Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts

Hey!!! Sexy lay-day!!! Ooh ah!

We had the artwork available to us since PAX, but we never had the slightly more important part: Mana cost and Text.

This version of Teysa is obviously somewhat of a let down, but I’m sure she wasn’t really meant to be played competitively. She has quite a few abilities. The first two work great in tandem as they provide a great attacker/defender. No blockers and she block can block anything short of unblockables,flying and protection from black/white creatures.

The second text is a combination of No Mercy and a random token generation bonus.

Ah! such a neat card

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she will probably be relegated to casual and Commander play. Nonetheless, there is a very slight possibility of seeing here in a Black/White tokens build if enough support cards arise. She basically is a burn for 4 mana every turn (barring removal,etc,etc).

In the end, she will probably dwindle down to 1-2$ territory just like the old version.

Renounce the Guilds

Seems like an Odyssey throwback

I have no idea why this needed to be rare, but I guess Wizards of the Coast R and D has their reasons. Of course it’s another card to deal with the always-annoying Geist of Saint-Traft. I can always welcome that!

Other than that, you get to destroy some planeswalkers here and there .

Flavor text is kinda cool. It will no doubt see play in various sideboards where you need to immediately answer a multicolored card (Obzedat) and cannot afford to wait around for an Oblivion Ring. Greatest part of all?

Yep! This guy!

In the long run, demand for last second sideboarding might drive the price up to like 3$, but it will probably be like a 1-2$ card.

The Gatekeepers

Pauper fans rejoice!

Ah! the Gatekeepers! It’s really nice that they are pushing the ‘Gate’ keyword ‘mechanic’. I like the green one the best personally as it’s another card to stall with in a Battle of Wits deck (you can usually run gates in it because it”s almost always 4-5 colors).

The red one is like a very poor man’s version of Zealous Conscripts (only hits creatures). On the plus side they all have big butts (4 toughness) so you will want to play as many of them as possible within your colors in a limited setting (Pre-Release/Sealed). I just noticed that they’re all either Warriors or Soldiers, but I doubt they will ever really be played in a tribal deck.

Of course at common level there is not much room for these to grow. You should horde some of these and some Gates to build some cheapy pauper decks to give out to younger players in your school/area.

Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

Carnival Hellsteed, step aside!

The Rakdos guild champion is much better than I would have expected. It’s a nice little Unleash lord. Its stats are great and of course unleashing this for some haste damage action is going to be a common play. There are pretty good incentives to not unleashing too thanks to its first strike ability.

It will probably be a heavily traded card in general and its casual as well as competitive appeal will keep its price afloat for quite some time. It will probably maintain a value of about 5$ for quite some time.

Lavinia of the Tenth

Judge, Jury … Executionner?

It’s been hard to locate a proper spoiler art for this card , but the ability has been confirmed:

3WU

Legendary Creature – Human Soldier

  

Protection from red
When Lavinia of the Tenth enters the battlefield, detain each nonland permanent your opponents control with converted mana cost 4 or less.

4/4

Ah, a big pacifism. Alpha strike and win! It gets even better with blinking shenanigans. At least Venser, the Sojourner is no longer in Standard.

Remember him?

Of course you can just ‘blink’ her with Restoration Angel next turn and Beta Strike if you didn’t win on the first short. Not like you were counterattacked, since Detain lasts until your next trun.

The thing I most dislike about this card is the protection color. I mean red already has issues with blasting 4 toughness + creatures and it’s not like they can really get a huge benefit from Zealous Conscripts off of it (since it’s just an enters the battlefield ability). I think it was more of a flavor call than anything, since she’s ‘judge-like’.

 The cost is not too high and the ability is great in a more proactive Azorius deck. Playing a second one on top makes them die due to the Legend rule, BUT the effect will still go on the stack (so it’s not a bad idea if it wins you the game).

Due to the popularity of the Azorius color combination, this card is sure to hover at about the 5$ mark for a while.

Armed and Dangerous

Ack! I don’t speak Japanese!

You may or may not remember that line from a Chris Farley SNL skit. Here’s the English text:

Sorcery

  Target creature gets +1/+1 and doublestrike until end of turn.

//
All creatures able to block target creature do so this turn.

Lure plus Assault Strobe, I guess. A great limited ‘trick’, not really because it’s Sorcery speed. Another way to let your army through enemy lines. If your deck plays either color, you probably want to put this in (limited of course).

Irrelevant in constructed for the most part, it will remain a 50 cent card.

It should really become the official price tag for all 0,50$ items

Trostani’s Summoner

This next one we didn’t have time to get a picture for as it’s ‘hot off the presses’. Here is the card text:

5GW

Creature – Elf Shaman

When <this> enters the battlefield, put a 2/2 white knight creature token with vigilance, a 3/3 green centaur creature token, and a 4/4 green rhino creature token with trample onto the battlefield.

1/1

So you get 10 power worth of creatures for 7 mana on 4 separate creatures. Like a cone/pyramid with base 4.

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A rough sketch

This is also the Dragon’s Maze Gameday promo, so make sure to mark the date on your calendar.  It’s probably going to be a highly sought after promo due to the absurd token generation it provides. It’s like your all-in-one Population Station.

Rhinos, Centaurs, Knights, Oh My!

I’m probably gonna horde infinite copies of this card because it’s just so awesome. I wonder how many I can realistically accumulate….

Until the next wave:

“This is DDT reminding you to help control the MTG pet population, have your tokens spayed or neutered!”