Magic: the Gathering Lead Designer, Mark Rosewater, is a treasure. He always building up hype for upcoming Magic sets, and is always keen to share things with the community that he can. He has a set tradition of dropping a teaser post on his Blog ahead of preview season to further push the hype. Well today, we have that very post! Let’s take a look at what little tidbits MaRo has for us, and what we can gleam from it!
The Teaser
There is a LOT to cover here. There are already a few that we know about, and some that we can speculate on, so let’s get into it.
A Tale of Two Cycles
The first one that we can pretty much be sure of is “two popular cycles from Champions of Kamigawa block return each with a new twist”. For this we know that the Spirit Dragon Cycle is getting revamped, and we’ve already seen some of these cards. The other cycle that we can speculate here is the Legendary Land cycle that we’ve seen some random leaks of. Both of these are from Champions of Kamigawa, so this would make a ton of sense.
The Legend Returns
The next one that we could look at is “A Popular Legendary Creature from Champions of Kamigawa block returns in a new form”. There’s a couple of notables here that I think would be awesome to have come back. The first would be
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
You may play two additional lands on each of your turns.
. The second would be
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Haste
{T}: Create a token that's a copy of target nonlegendary creature you control, except it has haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
.
Now when MaRo says in a “new form”, we’re unsure of that exactly could mean. It could be something similar to a dual-faced Saga, where the creature form is on the back. The most extreme case that I don’t think would ever happen is that one of these two end up a Planeswalker.
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Excited Speculation
Wizards of the Coast
One of these that’s got us very excited is the “uncompleted 5 card cycle that’s taken years to complete”. As simple as that may sound, it’s very hard to find an uncompleted 5 card cycle. There’s plenty of 10 card cycles of lands awaiting completion, but 5 is hard. The only one that came to mind is the cycle with
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Each land is a Swamp in addition to its other land types.
and
Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
Each land is a Forest in addition to its other land types.
.
Urborg is a very old card, originally printed in Planar Chaos. We saw Yavimaya get released last year in Modern Horizons 2, so it’s definitely possible we would see the remaining 3 lands get printed here. That’d be pretty crazy, but I can’t think of another 5 card cycle that’s uncompleted. If you know of another that could fit here, let us know in the comments!
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Which of MaRo’s teasers have you excited and what do you think we’ll see based on them? Let us know in the comments! Make sure to stay tuned, as we’ll be covering all of the new cards that get previewed!