The card previews for Magic 2015 Coreset officially started yesterday at the Wizards’ mothership site. Michael Flores’ column revealed the return of Shrapnel Blast and Darksteel Citadel whereas Aaron Forsythe’s feature article was about how R&D built ideas for the set. Their card preview was the red Avatar, Soul of Shandalar, and here it is in its full glory:

The term Shandalar reminded me of that early PC game of Magic the Gathering wherein your character travel to various places to duel personas with the decks and there are ante cards at stake. Anyhow, let us see what would be the impact of this mythic rare creature.

-First, it is a six casting cost 6/6. Seem pretty decent.
-Next, it has First Strike as the 6/6 body is not enough to bump with other critters in the battlefield.
-The activated ability can keep walkers in check (aside from dealing direct damage to the player) with bonus of killing the opponent’s three toughness dudes. This can also serve as a mana dump in the late game. Imagine activating Nykthos with high devotion count on this guy.

Though it does not do some effects coming into the battlefield unlike the Titans, or trigged effects like Ruric Thar or Sire of Insanity, it is still a viable six drop in which a copy or two is enough in the deck. His possible slot would be in ramp decks like Jund Monsters or in Mono Red Devotion.

My overall score (1 to 10 with the latter the highest): 7/10.

Core set cards lately are becoming public friendly as maybe it is Wizards’ method of gaining new fans of the game, and also getting old school players to come back. I am happy that the two Mirrodin cards are to be reprinted and hoping more in the coming days of M15 previews.

I guess that is about it for now. Stay tuned for more M15 card discussions.

Chow.