MTG Assassin's Creed Showcases Horizon Land Panorama!

The latest Universes Beyond Magic: The Gathering set is almost here. Offering Modern-legal cards and tons of flavor, everyone is eagerly awaiting what Magic and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed crossover has to offer. Thanks to preview season kicking off today, MTG players don’t have to wait long to find out. Get your Hidden Blade and Apples of Eden as Assassin’s Creed fever is going to take over the world of MTG, at least for a little while.

Beyond featuring Assassins and historical figures aplenty, this Universes Beyond set is also taking inspiration from its predecessors. Taking a page from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth’s book, the Assassin’s Creed set features Scene cards! When all put together, these cards create a truly stunning vista, so it’s great to see this unique feature returning.

In total, the latest panoramic scene from Wizards of the Coast contains six gorgeous MTG cards, one of which we’ve seen before. So, without any further ado let’s dive into all the juicy details about this latest panoramic scene and the cards it contains!

Horizon Lands Return… With a Friend

Above is a new panorama artwork featuring the five enemy-colored Horizons lands alongside a new Legendary creature. The image depicts Ezio looking out over Rome, and is, in our opinion, absolutely jaw-dropping.

Beautiful artwork aside, we’ve actually seen all these cards before. Not with this artwork, mind you, but five of these cards are reprints first seen in the original Modern Horizons. As for Ezio themselves, they were previewed earlier this year at MagicCon: Chicago.

Revisiting what is perhaps Assassin’s Creed’s most well-known character for a moment, Ezio has some rather interesting abilities that make him a powerful Commander. Thanks to the WUBRG effect in his text, Ezio is technically a five-colored Commander. Making a player lose the game is always exciting, but is perhaps not as impactful as Commander as it could be in Modern. Even in the Modern format, paying WUBRG is quite difficult, especially with how fast the format is thanks to Modern Horizons 3.

Thankfully, Ezio Auditore da Firenze isn’t just their triggered WUBRG ability, as they also provide Freerunning. As a new ability for this Universes Beyond set, Freerunning is an alternative casting cost that gets unlocked by dealing combat damage with either an Assassin or your Commander. This can make particularly expensive Assassin cards incredibly cheap to cast. Rather aptly, this should let you surprise opponents with threats like Vein Ripper or Thraximunder.

Taking another page from Lord of the Rings, this is not the only version of Ezio coming in the new Assassin’s Creed set. Ezio, Blade of Vengeance, is another Dimir iteration of this character that has already been previewed.

The Horizon Lands

As we mentioned previously, the rest of this Assassin’s Creed scene is comprised of the Horizon Lands. Named after Horizon Canopy, the first of these lands, these cards each see decent play to this day. For better or worse, none of these cards are tremendously expensive, and their prices may be about to drop further.

Nurturing Peatland

While Sunbaked Canyon is perhaps the most exciting of the Horizon land reprints appearing in the Universes Beyond Assassin’s Creed crossover, Nurturing Peatland is actually the most expensive card on the list of cards revealed in this panorama. While some of the Horizon Lands saw a reprint in the Universes Beyond Doctor Who Commander decks, Nurturing Peatland was left out. For this reason, Nurturing Peatland still demands a secondary market price of $6.50. This makes it a great reprint to see in the new set.

Sunbaked Canyon

Sunbaked Canyon is the most commonly played of the Horizon Lands thanks to their inclusion in Boros Burn lists in Modern. Boros, in general, has also received a massive popularity and power boost thanks to the contents of Modern Horizons 3.

Thanks to a reprint in the recent Universes Beyond Doctor Who crossover, these Horizon Lands are much more affordable than you may expect. Despite Sunbaked Canyon being the most expensive of the reprinted cycle, it is only worth about $5 on the secondary market for most of its variants. This is, regardless, a decent reprint that should allow one of Modern’s common entry points to become even more affordable.

Silent Clearing

Like Nurturing Peatland, Silent Clearing did not see a reprint in the Doctor Who Commander decks. Despite this, the card is actually less expensive than Sunbaked Canyon. It is not uncommon for Orzhov-colored lands to be worth a little less than the rest.

Despite this trend seen across many Orzhov lands, Silent Clearing is currently worth around $5. This reprint is likely to knock down the overall secondary market value of the card. Hopefully, this will make it more affordable for Ozhov fanatics to collect their copy of Silent Clearing. If you have an Orzhov-colored Commander deck that has some flooding issues, this could be a good upgrade for your deck.

Fiery Islet

Right now, Firey Islet is hardly the most exciting Horizon Land. Available for under a dollar, this card is surprisingly a financial dud, despite being a fantastic card. In theory, this low price point change soon since Modern Horizons 3 is speeding up the format.

Thanks to the prominence of non-damaging combo decks like Ruby Storm and Nadu Combo, the damage-based downside may become less of a consideration. Since these decks are so fast, slower strategies may also be forced to speed up. This could make flooding a bigger problem, which Horizons Lands can solve. Whether or not this playable potential will lead to a price increase, however, ultimately remains to be seen.

Waterlogged Grove

Much like Fiery Islet, copies of Waterlogged Grove can often be purchased for under one dollar. This is thanks to the card’s recent reprint in the Doctor Who Commander decks which flooded the market with supply. Despite its price point, Waterlogged Grove is nonetheless a potent upgrade to many Simic Commander decks.

Continuing the comparison to Firey Islet, this card may also soon see a spike in demand and price. This is thanks to the emergence, and immense popularity, of Nadu Combo decks. In both Modern and Commander, this land works wonders regardless of whether you need fixing or somewhat inexpensive card draw.

Get Ready for MTG Assassin’s Creed!

Should a new reprint-filled scene panorama not be enough for you, we have some very good news. The entirety of the new Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond set is being revealed this week. With previews starting today and finishing on the 19th, it won’t be long before everything is revealed!

As always, we’ll be covering all the best bits here, so stay tuned if you don’t want to miss anything. If you actually want to get your hands on these cards, thankfully, you won’t have to wait long for that either. The Assassin’s Creed MTG set will be available at stores everywhere on July 5th!

Whether you want to assassinate your opponents in Modern or create an Ezio-themed Commander deck, these cards will be at everyone’s fingertips in just a few weeks.