Today I've picked one card of each rarity to show off here. Hopefully you'll enjoy them!
Let me preview them before the jump, though:
Common: What do you get when you take one of Black's most iconic cards in the entire game and make it Red?
Uncommon: An old Red creature card becomes an updated new White card. It involves Eggs.
Rare: Ehh...I think I'll split this creature's abilities up a bit.
Mythic Rare: It seems to be Black's Baneslayer Angel...but it can't fight the Angel herself??
Find out the answers to these clues...after the jump!
(Almost all pics come from http://dailymtg.com, either from articles or the visual spoiler; Rukh Egg comes from magiccards.info)
For the first clue! What do you get when you combine one of Black's most iconic cards with the Red color?
Answer: You get a more expensive Dark Ritual.
Introducing Red's newest Ritual (and now properly called a "ritual")...Pyretic Ritual!
For those running Red in some kind of an Eldrazi Ramp deck, you may want this. Sure, it's 2 mana to cast, but it also nets you 1 extra mana! This is basically the mana Brood Birthing could give you in a dedicated Eldrazi Spawn build...or you could combine the two! And outside of Standard, you have Storm combo available in Extended for another few months. If you like mana ramping outside of Green, Pyretic Ritual might have done the trick for you.
For our Uncommon, I said it was based on an old Red creature. I also gave you the extra hint of it involving eggs.
Remember Rukh Egg? I'm sure it's been a while, so I'll let you see it first:
NOW...let me introduce you to the modern version, another new M11 card...ROC EGG!
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Wall decks will love this! Not only does it help toward the Defender count for stuff like Vent Sentinel, but if your opponent wants it dead they'll have to immediately deal with a Defender player who can attack for 3 at will.
For non-Defender decks, this is like buying 2 creatures for 3 mana: The first is a 0/3 defender against early threats, and the later is a 3/3 flier after your defender did its job of taking a key piece of removal or died in battle.
The only problem for Roc Egg is "exile" cards. Path to Exile, Oblivion Ring, Swords to Plowshares, etc. will screw this card over. But then again, that's just another piece of removal it ate so your Deathless Angel or didn't have to, right?
We're halfway there! For our Rare, I said I'd split its abilities into pieces. Well, that's kinda what's happening with this new Green rare...Mitotic Slime!
Okay, so you're at 4 life and you block my only attacker, Mitotic Slime. You kill it. Congrats! Now you have 2 threats to deal with on the next turn.
Okay, so you deal with one of those 2/2's. Congrats again! You now have 2 1/1's to deal with next turn.
Okay, so you got Day of Judgment after that. Congrats yet again! I get 2 more 1/1's from the 2/2 you didn't destroy last turn.
Give yet? ha ha!
And yes, "mitotic" is a word. It's the adjective form of "mitosis", a part of cell division.
Do I sense a resurgence in big-time token decks, especially when you get them for practically nothing? You get a creature straight out, then it makes at most 6 tokens. Not a bad way of paying for Eldrazi Monument or similar upkeep costs.
Finally, we have what may rival Baneslayer Angel and Abyssal Persecutor for "bang for your buck" flier and "cheap-o flier for what you get"...Demon at Death's Gate!
So if you don't have tokens, what do you do? Just go with the cheapest Black creatures you can find. In casual, that may not be a problem. What will be is if you're the conservative type who don't like to lose life easily. Your solution? Just dump it and recur it with anything from Animate Dead to Rise from the Grave. Hey, a 9/9 flying trampler is nothing to sneeze at! Casually-speaking, I can see this seeing some play as a big Black answer to fliers and a game winner. In tournaments, I could see it in a Suicide Black combined with Bitterblossom and/or good cheap Black creatures, but maybe only as a 1-of. The lack of any kind of protection will hurt it on the pro level, that's for sure: For all the risk/mana, you want some kind of assurance the creature/spell you just cast won't be countered or removed easily.
That's all I have time for right now! Check back in a few days when I'll do another "all rarities" rundown. Until then, take care!
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