Encroaching Wastes - Magic the Gathering

You can thank Nissa for this one.

Encroaching Wastes joins the ranks of lands that kill other lands. They're the children of Wasteland, the grandchildren of Strip Mine, and so forth, this type of land has been popular throughout Magic's history.

Flavor wise, this guy steps on Tectonic Edge's territory, with the molten fires and collapsing earth, a site familiar in many disaster movies. There's nothing wrong with this, it just feels very generic. Ghost Quarter's flavor was at least more quirky and unique, and Dust Bowl swallowed lands in a dust storm. Encoraching Wastes and Tectonic Edge though, you could probably swap their names and nobody would notice the difference.

Le demonstration.

Xathrid Necromancer - Magic the Gathering

Remember, only humans can become zombies.

Xathrid Necromancer is a simple concept that has been making waves in Standard. Human dies, resurrect it as a Zombie. Necromancer is a perfect fit for the Aristocrats-styled decks, who already love sacrificing Humans. Also continues another tradition introduced, or at least popularized, in Innistrad. Zombies are very slow, meaning they enter the battlefield tapped. Its a little piece of rules flavoring that they have been keeping alive ever since.

Another thing Xathrid Necromancer does is a bit more obscure: It adds another Magic card that starts with the letter X. Awhile back, Magic had one of its special tournaments where pro-players are forced to play variant formats. One of them was a deck auction, with players bidding on preconstructed fan-made decks. The theme of the submissions that year was you had to have cards starting with each letter of the alphabet. X proved a bit tricky, since their were only a handful of cards (4 or 5) that started with X. In recent times, Wizards seems to be trying to alleviate that problem. Within a short span of time, the number of cards starting with X has doubled.

And finally, the Necromancer once again brings up Xathrid. For those who don't know, Xathrid is the predominantly black region on the plane of Shandalar. Shandalar has never been featured in any Magic block, with only a few odd cards in core sets and Planechase. No, Shandalar's claim to fame comes from an old Microprose PC game based on Magic the Gathering, the game taking place on the above-named plane.

Burning Earth - Magic the Gathering

An inconvenient truth.

So, I am finally talking about M14 again, long after people have stopped caring. I've been combing recent decklists, seeing which cards are making an impact on Standard, because that and Limited are the extent of my competitive format following.

Burning Earth is a replacement for the classic Manabarbs, and there's debate over which one is better. Manabarbs affected all lands, which hurt your opponent more but also you more. Burning Earth limits the effect to nonbasic, which takes some of the heat off of you but also does less damage to your opponent. Also note both only work if they tap the land for mana. Activating a Moorland Haunt's ability won't trigger these guys, meaning you still get plenty of suffering from their effects.

Since this debate has been done to death over the internet, let's talk about something else, the flavor text. More specifically, the guy saying the flavor text, Shrazik the lavamancer. Shrazik is a new name, I checked Gatherer and the only card with Shrazik in their flavor text is this one. That yielding nothing, I looked up lavamancer. I know there is already one in existence, Grim Lavamancer,  but I was curious if there was more flavor text quoted by lavamancers. Turns out there is. Say hello to Matoc.

Back in the days of Odyssey (with a one-card extension into Onslaught), Matoc was the lavamancer the Magic press got quotes from, his words appearing on six cards total. After years of silence from the lavamancer community, Shrazik has decided to fill the old role of spokesman for the lavamancer community. For all we know, meaning I'm calling this canon until someone from Wizards contradicts me, Shrazik was trained by Matoc, or is his descendant. Here's hoping we hear from him again, as many times as we have heard from his master and/or father.

Mutavault - Magic the Gathering

Sliver Mutant Ninja Turtle!

This guy is a reprint from Morningtide, and a very clever one in my opinion. Morningtide was part of the two-set tribal block called Lorwyn. Lorwyn had a group of shapeshifters, the Changelings, who could become any and all creature types. Mutavault is essentially Mishra's Factory meets changeling.

So why is this a good reprint for M14. M14 has Slivers. Slivers give their abilities to all other Slivers (originally all Slivers in play, but now just your Slivers to reduce board complexity). Since Mutavault has all creature types, Mutavault counts as a Sliver. This also brings up the amusing fact that it's also a Sliver Pirate Praetor Samurai Slith Artificer etc. It can be a Sliver that knows every single occupation, making for an impressive resume.

Zephyr Charge - Magic the Gathering

I feel like I could replace "flying" with "horsemanship".

This card feels very weird to me. Why? First off, it's a common non-Aura Enchantment. Modern Magic very, very rarely prints non-Aura Enchantments at common. Some notable exceptions are the Seals, the Expeditions from Zendikar, and Oblivion Ring style removal. There's nothing wrong with this type of enchantment at common, but it just feels weird to me.

Second, the quote. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is a real book. In the core sets, it has been okay to quote real things on the cards. Giant Octopus for example has an appropriate quote from Jules Verne. But recently, this practice seems to be waning, the idea being real world quotes take away from the immersion in a fantasy world. Again, I have no problem with real world quotes, it's just something they haven't been doing much recently, making it feel off.


Overall, this card reminds of Levitation, the version with Jim Murray's artwork. Both arts use the concept of flying horsemen hovering over the battlefield. Both cards also fill similar niches, enchantments that give your guys flying. The thing is, out of the box, Levitation feels like a better card than Zephyr Charge. Zephyr Charge however feels like it was meant to be played in Limited. It's a common card the gives flying without the drawback an Aura has of getting two-for-oned. Better Limited players tend to be very wary of Auras, unless they happen to be very good, because they're afraid of card disadvantage. This card however helps dissuade that fear. This card however can grant multiple creatures flying, without the danger of being lost if that creature dies.

Shadowborn Apostle - Magic the Gathering

Well, M14 has now been fully spoiled, it's time to take a look at some cards. Note, I haven't played with the set yet, this is just my thoughts on some of the new cards, my likes, my dislikes, and their future potential. Now, we're starting with this:

I wonder if the text once said "twelve creatures".

This card has a really neat concept, and really neat rules text. The guy that stands out in my memory with similar text is Relentless Rats from Fifth Dawn. Art is neat to. If you look closely, you can see five other robed figures in the background. Oh, and a smoldering corpse on the altar, unsure if he was a member of the Shadow groupies.

My Johnnysenses tingle with this card. I once tried to make a Biovisionary deck that loaded up on guys like Clone so I could copy the guy and activate its text. A similar strategy could work here. Problem is, the Biovisionary deck copied guys to win the game. This would be a lot of work for little reward, spending a bunch of one-cost and four-cost guys to get one big guy. My one idea is using something like Immortal Servitude, summoning all the Apostles from your graveyard. Bloodbond March and Thrumming Stone might be fun too! Regardless, it's going to take a lot of work and effort to make this guy work. This is a good example of a card that excites some players (like me), but others will find utterly useless.