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Fate Reforged Spoiler – 1/1/15

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Sorcerer of the Hunt

Creature - Orc Shaman
Haste

Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

Ferocious - 2[G/U][G/U]: Draw a card for each creature with power 4 or greater you control.

Not bad, not bad at all. This confirms that we're getting two cycles of creatures with khan-colored activations, one at mythic and one at rare. Jamming this with a board full of goblin tokens that grow with each hit is solid. This trading with Courser of Kruphix isn't ideal and wasting a turn burning a 2-power blocker out of the way isn't that great. Still, this can go nuts and having a 4/2 Treasure Trove in Gruul colors could be useful. All in all, I think this is a bit of a win-more and its 2 toughness is likely too much of a liability to see play in Standard, at least until Courser rotates.

Monastery Mentor

HYYYYYPE.

Look, we made a better Young Pyromancer. Think it will see play?

This is a $100 playset on eBay right now. That may hold. Could it go up from there? I hope not! I think there is enough in the set that makes packs worth buying that we're not seeing another Voice of Resurgence. I think this card is as good as it looks, and it may take so long for it to go below $25 that it may not even end up being worth it to wait. This card seems like the real deal and has people brewing like mad. Whether or not they end up being right about how good it is doesn't really matter - it's too expensive to preorder in all likelihood unless you want it to play with.

Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest

People tend to overvalue the cards they spoil. Why do I bring this up?

I spoiled this card

I think this is likely to be a good EDH general, and the EDH subreddit backs me up. I have also brewed a bit in Modern, coming up with Magic Christmasland scenarios where you can kill them with Ignoble Hierarch and Mutagenic Growth in Modern. I don't think that's going to happen much.

I really like this card. I have thought of every best case scenario for this card. I have been brewing with it for 2 weeks because I got to see it early. No one is likely to be more hyped about this card than I am.

That said, this is a $12 playset on eBay and when I saw that, I said "I dunno....three dollars?" So there you have it. The guy who loves this card more than anyone on earth balked at $3.

Monastery Siege

This seems so... fair. The green one gives Omnath, Locus of Mana players boners that last for longer than 48 hours. The red one makes Prossh, Skyraider of Kher players visions of murdering people with Goblin Bombardment. This seems... really fair.

Fair isn't bad, necessarily. I think this is good enough to likely be worth the same price as the other Sieges, +/- $1. Frost armor for every permanent can get there, or at least make their life inconvenient. Looting on your draw step is fine. All in all, I am pretty excited about this cycle, although this one seems like the one least likely to have either mode playable in Limited.

Daghatar the Adamant

Every cycle has to have a "worst card" in it, and I think we found the worst one in the non-mythic cycle.

If this is your commander, I guess you can deplete all of the counters and rebuy him out of the command zo... come on, that's terrible. This guy is terrible. It's cool that he has a Giant Fan ability, but he's not in the colors that want to do that. Simic likes creatures that do this, but EDH isn't set up to benefit from this ability, and a 4/4 for 4 that moves counters for 3 mana may not be good enough to get there. He doesn't create a counter, after all, he merely moves them, usually requiring that you shrink him to do it. I'm bearish as all hell. Abzan is one of the best decks in Standard, but that's because we have Theros block cards and Siege Rhino, not because we have time for slow, durdly counter shenanigans. Ain't nobody got time for Daghatar the Adamant.

Torrent Elemental

4U
Creature - Elemental
Flying

Whenever Torrent Elemental attacks, tap all creatures defending player controls.

3[B/G][B/G]: Return Torrent Elemental from exile to the battlefield tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

Infinite mana with Food Chain, I guess. Maybe Food Chain will spike to $50.

Just kidding, you don't cast it from exile so you can't use Food Chain Mana, so the card is worse than I initially thought.

I don't know if I want this at mythic. This is just a narrower Misthollow Griffin and while this has two more toughness, I don't know if it's better. Can we do anything with this ability in Standard? Do we use Misthollow in EDH? Who wants this card?

Crucible of the Spirit Dragon

This isn't as bad as you think it is. That said, it's still not good. Dragon EDH players may want foils of this, but this would be a pretty slow and durdly land even if you could use the mana for anything you wanted instead of just dragons. Dragon EDH players have already expressed interest because ticking this up a few times costs nothing and can set them up to have a lot of extra mana when they want to do something big, but I'm not a huge fan and most people aren't, either. Hollow Trees isn't exactly an EDH staple, after all. I'm with everyone who is disappointed by this card.

13 thoughts on “Fate Reforged Spoiler – 1/1/15

  1. Monastery mentor is very good, but it’s difficult to imagine it holding such a substantial price point. It will be in two, maybe three decks and it doesn’t beat the cards that already exist that are very good against those decks. I don’t see myself not playing the card once it launches, but it’s only good in Standard and even there it’s just additional copies of Rabblemaster, and only in spell-heavy decks. I don’t think anybody is wrong about the playability, but it’s more niche than I think you can justify spending $25 on.

    1. Well put. This set has so much going for it, it would have to be played in 110% of the format to do what Voice of Resurgence did, price-wise. I hope this doesn’t go up from $25

    1. I have talked to a few people who are actually excited about it. I don’t know – would this be exciting even if you could use the mana for anything, not just dragons?

  2. I mostly agree with your reasoning on Daghatar the Adamant, but he’s still a fair vigilant creature, and he does have the ability to steal your opponent’s +1/+1 counters as well. He may be the worst of that cycle, but he’s not completely terrible.

  3. Would Torrent Elemental be a good card for U/B Control? Even if your opponent kills it, you’re a treasure cruise/dig/murderous cut away from using it again. Then again, Pearl Lake Ancient and Prognostic Sphinx have the added benefit of reusing scryland/scrying… but Torrent Elemental seems more kill/accidental mill proof.

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