Card recursions is one of the powerful strategies in Magic, especially in mid to late games where you gain more options and advantage over your opponent by having more gas in hand. For today’s card preview, it reminded me of one card that has faced bans in the older formats, Yawgmoth’s Will. Check out Deliver Unto Evil

The oracle text says: 

Deliver Unto Evil
2B
Sorcery

Choose up to four target cards in your graveyard. If you control a Bolas planeswalker, return those cards to your hand. Otherwise, an opponent chooses two of them. Leave the chosen cards in your graveyard and put the rest into your hand.

Exile Deliver Unto Evil.

The card is an auto addition in Blue Black or Grixis control deck archetypes as it acts like a late game gas to bring back your relevant counter spells and removals and also the Saga cards like The Eldest Reborn. While it can be situational most of the time without a Bolas Planeswalker, having a variance in your spells can still get you the advantage. The only downside is that you can play it only at Sorcery speed.

The one card that you can combo with it is Mastermind’s Acquisition as it can bring back Deliver Unto Evil while can also return the acquisition once you have your Bolas stick in the battlefield.

I am expecting to see Grixis Midrange decks in Standard with the new Nicol Bolas along with its M19 cousin and utilizing this card as a pseudo-card draw option.

Until the next blog post.

I decided to check on the Magic TCG Reddit thread again for a few card speculations for War of the Spark and found one that looked to be quite useful for the older formats. Check out the English text of this preview card, Explosion Zone.

Explosion Zone enters the battlefield with 1 counter

Tap: Add colorless mana

XX, tap: put X counter over explosion zone

3, tap: sacrifice explosion zone: destroy all nonland permanents with converted cost equal to the number of counters on explosion zone.

A built-in boardwipe on a land is already a strong feature of this card, given that it can returned by spells like Life from the Loam for another round. What justifies my statement of this card being useful in older Formats like Modern is that the etb effect of having one counter. That is already enough to deal with relevant early threats such as weenie one-drops of most aggro decks.

Another deck that can benefit to it well is obviously the Tron-based decks as the colorless mana would not matter and paying for the X cost can be handled once they have assembled the trifecta lands.

As for its Standard use, one or two copies for Blue White or Blue Black control decks so it can’t affect the mana base and also to give more option to handle the board while dealing with random artifacts or enchantments.

Overall, the card rating would be around 8/10 as per its use in various formats. That is a wrap, until the next blog post.

As the day draws near for the release of the War of the Spark set, I am excited to see what the Standard format would like. Each archetype category, whether it is aggro, control or midrange, will surely benefit from these new cards. The one in particular that I will present today is a card option for the Dimir or Grixis deck builds. Here is Enter the God-Eternals.

The card is very flavorful in its effect as the return of the four Amonkhet Gods zombified err eternalized by God Pharaoh Nicol Bolas in the storyline. As per card value, the four damage aren’t that of an impact as it only deals with creatures though given that it can create a 4/4 threat and gains you 4 life are the basis to consider it.

Two to three copies are okay for a Dimir tapped out build, meaning you are leaning more on the spot removal strategy and has little counterspell in the deck. For counter-heavy versions, you can have it on the sideboard for aggro matchups.

Overall, it is a good card in my opinion. It is not impactful but may be relevant in certain situations.

Until the next blog post.

One of the mythic cards in the War of the Spark spoiler from the MTG Salvation website is the newest version of the Gideon planeswalker. This time, he got an interesting card name and is back in the three-mana cost slot. See the full card preview of Gideon Blackblade below:

At first look, the card will work well in a White Weenie shell in which on turn three he can provide an extra ability to one of your creatures in your first two turns. That ability most likely will be vigilance since you will be providing a blocker to protect Gideon. Anyhow, he is obviously on an aggressive strategy as he can attack for 4 damage on your succeeding turns. The bonus exile ability is just icing to the cake.

Can he become a staple 4-of in a White Aggro deck? We shall see. I would preferably have at least 3 copies in the deck but then unless there is a spell that can deal with 4 toughness (minus 4) creature planeswalkers then he will just be an easy target. We don’t have the likes of Dismember in Standard at the moment so I think he is still safe.

That is a wrap for this card preview, until the next blog post.

We all know that the Mono Blue Tempo is one of the consistent Standard decks as per the current metagame, not to mention winning the first Mythic Championship. Looking for an additional arsenal of the deck in War of the Spark, I have found one particular card that can be a sideboard option for the heavy-removal matchups. Presenting, Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor.

The static ability gets her protection to tax removals such as Vraska’s Contempt and of course also on your creatures. Her minus ability fits well to my mentioned matchup as she can produce a threat whilst giving you card advantage to be able to dig for your threats or answers. The four mana cost looks already fair for an Uncommon card.

If permits that she may become of the Rare type, I might want to add a +1 loyalty ability that gets you to Scry cards or bounce stuff. For now, she is a solid one copy mainboard and maybe two more copies in the sideboard. We will see how it goes once the set is legal in Standard to play.