MTG Throne of Eldraine Spoilers Begin with Several Card Announcements

Flaxen Intruder is the first of the non-planeswalker cards to be officially revealed for the new card set and is a green mana color creature card. Flaxen Intruder is a human berserker-class card that, as the name implies, fully realizes the fairy tale setting of the upcoming expansion.

The artwork for Flaxen Intruder is stunning and surprisingly grim for such a cheery, colorful card. The art is somewhat reminiscent of old school Magic cards in its style. The artwork at the top of the card shows that this is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

The strange but intriguing design at the bottom half of the card stumps most players in the community. The top half is the artwork that features an interesting take on the Goldilocks and the three bears story.

As we see in the card’s artwork, Goldilocks is a young girl with a sinister smile on her face who is carrying a bear trap attached to a chain. Underneath her is a bearskin rug with a head of a bear mounted on the wall next to her.

In Goldilock’s other hand, you can see a large cleaver or hammer of sorts that has some blood on it. Without a doubt, this is a bizarre and twisted take on fairy tales that we didn’t expect at all and certainly paves the way for the rest of this expansion set.

It is unsure if the rest of the expansion will feature crazy cards like the Flaxen Intruder, but we shall see. Regardless, that’s only dealing with the top half of the card whereas the bottom half looks nothing like we have seen before in the history of the card franchise.

The bottom half takes a page literally from the fairy tales it is based on and is book-shaped. There is a page of the book on the left side and another page on the right side, mostly, splitting the abilities of Flaxen Intruder in two halves.

The card series is no stranger to split cards in the past. Unlike anything else as the right half is pretty standard stuff while the left half is the Adventure side of things. Though it wasn’t revealed initially, we now know that the Adventure feature is a new mechanic added to the game.

But it all begins with summoning Flaxen Intruder to the field. For starters, this is a card that green deck players can use right at the start of the match as it only costs one green mana to summon to the field with its stats of one/two.

It has the normal ability on the right side of the bottom half that says that whenever Flaxen Intruder deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice it. When you choose to sacrifice it in this manner, you can destroy a target artifact or enchantment that the enemy has.

This alone makes Flaxen Intruder a strong starter card for the beginning of the match as you set up and get ready to counter your enemy. But that’s only half of the story with Goldilocks here. She is also able to take advantage of the left half of the bottom portion of the card; the Adventure feature.

For those who don’t know, the Adventure feature is a new mechanic that allows you to change up how the card works and use it in a new and exciting way. Whereas before, Flaxen Intruder is a normal creature card that costs one green mana to summon, this turns her upside down.

No longer is she considered a creature card, but she is a sorcery spell card in this format and the mana cost changes as well. You can summon the card from your hand for seven mana in total, two of which must be green. This version of the card is aptly called Welcome Home.

When you use this Adventure feature, what it does is create three two/two green bear creature tokens that will fight for you on your side of the field. Being that this makes Flaxen Intruder a spell card, she is exiled from the field instead of summoned for battle.

Through the use of the new Adventure feature, you can summon her again, once she has been exiled by using the Welcome Home spell. The Adventure mechanic is a strange twist of events for the overall metagame that we will be digging into deeper in a separate post to explain how it works.

The next card to be revealed in the first batch of announcements is yet another fairy tale twist Lovestruck Beast. Thankfully, Lovestruck Beast doesn’t seem to be as sinister as the take on the Goldilocks story was with the new Flaxen Intruder card.

If you couldn’t tell from the name, Lovestruck Beast is a unique twist on the classic Beauty & the Beast storyline that is as old as time itself. Also, the artwork is stunning as well, offering that same one-of-a-kind style that we haven’t seen before in the card series.

From the artwork itself, we can see that there is the beast himself in the middle of the card smelling of a rose. In the background to the left, we can also see the beautiful girl who the beast wishes to make his princess. What is most intriguing, though, is that there is a mysterious border around them.

While we aren’t sure what the border is supposed to mean since it isn’t seen around the other card, we do know this card has a few tricks up its sleeve like Flaxen Intruder. Just like that card, it is also an Adventure card that serves two possible purposes on the battlefield.

The first is as its standard format of being a creature card. Lovestruck beast is a creature card known as the beast noble fittingly. He costs three mana in total to summon to the field on your side, one of which must be green. Oddly enough, both cards thus far are for the green color decks, which are getting some much-needed love this expansion it seems.

Lovestruck Beast has the impressive stats of five/five, which are great for a starting card like this one that only requires three mana to summon, therefore, available for use in the early turns of the game. But those stats are countered by its ability, which is a blessing and curse like the real story.

Lovestruck Beast is unable to attack at all unless you control a one/one creature. This may seem weird to you and oddly specific until you look at the Adventure mechanic for the noble beast. On the left side of the abilities section, we have the Adventure spell called Heart’s Desire.

Unlike Flaxen Intruder, this is a cheaper spell, and it fits well with the overall theme of the card. It only requires one green mana to use this spell ability and what it does is create a one/one white human creature token. It essentially creates the beautiful girl he loves.

As you can see, it becomes abundantly clear when you look at the Adventure mechanic what the point of this card is exactly. You are likely meant to use the Heart’s Desire spell version first that will then create the beautiful girl token and exile this card in the process.

Then you are meant to summon the Lovestruck Beast from exile to the field as a normal creature card. Together, the two will be able to form their bond, and he will be ready to attack with his impressive stats for early game. This is a nice combo that will be useful for getting an excellent start to the match.

The last two cards revealed step away from the Adventure mechanic, but still revolves around the fairy tale theme that is so prevalent in the world.

The two are the Gilded Goose and Golden Egg cards that you might know from various stories about people wanting the coveted golden egg for themselves. Starting with the Gilded Goose who laid the golden eggs, we have a traditional bird creature card.

Like the other two cards revealed in the first batch of announcements, this is a green card that will bolster the green decks. Gilded Goose costs one green mana to summon, being able to enter the battlefield in the first turn of the game if you want.

It has the mediocre stats of zero/two, but it does have flying as you would expect from the bird. Also, when Gilded Goose enters the battlefield, you will create a food token. The food token is known as an artifact rather than a creature, and it takes two mana to tap the food token.

Tapping the food token will allow you to sacrifice the artifact in exchange for three lives, which is pretty useful. Also, you can create more food tokens as long as Gilded Goose is on the field. It costs two mana to do this, one of which must be a green mana color.

Gilded Goose has one final ability it can use that takes the place of tapping it to attack since it has no starting attack damage. When you touch it, you can sacrifice a food token and add one mana of any color to your side of the field.

Overall, the abilities of the Gilded Goose is impressive, considering that it isn’t a strong card attack-wise or a legendary. If you can start with this card on the field, you could end up with a couple more mana earlier than you would typically have. It can even be useful for later in the match for healing yourself up quickly.

Speaking of food, though, there is the Golden Egg card that also adds to the usefulness of the new food token mechanic and the Gilded Goose. Golden Egg is a food artifact card that requires two mana (of any color) to summon to the field since it is colorless, unlike its goose mother.

When Golden Egg enters the field, you can draw a card immediately. For one mana, you can tap the Golden Egg to sacrifice it and add one mana of any color to your side of the field. Also, you can use two mana instead of just one and tap it to sacrifice the golden egg card and gain three life.

Overall, it is very similar to the purpose of the Gilded Goose card, but it works slightly different from it. Possibly, we could see entire decks that will be built around the Gilded Goose and Golden Egg once the expansion comes out later in about a month or so.

So far, the MTG Throne of Eldraine spoilers shows that this expansion is going to be unlike anything else that we’ve seen thus far in the franchise. We won’t have to wait much longer for more spoilers and its release date. It is set to come out September 26 digitally and on October 4 in the tabletop physical form.