MTG Salvation

The Island... it's literally a giant flying Millstone.
I don't know about you guys but I'm sold.

Quote from AnImAr_ »

Muxus does not miss any non-shapeshifter goblins in Magic’s history I think.

He misses himself, which is the important part to avoid Gyruda shenanigans.

Ooh, nice, a Legendary Azra from Kyrem. It's nice that we finally get a good Aristocrats Commander that allows us to get U color identity, we have plenty of Orzhov, Rakdos and Golgari ones but Dimir is a new one. Marchesa was pretty much the only option and building a fair Marchesa deck was kind of difficult.

Thriving Moor is really sweet, a flexible Common land that works both if you have lots of colors or just two. Considering its templating makes it a very useful budget card for Commander, I wouldn't be surprised it this saw reprints down the line, maybe even in Commander Legends.

Aside from the one "money cards" like Kels and Maelstrom in each theme, the reprints listed here are pretty meh however. I expect this to be the pattern for Jumpstart, so here's hoping the new cards are at least as exciting as Kels.

In one hand, hell yeah this is one fantastic reprint. Scooze is one of those cards that always needs more reprints, and I absolutely love the borderless promo art.
On the other hand... ugh, the green deck just got the best counter against the best green card. Again.

Quote from sleeper agent 2.0 »

I'm happy as long as they never change the art or flavor text for this card. It needs to break some record (if it hasn't already!) for most reprints without an art or flavor text change.

Nope, sadly it isn't, Rivals of Ixalan changed the flavor text, and in the art department it's going to be REALLY difficult to beat Child of Night's streak. Almost 10 years to get a single piece of new art.

Huh, Rousing Read's art is a direct continuation to Hard Cover, it's even the same character. Wonder if it's just leftover art or some cool vertical cycle shenanigans WotC has been cooking up.

Quote from The Lord of Tresserhorn »

Quote from mikeyG »

Is there a joke I'm missing?

It's a pretty new card, and it was printed in Ixalan AND Rivals of Ixalan (that's where the meme started rolling), Masters 25 and Core Set 2019 so far...

To clarify it even further, it's because he was printed three times in three different sets in a row. Ixalan and Rivals were printed back-to-back, obviously, but Masters 25 came right after Rivals.

Quote from sleeper agent 2.0 »

Quote from Shadow345 »

He seems quite playable but it's not exactly the freshest design now is it?

I feel like planeswalker design space in general, and monocolor in particular, is pretty stunted. Nissa is the "mana and animating lands" PW, and Vivienne kind of took over Garuuk's role as the beast-loving and creature pumping PW. This Garuuk feels a lot like a Vivienne. I think him having a fight or a punch ability may have made him feel more like a hunter, but then again Viv has been given that ability too.

It's really a shame that the latest Vivien also started making 3/3 tokens, because prior to that, making lotsa tokens felt like Garruk's niche as a Green 'walker and they had some other small differences that made it work - for example, in all eight iterations of Garruk, not a single one puts counters on creatures. Had they kept token-making away from Vivien and instead kept her as a card advantage, +1/+1 counters, toolboxing Green 'walker while Garruk is the brute force, go-wide tokens Green 'walker, I'm sure it wouldn't be as bad.

I still think it's not as bad as White's state of affairs. Basri, Elspeth and Ajani pretty much have the same mechanical niches, with only Ajani getting "lifegain matters" to stand out from the three, and now with Gideon gone, it's telling how I feel like the most well-defined of the bunch is the one that only has a single card to her belt.

Well, Invoke Prejudice and Jihad both had it coming for a while, and all the others are mild but also won't be missed so thumbs up here.
The Crusade thing also baffles me though, especially since it's a popular card in mono-White decks and we have a "Crusader" in Standard right now. Maybe it's more the combination of the name and the unfortunate implications of "White creatures get +1/+1", but then again, when the concept of colors is a core component of your game, this is kind of unavoidable.

Garruk Unleashed 2GG
Planeswalker - Garruk
+1: Up to one target creature gets +3/+3 and trample TEOT
-2: Create a 3/3 beast. Then, if an opponent controls more creatures than you, put a loyalty counter on Garruk.
-7: Emblem "At the end step, search your library for a creature, put it on the battlefield, then shuffle your library".
{4}

Seems okay. Definitely seems better at aggressive Green decks, as that +1 really needs some pressure to be really effective.

Quote from The Lord of Tresserhorn »

So Dogs as a tribe seem to have lost all their dignity compared to the proud hounds.

Eh, it makes sense that they would want M21 to showcase the rules update by straying away from the one-note hunting dog archetype that the term "Hound" implies. Granted a fat dog that accidentally smashes things is really silly but then again we've also gotten sillier.

Sometimes I remember that Veil of Summer was still supposed to be a thing in Standard and I think "who the hell thought this was a good idea?".

Quote from sleeper agent 2.0 »

I'm confused. This is a rare because...? This wouldn't replace the rare slot if you opened it in a pack, would it?

I doubt it, but then again, even if it did, I wouldn't mind it at all. Considering how obscenely popular Cultivate is and how fantastic this art looks, I'm pretty sure this will be worth big bucks.

I like this a lot, really makes White reanimation distinct from Black reanimation. I wouldn't call it a super powerful card, after all it does cost a total of 5 mana to reanimate your first creature and it happens at the very minimum at turn 4, and for that cost you could as well be casting Blood for Bones and get a single powerful creature instead of multiple weaker ones, but it really helps White because that's exactly what White needs: not super efficient cards, but more tools.

One neat trick this card has going for when compared to Black one-shot reanimation, however, is that it works very well if you can reset it via blinking, as any creature that dies still goes to the Graveyard. I think a neat combo here is Leonin Relic-Warder + this. Once you emptied the Idol out of creatures, cast Leonin and target the Idol, if the Leonin dies you bring back the Idol, which exiles the Leonin Relic-Warder that just died from the Grave for later recast so you can reset the Idol once it's empty once more.

Huh, this is a... Common? In a core set? That's interesting. Even in sets where counters are a theme, this kind of thing is often reserved to Uncommons. But apparenty Nylea's Forerunner set the standard on how this kind of stuff works and apparently that's just the power level of Commons in 2020 Magic.

You know what? I'm not complaining.