The first week of Oath of the Gatewatch spoilers have concluded, and that means it's time for the first Spoiler Digest. The Oath spoiler season started off with a bang, as an unauthorized leak spoiled nine of the mythic rares and the entire set of expeditions. The rest of the first week revealed many other cards, including the three remaining manlands and a slew of terrifying Eldrazi.
Kozilek Awakens
While Battle for Zendikar focused on Ulamog's brood of devouring, ingesting, and processing Eldrazi, Kozilek is featured in Oath of the Gatewatch. Where Ulamog represents a force of primal, unstoppable hunger, Kozilek instead destroys the very fabric of reality, twisting and distorting whatever he leaves in his wake. Mechanically, this is represented with the new mana symbol, , which will be discussed in a minute.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion is an astoundingly powerful card, much like the earlier Eldrazi and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. While he costs a whopping ten mana, on cast he refills your hand and gives you an unlimited supply of Disrupting Shoal-type activations. Any deck that can cheat him into play or even cheat access to his ability (via Necrotic Ooze, for example,) can dominate a game by shutting out opposing removal spells. Combine that with a 12/12 body and menace, and he can very quickly close out a game.
While the symbol itself is new, it represents a concept existing in the game already - colorless mana. To really understand and what it means, a distinction needs to be drawn between colorless mana and generic mana.
Colorless mana is a type of mana produced, much like red mana or blue mana is. Many existing cards produce colorless mana: Sol Ring, Ancient Tomb, Wasteland, Desolate Lighthouse, etc. All of these cards will have their text boxes errata'd to state that they produce instead of , instead of 2, etc.
Generic mana is something used in costs. Sol Ring, for example, costs one generic mana, which can be paid with a colorless mana or a mana of any color. Thran Dynamo costs four generic mana. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger costs ten generic mana. Generic mana costs are not changing. However, colorless mana costs are being added for the first time. Kozilek is the first example of this - in order to cast Kozilek, the Great Distortion, you need to spend eight generic mana and two mana that must be colorless. That means he can be cast off of eight Mountains plus an Ancient Tomb, but not off of ten Mountains. No existing cards will have their generic mana costs changed to .
Producing Colorless Mana
The Eldrazi already possess a number of ways to produce mana. The Blighted cycle of lands from Battle for Zendikar do so, as do cards like Kozilek's Channeler and all Eldrazi Scions. But with colorless costs being a major theme of Oath of the Gatewatch, colorless production needed a boost as well. To this end, Wastes was introduced as a new Basic land. Like the existing basic lands, you can run any number of them in your deck in any constructed format in which Wastes is legal. Unlike the existing basic lands, and more similarly to Snow-Covered Basics, in Limited formats (Draft and Sealed) you are restricted to only those Wastes that you draft or that are in your sealed pool. Wastes appear at common, and they show up twice as often as regular commons, as there are two versions. It's also worth noting that unlike normal basic lands, Wastes has no basic type. This means that Wastes does not count for domain, and you cannot use cards like Phantasmal Illusion to turn a land into a Wastes.
In addition to Wastes, there are other lands that tap for across all of the rarities. The ones at the highest rarities also offer incentives to run other -producing lands. Mirrorpool rewards you with access to Fork and Clone abilities, while Sea Gate Wreckage provides a draw engine. Decks that run a lot of colorless mana sources, like the Modern decks Tron and Eldrazi Processors, can take advantage of these lands to provide powerful abilities.
Other Colorless-Cost Cards
Much like the ingest-process interaction, drafting -producing cards needs a payoff. As such, many of Kozilek's brood have costs abilities that require . Rewards include Endbringer's slew of repeatable abilities, which are attractive to the Modern Elradzi Processors deck. Eldrazi Obligator grants a Threaten ability reminiscent of Zealous Conscripts. Vile Redeemer provides a slew of bodies to replace your dead creatures, a la Caller of the Claw. Higher end Eldrazi like Deceiver of Form, Dread Defiler, and World Breaker provide huge bodies with splashy abilities. Overall, the strategy looks easier to assemble than the ingest-process strategy from Battle for Zendikar.
Other Eldrazi
While being a central theme for the set, not all of the new Eldrazi cards are focused on . Eldrazi Mimic provides a potentially devastating temporary clone effect. When paired with huge colorless creatures like any of the Eldrazi titans, this 2-mana beatstick grows huge, providing a capable threat for devoid aggro decks. Flaying Tendrils and Kozilek's Return are both powerful devoid removal cards that could make a splash in Modern. Flaying Tendrils is the latest in a line of strictly better than Infests, this time tacking on Anger of the Gods' exile clause over Drown in Sorrow's scry 1. This is potentially very useful in a Modern format where Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks are common sights. Kozilek's Return, on the other hand, is an instant speed Pyroclasm with benefits. The closest comparison is Volcanic Fallout, which offers uncounterability and player damage. Kozilek's Return instead is devoid, which allows it to bypass the protections of cards like Master of Waves, Kor Firewalker, and Etched Champion. Additionally, if you cast a large Eldrazi with it in your graveyard, it offers the chance to exile itself for an uncounterable five damage. For decks like Tron and possibly the Eldrazi Processors list, getting that bonus can be a huge game swing. Finally, Flayer Drone is another interesting card for devoid aggro. It has reasonable 3/1 first strike body for three mana, and it adds a drain for every other colorless creature that enters, including Scion tokens, morphs and Thopters.
Uniting to Fight Back
With all that the Eldrazi have at their disposal, the protagonists seem to be in pretty dire straights. But they are not completely out. Chandra and Nissa both get new cards in Oath of the Gatewatch, and they are accompanied by a series of cards that bolsters planeswalkers.
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is Green's first three-mana planeswalker. Every other color has had a planeswalker under four mana by this point (Liliana of the Veil, Jace Beleren, Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded, and Ajani, Caller of the Pride), but Green has thus far been left out, largely because being able to drop a turn one Llanowar Elf-type card into a turn two planeswalker is extremely hard to deal with in Standard. However, for the first time, there are no one-mana acceleration creatures in Standard, so Green finally gets its time to shine. Nissa's +1 clogs up the board, generating 0/1 Plant tokens. These can protect her as she works her way to her ultimate ability, which draws a potentially huge number of cards and gains the same amount of life. Alternatively, Nissa can throw out her -2 ability to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature. In Standard, combining her token generation and buffing with that of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar can flood the board with a devastating tide of buffed tokens that any opponent would be hard-pressed to fight through.
Chandra, Flamecaller is the flip side of the coin. It's easy to see a six mana Chandra and recall Chandra Ablaze, who is largely considered to be one of the worst planeswalkers ever printed. But Flamecaller offers a lot that Ablaze never did. Her +1 ability deals a huge swing of damage to the opponent, and doesn't require a card pitched to do so. Her middle ability is still a Wheel of Fortune type effect, but always grants card advantage, never helps opponents, and is at +0 so it can be done indefinitely to dig for specific cards. Her ultimate ability is an Earthquake-type effect that can be tuned to clear specific creatures. In a controlling Standard list, she can come down and immediately clear the opposing board, then proceed to either draw cards or chunk damage off of the opponent every following turn. In fact, the six-mana walker she seems most similar to is Elspeth, Sun's Champion, as she offers a fast clock and a wrath effect.
By Our Powers Combined
Oath of the Gatewatch has a theme of planeswalkers teaming up, and there's several cards at rare that support this theme. Call the Gatewatch is a tutor for any planeswalker, similar to Idyllic Tutor or Fabricate. Standard decks could run this as a way to guarantee a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on turn four, as well as allowing a bit of a toolbox with other planeswalkers in-color.
The Oath cycle represents each planeswalker united to face the Eldrazi swearing to watch for their return. Each is an enchantment with an "enters the battlefield" trigger and an ongoing effect that rewards you for playing many planeswalkers. Oath of Nissa provides a cantrip of sorts in Green, allowing the player to choose a creature, land, or planeswalker from the top three to put into hand, with the rest going to the bottom. After that, it fixes mana perfectly for casting future planeswalkers. This could see some play in Modern Jund or Abzan decks as a way to dig into Tarmogoyf or Liliana of the Veil while making Liliana's double- cost easier to meet. Oath of Jace, on the other hand, provides a fairly standard draw three, discard two for three mana. After that, it allows the player to scry every turn based on the number of planeswalker they control. This seems like a perfect pairing with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, as it helps stock the graveyard for Jace's transformation, and then provides a filtering effect similar to Thassa, God of the Sea.
Surge Together to Victory
To also push the theme of "planeswalkers teaming up", Oath of the Gatewatch introduces one of the first mechanics that cares about teammates, "surge". Surge is an alternative cost that can be paid for spells if the player or one of his or her teammates has cast another spell this turn. Surge costs thus far are cheaper than normal costs, and three of the four revealed surge cards have an additional effect when they're played for their surge cost. These cards are designed to encourage Two-Headed Giant play, but can be played normally as well. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Crush of Tentacles, which provides a total nonland bounce, and when surged, is attached to an 8/8 octopus body. Compared to the similar Kedrekt Leviathan, it's considerably cheaper and larger, though it involves jumping through more hoops. Either way, it's a potentially devastating board-clear effect for Standard.
Support Your Cohort
Also pushing the "team-up" theme are two new mechanics. Cohort is an ability word for Allies, much like rally, but it involves tapping multiple Allies for a repeatable effect rather than simply triggering off of each Ally entering. Support is a mechanic that puts +1/+1 counters on multiple creatures. Neither mechanic stands out as likely to make a large tournament splash, but Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit has shown that innocuous +1/+1 counter mechanics can often be game-breaking.
Legends
Commander players rejoice, because Oath of the Gatewatch appears to be chock full of legendary creatures who aren't Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
- General Tazri provides something that Commander players have been asking for since the original Zendikar block: an ally legend with a five-color Color Identity. Because of Tazri's activiated ability, which costs mana of every color, players can run every Ally ever printed in her deck.
- Linvala, the Preserver is one of two returning legendary creatures. The original Linvala was a one-time Modern staple, as Birthing Pod decks would use her to stop the opposing Birthing Pod player from comboing out. The new Linvala provides a Timely Reinforcements-type effect, potentially gaining five life and putting a total of eight power onto the board for six mana. This seems like a powerful Standard haymaker for Control lists.
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is the other returning legend. Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet was much-maligned as being clunky and overcosted. His new traitorous version is significantly more powerful, however. A sleek 3/4 lifelink body for four mana hints at the possibility of Modern playability, as it dodges both Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt. His triggered ability shuts off graveyard shenanigans while providing additional bodies, and he can consume those bodies to grow larger. He definitely appears to be a solid option for Jund or Grixis decks to face off against other Jund and Grixis lists, as well as Burn.
- Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim continues a semi-cycle from Battle for Zendikar of two-color legends who support their color pair's strategy. Ayli provides great support for the lifegain strategy, as she offers an outlet for repeated lifegain, as well as a reward for having gained a lot of life. She could make a splash in Modern Soul Sisters builds, where her repeated removal can shore up some poorer matchups. Additionally, she could easily head up a Soul Sisters-type Commander list, or support Karlov of the Ghost Council in a similar build.
- Mina and Denn, Wildborn are to red/green landfall as Ayli is to lifegain. With solid stats and an Exploration ability, the Wildborn twins could fit into many red/green Commander decks, like Omnath, Locus of Rage, where Exploration effects are well-appreciated.
- Jori En, Ruin Diver is the last of the revealed legends, supporting blue/red surge. She rewards you for surging by drawing a card for every second spell you cast. This makes her a possible fit for Modern decks, where she can provide repeated card advantage when casting cheap spells.
Final Mythics
Sphinx of the Final Word was the final mythic rare that has been revealed thus far. This Sphinx really busts open control mirrors, as it is both uncounterable and untargetable, as well as making all future instants and sorceries uncounterable. While seven mana is a lot, Pearl-Lake Ancient saw brief play as a similarly hard-to-stop threat, and Aetherling has seen play in the past as well in Standard. Mark Rosewater revealed this week that part of the size increase for Oath of the Gatewatch to support Oath/Oath/Battle drafting was an increase in mythic count from 10 to 12. This means that there's still one unspoiled mythic. It is likely a black mythic, as there have been two of each other color, plus Kozilek and Mirrorpool.
Manlands
The final three manlands have been revealed as well. Hissing Quagmire is the black/green offering, as a 2/2 with deathtouch. While this is not nearly as aggressive as, say, Treetop Village, it is a much more powerful card defensively, as it can trade with any creature in combat. This makes it potentially attractive to control decks like Lands. Needle Spires is the red/white offering, as a 2/1 with double strike. While it is one of the more expensive lands to activate, if you can afford to attach equipment to it, it can create huge life swings each attack. This also makes it a great awaken target. Wandering Fumarole is the blue/red offering, as a 1/4 that can swap its power and toughness at will. While this card might seem underpowered on the surface, it's a four-power attacker that can dodge Lightning Bolt and can bounce many attackers as well, making it potentially attractive to Splinter Twin lists in Modern.
Expeditions
We have also seen all 20 expeditions for Oath of the Gatewatch revealed. These include the full cycle of Filter Lands, as well as ten uncycled lands, most of which produce , including Wasteland. All of these expeditions are pictured below.
That's all for this week! Be sure to check in the Rumor Mill for all of the latest spoilers, and check back on Friday to see the full spoiler revealed. We'll also hit the highlights of the rest of the set in next week's digest!
Comments