gatecrash preorders

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Gatecrash Preview: Boros Keyrune

boroskeyrune

Cute, but good enough?

Ah! another keyrune. While a little more costly than the original Ravnica Signets, they do give mana on their own and also animate into creatures when needed.

This one basically becomes a Boros Swiftblade. Sure it’s cool and all, but how often do you see this being good? if you do have an equipment to slap onto this, keep in mind it will cost you 2 to ‘creaturize’ this and 2 or more to equip. Not very efficient methinks.

Alternatively….

callofthenightwing

Cipher? of course!

From the Gatecrash FAQ:

“702.97c The card with cipher remains encoded on the chosen creature as long as the card with cipher remains exiled and the creature remains on the battlefield. The card remains encoded on that object even if it changes controller or stops being a creature, as long as it remains on the battlefield.”

Nice! So we can Cipher things onto it. What would the advantage be? Well, over the other keyrunes, I’d say that this one woudl cause Ciphere to trigger twice. That’s double peanut butter and chocolate awesome!

peanut butter and chocolate + peanut butter and chocolate

Double Yummy!

The color combination might be off though, since it might be 4 color. But if we go with blue/white/red we have a few ciphers to work with:

handsofbinding lastthoughts stolenidentity

Which seems cooler to you? 

Obviously Stolen Identit  right?

stolenidentity

Did you catch it?

That’s right! you’re not only cloning a creature, you’re cloning Mana! That’s some kind of weird ramp, no? I think it’s rather funny. An ‘Explosive Vegetation‘ each time you double strike. Of course you can just copy a better creature but this gets you infinite more style points.

The other 2 are fine as well. One is like a ‘double Frost Titan‘ and the other a better Thieving Magpie. Either way, it’s probably something to think about. Otherwise, you are just looking at hitting for two damage on an post-Supreme Verdict battlefield.

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Gatecrash Preview: the Guildgates

borosguildgate orzhovguildgate dimirguildgate

 

gruul guildgate simicguildgate

 

Yay! Manafixing to the rescue!

I know most of you guys think these are usually relegated to Drafts, Sealed and Pauper decks. The RB aggro deck ran 4 Rakdos Guildgates, so we might see one of these played in Constructed as well. Usually they will act as the third dual land behind the M13/Innistrad duals and of course, the Ravnica duals.

You pretty much always play these on the early turns due to the fact that they come into play tapped, unless you want to mess with your opponent by implying that you’re ‘Color short’ in some cases. The artwork on these is pretty cool and I vastly prefer them to the original Ravnica block common lands. They are pretty much a straight port of the Invasion uncommon ‘dual land’ cycle with a rarity downgrade.

Oh! and you get one guaranteed in your guild pack for when you do pre-releases. Might want to keep that in mind.

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Gatecrash Preview: Boros Charm

boroscharm

Wait, what?

Wow! this is one charm I think everyone can get behind. All three modes are sooooo good in constructed!
1) 4 damage to target player? for two mana? Yes please. How insane is that? I think even regular mono-red decks will splash white via Sacred Foundry and Clifftop Retreat to go out of their way in order to play this burn.

2) Permanents you control are indestructible until end of turn? Take that Supreme Verdict! I think Terminus will have to be the solution now, hands down.

Note: it will however not save your planeswalkers from dying to unblocked attackers.
Bonus: Play it in commander with something like obliterate and watch your opponents cry!

3) Double strike? Double Cleave? Slap that on an unblocked creature and double your damage output. It can be pretty insane with any creature ability that triggers via combat damage or a creature that has something Ciphered on it as well.

flame rift rootborn defenses EN MTGHOP Cards V3.indd

Which mode will you choose?

All 3 modes make you want to run 4 maindeck in any Boros deck and quite possibly Naya decks. It keeps the aggro going at all times. In Commander, I would again consider this in my Gisela deck. I can tutor it up with Sunforger and effectively ‘Negate‘ a Wrath of God -style effect. I probably won’t be choosing the other two options much.

Well, the 4 damage ability usually makes quick work of a few early planeswalkers.

Burn spells are generally half as effective in Commander due to the fact that players start at 40 life. In this context, red decks are generally disadvantaged and also less popular. Aside from burn damage, Chaos Warp is probably on of the few red spells to deal with planeswalkers. Including this in your 100-card deck will give you some unexpected range.

In those Magical Christmas land situations, you can always cast this targeting your Gisela and bring your opponent 1 damage short of losing to Commander damage. We can always dream right?

Sweet dreams!

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Borborygmos Enraged

borborygmos enragedBack and better than before

Another costly rendition of the Gruul Guild leader.

old borborygmos

 

Totally unimpressive ,Eh?

This one is a Seismic Assault on legs with a +1 damage on the activations.

As if this wasn’t enough, he can potentially feed his own ability each time he deals combat damage. Much like Seismic Assault in older formats, games will not last long if you manage to find Life from the Loam and proceed to cast it over and over(works best with cycling lands).

life from the loam

 

The best Dredge card and it’s not played in Dredge decks

Obviously, he fits into the whole ramp sub-theme/mechanic of the Gruul guild. He gives added benefits to drawing those late game lands (something akin to landfall from Zendikar block). He provides a rather huge body at 7/6 but I would almost always like to see those statistics reversed. A seven on the butt is huge in Standard.

 

 

He might seem to be the least desirable of the Gatecrash guild leaders, but don’t count him out just yet!  He will probably be easy to trade for unless a big ramp style deck surfaces early on and increases his demand. Hopefully he will not go the way of poor Isperia who seems to be beyond neglected at the time being.

isperia supreme

It’s a sad story indeed

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Bomber Corps

bombercorpsOnly the ‘bomb’ when in Battalion formation

Not much to say about this little guy aside from the fact that you may want to draft them in multiples as they are still better than a Grizzly Bears with their one power. Just Imagine: 3 of these guys attacking can combine for>

lightning bolt

Still the defining red burn

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Bioshift

bioshiftOh the humanity!

This cute little card can work for Simic as well as against it. I see it mostly used in Pre-Releases and releases as a way to get your biggest guy through. However, it’s also great against the Simic as you can just block their biggest dude and put the tokens on a creature with lesser effects that didn’t attack. That way you probably kill their better creature and have an extra turn to deal with the ‘new’ big dude.

Other than that, I guess if you’re playing with a couple of Undying Geralf’s Messengers that each have a +1/+1 counter on them, you can cause one to ‘Undie’ again. But I digress…

 

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Gatecrash Preview: Beckon Apparition

beckonapparition

It’s been a while

backon apparition

Indeed

A cute little card that might make an impact as a sideboard card against Reanimator decks and Snapcaster Mage decks. In response to them targeting their card you have a window to cast this and remove their target effectively ‘countering’ their ability

I can see this in a tokens deck maybe featuring Parallel Lives (that card is soooo close to being competitive). It also disrupts the ever-annoying Deathrite Shaman slightly. In limited, it can buy you a turn by stopping the Treasure Thrull ability once. Alternatively, it’s a great end of turn Extort enabler, often grinding off the final few points of life from an opponent.

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Gatecrash Preview: Basilica Guards

basilicaguards

Guarding and boosting your life total

Allright, so it’s a wall. Big deal! Normally that would be enough of a blurb, however these guys are much much more. Strictly speaking in limited, they end up doing something between 3-5 Extorts before biting it. That’s pretty significant – it’s like a Lightning Helix on a stick. A slow one, but still it’s just a common.

At four toughness it takes a while for it to actually chump something, it usually survives barring a combat trick. Even at that, it took an extra card out of your opponent’s hand (another form of ‘extort’).

That’s right Basilica Guards : never for ‘free’

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Gatecrash Preview: Bane Alley Broker

banealleybroker

Has the name broke in it, but not exactly ‘broken’

Ah, a broker in the long line of blue brokers past:

merfolk looter lore broker civilized scholar

Looters from another mother

This one in particular does something the others don’t : it can potentially net you real cards. You see, the others only switch one card for another at times. This one has a little sac (like in the World of Warcraft online game) that allows it to store the cards for possible later use. It’s a simple mechanic but I like it a lot. Early on, you might want to loot away your business spells for lands. Then when you can potentially cast your bigger card, you can activate her ability to recover one of the cards you ‘temporarily stored’ under her.

Again, its applications are probably limited to limited formats (I would say Commander, but just play Archivist instead)

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Gatecrash Preview: Balustrade Spy

balustradespy

 

About 1.5 times more efficient in Limited formats

Not the vampire most people would play in a vampire deck. Unless you have pipe dreams of milling your Bloodghasts and Gravecrawlers ….Woah! That comment went from being sarcastic to almost revelatory!

In all seriousness, you probably want to draft this up a lot in Limited as it actually allows you to ‘Cipher’ pretty well. The Keymaster Rogue combos pretty well with it too. It can block a few smaller Boros creatures early on and allow you to survive and perhaps mill out your opponent for the win (what all Dimir limited decks aspire to do).

Go forth and mill little vampire!