Tag Archives: Card Previews

RNA Card Preview: Spawn of Mayhem

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It is happening, Rakdos aggro is back. With this card preview, they really have been pushing the Spectacle mechanic to be a huge advantage on its cards. On this blog postcard preview, we will feature a solid three-drop with a Spectacle enabler is just very relevant when you are going into this deck strategy.

Check out Spawn of Mayhem.

Ok so it is basically a 4/4 for four but the bonus Spectacle cost makes it into the three-drop slot. The mana cost is an advantage because it can dodge cards like Ritual of Soot and Vraska, Golgari Queen. The 4/4 body also makes it out of range to Deafening Clarion, a card that mostly destroys aggro decks in the current metagame. Its 10-life-less pump trigger may also help to finish off opponents faster and you can achieve it faster with cards like Arguel’s Blood Fast, losing life while still gaining card advantage.

Seeing the card’s potential in Modern, the Spectacle cost be achieved a lot with the frequent life loss trigger due to the fetch lands and shocklands.

I might be excited to come up with a decklist for Rakdos in Standard but for now, I will just wait until the complete Ravnical Allegiance spoilers are up. We may have more ‘tools’ to work with.




RNA Card Feature: Gruul Spellbreaker

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Wizards have finally previewed the guild mechanic for Gruul and they named it, Riot. The ability on creatures lets you choose to have a +1/+1 counter placed on it as it enters the battlefield or to have it gain Haste until the end of turn. One card, in particular, that was featured was Gruul Spellbreaker.

See the video below.

This card reminded me of Fanatic of Xenagos from Born of the Gods though, on this version, you get to choose the mode. The 4/4 Trampler for three mana is already overly solid but the bonus of Hexproof on your turn makes it on a superb rating. This creature can basically stop Settle the Wreckage for good as long as it remains on the battlefield.

This also puts Gruul aggro as a potential Tier 1 deck in Ravnica Allegiance Standard. Given that we have Llanowar Elves to Ramp the spellbreaker early which can also protect the Green powerhouse Carnage Tyrant from the settle shenanigans. The guild can also utilize the Explore creature cards from the current Golgari decks.

The other deck option would be a Jund Aggro deck as I saw the archetype in Return to Ravnica Standard. With the two shocklands reprinted in Ravnica Allegiance, it will just be easy to curve out the creatures into this efficient three-drop.

I won’t show some decklist just yet as we needed more card spoilers from the upcoming set but one thing I am sure is that this will be metagame relevant for the upcoming months.