Oathbreaker Squirrels

“Squirrel!”

The wise word of a Pixar dog. But also a nickname some friends greeted me with during high school. I fashioned the moniker proudly as it represented my favorite part of Magic: playing my Squirrel deck.

...Then I gave my deck to a local kid, left for college, and haven’t played a Squirrel deck since.

Until now.

Flashback to the Future

“Oh man. I have been ready for this moment since forever. Come on, friends! Let's go grief the universe!”
—Squirrel Girl, Marvel Rising: Part 3

"Back in my day," when I went by "Deranged_One" (Deranged Hermit shoutout!) online, kitchen table decks were different. Sixty-card decks and playing four copies of cards. (Okay, so decks then were also different from when Magic first began. Magic always be changin'.) 

Nowadays, Commander reigns in casual play with 100-card singleton. This makes filling out a deck with the already-meager number of Squirrel cards difficult. So the forest rodents have been hibernating in the shoe boxes since.
But two Squirrel-deck-impacting events happened this year: 

1) Modern Horizons printed Deep Forest Hermit

2) Oathbreaker surged in popularity

Another card added to the Squirrel pool and a breakout sixty-card casual format?

Wrangle the Squirrels! It's time for an Oathbreaker Squirrels deck tech.

Squirrel-Powered Scheme

"I'm sorry. You're just...it's hard to take a swearing squirrel seriously."
—Guy Gardner to B'dg, Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion: Part 1

Illustrated by Even Amundsen

Before diving deep into the nest, here's an Oathbreaker deck list to squirrel away

(Cards in the command zone, land, and multipurpose sections state what roles they play in parentheses for other sections they normally would fall under):

Command Zone (2)
Garruk Wildspeaker (Ramp Later, Squirrel Synergy)
Chatter of the Squirrel (Squirrel Strategy)

Land (24)
12 Snow-Covered Forest
Lotus Field (Ramp Later)
Myriad Landscape (Ramp Later)
Temple of the False God (Ramp Later)
Arch of Orazca (Card Draw)
Mosswort Bridge (Card Draw)
Blast Zone (Removal)
Mystifying Maze (Removal ...ish)
Pendelhaven (Squirrel Protection)
Swarmyard (Squirrel Protection)
Yavimaya Hollow (Squirrel Protection)

Deserted Temple (Squirrel Synergy)
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood (Squirrel Synergy)

Multipurpose (4)
Arbor Elf (Ramp Early, Squirrel Synergy)
Rime Tender (Ramp Early, Squirrel Synergy)
Vivien Reid (Card Draw, Removal, Squirrel Synergy)
Voyaging Satyr (Ramp Early, Squirrel Synergy)

Ramp Early (7)

Into the North
Nature's Lore
Rampant Growth
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Three Visits
Utopia Sprawl
Wild Growth

(Arbor Elf)
(Rime Tender)
(Voyaging Satyr)

Ramp Later (5)
Cultivate
Harrow
Kodama's Reach
Nissa's Pilgrimage
Skyshroud Claim

(Garruk Wildspeaker)
(Lotus Field)
(Myriad Landscape)
(Temple of the False God)

Card Draw (2)
Praetor's Counsel
Sylvan Library

(Arch of Orazca)
(Mosswort Bridge)
(Vivien Reid)

Tutors (5)
Chord of Calling
Finale of Devastation
Green Sun's Zenith
Sylvan Tutor
Worldly Tutor

Removal (3)
Creeping Corrosion
Song of the Dryads
Whirlwind

(Blast Zone)
(Mystifying Maze ...kinda)
(Vivien Reid)

Squirrel Protection (1)
Heroic Intervention

(Pendelhaven)
(Swarmyard)
(Yavimaya Hollow)

Squirrel Strategy (5)
Deep Forest Hermit
Deranged Hermit
Nut Collector
Squirrel Nest
Squirrel Wrangler

(Chatter of the Squirrel)

Squirrel Synergy (2)
Parallel Lives
Doubling Season

(Garruk Wildspeaker)
(Vivien Reid)
(Deserted Temple)
(Oran-Rief, the Vastwood)

Squirrelspeaker

“Squeaky, uh, squeak squeaker ...squeakin’.—Kronk, The Emperor’s New Groove

Choosing an oathbreaker and signature spell combination for Squirrels, I asked myself, “How do I want to win?” Generating infinite Squirrel tokens using Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest? That’s not my Squirrel-y style. I instead want to overrun my opponents with (a reasonable number of) Squirrel tokens swinging sideways.

Luckily, Garruk Wildspeaker’s ultimate is exactly the effect of Overrun. Additionally, his +1 loyalty ability synergizes with Squirrel Nest and helps cast key mana-intensive spells.

There’s a problem, though. Garruk’s +1 ability is so good that he quickly becomes targeted by other players. His first ability doesn’t provide a way to protect himself from attackers. The second one creates Beast tokens, but that runs counter to Squirrels and lowers loyalty. This is where the signature spell comes into play.

There are only two sorceries (and zero instants) in Magic that create Squirrel tokens. One of them is Chatter of the Squirrel and costs one mana. When you curve into a Garruk hitting the table, you can immediately untap two lands. Then you have enough to cast Chatter of the Squirrel, creating a blocker for Garruk! 

A Chatter of the Squirrel signature spell both plays defense for a Garruk oathbreaker and advances your Squirrel strategy.

Gameplays with Squirrels

“It’s me manifesto. All of us hermits have one.”
—Mr. Plays With Squirrels, Boy Meets World Season 7 Episode 16

When building a Squirrel deck, I had some decisions to make. To make sure my games end up within the Squirrel-y spirit, I followed these rules:

• No “technically a Squirrel” creatures. I'm looking at you, changelings. Modern Horizons' Birthing Boughs looks mighty tempting with its ability to repeatedly churn out tokens. But even though the game rules recognizes changelings as Squirrels, the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed spirit isn't there. The only non-Squirrel creatures to play in this deck are ones promoting the Squirrel strategy.

• No silver-bordered Squirrel cards. Look, I don't want anyone to have to make accommodations on behalf of my furry friends. I want to bring a totally-serious legal Oathbreaker deck to the table with those Narset Windfall decks. Chittering doom, while not in silver-bordered form, shall come for my opponents through sick deck builds and gameplay. With that said, I'm totally OK with playing against your silver-bordered decks. I mean, *gestures to Squirrel deck*

• No winning via means other than Squirrel attacks. As mentioned earlier, I don't want to combo out with Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest. But the same goes for any other cards that'd steer the gameplay away from the goal. Strong synergies are fine as long as I'm sending green tokens into the red zone. And by green tokens, I mean they can't be Saprolings. No matter how much of callback Thelonite Hermit is.

• No stealing the spotlight from Squirrels. There are cards that totally help the Squirrel strategy but cause a weird behavior to happen. Specifically, some cards that refer to creature type. For example, Heirloom Blade can help your Hermits and friends-of-Squirrels find each other. But the card would bring attention to "Elf" and "Druid" for its effect. I only want to keep saying, "Squirrels" over and over!

So this does mean one thing for Garruk Wildspeaker. While some oaths break, one line must never be crossed: never create a 3/3 green Beast creature token. Even if it's a matter of life or death (in an Oathbreaker game - not real life). Because betraying the Squirrel cause is the real loss.

Form of the Squirrel

“You see that sheen on the fur? The glint in their eyes? Top quality. These are the real deal.”

—Squirrel Dealer

Illustrated by Bram Sels

Here's a breakdown of categories of cards found in the Squirrel deck and what role they serve:

Ramp

The best cards for your Squirrel strategy are on the higher end of the mana curve. Due to this, the early turns are devoted to ramping up quickly.

Of the different ways to ramp, the most synergistic ones involve untapping, enchanting, or fetching lands. This means no mana rocks or mana dorks that simply add mana to your mana pool. Garruk and other untappers love targeting enchanted lands. Extra lands fetched from the deck are eventually re-used for a Squirrel Wrangler endgame.

Tutors

I’m normally against including tutors in my decks for the sake of experiencing gameplay variety. However, there are too few powerful Squirrel cards to fill out a deck with. If no tutors are used, the variance can result in a lackluster chittering presence. Employing tutors helps opponents experience the excitement of being trampled by forest rodents.

Card Draw

Because many of the nonlands are ramp spells or other supporting cards, card draw is less effective. Card draw is still good to have, but it’s best on multi-purpose and/or synergistic cards.

For example, Arch of Orazca fills out a land slot yet synergizes with Hermits. Sylvan Library was already powerful, but even better with shuffling from tutors and ramp.

Lastly, Praetor’s Counsel is the best kind of “card draw” for this deck. It’s a late-game card, which is when your key cards might be in the graveyard. Casting this will refresh your hand with virtual redundancies in your Squirrel strategy.

Removal and Squirrel Protection

Heroic Intervention helps keep your Squirrels alive while Swarmyard and Yavimaya Hollow pitch to do what they can as well. As for removal...

All these Squirrels yet none of them can block a single flier?

WHIRLWIND THE BOARD.

Opponents have all these artifacts, yet you don’t have any in your deck?

CORROSION THE BOARD.

Lastly, Vivien Reid and Song of the Dryads are great targeted removal for any problematic opposition.

Squirrel Cards and Synergizes-with-Squirrels Cards

Not all Squirrel cards are up to snuff. Each of Deep Forest Hermit and Deranged Hermit create a powerful board state. Conversely, Squirrel Mob is conditional upon two things to be great: gaining trample and already having lots of Squirrels. Even though there's already slim pickings for Squirrel cards, the tutors and deck-thinning ramp help create consistency.

For synergy, Parallel Lives and Doubling Season really beef up your Squirrel production. And as soon as Squirrel Nest enters the battlefield, Garruk and friends can untap that enchanted land.

Squirrel Strategy

One fateful night, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they rose.

—Chittering Doom

Many decks need a game plan. Even Squirrels. It's how you'll ensure you'll have a board state that makes you cackle maniacally. The first few turns will be crucial for your endgame.

Here's how it should go:

Turn One and Turn Two

There's a high number of ramp cards in the deck that cost either one or two mana. It’s crucial to cast one of these during the first or second turn of the game. This is to support a turn-three Garruk.

Turn Three

Cast Garruk and untap two lands with his +1 ability. From here, if you need to protect Garruk, you can cast Chatter of the Squirrel. Bonus if the remaining untapped land is a Swarmyard or Pendelhaven to help dissuade attackers.

Turn Four and Beyond

By now, you’ll have access to six or more mana. Enough to cast a Hermit, Nut Collector, Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, Vivien Reid, etc. You can also start casting more-expensive ramp to build out your Squirrel Wrangler endgame.

Killer Plays

There’s a couple of powerful plays to look out for:
1) Turn Two Garruk

There's a slim chance you can cast a second-turn Garruk:


Turn one:

Play a Pendelhaven or Snow-Covered Forest
Cast an Arbor Elf.

Turn two: 

Play a second land, a Pendelhaven or Snow-Covered Forest
Cast a Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl on an untapped Forest
With Arbor Elf and the enchanted Forest, add four mana to your mana pool.
Cast Garruk


From here, still on your second turn, you’re able to +1 Garruk to untap both lands. That’ll give you three more mana to cast a heavier ramp spell, Sylvan Library, etc. What a start!
2) Hermit of Devastation

Look out for when you might be able to reach twelve mana for casting Finale of Devastation. Even with an empty board, you’re able to turn the game around or end it. Once you cast Finale with X as 10, find a Hermit. You’ll end up with at least five creatures that are at least 11/11 tramplers with haste!

Acorn-y Punchline

"Until then, may you play your next squirrel with a grin on your face."
—Mark Rosewater, "Squirrel of My Dreams"

That's all I got for today. Thanks for reading! 

The games of Oathbreaker facilitating a return to playing a deck of Squirrels brought me nostalgic joy. Whether it's your first time or rejoining the furry friends, I hope the Squirrels also make your table smile.

Let me know if this article moves or inspires you to play with Squirrels: I'm @bradleyrose on Twitter! If you end up heading over to CardKingdom.com to buy some Squirrel cards, could you do me a favor? Leave a comment saying it was 'cause you read this article!

Until next time, may the defeat of your opponents be aptly described by Squirrel Wrangler’s flavor text.

The Fourth Tribe

Source: http://magic.wizards.com/en/products/commander-2017

Note: This is a speculation blog post.

TL:DR, here are my speculative claims:

• Mardu (Black-Red-White) Vampires
• Grixis (Blue-Black-Red) Wizards

(We already know Rainbow (All Colors) Dragons & Selesnya (Green-White) Cats from leaks.)

Here's the long version:

Previous to the time of this writing, Wizards & Gavin Verhey (lead designer of Commander 2017) announced that this year's Commander products would be tribal-focused. Also, by this time, leaks confirmed a couple tribes: Cats and Dragons.

Recently, the Commander 2017 product page was updated to contain four banners, one for each tribe.

The cat and dragon decks that were leaked are featured in two of the four banners. For the other two, a Vampire-looking man is depicted in one and a woman surrounded by what look like cultist men depicted in the other.

The Vampire-looking man probably means Vampires tribal. Which makes sense. When you look at EDHRec's most popular tribes, Vampires are 6th, out of 66 tribal decks. However, there isn't much tribal-focused support from among the available Vampire commanders. And, going down the list, starting from the most popular, there's already strong support for Zombies, Goblins, Elves, Dragons, & Slivers.

What about the final tribe? I'm guessing Wizards. Here's why:

• Dragons are five color (info gained from leaks)
• Cats are white and green (info gained from leaks)
• Vampires should be at least black. In Innistrad world, they're black-red. In Zendikar, they're black-white (along with Sorin). Combining all of this means Mardu (black-red-white) Vampires. But, also, color schemes of the art can tell you a card's colors. If you look at the art representing Vampires, you see a lot of black, red, and white. It's devoid of blue and green. Also, the possible narrative/story told of the moment depicted in the art gives a very white-potential feeling. A lord being outfitted and served sustenance in orderly fashion.

Source: http://magic.wizards.com/en/products/commander-2017

Wizards. Going beyond Vampires in the list of popular commanders on EDHRec, we have: Wizards, Humans, Allies, Eldrazi, Angels, Spirits, Elementals, Merfolk, Snakes, Clerics, Soldiers, and beyond.

Wizards only have one real commander: Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Thus, most of the tribal Wizards decks built has this creature as its commander. But it's VERY popular.

Going beyond Wizards, we have Humans. This is probably just by happenstance since there are TONS of Humans, only by coincidence, when Humans used to only be Soldiers, Minions, etc. Allies have great support. Eldrazi means probably no blue colors, which is no bueno. Blue players would be sad that Dragons is the only deck with blue in it. Angels would be white but Cats and Vampires are already white. There's already lots of Spirits-matters commanders. Elementals also have a good lord. 

Sadly, Merfolk also need help but there are four times as many Wizard decks as there are Merfolk decks. And Wizards are predominantly blue, same with Merfolk. And Merfolk's other colors are mostly green and white, colors already strongly represented in Cats and Vampires. Some other time, then, Merfolk.

Lastly, my last piece of support for Wizards: the Pokemon Contest theory.

In Pokemon video games, there is an aspect called Pokemon Contests. Pokemon have moves for battling but could also use moves in these contests. Each move is categorized into one of five:

• Tough
• Cute
• Cool
• Beautiful
• Clever/Smart

So, since tribal decks for Commander 2017 were announced to NOT focus on the color wheel so much, then what ARE the primary drivers? I say the above attributes are. If you're looking to buy only ONE deck, and you ignore colors (and MTG finance), you're going to want to choose the tribe that fits your personality most.

Cats are cute (and beautiful).

Dragons are tough (and could also be cool)

Vampires are cool (and could also be beautiful)

That leaves Clever (and Beautiful, but Cats and Vampires and even Dragons can be considered beautiful). Wizards one of the most Clever tribes. Wizards are mostly blue. Blue is Clever.

Wizards are the final Clever deck, then. We have Wizards tribal as the fourth tribe.
Bonus: "Wizards of the Coast" cheekiness, Harry Potter & Gandalf made Wizards all the rage

As for Wizard colors:

• Blue, obviously
• Black is the next most popular color for creatures that are Wizards. And there is only black in the three-color Vampires deck. Still enough room to include black in Wizards
• Red has less Wizards than White, but Red is the only other color besides Blue to CARE about Wizards. And white and green are both already well-represented in other tribal decks.

Lastly, the art for the face of Wizards shows a lot of black along with blues, purples. Purple is a combo of blue and red. The lots of black points me towards Black, along with the cultist hooded dudes vibe. The purple color points me toward representing red in there.

This was my hot take of a blog post. Thanks for reading. The end. :)

Three-Color Amonkhet and Dominaria Return

Deep Analysis by Jesper Ejsing

Disclaimer: this is a speculation/prediction blog post on yet-to-be-released Magic: The Gathering products (as of the time of this writing). This was published before the Spring 2017 Announcement Day (March 31st, 2017). I have not obtained access to any sort of leaked information regarding Amonkhet or products releasing after Amonkhet. If something like this doesn't interest you, I wouldn't recommend reading further.

Too Long, Didn't Read

For those who want to get right into the good stuff, here's the list of predictions I'm making:

• Amonkhet will have three-color arc (shard) Gods
• Multicolor Traps and Curses will debut in Amonkhet
• Amonkhet will have Magic's first Naya-colored planeswalker
• Amonkhet will have a Simic-colored Nissa
• Garruk will return in Hour of Devastation
• Amonkhet block's Masterpiece Series will feature gold cards
• Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Tezzeret will release in the Fall
• Commander 2017 will be five decks of two-color ally combinations
• The Fall block will take place somewhere in Dominaria
• The third Un-set will either release in August 2017 or sometime in 2018 or 2019
• NOTE: If the third Un-set product will be releasing sometime between Spring 2017 and Spring 2018, then the announcement of the third Un-set may be on either March 31st, 2017 or April 1st, 2017

No predictions attempted for:

• From the Vault series
• Masters series (Modern Masters, Eternal Masters, Vintage Masters)

Read further for details on how I arrived at the predictions:

Three-Color Arc (Shard) Gods

Amonkhet marketing material mentions five trials of the five gods. Five means color factions. Gods means return of God creature type. We need something new for Gods. We need three-color Gods.

We just had four-color cards in Commander 2016. And monocolored and two-color Gods have already been done. This leaves three colors. Khans of Tarkir was more recent than Shards of Alara. Best to do Shards of Alara's arc colors.

I also arrived at this conclusion from three other vantage points: studying the art of the Gods, the marketing material regarding the trials of the five gods, and the booster packaging for Amonkhet.

For the packaging, a large set normally has five different types of art on booster packs. Amonkhet is no different. Usually, three of the five booster packs feature planeswalkers that will be in the set (An exception to this was featuring Elspeth and two gods for Theros packs).

But the hard(er) exception to the three-planeswalkers-out-of-five-booster-pack-wrappings is when there are five factions featured for the set. Return to Ravnica and Khans of Tarkir were five-faction sets that contained five different booster wrappings. When it comes to this case, non-planeswalkers are chosen for the booster pack depictions, one for each faction. When we look at Amonkhet's booster pack wrappings, this seems to be the case, supporting the claim for five factions for Amonkhet (in this case, five three-color arc factions).

Then there's the art of the five gods that have been released gives some clues. Studying the art for each of these gods reveals the kind of colors associated with these gods. Usually, art for a card tends to use colors or depictions within the art that tie themselves toward the color(s) of the card itself. Usually.

Let's take a look at them:

The Bird God is the one floating highest in the sky. Flying is attributed toward white and blue most of all. But black has flying at third. The colors of the background show whiteness to the clouds, and blue hues overall. But also some heavy shadows, to indicate some black mana.

As for Birds, most of them are marked for white, blue, then black.

This is an Esper-colored God.

The Cat God has the most troublesome art. There's not much greenery going on in any of the God art. There's a bit for the Snake God. And the art in this shows some black going on. And there's mummies. White-aligned zombies? Anyway, other vantage points clue me in to the decision to mark this as a Naya-colored God. For example, Cats are most prominent in red, green, and white. Another push toward Naya. Lastly, the top three colors for Archers (there's a bow wielded by this Cat God) is white, green, and red (red narrowly defeats blue and black).

Finally, there have been art that uses colors or depictions that you wouldn't think tie themselves toward the color(s) of the card the art is for. An example is Athreos, God of Passage. There isn't much that leads me to believe Athreos is a white god in terms of colors used (the blindfold it has gives the sense of white).  There's so much green color. You might also think it's a mono-black God, if not a Golgari-colored God.

The Crocodile God depicts zombies, yo. Some dark ones. And there's a huge overcast. There's some black mana going on here. There's a red dusk color. Red.

Crocodiles are mostly in green. Combine all these factors together, and you get a Jund-colored God.

The Hound God. Or, the "Jackal", most famous for being a God of Death. Appropriately, this is the darkest-colored piece of art. Lots of shadow intensity. There's also a red dusk color prominent in the art. Yet, some blue is coloring the sky to make some purple look as well. With black being the center for death, this makes sense as the Grixis God.

Interestingly, the creature type association here doesn't hold up for Hounds. There's only one blue Hound, and that was a bend to make it a part of a cycle of Hounds.

Laslty, the Snake God. This one is the brightest-hued of them all, leading me to believe that there is no black color in this. There's a waterfall. Blue. But Snakes are mostly green. Its organized command over the smaller guys has a sense of order and structure that white likes. This God is Bant-colored.

Lastly, there's the marketing material for the Trials of the Five Gods. The five trials are: Solidarity, Knowledge, Ambition, Strength, and Zeal.

Here's the breakdown I have:

• Snake God of Solidarity: Green, White, Blue
• Bird God of Knowledge: White, Blue, Black
• Hound God of Ambition: Blue, Black, Red
• Crocodile God of Strength: Black, Red, Green
• Cat God of Zeal: Red, Green, White

For Solidarity, I tied it to the Snake God because the card Solidarity is centered in white. But also that it seems to be standing together with its followers.

Zeal is most found in red and white. You get passionate about doing what's right, whether it's breaking free of the rigidity of law or enforcing order to prevent reckless negative infliction toward society. When you pair red and white, you can get green to meet in the middle. And when you have white, red, and green, you can have Cats. Or Archers. Tied to the Cat God then.

One way to attain strength is to collect in high numbers. That's what the Crocodile God is doing. And black values attaining strength, red using strength to solve problems, and green's natural "survival of the fittest". Strength belongs to Jund. It belongs to the Crocodile God.

The pursuit of knowledge can often be a solitary endeavor, especially as you attain higher and higher amounts of knowledge - you get less peers. The Bird God is far and away from its followers, seemingly in a state of philosophizing. Besides, blue is THE color for knowledge, which is the central color for the Esper-colored Bird God.

Lastly, we get Ambition. Black has ambition. The Hound God is most tied toward black. But, also, incidentally, for Theros - there was a similar marketing campaign, for the monocolored Gods of that world. And the black color's association? Ambition. Seeing as the Grixis Hound God has its central color in black, this one's a shoo-in.

Multi-Color Traps and Curses

Traps! Those debuted in the original Zendikar block.
Curses! Those debuted in the original Innistrad block.

So, why wheren't those brought back in the retun to the worlds of Zendikar and Innistrad? Well, besides only focusing on what was best and most memorable of the original blocks and cutting the rest (which is an important thing to do, especially when you wanna include new stuff and twists), not including Curses and Traps means you can save them for another appropriate time.

Pop culture Egyptian mythology includes traps that guard the tombs of dead kings. But also curses that can befall upon peoples. Amonkhet would be great for those to return to Magic. After all, there are TRIALS that the denizens of this plane train their whole lives for. It could be that the challenges involve traps and curses.

But what fresh twist can we do to make Traps and Curses exciting? Ah. Every Curse and Tap has been monocolored so far. Gold Traps and Curses it is!

The First Naya-Colored Planeswalker

Whenever we move to a plane focused on multicolor, it's an opportunity to have an abundance of multicolor planeswalkers. Shards of Alara block had its first Grixis planeswalker and a then a couple multicolor ones. Return to Ravnica block had Vraska, Domri Rade, and Ral Zarek. Khans of Tarkir is a little weird in that it wasn't designed to be a multicolor block. Even then, we got a Temur-colored Sarkhan Vol. As a surprise, Tamiyo became Bant-colored, which fills in yet more of the missing three-color combos for planeswalkers. And then there's this block.

When doing a three-color-focused set, we have a strong opportunity for this. Hour of Devastation will already have Nicol Bolas. And I feel having one three-color planeswalker per set of Amonkhet block would be best. So, Amonkhet - but why Naya?

I think the colors most far and away from Grixis would be good, to balance out colors across planeswalkers in the block. But also a focus on what HASN'T been done before. We're not doing wedge colors. Tamiyo did Bant. And Esper and Jund are both too close to Bolas' Grixis colors. That leaves Naya.

NOTE: When I say Naya-colored planeswalker, I just mean red, green white. Not from Naya. Though, it definitely is possible to have a planeswalker from Naya (see: Tamiyo)

Simic-Colored Nissa

When viewing the planeswalkers in any one particular block, the colors tend to try to be evenly divided across the colors. Gideon being white and Liliana being black, along with Nicol bolas being black, red, and blue. And when you take into account the Naya planeswalker mentioned above, you get the following for the number of colors represented:

White: 2
Blue: 2
Black: 2
Red: 2
Green: 1

There's some room for green for the remaining two planeswalkers. Now, let's look at something else:

If you look at each two-color combination and associate it with the most recent planeswalker card of that two-color combination,  you get this:

GREEN WHITE: Ajani (Aether Revolt, 1 set ago)
WHITE BLUE: Dovin (Kaladesh, 2 sets ago)
BLUE BLACK: Tezzeret (Aether Revolt, 1 set ago)

BLACK RED: Daretti (Conspiracy 2, 3 sets ago)

RED GREEN: Arlinn (Shadows over Innistrad, 5 sets ago)

GREEN BLUE: Kiora (Battle for Zendikar, 5 sets ago)
WHITE BLACK: Kaya (Conspiracy 2, 3 sets ago)

BLUE RED: Saheeli (Kaladesh, 2 sets ago)

BLACK GREEN: Garruk (Magic 2015, FOREVER AGO)

RED WHITE: Nahiri (Shadows Over Innistrad, 5 sets ago)

Now, you notice that a Golgari-colored planeswalker is the one that most needs a new planeswalker card. As it so happens, I'm predicting Garruk will come back, so more on that in the next section. That leaves Simic-colored planeswalker being due for a new card. And, in this case, Kiora is the only planeswalker to be Simic-colored. At least Vraska keeps Garruk company.

We need another planeswalker character to join the ranks of Simic. Could be a new character or an existing character getting a touch of blue, at least perhaps temporarily (see: Bant Tamiyo).

With Bant colors already done with Tamiyo recently, it's clear that a new Simic-colored walker is the way to go, which would still slot into Bant-colored decks just fine.

So, my guess is that Nissa will return but in Simic colors.

Garruk Returns in Hour of Devastation

Garruk the Slayer by Brad Rigney

Garruk's been away in the story a while. He's not dead. But he hunts planeswalkers. The most powerful ones. And who is more powerful than Nicol Bolas? Also, black-green needs a new planeswalker card. Lastly - who else is on Amonkhet besides the most powerful planeswalker? Liliana.

Recently, there's been a trend of four planeswalkers in the large set and two planeswalkers in the small set. The two in the small set tend to be related toward the main plotline. The large set has the most room for planeswalkers involved in a side plot. Since the new Simic walker I think would likely not be the most involved in the main characters, I'd put it in Amonkhet and Garruk in Hour of Devastation, to separate out the green walkers. And, besides - it could be that Garruk either redeems his monstrous form or harnesses it and the power of all the planeswalkers he's killed to become a very powerful force to face Nicol Bolas.

After all, both he and Bolas share the distinction of being the only two to be made a main villain focus in Core Sets (Magic 2013 for Bolas and Magic 2015 for Garruk).

Amonkhet Masterpiece Series Features Gold Cards

As of Kaladesh, Wizards announced that it would have a Masterpiece series for every block going forward, that has a theme fitting to the setting. Zendikar Expeditions was about land. Kaladesh Inventions was about artifacts. With both those colorless card types out of the way, what's the next most exciting thing that fits this gold-carded block? Oh! How about awesome gold cards?

This one's a more risky guess. It could be that desert oasis type of cards are featured. But... that doesn't seem as exciting as having awesome dual lands or utilizing those powerful artifacts. Gold cards are more exciting. We like gold. It's shiny.

Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Tezzeret

Duel Decks with planeswalkres duking it out feature the block that came before, usually. We had Nissa and Ob Nixilis fight each other in last year's Fall Duel Decks. This year's Fall Duel Decks would strongly be placed in Kaladesh.

Looking at Mind vs. Might, we already have Jhoira popping up. Saheeli would be yet another Izzet walker. And then there's red in both the Mind deck and Might deck. Best to leave out Chandra this time - to avoid yet another red-focused Duel Deck. And Nissa already had her turn recently.

With Mind vs. Might, we don't have white, green, or black represented for the year of 2017 so far. Ajani takes care of white and green while Tezzeret opposing him with blue and black would make for a nice rounding off of the colors so that any player looking at recent products might find something that appeals to them.

Sorry, Chandra. I know it's been a while since you've been in a Duel Deck. But you, Ajani, and Tezzeret have all been in Duel Decks once before. And Chandra is most likely to return yet again in a future block and might have another chance at getting included in a second Duel Deck.

Commander 2017 will Have Two-Color Ally Decks

Meren of Clan Nel Toth by Mark Wenters

This one's a really easy guess. The Commander series of products have featured each three-color combination, two-color enemy pairs, and four-color commanders. It's time to finish the pattern and put the last puzzle piece in and make Commander decks focused on two-color ally legendary creatures.

It's interesting that four-color jumped to last year instead of being the last in the cycle. There could have been multiple reasons. But it could be that it would be better to balance out the year of 2017 with three-color legendary creatures for the Commander players in Amonkhet followed by two-color legendary creatures later in the Fall (along with whatever the Dominaria-located block will have).

Speaking of Dominaria...

The Fall Block will Take Place Somewhere in Dominaria

This claim is being made for several reasons:

• Mind vs. Might Duel Decks features characters from Dominaria
• After two back-to-back blocks of new worlds, it might be time to revisit an old one
• Ravnica, Innisrad, Zendikar, Mirrodin have all been done. What's left for popular planes? Dominaria!
• Dominaria is long-overdue for a return; besides, where should a new Jace card appear in? (Last one was in Shadows over Innistrad whereas all the other Gatewatch members will have had new cards by the time the Fall set comes out.)

No Predictions for From the Vault or Masters Series

I haven't found a pattern to be able to puzzle out and confidently say what will come next for From the Fault. Some stuff like "Demons" seems obvious to do, but who knows when the correct timing for that will be.

As for the Masters series, the next year seems like a toss-up: will Eternal Masters 2018 happen or not? Did it get received well? Will there just be a focus on Vintage Masters for Magic Online? I'd rather not make a prediction.

However, the bumping up of Modern Masters to Spring is curious, which leads me to...

Third Un-Set in August 2017 OR Sometime 2018 or 2019

I know, a more broad prediction. This one's the wild card. As it should be.

Conspiracy 2 was last year. And we can't have a repeated Conspiracy 3 this year - at least not an equivalent. Will From the Vault try to fill in those shoes in August with something cool? Or will there be something else for the Conspiracy-loving crowd?

The players that love Conspiracy has some overlap with the players who love Unglued and Unhinged. And Modern Masters got pumped up to Spring this year. And Conspiracy was last year. What to do? Release Un-set 3. Also, Annoucnement Day is taking place March 31st, 2017 - in the evening. Which is awfully close to April 1st, 2017. April 1st has been a time when Unhinged was announced. Perhaps the same will be utilized here.

Keep in mind that, since Un-sets are unconventional, so may be the announcements. The announcement may be delayed until April 1st. But also may just happen during March 31st, to prep you for the site's update on April 1st, whatever that will look like (Daily MTG has had a joke makeover before for April Fool's Day). The announcement could also be quite hidden.

What makes me doubt whether the third Un-set will release in August 2017 is the full-art lands in Amonkhet. Un-sets are notorious for the full-art lands. Since Battle for Zendikar block and then Amonkhet block featuring full-art lands: it seems like we should wait at least a year for the third Un-set just because of the full-art land.

And if we wait for 2018, that's when Conspiracy 3 might take place. So then the off-year of 2019 would be great for it.

Lastly, 2018 would be Unglued's 20th year anniversary. It might be a good time to bring a third Un-set into Magic for that year.

But, yeah, if a third Un-set is coming this year, August 2017 is the time to do it.

Appropriately Long, Did Read

Some predictions I have more confidence in than others. But I figured I'd do a little bit of reaching anyway for some of the ones I'm not so confident in. Just in case it'd be a fantastic guess. Thanks for reading the lengthy part of this post. =)

Amonkhet Promotional Art, Artist Unknown

Having a Good Knight

Art by Jason Chan

Over on Goblin Artisans, this weekend's art challenge is on knights. Five pieces of art were provided for use, though, other knight-related creative commons art can be used.

Here's the challenge prompt:

Hello to you all! This week we re-examine knights!
White Knight and Black Knight have been re-imagined many times over in mtg. Nowadays we do not have protections to mirror those knights!
Choose one of the illustrations and re-imagine what a knight does when it is tied to a specific color.

Knight Life

The very first Knights in Magic have the abilities of first strike and protection. With protection not being an ability that is only supported rarely lately, this begs the question: what makes a Knight a Knight in Magic?

I reviewed many Knight-related Magic cards and have concluded that one or more of the following may be true for any one particular Knight-related Magic card:

• If the knight or knights depicted within the art each riding a steed, it sometimes means the card's design has bigger power and toughness stats than if the art depicted a singular creature without a mount. For example, Goblin Roughrider is a Goblin creature, but the 3/2 body for a vanilla Goblin only makes sense because it is riding that crazy mount.

• Knights have vigilance for one or more of a few reasons: 1) they're riding steeds, so they can gallop forward to do an attack and then gallop back to your side to defend you; 2) Knights swore to protect you and are vigilant to not fail in that regard; 3) Knights are great at combat. Truefire Paladin is an example of a steed-less Knight that still has vigilance - so numbers 2 and 3 may apply toward this guy.

• Knights are great at combat. This overlaps with the last bullet point. One of the expressions of this may be vigilance, as seen above, but it could be one of many combat-related abilities. The "first" expression of this fact was on White Knight and Black Knight having first strike. Later Knights have had vigilance, double strike, and flanking. Sometimes, a block-related keyword is used instead, like battle cry. For these abilities, they can be expressed for different reasons, whether the Knight just has more training in combat, because they're wielding a lance, or they're riding a horse. For example, a Knight depicted riding a horse is reason enough for flanking. In addition to Truefire Paladin above showing off its ability to have both vigilance and first strike (and without a horse - what a badass!), Femeref Knight is an example of Knight showing off its multiple awesome-at-warfare abilities but not necessarily a larger body for horse reasons.

• Sometimes, a Knight is a Knight only because it rides a steed. But this is useful because some mounts have flying which in turn enables creature types that wouldn't normally be able to fly to be able to fly. How else are you going to get flying cat people like Leonin Skyhunter, especially when white is the piece of the color pie that is supposed to be great at both creatures and flying? Well, besides making comical, makeshift hang-gliders like Goblin Sky Raider does.

•  Knights are sworn to protect us from and destroy evil. Now, remember that "evil" does not mean the color black. Evil is whatever attacks your values. So each color's Knight is going to consider different things as evil. White Knight had protection from black. Silver Knight has protection from red. These are pure expressions of how white considers what red and black do as evil and are devoted to that cause. Granted, white is really good at going after evil. See Pentarch Paladin, Tivador of Thorn, Fiendslayer Paladin, and Lightwielder Paladin. Lastly, renown and exalted are other examples of how Knights may care to head into combat to destroy the evil that is your opponent. Phyrexian Crusader is a good example of this devotion to destroy evil. It eschews the fact that black usually hates on green and white in favor of the fact that the mirrans are aligned mostly in white and red, so this Phyrexian has no problem hating on black's ally color, red.

•  Knights are great at rallying the troops. Literally rallying in the case of Hero of Goma Fada but this is expressed in other ways as well, such as with Kabira Vindicator boosting your armies and doing nothing else. Hero of Bladehold gets bystanders who might not otherwise have decided to fight to jump into the fray as 1/1 Soldiers. Wilt-Leaf Liege and the rest of the Liege cycle are excellent examples of how a Knight can purely be about rousing your armies and not expressing its Knight-ness via other ways such as first strike or vigilance.

 Bonus: some red-aligned troop rallying:

•  Knights have status. Well, it's probably how they got their horse or their excellent armor or was able to be afforded good training in combat. Or, in Attended Knight's case, you have a Squire.

 Knight in Gale

 

With the above established, I sought to design a Knight but which color do I choose? I chose to go with the color that hasn't been as fleshed out with Knight execution: green. Green has a whopping 1 creature that is monocolored, Gladehart Cavalary.

Moreover, this card was just released today to the public, in Oath of the Gatewatch! Welcome to the Knight Club, mono-green. Notice that this Knight is expressing its Knight traits by having a large body and by supporting its troops.

Besides, green's knight art for this Weekend Art Challenge has a moose and that's adorable. Check out the art I'm working with:

Art by blayrd

If you've followed my Daily Card Redesign series in the past, you'll know that I often like to match my card designs with what's going on in the art, so I'm going to let that influence me in addition to coming up with a design that also fits what I envision a green knight should currently be or do design/gameplay-wise. A confluence of both those things.

To Knight

 

Now, expressing all of a Knight's aspects as pointed out above would be nearly impossible, I'd imagine. It's all right to just focus on one or two. This happens with any sort of concept, like the idea of Goblins.

Goblins are portrayed in Magic as being dumb, like with the flavor texts of Goblin Piker and Skirk Fire Marshal. Goblins are expendable, as seen in Goblin Sledder and Goblin Grenade. They also like to tease or play pranks, shown in the cards Jeering Instigator and Goblin Battle Jester. Lastly, they tinker (read: poke, prod, and eventually blow up) with artifacts, like with Goblin Welder and "Goblin Archaeologist."

I'm not sure there's ever been a Goblin depicted as dumb, expendable, pranking, and tinkering all at once. But that sounds like a fun challenge for another time. Anyway, back to Knights - we only need to show Knight-ness in at least one way for this green Knight.

The most important thing to do for this assignment, though, is to create a Knight that might be lumped in with category of Knights that White Knight and Black Knight are - what Knights used to be. Blood Knight was a later addition to this "grouping" of classic Knights. Re-imagine and design like that for nowadays. So, we'll examine what aspects of Knights above that would remind us of the classic Knight design of White Knight and Black Knight.

Knight Vision

 

White Knight and Black Knight exemplified qualities of "swearing to destroy evil" (protection) as well as its ability to be adept in combat via first strike. This "destroy evil" thing intrigues me, so we'll go with that.

I did some brainstorming off-screen here, and it's a messy (but awesome) process sometimes, and I landed with caring about abilities that represent the enemy colors but are shared with green as well. The same applies for every other color in this cycle. I'm only mocking up green, but here's the text form of what each color would care about:

• White: lifelink, first strike
• Blue: hexproof, prowess
• Black: deathtouch, lifelink
• Red: first strike, prowess
• Green: deathtouch, hexproof

So, for each color, the Knight would have those abilities (not bad, for each creature) and then would not able to be blocked by any creatures that have either of those abilities. We're not doing protection anymore, and I wanted to find a simple perhaps-combat-oriented way to show the hate so that it could still prevail against this "evil." I chose "can't be blocked" as the way the Knight prevails and the "evil" to be represented by the abilities its enemies also share.

You might say it's ironic that this creature can't block an opponent's copy of this Knight. Perhaps, as a show of respect to each other's devotion, they don't hurt each other. And what about fellow green creatures that have hexproof and deathtouch - perhaps this Knight's mastery means it knows how to evade such creatures that shares its traits.

Lastly, coming back to the art, you might be wondering why a moose-riding, unassuming Knight can do hexproof and deathtouch. If you look more closely at the art, there's magical, glowing green vines surrounding the Knight. These vines can restrain and choke creatures to death as well as wrap around the Knight and protect him or her from spells. =)

Knight Cap

So, here's my design:

I decided to have "card name during development" fun and did a double pun for its title. "Jaded", like with the color green; and "Vineguard", as in "vanguard", because he or she is a Knight. But has vines surrounding him or her.

Anyway, so, a black Knight in this cycle would have deathtouch and lifelink and it would also say "CARDNAME can't be blocked by creatures with deathtouch or lifelink."

I also made this a Human instead of Elf (seems dressed like a Human, anyway) since Humans can be any of the five colors, and that'd be fitting to mirror the creature types for the cycle as "Human Knight."

O.K., that's it! What do you think?

Concerns I have: I know, it costs 4 mana and that sucks, but I think I had to cost it that high based on how much it should cost to get hexproof, let alone deathtouch, onto the table. Also, I wonder if this Knight would end up being un-fun to play with if you just left this forever on your side as a good threatening blocker (like you do with your Deathtouch Snakes and Rats). Then again, protecting you IS Knight-like. In the end, it should feel fun, but I haven't playtested this card.

Also, not sure if I got the order of abilities of "deathtouch" and "hexproof" correct along with the rest of the templating. I THINK so, but not sure.

Cheers,
Bradley