The Newest Evolution to Magic

Hello everyone!

Twitter is a wonderful way to keep in touch with the greater Magic community. People like Gavin Verhey, Mark Rosewater, and Aaron Forsythe bridge the gap between Wizards of the Coast and their consumers. They send out cool insights to the company, Rosewater has a daily comic called Tales from the Pit, and they all will frequently poll their followers on cool mtg related things. I also follow professional players like LSV, PVDDR, Chapin, etc who sometimes offer insights into current formats, and the behind the scenes of the pro life. Naturally financial writers like Corbin Holster, Paul Feudo, and Chas Andres can keep you up to the moment on the latest spiking cards.

Beyond the everyday things like that, whenever a story or event happens, Twitter can keep you up to the second on it. For example, this picture has been getting retweeted a ton in the past 30 minutes:

Simic Fluxmage
2U
Evolve
1U, tap: Move a +1/+1 counter from Simic Fluxmage onto target creature
1/2

Our first mechanic spoiler from Gatecrash! In case you can't read it, this is the Simic mechanic called Evolve. Evolve reads, "Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature." This is a sweet mechanic!

The old Simic Mechanic was called Graft, which meant that a creature with graft would enter the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters (X determined by the number next to Graft) and that whenever another creature entered the battlefield you could pass 1 +1/+1 counter over to it. Evolve is basically reverse Graft. Just like how with Graft you can do things based on creatures having +1/+1 counters on them, in the same way Evolve can manipulate +1/+1 counters as well. As we can see with the Simic Fluxmage he can graft out a +1/+1 counter every turn so he will remain small, keep on accumulating +1/+1 counters, and distributes those counters to the rest of your team.

This actually makes me excited to see what other cards may come. Obviously Simic Fluxmage isn't constructed playable (random sidenote, you can pass a +1/+1 counter to your opponent's Undying/Unleash creature to turn them off), but consider this card:

Evolving Dude
G
Evolve
1/1

This card is insane! Think back to the Fervor Jund deck I made back when Domri Rade was spoiled. If we were playing that deck with this guy on the 1-drop slot we can go:

1 - Evolving Dude
2 - Strangelroot Geist, swing for 4
3 - Dreg Mangler/Flinthoof Boar, swing for 8

At the end of turn 3 we have our opponent at 8 life, and we have two 3/3s and a 2/1 Undying. That is a completely dominant board, and even if we get hit with a Supreme Verdict we have a 3/2 swinging our opponent down to 5 with the rest of our deck designed to beat down. This card has so much potential it's impressive. Even as a 0/1, it would still be able to pack a solid punch, though that would be noticeably worse.

I think the Evolve mechanic is a very exciting mechanic for constructed purposes if we get solid cheap guys. Even in limited it will be a very important mechanic to help build up a strong board against any opponent. That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack