Zendikar Rising Previews Begin

So the Zendikar Rising previews have officially started last Monday and there is a whole lot of information circling the net regarding this upcoming Magic: the Gathering set. I have a few hints read at the Magic TCG Reddit thread and also a few tweets on Twitter. I don’t know where to start but I’d prefer to be with just a bunch of new cards with potential for Standard gameplay.

We have first, this interesting Legendary Izzet Human Wizard Kaza, Roil Chaser.

Zendikar Rising introduced a new mechanic called Party and a part of it is the Wizard creature type. While there is a possibility of a tribal Wizard deck to enforce Kaza’s tap ability, its use I think would still be minimal and also situational. At the least, it is a hasty two-drop that can pick off early damage to opponents and later on cheapens your big spells.

Next up, Brushfire Elemental.

Reminds me of the Plated Geopede that got an upgrade. While most of the support for the Gruul guild is rotating out of the Standard format once Zendikar Rising enters the ‘battlefield’, I am still on high hopes that the deck archetype will shift to the landfall aggro strategy and this dude will be part of it. It might be not that powerful as before because of the absence of fetchlands but Fabled Passage will do.  

3rd is Pelakka Predation.

What is interesting about these double-faced cards into lands is that they somewhat tempt you to just go play all cards with this mechanic and go zero basic lands. It has a few drawbacks, yes, but the benefit of having these spells in the late game greatly lessen that chance of topdecking blanks.  Pelakka Predation is basically a conditional Coercion but gets you the needed Black mana on your early turns.

I am wrapping this post for now with the feeling of information overload on Zendikar Rising and other news of upcoming sets from the Mothership website. You can check on their Daily MTG feature and also for other non-official card reveals, you have Reddit and Twitter.

Until next time.