[MtG] [XLN] Ixalan Spoilers, Week 1

[bury the year]

Mothership stuff and others go here. Expect this season to be slower, what with the leaks.

 

[spoiler=Lots of cards.]

 

[spoiler=And a Portuguese one.]

 

Deadeye Foreman 3U

Creature - Pirate

When ~ enters the battlefield, you may search your library for an Equipment or Vehicle card, reveal that card and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.

2/2

 

 

[Thomas★Zero]

Really liking Hualti as a Red/White Planeswalker for my R/W Exert Deck for the combination of generating Life, trample tokens and effetely free hits with enough loyalty on your opponent with your monsters since those creatures Hualti hits for damage can't block and you can basically go 1 damage to each monster to make it so they all can't block.

[Flame Dragon]

Not a fan of Hualti. Her starting loyalty is too low to get much value out of her -X and her +2 literally does nothing. As a 3/3 factory she is fine, but again that 3 loyalty comes up since not ticking her up makes her super easy to remove. Top it off with a high casting cost and she just seem bad. That being said I am live to play this in my Iroas EDH deck.

 

Deeproot Waters looks really powerful and is perfect for a casual Merfolk deck.

 

Unfriendly Fire just makes me sad.

 

Amulet seems pretty powerful in spellslinger commander decks. Doesn't do much outside of it though.

 

 

I'm not sad about Fire anymore. Ok, I'm still a little sad.

 

 

Seems good in limited.

[Poc]

Hulati is uhh. Idk. her + and - are a bit on the weak side but the 0 is strong.

 

Lightning strike reprint is pretty tasty though.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Unexpectedly, this set is pretty sweet for Breya, between these lotus petal treasure tokens and and a second (albeit mediocre) copy of SFM.

[bury the year]

Might've missed a few here or there, but these are the big ones.

 

[Flame Dragon]

Other big cards

 

Anyway, thoughts.

 

Sucks the draw 7 is a sorcery, but that is still a REALLY powerful effect.

 

Edgar gets +1 vampire to add.

 

Even with a restriction Tidehollow Sculler can be powerful. Curious if Freebooter will make it into standard.

 

Scoundrels flavor text is on point. The card is really bad though.

 

Yay Goblin. Red making Lotus Petals is actually super in color and happy to see them doing something like that. Card likely isn't good enough though.

 

The DFCs have all had strong EDH implications so far. Not sure if I'll add any of them, but they all have legs at the very least.

 

Stomp seems insane in limited.

 

Stormtamer is note worthy simply for being a male Siren. Also another card for Edric.

 

Drover is really interesting. The 2 mana Bird is normally a rare. Says a lot about what the set is doing that this is uncommon.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Drover is uncommon because ramp is desperately needed for basically every green draft archetype in the set.

[Poc]

Drover is a 2 mana dork with an upside. They seem to be making those at uncommon now. Normal 2 mana dorks should still be common in limited.

 

Scoundrels flavortext pretty accurately describes how playable it is...

 

The flip cards are alright, Galleon is a tradingpost with legs and compass is kind of slow for its effect.

 

The other stuff is not too interesting.Freebooter has a chance of showing up in standard though.

[Delibirb]

I knew we'd be getting the Thaumatic Compass.

 

Becoming a Maze of Ith is pretty neat, but having to wait until turn seven is not.

 

I do like the Conquerer though, that'll be fun.

[Flame Dragon]

Lots of sweet cards today

 

And

Twilight Skywalker

W

Creature - Vampire Cleric

Flying

 

W, T: Target attacking vampire gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

 

Thoughts.

 

The Raid Pirate looks really powerful in limited.

 

The reprints in this set are killer. Seriously, Opt and Spell Pierce are more exciting to see than a bunch of rares.

 

Alpha is REALLY cool. Totally think he has a shot in constructed.

[Poc]

Opt in modern? Oh sweet Jesus!

 

Im really digging the new Favorable Winds art. I can't wait to draft U/W fliers this set and only U/W fliers. Its my favorite limited archtype.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

BROODMATE DINOSAUR

 

 

I didn't know I wanted a Slice in Twain reprint until it happened. Same goes for favourable winds, duress,

AND GOD DAMN SPELL PIERCE AND OPT

[Poc]

Yea Dinoboss is a great design. he just sits there looking menacingwhile his minions do all the work.

[bury the year]

BROODMATE DINOSAUR

 

 

I didn't know I wanted a Slice in Twain reprint until it happened. Same goes for favourable winds, duress,

AND GOD DAMN SPELL PIERCE AND OPT

Don't you mean THRAG REX?

 

And the article they posted about the leaks was spot on - Ixalan has a surfeit of good reprints. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a fliers deck in standard. Too bad Mausoleum Wanderer and Rattlechains rotate out, we could've gotten a baller WU Spirits deck rolling.

 

Finally, don't underestimate the power of Duress. With Transgress the Mind going away, this is going to do a lot in filling its shoes - particularly since Lay Bare the Heart gets worse with the new rules change (can't hit walkers anymore).

 

The Raid Pirate looks really powerful in limited.

If you're talking about the red one, can't say I agree. This set seems so heavy on tokens that your opponent likely won't lose anything big.

[Flame Dragon]

If you're talking about the red one, can't say I agree. This set seems so heavy on tokens that your opponent likely won't lose anything big.

Outside of Treasure the set doesn't seem too token heavy. I could be wrong, but we only have a token for each of the major races and a couple of those are rare. It is possible that we'll have more useless permanents laying around than it appears, but I think you'll be getting something of value more times than not.

[evilfusion]

Huh...I didn't even know some of these were reprints. I mean, I knew Duress and Lightning Strike were, because I have older prints of them, but I didn't know Slice in Twain, Opt, Favorable Winds, and Spell Pierce were reprints, too. Explains why my first thought on seeing them was "Wow, those are really cool".

 

I guess that's something I kind of like about Magic. They often manage to tie in reprints thematically with the set in a way that some people (particularly those unfamiliar with some of the older cards) don't even realize.

[Poc]

I'm more excited for the simple reprints than any of the big flashy rares. Having simple yet powerful cards like this really shapes a standard format. The removal of core sets caused issues with this as you can see with the never ending trainwreck of the last few blocks. I get they were trying to find more flavorful replacements for these effects in those sets bUT they certainly fell short because they didn't want to make cards as strong and efficent as these cards.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

To be fair, core sets are coming back

[Flame Dragon]

Wizards has done a ton to right the ship these past few months. Kaladesh was just another example of how artifact blocks have a REALLY bad habit of breaking standard since they literally have a 1 for 1 relationship with standard bans.

 

Anyway, new day, new cards.

 

Magaan's Murder, Vona

3BW

Legendary Creature - Vampire Knight

Vigilance, lifelink

T, pay 7 life: Destroy target nonland permanent. Activate this ability only during your turn.

4/4

 

 

 

 

Thundering Spineback

5GG

Creature - Dinosaur

Other Dinosaurs you control get +1/+1.

5G: Create a 3/3 green Dinosaur creature token with trample.

5/5

 

This set looks amazing.

[evilfusion]

Yeah, I've been getting more excited for Ixalen now. Not quite as hyped as I was for HOU, but...HOU had Bolas and other epic stuff, so...kind of hard to beat that.

[bury the year]

The font for the MTGA card text is terrible. Can't tell if the activated ability on the green dino costs 3G or 5G. Good thing it's just the alpha!

 

We got a nice slate of commons and uncommons today. Otepec Huntmaster and Commune with Dinosaurs (sidebar: laziest name ever) will almost certainly see play on virtue of a dinosaur deck existing. Chart a Course seems absurdly good in a vacuum - could see play in eternal formats in Delver-style decks.

 

Raptor Hatchling seems pretty great. He reads "Push me now or Dad gets a 3/3." Ranging Raptors also seems like a roleplayer in the RG Dinosaurs archetype: getting one step closer to ramping out Carnage Tyrant or Gishath is no joke.

 

Vona seems... solid? Idk, her ability is awesome, and you can swing to make it an Anguished Unmaking a turn; but the 5-drop slot in Edgar right now is pretty choked and not sure if she beats out the sheer aggro-ness of Blood Baron of Vizkopa, especially with such a steep cost. She also draws a pretty big target on your back, what with repeatable removal.

 

Both of the flip lands seem really great. The black one's back side (Diamond Valley) is pretty hard to trigger in EDH, but idgaf because it's a cheaper Greed on the front side and that's all I'd use it for most games. Will probably find a slot for it. As others have said, the green one is kinda like Cradle? I'm pretty sure people are just being blinded by that and aren't considering times when you don't have 4+ creatures out. This one isn't going to flip as reliably or be as useful all the time, mark my words.

[Flame Dragon]

Vona seems... solid? Idk, her ability is awesome, and you can swing to make it an Anguished Unmaking a turn; but the 5-drop slot in Edgar right now is pretty choked and not sure if she beats out the sheer aggro-ness of Blood Baron of Vizkopa, especially with such a steep cost. She also draws a pretty big target on your back, what with repeatable removal.

 

Both of the flip lands seem really great. The black one's back side (Diamond Valley) is pretty hard to trigger in EDH, but idgaf because it's a cheaper Greed on the front side and that's all I'd use it for most games. Will probably find a slot for it. As others have said, the green one is kinda like Cradle? I'm pretty sure people are just being blinded by that and aren't considering times when you don't have 4+ creatures out. This one isn't going to flip as reliably or be as useful all the time, mark my words.

I too thought it was cheaper until I copied the text for the thread. I hoping part of that is just the image uploads to mythic spoiler were bad.

 

I could easily be wrong, but I think Blood Baron is trash in commander. Sure it doesn't die to most targeted removal, but a 4/4 lifelink for 5 is meh and even if he was unblockable I wouldn't play him. The growth trigger is insane, don't get me wrong, but generally I find people below 10 are just dead.

 

In standard the flip on Rites is likely harder to get then you'd think, but it is likely a joke in commander. I regularly have 4 creatures out, and even if it was hard to maintain a decent creature count this checks EoT so you don't need to wait a turn cycle for it.

[Sixty]

i'm hella hyped for that cradle2, gonna slam it into hapatra and not feel too bad about it, probably

[Poc]

Cradle 2.0 is interesting. Idk how it will turn out in standard but modern the only deck I could see wanting this is elves and its pretty slow to come online. Coco decks want either 4 mana or infinite mana and other green decks aren't that creature heavy or have no need for a very slow gaia's cradle.