With the official release of Worldwake still one day away, many MTG fans are already looking forward to Rise of Eldrazi. The full visual spoiler is up, and many players have already opened a few packs too. Looking toward the future while ignoring the present is human nature. But what fun is predicting the future, when you can’t look back and show the world what an idiot you were. Or at least how little you knew long long ago. On that note, lets revisit a group of predictions made here back in October.
Well, yeah. . .
Jace Beleren will be back. CORRECT – Looking back this was an easy prediction to make. After all Jace had landed on Zendikar not long after Chandra Nalaar, and she was already featured. Two factors of note however. First, look how spot on Jace Ascendant is in regards to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Same casting cost, loyalty and two of the abilities are close enough for government work. All this without any idea of the actual card, or if it would even be Jace. And yes, this is what the kids call bragging. One thing that I could have never predicted was the amazing popularity of the newest Planeswalker. At the Seattle Pre-release they were being sold for $50. That is the inflated price of a card that nobody has yet, but I heard very few complaints and even saw a few purchases. A $50 card without a deck, or any proof of true value!? Now players are wondering if this is the best walker ever printed. Not what we expected back in October.
Gathering Magic does it again
More Eldrazi remnants but still no sign of the Eldrazi themselves. CORRECT – Take a look at Eye of Ugin and tell me I was wrong. While you are looking stop and think, is this the strangest rules text of any card printed since Tarmogoyf included planeswalkers in Future Sight? I would say so. As not to confuse too many loyal duelists , the sets one true colorless creature was errated to being an artifact and stripped of its uniqueness (Walking Atlas was surely not a misprint, can we all agree on that?). Allegedly an oversight by WotC, but more likely an attempt to give us a taste of what is coming up in RoE.
Full art lands will be the new standard- This was not a true prediction for Worldwake, only for the future of MTG. The idea was to state boldly that no future sets would have regular text lands. Obviously Worldwake has the same lands as Zendikar. This ‘prediction’ is being removed from the list. In fact lets stop talking about it all together.
Bold Predictions. . .
A Touch of Gold. CORRECT – Here is the opening sentence of this prediction: You read that correctly. After swearing off multi-colored cards for all of two sets (M10 and Zendikar) they’re back. Not in droves like Shards of Alara, or as a gimmick like Alara Reborn, but as a way to emphasize certain legendary creatures. Spot on with what Worldwake brought to the table: Novablast Wurm and Wrexial, the Risen Deep. Reinhart has already asserted that this is how multi-color should be done. Agreed, a perfect mix of power, awe and a blend of both colors. Things Alara Reborn threw out the window.
The land will come alive. Um, its not Wrong per se – To be truthful, when I said lands were going to come alive I didn’t exactly picture a cycle of land enchantments like the Zendikons, or special lands like the duals. That does not mean it wasn’t correct. Although predicting land would come to life in a set called Worldwake isn’t Nostradamus’ best work. The lands themselves are a perfect mix of the 10th edition living lands and CIPT duals. In his recent column for dailymtg.com Jacob van Lunen sang the praises of these under-appreciated lands. I am inclined to agree. The option of having an extra creature (in almost every case a good extra creature) is more than enough to make up for playing them tapped. Raging Ravine could be a tournament staple in Jund, another 2-for-1.
Few if any vampires, and a return of elf tokens. WRONG, oh boy was I Wrong -
Anowon would like some words with me
<munch…munch…munch> Ugh, that crow was disgusting, but a promise is a promise. Vampires abound in Wordwake, and many of them (like Ruthless Cullblade, Bloodhusk Ritualist, and Kalastria Highborn) are awesome. So that half of my prediction went about as well as Pets.com. On the elven side of things, there was nothing but more disappointment. Joraga Warcaller is pretty impressive, but that is about all Worldwake had to offer as far as unique elves. And definitely no elf tokens. File this under the ‘hope nobody reads this’ section.
Hopes and Dreams. . .
No more dual/fetch lands. WRONG – A mono-colored fanboy can dream can’t he? This represents the fifth cycle of allied dual lands available in Standard now. The truly scary part for us color pie fanatics could be another set in Rise of Eldrazi. As much of a fan as I am of these new lands, when is enough truly enough? Perhaps my next prediction will be the end of basic lands. We aren’t too far off.
Better or More Complete Allies. CORRECT – The only hope for Worldwake that actually came true. Here is what I said in October: ..How about a little effort on the abilities Wizards? With the exception of some rares, Zendikar allies basically read ‘creatures get +1/+1 counters whenever a creature of the same type enters the battlefield’. Useful but very boring. We need some more unique abilities. Allies you control gain flying until end of turn, or trample, or any other ability. Perfect, that is precisely what happened with cards like Talus Paladin and Join the Ranks.
A True Sweep for Black. WRONG – If I only had said red, everything would be fine. Chain Reaction is a perfect sweep with a reasonable drawback. Black didn’t even get another Infest equivalent. Which is okay, but those vampires would look a whole lot prettier if a psuedo-Damnation had seen print in Worldwake. After all, vamps are not a true aggro strategy and thus need a sweep to reset. Just like white tokens. We are not asking too much, are we?
Final Score: A fairly solid 5 out of 8. In hindsight I missed a few very obvious ones (vampires and dual lands), but overall I am happy with the performance. Of course 62.5% gets an D- in most cases, so maybe ‘happy’ isn’t the right word. But the mistakes are lessons for Rise of the Eldrazi, more vampires and allies, and probably more dual lands (after all this is a ‘draft-alone’ set.)
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No list of Worldwake prediction wrap-ups would be complete without a look at the Bazaar Trader prediction column written in December. Here were the three possible options given then (see the link for larger images):
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The images are a little small, but that is intentional. Why? Because in three valiant attempts to guess the newest rare goblin, Gathering Magic missed on all three. Three strikes equals an out.
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I can’t believe you (and the internet community as a whole) got so hung up on the three fingers in Bazaar Trader’s art. I always figured it was just art.
Here’s a freebie for your RotE predictions: spells with colored mana symbols in their costs, but whose rules text defines them as being colorless (ala Ghostfire). Like fish in a barrel.
Three fingers represent three possible type choices: artifact, creature or land.
But I would have preferred a real trade (so what do I get for giving away something). In that case it would have been a one-of and using a tap ability for real exchange would have been too broken.
Mine wasn’t so far off either
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/2009/12/first-worldwake-spoiler-update/
Combine the two and we nailed it!
I’m not sure about that, for instance the guy on Counterspell is holding up three fingers which has nothing to do with that card. I don’t think it means much.
The guy on counterspell, first of all is only holding up two fingers to use his magic (only two fingers have magic power coming from them) and his spell is getting countered so we don’t know what spell he was casting or its converted mana cost.
It seemed an obvious way to introduce multikicker as an ability.
Looking back, I have no idea why this was a preview card. The ability is great, but it has nothing to do with Zendikar/Worldwake.
That certainly threw me off the trail. So did the term ‘trader’. WTF Wotc!?
It’s actually a Goblin Giver.
Seems fair to assume we’ll see more like Ghostfire, yes…
I have a feeling we’ll also get a way to completely break Eye of Ugin.
I love it when people go back to their predictions and check them out en-total. Good job on the Jace. You should really get to to count that one twice with the abilities so close as extra credit!
I appreciate the praise. I was pretty proud of myself after I saw the real Jace. Too bad I didn’t go all out and guess he would have 4 abilities!
I was hoping maybe to see an Arbor Dryad-esque cycle of literal (creature lands). Sigh… Maybe we can gets some mono colored manlands and a new planeswalker?
I think you deserve a B+ just based on how close you were with Jace.
Walking Atlas was indeed a misprint. It has been errata’d to be an artifact creature.
I think they’re suggesting that Walking Atlas was supposed to be the first Eldrazi (under a different name probably) but decided at the last minute to change it; causing the misprint.
I think that may be excessive conjecture. It was probably just a plain, ol’ misprint.
I agree, I’m sure that one wasn’t intentional.
Any other day I would agree with you. But my conspiracy theory side won’t let this one die.
Its a colorless creature!
But if it were a colorless creature, it would have the colorless border and not the artifact border.
And of course, with Amulet of Vigor now all those dual lands come out untapped. The only problem I have with the dual lands is that they cost more than I am willing to pay for them. Maybe the cost has gone down for the Zen and M10 ones now as I haven’t looked in a while.
I definitely hope they do, but all good rare duals are overpriced.
Worldwake Sucks! The art work is not all that great first off. Second, 3 goblins? Are you kidding me? Not only that but there is not that great of a selection from Red or Black that doesn’t have anything to do with Vampires. I found no cards that will make an appearance in my red/black goblin deck. Reinhart, Leaf can you feel my pain?
First of all, outside Lorwyn there were no black Goblins. But there will always be sets where certain tribes lose out, sometimes there just isn’t enough room in a set for every tribe to be good.
So, a set’s failure to cater to one person’s deck of choice equates to that set sucking? Galileo called. Says he just discovered the universe doesn’t revolve around you.
Nice reference
You’ve never read or met that Reinhart then. He thinks the world revoloves around Islands, I personally think the world revolves around fire…no contesting that without that mantle the world would look alot like the moon. I just think us Goblin fans have been robbed of our tribe since the Lorwyn days, so much so that I have been forced into an equipment deck which has of course a blue vein running through it (Your welcome Reinhart). I enjoyed the comment.
The world doesn’t revolve around islands.. the world IS an island! Philosophize that!!
Can’t relate? I guess Blue did get its just dessert from this series, otherwise we sould have to read another post about how blue got robbed. So this time around I get to complain about red getting robbed, I guess its true, you can’t please everyone all of the time just some of the people some of the time. I hope the next set comes back around and sticks Blue back in the box.
Dan the man, good to hear from you. I would argue that Quest for the Goblin Lord is a pretty good fit for your deck.
But no, goblins aren’t a very strong tribe in Zendikar. Sorry about that. It does have elves though…
…and you know how I feel about elves…cannon fodder for goblins. I agree its a good card but its just not as devesatating as Fodder Launch. I miss Lorwyn.
Also, I disagree about the bad art, there are some great-looking cards (Eye of Ugin and Omnath, to name just a couple.
+1 to monocolour fanboy!!! love the colour pie. love your hints and analysis at eldrazi as well!
I heard the vampires are here to replace zombies as black humanoid race. So better predict them appearing in almost every set from now on…