Preview season for Innistrad Remastered, the first MTG set of 2025, is officially upon us. We saw a huge number of cards spoiled today, including some expected bangers and some high-value curveballs. Based on what’s included so far, the set is looking like a slam-dunk. Equally interesting, however, is what’s not included. In today’s preview stream, hosts Blake Rasmussen and Melissa DeTora confirmed that beloved staple Invisible Stalker will not be showing up in Innistrad Remastered.
For long-time fans of the plane, this will come as a shock. The card was definitely among the most iconic from the original Innistrad set. To see it excluded from a set that purports to celebrate all things Innistrad feels strange as a result. Diving into the reasoning behind this exclusion, however, reveals grander plans that Wizards has for the set’s Limited environment.
No Invisible Stalker In Innistrad Remastered?!
- Mana Value: 1U
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Type: Creature – Human Rogue
- Stats: 1/1
- Card Text: Hexproof (This creature can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.) Invisible Stalker can’t be blocked.
If you’re a newer player, chances are you’ve never laid eyes on Invisible Stalker before. Looking at it here, the problems with the design of the card are immediately obvious. It may just be a 1/1 for two mana, but it comes with two incredibly annoying abilities. It has Hexproof, so it’s tough to remove, and it’s unblockable, so you can’t deal with it via combat.
The result? One of the most difficult-to-interact-with creatures in Magic, even by modern standards. This is fine by itself; nobody is getting bent out of shape about a 20-turn clock, after all. The problems arise when you start throwing Auras and Equipment into the mix. On the preview stream, this was actually cited as the reason for Stalker’s exclusion. When discussing Butcher’s Cleaver, Blake Rasmussen recalled the brutal combo the two cards formed in Limited.
“This card (Butcher’s Cleaver) was infamous, usually paired with Invisible Stalker.”
Blake Rasmussen
The synergy between these two cards is obvious. Since Stalker is a Human, it gets +3/+0 and Lifelink from Cleaver. This allows you to get in eight-point life swings every single turn, which is very difficult for most Limited decks to deal with. To avoid such scenarios Invisible Stalker isn’t in the set, though Butcher’s Cleaver still is.
One could certainly argue that removing Cleaver was the better move here. It’s a much less iconic card, after all. That said, Invisible Stalker was a clear design mistake from a Limited standpoint, so it’s probably for the best we won’t be seeing it in Innistrad Remastered. As much as it would’ve stirred up warm 2011 memories through its inclusion, Draft and Sealed for the set should be much improved by its absence.
Moving On Up
The exclusion of Invisible Stalker is just one example of the ways in which the designers at Wizards are being extra careful with Innistrad Remastered Limited. You can also see it in the multiple rarity upshifts in the set. We saw a few of these on today’s stream, most notably Bloodline Keeper. This was one of the very best rares from original Innistrad, capable of taking over a game even without flipping into its more powerful form. At mythic, that’s going to happen a lot less often here.
The same is true for Through the Breach. This is a particularly interesting case since it’s one of the non-Innistrad cards added to the set, alongside the likes of Mass Hysteria and Hermit Druid. Clearly, there are enough big hitters in the set for Wizards to worry about this one, as they’ve upshifted it to mythic too. We’ve already seen Emrakul, the Promised End, which is a pretty stellar target, so this change is likely warranted.
These upshifts aren’t confined to rares, either. Pauper all-star Thermo-Alchemist has gone from common to uncommon here, making it less likely you’ll be able to burn your opponent out. This seems less problematic than its upshifted peers on the surface, but it’s possible it was just a bit too good at common.
This extra vigilance makes a lot of sense. As a Remastered product, Innistrad Remastered is a Limited experience above everything else. It’s a great outlet for reprints, sure, but since the cards here don’t impact format legality its primary goal is to provide great Draft and Sealed games. The changes Wizards has made here may seem conservative, but they’re all based on extensive data. If they say that moving these cards around will lead to a better Limited experience, chances are they will.
Breaking It Down
These changes don’t just go one way, either. Like all reprint sets, Innistrad Remastered also features some rarity downshifts to spice things up. Today’s stream showed off a couple of crackers, in Splinterfright and Ghoultree.
Innistrad as a whole is all about the graveyard, but these two cards in particular lean heavily into that idea. Splinterfright gets bigger, and Ghoultree gets cheaper, the more cards you have in your ‘yard. Self-mill is undoubtedly one of the set’s Limited archetypes, and getting these two ex-rares at uncommon is a huge boost for that deck.
These two cards join a few downshifts previewed previously. Cackling Counterpart coming down to uncommon from rare is a big deal, opening up new avenues for creature-heavy decks in blue. Huntmaster of the Fells coming down to rare from mythic is also huge. This feels like an inverse of the Bloodline Keeper situation. Huntmaster can totally take over games of Limited, and now that it’s a rare it’ll do so quite often.
So far we haven’t seen any downshifts to common, or new additions to Pauper in other words. Blake Rasmussen mentioned on today’s stream that we will be seeing some before previews are done, however, so keep an eye out for those. Common downshifts are probably the most impactful for Limited statistically speaking, so these should be spicy when they surface.
It’s important to look at these changes because they prove that the design goal for Innistrad Remastered wasn’t just to drain value out of the rare slot. Every move made here feels purposeful and considered, and I have every faith that the Limited experience will be great as a result. Even if we have to lose an Invisible Stalker or two along the way.
