Week 2 Spoilers!

Hello Everyone!

I haven't been keeping up with the spoilers over the last few days, so I have 9 cards to discuss today! So instead of wasting time coming up with a warm intro, let's just get right down to business!

Wow! Now we basically have 2 sets of Midnight Haunting that we can put in our decks! People were already talking about maybe building around Sorin for a BW tokens deck, but this card further solidifies that idea! I personally am going to design WGb tokens, using Garruk and Gavony Township, but that's not going up until the weekend. I really like how this card actually costs LESS to flashback, just like Unburial Rites did. Also cool to point out is that this card is part of the opposite cycle from Innistrad. In innistrad there were 2 cycles of flashback cards that flashbacked for different colors of mana. At common, we had the ones with an ally colored flashback (Ancient Grudge, Bump in the Night, Feeling of Dread, Forbidden Alchemy, Travel Preparations) and uncommon we had enemy colored flashbacks (Spider Spawning, Memory's Journey, Rally the Peasants, Unburial Rites, Desperate Ravings). Now we have 2 cycles but the flashbacks are going the other direction. We already say Ray of Revelation last week which is evidence of both cycles. You know what that means? Burning Vengeance gets new toys! Obviously this won't go in that deck, but soon other cards will!

 

Speaking of Cycles, check out this land! Obviously every was going OMG BW Tokens when this came out, which I don't disagree with, but I'm not too enthused by this card either. Enemy colored mana just isn't that good, and adding colorless lands to the mix doesn't solve that problem. Sure we can play Ghost Quarter and Shimmering Grotto to solve our problems, but then were stone raining ourselves to fix our terrible mana... Regardless, this card is cool and I'm really excited to see what the UR land will do in particular, though I'm sure the rest will be cool too. One thing we can compare these rare lands to is their uncommon counterparts from Ravnica block. My, how much more powerful these are!

And going from comparisons to Ravnica cycles, we move to comparisons against Lorwyn tribal. In Lorwyn, we had a smattering of uncommon lords (most famously Merrow Reejery), and it seems we're moving in that direction in Dark Ascension too. We already saw Immerwolf last week, but Stromkirk captain is much better! I will always take First Strike, as it can REALLY mess up your opponent's day when they are anticipating trading with your entire board, and instead they get nothing. Lord effects like this is the only thing that will get the tribes to become actual contenders in the competitive scene, and don't forget about Adaptive Automaton! Maybe there is come hope for some awesome tribal decks to surface.....

And speaking of Vampire tribal, check out this bad ass! He is very vulnerable on his first attack, however after that, you don't want to get in a Duel with the Blademaster! After one swing, he even trades with Titans! This is clearly going to be a centerpiece in any BR Vampires deck going forwards, as even completely by himself he deals:

t4: 2 damage
t5: 6 damage
t6: 10 damage

So he kills before the opponent can even land their titan! Now obviously the challenge is to simply ensure he lives until that first swing gets in... the same problem we face with Falkenrath Marauders, and frankly the trick with the whole vampire tribe. But once we overcome that, we have a beater!

Since I don't feel like switching off red for a minute, let's talk about Nicholas Cage! I can see it now, Eric Klug in a month's time with have an alter out of this card with something like this on it. The original art even sets itself up to be a Ghost Rider reference! But anyways, the best card to compare this to is Hero of Oxid Ridge. Both give your team 1 bonus damage per attacker, and both hit for 4 by themself off a 2RR haste body. The only differences are tribal, 3 vs 4 power (when it comes to getting blocked), and 2 vs 3 toughness. Also, Hero has the unblockability clause. I think for right now, Hero is simply a better card, but once the set rotates (and even in block) GhostHellrider will be very heavily used, and his price will ascend to reflect that. Hellrider is currently pre-selling at 2, and I think it will be at 4 in about 9 months once Hero is out of the picture.

One last red card to get these Devilish thoughts out of my mind. Flayer screams combo at me! However, I need to point out first that this card doesn't work in Dredge... the Bridge tokens come into play before the Dread return finishes resolving, and even if it worked the other way around, the tokens aren't coming from the graveyard. What this DOES work with though is Gravecrawler, Skaab Ruinator, Shards block Unearth cards, and everything Undying/Persist. I get the feeling there could very easily be a combo where you use a card like Disciple of Grislebrand to sacrifice Undying creatures and burn your opponent for an insane amount completely out of nowhere! The only problem with the combo is that its build around a 6 mana creature, which makes it very slow.....

Speaking of 6 mana undying creatures, how awesome is Mikaeus?! I can't wait to play him in my zombies deck! Oh wait.... we could just play Grave Titan, couldn't we? Man.... Titans really make everything suck. Well, considering if WotC brings titans back in M13 there will be a major revolt of nerds storming the castle, I can safely say that this time next year Mikaeus may finally see play! That being said, he is awesome in limited, and I really hope to open him at the pre-release and build a buck black kick in the teeth deck with my other BBB bomb being Reaper of the Abyss. Also, what if you open Mikaeus the Lunarch and Mikaeus the Unhallowed? Are you even allowed to run both in the same deck? That just breaks all rules of flavor! What if you have both in play? Technically they don't have the same name so you could! This is just all wrong! #flavordraft

Some people have been talking about how awesome this card is, but I must disagree.... Why not just chump block with your Fortress Crab until turn 8? Obviously this guy is good with Galvanic Juggernaut, but GGG is pretty hard to do by turn 3. This is no Leatherback Baloth. Besides, you could even choose to not block and he's basically Stromkirk Noble, except 2 turns late...Maybe it's because I don't like Adam Styborski's articles, but I'm just not feeling the Ooze.

Last, and absolutely not least, we find ourselves in dire need of the Orkin man (btw, they have hilarious commercials!). When I first saw the art for the card I assumed it would have haste and trample, but vigilance is still good.... even if it doesn't make sense... Regardless, I can see this card actually seeing play in a G/x stompy deck. Maybe it's a GSZ target in Wolf Run if you don't want to get an Acidic Slime? This card seems to fit very well into their game plan of "every single card in my deck can and will kill you". Just having more trample fatties is sweet for that deck as they can just attack you with 3 dudes with Wolf Run up, and no matter which one you block, you're still in a losing situation! This guy is very exciting, although because of Sorin, it will be hard for Mythics to take off in value from this set.

That's all I have for today! I'm finally caught up with the spoilers thus far, but there's so many awesome cards, especially form the cycles, that I'm looking forward towards! Just 10 more days until the pre-release, I can't wait to get my hands on some new horrors! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo