MagicCon Chicago is underway and with it, we’ve got a ton of new information getting revealed about a multitude of different sets. From Bloomburrow to MTG Assassin’s Creed, a massive preview panel has begun revealing spoilers for upcoming sets that are all going to be released over the course of this year. Right now, we are going to focus on the MTG Assassin’s Creed crossover in all its glory.
MTG Assassin’s Creed is a unique Universes Beyond set that isn’t designed to be drafted. Instead, it shares some similarities with March of the Machine: The Aftermath, showing up in seven-card booster packs. These packs, known as Beyond boosters, are designed to revamp the Epilogue boosters that showed up in March of the Machine: the Aftermath.
Much like the Lord of the Rings crossover, MTG Assassin’s Creed will indeed be Modern legal. As such, between this set and Modern Horizons III, you can expect some big shakeups to the format. MTG Assassin’s Creed is set to release in July 2024. While this is a long way away, let’s take an early dive into the spoilers that have already been revealed for us!
Cool Artifacts
First up, we have an Artifact with a neat set of abilities. The goal here is to have a legend in play and an even stronger legend in your graveyard. On your end step, you can exile the legend from your graveyard with the intention of transforming your legend on board into the exiled legend on future turns. Obviously, this takes a decent amount of setup, but has the potential to be quite powerful.
For instance, if you cast Rona, Herald of Invasion or another legendary discard outlet, you can use it to pitch an enormous haymaker like Griselbrand. From there, you can cast The Animus, exiling Grieslbrand, setting up a big following turn where you get to make your Rona into a Griselbrand, attack, and draw a bunch of cards.
Unfortunately, because you don’t get to exile a Creature from your graveyard until your end step and the tap ability of The Animus is restricted to Sorcery speed, it can take multiple turns to set up a super strong play. Nonetheless, it’s a cool card with use in decks that have a ton of powerful legendary Creatures.
Next up, we have Haystack. This isn’t the most powerful card in the world, but getting to save your Creatures from removal or board wipes is nice. The card more seems like a funny inclusion more than a strong one. After all, the humorous flavor of the card and flavor text suggesting the sudden disappearance of Assassins in a simple bale of hay is intriguing by itself.
That said, Haystack could be an interesting card to utilize alongside Evoke Elementals. Cards like Not Dead After All and Ephemerate are already used alongside their Evoke costs. Haystack could be a more permanent way to ensure that, even when Evoked, your Elemental’s bodies get to stick around.
Hidden Blade, the Buy-a-Box promo for MTG Assassin’s Creed, also plays a rather simple role. As a Flash Equipment that attaches to a Creature right away, the goal is to utilize its bonus in combat. While +1/+0 and First Strike is a minor buff, if you can Equip to an Assassin, you get to ambush a Creature in combat. Just block, then allow the combination of First Strike and Deathtouch to take down the problematic attacker.
Unfortunately, Assassin isn’t exactly the most abundant Creature type in MTG. Luckily, this card also works well with Changelings or alongside Rukarumel, Biologist naming Assassin. Perhaps the large number of Assassins in this set will further open the door for a strong Assassins typal Commander deck, too.
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Assassins Galore
Unsurprisingly, in an Assassin’s Creed crossover, we are bound to have a large number of unique Assassins featured throughout the set. The first Assassin spoiler, Ezio, is rather efficient. Unfortunately, though, we aren’t entirely sure how strong the card is, as we don’t know what Freerunning does. Given that it specifically affects Assassin spells that you cast, it could be a unique form of Dash. This would let your Assassin come down with Haste, hit the opponent, then return to your hand before your opponent has a good chance to use removal.
This would make some sense given the craftiness and nature of Assassins in general. Add in some form of evasion, such as Fear, and Freerunning has the potential to be quite impactful. For now, though, we will have to wait and see.
Ezio’s last ability is also intriguing. Cards like Sorin Markov and Magister Sphinx can immediately set an opponent’s life total to 10. From there, connecting in combat with Ezio a single time can spell doom for the opponent.
Beyond just the individual cards themselves, it appears players are big fans of the Memory Corridor card frames at first glance. Additionally, you can even collect Ezio as a Scene card! There really is a lot to look forward to in this set, and we’re just getting started.
Altair is another rather efficient Assassin perfect for an Assassin typal deck. This card, much like The Animus, can exile Creatures from your graveyard with memory counters on them and make copies of them to attack with. This time, though, Altair can only exile Assassins.
For Commander, Maskwood Nexus is the perfect card to play if you want the opportunity to bring back game-breaking monsters that aren’t naturally Assassins. Of course, you can always stick to an Assassins typal deck, too.
Beyond just the main set, there are new legends as part of the Starter Kit, which provides an easy way to duel with your friends in quick fashion. Both featured legends are five-drops. Ezio generates card advantage when your Assassins connect in combat, while Eivor deals extra damage to the opponent when it attacks based on the number of Equipment you control. These aren’t super amazing, but are welcome additions regardless.
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Historical Figures
Two famous historical figures are getting their own MTG cards, with serialized versions available in collector boosters. Notably, serialized versions of these cards will only be available in their respective languges (Italian for Leonardo Da Vinci, Greek for Cleopatra).
First in line, we have Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci is super sweet, letting you create Thopter token copies of Artifacts you discard, while later threatening to pump those Thopters and deal a ton of damage.
Getting to Discard massive Artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia or Darksteel Forge and get token copies of them for cheap is powerful. You can also further abuse Leonardo’s first ability alongside Thopter token generators, like Sai, Master Thopterist.
Second, Cleopatra allows you to distribute counters to your legends, then draw cards when they die. This is a great Commander for a deck built around +1/+1 counters. Cards like Hardened Scales can help you reliably draw multiple cards at once when your legends die. Legendary Creatures that can put counters on Creatures themselves, such as Rishkar, Peema Renegade, work very well alongside Cleopatra.
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Intriguing Reprints
In addition to a wide range of new unique spoilers, this set is also jam-packed with neat reprints. Of the reprints announced thus far, Cover of Darkness is almost certainly the most interesting. First of all, the only traditional set the card has been printed in up to this point is Onslaught. As such, the card holds a $48 price tag according to TCGPlayer market price in traditional, non-foil form.
MTG Assassin’s Creed feels like the perfect set to see this card reprinted, since being able to give all of your Assassins Fear is both strong and flavorful at the same time. Given this card’s lack of reprints, Cover of Darkness will most likely plummet in price.
Both Sword of Feast and Famine and Temporal Trespass are also pricy reprints that are quite nice to see with new art. Temporal Trespass is a Pioneer Izzet Phoenix staple that was only printed in Fate Reforged. It currently has a $17 price tag in its cheapest traditional form, making it a great reprint candidate.
Meanwhile, Sword has been reprinted multiple times, but still holds a hefty $31 price tag. These reprints alone are awesome, so it’ll be interesting to see if any other valuable gems get a shout as well.
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