Final Destination: Planechase 2 Wrap-Up

This is the endgame for our Planechase II Spoiler/Review series. We've got 20 new Planes to cover, which is a lot! Let's get to it.

The first Planechase set didn't have any planes that were this narrow or specific. I feel like it is a mistake to make Planes that are this narrow. That said, I just happen to have a very Aura/Enchantment focused deck, and I have just recently included Alchemists Refuge so that I could cast Auras at Instant speed. So this is an effect that those types of decks certainly want. I just don't like that it's only worth visiting if you're playing the right kind of deck.

I normally don't like Planes that slow combat down or artificially drag the game out. This one is nice, though, because it sill allows for some combat, but if you land here at the right time it can be a nice way to slow down that one player who got the really fast, aggressive start and is threatening to end the game early.
The Chaos effect is not going to get much mileage in most EDH games, but it's a great ability for 60-card games.

I'm not sure what the hell is going on in this art, but I definitely dig the abilities. Haste + Double Strike can really speed up combat. Unfortunately this will sometimes create horribly lopsided games, when one player gets off to a much faster start than the rest of the table, and this Plane will only serve to make their advantage all the more overwhelming. Assuming everyone is developing more or less equally, though, this Plane should be a blast.

This is a very unusual plane, and I really feel that this one needs to be experience in a live game to fully understand it's impact. It can slow down the game while it's active, but once you hit Chaos or Planeswalk away, your army should untap considerably larger and more threatening than before. Cool, but weird, and very hard to judge based solely on theorycraft.

I usually dislike the "choose a player at random", but here it's not so bad. It will actually help you remain politically neutral as you can't control the outcome. That you can potentially hit yourself with it is a bummer though. I have a feeling my playgroup will not like playing with this Plane, but we'll give it a try before we axe it from the deck.

This plane may look underwhelming at first glance, but giving your entire army Vigilance and possibly Indestructible will incentivize players to attack. It's subtle, for sure, but I think this plane could easily have a major impact on a game.

This is a highly unusual plane. It looks potentially game-warping, but it could also wind up not mattering, or even stalling creature combat completely. That said, anytime you 'walk to this plane, anyone playing an Edric deck is probably going to get the evil eye. No one wants to lose their Akroma to a Invisible Stalker. On the other hand, you don't want to trade away your evasive guys, because that just gives your opponent the means to get their stolen guys back!

This boasts possibly the most gorgeous art in the set. Kessig is a little like Akoum in that it's pretty narrow and specific. Then again, if no one is playing Werewolves at all, it still has a significant impact on the game. Rolling Chaos should be pretty cool though.

Hmm... this is interesting. It could potentially yield a vast amount of Red mana, depending on how long it takes someone to Planeswalk away. Explosive but unreliable is pretty much the default setting of Planechse, so this fits right in. The cool part is that you don't need to be playing Red to profit. In EDH terms, if your general doesn't have Red in his color identity, this will give you colorless mana to play with, but you can always just use that mana to roll the planar die if you don't have spells to cast with that mana.

Another build-up Plane that produces a larger effect the longer you stay here. I'm afraid of some of these types of effects because they can cause players to stop rolling because they don't want to hit Planeswalk. Since this one doesn't hit players, that is possibly less likely to come about. This is a neat design on paper, but I'm not convinced it'll translate to a fun experience in actual games.

Kind like Lethe Lake, but with a more appealing bonus. Plus the Chaos ability is very compelling to most EDH players. Eternal Witness is one of the most-played (overplayed?) cards in the format, so this should sit well with most EDH players. On the other hand, many casual players are not particularly happy with any form of "self-mill" as they dislike seeing their best spells in their Graveyard. I, for one, like this Plane, though.

This one is fairly unusual, and will be difficult to judge how much it actually impacts a game. Just by looking at it, it seems to be a pretty subtle effect, at least until someone rolls Chaos... but it certainly will change how most decks approach attacking and blocking. I'm eager to see how this one plays out.

While I usually would prefer to be on Murasa for ramping purposes, this Plane adequately meets our ramping needs, I think. A great plane for aggro decks that come out swinging early. My Gisela and Edric decks in particular will love this.

Meh. There was a time when Living Death was among my all-time favorite cards, especially in EDH. However, I'm not such a big fan as I once was, typically because late-game Living Deaths often result in 45-minutes of mind-bending rules knots involving a dozen or more simultaneous ETBF triggers. Still, this design is perfectly in flavor for Orzhova, and has cool built-in synergy with it's Chaos effect. The only issue is that it's very much a do-nothing plane if you 'walk to it early in the game.

Much like the Azorious Guild's leader, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, this plane is designed to impede progress and slow down gameplay. Not usually a barrel of fun, for most players, which is why GAAIV is on most players' shitlist, and widely considered a "douche bag" general. Prahv isn't so bad, because it slows down everyone equally, but it's still not very fun-looking to me. It fits the Azorius theme well enough, but I'm not eager to play with this one.

I get why this static effect had to be nerfed - it was an instant-win with Triskelion, for starters. But hosing the interaction with Double Strike was an unfortunate casualty in their attempt to un-break this Plane. I'd rather have the full interaction available and risk someone randomly having Triskelion handy, but alas it was not meant to be. This could still be a fairly potent Plane for an aggro deck to land on.

Who doesn't love copying their spells? No one! This plane is absurdly powerful, but yet nicely balanced by the fact that it can potentially help anyone at any time. I love everything about this plane. It is one of my favorites in the set. I can't wait to cast something and then Twincast it. Oh boy!

While I'd rather have ramp than "just" color-fixing, this is pretty much the mother of all mana-fixers. Absolutely a boon to decks of three to five colors. I also like that the Chaos ability puts the non-Land cards on bottom instead of into the Graveyard, which is more typical of these sorts of effects. Very good design, but not particularly exciting. I do appreciate that it will help players who don't have uber-expensive mana bases more than those who do.

LOL! This is up there with the Mage-Rings for having a huge, swingy effect. This is all but guaranteed to have a huge impact on any game, but it's clearly best when there are a bunch of multicolored decks at the table with some color overlap between them. I really want to play a deck with Exploration, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Azusa so I can just rip lands right off the top of my opponents' decks! This plane seems equally likely to produce nerd rages and auto-scoops, as well as causing the whole table to erupt in fits of laughter.

Well, Kaalia decks will have a great time here! Actually quite a few decks will benefit from this plane, as Flying creatures are pretty common overall. Still this is gonna just wreck my Gisela deck most of the time. I was never a big fan of The Hippodrome from Planechase I, and this is similar. I'm not overly thrilled, but it could wind up being cool. I might have to put Levitation into a couple decks. Okay, maybe not.


Well that concludes our look at all the new cards and planes in the Planechase II set. Later this week, I'll start reviewing the actual decklists and maybe give each one a customization and upgrade.

Enjoy!

Roll Chaos - More Planechase Spoilers

The entire Planechase II set has now been officially spoiled, so I am going to wrap up these spoiler/review posts for the new cards and planes in the next post or two. Then, I'm going to dig into the actual decklists and see what PC2 has to offer besides a bunch of new EDH cards.

First up, let's get the remaining few new "regular" cards out of the way.

Well, he's no Siege-Gang Commander, but for an uncommon, he does a pretty good impression. Plus, he's four power for 4 mana in red, which is very efficient for a Red creature. Not likely to be an EDH staple anytime soon, but reasonable for a Goblin tribal deck or a token deck.

Skullclamp, meet Brindle Shoat.
Like the goblin above, this guy is probably too overpowered to print in a normal Magic set, yet still weighs in as underpowered for EDH purposes. Still, he makes perfect sense in the deck he's in - he's a creature you absolutely don't mind Devouring.

Nice. Not a bad deal at all. A 2/2 for two, that a simple Rancor or something turns into a Force of Nature. Very cool. Not overly powerful, but certainly playable in the right deck. The only issue is that token decks want him the most, but those rarely run Auras. I could easily put him in my Jenara deck, which is loaded with Auras, but then the tokens are kinda irrelevant. 

Bam! This packs a nice punch. Of course, as a six-mana Aura, it damn well better pack a punch. No one is going to want to tap six and risk a two-for-one against them if the risk involved didn't also pay out a nice reward. I think this compares favorably to it's closest peer: Pollenbright Wings. That one was a card I always appreciated for its effect, but never felt like the risk/reward ratio was entirely worth it. I plan to give this one a shot, at least, before I dismiss it, but usually Aura's that cost more than three need to either be a Control Magic variant or Eldrazi Conscription. We'll see.

Sweet. A perfect blend between Threaten and Blatant Thievery. It's going to be tricky to play, because to get the most bang for your buck, you really need to time this so that all three (or however many) opponents have a creature worth stealing, and that none of them have sac outlets open (such as Greater Good or High Market). Still, that this has the potential to be an almost-Insurrection for five mana makes it highly appealing. Very cool design.

Meh. Not very interesting, for EDH at least. It's cool, but just too small of an effect to really matter most of the time. I could see it in a very limited number of decks, but it's just not very good.

I can't tell if this guy is really good or really bad. Guess it all depends on what you intend to do with him. Putting him in a Momir Vig deck seems good. I could see him in an Edric deck too. Meh.

Well that's it for the normal-size cards. Tomorrow we'll pick up with the remaining Planar cards to review, then delve into the decklists.

Enjoy.

Hey, I'm Walkin' Over Here!

So I was sick yesterday, and not only did I miss a day of work, I also missed a day of spoilers. That means we have a lot of ground to cover today, so let's get right to it.

Wow, okay. that's impressive. Whatever plane you land on after this encounter is gonna get wacky. Chaotic Aether into Meditation Pool is really gonna shatter players' sanity. I really like this Phenomenon. It's not based on any existing card, and has an effect that is unique to the Planechase format, but generic enough that it doesn't matter what you are playing, beyond that you're playing Planechase. Very cool.

This is obviously a nod to Warp World, which is an effect that WotC seems to think most multiplayer fans enjoy. The fact is I think the majority of us that play multiplayer don't really like these "LOL RANDOM!" effects much. Then again, why are we playing Planechase if we don't like random, zany effects? Eh, either way this looks like it'll be fun, even if it is a bit too unpredictable and random for my tastes.

Well, I do love card draw. This is gonna suck if you hit it super-early, and just have to discard 3 or 4 cards bceause of it. Unless, of course, you're playing Mimeoplasm or something like that. Anyway, I like it.

Yes! This is a prefect example of balancing the need for really cool, bizarre effects and boring but useful effects. While something like Chaotic Aether is going to get more excitement and interest for it's unique and awesome effect, something like Planewide Disaster is going to fly quietly under the radar, but it's presence in the set is very important. Planechase is a format that is driven by creating imbalance, but occasionally it needs effects like this one and Sanctum of Serra to restore balance. I like this better than Sanctum of Serra, partly because it just destroys creatures, and partly because it's not a plane. It was always boring being stuck on Serra's Sanctum for several turn cycles, because you pretty much stopped casting permanents until someone Planeswalked. This just happens, then it's over. Very cool.

This looks very interesting and has potential to be very powerful. Of course the randomness of it all makes it difficult to really tap into that potential. This could wind up being a do-nothing plane a lot of the time, but hopefully it won't, because it looks pretty fun on paper.

This is very similar to Planechase I's "The Maelstrom" planar card. This one only works for creatures, which is worse, but it also digs until it hits a valid card type, unlike The Maelstrom, which could whiff if you hit an Instant or Sorcery. Creepy art. I like it.

7/7 Eldrazi tokens! Well, this is a suprise. I like how rolling chaos while you're on this plane doesn't really do much besides give you a 7/7 wall. But once someone planeswalks, oh boy! Seems pretty cool, but I'm not sure my group is really going to want to play with this particular plane. I could take it or leave it.

Welcome to Ghave's favorite plane! Animar is probably pretty happy to see Jund as well. Devour 5 is just nuts. At that level of Devour, you don't even really need to be playing tokens. Just have a couple of utility guys like a Wood Elves or something and - Viola! Lunch is served. Also seems great with Champion of Lambholt or Mindless Automaton. Pretty much anything that cares how many +1/+1 counters it has, and uses those counters for something besides just being big.

An unpredictable, random Oblivion Stone - not what I'd have expected for Norn's Dominion, but it's pretty cool. It still suffers the same issue Sanctum of Serra did, in that once you walk TO the plane, you really don't want to cast any more permanents, so you either just cast Instants and Sorceries or roll the Planar Die a bunch trying to 'walk out of there. This definitely rewards you for rolling the die, though, because every Chaos trigger saves a non-land permanent from destruction once you finally do planeswalk.

 Not a big fan of this one, so far, but I'm probably just biased against it because I've seen to many Jhoira of the Ghitu shenanigans where a player suspends a bunch of huge stuff then blows up the world with Jokulhaups or something. I'm also not sure a "fixed" Dream Halls is really what the format needs or wants. But on the other hand, it will be kind of cool to just suspend most of my hand to this, then cast a Wheel of Fortune or Time Spiral or something. Even better if I can then planeswalk the hell out of here before anyone else gets a chanse to Suspend some things.

Sweet. Not bad for 6 mana. I like it a lot. I'll have to try and squeeze this into my Rith the Awakener token deck - it's a perfect fit! I also like how it's a "proper" spider in that it has the customary traits of large toughness and Reach, but it's power is still high enough to make it a viable attacker, not just a blocker.

 I have a feeling this is a card we're seeing here because it'd be too risky to print in a set that would be standard legal. Then again, it's pretty mana-intensive so it would likely have been fine. Either way, a CMC 6 Cascade guy that bounces himself is absolutely gauranteed to see play in EDH. Pretty much every Animar, Intet and Maelstrom Wanderer deck out there will want to run this guy - especially Animar.

Very interesting design work. It's a simple buff - almost underpowered, even. But add in the fact that you can move it around at instant speed and the Totem effect helps guard against "destroy"-based removal, the versatility and subtle trickiness of the card makes it far more powerful than it would seem at first glance. Almost definitely going into my Jenara deck.

Needs Haste badly. Other than that, it's pretty cool. Definitely better than the similar Voracious Dragon. Still not likely to see major, widespread play in EDH - most decks that might consider this will likely run Inferno Titan instead. That said, I plan on giving it a try in my Rith token deck. Who knows, it may surprise us and be really good.

Hell yes! Another Clone variant that is just plain better than the original Clone. This guy can't beat Phyrexian Metamorph for sheer power and versatility but in the right decks, he's gonna be a superstar. I have a strong feeling that this guy is going to be the most sought-after of the new cards, for EDH players at least.

Well, I think that finally has us caught up. Enjoy!

Gentlemen! Behold! MORE SPOILERS!

We've got a lot of new ground to cover, so save your questions until the end, please. Let's get it!

Love it. This is a winner in my book. Why? Well, because Vampire Nighthawk has turned out to be a surprisingly good early-game blocker in EDH. Sure he's a lousy topdeck late game, but if you drop the Nighthawk on turn three, you'll almost always divert multiple attackers elsewhere, saving you from a lot of early damage.

Acidic Slime, too, has proven to be a reliable blocker, for the same reason: Deathtouch. However, in EDH a ground-based Deathtoucher is far less valuable than a Flying Deathtoucher.

What makes Baleful Strix so appealing is that he has the potential to come down a full turn earlier than the Nighthawk, while being less of a dud in the late game thanks to the cantrip effect. If you desperately need something more potent and are disappointed to draw this guy? Just cast him and try again!

Hate the art, though. I usually like Nils Hamm's macabre impressionistic style, but here it's a dud. Oh well, I'll still happily play this guy in any number of decks that have slow early games and need a bit of cheap defense.

Neat card. A mono-blue Angel is odd enough to have appeal based on the uniqueness of it. The fact that it's an Illusion as well also makes it an interesting possibility for Lord of the Unreal aggro decks. Seems lackluster for multiplayer formats, though, but perhaps I'm still thinking too specifically of EDH multiplayer. I'll defer to other opinions on this one, but I don't expect I'll ever make use of her.

LOL, Demon Ninja. Kudos to the artist, because the art sells the concept far better than it sounded on paper. This guy is obviously going straight into my Wrexial deck, and will probably find a home in Damia if I ever get around to rebuilding her deck. Mostly, though, I am unimpressed by his clunkiness and unwieldy Ninjutsu cost. Not that it's not warranted by the effect, mind you. It's just not super exciting.

Cool. We had a plane card in Planechase I that did very close to the same thing, but this is still a pretty cool one-shot effect that can really jump start a game. It's likely to give one player the shaft more often than not, as that one player will be low on cards, or just not have anything great to drop. I'll feel sorry for the player who drops a Basic Land off of this, while everyone else is dropping six-cost fatties or better. Unlike Time Distortion, though, this is much more fun-looking and the risk of maybe screwing one player over is not enough to make me not want to play this in my Planar Deck. Also it could just as easily result in all four players dropping a land, so it can be fair... unlike Time Distortion.

Sweet. I love any Plane that can potentially draw me a bunch of cards. I definitely will enjoy playing this Plane. Gain some life, and maybe draw some cards too? Sure, I'll take that any day. I don't have much else to say - it's a winner.

Ha ha ha! Oh wow. That's awesome. All I can say is, imagine you are on this Plane, and you attack one player with a Hydra Omnivore. 

I like how some plane cards have the sexier ability as their static effect, and a minor ability as the Chaos effect, while others reverse that setup. It seems like the natural, intuitive way to design these would be to give all of them a Chaos ability that is sexier and more powerful than the static effect, but I think it's a stroke of brilliance by the designers that they thought outside the box enough to realize that sometimes you want to go the other way around and have really jaw-dropping static effects and relatively minor Chaos abilities.

Anyway, the static effect on this one is just a wonderful example of Multiplayer-specific design done right - it encourages attacking and proactive game play in a HUGE way, which is good, because Multiplayer games can and do turn into long, grindy, affairs if the players are too afraid to get into the red zone and mix it up.

Fuck yeah, Scry! I am a big fan of the Scry mechanic, as indicated by the fact that I play Foresee in just about every deck I've ever built. Scry 4 during your upkeep, for free, is a POWERFUL effect, and one I'm absolutely in love with. The chaos ability is also pretty damn sexy, and I love how it synergizes nicely with the static effect.

That's another great thing about the design of these planes - again, the intuitive thing to do would be to have the Static effect and Chaos abilities always be synergistic in some fashion. Yet R&D wisely took the unexpected but delightful route of having some planes behave that way, while others have almost no inherent synergy between their two effects at all.

Again, it's an example of outside the box thinking, and by challenging what we'd expect by doing something contrary to expectations, they've made the Plane cards a little less redundant and monotonous, and a little more random and chaotic feeling, which is a great thing for such a random, chaotic format!

This is the promo Plane. Pretty cool stuff. At first, I was underwhelmed, but then I realized the draw triggers off rolling the Planar Die, regardless of the outcome, which is awesome. Because that way, even if you roll a blank, you still got something out of the attempt. That really sounds fun and cool, so I appreciate this plane's design a lot more now that I actually understand what it does. Plus, it draws card, and that's always a winner in my book. The ability to stack the Planar Deck is also pretty cool. "Eon Fog? Skip that shit!"

This might actually be even more broken with a Ghave deck than the Doubling Season plane! Holy shit.

Okay, so I don't want to seem ungrateful or hypocritical, as I've repeatedly stated on this blog and in person that drawing cards is literally my favorite thing to do in Magic. But does every plane in Planechase II have something to do with drawing cards?

Clearly, I'm exaggerating, but it really does seem like about half the planes so far have the words "draw a card" somewhere amongst their text. I'm okay with this, but I am hoping to see a little more variety. Foothills are a great start, but we could really use a couple of Planes that help us ramp like Murasa did in Planechase 1. And some other random, wacky effects too.

Well, that's it for today. What? That wasn't enough? Too bad! Go do something productive.

Enjoy!

Planechase 2: The Spoilage Continues

More official spoilers for Planechase 2 have appeared on the interbutts. Yippee!

Somewhat let down, as this was originally rumored to tap for any color mana (and cost 3 mana to cast). Still, seems like an awesome card. Gonna want a few of these I can have lying around to slot into my EDH decks for when we play Planechase EDH.
Anyway, I wish this did tap for colored mana, but the reduction in cost to two mana is a very compelling trade off.
Obviosly this is pretty much a do-nothing outside of Planechase, but it's an excellent card within it's intended format. Rolling the Planar die is what PC is all about, right?

My, aren't you a big one? Just so we're clear on the math here, if you Devour five creatures with Thromok, he will be a 25/25. Now all he needs is Trample and Haste! Seems pretty cool, I guess. I usually don't like big vanilla beaters, but this guy just gets SO big for so little mana, he might be worthwhile in a handful of decks. Clearly he's going to have a home on many a Kresh the Bloodbraided deck, and he'll likely be an interesting general, at least until someone tunes his deck to the point where they just one-shot somebody on turn 5 every single time.
I like him. He's cool. I'm just not sure I have a use for him.

This is pretty neat. You get to actually chose which plane you want to 'walk to, which is more like how Planeswalkers really work. Pick the plane that is most advantageous to you, or the one most likely to screw over your opponents. Fun. Much, much better than that stupid "reverse the turn order" phenomenon.

Well that's pretty bonkers. We get to 'walk to two planes at the same time, and get the effects of both. Sweet. Okay, I am now officially excited about the Phenomenon cards. That first one the previewed was apparently just a terrible choice to lead off with, but these two more recend Phenomena show vastly more promise of wacky fun than that one did.

Meh. Good design work here. I like how it auto-walks away once the someone runs out of creatures to sacrifice to it. I also like the way the Chaos ability interacts, but it shouldn't be optional, that way you can accidentally get stuck here longer by trying to roll to planeswalk, but end up giving everyone zombie fodder to keep the auto-walk trigger at bay.

Again, cool design, but I'm not sure this is actually going to be a fun-inducing plane or not. I'll certainly give it a chance before I make a verdict.

Well. That's a Doubling Season. I am really, really hoping to see them reprint Doubling Season in one of these decks (most likely the Devour deck). I can't tell if this Plane makes it more likely or less likely that it'll happen now. We've pretty much all played with Doubling Season before, and are well aware of it's explosive potential in the right decks. However, seeing it replicated yet again in Planar card form noticeably weakens it's impact and cool-factor. For some, this will likely be the most exciting plane in the set, but for me it's just a "yawn, another reprint". Oh, sure, I'll be more than happy to see it when I'm playing Rith, but it's just hard to get excited over an effect we've seen before, even if it is cool and powerful.

EDIT: One more to add!

Well, this is pretty neat I guess. Seems like a solid addition to Rafiq decks, for starters. Thanks to his cost reduction effect, he curves nicely into an Eldrazi Conscription for 6 the next turn. Or any other big, ridiculous Enchantment. Also, Rite of Replication targeting this guy costs 7 instead of 9. Might of Oaks, Stonewood Invocation or Revenge of the Hunted all seem like very reasonable one-shot pump effects you might want to use with him. The painfully obvious place to start, of course, is Shield of the Oversoul.

Overall, he seems pretty cool, but not overly powerful (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!).

That brings us up to speed for now. Enjoy!

Planechase 2: Electric Boogaloo

It has begun.

What feels like mere moments after the hype and anticipation of Avacyn Restored finally subsided with that set's release, we move right along into the next spoiler season. This time, it's for Planechase 2, this year's Summer Multiplayer/Casual product.

Here's a bit of basic info, first, in case a few of you haven't been paying close attention.

• As usual there are four decks. Each deck has 8 new Planes and 2 new Phenomena.
• Phenomena are cards similar to Planes, that go into the Planar deck, but when you planeswalk to one of them, it has an immediate and drastic effect that tips the game state on it's head.
• Like last summer's Commander product, Planechase 2 has brand-new cards.
• There are 21 new cards in all, including a number of multicolor Legendary Creatures.
• The names of the 4 decks are: Chaos Reigns, Night of the Ninja, Primordial Hunger, and Savage Auras

Okay, now you're up to speed on what is going on with Planechase 2: Electric Boogaloo. With that out of the way, we can move on to the real show: Spoilers!

We'll start with the original spoilers that WotC gave us back when they announced the product.

This is an example of one of the new Phenomenon cards for the Planar Deck. I'm guessing when  you 'walk to one of these Phenomena, you enact whatever effect is printed on the card, then put the Phenomenon on bottom of the Planar Deck and 'walk to the next Plane right away.

Time Distortion is a pretty good example of how to NOT enable rewarding, sociable play. Why? Because it's probably going to ruin one player's day whenever it hits. The person to the left of whoever walks to Time Distortion, assuming it's a standard 4-player free-for-all game, will have already sat through three opponent's turns, and is expecting their turn to go next. Suddenly, Time Distortion! Now that player has to sit through two more turns as the turn order goes back the way it came before finally returning to that player.

Worst case, this could outright cause that player to lose the game without being able to do shit about it. Best case, it just causes that player to have to sit and twiddle his thumbs for 20 to 30 minutes longer, if Time Distortion crops up later in the game, when the board is complicated and every play desicion matters gravely. I just simply don't ever see any scenario where someone flips this card off the top of the Planar deck and the whole table errupts in riotous laughter, something these products are usually meant to evoke.

Another disappointing aspect of this card is that it literally does NOTHING for the person who actually 'walks to the Phenomenon. That person takes their turn as normal, then gets their next turn 3 turns later as they always would have. It doesn't hurt that player either, but it's lame that the person who actually triggers this effect winds up being utterly unaffected by it either way.

So, to sum up, 'walking to Time Distortion has zero impact for the player that 'walks to it.

It will likely have a devestating and ruinous effect on the game for the person to that player's left, while the two players to that player's right will get all of the benefit from 'walking here.

That fucking sucks. I will NOT be including this Phenomenon in any planar decks I build. Terribly unfun design. Let's hope they can do better than this with the other Phenomena.

Well, now, THIS is more like it. This is a Legendary Creature I can really get behind. "Cascade, cascade" is downright absurdly broken, and the mass-Haste is just a really nice bonus for added value. It ensures that all your hard work stacking the top of your deck with Avenger of Zendikar and Primeval Titan won't go unrewarded, as you'll get to attack with your army-in-a-can immediately, rather than giving someone time to Wrath it all away!

Okay, so the Prime Time/Avenger thing is already played out utterly, and most people are already groaning and eye-rolling at the tought of this guy ending games on the spot. Fortunately, the Wanderer is really a lot more flexible than people give him credit for. You get to cast two spells for free, just for casting him. There are just so many amazing ways you can make that Cascade x2 do something powerful-yet-awesome, it's hard not to love this guy, despite his extremely high potential for douchebaggery.

I will be building a deck for this guy, since my Animar deck wound up being a little to combo-ish and non-interactive. Hopefully I can still get the overwhelming power of that deck, but make it more interactive too.

Ha ha oh wow. This guy is a nice compliment to Bruna in the other good Enchantment-loving color pair. Much like Bruna, though, I prefer this guy as one of my 99 in a Bant-colored deck. Krond is definitely going straight into my Jenara's Auras deck as another finisher along side the wonderful Bruna. It should be noted, though, that this guy has about the most color-intensive mana cost ever, so playing him in a three-color deck might backfire a little bit, as I may find myself unable to cast him reliably off of six lands. Then again, he is partly green, so mana fixing is always available. The art is badass, too. Love this card, at least in theory.

The art on this chick is utterly gorgeous. Love it. As for her abilities? Meh. She's got a lot of potential, I'll give her that much. As a general, well, ha ha, she doesn't even TRY to compete with Wrexial. But Wrexial is pretty much the best two-color general around, so that's not fair. This chick reminds me a lot of an old U/B bounce/tempo/control deck I used to run (in my old 60-card days!). That deck featured Cavern Harpy as a way to repeatedly bounce and abuse my many ETBF creatures like Man-O-War and Nekretaal. It was an awesome deck, and if I could translate that deck into a successful EDH archetype, this chick would be a GREAT general for that deck. I don't see it working out though.

I really have no idea what to do with this chick at the moment. The only deck she even seems possibly good in is my Sedris deck, but since she's not a Zombie, and there's already two other Zombies in the deck that do roughly the same thing she does... I don't see her making the cut.

However, she's impressive enough that I'm sure she'll see plently of play in decks where she is relevant and makes sense. I just don't see here being a very popular general. Too potentially combo-y for most players' tastes.

That's it for the officially spoiled goodies. There are a handful of unofficial spoilers floating around out there, but I'm reluctant to post those - don't want to piss of the WotC legal types. More importantly, to me, is that I don't have pretty pictures of those other cards to post! I hate wall-of-text spoiler lists, so I prefer to only post spoilers that I have good, clean artwork for.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Magic, EDH Style

Here's something I don't often do here at the Command Zone. Post game reports!
I played 4 games last night, and thought I'd share the account of those games for whatever reason.

Game 1 - I played Gisela, my opponents played Kaalia of the Vast and I don't remember the other deck.
Kaalia dropped into play large, scary creatures. Me and the other guy couldn't answer Kaalia or the other giant things fast enough. Game pretty much ended when I had no choice but to Wheel of Fortune to try and find a Wrath effect. I did find a sweeper, but I also Wheeled the Kaalia player into his Griselbrand. Game ended very shortly thereafter. Obviously, Kaalia won.

Game 2 - I played Gisela again, Opponents were Thraximundar and Thalia.
Got off to an aggro start with some Doublestrike + Sword of Stuff and Junk action, and quickly seemed to be owning their faces. Thalia makes my life miserable, though, by dropping first Thalia and then Aura of Silence, so now all my Equipment cost 3 extra, AND he has the option to blow up one peice at any time. Then, as if that's not enough, he Oblivion Rings my Sword of Feast and Famine and then drops Dispeller's Capsule too! Holy artifact hate, Batman! Things start to head south for me, and I can't draw creatures for a while. I have to cast Gisela as it's my only play whatsoever. Then Thraxi finds himself needing cards too, so he has to Time Spiral, which gives us all new hands. I get some goodies, but most of my next couple of plays get answered before they do anything, and so I just drop Inferno Titan using his damage spray to wipe out most of Thalia's blockers and hit Thalia for 10 with Gisela. The turns go around and on my next turn, I still somehow have Gisela and the Titan both, so I send Gisela at Thalia again (he's at 7), and give my Inferno Titan doublestrike with Sunhome and +2/+0 with Slayer's Stronghold, using his damage spray to take out Thraxi's only blocker and deal 32 straight to his face (Inferno Titan was 8/6, had Double Strike and Gisela was still in play, so... 32!) Gisela wins!

Game 3 - I played Sedris. Opponents were Thrax and Edric.
Thrax got off to a sick start with massive amounts of artifact mana. He cast Blatant Thievery with three mana still open while I only have 5 lands in play! Ouch. He took my Endless Ranks of the Dead, and Edric's Edric! Fortunately, Thrax didn't have any Zombies except his general, so he never made tokens, but he kept me from making tokens, so it was worth it. With Thrax in control of Edric, the Edric player and I just attacked each other with little guys to draw cards, trying to dig for answers and mostly kept Thrax in check. Then, Edric player dropped a Symbiotic Wurm, followed up on the next turn by a Rite of Replication. Suddenly it was no longer me and Edric vs Thrax, it was now me and Thrax vs Edric! I drop Warstorm Surge and a dork to block with. Thrax pulls of a dream turn, attacking Edric for 2 in the air with a Vampire Nighthawk, then casting Damnation to clear the board. But Edric gets 42 Insect tokens off his six dead Wurms, so Thraxi then casts Black Sun's Zenith for 1 to wipe out those insects. Edric is now at 26 life - this is critical! On his turn he Regrowth's for the Wurm and recasts the Wurm and something else, passes. I go, drawing for the turn then immediately casting Army of the Damned for thirteen 2/2 Zombies, using Warstorm Surge to deal exactly 26 damage straight to Edric.
Unfortunately, Thraxi drops Liliana Vess and then casts Jokulhaups leaving the board completely empty, save his Liliana and my Warstorm Surge. I have a couple of cheap creatures and a land in my hand, so I think I'm good, but Thrax uses even MORE artifact mana to get ahead and chips away at my hand by +1-ing Liliana. I fail to find a land in the next few turns and scoop. FUCK YOU JOKULHAUPS!
Still, I got to pull of the Army of the Damned + Warstorm Surge trick, which was neat.

Game 4 - I played Wrexial, opponents were Ghave and Thalia again.
I start off alright, but turn 2 Thalia slows me down horribly. I have Barter in Blood, but by the time I have the 5 mana to cast it, Thalia has 4 dudes out. So I just play blockers to stave off early assaults and then drop Consecrated Sphinx to help dig for more land. Finally I hit 9 friggin mana, and cast Decree of Pain, drawing a fuck ton of cards, and I luckily have the Reliquary Tower in play, so I get to spend the rest of the game playing with a 15 to 20 card hand!
For all the good that does me, though, as I can't draw any more answers at all, and just draw some discard and more card-draw spells. Ghave is in top-deck mode, so the discard spells are all useless. He's making tokens so stuff like Barter in Blood and Fleshbag Marauder only prove minor annoyances and slow him only slightly. Also, thanks to some questionable threat assessment, Thalia's doing more to hamper ME than he is Ghave, who is CLEARLY taking over the game. But for whatever faulty reasoning, I'm at 11 life while Ghave's still in mid to high 30's. Thalia finally realizes I'm NOT the one he should be worried about, but even after Body Double-ing my Consecrated Sphinx, I only draw into my next board sweeper on Ghave's turn, right as he's about to kill me. I know I'm dead on the board tapped out, and Ghave has the win on the table, so I just tell Thalia to show me his hand. He doesn't, at first, but I'm like dude, trust me, I'm your only hope. He shows me a hand full of really good spells and creatures, all of which are absolutely 100% irrelevant at the moment, so I take a peek at the top card of his library - also useless, and scoop, telling Ghave "you've already got me dead to rights, so just kill him and get out of here so I can go to sleep". It was nearly 5:00 am, so I was ready for bed! Thalia accuses me of being a dick for scooping like that, but I assure him that he was 100% absolutely guaranteed to lose. He tries to ward off Ghave's attack this turn, but on drawing his next card he realizes I was right and forgives me for scooping. He looks at the next couple of cards to see if my speed-bumping Ghave for one turn might have made a difference... it wouldn't have.

Then I kicked everyone out and went to bed at about 5:00 this morning. It was fun, though.