It’s that time of year once again when WotC try and tempt new and returning players to the game with the promise of free MtG decks, and promo cards.

Ok the promo card part has changed. They have gone and are now replaced with the new Promo Packs. I can’t see anyone getting a whole Promo Pack for attending a Welcome event. We are more likely going to see one or two of these opened up and the cards inside given out individually as a promo for attending.

Apparently this is better!

I do believe that your FLGS will also be able to sell the 5 new Planeswalker decks this weekend as well. Which makes sense for new players, who have just learnt to play and want to buy a deck. They are fine for casual play. But I wouldn’t use one in FNM or Not Standard Showdown. The deck wouldn’t be competitive enough. I’d be looking at the new Challenger decks for that.

Anyway I know my FLGS The Hobbit Hole will be holding their Core Set 2020 Open House this Saturday. Also at mid day they will be holding a Not Standard Showdown event as well.

So here it is the post you have all been dreading.

I should give some sort of disclaimer for this post. It’s not as if I know what I’m talking about. As the title of this post says, these are cards I like, and in one or two cases may be a little unsure about. They are definitely cards I can see going into my decks, or building decks around.

I’m starting off with the card that I just love the art on. I think everyone is talking about the card just on the art alone. Ferocious Pup. Beautiful, beautiful art. Great flavour text. 0/1 isn’t amazing. But with a card later on it gets a buff, plus you get a 2/2 wolf token (which would also get that boost). If this cards art is not on a playmat then all those companies that sell official MtG playmats are fools. I want this as a playmat.

It seems the poster child for Core Set 2020 is Chandra. I like Chandra. So I’m down with that. But we are getting 3 Chandra Planeswalkers in this this set. There is a strong elemental tribal theme to this set. Or that’s the impression I am getting. Which might be something I explore for Showdown.

There are one or two cards in Core Set that are linked with Chandra. I like the Regulator. Doubling Awakening Inferno’s +2 ability seems broken. Two of them emblems a turn. Ouch! I like the Embercat, a 2/2 for 2. Pretty standard, but having it give mana that can get a Chandra or Elemental out early is nice. Scheming Symmetry, I like this card a lot. It’s obviously aimed at Commander players. The politics this will enable at the table. This may just find a home in all my decks that have black in them.

Thought Distortion, the card that every blue and red deck will come to fear. All those counter spells, card draws, lightning bolts etc sitting in the graveyard. All those cards that allow you to play them again from the graveyard, gone. I like this. Flame Sweep is a card that screams adding to my dragon tribal deck. It’s a token spam board wipe basically. Unless they have been buffed. The flavour text is great too. I imagine that quote wouldn’t have been out of place in A Game of Thrones. Dragon Mage I like for my dragon commander deck also. Not cheap, 7 CMC for a 5/5 flyer. But I think it could be irritating as heck with people having to discard and draw all the time. It shouldn’t be hard to the damage through.

Three contenders for my mono white angel deck.

Ok here is the deadline for the set, Leylines are back! This will hopefully push the price down. My Standard deck would love a playset of Leyline of Sanctity in it. Actually with the new London Mulligan rule kicking in with this set, might be able to get away with less. But shutting down burn decks, YES! Add Leyline of Anticipation to the deck for the flash ability to everything. It’s going to be so interesting to see how these impact the meta.

Bishop of Wings, I like for my angel deck. Not an angel granted. But it gives me a benefit for playing angels.

More recruits for my mono red goblin deck. Destructive Digger and Treasure Nabber out at the same time, I’m calling shenanigans. I just love the idea of sacrificing an opponents artifact to help pay for drawing a card. I can imagine their face as it’s done. It also means that threat unless they can stop the combo will slow them down. Reckless Air Strike has a goblin on it, so it qualifies for the deck just like Goatnap did from Modern Horizons. Goblin Bird-Grabber love the art with the goblin hanging on for dear life on the leg of some giant flying creature.

There are a handful of dinosaurs in Core Set 2020. Thrashing Brontodon is reprinted (and not included here). But these new ones I like. Amazing art on Rotting Regisaaur, and a 3CMC for a 7/6 – wot?!!!!! That’s broken. Or is it? It does mean at the start of your upkeep you have to discard a card. Is that a big enough draw back to stop this? I’m not sure. And once again the flavour text. Marauding Raptor is another I like the flavour text on. It’s also the first part of an infinite loop! Team this up with Polyraptor (that is strangely out of stock in a lot of places at the mo) and you go infinite forcing a draw. Unless you can break out of the loop at instant speed. If you have that then things get very silly indeed. It’s definitely going in my dino tribal deck. It reduces the cost of dinos for starters! Be prepared if you are a MtG Arena player seeing one of the two cards in this combo banned. Shifting Ceratops is greens answer to blue control. Is it better than the out going Carnage Tyrant? Close call I think.

Ancestral Blade is going into my token spam deck. Gives me a token and buffs it. That middle green card below, yeah the 8/7 for 6 CMC is Gargos, Vicious Warden. The translation of the card text says it’s a Legendary Creature – Hydra, with Vigilance, and Hydra spells you cast cost 4 less. Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell, Gargos, Vicious Warden fights up to one target creature you don’t control. Obviously this card is going in my big green stompy deck. That has one or two hydras in it. Villis is a demon that would fit nicely in a demon deck or the Kaalia of the Vast Commander deck that I have.

Lotus Field will be a Commander staple. It also fits in nicely with Lord Windgrace decks, Muldrotha and cards that allow you to play lands from the graveyard. The middle card is Icon of Ancestry. It’s a tribal card, because you chose a creature type when it enters the battlefield. It gives creatures of that type +1/+1. Then for 3 mana you can tap it, look at the top 3 cards, reveal a creature of the type chosen and put it in your hand. The remaining cards go on the bottom of the library. I think this is a nice tribal card that gives that buff, and allows you to find a creature card. Steel Overseer is going to go into my planned artifact deck.

Especially when it gets combined with Manifold Key. Nightpack Ambusher I like, and it turns that cute little pup into a 1/2. Plus if you don’t cast a spell you get a 2/2 wolf token. Woodland Champion is going into my token spam deck, plus my elf deck. This has the potential to get huge in those decks.

Raise the alarm is also another candidate for the token spam deck. Vampire of the Dire Moon I like for an aggro deck that splashes black. Which I have been known to build. I’ve only included one as an example but scry lands are back.

I can see this Sorin Planeswalker doing very nicely in the Edgar Markov commander deck. Yarok is a nice card for a deck I plan to build that abuses ETB effects. Mu Yanling, hello super friends. Her ultimate is insane. It’s nice her +2 takes care of a flyer so you can block it with a none flying creature.

I like Season of Growth. Not sure how playable it is though. Legion’s End that is just mass token removal for 2 CMC. Dungeon Geists I love it’s ability to lock down a creature.

Pulse of Murasa I like, life gain and get a card back from the graveyard. Kaalia, Zenith Seeker is going to allow you to get that perfect card to use with Kaalia of the Vast. I want to like Golos but I’m not sure.

Rule of Law obviously a candidate for my Death and Taxes deck. Voracious Hydra naturally Big Green Stompy. But this with something like doubling season out could be insanely big. Veil of Summer I think could be a powerful card in the right circumstances.

And that folks is all he wrote about the spoilers for Core Set 2020. What cards did you like from the spoilers?

If you are into MtG then you can’t have failed to notice since yesterday cards have been appearing from the soon to be released Core set 2020.

Last week there were the 3 Chandra plainswalker cards spoilt. But this week is full blown spoiler season for the set.

It’s only a week long this time, so I’ll do my post with cards that I like the look of at the end of it.

A heads up there are some sweet sweet cards being reprinted. I can’t wait to talk about the ones that caught my eye.

I have target bought some cards from Modern Horizons. Mostly ninjas and some mono red goblins (the black goblins are no use to me). It’s the cheapest option. I haven’t gone after any of those full art snow covered lands. They are expense.

The dust has hardly settled on War of the Spark (ok it’s been a couple of weeks since it officially came out) and we are now getting Modern Horizons spoilers.

For those that don’t know or need a reminder, Modern Horizons is a stand alone set that is targeted at Modern players with reprints and new cards. The cards in this set are not legal in Standard. But formats like Commander, the new hotness Oathbreaker, and naturally Modern they are.

I normally avoid these Modern sets. I don’t play Modern. My normal practice when these sets come out is keep an eye out for singles that I like the look of, and target buy them (if the price is one I consider reasonable).

So what you have here in this post is a handful of the cards that have caught my eye, and I’ve thought “oh wow, that is definitely going into deck …”. This isn’t a comprehensive list, it’s most definitely not authoritative or pretending I know what I’m talking about. It’s also based on only those cards that had been spoiled up to 24 hours before posting this blog post. So your mileage may vary with this post. And yes that is a long worded disclaimer for basically saying I don’t know what I’m talking about.

They have brought back snow lands in this set. And they have given them the full art treatment. As you can see below they look amazing. Full art lands are always a big hit with the players, and they do shoot up in price pretty quickly. These will be no different I can assure you. In fact that snow-covered word may make them even costlier to get. Naturally there are also some cards in this set that get abilities etc triggered or stats pumped depending on if you have these lands in play or not.

There looks to be possibly a ‘Force of …’ cycle in this set. I think Force of Negation is the buy-a-box promo. I like the look of these two so far. Can see them going into appropriate decks.

We have a new tribal commander! Morophon, the Boundless. Very useful for a five colour deck, or creating a tribal deck around a creature type that doesn’t have a legendary creature or if they do a poor one. I might try Morophon with a couple of decks. For instance I may build a version of the zombie deck that brings in some of the white zombie cards. Yes I’m feeling 2 versions of the zombie deck now. With the new one making use of cards mono black doesn’t have access to like doubling season!

I like Munitions Expert. In my mono red goblins deck that could be a lot of damage being dealt out. Sadly it’s multi coloured. So it can’t be used there. Unless I use a certain new tribal commander! But to be honest I’m reluctant to do that with the goblin deck because Krenko is so powerful. I might try it one time.

These next 2 goblin cards are going straight into my mono red goblin deck. I’m think Serra might go in my angel deck and the Trostani token spam.

Prismatic Vista (below) is going to be in every multi coloured Commander deck. A fetch land that can fetch any basic land?

Deep Forest Hermit will not be in my elf deck. But Trostani possibly. But also I like the idea of this in an Atraxa deck, with proliferate this card can be around for longer than 3 turns. Beef it up also with some +1/+1 counters.

I’ve included just one in the image below to illustrate the point but the non basic land cycle for Modern Horizons is Pain Lands. They all have the same pay 1 and sacrifice to draw a card ability also.

Ok that’s my spoiler post for Modern Horizons.