Sets [KHM] Kaldheim Official Previews

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I'm still a bit skeptical, as the sequence of
-Have this
-it lives
-opponent has a target
-you have a burn spell
-your burn spell is bigger than their creature

Is a long sequence of Ifs: Soul-Scar Mage didn't have a ton of relevant text either
Soul-Scar Mage's prowess is way more relevant than any of the text on Thor's front end. It was the best aggro prowess creature other than Monastery Swiftspear when it was printed, and it goes a long way to making Spells Matter decks truly viable. Only one Prowess dude has surpassed Soul-Scar Mage since it was printed, and that card is a two drop that does something entirely different. The noncombat damage converting to -1/-1 counters clause adds very little to Soul-Scar Mage in most decks: the reason we play it is because it's a good spells-matter aggro card.

Thor isn't that. He's a midrange dude in a color full of good midrange dudes like Thunderbreak Regent and Pia and Kiran Nalaar that have a larger impact on the board or a downside for being killed. Thor's hammer is slow and mediocre in most cubes, so it won't add much value to the card unlike the White Mythic God who's equipment is the best feature. What we're left with is a Bloodfray Giant that can Block and occasionally does a very tiny bit of direct damage. There are occasionally some sweet things that it can do with damage-based mass-removal like Hour of Devastation as Sigh mentioned, but those are exceptions and not the rule.

I don't think this card is very strong.
 
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This seems pretty good. It's not great by any means, but a steady stream of card draw in black midrange decks that can also be a finisher that draws a card if you can't keep it online seems like a nice meme to me. This feels a lot better than Thor on its base rate in my view.
 
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Giant Ox
1W
Creature - Ox
You may use Giant Ox's toughness to crew rather than its power.

Incredibly cute design. Good blocker and crewer if you're in some sort of low powered vehicle format, which gets increasingly likely as more vehicles are printed.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Now it's my time to nag a little, aren't these new double face cards a little clunky in paper? It feels very much like an "mtg arena"-first kind of design. Having to reveal that you have a DFC in your hand just to flip it to the back and read what it said again during a match seems really akward?

I very, very much like what modal double-faced cards offers to the game. The options. And one of the upsides is that we have a full card on each side which means full text box and full art which also means there is often room for flavor text.

It is an issue with the flipping but not such a great issue. There are two ways of play Magic. If we're playing casually, then it's fine to have players peek at the back side and letting opponents know that there's a flip card in hand. Especially since it is possible to keep the card and its card text hidden even though you have to give away that you have something (but not exactly which card it is). If we're playing competitive then you can expect everyone to know the back side of the card by memory.
 
Yeah, the MDFCs are neat from a gameplay perspective, but I doubt I'd run them in paper, at least the non-land ones. The pathways are probably fine.

Meanwhile, we haven't talked about this yet:

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This is a pretty sweet all-in-one reanimation piece, kind of like Obsessive Stitcher. It's a little slow, but maybe the rest of the value on the card makes that okay.
 
I will run Mammoth Growth for the flavor text alone.

Also, the Rakdos saga looks sweet, I agree.

Also also, I think that in some ways even just having one Foretell card in a color can still have mind games associated with it. Once the mono-Green foretells something, if you only have Mammoth Growth, all your combat math becomes much, much harder. Yeah, okay, maybe you make a point of holding up counterspells if you know your opponent has this, but your counters probably cost more than this trick does and it's taxing in terms of mental resources to account for it during combat. By putting the Growth into Foretell, you force your opponent to play around it rather than them being able to call your bluff.

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"The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!"
 
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Code:
Burning-Rune Demon
 
Flying
 
When Burning-Rune Demon enters the battlefield, you may search your library
for exactly two cards not named Burning-Rune Demon that have different names.
If you do, reveal those cards. An opponent chooses one of them. Put the chosen
card in your hand and the other in your graveyard, then shuffle your library.


Seems like a kind of fun card in the vein of gifts ungiven, where you can look up the card you want and something like eternal witness? And it's also a pretty big evasive body.
 
Burning-Rune Demon for Unburial Rites and another fatty does seem like a very common line of potential play. Sweet effect!

Not exactly sure how to evaluate Unleash, but seems awesome. It's like a reverse Entreat where you get to plan out the big play much more easily, rather than it being random a good fraction of the time.
 
If you were in a slower cube, I could see someone Foretelling it on turn 2 and then casting it on T7 for three angels.
 
Uh, just want to point out, Unleash costs {2}{W}{W} and Serra Angel is {3}{W}{W} for the exact same body (token-based effects aside). This is WAY better than Serra Ange, and if you discount the Foretell cost of {2}, you can get TWO Serra Angels for the PRICE of ONE!

Seems bonkers to me, I'm going to run it.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Uh, just want to point out, Unleash costs {2}{W}{W} and Serra Angel is {3}{W}{W} for the exact same body (token-based effects aside). This is WAY better than Serra Ange, and if you discount the Foretell cost of {2}, you can get TWO Serra Angels for the PRICE of ONE!

Seems bonkers to me, I'm going to run it.

I did have the beginnings of a rant about how mythics are just more powerful than other cards and new thing bad etc etc etc but I deleted it
 
That is true.

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I think I'm going to want to run most, if not all, of the 3-drop Foretell cards in Afternoon Delight. One of the things that came up was that three-drops are kinda clunky, so having a way to "set-up" a three drop on T4 alongside a two drop will be nice - on top of that, costing one mana when casting from exile will hopefully make playing tons of 3-drops less clunky. So far, I have the following options (apologize for all the pictures):

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I think I'm also going to be replacing one of the Blue 7-drops with

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I did have the beginnings of a rant about how mythics are just more powerful than other cards and new thing bad etc etc etc but I deleted it


The way I rationalize it is that Uncommons are for Spike and Jenny, Rares are for Jenny and Tammy, and Mythics are for Tammy and Spike.
 
I can’t wait to play with foretell. I remember I had exactly the same feeling back when Onslaught cards were being spoiled in 2002. I am quite sad that the 3 mana for a 2/2 is not possible to run in my cube anymore but they had their 1,5 decade.
 
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