The release of the next Magic: The Gathering set, Oath of the Gatewatch is fast approaching, and thus spoiler season has officially begun! Ars Technica has a few exclusive cards to show off, starting with a new Expedition—one of the new set of twenty super-rare full-art foil lands.

Dust Bowl was last printed more than fifteen years ago in Mercadian Masques. Wasteland’s little brother has turned up in tournament lists occasionally, and is especially appropriate in the Zendikar block where your opponents have access to all sorts of special lands. Unlike Wasteland, Dust Bowl can be used over and over at the low cost of sacrificing your own basic lands.

Looking closely you’ll see something strange about the mana produced by Dust Bowl: it’s not any of the five cardinal colours, but it’s not the generic mana symbol number either. The difference is obvious if you take a look at the original Dust Bowl card:

This new symbol— —is explicitly colorless mana, which you’ll need to cast some of the new Oath cards—including a certain giant beastie Wizards revealed at their recent World Magic Cup event in Barcelona. We were told by a member of the Magic R&D team that they're very excited about the introduction of the new mana symbol; after all, it's a very rare occasion indeed when a new mana symbol is added to the game.

Oath of the Gatewatch is the follow-up to Battle for Zendikar, which we reviewed back in October. Worldwide release is on January 22, with prerelease events the weekend before, on January 16-17.

We'll have more Oath coverage nearer its release date, including some more spoilers of new cards from the main Oath set.