Locations
Future Sight fans rejoice! Venser has always been a planeswalker but Wizards couldn't get the card type ready for Future Sight in time for Venser to get his own planeswalker frame. Instead we were left with a regular, old creature card called: Venser, Shaper Savant. We don't know how or why but the man is back and is looking to be more powerful than ever. "Blinking" permanents as a +2 up ability is hard to argue with. "Enters the Battlefield" abilities are more common and powerful than ever and why not get some loyalty from a U/W planeswalker while you're at it? You can use this ability to get rid of unwanted counters on a permanent or to simply get rid of a card you can't handle for one turn. Making all of your creatures unblockable for one loyalty is more than viable as well. I'm not sold on his final ability because it takes four turns of unmolested loyalty pumping to get it going so you'll basically have to build a deck around it if you're wanting to get that emblem (which wouldn't be a horrible idea!). Either way the final ability is certainly a threat that your opponent will have to take seriously.
I love this planeswalker card. I always joke that my personal Magic card's casting cost would be U/W and it's great to see this allied color combo represented so well. I can't want to start gaining this planeswalker's loyalty!
Ahh, colorless mana acceleration. So tempting to print yet so difficult to keep within the realms of sanity. Mox Opal seems to pull it off though with it's legendary status and perfectly reasonable restrictions. You wont be able to put two or three of these out at once, in fact you wont even be able to put one out if your opponent already has done so because of it's legendary status. If you're able to drop this on turn one, two or three you'll be in business. After that, I think you'd be better off just playing a dual land in the colors of your choice. The point of this card is to accellerate your mana in any color of your choosing, not to simply replace a land drop. It won't be too difficult to get three artifacts out in Scars of Mirrodin. We've seen artifacts that cost 0, 1 and two already and that's not even mentioning cards already in print such as Ornithopter and Basilisk Collar.
We all remember the perils of affinity. The ability has been called "the most broken of ability of all time" by some. But I think we need to remember what really made affinity so powerful - Artifact Lands. Without those, affinity creatures aren't quite as scary. It was the fact that people could use affinity without altering their decks in any way- just drop some artifact lands and pay less for your artifacts! Good deal, right?! Turns out, that was a bit too powerful and wizards has admitted that more than once. Luckily, metalcraft looks to be an uber-gimped version of affinity. Several cards we've seen already require three or more artifacts to become effective and that seems to be the replacement for affinity. I enjoy the ability but cringe at the fact that cards with that ability wont be able to easily slip into my already constructed casual decks.
Not quite as exciting as a planeswalker and a mox but worth noting nevertheless. Infect is a new ability that seems to be a wither/poison hybrid. Much better than the original poison system, these rats are able to dish out one poison counter as they enter the battlefield and two more each time theyre able to deal combat damage to your opponent. Not a huge threat since they'll still have to hit you five times to get you enough poison counters for the win but combined with other poison creatures and/or with "proliferate" and we're talking about a serious threat here. Alternate win conditions are always interesting and I'm happy to see poison counters back in Magic the Gathering!
A 5/5 creature for six mana isn't a horrible deal, especially when the creature is colorless! I like the idea of combining him with Venser's new planeswalker card and making him unblockable. If your opponent is hit once or twice with the ability he'll not only take the 10+ damage from the Hellkite, he'll be short most of his permanents as well. I see this card as a definite threat at all times and it will surely shine in limited. The cost is a bit high in a world where Baneslayer Angel can outdo this guy for one less mana but the ability of this thing to transcend the color pie and count as an artifact might be important post-SoM.
And you thought you'd never have to pay $50 for an Elspeth card ever again? How short-lived was that idea?! What a great card we have here in Elspeth Tirel. For the reasonable cost of five mana you get a healing ability that's roughly 10X better than Ajani Goldmane's, a token generator X3 and a devastating, game changing final ability that can be activated the turn after she comes into play. Talk about a threat! She starts at four loyalty but will probably be at six the turn she hits the table. If not, you've got three tokens on the board to help defend her while simply going up +2 the following turn. She's not going anywhere, anytime soon! Get ready to shell out big bucks for this epic addition to your planeswalker collection because I'm having trouble thinking of a deck that I wouldn't want her in. I forsee a ton of U/W superfriend-control decks utilizing the badassitry of the new Venser, Elspeth Tirel as well as Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Why play spells when, between each of these three planeswalkers you've got every type of ability you'll ever need!
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Check out our Scars of Mirrodin spoiler page for all of the rest! We'll be keeping it the most frequently updated list on the web this and every season so be sure to bookmark it, send it to your friends and stay glued to it all season long! Here are some of the other Scars of Mirrodin cards revealed this weekend:
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