Today is the first day of Preview Season for Magic: the Gathering‘s newest set, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. We were given some plot points and shown some cards in the upcoming set. A few days ago, the lead designer of the set, Mark Rosewater, provided some teaser hints at cards that are coming in the set, and it got me thinking; We could see
Blood Moon
Blood Moon
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
be printed into Standard. With the information that came out today, it feels like that could be more likely.
MaRo Hints
When Rosewater dropped his little teaser post, one of the things he said that got me thinking about this was the following:
A popular tournament card in multiple formats gets reprinted with its fifth piece of art.
Mark Rosewater
That line gives us enough information to narrow down what cards could be eligible for this card. There’s a total of ~190 cards that have 4 distinct arts, as a quick Scryfall Search shows. These are the cards that we’ll be looking to narrow down. Now there are some cards in here from Modern Horizons 2 that have sketch arts, such as Abundant Harvest which counts in scryfall as a different art, but I’m not going to count those. I’m also not counting cards that have a “digital only art” like
Approach of the Second Sun
Approach of the Second Sun
If this spell was cast from your hand and you've cast another spell named Approach of the Second Sun this game, you win the game. Otherwise, put Approach of the Second Sun into its owner's library seventh from the top and you gain 7 life.
. Looking through the list of cards, here are the ones that seem to make sense as “Popular Tournament Cards”
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Aether Vial
Aether Vial
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a charge counter on this artifact.
{T}: You may put a creature card with mana value equal to the number of charge counters on this artifact from your hand onto the battlefield. - Ancient Grudge
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Bitterblossom
Bitterblossom
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a 1/1 black Faerie Rogue creature token with flying.
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Blood Moon
Blood Moon
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
- City of Brass
- Cryptic Command
- Damnation
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Disdainful Stroke
Disdainful Stroke
Counter target spell with mana value 4 or greater.
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Doomsday
Doomsday
Search your library and graveyard for five cards and exile the rest. Put the chosen cards on top of your library in any order. You lose half your life, rounded up.
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Doubling Season
Doubling Season
If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.
If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead. -
Ensnaring Bridge
Ensnaring Bridge
Creatures with power greater than the number of cards in your hand can't attack.
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Faithless Looting
Faithless Looting
Draw two cards, then discard two cards.
Flashback {2}{R} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) -
Fatal Push
Fatal Push
Destroy target creature if it has mana value 2 or less.
Revolt — Destroy that creature if it has mana value 4 or less instead if a permanent left the battlefield under your control this turn. -
Goblin Guide
Goblin Guide
Haste
Whenever this creature attacks, defending player reveals the top card of their library. If it's a land card, that player puts it into their hand. -
Grapeshot
Grapeshot
Grapeshot deals 1 damage to any target.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.) - Horizon Canopy
- Inquisition of Kozliek
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Pithing Needle
Pithing Needle
As this artifact enters, choose a card name.
Activated abilities of sources with the chosen name can't be activated unless they're mana abilities. -
Ponder
Ponder
Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle.
Draw a card. -
Rest in Peace
Rest in Peace
When this enchantment enters, exile all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. -
Scavenging Ooze
Scavenging Ooze
{G}: Exile target card from a graveyard. If it was a creature card, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature and you gain 1 life.
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Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Feast and Famine
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from black and from green.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card and you untap all lands you control.
Equip {2} -
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Fire and Ice
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from red and from blue.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, this Equipment deals 2 damage to any target and you draw a card.
Equip {2} - Sword of Light and Shadow
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Thoughtseize
Thoughtseize
Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.
That’s quite the list, but we can very quickly narrow down a lot of these because they wouldn’t make sense thematically with the set or canon of Magic. Just to name a few, Aether Vial wouldn’t make a ton of sense thematically. Mechanically it’d be pretty awesome since we have a bunch of tribes in this set and Vial has been a staple in various competitive tribal decks in multiple formats. Disdainful Stroke wouldn’t make sense to tease here because it is already legal in Standard, and isn’t really a noteworthy card.
What we’re left with is a handful of cards: Damnation, Blood Moon, Ancient Grudge, Thoughtseize, Doubling Season, Pithing Needle and Rest in Peace.
The Plot Thickens
During the livestream today, plot elements of the set were revealed. Innistrad finds itself in a troubling situation. When the Gatewatch imprisoned Emrakul on the Moon, it screwed up a lot of things on the plane. The nights were becoming longer, and Werewolf activity was on the rise. There’s a real concern that there may not ever be another sun rise if something isn’t done to correct the issue.
From these two bits of information, you can’t deny that Blood Moon would be chef’s kiss on flavor for the set. Between Werewolves and Vampires, it makes so much sense. Now you may be thinking, man Blood Moon is way too strong for standard. Is it though?
READ MORE: MTG Showcases New Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Mechanics Coven, Decayed and More
Competitiveness in Standard
Looking at the current landscape of Standard 2022, Blood Moon wouldn’t be that bad. There aren’t very many 3 color decks in the meta right now, because there aren’t very many playable dual lands in the format.
These dual lands are the only ones that are really playable. I anticipate that 2 color decks are still going to be the preferred way to go, considering that there’s a much smaller card pool. Most decks will be playing plenty of basics, so it won’t be as big of a concern.
READ MORE: MTG Stream Reveals New Innistrad Midnight Hunt Cards
Obviously this is pretty tin foil hat about Blood Moon coming into Standard, and there’s definitely a few other very likely candidates for this reprint, but I’d love to see this iconic card coming back to the game. What are your thoughts on this? What card do you guys think that fits MaRo’s description will be reprinted? Let us know in the comments!