The short week between Christmas and New Year's day isn't exactly ripe with information.  Especially regarding the upcoming Zendikar expansion Worldwake.  Tidbits and clues were coming slow enough when WotC was actually operating, now that slow grind has come to a complete halt.  Of course this shouldn't preclude us from rampant speculation (what ever would?).  Before the break Mark Rosewater left us with a textless goblin to whet our appetite.  Bazaar Trader is Worldwake's version of Ardent Plea, a card that was intended to highlight Alara Reborn's cascade mechanic and confirming the all-gold status.

The question then is what will Bazaar Trader highlight?  In the spirit of 'wild speculation' here are three mock versions of the card with different text.  Please remember these are only guesses based on what we know so far of Worldwake:

After hours of pondering, this version appears to be the most likely.  Everything is in play here: multi-kicker (Worldwake's prized new mechanic), the number three, and swapping creatures (something that has been entirely blue in the past).  Casting with the kicker is expensive, especially more than once, but swapping out your goblin token for a Baneslayer Angel is worth every mana.  Perhaps not an overpowering card, but abusable and great in casual formats like EDH.

We here at Gathering Magic are a little dubious of the recent message board claims that BT is a new ally.  However, because it is currently the most prominent theory, heed should be paid.  The ally mechanic is a little muddled in this case because of the magical number three.  This is also an homage to the quests from Zendikar.  A fun card, but unlikely because Mark Rosewater probably didn't leave out the Ally part of the creature line.  Why would he?

This is basically our first choice with a small tweak.  A repeatable Act of Treason instead of an outright swap.  The weakness being you only get the creature for one turn instead of forever. Like option #1 this version hits all the key points:  It has multi-kicker, facilitates an exchange of creatures from one controller to another, and is completely red.  It may seem overpowered at first, but paying eight mana for a double Threaten is reasonable enough.

There you have them.  Three separate looks at what WotC's latest teaser could be.  Please feel free to speculate on their accuracy and don't be scared to share you own ideas regarding this latest goblin.  And of course stay tuned in to our Worldwake spoiler page for when the real Bazaar Trader is revealed.