The Burn Season for MTG Foundations is currently underway, and there are a lot of cards that are bound to impact Standard and beyond. There are cool new designs, like the Arahbo and First Fang, as well as durable prints, including Downfall of the hero.
Since the panel at MagicCon: Las Vegas offered a slew of spoilers for the establishments on Friday, there were a few new revelations worth discussing as well. Once again, there’s a strong mix of designs that should appear in Standard Edition and beyond. To kick things off, let’s take a look at a stylish charm that has plenty of infinite combo potential.
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Valkyrie’s Call is a really nice card that, on the surface, seems like a reasonable inclusion in value-based creature decks. Getting extra triggers to enter the battlefield when your non-angelic creatures die is decent, and this card helps protect you from clearing the board in the process.
However, things get really interesting when you have a creature with Persist and a Sacrifice Executor ready. This allows you to sacrifice your persistent creature an infinite number of times. With a sacrifice port like Altar of dementiawinning the game becomes trivial. Suppose your persistent creature is trivial Putrid imp. The combo works as follows:
- Sacrifice a Putrid goblin to the altar, and grind an opponent of your choice.
- Both the persistent trigger from Putrid Goblin and the trigger from Valkyrie’s Call will be placed in the stack. Let the trigger of Valkyrie’s Call resolve first.
- Putrid Goblin will return as an angel with a +1/+1 counter on it. Now, sacrifice Putrid Goblin back to Altar, grinding the opponent again.
- Putrid Goblin’s persistent ability will activate, bringing it back into play with a -1/-1 counter on it. Since he was previously an angel, Valkyrie’s Call is not triggered, so Putrid Goblin is not an angel when he returns via Persist.
- Repeat steps 1-4 over and over again, eliminating all your opponents to win the game.
Although this combo is illegal in Standard, it will certainly attract attention in EDH.
Cool new designs
Exemplar of Light may not have the combo potential that Valkyrie’s Call does, but it’s still bound to appear in a variety of EDH decks. Even ignoring the ultimate ability, the light form functions as flight Dean Ajani. This is a great floor. Add in some Spirit keeper Effects, this card will grow very quickly.
But what really makes this card so attractive is the ability to draw a card. Creating card advantage isn’t always easy for mono-color Commander decks. In the right shell, the Light Model will likely draw you an extra card each of your turns. If you have ways to gain life on the opponent’s turn (for example, with… Maiden spell), you can start popping up.
Exemplar of Light is unlikely to have much of an impact in Standard unless a dedicated life-increasing deck appears. However, influential EDH cards are welcome in MTG establishments, and the Light model offers.
Speaking of leader-focused cards, Homunculus Horde is an incredibly cool design. This will probably be a bit inefficient for standard play, but you should have plenty of time to set things up in EDH.
To maximize the Homunculus Horde, you will need to play a cantrip immediately after choosing the Homunculus Horde. This way, you will have two copies that your opponents will need to deal with when you pass the turn.
From there, any Moment you cast during an opponent’s turn that draws multiple cards will allow you to create more copies of the Homunculus Horde. And before you know it, the entire plate will be flooded with 2 1/2 seconds.
Classic prints
MTG Foundations also has a large number of reprints that should create some noise in the standard edition from time to time. Slagstorm is a reprint of a classic that is a welcome addition to the format.
We’ve seen many similar cards printed over the years, e.g The end of brotherhood. Being able to deal three damage to all creatures for only three mana is very powerful against aggressive decks.
Slagstorm isn’t quite as versatile as Brotherhood’s End, since the second mode usually won’t come up very often. However, the survival of this type of magic is definitely important, and there will likely be standard formats where Slagstorm is the best option available.
Angel of Finality is another decent sideboard option that will remain standard for years. Unlike most examples of graveyard hate, Angel of Finality’s exile ability comes mounted in a relevant 3/4 flying body.
Depending on the metagame available, Angel of Finality can be very impactful. With any angelic synergies or flash effects, Angel of Finality only gets better.
We’re still very early in the burn season for MTG Enterprises, and we’ve already seen a bunch of cards that could shake up Standard, Command, and more. Be sure to stay tuned for any new spoilers that will be previewed in the coming weeks.
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