by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos

… And we’re back for another Wave of Spoilers!

Battlewise Hoplite

Represetin’ the Blue and White

Battlewise Hoplite is sure to make it in any Azorius Aggro deck that sees the light of day once Theros becomes Standard-legal. The bonus you get is pretty huge in my opinion. Again, we just need to figure out what good spells, Bestow or otherwise, we will be incorporating into our decks in order to take advantage of his ability.

I’m obviously a big fan of the artwork (I chose it as the article banner) representing a battle-ready ancient Greek soldier wielding a smidgeon of blue magic. The Scry is really nice on this sort of aggressive creature as it allows you to not draw ‘dead’ (aka. late game lands) later in the game. Of course this will required to use the Heroic ability moderately and with good judgment instead of going ‘all in’ just to get in one extra point of damage.

Polis Crusher

We get another ‘Crush Underfoot‘ angle

Perhaps one of the most impressive Cyclops released so far (although I also like Nivix Cyclops). Even if he does not become Monstrous, he is going to be a pain to deal with. Protection from enchantments means he can’t be Detention Sphere‘d or whatever other anti-creature enchantment there is (Chained to the Rocks).  Trample is always a problem for more controlling decks to deal with, hence the keyword ability you want most in a green creature.

Once Monstrous, Polis Crusher can start taking down opposing enchantments. Break your allies out of Detention Spheres, Pacifisms, etc or destroy Underworld Connections, Sphere of Safety,etc. I’m not sure how Polis Crusher is an appropriate name, as ‘poli’s usually means city. He doesn’t destroy lands or artifacts, so the name is a little misleading. I know that’s probably irrelevant to most of you, but it bugs me just a wee bit.

I love how no one seems to be employed in the Cyclops tribe. They are just Cyclopes, seemingly all equal. It would be nice to see a Cyclops Shaman or something. Just sayin’!

Underworld Cerberus

Three Head, three relevant abilities

We get a Rakdos powerhouse of a creature in a 6/6 for 5 mana with 3 abilities. What deck will this fit into? I’m guessing the next iteration of Jund will like it quite a bit. It has the blocking restrictions of Phyrexian Colossus (card that actually saw tournament play back in its day) without the doesn’t untap drawback. You also get a Ground Seal on legs in a totally different color.

Finally, the third ability can be somewhat seen as a drawback. I’m not sure how much of a drawback it is when you’re trying to gauge if you should shove this into your constructed deck or not. Being Rakdos or even Jund colors usually means you are pretty high on low drop aggro creatures or a medium amount of ‘value’ creatures. It also doesn’t suffer from any random other drawback such as being legendary.

Of course it had to be mythic so that its initial value gets somewhat inflated. Whether it will maintain any value/hype is hard to say. One thing is for sure: you’re going to need to find space for it if you’re running a Rakdos-colored EDH/Commander deck.

Pyxis of Pandemonium

Like a weird symetrical, slow Primal Surge

I’m not grasping any obvious strategy for this cards, except that it can very well be a sort of anti-control card. Just tuck away a bunch of permanent that would ‘obviously’ otherwise be countered because we know that that’s all that Control decks do (*sarcasm*). When you have your 7 mana flow, you just open the floodgates and you clearly gain the advantage in permanents in play. This works becasue clearly your opponent will only have boring stuffs like Instants and Sorceries exiled.

Yes, that was a silly way of explaining it but maybe there will be some cool Scry tech with it or something.

Witch’s Eye

I guess they needed a follow-up to Jar of Eyeballs

It’s a shame they didn’t reprint Crystal Ball, eh? This is obviously less good but it fits in the flavor and stuff. It’s at its best in limited as most cards with the Scry ability are. Thematically it might even fit into a casual Bogbrew Witch deck since you can use her to fetch a Festering Newt and Scry with the Newt until you need to sacrifice it to the Cauldron and destroy some annoying creature.

Moving along…

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

A weird take on Cabal Coffers

Not the most exciting of Legendary lands, but monocolored decks ( obviously) will probably run a copy if they need to ‘accelerate’. The term is used somewhat losely since you’re probably needing it to cast something at 7-8 mana to warrant its inclusion. Maybe with the new legend rules in place you can activate one and then play another to get an insane amount of mana.

The art on this is really awesome and I for one would love to get a fooil one for any monocolor Commander deck I plan to build in the future.

Purphoros’s Emissary

Moo? Do oxen moo?

A slightly more playable Emissary than Thassa’s Emissary that we saw just prior. It’s ‘unblockability’ makes it somewhat of a consideration but not a definite inclusion in any deck. I’m pretty sure you just jam this into your sealed or draft deck if you’re even playing a small red splash though.

It’s not the coolest card to end a Spoiler Wave with, but I’ll be posting more as they are revealed! Don’t forget to check out our Theros Pre-Orders !