Throne of Eldraine, the newest expansion for Magic: The Gathering is a mere month away from an official release, and a number of cards have been revealed to give players an idea of what a fairy tale-themed set of cards will look like.
Witch’s Cottage
A cottage made of Gingerbread to lure in children might have been a better look, but we can't complain, because this card seems great for those mono-black players. Note how the card text does not call for Basic lands, so the benefit can come from Shocklands, Dual lands, and others, making the condition relatively easy to fulfill.
Of course, one needs to weigh the benefit against the obvious downside that it may feel like a dead card in hand until the condition can be met. Yes, it could simply be a tapped swamp, but this defeats the purpose and feels more like a liability. We can likely expect this to thrive in slow decks, if anywhere.
Midnight Clock
Note that the effect on the card states “Each upkeep”, and not only on your turns. In a two-player match, this effect will occur six turns following play, and in a four-player game, only three turns after. As such the obvious benefit appears in larger games, perhaps for Commander-style decks.
For control decks, Midnight Clock looks like a great way to cycle into a win condition in decks that already have the necessary tools to stall out a game. At the least, this is a card to watch and see if it becomes a viable option within the Standard rotation. Given that we are seeing a number of sets rolled into Historic, Midnight Clock might see a decent amount of play.
Rankle, Master of Pranks
These cards are always fascinating for their jank potential, which is to say, perhaps not particularly effective at high levels of competitive play, but a ton of fun to try and make work. Paired with something like Waste Not, which reads, “Whenever an opponent discards a creature card, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. Whenever an opponent discards a land card, add BlackBlack. Whenever an opponent discards a noncreature, nonland card, draw a card.”
The idea, then, is to make your opponents constantly discard cards all the while you are generating zombies and drawing cards yourself. Sounds wonderful, if the conditions were ever right.
That being said, this would also be loads of fun in a commander-style deck, though its mechanics may leave you without friends to play with after a few matches.
Wishful Merloc
There is not much to say about this card, other than it is a well-costed merloc that will likely find a home in most tribal decks of that sort. The switch to human creates other possibilities as well, though again the straight merloc advantage and synergy may be the prevailing use for the card.
The card text reads like the start of the darkest timeline for The Little Mermaid: “She yearned to walk on dry land, so she might take her vengeance there.”
Witching Well
In Historic, this card will surely find a home, though in Standard it will depend far more on the manner in which Artifacts are supported. On its own, the ability to scry is always nice, and one turn one it could be an acceptable option in some decks.
Perhaps artifacts will receive additional releases in future sets in this Standard year to fit in with the theme of the next card.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Oko marks the introduction of the new tokens in this Standard year. While before we had Treasure, now we have Food, which read “Pay two colorless mana, Tap; Sacrifice this Artifact, you gain 3 life.” His second ability synergizes well with artifacts and could be one way in which Witching Well becomes more useful than it first appears. As for his final ability, who doesn’t love stealing and swapping from an opponent? Everyone but the controlling player, obviously, but that makes it all the better!
Order of Midnight
Adventures are a new mechanic in the game whereby an alternative spell is connected with a creature spel, in a way that is similar to split cards. However, both sides of the card can be used. In that way, one can pay the normal cost in the top right corner, or its adventure cost to send it on its way. Note that casting either way results in the card being placed on the stack. Either way, the card can be countered as normal.
For now, we can say that Order of Midnight looks like a reasonably good card in Limited. We can consider it as a Gravedigger that can fly, cannot block, and has good Value in what the adventure offers.
Lovestruck Beast
The second revealed Adventure card is also the first Noble Creature type. We should likely see other cards changed retroactively to accommodate this, like Fairie Noble and Falkenrath Noble, among others with the “Noble” part of their name.
Smitten Swordmaster
The next Adventure card fuels nightmares of players managing to acquire a board full of Knight tokens. Some key cards will rotate out into Historic, so this will probably not be an issue in Standard, for now.
Syr Konrad, the Grim
Talk about another great choice for a Commander deck. There is a broad range of options for how to move creatures around for the effect to trigger. This also includes when creatures are exiled from graveyards, since they leave. Ashiok might be a good partner for Syr Konrad, the Grim. We can also state that tokens trigger the effect, and so zombie tokens might be ripe for abuse as well.
Now we need someone to create a jank deck - where the board is filled with zombies, Syr Konrad, the Grim is played, and some mass destruction kills the opponent. Or, for the more chaotic among us, all players.
Run Away Together
Surprising no one, blue decks have more way to make opponents die a little inside as they suffer a tempo loss.
Crystal Slipper
Not every card can be filled with crazy mechanics and potential game-breaking power. This is a well-rounded card that may be picked in the middle of a draft, when other options seem even less attractive.
So far, it seems there's some great potential for some fun and interesting decks. How viable each will be at the highest levels of competitive play is another matter, and we will need to see more of the set to make such an observation. Avid forum poster Wolf_Hayes comments that at the very least, “I love that they are doing fairy tale theme and so far, the art is phenomenal. The new mechanic is interesting. Seems like it will offer some nice flexibility for limited play!”
Source: Magic.Wizards.com