Over on the mothership today, you will undoubtedly receive an enthusiastic welcome from Mark Rosewater to New Phyrexia spoiler season. [Editor's Note: And indeed the complete spoiler for the set! -- Trick] As with every set, the few weeks leading up to the set's prerelease see some of the new cards trickled out each day, every one poked, prodded, and analyzed by the community. Unfortunately, this season was deflated before it even started by the leaking of the entire set by some scurrilous knave—every name, every mana cost, every mechanic, every art, and every word of rules text is out there for all to see. One hundred seventy-five cats are well and truly out of the bag.

Fortunately, the set looks fantastic, and we can at least have one great week of spoiler discussion before we've figured out the metagame of every format for the next three months, right? Today, I'm going to pick some of the cards I think are most likely to have an impact on one or more constructed formats. It'd be helpful for you to pull up the Gathering Magic spoiler page in another tab, so you know what the cards do without my repeating them verbatim.

Blade Splicer (and to a lesser extent, Wing Splicer)

Evan Erwin of Magic Show fame pointed out how efficient the stats are on Blade Splicer—for just 3 mana, you get 4 power spread over two bodies, and one of them is First Striking as well. Random dorks are not usually anything to write home about, but Blade Splicer is in White, which is also the color of Stoneforge Mystic, who loves having random dorks lying about to pick up Swords, Bonehoards, and so on. The golem is also an artifact, meaning Blade Splicer will fit nicely into a Metalcraft or Tempered Steel deck. I like the idea of blinking Blade Splicer each turn with Venser, and going into Blue also gives access to Wing Splicer. This may be too cute for serious play, but it allows a block Venser deck to take the offensive better than it has in the past. 3-drops are often awkwardly caught between being a proper weenie creature and a proper mid-range creature, but Blade Splicer might be efficient enough to see play.

Another tool for a Quest or Tempered Steel deck, this is an extremely-cheap-and-near-universally-effective removal spell. The way to think about this is as a no-drawback Sword that can't be cast unless you have Metalcraft. It will only be of any use to a deck set up to abuse it, and useless elsewhere. Expect to see this as a four-of in the popular mono-White block deck and a possible card for Legacy affinity, but it won't make a splash in Standard until after rotation.

A powerful weapon for every deck against the oppressive Kuldotha Red menace that's dominating—

What's that? Kuldotha Red isn't played any more? Well, I guess we can just skip past Marrow Shards.

This guy certainly has stacks of potential. Caw-Blade is probably too tight for this sort of extra value, but a dedicated White equipment deck could be built around him. Note that his draw-a-card ability is such that you get the draw even if the equipment comes into play from a Stoneforge or Quest activation. Equipment isn't playing a huge role in block as yet, with Tempered Steel or Kuldotha Rebirth rush the preferred aggressive strategy, but this guy could change matters some.

A 2- mana hard counter for all kinds of spells—it doesn't matter how the counter gets on there, whether from a Plague Stinger, Phyrexian Crusader, Inkmoth Nexus, or even Virulent Wound, just get that poison counter on there and you can counter spells like it's 1993! I'd expect this to give a boost to U/B Infect in Standard, and I feel Black or Green Infect pilots in Block will have to think seriously about a possible Blue splash for this card. Fortunately, the color requirements are pretty slight, so splashing is made easy. I'll be interested to see if normal control decks want to start using cards like Inkmoth Nexus or Virulent Wound just for the prospect of a 2-mana hard counter.

Having just taken my first steps into Legacy, even I can see how powerful this card is going to be. Turn-one Goblin Lackey or AEther Vial on the play cause serious problems for counter/control decks, and this lets them answer those cards preemptively without even having to play a land first. It may also let my Zoo deck interfere with combo in a way I previously haven't been able to—GP: Providence should certainly be interesting with this card shaking things up!

I'm something of a sucker for Clone effects, and this one can be played in any color! The key part of the rules text is that it enters the battlefield as a copy, meaning you get the ETB ability of whatever you're copying, such as a Contagion Engine or a Mulldrifter. Copying a Titan or an Avenger for 3 mana is obviously the dream, but this has the same additional utility of any Clone effect—if you need an answer to Thrun or Progenitus, you can Legend Rule them with this, as it doesn't have to target.

Another only nominally Blue card, Tezzeret's Gambit lets Red, White, Green, and Black decks get in on the pure card-drawing game that has proven so effective in maintaining Blue's dominance over the years. In the right deck, Proliferate can be worth at least a card, so this is surprisingly efficient for what is essentially a colorless card.

It's about freaking time that Wizards gave us cards specifically designed to fight Planeswalkers. The Planeswalker menace is something I've written on before—the card type is inherently powerful, and even more so when R&D have studiously avoided giving us any tools to use against them. This is probably the card I'm most glad exists, as it is an indication that we might see more "____ target planeswalker" effects in the future.

Red is defined by 4-power Haste guys at the moment—Koth, Hero of Oxid Ridge, and Kuldotha Phoenix. Urabrask has these same workable stats, while also giving your follow-up guys Haste and interfering with your opponent's ability to defend himself. He is still a ground-pounding dork at the end of the day, so he may not be good enough, and giving your follow-ups to your 5-drop Haste seems like it'll be too late, but it will give Plated Geopede, Ember Hauler, and other dorks something to do when drawn late at least.

I love burn with a little cherry on top—Magma Jet, Searing Blaze, Blightning, and now Volt Charge. I would love to protect my Koth and power him up with the same card, as a Koth ultimate is always just out of reach, but when you do get there, it is a game-winner. I definitely want to try this card out in place of Staggershock, which has never really excited me.

Patrick Chapin already talked at length about this card, and it is certainly brimming with Johnny potential—you can chain something like Viridian Emissary into Viridian Corrupter into Vengevine into Baneslayer Angel, getting value all the way. You'll have to carefully massage your curve to work well with this card, as you can't just jump straight from Lotus Cobra to Primeval Titan, but it looks like it may be worth the effort. Also appears to pair well with Mimic Vat, for when too much value is never enough!

So . . . does anyone know if the Chancellors are good or terrible? I really haven't the faintest idea how they're going to play—the closest analogue I can come up with is a 0/7 split card, which is something we've never seen, either. The free effect is obviously nice, but then your hand is clogged up with a 7-drop on turn one! If you really want the free effect, you're going to have to have four, which means drawing a bunch of dorky fat guys over the course of a tournament. My early impression is that people are going to ignore the Chancellors for a while, but they may become important down the road, kinda like the Lorwyn Hideaway lands. The Green one has the best shot to my mind, letting you slap down a Lotus Cobra or Explore on turn one, which will help you actually play him later on—he's not exactly a constructed powerhouse at 7, but Cloudthresher certainly could beat face after you got its Fae-blasting ETB trigger.

For every decent Green creature in Scars block, there are about twenty-five different Wrath of God effects across every other color. This card may let the Green decks actually fight back against Sunblast Angel, Phyrexian Rebirth, Black Sun's Zenith, Slagstorm, Contagion Engine, Massacre Wurm, and so on. One mark against it is that it doesn't really help Infect decks, which could become extremely important due to the next card.

The card Infect aggro has been waiting for, letting you lay down Savannah Lions beats and giving you a target for your early Mirran Mettles and so forth. Certain to see plenty of play in the casual room at least, and has the prospect of pulling people away from Crusader-based Infect in tournament formats—then again, with some enemy duals in M12 or Innistrad, GB Infect could come into its own.

Yet another card that Infect will be happy to see, and offers the prospect of turn-two kills accompanying the above card, though it will require a very particular assortment of cards in your opening seven. This card has Brian Kibler and LSV worried about the prospect of playing NPH limited, and having to always play around a Giant Growth against even tapped-out opponents in every color. Personally, I think the obnoxiousness of this will pale in comparison to

Really? Uncommon Overrun for 1 less? +1/+1 and Infect seems about as good as +3/+3, and I hate dying to a stupid turn-five Overrun, let alone turn-four.

Certainly my next Commander general, if I ever get around to making a new deck. Also notable for the significant power boost he can give your Inkmoth Nexuses!

Change Standard, ban Stoneforge . . . blah, blah, blah. Essentially, the hubbub about this card is that Stoneforge Mystic can now tutor for a fantastic anti-aggro guy that can almost never die due to its bounce ability, can be flashed in by Mystic, and can even equip another creature if that floats your boat. Both PV and Chapin have suggested that Batterskull will make Caw-Blade even more powerful, and given that the SCG: Boston Standard Top 8 this past weekend saw seven of that archetype—without even the Red and Black splash variants—that is not what we want to hear for a diverse Standard format.

I am probably way off on this, but it seems that the mono-Green Eldrazi deck would like to get one of these into play even more than it would a Primeval Titan, as it lets you go straight from 6 mana to 12. Titan has obvious advantages in that it can be Summoning Trapped and beats for 6 itself, as well as finding your utility lands, but Caged Sun is probably not constructed-irrelevant.

Play this turn one off a Chrome Mox, cast Assault Strobe turn two, then attack, paying 18 life and pray they don't Bolt you. This seems like it could be powerful enough to have a deck built around it, or fit into an existing artifact fast-aggro deck like Kuldotha Red, Tempered Steel, or Affinity.

I have seen a lot of forum-goers on other websites dissing this card because it doesn't provide "card advantage." What is card advantage worth? Is drawing a card worth more than gaining 5 life, or dealing 5 to your opponent? Without spending additional mana? The combination of Red and White protection is undoubtedly the best, and this Sword gives you the opportunity to hit your opponent and also point the Lava Axe trigger at his Jace or Koth. I don't see that Boros can ever beat this card, and Red Deck Wins will have to adopt more artifact removal to take care of this—they can't rely on Bolts to take out the carrier anymore, and there is no chance they can race an active Sword of War and Peace.

Phew, that's enough spoiler chat for this Easter weekend. It feels like this set is high-impact, with a serious game-changer in the form of Phyrexian mana and a lot of build-around-me potential. For all that, though, it feels like the power cards are concentrated in the lower rarities—where Mirrodin Besieged had an extremely strong mythic lineup, New Phyrexia has the Sword, Batterskull, and a bunch of Legendary Reanimator fatties. There are a few interesting cycles like the Chancellors and the Shrines that I am going to have to play with before I can figure out how good they are. I'm also not sure yet whether Phyrexian mana is on the fun side of broken or on the, well, broken side. I'd love to hear what your favorite spoilers are, so sound off down below or come and find me on Twitter @rtassicker. Thanks for reading!