakul. Madness indeed.
Carrie: The 13 for 13 Emrakul was so obvious that I hoped they had something more creative up their sleeve. But I guess it’s too perfect not to do. As a finisher you can cast, 13mrakul looks good. She seems super interesting in Commander, given all the things you could do politically with that borrowed turn. That seems really important to the Commander community, given they can’t play with the old version.
Matt: More creative? From Wizards? They’ve gotta sell cards for crying out loud!
Zach: This is amazing, amazing design. I wrote an entire article about her.
Dana: So when are they spoiling the Tarmogoyf reprint?
Rich: Welp, Commander players get their Werewolf commander. The fact that the Werewolf legend seems worse than Huntmaster of the Fells seems like a pretty big flavor fail. Then again, maybe this is actually good?
Jess: I’m a little uncertain whether or not there’s enough werewolf support to not have black in this creature’s color identity. Still, not amazing. Good, but not amazing.
Matt: A green/red mythic werewolf from Innistrad needs to be called Huntmaster of the Fells in order to bring me back to the game. What does this one say? Oh, Ulrich of Krallenhorde? Is that “Huntmaster of the Fells”? No? #doubleretired
Carrie: Ulrich is a pretty spot-on name for the undisputed alpha. The German version will be sweet.
Zach: It’ll be quite powerful in Limited, but man is it weird that the mythic werewolf kind of pales in comparison to Wolfir Silverheart.
Rich: It’s no Riftsweeper but I suppose it drives home the story moment. I have a feeling this card is going to result in a lot of Judge calls at the pre-release as people try to put their Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into their hand.
Jess: This is going to be sweet in Eldrazi decks leaning on Relic of Progenitus.
Matt: Eldrazi are great for getting the sixth color into Magic. Their card arts are FILLED with purple.
Zach: I Wish that this had a purpose in Limited.
Dana: I see what you did there, Zach.