MTG Arena Jumpstart: Historic Horizons Spoilers and Highlights

Davriel, Soul Broker (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Davriel): Here’s a fascinating version of Davriel, Davriel, Soul Broker. He feels like an incredibly complicated card, but he’s not. He is, however, incredibly powerful. I vastly prefer him to Sarkhan. Out of the planeswalkers I’ve seen so far, Davriel is my favorite of the spoilers for MTG Arena Jumpstart Historic Horizons. He can do pretty much anything you need and only runs four mana. He has a base loyalty of 4 and can do the following:

+1: Until your next turn, whenever an opponent attacks you and/or planeswalkers you control, they discard a card.
-2: Accept one of Davriel’s offers, then accept one of Davriel’s conditions.
-3: Target creature perpetually gains -3/-3.

Davriel very much feels like a devil in disguise. He can offer you incredible power, but it comes at a cost. When you use his -2, you will receive three offers to choose from and three conditions. You have to pick one of each.

Davriel’s Offers:

Draw three cards.
Conjure a Manor Guardian card into your hand.
Return two random creature cards from your graveyard to your hand. They perpetually gain +1/+1.
Return a random creature card with the highest mana value from among cards in your graveyard to the battlefield.
You get an emblem with “Creatures you control get +2/+0.”
You get an emblem with “Spells you cast cost 1 Black less to cast.”
You get an emblem with “Davriel planeswalkers you control have ‘+2: Draw a card.’”
You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, you gain two life.”

Davriel’s Conditions:

You lose six life.
Exile two cards from your hand. If fewer than two cards were exiled this way, each opponent draws equal to the difference.
Sacrifice two permanents.
Each creature you don’t control perpetually gains +1/+1.
You get an emblem with “Creatures you control get -1/-0.
You get an emblem with “Spells you cast cost 1 Black more to cast.”
You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, exile the top two cards of your library.”
You get an emblem with “At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose one life for each creature you control.”

Yawgmoth, Thrash Physician (4-Cost Legendary Creature – Human Cleric): One of my all-time favorite characters in MTG history, it’s Yawgmoth! He’s a 2/4, Protection from Humans so that’s already pretty good. You can pay 1 life and sacrifice a different creature, to put a -1/-1 counter onto a creature and draw a card. You can also tap 2 black and Discard a card to Proliferate. If you have a nice flow of token creatures or creatures you can bring back, you can keep your opponent at bay. Discard a creature that you can revive like Reassembling Skeletons, bring it back, sac it, and put -1/-1s out. You can use this strategy to keep your opponent’s creatures get weaker and die!

Subversive Acolyte (2-Cost Creature – Human): This isn’t quite a Shapeshifter. You can pay two mana and two life to choose a new form, but you can do it only once. For a 2/2 for two black, it’s pretty rad. Here are your choices:

Human Cleric. It gains +1/+2 and gains lifelink.
Phyrexian. It gains +3/+3 and tramples and “Whenever this creature is dealt damage, sacrifice that many permanents.”

Is there even a choice? Phyrexian is the correct answer in almost any situation.

Manor Guardian (3-Cost Creature – Demon): A 4/3 for three, each player seeks a non-land card with mana value two or less when it dies. Ehhhh. I don’t want other players to seek cards, only me. But it’s not terrible. It’s a neat card, but I”m not a huge fan of it.

The offers are all incredible, and some of the offers feel bad. If you aren’t running creatures or running a control deck, several of them are inconsequential. I’m a huge fan of this card, but it is wildly powerful.

Boneyard Abberation (5-Cost Creature – Skeleton Dog): Ehh, it’s neat, if nothing else. It does create more creatures into your graveyard, which isn’t the worst thing to see. When this 3/3 dies, you exile it. When you do, conjure three Reassembling Skeleton cards into your graveyard. You can tap two mana (1 black) to return a Reassembling Skeleton from the grave into play, tapped. So suddenly we have more 1/1 Skeletons to contend with! They can always come back unless they’re exiled or put into your hand. Even then, we can recast them from our hands.

Kiora, Wrath of Tides (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Kiora): So far, none of these planeswalkers have exorbitant costs, making them fairly reasonable to use. In particular, Kiora’s got a sort of interesting skillset. She still has annoying Krakens to use, but it’s much easier to get things going. She has a pair of upticks (+1), a -3 downtick, and like the others, has a base Loyalty of 4. What can she do?

+1: Conjure a card called Kraken Hatchling to your hand.

+1: Untap a creature or land of your choice. Until your next turn, prevent all damage that would be dealt to or dealt by that permanent.

-3: You may sacrifice a Kraken. If you do, create an 8/8 blue Kraken creature token.

Kraken Hatchling is a 0/4 for 1 blue mana, so you can make a few of these, sacrifice one, and make an 8/8 instead! This is also excellent in case someone permanently alters the card’s abilities. Then you sacrifice it, and instead get an 8/8, foiling someone’s plans to keep your 8/8 as a ⅛ or something. I really like the +1 that untaps though. That creature or land no longer deals damage for a turn, but it can also not take damage. Very interesting. A fantastic way to have a blocker, without worrying about it dying. If it can’t take damage, Deathtouch can’t kill it.

Tome of the Infinite (3-Cost Legendary Artifact): Wow, Tome of the Infinite can do a lot. This card’s power level is absolute insanity. It fits perfectly into Historic, on that note. You can tap one blue and tap this to Conjure a random card from the Tome of the Infinite’s spellbook into your hand. That card perpetually gains “You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast this spell.” The cards you can access in this are cards you normally can’t find in MTG Arena to boot, for the most part. The list is:

• Light of Hope
• Swords to Plowshares
• Force Spike
• Ponder
• Dark Ritual
• Duress
• Assault Strobe
• Lightning Bolt
• Fog
• Giant Growth

Swords to Plowshares?! Oh, I adore this card. It’s so damn strong. You don’t get to pick the spell, thankfully. I can’t wait to see what decks maximize the use of this card.

Shoreline Scout (1-Cost Creature – Merfolk Scout): For those of you who are new to MTG, Tropical Island is a part of the original list of Dual Lands. They were lands that count as two different lands at once (Island Forest in this case). They had no restrictions like requiring you to take damage or come into play tapped. Why is this important? Because this 1/1 for 1 allows you to exile a land or Merfolk from your hand. If you do, conjure a Tropical Island into your hand. Color fixing for Blue, and potentially very powerful. If you just have a generic Island in hand, and you need green mana too, here you go, problem solved!

Stitchwing Skaab (4-Cost Creature – Zombie Horror): What’s that, you say? A blue card that is a discard engine? You better believe it. It also helps you bring this card back from the grave. A 3/1 for 4 with FLying, you can discard two cards and pay two mana (1 Blue), and return this card from your graveyard and into play tapped. That’s great, but it’s a fantastic way to pitch cards into your graveyard for Revival/Retrieval. Love that.

Bounty of the Deep (3-Cost Spell – Sorcery): A nice, useful sorcery. It seeks a land card and non-land card for three mana if you have no land cards in hand. Otherwise, you seek two non-land cards. So it is valuable, no matter what happens.

Ethereal Grasp (3-Cost Spell – Instant): These “perpetually” cards are coming in hot and heavy! This one’s a classic “tap target creature” spell. However, it perpetually gains “This creature doesn’t untap during your untap step” and “8 Colorless: Untap this creature.” Wow. What a great way to stop a huge incoming creature that came into the game far too fast.

Mentor of Evos Isle (3-Cost Creature – Bird Wizard): Does your opponent have too many grounded creatures, but no flyers? Do you need to get some cheap, easy damage going? Say hello to the Mentor of Evos Isle! A 2/1 for 3, allows you to choose a creature in your hand, and it perpetually gains flying. Pick your biggest, strongest damage dealer and make it so much easier to get damage through. It’s not too bad to permanently alter a card for this game.

Freyalise, Skyshroud Partisan (3-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Freyalise): Freyalise is another one of the long-standing, legendary characters of MTG that deserved a planeswalker card. She’s only a 3-cost for 4 Loyalty and will slot in nicely to your Historic Snowball Elf decks. The ability to seek Elves, and create a card that lets you draw for each green creature you have out? Oh yes, she’s money.

• +1: Choose up to one target Elf. Untap it. That Elf and a random Elf creature card in your hand perpetually gain +1/+1.
• -1: Seek an Elf card.
• -6: Conjure a Regal Force card onto the battlefield.

Regal Force is a 7-cost card from Time Spiral. When this 5/5 comes into play, you draw a card for each green creature you control. In Mono-Green Elves, this card is a real force of nature, if you’ll pardon the pun. Plus we can buff Elves that aren’t even in play yet?! Suddenly that expensive Elf card is way more worth casting if it keeps getting +1/+1. If you lack Elves, she can seek one Elf card for -1 too. I’m a fan of this for Elfball, but I’m not so keen on seeing it on the other side of the board if I can be honest.

Pool of Vigorous Growth (2-Cost Artifact): This feels like putting MOMIR in Historic Magic. Another brief history lesson, MOMIR is a very old MTG format from the MTGO days. You could pay X mana and discard a card. You would then randomly get a random creature that cost that amount of mana. Pool of Vigorous Growth does something similar. You tap X mana and discard a card (and tap this). You create a token that’s a copy of a random creature with a Mana Value of X. You can only do this as a sorcery. So you basically create pure chaos. This is very popular in Hearthstone, but let us not forget: Hearthstone did it first. You can get some ridiculous things out of this, which could be amazing. It probably won’t wind up being overpowered, but I’ve been wrong before.

Skyshroud Lookout (2-Cost Creature – Elf Archer): Skyshroud Elves are pretty common in the MTG mythos. But this one, Skyshroud Lookout is a new one. A 1/1 for 2, it seeks an Elf card when it enters the battlefield. It’s better than cards like Elvish Visionary in my opinion, because it pulls a specific card type into your hand, instead of “draw a card”.

Longtusk Stalker (1-Cost Creature – Cat): Energy creatures are back! A 1/1 for 1, whenever it enters play or attacks, you gain 1 energy. You can also pay 2 energy to give this perpetually +1/+0. You can also choose a creature card in your hand. If you do, that card perpetually also gets +1/+0. The downside is that it’s so incredibly easy to kill. You need handy buffs, or something First Strike, if you want to get the most out of the card itself.

Skyshroud Ambush (2-Cost Spell – Instant): This is a simple spell in and of itself. It makes a creature you control fight a creature you don’t control. When your creature wins, draw a card. However, it says “When”, when it should definitely say “If”. Your card isn’t guaranteed to win, after all. You will probably set up favorable situations, but spells can always come into play. Still a decent card draw option.

Veteran Charger (3-Cost Creature – Centaur Soldier): Another useful common, a 2/2 for 3. The Veteran Charger has you pick a creature in your hand when it enters the battlefield. That creature perpetually gains +2/+2. No matter what happens for the rest of that game, that card is buffed. You love to see it. Ideally, you drop this on your big aggressive card, to make it just that much bigger.

Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Sarkhan): The reason a card like this would work is that it’s digital-only. It’s the first of the planeswalkers I saw in the MTG Arena Jumpstart Historic Horizons spoilers. It uses both the new Perpetually and Conjure mechanics. Starting with four Loyalty, here is what Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv can do:

+1: Dragon cards in your hand perpetually gain “This spell costs one less to cast,” and “You may pay X rather than pay this spell’s mana cost, where X is its mana value.”

0: Conjure a Shivan Dragon into your hand.

-2: Sarkan, Wanderer to Shiv deals three damage to target creature.

No huge, game-winning bomb, but you can make your dragons wildly cheaper every turn. I like the card a lot and it can just conjure Shivan Dragons! A classic MTG staple for casual play back in the day, the Shivan Dragon could be inflated. You could pay one red to give it +1/+0 until the end of the turn. It was honestly a lot of fun to use. 

Pashalik Mons (3-Cost Legendary Creature – Goblin Warrior): The very first Magic: the Gathering card I ever owned was Mons’ Goblin Raiders. It was a 1/1 Goblin for 1 red mana. I always wanted to see the leader of the band, Pashalik Mons. In Modern Horizons, this card got created. It’s a 2/2 for 3, and Pashalik Mons deals 1 damage to any target whenever it, or another Goblin you control dies. You can also pay 4 mana (1 red) and sacrifice a Goblin. This will create two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens. So you sacrifice one, deal 1 damage, and get two. That’s premium value.

Scion of Shiv (4-Cost Creature – Dragon): A 3/3 Flying, this proto-Shivan Dragon is, in its way, much better. You can pay three mana to give it +1/+0 perpetually. So it’s a permanent buff, and it has flying. So if we can make it cheaper to cast, using Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv.

Reckless Ringleader (1-Cost Creature – Goblin Warrior): Okay, even in non-Red decks, this could be amazing. When this enters play, you choose a creature in your hand, and it perpetually gains Haste. So we run this in a deck with huge creatures that we can either play early, or that we can discard, and revive it. Since it’s a perpetual Haste, it will have that ability no matter what this game. This could be a whole lot of fun in Historic, that’s for sure.

The First Sliver (5-Cost 5-Colored Legendary Creature – Sliver): A 7/7 for 5, it grants all Sliver spells Cascade! Cascade is likely new to MTG Arena too. Whenever you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you reveal a non-land card that costs less. You can cast this without paying its mana cost. Those other exiled cards get shuffled back into your deck. Pure. Unadulterated. Chaos.

Cloudshredder Sliver (2-Cost Red/White Creature – Sliver): Cloudshredder is a 1/1, but it grants all Sliver creatures you control Flying and Haste. Good God.

Lavabelly Sliver (3-Cost Red/White Creature – Sliver): This is another really frustrating Sliver. This grants your Slivers “When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to target player or planeswalker and you gain 1 life”. Just play Slivers and eventually win!

First Sliver’s Chosen (5-Cost White Creature – Sliver): Simple and to the point, this grants Slivers you control Exalted and is a 3/3. Exalted is an effect from the Alara Block. Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, it gets +1/+1 until the end of turn for each Exalted permanent you control. Combine this with granting your Slivers Flying/Haste, you can swing with one Sliver and hit your opponent for something like 15-20, easily.

Dreamscape Sliver (2-Cost Black Creature – Sliver): Another old ability is back. This Sliver grants each Sliver in your graveyard Unearth 2. Unearth 2 lets you return this card to the battlefield for 2 mana, and it gains Haste. However, you exile it at the beginning of your next End Step or if it would leave the battlefield. Can only be done as a Sorcery. You can use this with the Lavabelly Sliver in play to trigger lots of extra damage.

Tempered Sliver (3-Cost Green Creature – Sliver): A 2/2 for 3, this Sliver grants Slivers you control “Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.” so it’s a nice simple buff.

Enduring Sliver (2-Cost White Creature – Sliver): Do you want to be able to buff your Slivers permanently? This 2/2 helps! It has Outlast 2, and grants your other Slivers Outlast 2. Outlast lets you put a +1/+1 counter onto this creature, for 2 mana, and tapping it. You can only do it as a Sorcery though. Huzzah, buffing! You can basically do anything with Slivers.

Cleaving Sliver (4-Cost Red Creature – Sliver): Simple and to the point: Sliver creatures you control get +2/+0. Horrifying.

Teyo, Aegis Adept (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Teyo): Every color is getting a new planeswalker that’s exclusive to MTG Arena. Unlike some of the others, he gets a pretty awesome Emblem. He also comes in for 4 mana with 4 Loyalty. What can this new iteration of Teyo do? I’m glad you asked!

+1: Up to one target creature’s base power perpetually becomes equal to its toughness. It perpetually gains “This creature can attack as though it didn’t have defender.”

-2: Conjure a Lumbering Lightshield card onto the battlefield.

-6: You get an emblem with, “At the beginning of your end step, return target white creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. You gain life equal to its toughness.”

Holy buckets. Wall decks have an amazing new tool in Historic. You can also make those Lumbering Lightshields, which are a ¼ and makes an opponent’s card in hand perpetually cost 1 colorless more. That -6 is incredible though. You can be as aggressive as you like with your nontokens because you can keep bringing the great ones back. It also allows you to gain life on top. But that +1 is my favorite. It lets Defenders/Walls attack freely, and gives their power a boost. Typically, Defenders have almost no attack and very high life. So you give that 0/6 a boost, making it into a 6/6. If it gets a life buff, it would also buff the power too. Teyo’s pretty fun.

Serra the Benevolent (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Serra): Serra the Benevolent is frustrating but in a good way. Her ultimate ability gives you what is essentially a Platinum Angel effect:

+2: Creatures you control with flying get +1/+1 until the end of turn.

-3: Create a 4/4 white Angel creature token with Flying and Vigilance.

-6: You get an emblem with, “If you control a creature, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead.”

So you want that Emblem as fast as possible. If you can make a creature indestructible or something akin to that, you can just stick around and win. The +2 making your fliers gain +1/+1 is also really fun. Suddenly those 1/1 Birds are 2/2 birds, and that’s good enough for me.

Ranger-Captain of Eos (3-Cost Creature – Human Soldier): Oh I missed this card. Another classic coming back is the Ranger-Captain of Eos. A 3/3 for 3, lets you look through your library for a creature card that costs 1 or less, reveals it, and puts it into your hand. You can also sacrifice this card to make your opponents unable to cast noncreature spells for the turn. Keep it in mind when you think counters/major game-winning spells are coming.

Reckless Ringleader (1-Cost Creature – Goblin Warrior): Okay, even in non-Red decks, this could be amazing. When this enters play, you choose a creature in your hand, and it perpetually gains Haste. So we run this in a deck with huge creatures that we can either play early, or that we can discard, and revive it. Since it’s a perpetual Haste, it will have that ability no matter what this game. This could be a whole lot of fun in Historic, that’s for sure.

Thalia’s Lieutenant (2-Cost Creature – Human Soldier): Revealed by Amazonian a couple of days ago, Thalia’s Lieutenant is here to make Human decks better. A 1/1 for 2 mana, when it comes into play, you put a +1/+1 counter on each other Human you control. Whenever another Human enters play for you, Thalia’s Lieutenant gets a +1/+1 counter. So, while yes, you can flood the board and buff this Lieutenant, it can be easily, almost immediately killed. That having been said, if you can flicker it in and out a few times, you can do hilarious amounts of buffing to your humans. Charming Prince says Hi.

Benalish Partisan (2-Cost Creature – Human Soldier): I assume she’s a Human Soldier. A ½ for 2 with Lifelink, it can keep coming back if you Cycle. It’s also going to get bigger and bigger. And it’s a Cycle card! So I want to see this squeezed into Red/White Cycle decks. Whenever you Cycle another card, you can pay 2 mana (1 White). If you do, return Benalish Partisan from the graveyard into play tapped. It perpetually gains +1/+0. That way, we Cycle one for one in hand, and it comes into play! We can play hyper-aggressive with these since we can just return them into play as a part of Cycling. Huzzah, a way to permanently increase the amount of damage we can put out!

Wingsteed Trainer (4-Cost Creature – Human): If you want to create more and more flying creatures, you can use the Wingsteed Trainer to do exactly that. When this ⅔ for 4 comes into play or attacks, conjure a Stormfront Pegasus card into your hand. It’s neat, but I’m not sure it’s going to be wildly used. At least, it’s a solid attacker as a ⅔. You can always buff it or flip it out of play and back again.

Baffling Defenses (2-Cost Spell – Instant): Now this is amazing. “Target creature’s base power perpetually becomes 0.” This is amazing because it’s an Instant. This isn’t an Aura that your opponent can get rid of. To stop this, you have to counter it. How does this work, exactly? Does it perpetually trigger no matter what? I know it remains even if it changes zones (graveyard, exiled, your hand). But does it override other buffs? Wizards did say that this change stays “no matter what,” so that is ridiculous.

Chainer, Nightmare Adept (4-Cost Legendary Black and Red Creature – Human Minion): Another Modern Horizons 2 card, Chainer, Nightmare Adept. A 4-cost creature that’s a 3/2, allows you to Discard a card. Doing so lets you cast a creature spell from your graveyard this turn, but only once each turn. On top of that, whenever a nontoken creature enters play for you, if you didn’t cast it from your hand, it has Haste until your next turn. That’s an excellent way to make someone suffer in a Reanimator deck. I’m excited to see this in a Red/Black or Grixis Reanimator deck. There’s a whole lot that can be done with it. You could also simply use it as a discard engine for other effects on top of that.