Yearn to Burn

The cycle of finales from War of the Spark are variable as any X-spell is, but are clearly intended for the late-game big play with that X ≥ 10 clause. There is already no shortage of mana-heavy spells that can blow the game wide open, but what intrigues me about one of the finales is what happens if it's in fact played for as small a return as possible.

I'm sure the Timmies out there are wringing their hands with the thoughts of getting to replay Time Stretch and Searing Wind from the graveyard three times each, but that's not the type of situation that's going to regularly come up in competitive play. So if cost is an issue, what happens when you only pay 1 for X?

Mono-red burn decks have been around since day one and still have a showing in even Type 1 play. These decks are often built around many cheap spells that do as much damage as possible, aiming to maximize that magic formula of three-damage-for-one-mana. So for a measly three mana, Finale of Promise could recycle a Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning from your graveyard for six damage! Not a bad addition of firepower to these strategies, seeing as their cards in the graveyard are generally fodder for Grim Lavamancer at best.

Consider playing Monastery Swiftspear on turn one, Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike on turn two, then Finale of Promise on turn three: since you do indeed cast the cards from your graveyard with the Finale (as well as the Finale itself!), each instance triggers Prowess for the Swiftspear. This means you can do those 20 necessary points of damage in three turns and with only four cards. That got you burn players salivating, didn't it?

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the ultra secret tech that all burn decks were waiting for and it will become a new staple of all legacy burn decks because... well, it won't. But it's certainly a powerful option if you can get the right setup with enough Lightning Bolt variants. Nevermind that the three cast triggers means the Finale can immediately bring back Arclight Phoenix with essentially one card, meaning this could even have potential in Standard. Even the casual format would appreciate six damage off of Guttersnipe in addition to whatever spells you cast from the graveyard. Of course, if you really want to capitalize on working smarter rather than harder, you could Finale for 0 to cast Ancestral Visions and Evermind out of your graveyard. Two red for four cards isn't so bad, now is it?

Booster Shot

I had thought maybe I was just a grumpy old man, that I had outdated tastes, that I was needlessly afraid of change. Well, Wizards went and vindicated my stance without even realizing it. They have showed us their hand, admitted their mistakes, lifted the curtain to reveal the empty-headed self-sabotage beneath.

All this in a charming majenta package.

If you haven't seen the recent article, there's a new type of booster pack available that is guaranteed to have rarer and more valuable cards contained within... for a commensurately higher price, of course. This isn't a lousy idea on its face: if you want more rares and foils, you pay more money to guarantee getting something. $25 feels like an awful lot to risk getting a dollar-rare and a bunch of trash commons and uncommons, even in foil, which leads to the same bad-feelings I got from the various Modern Masters boosters and their variants. Nonetheless, I get the more-valuable-content-versus-higher-price dynamic.

What sticks with me is the unveiling of the new 'showcase frames.'



What we have here on the left is the 'normal' version of the card, which you'll see in regular packs. The one on the right features a 'showcase frame,' and from what I understand, you can only expect to find it in the new Collector's Boosters.
So a promo has a different look, so what? That's nothing new. But now that spoilers have started rolling out, there's a real trend of more "fairy tale-esque" art amongst the showcase versions of the cards. Primarily, this means more hand-drawn, fantasy-appropriate art, sometimes by older artists who work in traditional media.
See the problem? The "AAA Hollywood" design of art direction I've been griping about for years is had in regular packs, but the alternate frames with more traditional fantasy art can only be had by one method: buying the new, more expensive collector's pack. They're actually admitting that the old art direction has been deemed more desirable. They're admitting that the actual fantasy art is what people want in a fantasy game, so they're... charging more for it.
Fantasy art design is actually being held hostage behind more expensive packaging, and it's up to the players to pay up or settle for a more dreary-looking world. This isn't just taking things in an unpleasant direction, it's turning cozy immersion into paid DLC, in a move that somehow is even more greedy than the usual price gouging for limited print runs.

Timing Restrictions

Of all the cards to spoil on 9/11...

Indignant Return

My constant foe...!

I told you Return to the Battle for Zendikar would happen in five years' time.