Lorwyn Previews

New set previews are kind of weird for those of us who are primarily Limited players. Contrary to what this blog would have you believe, that's what the three of us are. Almost all of the previews on the mothership are of rares. Cool? Yes. Splashy? Yes. Flavorful? Yes. Will you be seeing these more than once or twice a month? No. Still, I personally have some strong Timmy tendencies (duh). So seeing the flavor and the cool new toys is a lot of fun for me.

The 800-lb gorilla of Lorwyn block is not named Kird Ape. The new planeswalker card type is going to fundamentally change the way the game is played. You can't afford to just ignore planeswalkers on the table, though aggro might come closest. Even if the only ability that ever gets used is the first (positive loyalty), the repeatable effects without additional mana commitment are pretty freaking strong. I've only seen the red, black and green ones. Each of the +1 abilities seems really, really good. Garruk on turn 3 plus 2 mana seems amazing. Tearing your opponents hand apart also seems good for Lilliana and Chandra Nalaar can flat end games if you can protect her. The plus-abilities aren't game changers by themselves, but
the fact that they are decent in addition to getting their loyalty up to the big effects really seems scary.

Let's look at some other preview cards.

Gaddock Teeg-No, your planeswalkers are not creatures. Yes, this locks them out. I guess this continues a tradition of previewing cards that hose a primary block mechanic (Teferi, Mage of screw you Suspend). Seems like an answer for mass removal. Unfortunately, it seems like Dan Paskins is just going to burn Gaddock's face off. Eh.

Rings of Brighthearth-This seems like fun. I enjoy activated abilities. All the good ones I can think of right now are in Rav block. But whatever. There must be some good ones in TS block, right?

Cryptic Command-You know, I don't complain about Flores nearly as much as some people, but what is up with the beginning of this article? Does he just assume that people will scroll down and click the link? What is up with that? Is he being coy? Talk about annoying. Anyway, seems good for monoblue, which is what I think he said for a couple thousand words. No, no one else will want to play it. Also, why is this rare? I wasn't playing during Mirrodin Block. Were those modal spells all rare? Can we expect this to be a cycle? I hope so. Because it will demonstrate how few abilities the other colors get compared to blue.

Dread-This I like (Thanks, Timmy!). Why do I get the feeling Fugie will table this, stick it into his 5c green and then own with it. Still seems good. I do wonder what black is going to be like in this happy, happy fun world they seem to be throwing us in to.

Well, that's all I got. Join me this weekend when I play a good deck at Saturday Night Magic and still go 1-3. Toodles.