Alara Preview 3

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We have a bit of a Shards of Alara buffet for you today with some fresh spoiled card art, previewed cards and other speculations.

First off, I am rather happy to see that these artifact tri-coloured fetchlands are common so that Magic players would be able to host a deck set in their builds. On the other hand, the 3 mana cost for these do not make me happy at all. Furthermore, these artifacts are wide open to cheap destroy artifact spells like Naturalize or Esper Charm.

Obelisk of Bant, 3
Artifact Common Tap : Add {G},{W}, or {U} to your mana pool.

Obelisk of Esper, 3
Artifact Common Tap : Add {W},{U}, or {B} to your mana pool.

Obelisk of Grixis, 3
Artifact Common Tap : Add {U},{B}, or {R} to your mana pool.

Obelisk of Jund, 3
Artifact Common Tap : Add {B},{R}, or {G} to your mana pool.

Obelisk of Naya, 3
Artifact Common Tap : Add {R},{G}, or {W} to your mana pool.


I think that most players would rather prefer the 'Comes Into Play Tapped' tri-coloured fetchlands such as Arcane Sanctum or perhaps even the 'Panorama' lands (such as Naya Panorama).

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Today on Wizards, Kelly Digges previewed two more cards in his article, Where Ancients Tread, and Spearbreaker Behemoth.


Where Ancients Tread 4{R}
Enchantment, Rare Whenever a creature with power 5 of greater comes into play under your control, you may have Where Ancients Treat deal 5 damage to target creature or player.


Just as Kelly had stated within his article, Where Ancients Tread is priced strategically to be played at turn 5 just as most of the larger, nastier critters are about be rolled out. If you see this hit the table, you had better have and answer such as the instant 'Cancel' or a destroy enchantment card such at Esper Charm or Nauralize. As this is now the second time I have now mentioned these destroy target enchantment cards, I have now resolved to run a deck set of them.


Spearbreaker Behemoth 5{G}{G}
Spearbreaker Behemoth is indestructible. 1 : Target creature with power 5 or greater is indestrible this turn 5 /5


This is the jolly green fellow featured on the Naya Behemoths Intro Pack. It is by no accident that Kelly also previewed 'Spearbreaker Behemoth' at the same time he showed us 'Where Ancients Tread'. Spearbreaker is the perfect answer to keep your fatties alive. In fact, Spearbreaker may have the advantage in this case as your opponent would need to drop 'Where Ancients Tread' first and then wait until their next turn in order to roll out a power of 5 to activate the static ability. Anyway, it`s nice to finally see the creature that the Naya Elves are making such a fuss about.

Finally, we have two more spoiled card art images for Shards of Alara with flavours from Bant and Grixis.

Stay tuned for more . . .