This has been the cleanest spoiler season I've been lucky enough to be a part of thus far! Most, if not all of the cards in the set were revealed only when Wizards chose to reveal them! We're only 72 hours away from Scars of Mirrodin Pre-Release events around the world and only now are we privy to the cards we'll be slinging this weekend. Each time a set is released we like to go through and try to find the best of the best. The cards you'll be talking about six months from now or even next year. Here are the cards I'm looking forward to pulling out of Scars of Mirrodin:
SkullClamp? Is that you my old friend?! Well, no but Infiltration Lens is certainly a long lost relative of the uber-banned SkullClamp. What a great way to get your opponent to think twice about blocking that creature with a combat damage-to-player-triggered ability! Or even to equip those little creatures with Infect so that your opponent has to choose between poison counters and your card advantage. I recommend playing this card in any deck that plays creatures. Equipment is only playable when it's cheap (Lightning Greaves etc.) and casting this beauty on turn one is a great use of that hard to use turn. I doubt wizards will need to ban this iteration of SkullClamp this time around but this is certainly one of the most powerful pieces of equipment yet printed.
The little kid in me wanted to include all of the planeswalkers in my top five because I can't wait to get my hands on all three of them but alas, I had to choose just one. Koth is to mono-red what Elspeth, Knight Errant was to mono-white or Jace, the Mind Sculptor is to blue - the epitome. Combining mana acceleration with hasty threats, Koth doesnt just embody the color as much or more than Chandra Nalaar, he actually keeps himself playable by staying under five mana. I can't wait to see what RDW aficionados do with this guy this year.
I love cards that are threats all by themselves. No improbable combos, no if ands or buts about it- Skithiryx is going to get your opponent's attention when it hits the table. A 4/4 flier for five in black is almost playable on it's own but throw in a possible haste, infect and regeneration and you're going to have to try really hard to keep this guy out of your black decks. The threat of poison is remote but if you can enchant, equip or otherwise this Dragon Skeleton you're looking at a two hit kill. You could argue that a flier dealing 10+ damage to an opponent probably means GG anyway but on Mirrodin you never know when poison counters are going to add up after a while, particularly in limited. An all around solid card that makes for a perfect 5-drop in any deck you can squeeze it into.
The other day we asked our readers whether or not they thought this card was "completely broken" or "completely awesome". 1800 votes later we determined that most people think this card is simply "completely awesome". The word "broken" is thrown around these days far too often and I'm not even sure some of our voters understand its intended meaning but either way, this card is going to shake things up. Imagine exiling a planeswalker in your superfriends deck to make the other four planeswalkers in your hand cost 2 less to cast! You could be dropping at least two per turn on turn four! There are so many possibilities for this card that it would do the card an injustice to try and list them all here. Get your copies of this card while they're hot! This card is going to be relevant for years to come.
Have you ever thought to yourself- "Gosh, I should sure use some lifelink in my blue deck!" or "Sheesh, I could really go for some deathtouch in my red deck!" Well now you can have both and more! I'm not sure how comfortable I am with colorless abilities for reasonable prices (I'll have an article on this later) but you can't deny the effectiveness of 12 power for six colorless mana. Creatures that "explode" into littler creatures are all the rage and this one certainly delivers. I can't wait to put a copy into each of my EDH decks. Luckily, it's the pre-release foil so there will certainly be a few extra copies floating around if you're interested.
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If you haven't already checked out the full visual spoiler for Scars of Mirrodin be sure to give it a looksie and comment here with your own Top Five lists!