With a release date of November 15th, Magic: The Gathering Foundations is little over two weeks away. If you're unfamiliar with what Foundations is, you can read all about it in my other article, where I explain exactly what Foundations is!

Assuming you've done that, today we're going to talk about three brand-new preview cards for Foundations. And a big thank you to Wizards of the Coast for the free preview cards!

Let's start out with the common Erudite Wizard! For those unaware, the word "erudite" means "having or showing great knowledge or learning," so... a peak Blue card.

This guy is a three-mana 2/3 that gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you draw your second card each turn, meaning this will trigger even on your opponent's turn. This is clearly a card that is meant to shine in Limited formats, such as Draft or Sealed, but that being said, it does seem to be a pretty good one. Blue decks want to draw extra cards naturally, and by my estimation, if you're able to trigger the Wizard's ability once, it's really good as a 3/4 for three mana. If you're able to trigger it twice, it becomes great, as a 4/5 or above for three mana is just a great deal. If you manage to pair this with any sort of looter effect, I assume it can get out of hand.

The Wizard seems to go great with a ton of Blue common and uncommons that have already been previewed in Foundations, such as Arcane Epiphany, Refute, and Think Twice; all very useful cards that would easily make it into any Blue Limited decks.

The next card we have to show is an uncommon with big Forbidden Alchemy vibes.

Inspiration from Beyond is a three-mana sorcery that lets you mill three cards, then return any instant or sorcery from your graveyard to your hand. Additionally, it has flashback for 7 mana, similar to Forbidden Alchemy!

Considering Mystical Teachings is also in Foundations, I do wish this was an instant, but you can't win 'em all! To be fair, nearly every card that has returned an instant or sorcery to its owner's hand has been a sorcery.

Some cards that come to mind here are Relearn, from all the way back in Weatherlight, Call to Mind from Magic Core Set 2011, and Mystic Retrieval from Dark Ascension. As you can see, both Relearn and Call to Mind are essentially the exact same card: they both cost 3 mana and they return an instant or sorcery to your hand at sorcery speed. Inspiration from Beyond is a significant upgrade in two ways: 1) it mills three cards, potentially being able to give you a card you want if one isn't already in the graveyard, and 2) it has the aforementioned flashback.

I don't know how competitive this card will be, but it certainly fills a role, and improves upon a very classic Magic design. Similar to Forbidden Alchemy, this allows you to see a subsection of cards and put one into your hand for three mana, then you can repeat the process later in the game for seven mana.

Finally, we have the real treat that pairs well with both of our previous cards: Lunar Insight!

Lunar Insight follows in the footsteps of a good number of other card drawing spells that all allow you to draw cards equal to a specific quantifier. Cards like Distant Memories for four mana, that allows you to draw cards equal to a specific type of creature you control. Or Flow of Knowledge for five mana, that allows you to draw cards equal to the number of Islands you control. When built around, Lunar Insight is better than a lot of those.

To evaluate a card like this properly, we need to keep a couple things in mind here. The first is that Divination has been a playable card in numerous Standard formats. Drawing two cards for three mana has been both the standard rate and totally acceptable. As long as your deck can keep two permanents on the board with different mana values, you've already built a Divination. The second thing is that rare card draw has typically drawn three cards for three mana. We see this on tons of cards, such as Painful Truths, Treacherous Blessing, and Treacherous Greed, typically with a drawback. The drawback for Lunar Insight is needing a variety of other permanents in play, which you often want to be doing anyway.

One thing to remember is that zero is a mana value that counts, so in a format like Modern, cards like Mishra's Bauble, Ornithopter, or Chalice of the Void will all count. This is obviously more relevant in older formats, but this is also mostly worth considering if you're trying to get a Lunar Insight off early.

In a format like Standard, which Foundations is clearly geared toward, it feels like much more of a late game card that you want to use to refill your hand. It happens to work great with enchantment removal as well. Cards like Sheltered by Ghosts, Trapped in the Screen, Unable to Scream, and Banishing Light are all great examples. If you add a couple of creatures or planeswalkers, you have a "Draw 3" for three mana with no real drawback. Rooms and artifacts, especially cheap artifacts like Ghost Vacuum, are other great ways to take advantage of Lunar Insight. Many tokens also have a mana value of zero, so keep that in mind as well. Drawing three cards with Lunar Insight seems like a pretty easy ask for three mana, and I'm eager to see people try and break it to see how many cards they can draw.

From what I've seen so far, Foundations looks like an extremely cool set with a lot of fun cards for Standard. I've seen a few that I'm particularly excited about and I'm eager to see the full set revealed. Thanks a ton for reading today, and make sure to get those Foundations preorders in through CoolStuffInc!

Frank Lepore

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