simic

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Gatecrash Preview: Prime Speaker Zegana

primespeakerzeganaSo, it becomes the biggest creature and draws you cards? Nice!

Simic’s other Mythic creature is on par with Master Biomancer and some would argue better. It just comes down as your biggest creature (barring instant speed removal on your huge dude) and draws you card equal to its power. Obviously, it’s pretty bad if it’s your post- Supreme Verdict top deck.  It does allow you to keep the swarm going and draws you a ton of cards that you might need in order to rebuild if things go bad. You also might want to open one up in your Release/Pre-Release if you plan on winning.

The creature I would most compare this to is Primeval Titan. Both provide you with great card advantage when they enter the battlefield. Titan continues the love in the form of more lands and if it survives long enough will win you the game. Zegana can just straight up give you 4-7 cards and will probably help you win the game if she manages to stay in play. Both cost 6 mana and both are well worth it. The legendary status hurts it in anything but Commander.

If you plan on playing casual, you can get in finite value out of her with something like Karakas to bounce her and re-cast over and over. While Karakas is not legal in Commander/EDH, I am sure your kitchen table group will not mind it when you play multiplayer casual games.

karakas

Lovely quote

She also forms a lovely couple with Master Biomancer, for obvious reasons (with Biomancer in play she gets bigger and draws you more cards when she enters the battlefield). I would definitely add a Zegana to my Simic deck for just that reason.

prime bio love

Such a cute couple, aren’t they?

 

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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: Biovisionary

bio japanese

Where’s Simon Tran when you need him? 

Oh nevermind, my eye for Foreign language cards tells me that this is a Japanese card. Guess I’ll have to find a translation:

At the beginning of each end step, if you control four or more creatures named ~, you win the game.

The ~ of course meaning -cardname- which in turn implies Biovisionary.

“Oh the posibilities!” – Every MTG brewmaster, ever 

Just how many people are going to go out of their way to make this work?

Populate and Cackling Counterpart seem like a nice enough fit.

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice

You all pretty much knew that ‘populate’ was just short for this card, right?

The other way to ‘tokenize’ (you like that? I just invented it!)….

To-Ken-eyes verb To make a token copy of something. “I tokenized my Emrakul and then I face-palmed!”

…. is Seance

Séance

See? you can totally see those token-eyes in the background!

It can probably fit into the whole Mirror-Mad Phantasm mill strategy and then you’d have this and Laboratory Maniac as weird ways to win. Eh….maybe not…for now.

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Gatecrash Preview: Fathom Mage

fathom mage

 

 

 

We now have the Simic guild’s keyword spoiled: Evolve.

It’s a nice twist on the old one: Graft (from Dissension). This card rewards us for playing bigger and bigger creatures. Also, you can combine it with other things like Mikaeus, the Lunarch’s ability or things like Scavenge from the Golgari guild to get some nice card drawing.

It looks a tad on the week side, but most of the set is yet to be spoiled. Who knows what the future has in store for Fathom Mage?