The Mothership dropped a large number of great spoilers and really fun-looking new mechanics on us yesterday. Let’s take a look.

Our first card with Manifest, Soul Summons is the simplest of them all, and is only as good as Manifest turns out to be. To me it reads, “Put a 2/2 creature onto the battlefield, and mill one.” What’s exciting is that you can trade your Manifest card with any X/2 your opponent puts onto the battlefield, and it could even be a land, masquerading as a creature, a la Zoetic Cavern. However, I doubt Soul Summons would be very great in limited, as it seems only good on turn two, if at all. High instant/sorcery count decks wouldn’t be very good with this card either, since you all but lose the instant/sorcery when it’s manifested. Lands become better, noncreatures become worse, and creatures, well, they get a surprise factor, which seems pretty darn good. However, it may be important to keep in mind that Delve cards won’t let you delve for mana cost reductions, (Shambling Attendants would be a whopping eight mana to flip up), so those lose value as well. Manifest seems really good in some situations, and subpar in others, so we’ll just have to see how good they turn out to be.

Honor’s Reward is a card similar to Soul Summons in that it’s only ever as good as Bolster is. Putting two counters on a creature at instant speed is always good, (Dragonscale Boon was a beatdown in Khans), but not having a choice seems rather hit-or-miss. Sacred Nectar isn’t a card, and neither is the life-gain on this card. However, having cheap cards that put counters on your creatures can be useful, especially if you have cards like Mer-Ek Nightblade or Tuskguard Captain and the like in your deck. Bolster seems like a mechanic that could be good, and getting counters on a creature that wasn’t relevant to begin with might change the face of the boardstate. Having no control over what gets the counter, aside from the way you play your creatures, doesn’t really look that enticing. For this reason alone, I doubt the efficacy of this card, but in the right deck, it should work well. In any case, I’m sure better cards than this will come along vying for a spot in your deck, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on it.

First off, the art on this card is downright disgusting. It’s too bland for a rare, at least. The card itself underdelivers when it comes to pure power and toughness, and Prowess, especially in limited, doesn’t do enough to allay this. The rest of its text is more intriguing, however. Repeatable bounce on is pretty great, and could be a brilliant tempo swing. Pushing back a creature with power 4 or less seems a little too late on turn 7 at the earliest, as the board could be gummed up by big beats. At the very least it looks like a threat and blocks well, and turns Ferocious on. While it may not be the perfect P1P1, it’s still a great card to pack in a blue deck.

Jeskai Sage is not a very good card. Oculus was never good in draft, and tacking on Prowess doesn’t make him any better. At the very best, you get a chump block and a card out of him. There are numerous other two drops that could take his slot while actually doing some work.

Hooded Assassin is a card unlike many others, with modal EtB abilities. At the very least, it’s a 2/3 which tussles with Morphs very well, or it’s an Orzhov Euthanist with 1 fewer power. The second mode doesn’t really allow him to be a presence on the board, but it allows you to trade 1.5 cards for one at worst. It also gets turned on by Abzan cards that need you to have +1/+1 counters on creatures for them to gain keyworded abilities. More often than not, you’d be playing it as a 2/3 for 3, but the niche option also matters. A fine pick for both aggressive and midrange decks, at least a few picks in.

The art from Gurmag Angler is perhaps one of my favorites spoiled so far, and the human-shaped bait really sells it. Gurmag Angler is an aggressively costed Delve card, which pushes you to trade off your Morph creatures aggressively as well. Getting a 5/5 on the ground early can help you tussle well and put a beater almost without compare in the early turns. Scout the Borders is Gurmag Angler’s best friend, and Bitter Revelation can get him out on turn 5 without issue.

I am not a fan of Soulflayer, even though it has great design that’s implemented well, and it’s art is stunning. It just doesn’t give enough bang for its buck. A 4/4 isn’t really great, especially as getting it on turn 4 in this limited context is just okay at best. Not many cards carry keyworded abilities either, and having one in the yard and Delving it away for Soulflayer seems like a niche or late game circumstance at best, which isn’t particularly amazing. Still, a 4/4 body is something, so it could be decent filler for black decks aiming to hit the late game.

Rageform isn’t really a good card. It’s awkwardly worded and has vague art, and you’re not guaranteed anything but a 2/2 doublestriker from it, which isn’t really stellar. I doubt it’ll be a high pick, and it really scales with the efficacy of Manifest as well.

Dash feels like a very Mardu mechanic, and yet doesn’t seem close to how good Raid was. Goblin Heelcutter has a very strong, if overcosted, ability, similar to that of Mardu Roughrider, albeit on a far, far weaker body. A 3/2 for 4 is far from stellar, and it trades with everything from bears to face down Morphs and Manifests. It’s a strong card for a Mardu aggro strategy, but aside from that, I doubt it’ll be very good. It can be Dashed for an alpha strike out of the blue, so the surprise factor is present, but aside from that, I doubt it’ll be highly picked at all.

Noncreature spells aren’t usually very good in draft, but Outpost Siege seems to be something else. The Dragons option isn’t really great unless you’re playing some sort of token strategy with Ponyback Brigades and want to force through a few extra points of damage, but the Khans option really seems brilliant, especially for red decks with near zero sources of card advantage. The Khans option allows you to have a red Howling Mine effect for yourself alone, and you can drown your opponent in card advantage. While this card might not be a P1P1, and a solid uncommon might be better, but it’s a snap include in any red deck for the Khans option alone.

Twinflame on legs doesn’t seem that great, and the fact that it requires support from other cards just make it just not great. The only upside is it’s Dash ability and the potential alpha strike that comes with it. Essentially, it adds 3+X attacking power to the board the moment it’s deployed with Dash, and that can severely cripple your opponent’s life total, if not finish them off. There seem to be good combos with the card, such as with Ponyback Brigade, to put in 3 more Goblins for free, or with Mardu Roughrider, to slam in some more points of damage, but aside from a few niche combos, the card seems rather sub par. It does have the Warrior subtype which counts for a little, I suppose.

At first glance, it seems as though Frontier Mastodon is pretty damn great. However, as a three-drop on turn 3, the most you’d get out of it would be it’s 3/2 self. It does open up some interaction with Abzan cards in the lategame and provide more value than what you payed for, but in the end, it’s solid lower-end filler that you might just end up trading for your opponent’s Morphs in the early game.

Snap first pick, no two thoughts about it. It’s a solid body for 5 mana, and increments your board position every turn. Its second ability doesn’t even matter when you can block with all the chaff in your deck. Not only that, it triggers on your end step, so your opponent can’t even use sorcery speed removal (a la Rite of the Serpent) to remove it before you get at least some value. A great mythic that will win you the game all on its own.

Shamanic Revelation is the card to dig yourself out of boardstall situations. While certainly not a P1P1, it improves your survivability and provides card advantage (or at the very least cantrips) and seems to be good whenever you at least have two creatures on the board. I wouldn’t hesitate to pick this one up very early.

Ethereal Ambush seems like quite the card. At instant speed, it’s one of the best Manifest-utilizing cards I’ve seen so far. It lets you trade for X/4s while not being card disadvantage, might even reveal a creature or two that you can flip face up for value later, and flash creatures are always good. I’m all for this, and I’d like to play a couple in my Sultai or Temur strategies.

Our first Dragon from Fate Reforged and oh my, is he a doozy. A solid body on the cheap, and a sort of Moonveil Dragon effect to boot. Add to that some evasion and you have a game-ender on your hands. A snap P1P1, and Dash is just gravy. The watermark looks a little odd, looking like four wings instead of the Mardu’s usual two, and I assume it’s because Kolaghan has four wings himself. A great card, and I’d be afraid to face one in draft.

Cheers,

Brick