MTG Throne of Eldraine Spoilers Continue With Syr Konrad, the Grim and More

The first of the new spoilers revealed today for the black color decks is actually one of the first legendary creatures to be revealed thus far for the entire collection of new cards and that is Syr Konrad, the Grim. Konrad is a black color human knight card that costs five mana, two of which must be black.

The stats of Syr Konrad, the Grim are fairly standard, having five power and four toughness in total. What makes him useful for your team, though, is his abilities that are great for whittling down the health of your opponents. It all begins with his rather lengthy and wordy first ability.

The first ability that Syr Konrad, the Grim has is that whenever another creature dies, or a creature is put into the graveyard from somewhere other than the battlefield itself, or a creature card leaves your graveyard, this card will deal one damage to each opponent you have.

Now, this main ability is quite the mouthful, to say the least, so let’s break it down for you. Basically, if another creature dies, if you lose a creature from your hand or your deck, or you somehow summon or exile a creature from your graveyard, you get to damage for one point.

Those are all cases that will be pretty common in the match, especially in the case of just another creature dying. These are things that are going to happen a lot in the game anyways so why not benefit from it by dealing one point of damage for each time this occurs?

Though it is only one point of damage, with the number of events like this that will happen over the course of the match, you can quickly see how the one point of damage will add up even within just a few turns. Of course, you will need to keep Syr Konrad on the field in order for that damage to go through.

The best part of all of this, though, is the second (and much simpler) ability that Syr Konrad also happens to have. At the cost of two mana, one of which must be black, you are able to force every player (including yourself) to put the top card of your deck into the graveyard.

If any of those card happens to be a creature card, there’s another point of damage to all of your opponents for each time this happens. Of course, you can do this as much as you want during the turn since you aren’t tapping the card with this ability so long as you have enough mana to do so.

What makes this legendary human knight so awesome, too, is that it allows you to damage not just one opponent like in Standard match format but any enemies that you are up against. This means that Konrad is great for taking on the Commander or Brawl modes where you can make him as your partner.

The next card in the string of reveals for the black color deck is the Foulmire Knight card that is a normal, black zombie knight creature card. It does look like there will be two variations in its art so it is possible that there will be two rarities versions for this particular card.

Regardless of which variation you use, this card remains the same one black color costing zombie knight card. It is the most simple of cards in the sense that it only costs one black mana to summon it and it has the stats of one/one, but it also has the death touch feature so any creature that kills it will also be killed in the process.

What is intriguing about the Foulmire Knight card is that it is actually an Adventure card like the others that we’ve seen so far. An Adventure card, for those who don’t know yet, is a new type of mechanic that cards can have in this upcoming expansion that changes the game completely.

These Adventure cards split the bottom half of the card into two sections that, basically, function as two different cards rather than just having you select which abilities you’ll have at this time. The Adventure version of this card turns it from a creature card into an instant spell card.

The Adventure version of this card is called Profane Insight and costs three mana to use, one of which must be black color. What this card does is allow you to instantly draw a card and then you will lose one life in the process. When you’ve used it in this way, it still isn’t over just yet.

Using the Foulmire Knight as the Profane Insight Adventure version will have it be exiled after you have used this instant card. Then you will be able to summon it normally as Foulmire Knight after you have exiled it already. Through this way, you can use both sides of the card in the same match.

Overall, Foulmire Knight is a fairly solid card for early turns with a black deck. You are able to not only able to run with the usual strategy of eliminating a card with it but you are able to use it before that as a way to draw a card and then still summon it normally.

The next card that was revealed in the latest spoilers for the upcoming expansion is the Smitten Swordmaster card. Smitten Swordmaster is a standard human knight creature card that costs two mana to summon, one of which must be black color mana.

It has the fairly standard stats of two attack and one health for it along with the ability lifelink, which are all pretty par for the course for a card of this type and cost. However, the surprise comes in the fact that it, like the Foulmire Knight, has an Adventure half to it.

The Adventure version of Smitten Swordmaster turns it into the Curry Favor card that is a spell card rather than just a human knight creature card. What it does is allow you to gain X amount of life while all of your opponents lose X amount of life, all depending on the X number of knights you have under your control in exchange for its one black mana cost.

In the case of the Curry Favor Adventure card version, there is a lot to unpack here. For one, it doesn’t come with the same note that Foulmire Knight and other Adventure cards have that say that you can play the card from exile after using the Adventure version of it.

This tells us that this is one card where you’re forced to pick between the two available card options here and you’ll only be able to play one of them unless you have multiple copies of this card in your deck or you use something that lets you play it from the graveyard.

Regardless, it goes without saying that the Curry Favor portion of this card is far more useful and interesting than its normal version, which is cookie cutter basic. So long as you have the mana and knights on the field, it does make much more sense to just use the healing and damaging version.

Like with Foulmire Knight, Smitten Swordsman is one card that will likely be useful for black color knight decks in both Commander and Standard Constructed modes due to its dual nature. It becomes more versatile in this way than most other cards are so here’s hoping Adventure continues to be a main mechanic in the game.

On a side note, the Smitten Swordmaster certainly looks like a riff on the classic character Lord Farquaad from Shrek both in physical appearance and the way that his card description is written. At the same time, though, it could also be about the Princess Bride, so who knows?

The final of the latest card reveals from the upcoming expansion is Order of Midnight, which is another black color creature card. Order of Midnight is an oddly named human knight creature card that features a woman riding a large black crow.

The Order of Midnight card costs two mana to summon, one of which must be black color mana. It has the decent stats of two/two and flying but it is unable to block. Of course, being that this is yet another addition to the latest expansion, it’s only right that it is also an Adventure card as well.

The Adventure version of Order of Midnight is known as Alter Fate and it also costs two mana to use, one of which must be black. Now, similar to the other cards in this reveal, this one is a spell card instead of a creature card like the normal version.

What the Alter Fate spell Adventure card does is allow the player to return a target creature from your graveyard to your hand. When you do this, you are allowed to exile the Order of Midnight card and then summon it later on normally. This is great since the previous card seems to not allow that.

But the Alter Fate Adventure version of this card is done in a way that it can make up for the fact that cards like Smitten Swordmaster might not be able to used twice, once for its Adventure and once for the normal summon. This is because you are able to bring a card like it back from the dead for a second chance.

The one thing that you need to keep in mind is that this card can’t block so this means that it will have to be moved to the graveyard in a different way. This can make using it a challenge, especially if you want to do a dual combo of using one Alter Fate to bring back a copy of the same Order of Midnight card.