MTG Salvation

I'll take your Death's shadow.

I'm guessing that we'll get all the Gatewatch in the next set. We haven't seen much from them recently and I think that the set is likely to have a planeswalker theme to it.

It's official - there are no good purely white cards so they didn't bother putting any in this set

I'm guessing she's going to show up in the core set. Green has been woefully short on mono coloured planeswalkers ever since Garruk went dark. Every other colour has at least 2 mono coloured walkers ...

White - Gideon / Elspeth / (maybe Nahiri)
Blue - Jace / Tamiyo
Black - Liliana / Ob Nixilis
Red - Chandra / Koth / Jaya Ballard

Until now green has only had Nissa and this has been a real problem for WoTC when trying to balance Planeswalker colours. So getting Vivien is long overdue. Having her show up in Core 2019 will help balance things out I'm guessing and will give us an alternative protagonist to Nissa.

The tag is "Gather Legends" so does this mean that there will be a legendary theme given we already know that Jaya will be part of this set.

In terms of hanging plot, the biggest ones are:-

1) Mirrodin. Poor old Koth hanging around waiting for Elspeth and the others to return with help against the Phyrexians. I guess he's twiddling his thumbs thinking (where the hell are these guys?)
2) Theros. Elspeth in the Underworld is begging for a rescue story. Plus Dack Fayden has gone there and there is now a hole in the R/G God position there again.
3) Ravnica. Not as explicitly hanging as the others, but there is definitely something going on with the Inter planar tech that Tezzeret got on Kaladesh and Ral Zarek up to something on Ravnica. I'm guess that Ral will get up to something whilst the Living Guildpact is doing his usual super attentive job.

The Western themed set will have Spellslingers rather than Gunslingers, but I can't see why they wouldn't be able to do it. instead of gunfighters they would have Spell duels. All in all, I don't see it as being out of the question.

Things I expect to see in the coming years ....

Viking Themed Set
Roman Themed Set
New Japanese World set
Possibly a set done in Fiora in competitive magic
Vryn - almost certainly Jace's world will be fleshed out

Things I believe they will go back to in the next 2-4 years

Ravnica 3 - Two large sets
Theros 2 - set as a Rescue from the Underworld from Theros followed by a set back on Theros (or maybe the other way around)
New Phyrexia - We need to find out what Koth is up to. It's been a long time since we've heard from him.
Alara - possibly we will find out that the conflux has started to crumble and that the worlds are breaking apart again.

I wonder if this might be WoTC's attempt to get around the reserved list to breather life into Legacy. What if it had close versions of reserved cards like Snow dual lands. Something like a Snow Taiga that said it couldn't be played in the same deck as a taiga. That way it would get around the reserved list but would be only legacy legal and players would get access to cards that were needed to be able to keep legacy alive.

So the whole set will be spoiled today and the traditional favourite ten cards from the set must be done. Pre-fix your list with what they are the favourite format for Standard / Modern / Limited / Casual etc and go for it ...

My favourite cards for standard (in no particular order) are:-

1) Harsh Mentor - going to be even better in Modern where fetchlands will get his wrath, but crewing is going to be that much harder now ...
2) Cast Out - A flash / Cycler way of stopping the Cat Lady combo
3) Censor - An expensive force spike which will be good early but that can be cycled away later
4) Drake Haven - Capable of creating an architype all by itself
5) Liliana, Death's Majesty - I think we might see some Zombie tribal with her and the new Lord of the Accursed
6) Glorybringer - With a method of giving Vigilance (Arlind Kord or Always Watching) this is going to be a Planeswalker killer of choice
7) Channeler Initiate - A mana elf that can fight the good fight late on
8) Rhonas the Indomitable - Probably the best God, though he may be restricted to crewing vehicles some of the time.
9) Manglehorn - Destroy annoying vehicle
10) Wayward Servant - Could this bring back a Zombie aristocrats style deck with Bontu

I really wanted the announcement next week. I don't see why they couldn't announce this years products now, and do the 25th anniversary stuff in June.

I could imagine a new Planeswalker in Amonkhet, but it is unlikely to be Fire / Water based. More likely either a Sphinx Planeswalker or a new Green based walker.

Here are my guesses for things ....

Planeswalkers in Amonkhet
Gideon W
Liliana B
Ramaz RUG
New G aligned Planeswalker

Planeswalkers in Hour of Devastation
Nicol Bolas RUB

It's quite possible that we might get Ravnica 3 next. The main alternatives would be going back to Dominiaria or to Theros I would think.

I disagree with a lot of this.

Tamiyo is not the only real possibility for W/U, indeed she is not really a W/U Planeswalker but really a blue planeswalker with small amounts of green and white. The best possibility for W/U is actually Narset in my opinion. Dovin Bann is pretty unlikley given that he is currently on the other side.

Ashiok is NOT a team player and will never join the Gatewatch.

There are some good candidates in U/R like Saheeli Rai, Ral Zarak and Dack Fayden.

In B/W there is possibilities in Sorin joining or maybe Kaya.

Arlinn Kord (R/G) is of a temperament to join as might Karn, Ugin and Koth.

I don't see any of the following joining the Gatewatch ..... Ashiok, Tezzeret, Nicol Bolas, Tibalt, Kiora, Domri, Nahiri, Sarkhan, Vraska, Garruk, On Nixilis or Dovin Bann.

Marionette Master would be great in this deck as a finisher.