What We Know About Rise of the Eldrazi So Far

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-03-24 21:40:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Spoiler, Rise of the Eldrazi, RoE, Rise

Rise of the Eldrazi is promising to be an exciting set, and this year's spoiler season hasn't disappointed. Today we'll be examining some of the things we know about the set so far.

 

The Eldrazi Will be Common

 

Okay, they'll be rare too, as we've seen before like with Kozilek:

 

But Wizards of the Coast has also revealed the exciting new Eldrazi will run the gamut of commonality. Take a load of Ulamog's Crusher:

 

 

Ulamog's Crusher looks like, smells like, acts like, and IS an Eldrazi, but surprisingly it's a common too. So...will there be more Eldrazi as commons, or listed at greater rarities? We'll have to wait until the full set is out, but it is certainly an intriguing and surprising outcome few (did any?) had predicted.

 

The Mechanics: Level Up, Rebound, Totem Armor

 

Let's take a look at the first one, level up:

 

The ability is a bit reminiscent of Figure of Destiny because, according to the mechanics article, creatures with leveler will enter the battlefield at level 0 (the first set of power/toughness statistics). You can then pay the appropriate mana cost to "level up" the creature in order to make it increasingly powerful. While not identical to Figure of Destiny's leveling up (the ability on levelers has to be played at sorcery speed), the first time around Figure proved to be very powerful and was a mainstay in Standard.

 

Another ability that has seen play in Standard? Free spells, and Rise of the Eldrazi is bringing them back in a fashion through rebound. Check it out:

 

 

You get a first try with the spell, then the following turn you get a second copy for free. In the case of Prey's Vengeance, you get a sort of Giant Growth plus in installments. While each individual half of Prey's Vengeance is worse than Giant Growth, add the +2/+2 bonuses together and you come out ahead of the standard by +1/+1. Will that make rebound good enough to see play? It's unclear at this stage, but previous free spell mechanics like storm and cascade have proved to be format definingly strong.

 

Finally, we have a new attempt to make auras playable: totem armor.

 

 

Is this an ability we're willing to pay for? According to the reminder text, whenever your creature enchanted with an aura that has totem speaker bites it, you destroy the aura instead. Auras for creatures have historically been weak owing to the fact they set up easy two-for-ones for your opponent, so it stands to reason an aura with totem armor that has a powerful enough ability on its own is a shoo-in. We'll see.

 

Defender Makes a Comeback

 

Perhaps we should have seen this one coming after Worldwake brought us this gem:

 

According to the mechanics article from DailyMTG.com, defender will be a subtheme of the set. That means we get cards like these:

 

Making auras, creatures with defender, and 9+ drops playable? Clearly Rise of the Eldrazi will be a set unlike any we've seen. And if those Wall/defender teasers weren't enough, today we got this from Mark Rosewater on Twitter:

 

"Also in a ROE booster: A white version of a popular wall from another color. (Same c.m.c., p/t and rules text.)"

 

You can follow Mark on Twitter at Twitter.com/Maro254.

 

You can read the full mechanics article from DailyMTG.com here.

 

The Eldrazi Aren't Just Colorless

 

The splashiest Eldrazi so far have been the colorless giants (see above), but not everything with the creature type "Eldrazi" will be colorless:

 

 

Non-creature spells will also be making Spawns (well, at least one will):

 

 

Finally, here's a look at what the Spawns created from these cards may look like:

 

 

Rise of the Eldrazi is promising to be a uniquely interesting set. We'll have more for you this week (check out our exclusive spoiler preview, which goes live Friday), but you can check out the WotC official spoiler here. Don't forget, the Orb of Insight is up as well.

 

So what do you think about Rise of the Eldrazi? Share your thoughts in the forum link below.

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