Anyone remembers Oath of the Ancient Wood? Me neither. Ok, jokes about terrible cards aside, the fact is that a card from Theros was basically in M14 right under our noses, and I think I found 2 in m15 for Khans of Tarkir.


I am not sure exactly how, but I think Khans will have some sort of new equipment/fortification artifact subtype and this is a small taste of things to come.


That's a dragon wearing armor.

There's also this seemingly random focus on artifacts in the core set, with cards that make use of them in other ways, such as sacrificing them for 5 damage, turning them into 5/5s and so on.

I think people are making too big a deal about the artifacts. scars wasn't that long ago. it's probably just a draft archetype, it's just one that takes a bit more spelling out and support than most so it's more noticeable.

Like I said in my official prediction - it's going to be a "build an empire" theme. Think Strategy RPG in card-game form. That means upgrades, buildings, and making your army better.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/92797265743/do-you-expect-to-ever-start-using-base-power-and

In M12, Wizards switched to "dies" terminology... then Innistrad came out. Could this be a similar case? Does Khans of Tarkir have a major block mechanic that revolves around setting base power and toughness?

I think he was just pointing out that setting base power and toughness is a thing that we can see outside of blue turning artifacts into creatures. Green does it all the time with land, but also a few creatures that just make creatures bigger; ie: "Target creature becomes a 7/7 until end of turn." is now in the Gatherer as "Target creature you control has base power and toughness 7/7 until end of turn."

I can also see a future where we eventually get a Giant Growth variant that just sets the target to being a 4/4, 5/5, or 6/6 creature bases on what they want to assume the average base creature's power/toughness was. That way, it's technically better to use with smaller creatures, but may weaken larger ones.

It appears that Khans of Tarkir does indeed have a major block mechanic that revolves around changing power and toughness - morph!

I just remembered, someone asked MaRo at some point why Theros block had nearly zero flicker effects. Some of us were speculating, based on MaRo's nonspecific answer, that Khans might have a mechanic that interacts poorly with flicker. It looks like that mechanic is morph. (Flickering makes it too easy to flip big morph creatures.)

Still, Restoration Angel is probably not getting banned in Modern anytime soon, so they can't go too bonkers with it.

Quick, hoard skybinds while they are cheap!

Somehow I don't see Skybind becoming the next Astral Slide.

With Morph and time travel in the mix, I've got a feeling we're finally going to see our Muraganda-like primitive world with a "vanilla matters" theme in Dewey or Louie.

Really really hope that the Wedge theme in the first set of Tarkir means we'll be getting the wedge tri-land taplands to finish the shard cycle from alara of Seaside Citadel and company.

Might be interesting if they lowered the rarity to common and reprinted the shard cycle at common in a later set of the block, for the effects it would have on pauper and block draft, as well as the standards it would set for tap-land based color-fixing. Although keeping them at uncommon would be fine too, I'd leave that up to WotC internal playtesting.

Also hope they continue to take lessons they seem to have learned in Theros block and M15 about auras, and ensure they have built in ways to try to make up for the '2-for-1' threat, like giving them decent ETB effects, cantriping, self-bounce, or making the target removal resistant, or leaving creatures behind, etc. so we don't return to largely unplayable auras as a standard.

I'm kinda hoping for a WUBRG colored dragon (may be more than 5 cmc) in one of the sets that has all the mechanics of the 5 warbands, to represent the 'ultimate' ideals of dragonkind espoused by the first set in one of the later sets, so long as those mechanics seem to be applicable to a creature like a dragon. Or at least one with hints of the 5 virtues of dragons that the warbands are concerned with. Not sure if I'd want it legendary or not, some of me wants it legendary so it is commander applicable, but some of me doesn't so that it represents simply a potent kind of base dragon hinting that all dragons have this kind of potential and this is one of the strongest dragon breeds. Both would be really awesome, perhaps one showing the virtues another way, while one actually uses the warband mechanics. Maybe the one with the virtues shown another way could be a non-legendary in a set taking place in the past of that world, while the legendary one would have the warband mechanics and show up in a set that is in the present again with dragons returned. That would probably fulfill more than the WUBRG quota for the block, providing a new WUBRG legend for Commander and a return to the mechanics from the wedge set without actually having a wedge theme in a second set, to help tie sets together and reiterate themes.

Also hope the rakshasa looking things from the art are partly blue cats with some shapeshifting related abilities, I'd love having a blue (or at least partly blue) cat race, and rakshasa in D&D style stuff seem to fit that theme, what with their shapeshifting and mindreading abilities.

Also hope the orcs are cool and interesting as a tribe in this block.

If I remember correctly, the picture of the rakshasa was linked to the Wedge.

Yeah, but I said partly blue. Doesn't mean all of them have to be blue, and it seems like some of the races are found in multiple of the wedge warbands, so quite possibly many of them appear across multiple colors.

Thinking about it, a block I'd love if they made would be an entirely underwater block, on a world, or at least part of a world, that has little land areas:

Plains would be vast expanses of plankton and algae and such near the surface where things like baleen whales feed.

Islands would be powerful currents or something perhaps, maybe coral reefs.

Swamps would be places near the seafloor where life falls and decomposes and lets up lots of carbon dioxide and such or something.

Mountains would be geothermal zones underwater like undersea volcanos and geothermal vents and such, or simple underwater mountains.

Forests would be kelp forests or something like that, or maybe coral reefs if Islands don't get such.

The setting wouldn't actually be dominated by blue, despite most of the creatures being found underwater and many of them being ones that might normally be blue in other blocks due to location, mechanically they would match appropriate colors.

For instance we might get green sea otters, black cuthulu-esque underwater horrors, red electric eels, or white manta rays.

The block might have an alternative mechanic to flying, 'rapidswimming' or something that is along the lines of horsemanship.

Merfolk might be more like humans in the set in that they'd appear in all colors, and be a sort of base race perhaps, maybe with undead types of merfolk popping up, or merfolk horrors in black.

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There is also the possibility of a world with no sky or surface, but that is all 'underground' or at least filled with rock. All light in this world would come from things like glowing magical crystal and weird magical metal formations, artificial light sources, or phosphorescent fungus or animals or such. Most of the set would take place in numerous networks of caves and caverns that would fill the world.

Plains would be massive caverns filled with phosphorescent fungus and glowing crystals.

Islands would be underground rivers or lakes, basically caves full of water, with glowing metal in the walls. There may also be glowing fish.

Swamps would be somewhat watery areas with loose mud and lots of fungus and volatile wildlife and darker than the plains areas.

Mountains would be areas with magma flowing through parts of them that are rather hot.

Forests would be areas with even more super-bright fungus and crystals and metals to the point where proper plantlife is growing in the cave, if strange plantlife due to facing 24 hour lower levels of light, compared to surface plants of other worlds that face day/night cycles.

Lots of weird underground creatures, including lots of amphibians and fungus based creatures, would probably turn up, including likely a civilization of Amphin.

Bolas and/or Tezzeret in Tarkir block. You heard it here first.

Is that because their Funko figures just got announced?


I am more interested in seeing if Ugin pops up in Khans. Seeing as how some part of him may or may not be burrowing through Sarkhan's psyche right now, it doesn't seem out of place to get a second colorless 'Walker.

The Funko thing, and I'm pretty sure there's been some not entirely inconspicuous talk about a return of Bolas over on Blogatog.

Oooh, maybe an epic showdown between Ugin and Bolas.

I will cream my jeans if they print a new Bolas.

Since friday maro has been hiping up his article that they will publish monday.

Some of my guesses about it:
Full art lands in khans.
Fetches in khan
The invitational returns
A new format

He debunked:
Great designer search 3
Having a new son
Un-3
Abolishing the reserved list.

I hope it's not full art lands, I was hoping to see them in a set with a more futuristic feel like ravnica or mirrodin.And khan seems a littke bland as far as land images go.