Wizards of the Coast just aired their first official Innistrad: Midnight Hunt preview season stream over on their YouTube channel. This new Magic: the Gathering expansion, set on the plane of Innistrad has garnered a lot of attention and anticipation, since this plane and block have been a fan favorite since it’s inception. We got a handful of awesome new cards and we got to look at some mechanics that are in the set, let’s go through them a bit more in depth.
Coven
Coven is a mechanic that involves having creatures with different power values to gain some benefit. We will see this on various cards that fit into the “Coven” theme in the set. So far we’ve seen it show up mostly on Green and White creatures, like Sigarda, Champion of Light. The power values can be on various creature types, so this mechanic can be ideally utilized in many different creature focused decks.
Decayed
Decayed is less of a mechanic and more of a debuff on creatures. Primarily, this mechanic will involve Zombies, and the cards that we’ve seen that interact with Decayed create Zombie Creature Tokens with Decayed. Creatures with Decayed cannot block, and when it attacks, it gets sacrificed at the end of combat. This incentivizes a “aggressive, mindless” type of game play, as zombies often are. It is uncertain if Decayed will be able to be put on other creatures, or if it’s strictly a zombie token creation mechanic.
Disturb
Disturb is a graveyard focused mechanic where you may cast a creature with Disturb from the graveyard, but it will enter the battlefield transformed. It appears that the Exile clause on Generous Soul is part of the mechanic, as we see this on a few other cards previewed that have Disturb. This is almost like Flashback in a sense, and a great way to get more value out of your creatures.
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Daybound / Nightbound
Daybound / Nightbound is the new keywords for the Werewolf Transform mechanic from the Original Innistrad. These seem to be primarily on Werewolf cards. To go from Day to Night, a player will have to not cast any spells during their turn, and to go back from Night to Day, a player will have to cast 2 or more spells during their turn. This may seem identical to the original but where this differs is that the player who wants to change the time of day can only cast the spells during their turn to do so. This makes it so that your opponent can’t change the day during your turn, they have to do it on their own turn. Also one thing to note here as well is if it’s Night, permanents will enter the battlefield on their Nightbound side when played.
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Flashback
The one mechanic that we knew was coming back is Flashback. This is an old fan favorite mechanic that was also in original Innistrad. This allows you to case a spell from the graveyard for the Flashback cost, and then instead of putting it into the graveyard again, it’ll get exiled. Often times there will be a benefit to casting the spell for it’s Flashback cost, and we see this here with Secrets of the Key.
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Looking at these mechanics, I’m very excited for the future of the set. These all seem very well rounded, very thematic, and look to give a lot of room for cool unique new cards that I’m sure that the community will love. Everything is looking up for the set so definitely stay tuned for more news on Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. What are your thoughts on these mechanics? 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.
