Today marks the launch of Aetherdrift on MTG Arena, giving digital players access to the latest Magic: The Gathering set a few days before the full physical release. Significant as that is, Wizards decided to ladle even more excitement on top with a big promo announcement. Not only were the promos for the next RCQ season revealed, but we also got a glimpse at the prizes for the next two rounds of the MTG Spotlight Series.
While it’s great to see new promos and the fancy artwork they bring, these feel a bit disappointing overall. The promos for the first two Spotlight Series events were pricey, well-played cards, whereas these fail on both such counts. Event promos can’t all be winners, of course, but the decisions made by Wizards here boggle the mind somewhat.
Sword Of Forge And Frontier
- Mana Value: 3
- Rarity: Promo
- Type: Artifact – Equipment
- Card Text: Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from red and from green.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, exile the top two cards of your library. You may play those cards this turn. You may play an additional land this turn.
Equip 2.
The first of the MTG Spotlight Series promos we’ll be looking at today is Sword of Forge and Frontier. This is the promo for Magic Spotlight: Dragons, Which will be held from April 11th-13th this year. As a reminder, this event is unique in where Tarkir: Dragonstorm Limited is the format of choice. This means that the event is accessible to anyone who wants to participate, with no need to build a deck in advance. Everyone who participates will get a non-foil copy of this, and the top 128 players will get a foil copy.
Perhaps this high accessibility is Wizards’ reasoning behind picking such an underwhelming promo for this event. If more people will be getting the promo, making it less valuable makes sense from a business perspective. It’s not that Sword of Forge and Frontier is a bad card, per se. Copies go for around $6.50 at the time of writing, and it sees a good amount of play in Commander. It’s just not exciting in the way previous Spotlight Series promos have been.
Granted, Wizards was in a tricky position with this one. The promos for each Spotlight Series event are meant to reflect the formats the events are based on. We saw that with Terror of the Peaks for the Standard Spotlight, and Kaldra Compleat for Modern. Limited is a much trickier format to reference in that regard.
Maybe this is a sneaky hint that Sword of Forge and Frontier is coming back for Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but I highly doubt it. It’s a decent Magic: The Gathering card, but not really reprint-worthy at the moment. Swords of X and Y don’t tend to be reprinted outside of supplemental sets, anyway.
Garruk Wildspeaker
- Mana Value: 2GG
- Rarity: Promo
- Type: Legendary Planeswalker – Garruk
- Starting Loyalty: 3
- Card Text: +1: Untap two target lands.
−1: Create a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
−4: Creatures you control get +3/+3 and gain trample until end of turn.
Out of the bad promo frying pan and into the fire, next up we have Garruk Wildspeaker. This is the promo for Magic Spotlight: Secret Lair, which is coming to Indianapolis from May 30th to June 1st. The format for this one is Modern, so the possible Limited excuse from Magic Spotlight: Dragons doesn’t apply here. Somehow, despite that, Wizards managed to pick an even worse promo this time around.
Garruk Wildspeaker is one of the first-ever planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering, the so-called “Lorwyn Five.” For that reason, he’s an important part of the game’s history, but that’s really as far as it goes. The card barely sees any play outside of Commander, and it’s been reprinted so many times that copies can be had for around $3. Sure this version has fun Secret Lair-esque artwork, but it’s still pretty much a bulk mythic; certainly not what you want as your prize at a major Modern event.
In Wizards’ defense, the card does see sparing play in Modern Eldrazi Ramp decks. A one-of-copy even made it into a top eight list at a Japanese RC over the weekend. This is still fairly marginal play, mind you. The card also just feels very safe and boring given how many past reprints it’s had. For an event under the Secret Lair label, something a bit more out there would’ve been appreciated.
As with the other MTG Spotlight Series promos, you’ll get a non-foil Garruk for participating in the event and a foil one for making top 128. Given its play patterns to date, one copy should be more than enough for most players, mind you.
MTG Spotlight Series Promos Past
In isolation these MTG Spotlight Series promos are disappointing, but not terribly so. They are participation promos for open events, after all, so there’s an element of looking at gift horses in their mouths that comes with criticizing them. That said, they really pale in comparison to what we’ve already seen from the Spotlight Series so far.
Magic Spotlight: Standard gave us Terror of the Peaks, which was a slam-dunk on multiple fronts. It was an expensive ($20) card, it was legal in the format in question, and it packed stunning new artwork from a legend of the Magic: The Gathering art world. It was also very much Commander playable, which matters a great deal these days.
Spotlight: Modern also got an excellent promo. Kaldra Compleat, while around the same $6.50 price as Sword of Forge and Frontier, has a lot more play to it. The card sees use in both Modern and Legacy, with a smattering of Commander play in there as well. Kaldra Compleat is powerful, iconic, and thoroughly deserving of being the promo for a big Modern event. Garruk Wildspeaker? Not so much.
It’s entirely possible that these new promos surprise me in terms of financial value and go for a lot more than I’d expect thanks to their new artwork and limited supply. The foils, especially, will see a boost from that. That still doesn’t address the playability problem, however, which is arguably even more significant. Overall, these new promos are a step down from what we’ve seen before. Let’s hope Wizards can turn things around for the last of the Spotlight Series events later in the year.