As a lead-in to the pending weeks of Shadowmoor previews, Wizards once again put up the Orb of Insight. The Orb is basically a tool that lets you search for words (with “word” here meaning any character string without internal spaces) within the full text of all the cards in the Shadowmoor set. The Orb then returns the number of instances of that word within all searchable text in the set.
For example, a search for the word Kithkin returns a value of 21 — there are 21 instances of the word Kithkin in the set. Interestingly, there are 0 instances of the word Changeling.
To prevent savvier Magic fans from simply text bombing the Orb with every possible string and then trying to reconstruct the set, the Orb employs a captcha that means you have to search the terms by hand — as Magic fans are, no doubt, feverishly doing all the time these days.
One of the most obvious things to check, as far as I was concerned, was which Future Sight “future shifted” cards actually appear in this set. We’ve already seen Future Sight’s Boldwyr Intimidator turn up in Morningtide, where he ensures that Changelings can’t block each other. So, after a little bit of typing, which Future Sight cards can we expect to see? Just two:
Given the Hybrid nature of Shadowmoor, as discussed by Mark Rosewater in one of his Shadowmoor preview articles here, this makes perfect sense. Extensive plumbing of the Orb by other dedicated folks has turned up putative names for red-green, white-blue, white-green, and blue-black Cairn-style lands. I’m going to guess the Cairns will be rethemed, as there are no Sengir vampires (or other family members) running around in Shadowmoor.
Apparently, Mistmeadow is the Shadowmoor analog of Goldmeadow, with Skulks rather than Stalwarts. There’s one other mention of Mistmeadow in the set as well. This also goes toward explaining the freaky, buglike eyes of the Skulk, which was quite visually different from even other Future Sight Kithkin. It’s nocturnal, or at least crepuscular.
Mark Rosewater has more random tidbits in another article here. They’re neat teasers, but I think my “tease into excitement” threshold is higher. I need more information before any of those tidbits really interests me strongly.
Still, Shadowmoor is looking good — but then, that’s just been true of Magic sets for the last several years.