General Ixlan Spoiler

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Leaks from the set AFTER Hour of Devastation are apparently here o.O

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{5}
Artifact
Choose a creature type, they get +1/+1 and cantrip

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{2}
Artifact
Peek + Pithing Needle (Nice!)
daringsaboteur.jpg

Daring Sabateur {1}?
Creature - Human Pirate
{2}{U}: ~ is unblockable this turn
When ~ deals combat damage to a player, you can draw and discard.
?/?
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{2}{R}
Legendary Creature - Human Pirate
Haste
when ~ attacks, you get a lotus petal (named treasure)
When you sac a treasure, ~ gets +1/+0 until EoT
2/2
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{2}{U}
enchantment
Xenograft (Probably not entirely?)

bishopofrebirth.jpg

Bishop of Rebirth {3}{W}{W}
Creature - Vampire Cleric
Vigilance
When ~ attacks, unearth
3/4

ashesoftheabhorrent.jpg

Ashes of the Abhorrent {1}{W}
enchantment
Players can't cast spells from graveyards or activate abilities of cards in graveyards.
Whenever a creature dies, you gain 1 life.
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Deeproot Champion {1}{G}
Creature - Merfolk Shaman
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
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Dreamcaller Siren {3}{U}{U}
Creature - Siren Pirate
Flash, Flying, can only block creatures with flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, if you control another Pirate, tap up to two target nonland permanents.
3/3
goringceratops.jpg

Goring Ceratops {5}{W}{W}
Creature - Dinosaur
Double strike
Whenever Goring Ceratops attacks, other creatures you control gain double strike until end of turn.
?/?
hostagetaker.jpg

Hostage Taker {2}{U}{B}
Creature - Human Pirate
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile target artifact or creature until ~ leaves the battlefield. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell.
2/1
ruinraider.jpg

"Ruin Raider" {2}{B}
Creature - Orc Pirate
Raid - At the beginning of your end step, if you attacked with a creature this turn, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to that cards converted mana cost.
?/?
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Vraska's Contempt {2}{B}{B}
Instant
Exile target creature or planeswalker. You gain 2 life.
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Rowdy Crew {3}{R}{R}
Creature - Goblin Pirate
Trample
When ~ enters the battlefield, draw three cards, then discard 2 cards at random. If two cards discarded this way share a type, ~ gets two +1/+1 counters.
bloodstainedpaladin.jpg

Bloodstained Paladin {3}{B}
Creature - Vampire Knight
Flash
Bloodstained Paladin enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature that died this turn.
3/4
ogrehandravager.jpg

"Ogre Hand Ravager" {3}{B}{B}
Creature - Orc Pirate Wizard
Menace, deathtouch
When Ogre Hand Ravager enters the battlefield, each player loses a third of his or her life, rounded up.
4/4
tiehanavoiceofthunder.jpg

Tiehana, Voice of Thunder ???
Legendary Creature - Merfolk
Tiehana, Voice of Thunder's power and toughness are equal to the number of cards in your hand.
You have no maximum hand size.
When Tiehana enters the battlefield, draw a card for each creature you control.
*/*
havenraptor.jpg

"Haven Raptor" {2}{G}{G}
Creature - Dinosaur
Tough - Whenever ~ is dealt damage, draw a card.
4/5
Okay so yeah, I'm including the images here mostly to prove what kind of stuff we're dealing with here. The mechanics are a bit of a wash in my eyes. Tough, while okay in combination with pyroclaysm type effects and pingers (Two things noticably absent from current limited) is mostly just punishing people for attacking or blocking. God forbid there's some vigilant, large toughness toughguy with a lifegain trigger, it'll be wall of denial all over again. Raid is nice, but in combination with tough it might have an uphill battle from the start.
I really shouldn't be making limited judgements though, given most of these look to be rares.
Notably, a lot of the creature types are odd. Mono Green Merfolk? (Why is this card green anyways, quarion dryad? I guess?) Mono White Vampire?
There's red pirates, but that probably makes a lot more sense than blue pirates ever did. there's still blue pirates though.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
These leaks are so wrong. Not that I won't look at them, but if whoever violated their NDA and took these pictures got fired over this, well, don't be a dick on your next job.

Hostage Taker is absolutely terrific. I'm bummed it will take months before I get to order it.
 
Taamas

Taamas

Wow, now I'm worried. I didn't look much at the specific cards, but there are more than rares in that image, aren't they? 121 cards, while Amonkhet had 55 rares. That's probably almost a half of the set.

EDIT: Nah, not that many cards, since rares seem to be repeated. But all rares and mythics are probably leaked now if the person starts sending better pictures of them.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I dunno about better, but there's certainly more spoilers. Far too many for me to replicate, so just go check it out if you want to:
http://mythicspoiler.com/ixa/

Interesting stuff there. There's an adorable 7 mana stone rain that happens to also deal 20 damage to each creature and planeswalker, and a solid looking red 6:

Burning Sun's Avatar
3RRR
Creature - Dinosaur Avatar
When Burning Sun's Avatar enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to target opponent and 3 damage to up to one target creature.
6/6
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Interesting! Sun Titan: The Next Generation and Quirion Dryad: From Simic With Love are both things I've wanted for a long time. I'm hopeful that these are all legit leaks; looks to be a lot of fun stuff here. I do have some concerns about Hostage Taker specifically, though; I've read elsewhere that it can force a draw by targeting itself? I'm not really familiar enough with the rules to say if that's actually the case, but if it is, then this is either an early test print sheet (perhaps from a new printer they're considering?) or it's an extraordinary fabrication. I suppose there could be some rules re-working that makes it not cause a draw, of course... But again: I'm not a rules expert. :cool:
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Playing it on an empty board probably doesn't force a draw, WotC has made fiend hunter before. It likely says "Another"
If you manage to compile a board with nothing but 3 of them, you deserve your pass
 
Golvin

Golvin

RavebornMuse said:
Sun Titan: The Next Generation and Quirion Dryad: From Simic With Love
Click to expand...


1) Thank you for phrasing it that way.

2) Is it just me or is there a W Vampire cult? Not sure where the thematic B vampires are. (Only one is vampire is spoiled and it is a knight.)

Evidence:
Bishop of Rebirth Sun Titan: The Next Generation
3WW
Creature - Vampire Cleric
Sun Titan sans ETB
3/4

Mynea Frian, Dark Apostle
2W
Legendary Creature - Vampire Cleric
Whenever one or more nontoken vampire creature attacks, create a 1/1 white Vampire token with lifelink.
2/2
(Was a little more excited until I realized it had to be a vampire attacking.)
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Golvin said:
1) Thank you for phrasing it that way.

2) Is it just me or is there a W Vampire cult? Not sure where the thematic B vampires are. (Only one is vampire is spoiled and it is a knight.)

Evidence:
Bishop of Rebirth Sun Titan: The Next Generation
3WW
Creature - Vampire Cleric
Sun Titan sans ETB
3/4

Mynea Frian, Dark Apostle
2W
Legendary Creature - Vampire Cleric
Whenever one or more nontoken vampire creature attacks, create a 1/1 white Vampire token with lifelink.
2/2
(Was a little more excited until I realized it had to be a vampire attacking.)
Click to expand...

I'm really liking this exploration of races outside of their expected home colors. Zombies in blue and white have both made sense to me, and I'm eager to see how the Vampires work out as white here. I think it has a lot of room to make sense; white is about "orderly civilization", not just "good guys". Similarly, Merfolk always fit great for {G} as far as I'm concerned; they have a whole "natural world is best world" feel to them a lot of the time. I think the only aversion has been the optics of "merfolks cast with forests instead of islands", but calling the blue land "Island" has always been a regret they had, I think.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Velrun said:
Curious RavenbornMuse
What else could we/they have called Islands? :)
Click to expand...

I mean, if we're rewriting the game, I think eliminating land-related names outright might well be the correct pathway. "Forest" is the only option that actually makes any sense at all. In what way does "Plains" evoke the feeling of civilization, of order? In what way does "Swamp" evoke the feeling of ambition? How does "mountain" connect with the idea of living freely and following your heart? None of these ideas make much sense when they're exposed to the light of day in 2017. The concept of drawing mana from places is a nice one; it's also decidedly 90s. Which makes perfect sense! The game originates from the 90s.

I really don't think there's even a good compromise here. You could have a pool of lands that all produce one kind of mana (ie, for blue: Library; Academy; Meditation Pool), to allow diversity between planes/power sources, but then you add some complexity. You could go for something generic (like Blue Source, Blue Crystal, Blue Energy), but then you lose the flavour of "drawing mana from the land". It's just the case that the game is over two decades old now; that it's standing still is a testament to their good business-sense and game design.

The entirety of their base lore is pretty awful, though. The multiverse lacks any meaningful exploration of its structure or its limits; planeswalkers have no real parameters set up clearly around where their limit lies; the "graveyard" and "exile" zone have very weak flavour justifications that aren't always cohesive with the mechanics of the game; why do Planeswalkers need demons to contract them into immortality? Really, there's a lot of messiness going on behind the scenes, and it's a necessary mess to get us the enjoyable game we have today, so I look over it and play in the headspace I play in about the game. Unfortunately, when it comes to things like "Merfolk summoned by Forests", or "white Vampires", the optics aren't great within that legacy framework that other players believe makes 100% perfect sense, and the playerbase flinches. That's where the problem lies.

Well, that, and white and green are still handled with a very loose hand as far as the (otherwise quite structurally sound) color wheel goes, but that's another issue entirely. :p
 
Golvin

Golvin

RavebornMuse said:
I look over it and play in the headspace I play in about the game. Unfortunately, when it comes to things like "Merfolk summoned by Forests", or "white Vampires", the optics aren't great within that legacy framework that other players believe makes 100% perfect sense, and the playerbase flinches. That's where the problem lies. :p
Click to expand...


I will give you most of what you are saying, but I am too much of a adherent to the recently formed white vampire cult to let that one slide. Vampires have historically been tied to black due to their willingness to get what they want (often times blood), through the usage of others. This is very in line with black's egoism centered thought process; however, white has a thing for rigid rules and moralities that fits with vampires flavorfully as well. This is due to the hierarchy that can be found in lore regarding vampires where they have a rigid hierarchy that cannot be broken. In the case of Ixalan, my current assumption for why vampires are white is that they are viewed as a form of transcendance in a similiar vein to becoming one of the Obzedat on Ravnica.

As for the green merfolk, I have no clue. Forests of kelp underwater? The color wheel, for all of its pluses, can be overly ridged based on what is associated with the colors, but in this case, due to history and islands, makes them weird in green outside of the simic guild.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
RavebornMuse said:
I mean, if we're rewriting the game, I think eliminating land-related names outright might well be the correct pathway. "Forest" is the only option that actually makes any sense at all. In what way does "Plains" evoke the feeling of civilization, of order? In what way does "Swamp" evoke the feeling of ambition? How does "mountain" connect with the idea of living freely and following your heart? None of these ideas make much sense when they're exposed to the light of day in 2017. The concept of drawing mana from places is a nice one; it's also decidedly 90s. Which makes perfect sense! The game originates from the 90s.
Click to expand...
The connection is much more ethereal than that though, isn't it. Swamps are associated with rot, and thus are a place where black mana is naturally more abundant than other colors. Mountains are associated with fire, because of volcanoes, and thus are a place where red mana is more abundant than other colors, et cetera. It's not that swamps fuel ambition, it's that ambitious enough people are willing to use black mana to fuel their spells. Black mana, however, can be drawn from places other than swamps, it's just that swamps are a good example of a place where black mana dominates other colors. I think the lands are quite flavorful actually, if you can get past the idea that a certain color is exclusively available in that terrain.
 
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