Zendikar Spoilers by the Dozen! (Well, Almost)
I don't know if extended land art really counts as a "spoiler" per se, but there you have it.
The next Magic: the Gathering set, Zendikar, comes out in about a month. Today’s batch of spoilers reveals a new mechanic, the return of an old mechanic, and a new tribe. We can probably infer a new cycle of cards, too.
Landfall. Wow. Those ramp decks just got better. Oh yeah, and Terramorphic Expanse is actually playable now. I love when a new set makes formerly worthless cards suddenly interesting. You know Zendikar is going to have a lot more ways to play multiple lands per turn.
The return of Kicker? Didn’t see that coming. It’s sort of a weaker version of the Evoke keyword, but still gives you access to some useful “comes into play” effects.
Yeah, I’m putting a forest third on the list. Check out that forest! They totally nailed the exact atmosphere I was envisioning when I first heard the word Zendikar. Ancient ruins lost deep in the verdant jungle. Aren’t you dying to go explore that pyramid and find out what amazing, powerful relics were entombed within? Sure, you’ll have to battle some horrendous beasts along the way, but all the better!
There seem to be a few cards in this set that are really expensive, but get a lot cheaper if your opponent does two or more of something. I can see this being a very useful sideboard card, because it is pretty brutal versus token creatures.
Quests? We get to go on quests now? That’s so cool, and so fitting the whole Zendikar vibe. I’d bet there’s one of these for each color, but I’d love to see a ton of them. You could build a quest deck where virtually anything that happens in the game puts a quest token somewhere. In the mid-to-late game, every turn you’d have various quests going off, giving you free creatures, card draws, whatever.
It appears that there will be allies of every color. Making an ally deck seems like an obvious early Zendikar strategy.
Hm, more pyramids, and also those floating obelisk things seem to be turning up in a lot of the art for this set.
It’s a land with a built-in Landfall ability, which would, of course, stack with any actual Landfall abilities you have in play.
An extended art swamp. I’ve seen versions of these lands that are not extended, just regular lands with the big text box (with no text in it). How does one go about acquiring these fancy lands?
I like the concept here, but I like my islands to have a more vibrant, azure hue.
A physics-defying mountain.
There you have it, 11 new Zendikar cards. Robot Viking will have an exclusive Zendikar spoiler later this month, so stay tuned.
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September 4th, 2009 12:33 PM
Ummm. . . Is it bad that I thought up a similarly themed set a few years ago, but the green tribe was squirrels? Anyway, I want to know what’s on the other side of Mt. Stargate. I love the lands matter theme. when I started doing my moderate set building I tried to think of one thing in the game taken for granted, and that was lands. Then I just brainstormed a ton of different ideas for how to make lands more relevant.
September 4th, 2009 1:33 PM
You see pyramids & obelisks…I see obelisks & BURIED obelisks…
September 4th, 2009 1:35 PM
You clever bastards!
September 4th, 2009 3:05 PM
One of my favorite mechanics in my set had the Squirrels planting Acorn counters on lands to make them forests. Don’t mess with a squirrel’s nuts.
September 4th, 2009 4:11 PM
Have you met Squirrel Girl?
September 5th, 2009 3:25 AM
Don’t mess with her, she thrashed Thanos.