Magic: the Gathering Articles

This category will try to bring you new content as it pertains to the card game of Magic: the Gathering. Decklists will be provided for various formats such as EDH, Standard and Legacy.

Happy Reading!

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Gatecrash Preview: Enter the Infinite

enter the infinite

 

Is this a real card? Guess so, Omniscience was real afterall.

 

I remember a while back in a Q & A column at Wizards of the Coast where a reader asked how much would a spell cost that allowed one to draw their entire deck.

The answer then was something like: ” We would never print such as a card as it is rather degenerate and no fun”

A year or so later, we get this.

Hmmm….. kinda odd.

Obviously this is a combo card, probably one that involves a three card combo or something. Who Knows? You can pretty much do anything at the point, since you technically drew your whole deck and chose any card to put back on top. Obviously you wouldn’t want to lose on the following turn, by having nothing left to draw in your deck.

No maximum handsize, so you don’t even have to decide what to keep on that turn, nice nice.

12 mana? We’ve seen cards cast at 15 mana, so why not?

A quick run through Gatherer produces a couple of card that can be of interest:

Omniscience

Yeah, that one was kind of obvious.

 

We’d still need a way to cheat it in or turbo accelerate like that Omni-Door deck.

Spelltwine

Oh, how we can dream!

The card that relies on your opponent to have something specific in his graveyard. Now, while I have pulled this off in limited it’s not nearly as easy to do in a Constructed format. Most decks do tend to play at least a minimum of Instants/Sorceries so it’s always possible to get it to work. Then the other issue becomes being able to discard your big spells with some ‘Looting’ with cards like

Faithless Looting

It’s in the name!

Once this becomes Standard-legal, will you be the one to ….

Enter the Infinite ????

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Gatecrash Preview: Gideon, Champion of Justice

gideon championHe’s back but this time he’s a bit less annoying.

We have long known that Gideon was in this set in some form or another, be it the Top 8 Playmat or the Gatecrash promotional art.

Playmat_Rev4

gatecrash promo

Looks like this new version is a lot more aggressive than the previous one that basically caused a Fog to occur for the player and your other planeswalkers.

Gideon Jura

The root cause for many curses and swear words in M12 and Rise of Eldrazi Standard.

This new Gideon has a couple of odd abilities:

gideon ability 1

That’s a minimum of +1 indeed. Sometimes the + can end up being absurd and you will most likely be playing some kid of board whipe afterwards. Some UW kind of deck that casts him, ticks him up a few and plays Supreme Verdict.

Otherwise if both sides are creature stalled and no one can really make an advantageous attack, he can also get huge loyalty boosts.

gideon ability 2

That’s something we’re used to seeing somewhat. However, he can potentially be bigger than a 6/6 and also instant speed removal will not kill him. Unsummon becomes the temporary solution then, and even at that…

gideon ability 3

What? That’s a while new level of Elspeth Tirel-like ultimate!

Thing is he has to be pretty loaded up for it to matter. However if have something that was ‘Flickered’ and is coming back at end of turn instead of the usual right away, this can be awesome. If your Gideon is like at 20 loyalty and you ultimate him, its probably safe to do and win in a few turns later on.

I’m not sure how often this will happen, but likely to occur more times than Tibalt’s ultimate:

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

Yeah, sorry buddy, you still kinda suck

How many times will this Ultimate occur in the new Standard? Your guess is as good as mine.

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Gatecrash Preview: Boros Elite

boros eliteHello! White Weenie!

Historically, white weenie decks have largely relied on their one drops to get the party going and dealing 20 points of combat damage as quickly as possible sometimes being backed up with cards like Honor of the Pure. This card follows in that long standing tradition.

Drop one on Turn 1 then another on Turn 2 and follow up with a Skynight Legionnaire to deal insane amounts of damage as early as Turn 3. If they make an Relentless Assault variant, it can get out of hand rather fast. (As the +2/+2 will happen on the first attack step then carry on to the second one on top of another +2/+2 bonus)

I’m not sure if we will see any kind of equipment support in this set as the Boros Legion really need it. Perhaps a Sunforger reprint? I’m sure some people would love that. However, seeing as how Standard just gets more and more creature-based as of late, this card might end up being a bit underwhelming at first.

So, right now we would need some nice two-drops to be spoiled in the Boros guild. Aaaaaaaaaany time now….

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Rapid Hybridization

rapid hybridization

Pongify #2!

Yes this is pretty much a Pongify, just that it produces a 3/3 Frog Lizard instead of a Ape Token. Now you might at first think the card is underwhelming, but it is actually one of the only Standard cards right now that can deal with Obzedat, Ghost Council.

obzYes, remember this guy? He will be rather hard to permanently deal with.

This is probably a great fit in UW Flash, a deck that has recently fallen out of favor due to the rise of Cavern of Souls and its inherent problems to actually remove threats in play. This new Pongify-style card obviously gains us value since we can Snapcaster Mage it back when needed, making it a much more stable removal than the tempo-ish Unsummon.

Restoration Angel

3/3 Frog Lizard? That sounds like it’s right up my alley!

Yes Restoration Angel, you block those things all day long. Is there anything you can’t do?

resto fail

Ah! You can’t flicker Angels. True…

In Limited it can be used as a combat trick to get an evolve trigger in while destroying one of your smaller guys and having you ‘Evolve’ creature survive and kill the creature it was in combat with.

So far, this is my pick for Uncommon of the set. So far…

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Gatecrash Preview: Elusive Krasis

elusive kras

 

Woah! what?

Here we have yet another ‘Evolve’ creature. This one will surely be on the list of infinite casual decks for some time to come. A high toughness unblockable dude can survive things like Rolling Temblor and company. He is not Invisible Stalker by any means, but then again what is?

The Fish Mutant creature type is interesting. This might give people hope for that much ‘hyped’ Green Blue Sea Creature-ish planeswalker they have been talking about. She’s in the Duels of the Planeswalkers game:

File:Kiora Atua.jpg

Kiroa Atua

Rancor is already great on its own but seems rather great on this little guy. The only thing that may be bad is that the ‘Evolve’ mechanic forces a player to spam the field with increasingly bigger creatures and making them more vulnerable to a Supreme Verdict-style board clearer. Usually though just as a 4/6 (2 triggers + Rancor) should be enough to finish games rather quickly.

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Gatecrash Preview: High Priest of Penance

high priest of penance‘Vindicate‘ on a stick. 

Ah! when the original version was spoiled (in Italian, I believe) some people thought it was a enters the battlefield ability. You can obviously see how ridiculous this is given its mana cost. I mean Vindicate costs 3 mana and you don’t get a creature out of it to boot. The final translated version is even worse than anticipated, requiring it to have taken damage versus just going to the graveyard.

Obviously some people will try to abuse it by pumping its toughness and pinging it with something like Izzet Staticaster. It obviously makes a good blocker, albeit comparable to Loyal Sentry.

Loyal Sentry

Remember this guy? yeah, me either…

It may just end up being a nice little ‘unblockable’ creature. Perhaps some kind of decent aura from this sent can aid it. Probably an Orzhov-themed one.

Its uses in EDH alongside something like Sun Titan may be rather interesting to explore. What amount of play will this card realistically see in the new Standard format? Probably a decent amount at the start when everyone is busy brewing and a lot less when more decks become established.

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Skyknight Legionnaire

skyknightI think I’ve seen you before…

The card has not aged well

A lot of players are surely happy to see it back. It actually saw a small amount of play early one when Boros was popular. It’s definitely a decent creature and can be played the turn after a Firemane Avenger and still be efficient via the ‘Battalion’ mechanic.

You will probably be picking these relatively early in drafts as well since Boros will probably be an awesome limited weenie deck with minimal bombs or Rares required to win.

Will we see any other ‘Blasts from the Past’ in Gatecrash?

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Gatecrash Preview: Crypt Ghast

crypt ghast

 

Nirkana Revenant Jr?

It seems like we have seen many of these new Gatecrash cards before in some for or another, doesn’t it? This guy in my opinion is a tad better than its predecessor. He actually accelerates you early on as opposed to turn 6 where it would be less relevant.

Additionally, we get the rather nice Extort ability slapped onto it. Plus it almost always pays for its own Extort which is pretty sweet. The art could have been nicer though, but I’m just being picky there.

Crypt Ghast might be used in some kind of control deck to cast some Mutilates and Liliana of the Dark Realms. Plus you can even get some extra value off of the Liliana Ultimate:

lili ulti

Seems a tad unnecessary eh?

So you get 6 mana each time you tap a swamp for mana. What to do? Too bad Extort can’t be paid more than once per spell (that would bascially be a free Drain Life with every spell). Instead we have previously previewed card Gateway Shade:

gateway shade

Still not very appealing as it’s lacking some form of evasion, but I’m sure a worthy monoblack mana sink will surface. Just stay tuned…

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Gatecrash Preview: Mystic Genesis

mystic genesisAh! Voidslime, Mystic Snake or Draining Whelk or whatever you wanna call it, is back

 Voidslime Mystic Snake Draining Whelk

I know, we’ve seen this before. However, with all the Angel of Serenity action we are seeing this might calm them down. Obviously less effective if they cast it off of a Cavern of Souls. You will still get the 7/7 token but it is probably getting exiled by the Angel of Serenity anyhow.

This will probably be countering the X spells or whatever else big spell defines the format. As of now, I mostly see it being relegated to EDH or casual decks. Had it actually been Mystic Snake it would probably have been better due to blink shenanigans.

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Gatecrash Preview: Duskmantle Guildmage

duskmantle guildmageI guess this is the reason Jace, Memory Adept is selling out

So here we are with a nice little guildmage. As soon as it was spoiled, people saw the combo with Jace, Memory Adept and Mindcrank. He is also a nice little card in limited but obviously less combo-licious. ‘Grizzly Bears’ almost always make the cut in most limited decks when possible.

The first ability can be used with removal that can kill multiple targets or discard more than one card like Rakdos’ Return. That’s probably not going to be the goal with this card however. It’s pretty cool to see people so excited for a guildmage preview card as I don’t believe that ever happened in the Return to Ravnica previews.

Will the combo make Rest in Peace a must have sideboard card? or maybe Witchbane Orb? Perhaps…