Whoa, this is the first of March; why are we looking at a set that’s two months away? Wasn’t Worldwake released like three weeks ago?
As captured by Gatheringmagic.com so nicely, Dailymtg spoiled this card on March 1st (click the link, it’s worth it), so it’s all fair game to talk about. Now that we have to wait until April 17th to hold this card in the Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release, we might as well talk endlessly about it. And of course, we’ll answer every question that’s going on through your mind.
So, what’s going on here?
What we have here is the first official spoiler card for Rise of the Eldrazi. Gleaming information from this and Eye of Ugin, we can actually get a good idea of the set.
Eye of Ugin?
Yeah, it was that Worldwake mythic card that hinted at the possibility of Eldrazi spells. There were two schools of thought going on with that card: 1) the most obvious and popular choice was that it was a plant for the next set and 2) it was a red herring that wasn’t going to go anywhere, much like Steamflogger Boss.
When it was first spoiled, I thought it was a mistake. Here’s the issue: I get that lands on Zendikar are supposed to be special, but it was a little silly. Lands produce mana, not make it cost less, traditionally that ability is seen on artifacts and creatures. If you want to do that on a land, you make it tap to add more mana to your mana pool but with a restriction, much like Temple of the False God. Of course, there would be ways to abuse it by untapping the land, thus creating more and more mana.
I still don’t like it’s design but understand it. If it was a land that untapped, it could be hugely abusive. Make it an artifact instead of a land.
Wait, why was Eye of Ugin in Worldwake instead of Rise of the Eldrazi?
When you draft Rise of the Eldrazi, it’s going to be triple Rise due to the set size (more on this later), not Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise. Because of this, there are going to be more cards opened for the single set thus making it more common and easier to come by in draft. In fact, the only way that the card could be printed where it didn’t annoy everyone by seeing it all the time was in Worldwake as a Mythic, where it’s going to be the fewest copies printed in the entire block. Plus, it’s mythic in flavor, so the rarity fits.
Back to Kozilek, this is an artifact so I can Tinker it up, right?
No, this guy is not an artifact, it’s colorless. Artifacts are colorless, until they’re not. The color of cards are dictated by its casting cost, not by the card frame (though an overwhelming majority of the time, they’re the same (until they’re not)). Nowhere on the type line does it say artifact; this guy is a Legendary Creature – Eldrazi. In fact, you can tell it’s special that it’s colorless because the art goes through the frame! Not even Planeswalkers can do that.
Can Terror kill it?
Yes! It has no color, and it’s not an artifact so it can be killed by Terror.
So Eye of Ugin works with this guy?
Yes, that’s the whole point. He’s a colorless creature card, along with a majority of artifact creatures as well so he can be tutored up. As for the reducing ability of Eye, that’s why the card may shoot up in value. As long as a spell is colorless and an Eldrazi, it costs 2 less. If an Eldrazi spell is colored, say Chameleon Colossus (because as a changeling it’s all creature types), then the mana cost doesn’t get reduced by 2. Eldrazi Monument does not work because it’s not a Eldrazi spell, just Eldrazi in name.
Does this mean that there could be Eldrazi Tribal spells?
Yes! Because of the way Eye of Ugin is worded, it does not say creature spells, only spells. There could be Tribal Instants – Eldrazi that would reduce it by 2. Of course, they would have to be colorless, not any other color. But, since Lorywn, the templating has been a little different when it comes to creature types, so we may not get any at all. Personally, I think so.
Does he work as an EDH General?
Yes! He’s a legendary creature so he works. There is a new colorless General besides Karn now, and follows everything like Karn does, no colored mana symbols anywhere on the card.
What does the collector’s number tells us about anything? Is this going to be the opposite of Alara Reborn and a completely colorless set?
The collector’s number is 6/248. It seems like colorless cards are in front of colored cards. As of now, the order of cards for the collector numbers go like this:
- Colorless
- White
- Black
- Blue
- Red
- Green
- Multi-colored
- Hybrid
- Artifacts
- Land
- Basic Lands
Kozilek is 6 out of 248, which means (if I know my English Alphabet) that there are 5 colorless that go before this one in the set. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, Ka-Kj are all possible names for colorless cards. Ghostfire, even though the card said colorless, still had a red mana symbol in its mana cost as was numbered with the other Red cards in Future Sight. Could ordering have changed since then and if it’s reprinted go in front of Kozilek? That’s a possibility, but would greatly shrink the amount of “colorless” cards. Note: the ordering of gold cards changed with Alara Reborn; if it’s for good, I never got an answer from WotC so it’s up in the air. I think so.
We know that the set isn’t going to be completely colorless. ManaNation.com spoiled the new basic land art playmats. While you could have a set where everything was colorless, the set to do it in would be in a small set, not large one (much like Alara Reborn was done). The 248 is a large set number (minus 1) and had been known for quite a while (I was going to do a column titled “My Set is Too Big (I am a Banana)” to talk about why it was okay to break block structure). Of the 248, 20 of those are basic lands leaving 228 for cards. While it would be okay to have basic lands in a colorless set, it would seem a little counter productive.
How many of these Eldrazi are there going to be?
More than one. Because this is a big set, there are different numbers in rarity than a small set. Large and small sets go by this guideline:
| Large Set | Small Set |
| Total cards – 249 Mythic – 15 Rare – 53 Uncommon – 60 Common – 101 Basic Land – 20 |
Total cards – 145 Mythic – 10 Rare – 35 Uncommon – 40 Common – 60 Basic Land – 0 |
The large set has 5 more mythics and 18 more rares, giving you more room to create new cards (like introduce the new super being cards). Even though the set is one card short of a large set, we don’t know what it’s going to be taken out of though if I had to take a guess, anything but mythics and basic lands. The Eldrazi are supposed to be so powerful, the thought is they’re going to be either Rares or Mythics (just a guess).
Not every mythic or rare is going to be an Eldrazi, but it does give them more cards to play around with this idea. Wizards would be hesitant to devote such a large concept to such small space. Usually when something like this comes around, it’s done in a cycle, one for each color. Since these are colorless (as far as we know, there could be “colored” Eldrazi as well), there may be more than 5. The extra cards in the larger set gives them a chance to explore this concept.
Will Rise of the Eldrazi give me free cable?
Only if you give me the spoiler list before April, then I’ll come over to your place and hook up free cable (This is a joke).
If I missed anything that you guys would like to hear about Rise of the Eldrazi, ask a question in the comments.
MTG Color Pie 
What’s crazy to me is that- this card is NUTS on it’s own.. “Oh, yeah I’ll just throw this in my Elf deck just in case I get Elvish Piper Out..”
But its also taken OUT OF CONTEXT! Who knows how many cards like the Eye of Ugin will come with RoE!? There might even be some sliver type effects that buff them once their out ala Eldrazi Monument. Either way.. this is just the tip of the iceberg.
But, please remember this, if you Elvish Piper this guy out, you don’t draw the 4 cards. It’s only when you cast him. But yeah, can’t wait to see someone Aether Vial him into play. What? it could happen.
During the Darksteel prerelease, a friend of mine used the Vial to put a Colossus into play. True story.
This is a bit off-top from the thread of this direct reply, but to avoid double-posting, I wanted to point out that, if Wizards was planning to adopt Alara Reborn’s means of ordering gold cards in sets, then Wrexial would come before Novablast Wurm in Worldwake.
And while it seems likely that colourless creatures will be numbered before coloured anything, I don’t understand why they aren’t lumped with artifacts. As you said, Ghostfire was numbered among the red cards in Future Sight, and all of Esper’s coloured artifacts were numbered within their respective colours. Why would Wizards create a new category of sorting for something that already fits neatly into one of their sorting bins? Doesn’t make much sense to me, but again, it seems otherwise difficult to explain the Butcher’s 6/248 collector number.
Re: 228 cards
Total speculation: #229 might be a special token card? Not saying we get Marit Lage, but something along those kind of lines might makes sense. Other guesses?
The Token cards get their own numbering. M11 is 249, so something is up with the fact that we get one card less.
The Eye of Ugin, is only really better for the tutor effect, the mana ability only being 1 better than a basic land and allot more restrictive. And repeatable tutors are fantastic, but tapping 8 lands is very expensive.
I’m more interested in the absurd power level as a 10 cost colourless spell. The level of card advantage inherent in this monster is massive, i think the only direct comparison could be cruel ultimatum, without the pesky 2-3-2 CC. Untapping with this dude in play is good game against allot of decks.
And this doesn’t even touch on his graveyard ability, any deck with more than a single copy of him virtual immunity to being milled.
A very scary card, not without answers (path being the most effective) , but something that will certainly see play in multiple formats (sure you will touch on how crazy good this is in practically every EDH deck ever) .
Are all the creatures in rise of the eldrazi eldrazi?
I’m responding to everyone one of your comments that didn’t make it on here.
No, not every creature is going to be an Eldrazi. Just some of them are.
There is not an Eldrazi spell in each set in the block. To be an Eldrazi spell, it has to say “Eldrazi” on the card type line, like where “Creature” or “Sorcery” is.
As for Eldrazi in future blocks, it’s unknown at this time. It depends on the story.
Sadly, this is not a blog where everything happens every three minutes. You don’t need to comment a few minutes later asking the same question.