I have not yet fully pondered on the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths set because of the current COVID19 pandemic and here I am seeing previews of the upcoming Magic: the Gathering M21 Core Set. I realized that it already past three months since that release and I was not able to fully utilize the card on a local setting. It was also due to me not playing Magic Arena that I got out of touch of the metagame and the deck though I still check and read on the recent tournament results online in both Arena and MTGO.  

Anyhow, since some of the card spoilers are already appearing in various social media websites, we might as well discuss them and again see their potential in the Standard format (which I drifted away from recently). The mothership site states that the official Coreset 2021 previews starts June 5th and so we follow.

We start with the Red Enchantment card, Double Vision. This is a card preview I found on the Reddit Magic TCG thread.

This is pretty basic card in a deck build, probably Blue and Red, and with a lot of instants and sorcery spells. I mean, alot. That is like only having this enchantment, along with a Bomb creature such as Niv Mizzet and then the rest are card draws and burn spells. It is sort of win-more effect due to the mana cost which is usually pretty late but given that it can power up your damage spells while not easy to deal with itself, I am pretty sure it can be considered.

Next up is Sparkhunter Masticore:

Masticore creatures are usually consistent of their drawbacks of discarding a card every turn, but you do get the full benefit each time. On this recent version, that drawback is only one-time and we have one that has protection from planeswalkers meaning Teferi can’t bounce it, or Oko turning it into a mindless neutral Elk.

For the three mana cost, it is quite decent though I’d suggest you won’t rush it early on due to the drawback which can force you to discard another precious spells only to lose it to a cheap spot removal. Playing it late game also means that you have the mana sink option of making it indestructible or pinging your opponents’ planeswalkers to death.

We proceed to the next one, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

Welcoming him back in Standard after a long while seems to give me flashbacks when I used him in my Dimir Control deck back in Khans of Tarkir Standard. He will surely again play a definite role in the metagame given the ramp strategy archetype of one of the top decks on the format.

The fourth card preview is Grim Tutor, which is an awesome of a card way back in the Portal days of Magic.

The 3 life loss is not that crucial in a metagame of half-composed of midrange decks i.e. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath negating it. Sultai and Esper might get this utility card to search for specific answers to their opponents’ threats or layout a threat of their own.

Last but not the least for this batch is Liliana, Waker of the Dead.

At first look, it is Liliana of the Viel’s older sister version but minus the edict effect and instead kills opponents’ creatures based on the number of cards in your graveyard. At the least, the lose 3 life is crucial if you get to top deck her late game. Its build will probably in a Dimir Midrange Control deck that has discard spells and spot removals that can fill the graveyard after use. The emblem would probably be a bonus in the late game to be able to ‘reanimate’ creatures from the opponent’s yard into your control and aggro them.

It is a wrap for this first batch for now and until the next blog post. Enjoy the Core Set 2021 previews!