mtg spoilers

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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!

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Gatecrash Preview: Aurelia, the Warleader

aureliathewarleader

 

Gisela’s Commander competition as general

When the foil version showed up earlier on, a lot of people were in disbelief. You thought Gisela, Blade of Goldnight was good? This
card take it to the next Boros level.

While Gisela  was good at protecting you and your team as well as giving you a substantial offence boost, this card is more true to the Boros swarm philosophy. Note: some of you may not be aware of this, but the extra combat phase will indeed cause all your Battalion effects to trigger again. This is huge for the cards like Firemane Avenger and Boros Elite.

You can setup an end of turn Aurelia’s Fury and just drop Aurelia on your main phase, enter combat step and go to town.

 

aureliasf ury

 

The premiere Gatecrash mythic

Of course, there is one thing….while she is a bit cheaper than her fellow Boros legend, she is still pushing the Boros curve. Traditionally, these decks are not known for needing to hit 6 mana to win. Boros decks did not pack cards like Inferno Titan when they were Standard legal, because they are speed-based decks. Similarly to Red deck wins, but with more creatures over burn spells.

So while this card seems great on the surface, I think it will be mostly relegated to the Commander format.

 

MTG-Commander

OR….will it?

Remember now that all 10 Ravnica Dual Lands will be available. This means that a deck like Naya (Red-Green-White) which had a sketchy manabase can now become more consistent. Naya being known for its beefier creatures and acceleration can really benefit from this Relentless Assault on a stick. I wager it will probably be seen as a two-of in these decks, so don’t dismiss it as a pure casual card just yet!

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Gatecrash Preview: Aurelia’s Fury

aureliasf ury

 

Orim’s Chant meets Rolling Thunder

Wow! Where to begin?
Instant speed Rolling Thunder? Combo breaking Orim’s Chant?

Peanut butter and chocolate? Check!

peanut butter and chocolate

 

Yummy!

 

This card has rightfully received a lot of hype as soon as it was revealed. It presents the Boros player with a veritable Swiss army knife.

Burn your opponent for the win? Check

Set up an alpha strike on your turn by tapping down his team at the end of his? Check

Mess up an Epic Experiment combo deck (because you know there will be one) ? Check

It’s useful in just about any situation and will probably see a decent amounts of modern play as well, I believe. It can be HUGE in decks featuring Dark Confidant as it only makes you take 2 if flipped and does soooo much more for those decks in return. It doesn’t hit the guys with Hexproof, but there is a nifty little artifact that was recently spoiled that takes care of that little problem:

 

glaringspotlight

 

Looking to deal with Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft?

Aurelia’s Fury will probably be jammed in every possible deck that can support it, kind of like Bonfire of the Damned was.
Remember how big that was? (note: and is becoming big again)

Also, I expect it to be in high demand in the very near future, what with it being a Mythic and all.

Don’t delay, get your playset today!