Its time for Alchemy: Aetherdrift! How exciting is that: a boatload - or I guess a carload - of new cards are joining the format at Max Speed and Team Gladiator is gonna make sure they’re in the running.We’ve got two preview cards, courtesy of Wizards of the Coast!
First up, we’ve got a Squid Pirate - already two points in my book. But what does Sala’s effect actually mean for our format? Currently it does not actually amount to much - but this is a card you’re really going to have to keep tabs on, because exhaust is very clearly an ability designed to be reused. If we get even another set’s worth of cards with exhaust, you could see Sala cleaning house by doubling up activated abilities that raise hell - and also just giving most of your team haste if they don’t have it already. I’m looking at you, Afterburner Expert. Plus, who knows - maybe even just with the cards we have now (and any other possible cards with exhaust incoming with YDFT) there could be a shell there worth exploring. Otherwise I would say that Sala isn’t going to be showing up in your bread and butter Jeskai Midrange list.
Now onto our second preview on the road.
First off, just gotta say, this is our first piece done by John Tedrick in Magic - but it is a beautiful piece of art on a wonderful card. In case you don’t remember Alchemy: Baldur’s Gate, our flying dinosaur here has the ability Double Team - which means the first time it attacks, you conjure a duplicate of the card into your hand and then both copies perpetually loses the ability double team. So in short, this is a once per turn Blood Artist that draws another Blood Artist, while also attacking for 2 in the skies. In this way it is also rather comparable to Vraan, Executioner Thane - but notably this Terror triggers off of itself! Our aristocrats players in the format know how utterly important that is. I’m pretty confident this one is going to be hanging with the best of them for a good while, and who knows, maybe a deck like Threeanimator picks this card up even when it isn’t playing the Blood Artists just because it’s two in one card.
Thank you again to Wizards of the Coast for these two preview cards - make sure to check out the update on Arena on March 4th and get to gaming with these new cards. See you all in the Arena!