Tutoring Thunder Junction Spoiler Hits the Internet Early!

Outlaws of Thunder Junction spoiler season hits the internet today! Starting a 9 AM PST, a landslide of new Standard legal MTG cards is to hit the internet. With exciting new abilities and powerful interactions aplenty, players will be abuzz with discussion over Magic’s newest cards.

At least, that’s how it was supposed to be. Despite Wizards’ planned event, a bizarre wave of spoilers hit the internet early. Amongst these are some new mechanics and some powerful abilities. Let’s take a look!

Insatiable Avarice

Insatiable Avarice is a rather interesting rare from Outlaws of Thunder Junction that appears to be showing off a new mechanic. Coined Spree, this mechanic offers players a variety of different effects that additional costs must be paid to use. The card itself appears to cost one black mana, and adding abilities to the card costs additional mana.

This means that, for two different mana costs at a mana value of three, Insatiable Avarice can do two different things.

Searching your library for a card and putting it on top of the deck is, more often than not, not going to be good enough outside of specific situations. While three mana would be a steal to do this at instant speed, this is an incredibly clunky effect at sorcery speed. If your tutored card gets stopped, you essentially spend two turns doing nothing. Outside of EDH, I don’t expect this mode to see a lot of play.

The other mode, however, is quite interesting. Three black mana is a rather restrictive mana cost, but drawing three cards in exchange for three life is indeed worthwhile. You can also target your opponent with this to finish them off at a low life total. Combine this with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and your spell can deal nine damage.

Now, Spree does suggest that you can pick both modes of this card for a mana value of five. This would allow you to tutor something to the top of your deck and draw it, which is much more interesting. Alternatively, you could hit your opponent for nine damage and tutor the finishing piece to the top of your deck.

Insatiable Avarice does have a lot of potential. I would expect this card to see some speculative uses. This could see reasonable Commander and Standard play.

Vraska Joins Up

Have you been looking for an addition to your Deathtouch matters deck? How about looking for a legendary creature-related draw engine? Vraska Joins Up looks like an incredibly interesting enchantment for these archetypes.

Thanks to Standard’s three-year rotation, Legends decks are still very viable in the format. The mana fixing allows the deck to branch into five colors realistically, meaning that the mana value of this card will not be a restriction. If the Legends deck remains popular, I could see this being a sideboard option for slower matchups.

Since the text does not state ‘one or more,’ Vraska Joins Up will draw a card for every single Legendary creature you control that connects each combat, which can add up quickly. Any legends matters deck that can run this card will likely consider it. This seems like a great addition to Magic’s 30-year portfolio. I would expect to see this in Commander and potentially Standard.

Saddle?

At the time of writing, we have no idea what Saddle actually does. It certainly reads a little like Crew, but players will likely need to wait until the official spoiler season kickoff has come and gone to know what Saddle does for sure.

Either way, Fortune looks like an interesting addition for Blink decks everywhere. Scrying 2 on entry is nothing to sneeze at, and depending on how Saddle works, the Blink effect could be quite powerful. Its too early to say much about this, but Fortune, Loyal Steed will probably find a home in specific Commander decks that can truly abuse it.

Selvala, Eager Trailblazer

Selvala, Eager Trailblazer is the first Mythic Rare spoiled today. Since the card is in Chinese, you can find an English translation of the card from this Reddit post. Do note that this is not an official translation, so there is a chance that some of this is incorrect.

“2GW

Legendary Creature Elf Scout

Vigilance

Whenever you cast a creature spell, create a 1/1 red mercenary creature token with “T: Target creature you control gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery.”

T: Choose a color. Add one mana of that color for each different powers among creatures you control

4/5″
u/c001357

While this is the first time we’re seeing them clearly, Selvala was leaked before in an early prerelease kit. Outside of this curious detail, Selvala definitely opens some new game space for Commander, thanks to the tokens they produce. Capable of accelerating the growth of your board, Selvala can also provide oodles of mana provided you meet the unique requirements.

To put it bluntly, Selvala looks strong. Not only can Selvala enable gigantic plays, but she also creates an army. Even her stats for four mana are above par, making her a decent creature without all the added text. This card impresses me, and I would not be surprised if Selvala shows up in Standard and Commander. Pioneer may be a possibility, but I think this card needs to have a more immediate impact on the board state for four mana in that format.

Some More Early Spoilers

Some additional uncommons in different languages have shown up on the internet before Outlaws of Thunder Junction spoiler season officially kicked off. That said, we have highlighted the most exciting cards here, and there are a lot more to come shortly.

If this wasn’t enough to whet your appetite with the upcoming set, there should be a deluge of new content hitting the internet in just a few hours. Sit tight, and hold on for dear life. This is truly going to be a wild one.