Happy Monday, TechRaptor readers and fellow Magic: The Gathering fans! Today marks the first day of the official spoiler season, and we have some very interesting cards to share with you, courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.
The following cards were all spoiled in Wizards of the Coast employee Matt Tabak's article detailing the new mechanics in Eldritch Moon, Escalate, Emerge and Meld - the latter of which TechRaptor covered yesterday. Previously spoiled cards, such as Emrakul, the Promised One, will not be featured in this article.
First and foremost, the video detailing how the Meld mechanic works confirms the two cards that were leaked yesterday by reddit user leakyfaucets123, Graf Rats and Midnight Scavengers. These two cards Meld together into Chittering Host.
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Graf Rats and Midnight Scavengers Meld into Chittering Host at the beginning of the combat step for the player that controls them.
The big takeaway for Melded cards is that on the battlefield, it is treated as one card, but if it gets sent to the graveyard it reverts to its Meld components. So "Chittering Host" wouldn't be a legal target for cards that interact with the graveyard, but "Graf Rats" and "Midnight Scavengers" are. Similarly, if Chittering Host is returned to your hand from the battlefield, both Graf Rats and Midnight Scavengers are returned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h59AWdzMznc Another Meld card that the Wizards of the Coast article deals with is Hanweir, the Writhing Township. While the Meld card was spoiled last week, the components for it weren't known until today. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast, we now know the components for Hanweir, the Writhing Township one of which is Hanweir Battlements.
Unlike the other Meld cards that will be present in Eldritch Moon, the Meld trigger requires an activation cost of two red mana, and three generic mana (a total of five mana), and of course the presence of the other Meld component, Hanweir Garrison.
An interesting interaction between Hanweir Battlements and Hanweir Garrison is that if a player has the mana to spare, they can pay one red mana and tap Hanweir Battlements to give Hanweir Garrison Haste, allowing players to immediately get the 1/1 red Human creature tokens.
Our next spoiled card is a white Instant-speed Flicker called Long Road Home, which exiles target creature and returns it at the beginning of the next end step with a +1/+1 counter on it. This is a good way to avoid an opponent's removal or burn spells, and pump your creature at the same time.
Finally, the last card from the Meld mechanic video is Cemetery Recruitment, a Sorcery which returns target creature from the graveyard to a player's hand. If that card was a Zombie, then the player also gets to draw a card.
While this card makes an appearance in the Meld mechanic video, it doesn't receive any special notice or acknowledgement, which leads me to believe that it will receive an official spoiling later in the future.
The next new mechanic, Emerge, only has one card spoiled for it so far. Wretched Gryff, seen below, is an Eldrazi Hippogriff with a normal casting cost of seven mana, but can be cast with its Emerge cost if another creature is sacrificed.
The converted mana cost of the sacrificed creature will be subtracted from the Emerge cost of the creature that's being cast. So if a creature with a converted mana cost of four was sacrificed, then Wretched Gryff can be cast for one generic mana and one blue mana. This only affects the generic mana part of the Emerge cost; players will always have to pay one blue mana, regardless of the converted mana cost of the sacrificed creature. The other Hippogriff that was spoiled was the vanilla creature Dawn Gryff. It has no interesting abilities or features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31H-eWpGzCE Eldritch Moon's last new mechanic, Escalate, has a couple of cards that were spoiled in this article from Wizards of the Coast, the first of which is the Instant-speed Borrowed Malevolence.
Players can pay one black to only chose one of the modes, or pay an additional two generic mana to chose the other mode as well. In his article, Tabak says that not every Escalate card will have only two modes, meaning more mana will be required to use all of the modes on that card - as seen with the other card featuring Escalate, Blessed Alliance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcg3XwPNJ7c Eldritch Moon will also feature the Shadows Over Innistrad mechanics Madness and Delirium; spoiled cards for today with those mechanics are Chilling Grasp and Gnarlwood Dryad, respectively. Additionally, traditional double-faced cards will return as seen with Crypotlith Fragment and it's flip side Aurora of Emrakul.
Our next set of spoilers comes to us from Elaine Chase, who is a Senior Director for Global Brand Strategy and Marketing for Magic: The Gathering. Her first spoiler is the English version of the Buy a Box Promotional Thalia, Heretic Cathar that was leaked last week. This confirms the translation that was done by mtgsalvation poster AlexTouchdown. Chase has also spoiled the non-promotional version that players will be able to find in booster packs.
In addition, Chase introduces players to Thalia's Lancers, which tutors for a Legendary card when it enters the battlefield (such as Thalia, Heretic Cathar).
There is also additional confirmation from the official Wizards of the Coast tumblr page for a card that was spoiled last week. The card was reported as "Identity Supplanter", thanks to a translation by mtgsalvation user flappy, but will be called "Identity Thief" in the English language printing.
Aaron Forsythe, the head of Magic: The Gathering's Research and Development Team, also had a card to reveal today; Unsubstantiate is what he describes as "part Unsummon, part Remand".
Unsubstantiate will also be the Eldritch Moon Game Day participation promotional card, according to Forsythe.
Our final spoiler for the day - and the third and final Meld pair to be featured in Eldritch Moon - comes to us from today's Access Magic episode. In last week's Magic Story, readers witness the fusion of two of the angels of Innistrad, Bruna and Gisela, into an eldritch monstrosity due to the presence of Emrakul. Players will have the opportunity to do this themselves in gameplay, with Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Blade.
When the conditions for Melding are met, Bruna and Gisela combine to form the monstrous Brisela, Voice of Nightmares.
Not only does Brisela have massive power and toughness, but she also has Flying, First Strike, Vigilance, Lifelink, and your opponent will be unable to cast any spells that have a converted mana cost of three or less so long as she's on the battlefield.
Stay tuned to TechRaptor for continuing coverage of Eldritch Moon spoilers and all things Magic: The Gathering.
What are your thoughts on today's spoilers? Do you see anything you would be interested in playing in Limited or Constructed formats? Let us know in the comment section below!