A Planeswalker that's GB? Yes Frickin' Please!

I'm usually a, "Check the Spoilers in the Morning" kinda guy.

Patience has always done me well- but boy, was I happy I got to see this new beautiful face. Pun now intended.

Check out this new face to the Ravnica beat. Vraska the Unseen!

She made my night. Love her abilities. Love her art.

Vraska makes me wanna start a whole nother site.

ILOVEVRASKATHEUNSEEN.COM.

I'll wait till the morning for that though. Hopefully, the domain name won't be taken by then. Hell, it probably is now.


Go To Sleep.

-UL

Hello Old Friends! RTR Spoiled Cards Update

Today we got our first look at some of the familiar faces from Ravnica. Two Old/New Guild Leaders!

And the flavor and builds seem sweet!

Here's the new Niv-Mizzet. With a P and T boost and an inversion of his previous ability, the newly dubbed Dracogenius seems pretty awesome. I love the art too. Very regal.

And the other new/old face. Isperia!

Add caption

The Sphinx Azorius Legend is now a 6/4 with a HUGE upgrade in abilities which I'm super excited about.

Yeah, it's CMC is now 5 instead of 6... But it seems a small price to pay.

The art was spoiled at Comic-Con a while ago, but it still looks awesome now that it's bordered by a card.


A few other cards were added too. A huge beater named Worldspine Wurm and some smaller dudes.

I'll let you check 'em out.

Return to Ravnica Spoiler



Pass Turn.

-UL

Return to Ravnica Hath Gifted Us With Spoils

On this leisurely Sunday afternoon, the world was just turning.

And suddenly... Spoilers. Return to Ravnica Spoilers!

Today we get our first look at about 40 of the cards in Return to Ravnica that weren't spoiled via the Izzet vs. Golgari Duel Decks scheduled to come out next week. 

There's plenty to be excited about here for us EDH players, so I'll tell you about a few of my new faves and then give you the link to gander at it yourself.

We got us some sweet land, with new art reprints of the original Ravnica shocks.  This set will be home to Steam Vents, Overgrown Tomb, Temple Garden, and Hallowed Fountain.

In addition to these, RTR is running a cycle of land called Gates, which are pretty straightforward dual lands that come into play tapped. The best part is that they're all commons. So no mana-troubles this time around, and Pauper EDH is all the better too.

A few spells caught my attention, and are definitely worth the mention here.

Dreadbore. A R/B sorcery for RB that destroys a creature or planeswalker. I will be definitely playing this card. Somewhere. 

Chromatic Lantern. My god, this is an EDH gem! a three cost artifact that allows lands you control to be tapped for whatever you want. Plus, it taps to add mana! Seems pretty sweet. 

Selesnya and Azorious Charms. Both seem pretty strong.

The spoiled the new Jace. Color me unimpressed, with baby Hydrosurges and a baby FoF, that's what you should expect though. Let's just say is Mind-Sculpting days are hella-over.

Alright. I found all this stuff out on MTG Salvation, so here's the link.
Return to Ravnica Spoiler

See and enjoy.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to mark the days off until Ravnica finally Returns. Hopefully, I won't be salivating as much over all the sweet new EDH tech.

Passing the spoils onto you.

-Uncle Landdrops

Izzet vs. Golgari Full Spoiler!

They spoiled the rest of the deck, and let me say, I'm pretty excited.

Aside from getting new art for Niv-Mizzet a fresh guild leader in Jarrad, and the Korozda Guildmage I mentioned the day before, they're also adding some great EDH stuff.

Like Eternal Witness.
Like Life From The Loam.
Like new art Brainstorm,
and Isochron Scepter. I found a full spoiler here, if you wanna look at the rest. http://www.gatheringmagic.com/duel-decks-izzet-vs-golgari-spoilers/   

If this isn't enough to get you pumped, well, then I'm super sorry for you. Witness, Loam, and Scepter are great value, practically covering the $19.99 MSRP even without the historically expensive Izzet Guildmage.        

Seriously, though. You should look to grab this monster at dawn on the first light of September 7th. 

If not, I'm gonna come to your town and buy up every last one so I can sell all the singles for double the price. I'll control the market and have infinite copies of green staples and Niv-Mizzets.
 
Just kidding. But seriously, I love me some Life From the Loam. And some Eternal Witness. 
Cause they're great. 

Pass Turn.

-Uncle Landdrops

Some More Return to Ravnica / Izzet vs. Golgari Spoilers

Today Wizards of the Coast spoiled some more of the cards that will be in the Duel Decks: Izzet vs. Golgari and in the Return to Ravnica Set. 

My favorite so far is Korozda Guildmage. A little different take on the flavor this time, the cards being gold instead of hybrid. Seems sweet.  

I think Scavenge as a mechanic could be okay. Not particularly exciting, but it seems like it could be strong. Here's Dreg Mangler, sporting the new tech.  

There was some red/blue stuff spoiled too, and I have to say boy, "Izzet" looking up for them.  
Check out Street Spasm, sporting the Overload mechanic. Yeah,  Earthquake will still be better, but hopefully red will get some upgrades in the Return block. 

They also spoiled Izzet Charm, which looks sweet for Standard, and not particularly thrilling for what we do here in EDH land.  

The last spoil was Goblin Electromancer, which looks like a great Pauper EDH card along side Nightscape Familiar.

In addition, there will be 20 Ravnica basics, so 4 for each color.  They haven't spoiled the art, but I'm sure it'll be good, even if it's reprints of the original.
 
I'll let you know when get a peek of that, cause Ravnica land is sweet.

Passin' it up.

-Uncle Landdrops

News and Review: Jarad, the First Official Return To Ravnica Spoiler

Early last week Daily MTG released the first spoiler from their Duel Decks: Izzet vs. Golgari Decks, which featured sweet new alternate art for Niv-Mizzet as well as the first new card for the highly-anticipated Return to Ravnica set which comes out this fall.

I don’t know if you’re excited, but you should be. The original Ravnica block, in my opinion, is home to some of the best guild leaders and cards as well as some of my favorite artwork of all-time. Just look at how pretty Ravnica land is

            Alright, I’m getting off topic. So Izzet vs. Golgari. The two leaders are Jarad and Niv-Mizzet. I'll start with Niv. I look forward to him being back in Return to Ravnica. Here's his shiny new art on the right. He's a little more aggressive in this piece than in his previous portrait, which is exciting because we now have one to hang over the mantle, and one to put on the battlefield and be angry with.

Also, if you haven’t seen the Comic-Con panel yet where they spoiled all the guild leaders, well, then you need to, and here’s the video. Trust me, it’s worth thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds of your day.  

 

Since we know all about Niv and his core of combo-making, combo-breaking friends he likes to go to work with, let’s talk about this new guy on the guild leader block, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord.

My initial impressions, I’ll admit, are relatively disappointing. For starters, I think his casting cost, while very aesthetically cool, seems rather ridiculous. I’m not citing an inappropriate cost

problem though. Four seems fair. After all, Knight of the Reliquary was three. And look what that did to the metagame during Alara.

My problem is that one of those B’s or G’s should be a colorless mana. That’s just for starters. We’re going top-down on this assessment. Literally. 

Next we have the art. Full marks and ten points to Svetlin Velinov for this beautiful display of “King Golgari” (Svetlin sounds like a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor, if you’re keeping track of House Points). He looks awesome and fearsome and that’s how I want to imagine the leader of two of my favorite colors to play in Magic. I like the grimyness. And the purple adds a really neat clash.

       

     

The creature type though, I don’t really get. Why does everything have to be a zombie? Better yet, why does everything have to be an elf? And why does Jarad have to be a zombie elf?
            
To answer my own question, I think Jarad is these two creatures because of what the goals of the Golgari are, which is to find links between the mysteries of life and death. In this perception, elf and zombie do sound like good types to characterize and embody the dichotomy of the living and the undead. I want to wish for a more challenging creature type here, because Glissa and him are creature type twins, but the logic is sound.
            Moving on. Abilities.

Ability #1 is great. Takes after the aforementioned Knight of the Reliquary, but in a true Mortivore-style fashion. Pretty good. Well done, design team.

Ability #2 missed my approval by one word. “Another.” Sacrifice another creature. What’s the harm in being able to sacrifice himself? This ability here is my sole problem with its casting cost. From a flavor perspective, it makes sense. He’s recycling, or whatever. But I think a leader of a Guild should be reckless too. Especially one that’s a Golgari and a Zombie, so it’s not that risky.  
 
Ability #3 seems only useful if I can sacrifice Jarad via his previous ability. Since I can’t sacrifice him, I don’t ever see a point in binning him in an EDH game, because it goes against my very principles (Need I remind you I do have a name and reputation to uphold as the Uncle of Landdrops). I can’t go losing two land to bail him out of the yard in a typical game. Doesn’t sound like doing this is going to help you win a game either. Tsk Tsk I say to that. 

P and T seems great though. I think 2/2 for a guy that does what the J-Man does is good. I’m glad he’s not stars for P and T, like the son of a Mortivore he tried to be. Again, Zombie of the Creature-quary is much cooler. 

As far as overall playability, he gets an okay from me. Not total approval, but hey, none of us are perfect. Jarad's a dude I’d play, but only after you find yourself bored and weary of the other wonderful Generals G/B has to offer. There are, after all, some pretty great G/B-ers already in the game. 

            Pass Turn.             

 —Uncle Landdrops.