Early look at Core 2020
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on June 11, 2019, 12:32 p.m. by AgentGreen
Gizmodo has an article related to Core 2020, and the theme it has. It's currently has 3 spoilers; and they're all Chandra related. In fact, it's 3 separate Chandra planeswalker cards that chronicles her rise from a novice pyromancer to Chandra today.
Here's the cards:
Chandra; Acrolyte of Flame
RARE Chandra Walker with 4 loyalty
0 - Add a Loyalty Counter to each Red Planeswalker you control
0 - Create 2 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste, Sac them at the beginning of the next end step
-2 - You may cast an instant or Sorcery card with CMC 3 or less from your graveyard. If it would be put into your graveyard that turn, exile it.
Chandra; Novice Pyromancer [symbol:3]] Uncommon Chandra walker with 5 loyalty
+1 - Elementals you control get +2/+0 until end of turn
-1 - Add
-2 - Chandra does 2 damage to any target
And now her prime form:
Chandra, Awakened Inferno
Mythic Chandra Walker with 6 loyalty
This spell can't be countered (Me: Bastards)
+2 - Each opponent gets an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, this emblem deals 1 damage to you
-3 - Chandra does 3 damage to each non-elemental creature
-X - Chandra does x damage to target creature or planeswalker. If that permanent dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.
Rare Chandra might see play, uncommon Chandra won't, and Mythic Chandra DEFINITELY will (sweeper on a stick? Yes please)
Last_Laugh says... #3
2 elementals on a 0 ability and that -2 to recast something like Tempt with Vengeance ? Omnath, Locus of Rage will like that one.
June 11, 2019 2:57 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #4
My only stipulation is that they do this with other planeswalkers down the line- whether that be one per core set or in cycles like they used to do with core set walkers.
June 11, 2019 4:11 p.m.
That mythic is incredibly powerful. Even just getting two or three of those emblems online is powerful, but a elemental safe Anger of the Gods / Sweltering Suns / Slagstorm and a Burn from Within too is amazing.
June 11, 2019 4:59 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #8
Dylan I really like mythic Chandra, but I’d agree rare is certainly the most competitive.
June 11, 2019 6:46 p.m.
Sarkhan420X says... #9
the only format the mythic will see play in is commander.
June 11, 2019 9:54 p.m.
I don't even think its worth running in commander, at 6 mana red has better options...
June 11, 2019 11:03 p.m.
@dbpunk I'd love to hear where you think that card is going to be amazing?
June 11, 2019 11:05 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #12
Dylan - If the mythic one sees play anywhere it'll be something like a controlling Aristocrats build in EDH. Even then it won't be optimized versions of those decks but it does check the 'bleed all opponents' box.
Pretty meh for a mythic. The uncommon is baby Chandra wearing diapers, the rare is her at her prime, and the mythic is senile old Chandra wearing diapers again. Proof that life really is a vicious cycle.
June 11, 2019 11:36 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #14
You’re all wrong. Dylan and Last_Laugh, there is a place mythic Chandra is gonna shine. Two-headed giant.
Two-headed giant is a casual format, and mythic Chandra is a casual card. She’s slow. It’s true. But with the shared life total, her +1 is actually going to be dealing 2 damage per turn, and with the format’s relative speed (compared to Commander, where she’ll be basically useless) more and smaller creatures means her -2 is relevant. And what the -2 won’t hit, the -X will surely take down.
Now what 2-headed giant deck? I... don’t really know. Perhaps red friends, top of the curve after Sarkhan the Masterless ? Mardu or Rakdos or Jund aristocrats? Who knows man.
June 12, 2019 2:08 a.m.
I think none of these are good enough - the 4 mana one does very little for the cost, the 6 mana one does too little for the cost and the 3 mana one... you guessed it, actually quite decent.
The only interesting chandra out of those is actually the 3 mana one and it is solely for the first ability.
Adding loyalty directly to walkers was something reserved for Ajani, but now red has it. And planeswalkers like Koth of the Hammer are really looking for that.
I envision her in a Medium Red (legally distinct from Big Red) deck with a number of Chandra planeswalkers.
June 12, 2019 8:36 a.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #16
Chandra, Teenage Spitfire is exactly what I was looking for in a goblin/token oathbreaker commander. Her second ability will trigger Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge twice on activation and since the tokens are sacrificed not exiled they will also tigger a variety of things like Vicious Shadows or Stalking Vengeance .
Sure she probably fits better in a black red aristocrats shell but I will enjoy the challenge of going mono red.
June 12, 2019 1:36 p.m.
Tbh I see all three of them being usable in edh. Frankly, the 6 mana one has an extremely usable +2 that has political implications, which is not really hard to find room for in most Rx Planeswalkers decks. Especially considering if you're playing RGx, you can probably get her out turn 3 or 4 (let's not pretend that high Mana costs are a restriction in commander), then turn on a damage doubler like Dictate of the Twin Gods . The fact it's uncounterable already helps with making it a threat, and then you're forgetting it can either partially clears the field the second it gets on the battlefield or it can get rid of a threat that moment. In addition, we just got Planebound Accomplice that essentially turns it into a one mana Burn Away or one mana Slagstorm .
The second thing with the mythic is that the emblem isn't just a stackable, but it's a +2 on a Planeswalkers with an already decent starting loyalty. If you activate it's plus, it'll still probably survive if you have creatures on the board. In addition, it can easily bounce back from using one of it's minuses the turn after, assuming you have things to protect it for one turn. Which, once again, it's commander, you're probably going to have some way to protect or recur it.
Is it fast enough for a deck like modern burn/rdw? No. Is it viable in a red Planeswalkers shell or a deck with a lot of elementals, like Ashling the Pilgrim or something similar? Absolutely.
Also, you're forgetting how useful a small field wipe and a repeatable and stackable emblem can be in long running commander games. Unless your opponent is resetting their life almost every turn, those emblems will become a clock.
Baby Chandra is useful in another way. There is almost never a situation where a Red deck couldn't use an alternative source of Mana for spells (in case they need to sac a land or two). Or use of her +1 just to get in some quick damage from an elemental.
The rare one protects itself, boosts other Planeswalker and gives a spell with three Mana or less flashback. Which is actually great when you consider similar Planeswalkers who did the same thing like flipped Jace. While she doesn't provide card advantage, she makes all your other red Planeswalkers better.
Are any of them the next Teferi? No. Are any of them going to break any games? No. Are they bad cards that aren't going to see play? Also no.
June 12, 2019 4:20 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #18
I am very displeased by these spoilers for several reasons: first, we just had a set that contained planeswalkers not being mythic rares and with abilities other than loyalty abilities, and WotC assured us that that would be a rare occurrence, but it now seems that they were not being honest about that; second, after the climactic battle of War of the Spark, I was expecting that the story would not focus on the Gatewatch for some time, but it seems that that is also incorrect. Also, this is a fairly minor complaint, but having three versions of Chandra at different rarities in the same set is far too similar to Pokemon for my liking, and this game predates Pokemon, so it should be above such petty actions as imitating one of its own imitators. Furthermore, I understand that different artists may illustrate the same character in different ways, but the first two depictions of Chandra look very different from every other depiction of her.
Will there be a vertical cycle for a planeswalker of each color? I dislike this idea, but WotC likes to have cycles and balance among their colors, so I expect that they shall, indeed, do that.
June 12, 2019 4:39 p.m.
I think the mythic one is actually bad... There are better 6 mana options
June 12, 2019 5:18 p.m.
Just because there are better six Mana options does not necessarily mean a card is bad. It's not black and white, there are shades of Gray (50 of them, to be precise). That's like saying Dragonlord Ojutai or Venser, the Sojourner are bad cards because Teferi, Hero of Dominaria exists. Honestly, these cards are exciting and fun, other than, as the fact that they have been over printing Planeswalkers.
Also DemonDragonJ we don't know if this is related to the story, it's from a core set. Like Sarkhan didn't really appear much in the most recent stories and he was a core set Planeswalkers last year.
June 12, 2019 8:05 p.m.
I see mythic Chandra being good out of the board against control in Skred. While Skred generally loses to control, it takes control forever to win. Emblem-ing even once can win you the game, and it’s not like they can do anything about it on stack.
Am I saying Mythic Chandra is good? Not particularly. But I will definitely try one in Skred. Seems pretty good.
June 12, 2019 8:49 p.m.
The 6 mana mythic is a control finisher. I don't know why people are railing against her. She's exactly the kind of thing control wants when
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
,
Carnage Tyrant
, and
Chromium, the Mutable
rotate out of Standard. She's even more stupid when you have
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
because you're getting to play
Shock
s every turn.
June 13, 2019 2:49 a.m.
On another note I think this may be our MTG Netflix show cards.
What I mean is Core 2020 I think is our paper add for the show and the show will probably coincide time wise to the set coming out and follow to some degree the same story.
June 13, 2019 8:40 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #24
I also feel that the mythic rare Chandra's emblem-generating ability should be a negative ability, because it is too powerful as it currently is, since her controller can simply keep using it indefinitely until their opponents are defeated.
June 13, 2019 9:07 p.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #25
Maro said somewhere (I think it was Maro) That we will be seeing the return of Garruk soon... Im hoping he becomes the antagonist for a set or two because he's always been one of my favorites.
How about a set with NONE of the usual suspects? Give some love to under-represented walkers who may or may not have some interesting stories to tell like Angrath, Narset or Davriel?
Also since this set is Chandra focused what is the over/under on "The Raven Man" finally getting a card?
June 14, 2019 9:56 a.m.
I think that if we get the rumored Norse mythology plane, we will get Garruk - content and sitting on a throne at the top of the plane, as a victorious warlord - as the main antagonist.
June 14, 2019 10:01 a.m.
I could see that happening, especially since it'd be a good way to end Liliana's story (i.e. facing off another character who was corrupted by the chain veil) and also tie in to the hunt for the Bolas' devotees that was commanded by the ravnican guilds with Kaya appearing on the plane. And it would allow for more of a focus on Kaya in general if those three Planeswalkers were that story line.
ZendikariWol says... #2
Actually, I... kinda like this. Hear me out! Don’t whip out the torches and pitchforks yet- I definitely see the follies of this creative decision as well. But.
I actually like this better than the way it was done in Origins, for two reasons.
1) Flip conditions weren’t necessarily flavorfully accurate. All of them kinda made sense, but none of them were like “oh, I can see that character’s evolution through these mechanics!” This shows us three different points in the character’s history. I would say that’s more interesting and more telling of the characters than just flipping into an older version of them.
2) This is a chandra you’re likely to get as a new player. It’s unclear whether WAR has changed walkers to multi-rarity for good, but I doubt it. However, if just the core sets every year have uncommon walkers, then new players can see these interesting characters, play with them, and perhaps most importantly, know what the hell a planeswalker is and how they function. This is going to be very exciting for the newbies. I should know, I’m teaching four little kiddos how to play right now! They love planeswalkers, cuz planeswalkers are cool. And having an uncommon one of their favorite guy? They would love that.
June 11, 2019 2:32 p.m.