Magic: The Gathering Head Designer Mark Rosewater has shared a new sneak peek at the latest set. The Tarkir: Dragonstorm teaser contains a glimpse at creatures, text, and mechanics found in the upcoming set, allowing fans to speculate on potential combos and synergies.
The Tarkir: Dragonstorm Teaser
As usual, the Tarkir: Dragonstorm teaser was dropped on Mark Rosewater's official Tumblr page. Like all prior teasers like Unfinity or The Brothers' War, Rosewater's teaser only provides small bits of information. No full explanations or names are given away here.
The first part of Rosewater's tease contains the following quotes:
- A cycle of Dragonstorm enchantments
- Two planeswalkers
- Some counters in the set: decayed, lifelink, and time
- A card that can tutor for one of two other cards
- A legendary enchantment
- A Hydra that uses a clan keyword
- A common archetype theme gets an ability word
- An instant the generates five effects
- Dragons get a new typal enchantment based on a popular Zombie one
- A new instant and sorcery subtype
The first part of the Tarkir: Dragonstorm teaser has some intriguing tidbits. First, this set will be getting two new Planeswalkers. Usually, a new set only contains one. New instant and sorcery subtypes are rare additions, which is gripping.
In addition, the reintroduction of decayed tokens are fascinating since they're usually seen on zombies from the Innistrad set. Time was used in a similar context in the Doctor Who Commander decks.
The second part of the Tarkir: Dragonstorm teaser are bits of rule text. They are as follows:
- “Whenever you cast a Turtle spell, untap this creature.”
- “As long as there are three or more different kinds of counters among creatures you control,”
- “You may cast it without paying its mana cost if that spell’s mana value is 8 or less.”
- “If you put +1/+1 counters on five Dragons this way, you win the game.”
- “Whenever a creature you control enters, if you cast it, destroy that creature”
- “At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you’ve case both a creature spell and a noncreature spell this turn,”
- “Then if creatures you control have total toughness 20 or greater,”
- “During your end step, Warrior tokens you control have ‘This token can’t be sacrificed.’”
- “Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may search your library for a card named <CARDNAME>, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.”
- “Spells you cast have delve.”
The rules text holds a lot of gripping possibilities. First, there is the introduction of a new alternative win condition. Second is the return of the Delve mechanic, which allows you to reduce the cost of cards by exiling cards from your graveyard.
The last part of the Tarkir: Dragonstorm teaser are a list of creature types and card names. They are as follows:
- Creature – Dog Monk
- Creature – Elephant Druid
- Creature – Yeti
- Creature – Djinn Cleric
- Creature – Zombie Advisor
- Creature – Kirin
- Creature – Snake Shapeshifter
- Artifact Creature – Chimera
- Artifact Creature – Ape Snake
- Legendary Creature – Zombie Snake Warlock
- All-Out Assault
- Cruel Truths
- Desperate Measures
- Dragonologist
- Hundred-Battle Veteran
- Lightfoot Technique
- Rescue Leopard
- Seize Opportunity
- Stillness in Motion
- War Effort
This may be the lightest in terms of gameplay or lore implications, but the text is evocative and imaginative. Zombie Advisor and Zombie Snake Warlock stand out considerably. The name Dragonologist also makes sense given the new set's focus on dragons.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm releases worldwide on March 18, 2025.
