A new block is coming soon, and with it a return to a fondly remembered theme of gothic horror, transform creatures, monsters of the night, and of the Angels who would push them back. Everyone’s favorite haunted house is back and better than ever!

I’ve mentioned this before, lightly, in an article a few weeks ago, but I really expect that the return to Innistrad is going to have a Lovecraft-esque theme to it. When the set name for the sequel in the block was released as Eldritch Moon, that sort of underlined my theory. It’s a common word and adjective in Lovecraft works and his alter disciples. Shoot, only a word like cyclopean is likely to be used more. (Cyclopean means simply “really, really big,” not “one-eyed” as you might suspect. Like the English words titanic, gigantic, and colossal, it gets its name from an ancient mythical source that’s similar upsized.)

For those of you who may be unaware, H.P. Lovecraft was a horror writer in the early 1900s and died in the mid-thirties. His writing emphasized a sort of cosmic indifference. No one cares about us. Earth is tiny, minor, and totally meaningless. These uber-powerful creatures are ruling the cosmos, and all they would have to do is just blink, and the Earth would be destroyed like we would take out a spider web. We are but ants to these forces. And to call them merely evil is to reveal the inept limitations of our language and our conceptions. They are vile beyond any words or concepts expressed by humanity.

Lovecraft was himself influenced by writers like Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Edgar Allen Poe, and Robert Chambers. He was heavily influential, and countless of his creations, such as Cthulhu and the Necronomicon are literal subgenres and icons of horror. So it makes total sense to revisit Innistrad (the horror world) under his outré.

So why have the story line follow us to Innistrad now though? What’s happening there?

This would give us the chance to have colorless-matters continue.

It also answers a major question from Zendikar Block and its predecessor. We just spent a lot of time on Tarkir bringing back the third of the original triumvirate that sealed in the Eldrazi the first time around: Ugin (who joined Sorin and Nahiri). Why are they not here on Zendikar helping out the Gatewatch? They are on Sorin’s home of Innistrad, fighting the good fight against the most powerful of the Eldrazi titans.

And we could see some shifts in the flavor of Innistrad. Perhaps some of the monsters and cultists have sworn allegiance to the forces of Emrakul. You could have Vampires and Zombies in line with them. (If you’ll recall, the Vampires on Innistrad are very hedonistic.) But I could see a monster group that might be convinced to switch sides: werewolves. Perhaps they are helping to free Innistrad of the Emrakul plague. That’d also give you the epically popular Werewolves-vs.-Vampires subtheme in the set—as well as good Humans and Avacyn running around trying their hardest to just hold serve.

Anyway, that makes sense to me for Innistrad’s changes. Zendikar and Innistrad were the two most popular blocks and sets of all time when voted a few years ago, so combining them into one giant storyline had to seem like a great marketing idea—like peanut butter and chocolate.

And that sets me up for today’s article: reprints! I love a good reprint. And with the core sets now a thing of the past, if Wizards of the Coast retains the reprint percentage of cards in the expansion sets moving forward, they will be printing an avalanche of new cards annually, especially when you throw in the Commander sets and stuff. So it would behoove them to increase their reprint percentage a bit to better enable them to make new cards moving forward and to reduce the sheer number of new stuff players have to learn. (If you’ll recall, they’ve cut the number of cards they made annually before for these very reasons.)

Choosing the right reprint is great, especially if it allows you to recast an old card in a new block. So below, I have included ten cards I’d love to see reprinted in Shadows over Innistrad (or in Eldritch Moon). All of these cards have resonant flavor and would help give you some new reprints, and none were in the first block. Now, I want to ensure these cards make sense in a modern context. While I might think it’d be great flavor to reprint Cosmic Horror, even as a common, no one wants a 7-mana creature with a 7-mana upkeep. So I don’t predict it seeing print in Innistrad II: Horror Harder.

Also note that none of the below cards is on the reserve list either!

10 — Hapless Researcher

One of the greatest dangers of living in a world dominated by eldritch secrets, arcane mysteries, and long-forgotten truths is that when you start to dig them up and read them, you’ll endanger yourself. You’ll go mad. You will put yourself on the maps of a lot of bad guys. It’s one of the most common themes in this subgenre: An antiquarian spends too much time delving into mysteries that should remain locked in the past and dies. And Hapless Researcher, with a new slate of art to show this, fits the theme perfectly since the Wizard dies to get its use. I also like Death Cultist as a similar black 1-drop.

9 — The Unspeakable

The initial concept of The Unspeakable is a major kami force in Kamigawa that you can summon by playing the perfect set of spells (Reach Through Mists, Peer Through Depths, Sift Through Sands). But it also stands on its own in a horror-fueled Cthulhu Mythos block that sees Arcane reprinted. It’s creepy, it’s big, and when it smashes, you can return an Arcane spell from your graveyard to your hand. Shoot, you could reprint the card as is, with its flavor text and everything, and it would make the cut. (Note that the trio that summoned it could have similar evocations in this set to help out this guy or you could reprint them wholesale; all of them have suitable names.)

8 — Dark Temper

This is the sort of common you could see to flesh out a set’s themes without hitting the major flavor. These nice and understated themes hit your subconscious and appreciate the themes on a greater level. Obviously, the card was initially themed for Dragons, but you could redo the art and give it Vampire feel or that of some other Innistrad tribe. An expensive Shock variant that becomes a flexible and potent Murder variant if you control something black. That’s a nice level of elegance that sort of evinces the theme nicely.

7 — Archaeological Dig

Another common motif from this line is the archaeological expedition that heads out to uncover some dark and long-forgotten aspect of the world that suggests the true reality of existence and peers behind the blissful self-ignorance we have that allows us to keep sane. Probably one of the most well-known by Lovecraft is his novella At the Mountains of Madness, in which an expedition heads to explore Antarctica. The Dig helps to show that part off, and it’s a useful card as well, especially for Limited and right after the colorless-themed Oath of the Gatewatch.

6 — Choice of Damnations

If my bizarre but flavorful call on including Arcane stuff in the next set follows through, we can also see a handful of interesting cards to print as well, and Choice of Damnations is at the top for casual mages. It suitably fits the theme based on name alone, and it can easily be given an artistic flourish for the plane. What Damnation will you choose? The Eldrazi? Vampires? Zombies? (Other Arcane spells I think are feasible include Death Denied, Cut the Earthly Bond, Heed the Mists, Hideous Laughter, Ideas Unbound, and Murmurs from Beyond or even Veil of Secrecy.)

5 — Blood Rites

One of the most common themes of this genre is dark rites and ceremonies that involve sacrifices to see power gained. Blood Rites fits that theme perfectly. You could go in a lot of directions here, but I like this one and its repeatability. I was thinking of Priest of the Blood Rite—a perfect name and concept—but I don’t like Demons in this set. That mixes things up too much. This is about Emrakul as the big bad and Eldrazi, not Demons, too. So I skipped it. (You could reprint Rite of Consumption from Shadowmoor.)

4 — Relentless Rats

Isn’t it long since time to see the Relentless Rats be reprinted? I certainly think so! They dovetail with Innistrad quite nicely, and they evoke a certain Lovecraft story (The Rats in the Walls), and they are suitably horror-laden. You could easily see them in this iteration of Innistrad.

3 — Emmessi Tome

This slot was originally Book of Rass, but I was then surprised to find out that the Emmessi Tome is not reserved, so it could be reprinted, and I’m not sure how the Book would be received anyway. The basic concept of a dark and moldy and forgotten tome that had secrets hidden away in its borders is one of the classic elements of this subgenre. In fact, it’s so iconic that it’s often been pastiche’d in other works, and the Grimoire of the Dead from Innistrad Block: The First is clearly on the take.

2 — Tome Scour

A common way to fight against the darkness is to tear up and destroy the eons-guarding secrets. Humanity is better off not knowing the truth. Secrets keep you alive. And this has always been a fun card for drafting around or running in your decks, so it’s suitably fun.

1 — Read the Runes

And what happens when you do read past the hidden stuff and learn hidden knowledge? Sure, these secrets will come to your call, but they have a price. The card-drawing you obtain will require you to either sacrifice permanents or discard cards. You must sacrifice things you know or things you have in order to take in this eldritch wisdom. That makes Read the Runes one of the most singular cards I could think of for reprinting since it hits the concepts from multiple angles.

And there we are! Ten cards of suitably horror-ridden cards that could easily slide into the next visit to Innistrad! I’d also love to see Gravediggers or Cyclopean Tomb, but they are reserved. So what would you like to see? Anything that intrigues you?