As we approach preview season for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, the anticipation for the third return to the beloved plane and what cards and characters we’ll see is high. After seeing some cards in Wizards of the Coast‘s first sneak peak stream, there’s a lot to be excited about. One of the things that Magic: the Gathering Lead Designer, Mark Rosewater, likes to do is give the fans a little teaser post over on his Blog, with some mechanics, rules text and other little tidbits about the set. Today, MaRo released his teaser post for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt.
General Teasers
Here are some general things to expect in the set:
- three popular mechanics previously seen on Innistrad return
- a new drawback for creature tokens that lets us create them cheaper
- a white card that could potentially draw you a card each turn
- a popular Innistrad card gets reprinted
- a curse that transforms into a creature
- two permanents that can double something every turn
- a mythic cycle with “you may pay [COST] any number of times”
- a four mana blue aura with “You control enchanted creature.”
- A popular tournament card in multiple formats gets reprinted with its fifth piece of art.
- a character from Innistrad once mentioned in a short story finally gets a card in an Innistrad set
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The ones here that stand out to me that are exciting are “a popular Innistrad card gets reprinted”, “A popular tournament card in multiple formats gets reprinted with its fifth piece of art”, and ” two popular mechanics previously seen on Innistrad return”.
The first one of a popular Innistrad card getting reprinted could be a lot of different things. If he’s referring to Original Innistrad, the possibilities could be Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, Stony Silence, Gavony Township, Past in Flames, the list goes on. There were so many impactful and favorited cards in original Innistrad that it could be a number of things.
The second one, of a popular tournament card getting reprinted with it’s 5th piece of art, actually narrows down the possibilities quite a bit. Doing a quick search on cards that have 4 distinct art over the course of Magic‘s history, there’s only a handful of cards that could fit the theme of Innistrad. My first thought is Faithless Looting. It’s an original Innistrad block card, and a very popular card. Next up, I could see Damnation. This is a card that has been begging to be reprinted, and could be a thematic card that hints towards the conflict in the block. Next, considering that there’s a hint of “2 permanents that can double something every turn” could lead me to believe that “doubling” could be a subtheme, and Doubling Season could be in. We know that there’s a token subtheme, so this could make sense. Lastly, my big ‘tin foil hat theory’ is that we’ll actually see Blood Moon return. While I think that Blood Moon fits the “Vampire” theme of Crimson Vow, this could be a card that helps tie the two sets together.
For the two returning mechanics, we know that flashback is making a return, so that could be one of the two, but if we’re talking about non-flashback mechanics, and not counting “Curses” and Dual faced cards, I’d guess Morbid, and maybe skulk.
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Rules Text
Next, here’s some of the rules text that we’ll see on cards in the set:
- “If your life total would be reduced to 0 or less,”
- “This spell costs 1 less to cast for each creature you attacked with this turn.”
- “As [CARDNAME] enters the battlefield, note your life total.”
- “put a slime counter on up to one other target creature.”
- “Creature tokens you control lose all abilities and have base power and toughness 3/3.”
- “Each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard has”
- “Instants and sorcery spells you cast cost X less to cast, where X is [CARDNAME]’s power.”
- “put that many +1/+1 counters on [CARDNAME], then create twice that many 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens”
- “At the beginning of your end step, if you have exactly 13 life,”
- “You may cast any number of the copies without paying their mana costs.”
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A few things here that stand out are “If your life total would be reduced to 0 or less,” which could potentially be a new Angel’s Grace effect. Next up, the second one here, “This spell costs 1 less to cast for each creature you attacked with this turn.”, we’ve seen a similar line before on Embercleave, which proved to be very powerful, so whatever card this text is on is one to look out for. Next, is “Each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard has”, which could lead me to believe that the Past in Flames reprint could be likely, knowing that Flashback is in the set. There’s a few other cool ones here as well, but we’ll cover those another time.
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Creature Types
Lastly, MaRo gives us a few different creature types that are in the set:
- Creature – Hippogriff Spirit
- Creature – Human Soldier Werewolf
- Creature – Dragon Egg
- Creature – Leech Horror
- Creature – Fungus Horror
- Creature – Plant Horror
- Creature – Drake Horror
- Creature – Demon Dog
- Legendary Creature – Ooze
- Legendary Creature – Vampire Noble
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I can’t really gleam too much from this other than the Vampire Noble. There’s a few characters that we know of that could fit into that slot. We know that Olivia Voldaren is a character that is going to be in the block, as she’s a main character in Crimson Vow. The other 2 characters that I could see making it into the set in some way is Edgar Markov, and Anje Falkenrath. These two characters are exclusively seen in Commander products, and so it’d be really nice to see these characters flushed out into the world a bit more.
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There’s definitely a lot to digest here and a lot of speculation to be had from this list. I’m very excited to see what cards are previewed! What are you excited for, and what are your thoughts on this list of teasers? Let us know in the comments!
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is the first of two new Innistrad sets coming to Magic: the Gathering. It’s being released in tabletop on September 24th, 2021, and online on September 17th, 2021. Previews start on September 2nd, 2021. Be sure to check out our Preview Gallery to stay up to date with all the new previews. You can also preorder Innistrad: Midnight Hunt product here.
