DFsigh

The following article has discussion and links to the new Magic set, so: spoiler warning!

Welp, it looks like double-faced cards are coming back. That sucks some of the wind out of my excitement for Ixalan.

This is an interesting design, though; an artifact that turns into a land because the map has lead you to a place. I certainly can't fault the reasoning.

I just hate double faced cards. I hate the dexterity issues they create having to take them in and out of sleeves, I hate the 'hidden information' aspect that it adds to an already complicated game, I hate the additional pieces by way of extra cards that have to be kept track of in order to use them. I just. Hate. This. Mechanic.

On the upside, I can finally see why the vampire Commander deck was R/B/W instead of R/B/U. Apparently white-themed vampires are a thing on Ixalan...

I don't think they should be-unless they are somehow representing a White philosophy gone evil- but apparently Amonkhet made torquing creature types OK, so long as they can story it up. I don't approve though: vampires are not heroes. They eat and enslave people. Zombies, at least, have no real will of their own.

At the same time, with 'creatures matter' being a clear theme of Ixalan, I can also see some relevant connections to the Commander 2017 set that should allow players to shore up/boost/revision those Commander decks in a way that they want. That is some clever thinking, even as corporate synergy.

There are green merfolk too. No. No I do not like that, either. There have been blue-green merfolk before but if there's one thing the merfolk tribe do not need, it's support from the best creature color in Magic.

Still; there are dinosaurs and their mechanical ability seems cool! I can get behind dinosaurs.

With today's spoilers, I'm seeing reference to Battle for Zendikar's Awaken mechanic which is...meh, but what really concerns me is the potential for overstuffing the set with mechanics, something they've had issues with before.

We shall see. It's still early, so there's a lot to take in, from the mechanics to the art, and I'm still fairly excited about this.