And so the weary young men from the House Twincast sit around the field of battle at the mighty occasion called ‘M-Fest’. They have had a long and tiring evening the night before imbibing all variety of strange potions and concoctions and dodging ferocious beasts with pendulous under-bellies enwrapped in tank tops and weaponry marked with ‘Bacardi’ and ‘WKD’. Then the Brothers Grimm OJ suggest a visit to the local tavern where we all partake in some sliced pig from a hot, spinning spit with local spice served in some unleavened bread. The strange, ugly beast-man from the islands of the Pharaoh’s then suggests that we ‘flop some cards’ before bed…
So with all of this the weary travellers sit round the field of battle and the weapons are placed before them. Weapons wrapped in foil with large ‘X’ emblazoned on them…
And what do we open? We’re not so far away from M-Fest now and one of the key events there (at least for those of us not competing in Nats) is the 10th Edition Release Event. WotC are making a big deal about this and I think they have every right to. A CCG hitting a 10th Edition is a big deal and everybody involved in the game should feel suitable proud. To mark this, they have decided to make 10th black-bordered. I personally think they are spot on. The feat should be celebrated and commemorated and making 10th black-bordered is a fine way to do this. I am slightly more unsure about the rumours that we may have seen our last white-bordered set. Whispers abound that all core sets from 10th onwards will be black-bordered. I shall reserve judgement until after I get my hands on 10th.
Of far more importance than what colour the borders of 10th Edition cards may be is what the cards actually are themselves. Now, as I write this 10th Edition will have been locked up and ready for print, the card list well established in Renton, Seattle some time ago. Of course, for us mere mortals, we have yet to hear any definitive answers as to what the set may or may not contain which leads us to articles such as this…
There are some key cards that are suspected borderline for making it into the set. I’m going to take a look at some of them and give you my opinion as to whether or not they’ll be included. Without further ado….
1. Mana Leak
Ok, ok… Mana Leak will appear in 10th, I can assure you with reasonable confidence. For what it’s worth however, I don’t think it should. Something has to give with blue; the colour is getting the best creatures (Teferi), instant speed direct damage (Psionic Blast), instant speed discard (Careful Consideration) and the best countermagic. I think it would be good for the game if Mana Leak were to leave Standard just for a couple of years. Maybe give it to white? It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility in the future. I wouldn’t neuter the blue 2-drop counter completely though. Give it Remand in its place and I don’t think people would grumble for too long. Or how about something like this….
Mind Blank UU
Instant
Counter target spell unless your opponent pays 3.
Now don’t misunderstand me here, I don’t think Mana Leak is overpowered in and of itself, I just think in the current environment blue is getting a lot of love and something has to give. Weakening the staple blue counterspell would go a long way towards this.
2. Harmonize
I’m including Harmonize here but there’s a big bunch of PC cards that are going to appear in a core set at some point. Yes, I know what you are thinking; ‘We won’t see any PC reprints in a core set before 11th’… Possibly. What I will say is that Kamagawa cards appeared in 9th (Council of the Soratami for example) so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we will see some of the timeshifted cards in 10th.
So why have I picked Harmonize out of all the potential cards? Well Henry Stern (one of the very high up R&D honchos) suggested that green should have had card drawing from the outset. MaRo has publicly stated that the cards we are most likely to see reprinted in core sets are the ones that make the most sense in there timeshifted colour. Oh, and I like the card.
Other possible reprints include Mana Tithe, Essence Warden and Pyrohemia. All in all, I think if we see any PC cards reprinted in 10th, Harmonize stands as a very good candidate due to being simple, eloquent and a big fan favourite.
3. Dual Lands
This one is open so some debate… What set of rare duals will we see in 10th? I honestly can’t offer a lot of insight into this one but here are my thoughts on the matter.
As a player who has only been playing Magic ‘properly’ since Kamagawa block, my card collection is firmly focussed on the ever changing T2 environment. As I tried to build competitive decks, I put a lot of effort into collecting the appropriate 9th painlands and Rav shocklands. They aren’t easy to collect and they are expensive but such are the joys of trying to keep up with the current mercurial Standard format. So from a purely selfish perspective, I would like to see either the painlands or the shocklands come back. Because 9th had the painlands and (I believe) they are inferior to the Rav shocklands, I would like to see 10th reprint Hallowed Fountain, Sacred Foundry et all…
Realistically however, 10th is probably a little too soon after Ravnica. I think we’ll see the shocklands in 11th but in the meantime, my gut is telling me we’re going to see the fetchlands in 10th. Something else to save up for….
4. Wrath of God
Wrath of God… The biggie. Will she be in 10th or not? Hard to say. I’ve not yet seen a decklist devoting 8 slots out of 75 to WoG / Damnation. This is both a good and a bad thing depending on your perspective. It indicates that they are able to coexist without causing a massive warp to the metagame. But then again it also suggests that 2 different WoGs are not needed in one format at the same time. I’ve just splashed out on 3 of the promo full-art WoGs to get myself the playset so I’d like it to be reprinted. I think the brave call from Wizards would be to omit it even if it was only for 2 years. Now please note I say the brave call, not necessarily the clever call. I think they will probably keep it in however. 10th Edition would just feel wrong with what I consider to be arguably the signature card of Magic. Of course a lot of it may hinge on whether or not we see the following card in the set…
5. Armageddon
The most powerful 4-drop white has ever had? Close call. Is Armageddon too powerful to exist in T2 now? Well that depends. I think Armageddon is too powerful to exist in a colour which has Wrath of God at the same time. If they do choose to reprint Armageddon it will be at the expense of Wrath imo. The other option would be to print one of the less efficient Armageddon variants that has seen print over time such as Cataclysm.
Or they could just solve the problems with both the cards above and reprint Catastrophe. Either way, don’t be shocked if we see a new 4-drop lead the way in a possible white resurgence.
6. Lightning Helix
I’m trying very hard not to turn this list into some kind of dream sheet al la Football Manager or something. You will have to allow me this Mourinho-sized indulgence though… Please WotC, reprint Helix! Such a beautiful card. I actually think they could print this 10th if they were willing to make the multi-coloured plunge (and for what it’s worth, I think they need to for the core set following on from Rav block. I would not have liked to seen Rav as my first expansion having been weaned on the game from 9th.). It’s about time new players got the chance to flop some multi-coloured cards before they hit the expert sets and Helix is a great card – simple but very powerful. The chances are it would have to be bumped up to rare but that isn’t much of an issue for people who have played the game for any length of time. And if nothing else, it will allow us to hassle Craig Jones for another 2 years (not that I’m sure he minds that much)
7. Signets
When Rav block cycles out, and assuming Lorwyn does not contain a set of rare duals (it won’t), we will be back to having one set in Standard – I suspect the fetchlands which will be from 10th. People who have only recently started playing Magic do need to get to grips with the basics of building manabases. This is a skill which newer players may not be as adept at due to the sheer amount of mana–fixing they have had at there disposal recently. Painlands, shocklands, karoos, signets, hell even blue has dreamscape artist now. To go from all the fixing to just having the fetchlands will be a hard (and very expensive) jump to make. I think the signets could be the solution to this problem. They might have to be renamed due to the tie in with Rav block and the guilds but this is a minor issue. I think it would do the game far more good than harm to see these reprinted.
8. Fireball
Once I got over my silly fascination with green that every new player seems to have I begun to realise that there I was, generating loads of mana, making big fatties which would always die horribly. How better to use all that mana? Fireball. It was the first ever card that I begged, stole and borrowed to find a playset off. It just grabbed me as an ace card. Sure it isn’t Demonfire but then it probably isn’t going to cost £30 for your average new / budget player to get four. It’s a classic card and I think 10th would be the perfect time to reintroduce it to the core set.
9. Persecute / Pyrexian Arena
If blue is getting a lot of goodness at the moment, black isn’t far behind. Nothing could be a stronger indication of what WotCs intentions are with black than the inclusion of Damnation and Extirpate in the colour in one set. Black has a very efficient toolbox at the moment and it only seems to be getting better. As such one of the cards above has to go from 10th Ed. Before you all get antsy and start mentioning the fact that Confident leaves the T2 pool soon, stop and think. Efficient card draw does not belong in black. It just doesn’t. Both of the above cards are designed to give the player massive card advantage. It wouldn’t hurt black to lose one of these especially in the aftermath of what it’s picked up. As much as I love the card I would be inclined to say bin Persecute and keep Arena. Either way, this town (10th Ed) ain’t big enough for the both of them (Persecute / Phyrexian Arena).
As you can see, my list isn’t extensive nor was it intended to be. These strike me as being the key cards. Other’s spring to mind. I’d like to see Compulsive Research printed but I think it is perhaps slightly too complicated for a core set (I might be wrong here – discuss in the forum) and I don’t think they should reprint Research and Tidings in the same core set. And I think they will print Tidings ruling out the common. If I didn’t think WotC were trying to make black stupid powerful, I’d worry that they might reprint Terror. Wait, they are trying to make black all powerful...
So let’s wrap this one up here. As I’ve already said, it’s all a bit moot now that the finished 350 cards will be lying somewhere in a file in Mark Rosewater’s office. At least if any of my predictions come true, I have written evidence. All opinions greatly appreciated as always. Look forward to seeing you in the forums.
-Flame on-
Dave
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