Some New M11 Previews

So the spoilers are starting to hit faster and faster, which means I may not get to each one.

But I'll do what I can!

We've got some interesting Commons today, and one more keyword retemplating. Find out what it may mean...AFTER the Jump!


(All pictures come from the MTGSalvation Forums)

But first, let's see the kind of love Blue gets...

 The texts are a bit hard to read, so here they are!

Jace's Erasure
1U
Enchantment
Whenever you draw a card, you may have target player put the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
COMMON

Diminish
U
Instant
Target creature becomes 1/1 until end of turn.
COMMON

Preordain
U
Sorcery
Scry 2, then draw a card.
Common


Jace's Erasure gives mill decks some new permanent ammo, especially with Blue's ability to draw cards very easily. In fact, use it with Jace 1.0's +2 ability to get them to essentially "mill" 2 (1 for their draw + 1 for Jace's Erasure's ability when you draw). Or even better, combine with Jace 2.0's +/- 0 Brainstorm ability since it lets you "draw 3 cards", thus letting you mill 3 cards from an opponent's library (or up to 3 divided among up to 3 opponents technically, but my main focus is 1-on-1 so sue me! :)  )

Diminish doesn't really catch my eye. It can help some questionable combat situations with some blue decks, but honestly they seem to be aggressive enough this may not even be necessary. At worst, it's a pseudo-fog, at best it's combined removal (this + something else). Just remember, it doesn't take away abilities, so a 10/10 flying creature attacking you while you're at 1 life with a non-flying creature still means you're dead. Sorry!

And finally for Blue we see the new Ponder variant, Preordain. At most, you'll see 3 cards off of Preordain: The 2 you Scry for, then if you don't like them you get your (relatively) blind draw. I can see this seeing play if Halimar Depths and Jace, the Mind Sculptor ("Jace 2.0") weren't around to help fix the top of the deck. And although I remember Ponder being a pretty big deal for helping fix the draw, the problem I see with Preordain is...well, I don't notice Ponder being used currently. What may help is that Scry 2 lets you effectively chuck the top 2 of your deck if you don't like them, whereas with Halimar Depths and Jace you're still stuck with what you see (you can just influence the order you see them). I wouldn't doubt it being run, and I don't doubt foils will see a decent price tag, but don't expect super things out of it until Halimar Depths and Jace rotate and it's possibly reprinted in M12 (because IMO it needs Halimar Depths and .


And here's a templating difference in Trample that got past my eyes...partly because it's unusual to see such an efficient Green creature!

In case you can't read it...

Garruk's Companion
GG
Creature - Beast
Trample (If this creature would assign enough damage to its blockers to destroy them, you may have it assign the rest of its damage to defending player or planeswalker.)
3/2
Common

First of all...a super bear!? Granted, you need 2 Green mana to get it, but come on! The only other creature that efficient on Power/Toughness was Elvish Warrior, and it left out Trample and had 2/3 for its stats!

Add in Trample? At such a low mana cost, it just might matter a bit.

But here's the even bigger thing...re-read the Trample reminder text (there's a reason I typed it out). I even added a little emphasis that the card text doesn't.

Give up?

Re-read the current Trample wording (taken from Ball Lightning in M10):
Trample (If this creature would deal enough damage to its blockers to destroy them, you may have it deal the rest of its damage to defending player or planeswalker.)

Did you catch the difference? "Deal" in M10 vs. "Assign" in M11.

This may be nothing more than a templating change (and more accurate, too, since Trample ever only needed to assign enough damage, whereas "deal" implied you needed to have damage already assigned and going through before you can "trample over").

But think about Deathtouch's re-wording on top of this. Do we get the "super team" of Deathtouch + Trample being possible (for example, a 9/9 Deathtouch Trample creature attacking and being blocked by 5 creatures would mean 1 damage to each of the 5 creatures and 4 to the opponent)? Or will R&D shut off that potential new loophole? I guess we'll find out when we get closer to official M11 previews on dailymtg.com .


All right, I think  I heard a few heads explode so I'll leave things there. I'll have some more previews up this weekend. Until then, take care, and I hope we see you for the Cube Draft tomorrow!  :)