Gifts Ungiven

Twitter is wigging out about the newest Worldwake spoiler:

I'm mainly entertained by the idea of having that in play with its mirror image pal:

So, for the record:

You can't lose the game
Your opponents can't win the game
You can't win the game
Your opponents can't lose the game

AKA "nothing happens."

Tooth and Nail for Draw Team!.

There's a reasonable amount of chatter in the usual places about this card being in a set with no Eldrazi spells:

I personally think this is a cool move. This excites me nearly as much as it would have back when I was a young, new player to the game. I like these "preview" elements in Magic sets.

Also, as Ben Bleiweiss points out, this land is already a tutor for Sundering Titans and Platinum Angels in Tron decks. Neat, right?

However, what's cool in totally flavor-based terms is how the Eye plugs into this card:

Colorless spell? Check.

And the flavor text:

Only those gifted with the eye of Ugin, the spirit dragon, can see his fiery breath.

Full credit for noticing this goes to my friend Shane, who is, I think, continuously scanning each new set for connections to the Future-shifted cards from Future Sight.

I'm very much looking forward to reading more about the intent behind "colorless" as a flavor element. It certainly feels like it plugs well into the eldritch monstrosity feel that the Rise of the Eldrazi suggested.

So, I'm told this is a good card. My fellow CFB writers are all over his value, so despite Cedric Phillips' downcheck on this new take on Jace, I'm inclined to believe that it genuinely is.

That said, I suspect this also means I won't be spending much time writing about it in terms of playing it. This is partly my own contrarian nature -- clearly, I don't just like playing the "best deck" over and over, so I end up taking quirky designs to tournaments. This is also partly the mandate of my column over at CFB, where I am not budget in the strictest sense, but tend to gnaw at a specific idea for a while. That way if a reader chooses to play the "In Development" home game, they don't end up swapping out super-expensive cards each and every week.

But as I said, not budget in the strictest sense. I still assume you're going to buy all the dual lands and fetches.

Finally, there's the fact that Jace seems okay to me, but isn't my style of gaming. This may seem curious since my favorite card ever is a blue card (cf this site's name), but I typically play that blue card in the context of decks that will rarely if ever counter a spell.

It does seem like Jace will be a tremendous problem when it's across the board from you. He can immediately go to 5 loyalty and then sit there, outside of Bolt range, Brainstorming each turn and bouncing creatures every so often.

That said, I don't know that I'd be happy as the control player to drop this Jace as soon as I could, so it feels like he's going to be a late-game icer, much like Cruel Ultimatum.

Of course, I'm saying this without testing him, which is a topic I'll be addressing in this week's In Development. My overall thought for the moment is that while Jace will be a big old sixty dollar bill, or worse, in the coming weeks, I won't be disappointed to not be running him in my decks. He's nifty, but for the moment, not my style.

So, this week's In Development is all about those new duals, with a foray into Tectonic Edge as well.

The comments are fun this time around, too. Am I a rare card shill? I think my neglect of Baneslayer says no, but you can be the judge. :)