MTG spoilers these days are a lot like the weather. No man can truly know their comings and goings. The next set on everyone’s radar is Duskmourn, and yet we’re now getting a handful of surprise MTG Foundations spoilers out of nowhere. We live in strange spoiler-filled times, it seems.
While they are early, it’s hard not to get excited about MTG Foundations spoilers. After all, since this set will be legal in Standard for so long, it’s hard to understate its importance. Any information on it is essential viewing if you have any interest in the next five years of Standard.
From what we’ve seen so far, MTG Foundations appears to offer a very stable foundation indeed. With plenty of reprints alongside stable new staples, Standard is getting a lot to play with.
A New Blood Artist For Standard
Vengeful Bloodwitch
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 1/1
- Text: When this creature or another creature you control dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Arriving somewhat out of the blue, the latest MTG Foundations spoilers come from an interview with WotC’s Max McCall. Spearing to the Japanese website 4Gamer, McCall covered a range of topics while revealing cards from the set’s Jumpstart box. Two packs from this upcoming product were revealed: Cats and Vampires. Between the two, there are four new cards to take a look at.
Kicking things off with a bang, we have Vengeful Sangromancer. This is a new take on the classic Blood Artist effect. That is to say, a creature that drains your opponent each time one of your creatures dies. We’ve seen a few different variants of this effect over the years, the most popular among them being Zulaport Cutthroat, which has the advantage of draining each opponent in Commander. Sangromancer doesn’t do this, but it may have a shot regardless.
This is largely down to the card’s synergy with the mechanics of Thunder Junction. As a Warlock, Sangromancer counts as an Outlaw. Since its drain effect targets an opponent, it can consistently commit Crimes. If either of these things is relevant in post-Foundations Standard, then this card will be too.
It plays very nicely with Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier and Rakish Crew for nigh-endless ping effects, so there could be a sneaky Rakdos deck in there somewhere. A lot of the Bloomburrow Lizards are Outlaws too, don’t forget, and also love a good ping effect. If it doesn’t see play in Standard, it’s a shoe-in in Commander, where Aristocrats decks never go out of style.
Cats In The Cradle
Vengeful Sangromancer will probably be the most impactful card of those spoiled today, but the other three are very much still worth looking at. These all come from the Cat Jumpstart pack for Foundations, and are therefore all Cat creatures.
Helpful Hunter is the most interesting of these by far. As a two mana 1/1 that draws a card on entry, it’s essentially a color-shifted Elvish Visionary. Visionary has been a playable card in plenty of Standard metas, so this has a solid shot at play too. Given that Cats are getting their own Jumpstart pack, it’s safe to assume we’ll be seeing some Cat synergies in Foundations too.
The other two Cats spoiled today feel much more like Limited fodder, unfortunately. Prideful Parent is a 2/2 Cat that enters with a 1/1 Cat token. Again, great if there are Cat lords/synergies in the set, but far too slow outside of that. Even in a dedicated Cat deck, the rate here is likely far too low to warrant inclusion given the monsters we see at three mana in Standard nowadays.
Felidar Savior is a nice card to curve into after Prideful Parent in Limited. If you have two other creatures out when you drop it, it’s kind of a 4/5 for four mana. This is probably the worst of the three since it’s conditional and not that great even when it works out. That said, as a teaching tool for new players about the benefits of going wide on board, it’s perfect. Foundations as a product is all about bringing new players into the game, after all, so cards like this are crucial. Even if you’ll never see them across the table at FNM.
Read More: New Bloomburrow Legend Replaces Missing Commander Card
