Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a superfantastic start to the new year, I certainly did reuniting with old High School friends having a big party and being ridiculous together. There's nothing like getting to reminisce on how life was back in the day when you had such famous dance moves as the squid, and you get to show off to the new members to the group. My current girlfriend spent a long time with my ex, and surprisingly I'm not yet single. And naturally there was the watching of the New Years special on ABC and getting to make fun of how out of tune Taylor Swift sounded in her performance right before midnight. All together I had a fantastic time, and even managed to avoid all the drunk drivers on my way home.

The last and first days of 2012/13 marked the first and second days of official spoilers for Gatecrash, and wow! We already have some incredibly powerful cards out and I'm excited!

Starting things off, yesterday we had the mechanics article go up which showed off a couple commons and uncommons that displayed Gatecrash's new mechanics. Bloodrush was an ability that could have been framed in a couple different directions, but Viashino Shanktail helps identify how the mechanic was designed. The ability still costs 3 mana, but the boost is basically like equipping the creature for the turn, so the pump isn't even on the front and back, and gaining abilities like First Strike make this ability significantly more exciting. We will certainly also get a green one that gives trample, probably a 4/4 for 3GG. I like how Bloodrush can be so tricky with other abilities, so I'm definitely a lot more interested now in what else they pull out

Another pull from the mechanics article, this card is awesome, creating the opportunity for another Delver-esque card by being a 1 mana large threat. Unlike Delver however, this cannot do it alone and Blue isn't known for it's creatures, so unfortunately Cloudfin Raptor will probably never see the light of day. If it did, I would think of it in an Azorious shell with lots of detain creatures that builds tempo on the opponent. Curving Raptor into Azorious Arrestor into Lyev Skyknight is a nice curve that swings for 1 on T2 and then 4 on T3. Definitely not that powerful, but there is certainly potential there.

This was one of the cards from the mechanics article discussing the Orzhov mechanic, which as I said I feel will be the future of control decks. Horned Turtle has never made it into a constructed deck, but it is certainly a fine card in its own right. I think this may turn out to be a decent control card as a low cost relevant Extort guy. Guards on 3, holding up Dissipate mana with Think Twice in hand will be the future of draw-go control slowly grinding out games under their opponent's feet.

So at first I looked at this card, and I thought it was pretty terrible. It's just a Grizzly Bear with negligible upside. However, someone on facebook pointed out how you can play Burning-Tree Emissary and Flinthoof Boar both on turn 2. Dropping 5 power on turn 2 should not be ignored! Another card I added in later was Mogg Flunkies. In a very creature-heavy deck Flunkies is basically just a Watchwolf, and by playing Burning-Tree Emissary in the same turn we are sure to have a buddy to attack with on turn 3. While it's not resiliant to removal and sweepers, it is incredibly fast and powerful nonetheless, so it is absolutely worth looking into! It's important to keep in mind that this is only a Grizzly Bear at the end of the day, but it does make you one turn faster in deploying threats and therefor that much faster of a deck.

One last card from the mechanics article! This is not a good card, but I thought it may have had some legs when I thought it was an instant. The thing I wanted to point out with this card is that you can cast this on an empty board for full value. You can cipher Call of the Nightwing onto the token it creates, allowing you to produce more and more tokens.

This card is a very cool sideboard card for W/x aggressive decks. In the GW deck I'm playing right now, you can play this and a Rancor on a Loxodon Smiter and give your opponent the business! A 4 (or less) turn clock forces them to wrath quickly, but Murder Investigation will allow you keep up the pressure in an arguably better fashion now that it's harder for your opponent to deploy enough blockers. Normally you read "Enchant creature" and you can already just pass on its playability because of the inevitable card disadvantage, but Murder Investigation plays as an insurance policy allowing you to bring the heat while not having to worry so much about being out of gas if your opponent has an answer. It is important to note that this will only trigger if the creature dies, so cards like Terminus, Rest in Peace, Azorious Charm, and Unsummon will not trigger Murder Investigation.

This is a pretty interesting card that will surely see approximately infinite casual play as it allows for so many combos to be created. One combo I thought of immediately after seeing the card was this + Pentavus/Ghave, Guru of Spores. These two together will allow you to net additional +1/+1 counters and tokens. Adding in a card like Ashnod's Altar makes everything go fully infinite. Plan on picking the foils for this guy up quick and cheap, it will be very valuable for a very long time!

GEEZ! About 10 days ago I mocked up this card to come out in Gatecrash as just a 1/1 for G with Evolve, and I thought that guy was very powerful. But Experiment One takes it to a whole new level by being able to regenerate! So now not only do we have a very aggressive beater, but we also have one that can protect itself? Sign me up! Playing this dude on turn 1 allows for so many insane openings, like Experiment One, Strangelroot Geist, Dreg Manger. If your opponent casts Supreme Verdict, you can regenerate Experiment One, Strangelroot Geist will Undie and trigger Experiment One, and then we have a Scavenge creature in the graveyard for future use. With that opening your opponent's Supreme Verdict is effectively blanked because you went from having 8 power to 5 with them at likely 8 life, so Searing Spear is GG. A turn 4 kill regardless of opponent's sweeper? Sounds fair! I'm surprised that this is only an uncommon for how good it is, but thankful as well since this would be a solid $5-6 rare. Every single aggro deck I build for the next 2 years will start with 4x Experiment One because it's just that good!

A 5/5 flier for 6 isn't a bad rate, and while I don't think this will see any constructed play, this is an insane first pick bomb for limited! 5/5 fliers are already very good, completely dominating the board, bu the fact that this is nearly unkillable makes it even spicier! One funny thing that you can do with Deathpact Angel is after it dies, populate the Cleric token to make an army of potential Deathpact Angels in case if something bizarre happens and you need a patrol of Clerics willing to do your bidding. Not a terribly exciting card, but definitely what I want to open in a pack for drafting!

Dimir Keyrune is the first card I saw in 2013, and it's actually very exciting! This card reminds me a lot of Creeping Tar Pit, which sees play from time to time in Legacy, since it is a mana source that going late will eventually win you the game. Right now decks like Reid Duke's Bant control deck win through Nephalia Drownyard, but Dimir Keyrune + Extort offer a different line of attack which also offer defensive elements through life gain and a 2/2 blocker. Dimir Keyrune is awesome because it's a reliable clock for minimal mana investment, but for the entire game leading up to that moment of stabilization it's not a dead card, but instead allows you to cast more spells every turn, something control decks are very interested in. Only Rakdos Keyrune has seen much play so far, and that is as an answer to Thragtusk, but I think Dimir Signet will see play as well in a slow Esper/Grixis/4C control deck.

The next card previewed today is a wall of text that amounts to a very strange clone. a 4 mana 3/3 Hexproof is decent, but the clone ability is where things get interesting. The way it works is if your opponent mills a creature, Lazav can become a copy of it, but retains its name, the clone ability, and Hexproof. This cloning isn't just until end of turn, but until you decide to change it up. This is definitely a cool ability, but it has the problem where it's just not very good. Obviously even hitting a Bonebreaker Giant is improvement and randomly hitting something like a Titan is very juicy, but right now the best creatures are good because of enters the battlefield abilities, or are small/cheap. Neither of those condones itself well to Lazav. Making a hexproof Thragtusk is cool, but not gaining the 5 life is terrible, as that's basically the sole reason for the card seeing play. Same is true for cards like Angel of Serenity, without the ETB effect the card is completely useless (and even with, the card has lost half its value over the last 2 months). Then there's the problem where this guy is just better in a mill deck, but then you're playing mill and thats another issue to deal with. Overall I feel like it's too confusing with too much text, and not good or inspiring enough.

And finally we have our last card for today! A dozen cards in one sitting has been quite the haul, but we're almost there. Last but certainly not least we have the Ghost Council here to argue how you're going to die, not if. The art on this card is sweet, but the text is even sweeter! Being able to completely dodge sorcery speed removal while being resilient to most instant speed removal makes this guy a very difficult card to actually deal with. I can only think of Selesnya Charm and Murder to actually kill Obzedat (point for most bizarre name?) of which Murder sees no play, and Selesnya Charm isn't played in the decks you want Obzedat against. I think this card will see a lot of play in midrange Junk and other midrange WBx decks as a solid answer to control decks as it is a very safe threat - almost impossible to kill - and it provides inevitability along with a 3 turn clock by itself. One really funny thing about this card is that it's possible you and your opponent both have Obzedat going and because he is exiled on your opponent's turn they won't legend rule each other out. Obviously you can choose to not exile it and break the cycle, but the Obzedat mirror must be pretty funny from a conceptual standpoint.

I'm very excited for Gatecrash, and these cards are pretty freakin sweet! Experiment One is by far the best card previewed today, but Obzedat is definitely the runner-up, and everyone else is scrambling for their 15 minutes of fame. I already have ideas for decks percolating, but I'm going to let spoilers run for a little bit so I have more information because spewing thoughts.

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack