[M13] spoiler

[Mythrandir]

Talrand, Sky Summoner
2UU
Legendary Creature - Merfolk Wizard

Whenever you cast and instant or sorcery spell, put a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
2/2

Holy powercard batman!

[delta_strike]

Its looking very Nice...

[tonytahiti]

i believe that card is not good enough to see play. depends highly on the metagame, but with so much 4c/5c aggro running around i wanna be doing other things than casting a 2/2 "do-nothing" on turn 4. i feel like especially turn 3-5 decks either a) establish board position or b) interrupt opponent from doing so. this is doing neither. also you are tempted to hold your cheap instant and sorceries to get value off them, which brings up the question what you are doing the first 3 turns. also you could be tempted to hold it until turn 6 or so, to play it and then play 2 cheap sorceries/instants immediately so it does have immediate impact, that sounds like too much work and instants and sorceries are mostly answers to what your opponent is doing, so its probably not a good idea to keep them in hand until turn 6. it looks good on paper and sure if it sticks it is able to win games but i am not excited in any way. too vulnerable, too conditional. the 2/2 body is a dealbreaker. 3/3 it would be quite good, but like that..not so much.

[Nastaboi]

Augur of Bolas 1U

Creature - Merfolk Wizard

When Augur of Bolas enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards from your library. You may reveal an instant or sorcery card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

1/3

I don't know if you consider High Tide to be a deck or not, but this one will make its way into it nevertheless.

There are also a new Incinerate, a new Arc Lightning and a new Dragon Fodder. I have never played Arc Lightning in a deck, but somebody have.

Thragtusk is obviously playable, possibly very good. Not an autoinclude at five mana though.

[Mir]

Mostly the core sets were referred to be boring or weak... this one seems quite innovative in this way. Quite a lot of reprints, but I have never seen blue token generator in such scale...

[tonytahiti]

augur of bolas - my favorite card of the set so far. if you run 30+ instants/sorceries like in UR or team america, you dont often miss out on that extra card, and the 3 booty makes it very good. 2 mana card advantage creatures tend to be very good  love it

[W0lf]

Thragtusk into Deciple of Bolas @@

[Tiggupiru]

- WHITE -

Name:    Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Cost:     1WW
Type:     Planeswalker
Pow/Tgh:     4
Rules Text:     +1: Put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
-3: Target creature gains flying and double strike until end of turn.
-8: Put X 2/2 cats onto the battlefield, where X is your life total.

Reasonable beater. Going up to five loyalty is H-U-G-E on the third turn. One drop, two drop into this boosting a guy and next turn jumping it is going to end so many games it's not even funny. Very aggressive walker, but really bad in everywhere else. Double white is also sort of restrictive quality, although Naya can easily pull that off reliably. Ultimate is rarely going to work unless there are like two wraths involved all the while opponent can't get a single guy out there. Then again, it's not like you really care what the ultimate is when grading a 'walker 95% of the time. First two abilities are where the meat is.

Name:    Ajani's Sunstriker
Cost:     WW
Type:     Creature - Cat Cleric
Pow/Tgh:     2/2
Rules Text:     Lifelink

I wonder if these are worth playing in some deck sometime. There are just so many of them, so it's all about finding way to abuse high life total. Necropotence comes to mind.

Name:    Captain's Call
Cost:     3{W}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Put three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield.

Tokens. Four mana three guys is a fine deal in those decks.

Name:    Faith's Reward
Cost:     3w
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Return to the battlefield all permanent cards in your graveyard that were put there from the battlefield this turn.

Second Second Sunrise isn't going to change anything, but I really hope it would.

Name:    Odric, Master Tactician
Cost:     2ww
Type:     Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
Pow/Tgh:     3/4
Rules Text:     First strike

Whenever Odric, Master Tactician and at least three other creatures attack, you choose which creatures block this combat and how those creatures block.

Only 'real' (very loose definition) deck that can play this is tokens and that deck really doesn't care what the blocks are when they are attacking since Overrun makes the whole step irrelevant.

Name:    Rhox Faithmender
Cost:     3W
Type:     Creature - Rhino Monk
Pow/Tgh:     1/5
Rules Text:     Lifelink
If you would gain life, you gain twice that much life instead.

Again, Johnnies should take note, but for the rest of us, just ignore. Nothing to see here.

Name:    Sublime Archangel
Cost:     2WW
Type:     Creature - Angel
Pow/Tgh:     4/3
Rules Text:     Flying
Exalted
Other creatures you control have exalted.

She can hit a ton. Maybe those lifelinkers can be of some use here. Good thing about her is that she immediately makes opponent fall behind, so I think this is good enough beater for midrange-Naya. Without evasion things would be different, so it's not like this particular Archangel is going to be too much for the format.

- BLUE -

Name:    Augur of Bolas
Cost:     1U
Type:     Creature - Merfolk Wizard
Pow/Tgh:     1/3
Rules Text:     When Augur of Bolas enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards from your library. You may reveal an instant or sorcery card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

As long as this doesn't miss more than 20-30% of the time naturally (without Ponders and stuff), he is probably good enough to see play in control (and obv. high tide).

Name:    Omniscience
Cost:     7UUU
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     You may cast nonland cards from your hand without paying their mana costs.

The Johnny in me just wants this to work so bad. What a badass of a card. Too bad it's just too bad.

I haven't found time test her real quickly in Dream Halls, which is probably the only deck even remotely interested of it, but I am quite convinced it's just too cute. Time Warps are close enough for this kind of effect and Time Stretch wins the game better. I can't believe I am saying this, but ten mana might be too much for constructed.

Even if you can ignore the mana cost, you need other cards to win the game and you kinda need to build your deck around it. If any one of you guys have a combo or suggestion how this could get broken, I would happily spend couple of evenings trying to make it work.

Name:    Talrand, Sky Summoner
Cost:     2{U}{U}
Type:     Legendary Creature - Merfolk Wizard
Pow/Tgh:     2/2
Rules Text:     Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying onto the battlefield.

Four mana two-two's haven't exactly been very playable recently (well, okay, Sower and Glen Elendra are still fine). I like Venser, but he is just too slow most of the time and if he cannot make it in, this has no shot.

- BLACK -

Name:    Diabolic Revelation
Cost:     X3BB
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Search your library for up to X cards and put those cards into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

Powerful effects are worth mental noting, despite what the mana cost and stuff. I have no idea how to make this work, but there is at least some potential. Those of you who don't particularly like to brew, don't bother.

Name:    Disciple of Bolas
Cost:     3{B}
Type:     Creature - Human Wizard
Pow/Tgh:     2/1
Rules Text:     When Disciple of Bolas enters the battlefield, sacrifice another creature. You gain X life and draw X cards, where X is that creature's power.

Again a card that has reasonable effect and not too high of a mana cost (although just barely), but there is no deck that I know of which would even consider this. BG ramp perhaps?

In any case, killing your huge guy you are crushing your opponent with is always kind of weird thing to do. And if you are not crushing your opponent killing your best blocker is equally crazy. It doesn't matter how much value there is to be gained.

Name:    Liliana of the Dark Realms
Cost:     2BB
Type:     Planeswalker - Liliana
Pow/Tgh:     3
Rules Text:     +1: Search your library for a Swamp card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
-3: Target creature gets +X/+X or -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of Swamps you control.
-6: You get an emblem with "Swamps you control have '{T}: Add {B}{B}{B}{B} to your mana pools.'"

Really needed one more loyalty. The fact that she kills herself if the second ability is used immediately. Four mana kill a guy is lame and the first ability is even lamer. Going up to four loyalty isn't impressive enough and that doesn't even matter if the opponent can just ignore the card you just spend four mana on. Really disappointing.

Stick with her second incarnation. It's actually pretty good compared to the other two.

Name:    Xathrid Gorgon
Cost:     5B
Type:     Creature - Gorgon
Pow/Tgh:     3/6
Rules Text:     Deathtouch
{2}{B}, {T}: Put a petrification counter on target creature. It gains defender and becomes a colorless artifact in addition to its other types. Its activated abilities can't be activated.

I've always wondered: If they are turned to stone, how they can still block? It's not like they can move after being turned to statues. Are all the attacking minotaurs too busy texting with their smartphones to see a life-sized dragon statue in front of them?

'attacking, lol'

- RED -

Name:    Flames of the Firebrand
Cost:     2{R}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Flames of the Firebrand deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two, or three target creatures and/or players.

I've played Arc Lightning in a deck. Not for a while though, way too slow with the creatures nowadays. Arc Trail is where the action is at.

Name:    Krenko, Mob Boss
Cost:     2RR
Type:     Legendary Creature - Goblin Warrior
Pow/Tgh:     3/3
Rules Text:     {T}: Put X 1/1 red Goblin creatures onto the battlefield, where X is the number of Goblins you control.

Powerful ability that can get out of hand just with Krenko alone. Stupidly good in goblins, obv.

Name:    Krenko's Command
Cost:     1R
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield.

Two mana, two guys is exactly what the doctor ordered to make a successful token deck. There probably can never be enough of these.

Name:    Magmaquake
Cost:     xrr
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Magmaquake deals X damage to each creature without flying and to each planeswalker.

While being an instant surely helps, Fault Line just isn't a playable card. You need to somehow mise two 'walkers and a guy most of the time with this to be considered a card.

Name:    Mindclaw Shaman
Cost:     4r
Type:     Creature - Viashino Shaman
Pow/Tgh:     2/2
Rules Text:     When Mindclaw Shaman enters the battlefield, target opponent reveals his or her hand. You may cast an instant or sorcery card from it without paying its mana cost.

If Pod were still legal, this could be quite good. I am pretty sure you miss with this too often for it to make a cut, but he should be a 2-for-1 (and a small body to boot) every time he hits, so were actually talking about good power levels here. Mulldrifter minus flying but with full information is quite attractive. Not to mention, there is always a possibility for serious blowouts like stealing a Fact or Fiction or Bribery.

Probably the only real archetype to make an use of this is combo-control. Splinter Twin comes to mind as they usually run Cliques, Gitaxian Probes, Duresses and what else to make sure this hits and he isn't a laughing matter when you have a Kiki-Jiki out.

Name:    Searing Spear
Cost:     1{R}
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Searing Spear deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

Perfectly playable. Volcanic Hammer and Fire Ambush are fine cards and this is just a strict upgrade.

Name:    Wild Guess
Cost:     {R}{R}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     As an additional cost to cast Wild Guess, discard a card.
Draw two cards.

Red is getting more and more graveyard centric cards. Not that you see me complaining. Keep 'em coming and eventually we can make something good out of them.

- GREEN -

Name:    Elderscale Wurm
Cost:     4ggg
Type:     Creature - Wurm
Pow/Tgh:     7/7
Rules Text:     Trample
When Elderscale Wurm enters the battlefield, if your life total is less than 7, your life total becomes 7.
As long as you have 7 or more life, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 7 reduces it to 7 instead.

Natural Order, GSZ and Reanimator target for crushing aggro. Leaving you with seven life even if he gets removed is well out of range of any single red spell. I liked Pelakka Wurm quite a bit, but this probably just better in every conceivable way. It's not going to be in every NO-deck, but should probably be considered if aggro poses a problem. Reanimator probably wants this always. I like this very much.

Name:    Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
Cost:     1GG
Type:     Creature - Human Scout
Pow/Tgh:     2/1
Rules Text:     When Mwonvuli Beast Tracker enters the battlefield, search your library for a creature card with deathtouch, hexproof, reach or trample and reveal it. Shuffle your library, then put that card on top of it.

This was going to be my favorite card of the set, but it turns out he can't search creatures with flying like the early version of the leak promised. Cards like Emrakul, Restoration Angel and Raven Familiar would have been such a juicy targets. Still, he is pretty flexible. Finds Acidic Slime, Elderscale Wurm, Thrun, Primeval & Grave Titans... etc. That is probably good enough for decks like Pattern-Rector.

Name:    Predatory Rampage
Cost:     3{G}{G}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Creatures you control get +3/+3 until end of turn. Each creature your opponents control blocks this turn if able.

Not quite Overrun, but close enough. Dealing a significant amount of damage and killing all of their guys is good enough for five mana. Only for the decks that would also run the original one, ofc.

Name:    Thragtusk
Cost:     4G
Type:     Creature - Beast
Pow/Tgh:     5/3
Rules Text:     When Thragtusk enters the battlefield, you gain 5 life.
When Thragtusk leaves the battlefield, put a 3/3 green Beast creature token onto the battlefield.

I think this is unplayable. Too slow without Pod. I do know that blinking it does seem pretty saucy, but that is not a deck (YET!). I am fully prepared to be proven wrong with this one, but my gut feeling is that five mana is just too much.

Name:    Yeva, Nature's Herald
Cost:     2GG
Type:     Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman
Pow/Tgh:     4/4
Rules Text:     Flash
You may cast green creature cards as though they had flash.

Looks okay to me. Flash is quite good ability on (nearly) all of your creatures and unlike Teferi, this has a good body for the mana cost. Being an elf also has benefits. Not for every deck, but I am quite convinced that any elf deck will find her helpful.

- LAND -

Name:    Cathedral of War
Type:     Land
Rules Text:     Cathedral of War enters the battlefield tapped.

Exalted

{t}: Add {1} to your mana pool.

Entering the battlefield tapped is bad enough, but since you can't tap it for any color, it becomes unplayable. Exalted is a nice ability on a land and WW could theoretically play it, but that would need to be a deck for it to happen and even then it's probably just too much trouble for the upside.

[Mir]

Name:    Omniscience
Cost:     7UUU
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     You may cast nonland cards from your hand without paying their mana costs.

Show and tell costed 25 cents before Rise of the Eldrazi. Then it costed 12 dollars. Now it costs 3x more (35-49 dollars)... This is going to cause chaos in Legacy.

[Nastaboi]

Name:    Omniscience
Cost:     7UUU
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     You may cast nonland cards from your hand without paying their mana costs.

Show and tell costed 25 cents before Rise of the Eldrazi. Then it costed 12 dollars. Now it costs 3x more (35-49 dollars)...

Except that these two things are in no way related. You can't Sneak Attack or Grim Monolith Omniscience to Battlefield, and you'll still need another card(s) to win with it.

[W0lf]

So... Predatory Rampage is good enough for 5 Mana and Thragtusk is unplayable?
I might have to see a Doctor if my laughter doesn`t stop soon....

[Dreamer]

Thragtusk seems pretty nice as a castable aggro-killer in Pattern. Lots of life, gives a token on death. Plus it's evil with Recurring Nightmare. Still, that one mana may prove to be too much. Do want to try it either way.

[Mir]

Except that these two things are in no way related. You can't Sneak Attack or Grim Monolith Omniscience to Battlefield, and you'll still need another card(s) to win with it.

But sure you can use "Show and tell" to drop "Omniscience" into play and then drop whole hand, with 3 mana... Why did you mentioned "Sneak attack"?

If the deck is build up around that interaction with enough big and hasty creatures its pretty big trouble

[tonytahiti]

sleeper of the set: void stalker.

the whole "remove creature" plus shuffle your and my deck has alot of potential. shuffle yours to your disadvantage (wordly tutor, top etc) and shuffle mine to my advantage (after library manipulation) is good. and its attached on a 2/1 for 2 in blue, which is reasonable. good card. pick up 100 of those. i will.

and in this meta, where there is not run enough burn IMO, the 1 toughness dont matter. people will have the urge to kill it, cause its annoying to look at. and when people have the urge to kill a 2 mana creature it means its good. yay yay.

oh and you dont need to sacrifice it, meaning with the ability on the stack you can untap it with pestermite and do it again or blink it with restoration angel, or bounce it with venser/into the roil or or or. yay yay. sweet card issweet.

[Nastaboi]

But sure you can use "Show and tell" to drop "Omniscience" into play and then drop whole hand, with 3 mana... Why did you mentioned "Sneak attack"?

If the deck is build up around that interaction with enough big and hasty creatures its pretty big trouble

Didn't you just reinvent Hypergenesis? Anyways, I was referring to Griselbrand who makes these decks good in Legacy.

the whole "remove creature" plus shuffle your and my deck has alot of potential. shuffle yours to your disadvantage (wordly tutor, top etc) and shuffle mine to my advantage (after library manipulation) is good.

You can't really surprise your opponent with this, so they'll just leave Worldly Tutor in hand until you decide to use the card. It's a fine card still.

More on topic: Flinthoof Boar and its cycle look really promising. Green, red and blue ones should see play. The new Lord of Atlantis gives nice boost to that tribe even if the deck is not the most competitive.