Well starting next week is the spoiler season for the new Magic expansion titled Innistrad. This is one of the most excited times in the Magic calender as we are seeing the debut of a new plane. A new world for us to experience, flavour to marvel at, and new mechanics to wonder about.
So far it has been revealed to us that INN is a gothic horror themed set, revolving around the classical horror tropes such as werewolves, zombies, geists, vampire and the ever belligerent humans. Each has been given a colour duo which is as follows
Werewolves: Red/Green
Humans: Green/White
Spirits: White/Blue
Zombies: Blue/Black
Vampires: Black/Red
We have seen in the past were creatures such as Werebear with the were prefix, which are classified as human wolves. It seems now wizards are going with werewolf as a creature type this time around which means that we may see some errata to the older werewolf creatures. Zombies and Vampires have also appear in the colour combinations before. As a fan of gothic horror novels, I like the flavour of this set, and the direction that Wizards are going with this set.
Since the set was announce, there has been speculation about a day and night mechanic because of course the abominations only come out at night. There has been nothing until today to suggest as actually mechanic. Behold, the Mayor of Avabruck.
If you care to take a look at the top left hand side of the card there is depicted a moon, and a sun. This would then indicate a day and night mechanic. Now, how this is depicted in the cards is still under question, but many on the rumour mill and speculation forums on mtgsalvation.com believe the back of the card to have the Howlpack alpha on it.
N.B: The text on the Howlpack alpha has also been spoiled as follows
Other Wolves and Were wolves you control get +?/+?
At the beginning of your upkeep put a 2/2 wolf onto the battlefield
At the beginning of an end step if 2 or more spells have been cast do X
If you look closely at the card, especially at the collector number. It has an "a" and a "b" next to the number. This, much in a similar fashion to the zendikar lands had an A and B. The A was the full art version of the B land which was printed in the pre-con decks. Printing an extra couple of cards and putting them in the packs with their respective cards isn't going to work, it makes packs bigger and gives away draft strategies.
This a strange new world we are adventuring into, and one can only hope that the mechanic has been well thought out and plays well in draft and constructed
Well, that is all for today. Look out for more posts about spoilers, as this weekend is the Penny Arcade Expo and there is going to be a Innistrad spoiler party and last year they introduced us to the infect mechanic and the fact the Phyrexians were going to be back in Scars of Mirrodin, so there should be some exciting developments over the weekend going into the official spoiler season.
Till next time
It seems to me that the mayors text will be something like 'At night, exile Mayor of Averbuck and replace him with a Wolfpack Alpha Token with [wolfpack alpha rules] at day exile the Wolfpack Alpha token and return Mayor of Averbuck to play'
ReplyDeleteSince the Wolf has no CC i would assume it is a token