Ok, I’m stepping out of my usual limited shoes and doing some more general coverage of the spoilers. I’m sure you’ll still get a bit of my limited “slant” on some of the cards, especially at the lower rarities, but I’ll give you some wonderfully useful constructed advice as well. Anyway, we’ll begin with the mythic stuff and move on down the rarity chart.


First, our new planeswalker, Gideon Jura. This guy is actually exactly the kind of card I really like – all three of his abilities are actually useful and usable immediately. His first ability pumps his loyalty up a lot (all the way to 8 if you just cast him) and makes everyone attack him. In constructed, this actually acts as a potentially reusable Fog, if your opponent doesn’t have a ton of creatures or you can block effectively. It’s great in limited as well, because unless your opponent is swinging with Eldrazi, he’ll probably be able to withstand the beating. Most of the time you drop him, you’ll actually use the second ability to just kill something right away, but it’s also notable that it happens to go quite well with his first ability. Make your opponents attack, and then kill a creature next turn when it's tapped from attacking.

The final ability is kind of weird, because it feels like an ultimate ability, but it doesn’t actually require any loyalty. In a weird way, it kind of prevents him losing loyalty, because he prevents any damage which would be dealt to him while he's attacking, and any creatures he scuffles with aren't going to be around to attack him next time he uses his first ability. It’s also worth pointing out that you shouldn’t use this ability on the first turn you drop him, because you won’t be able to attack with him. Even though he’s not a creature when you cast him, he turns into one, and he stays the same card. You must have had control of him since the beginning of your turn to attack, so you’ll just look silly if you turn him on and try to swing.

It’s weird, but even though Jura has one ability which increases his loyalty, it's actually not likely to do so. If you’re using his first ability, even though you’re increasing his loyalty for the moment, he’s probably going to take at least a minor beating on your opponent’s turn. Ultimately, this doesn't actually matter, because he's just as effective a beater at 1 loyalty as he is at 6. It’s really best to think of him as a use-and-abuse type card; get what you can out of him, but don't worry too much about protecting him. Honestly, with the first ability, he can end a game pretty quickly by really opening up a stalemate, so I anticipate him being pretty swingy. In constructed, he gets along with sweeper effects quite well, and hits very hard when the board is empty. I don’t know if he’s going to get adopted by the larger community, but he’s hugely versatile, and I hope I get the chance to draft with him sometime.

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Moving on, we finally see an application of level up to a mythic rare, and it’s really nothing we haven’t seen before. He starts out small and useless (although red has done worse than a 2/2 for 2), turns into a solid midgame creature (although it’s worth noting you can’t really flip him on turn 3, if you drop him on turn 2), and finally into a massively hugely game-ender. It’s nice that his final stage isn’t too terribly expensive to reach, but he does demand a lot of red mana to get there. In order to get him all the way leveled up, he has to eat ten mana, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but every single bit of it needs to be red. This is pretty unexciting in a limited context, and I think constructed generally has better things to do with its mana than throw out a mana sink which demands ten mana over probably three turns before you get any real payoff. It doesn’t really have any protection against removal, so any Doom Blade variant (or even Smother) is just going to ruin your day.

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On the topic of very demanding mana costs, we have the Khalni Hydra. There actually seems to be a lot of buzz about him, but I don’t really get it. Yeah, he’s big, and potentially cheap, but he really demands a lot of commitment from you. You pretty much have to be mono-green to cast him, and only green creatures make him cheaper, so he’s kind of a one-trick pony. If you’re inordinately fond of mana elves, you can drop this guy pretty darn quick, but getting him out any earlier than turn 4 requires a pretty degenerate draw, and past that, he’s not even terribly exciting. Yeah, green has fatties, yada yada yada. Removal is so efficient these days that it hardly feels worth the trouble. Mono-green aggro is always the same deck, and sometimes it’s good enough, even if it isn’t most of the time. It’s never a deck which I feel compelled to go out and build, it’s just so boring.

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The final mythic we’ve got here is actually really wacky. I actually don’t believe that I have ever seen a card which is quite as “all-in” as this guy. Once he hits your opponent, he eats everything, everything else you have (all permanents includes lands, ladies and gentlemen), as well as your hand, and gives you six cards from your deck which you can cast for free. Obviously, you can use this to cheat out some really degenerate spells, but holy cow, if your opponent has a sweeper, what do you do? Heck, if he even has spot removal which hits this guy, you’re in a sorry spot, even with the free spells you got off him. I cannot find it in my heart to endorse this guy in any context, limited or otherwise. Think about it – in limited, what happens if you get attacked by an Eldrazi after you play this guy? You probably don’t have any more lands in play, so the Eldrazi’s going to basically eat your whole team, free spells and all. Not a recipe for success.

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The normal rares are actually pretty unexciting so far.

Near-Death Experience is actually cute, although it’s not really usable. You know people are going to try to break it somehow, but the whole point of the card is basically “tee-hee, we changed the mana burn rules so now we can print stuff like this and have people whine about how easy this would have been with the old rules.” Yeah, bulk rare, nobody playing constructed cares.

But wait!

Casual formats rejoice! What's more fun then playing Near-Death Experience, Worship and a hard to kill creature like Wall of Denial? I'm sure casual players are definitely going to have a fun time with this one.

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I love the idea of Angelheart Vial a lot. A lot. That being said, it just costs way too much. This card is an anti-aggro card, and a great one at that. You basically get to nullify half of the damage which your opponent throws at you and draw cards to boot. This being said, it costs five flipping mana. Seriously, how is a card which costs five mana which requires your opponent to deal large amounts of damage to you going to get the job done? Simply said, it won’t. You take a late turn to play this card and your opponent’s just going to kill you one that next turn. It has no immediately impact on the board, so you just die. In a control context, it has some potential if your opponent intends to kill you incrementally, but the life is pretty meaningless in a control matchup. If this cost three or less mana, I would be giddy. At five mana, I think it will fade silently into the sunset.

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And now I get to rant about a handful of uncommons which I am really excited about for limited.


The first is Surreal Memoir. People have been clamoring for a rebound removal spell pretty much since the mechanic reared its head, and Wizards finally showed it to us. The trick with this card is that you really can use it twice on the same instant. You simply need to be able to cast the instant you fetch the same turn as you cast Surreal Memoir. By the time the rebound cast rolls around, that removal spell will be happily resting in your graveyard again, just waiting to be retrieved. It’s important to note that you won’t be able to cast your removal spell in response to the rebound casting of Surreal Memoir in the next upkeep and still retrieve it. Targets are determined when a spell is cast, and the rebound is cast at the beginning of your upkeep. You won’t have a chance to play the spell before, if you didn’t have enough mana on the previous turn, so you’ll have to fetch something else. So just be careful, and plan ahead. This is the first rebound spell we have which is an honest-to-god two-for-one, and it takes very little work to make it so.

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There isn’t that much to say about Traitorous Instinct except that it’s a very solid Threaten variant which is particularly relevant in this limited setting. This is a limited format which is absolutely lush with huge, powerful creatures. In addition, the Eldrazi have this beautiful ability called Annihilator which happens to trigger when they attack. So you not only get to beat your opponent in the face with their giant beastie (which happens to be bigger because of the Traitorous Instinct), but you also make them sac a couple permanents as well. Even when you’re not grabbing Eldrazi, there are plenty of nasty, huge level up creatures running around, as well as creatures suited up in totem armor. There is absolutely no end to the juicy targets for this spell. Honestly, this spell goes from being a very solid aggressive trick to an absolute game breaker in this format. Pick it very, very highly.

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Next, we have one of the best mana acceleration cards that I’ve seen so far, Joraga Treespeaker. It is difficult to overstate how exciting this guy is, especially in this format. It is one of those cards which happen to curve beautifully, as you play her on turn one, level her up on turn 2 (when you can still tap her and use the two mana if you’ve got a two drop), untap, and you’ve got five mana on turn three. All that from one card, by itself, and it doesn’t even disrupt your curve. You very likely don’t care about getting her all the way to level five, because the only benefit you’re likely to get in a limited environment is the added toughness, but it is worth noting that if she’s not doing anything else, she levels herself up quite nicely.

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Next, the least exciting one of the bunch, Artisan of Kozilek. I say he’s unexciting merely because Zombify isn’t the most exciting ability in a control-dominated environment. If your opponent somehow managed to deal with your first Eldrazi, yeah, he’s busted in half, but usually you’re just getting back one of your support creatures. With an Eldrazi on the board, that hardly seems that exciting. Also, Annihilator 2 isn’t usually going to be gamebreaking, and he really only gains one point of toughness over his common compatriot. With the Eldrazi, toughness actually seems more important than power, in a strange way, because as long as they can survive to attack another day, they’re still annihilating your opponent’s permanents.

The most relevant part about him is that it does show that Wizards is putting more Eldrazi at the lower rarities. Even if they are somewhat unexciting like the Artisan, they are there, draftable, and still quite strong. Hopefully Wizards will be putting out enough Eldrazi to support more than a couple Eldrazi decks at any given table, but I suppose only time will tell how many.

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Ok, finally, we have a card which would be absolutely terrible in almost any format except for the current limited one, where it actually happens to be bonkers. Six mana for mana acceleration? Yes it is still good. This card is an absolute Eldrazi casting machine, and once you're dumped your hand on the board, pop it and go hunting for more. This pops you to 9 mana right away, and considering most Eldrazi we've seen seem to be in that sweet spot from 8-11 mana, that's exactly where you want to be. This is way better than little spawn tokens, because it doesn't go away once you use it. Honestly, I would not be surprised to see myself first picking this card at the moment, it's easily the best Eldrazi support card we've seen yet.

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Anyway, we will have our ears to the ground here at EoV, and hope that you’ll pop into the forums and tell us your impressions of the new cards. Do you think Jura has some real constructed applications, or is he simply going to fall into the same oblivion as so many other “versatile” cards? Is the Artisan actually better than I’m giving him credit for? Talk it up in the forums, and have a great weekend!

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