Eventide: Red-White

With the release of Eventide only a few weeks away, I'm getting excited. I've been following previews and spoilers like an obsessed stalker, taking gritty photos of them through their bedroom windows and going through their trash for toenail clippings. Well, not really, but I have been keeping a close eye on them. That said, IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERS, DON'T READ THIS ARTICLE. You have been warned.

My primary sources of spoilage are Wizards' own Eventide Visual Spoiler and MTGSalvation's Eventide Spoiler. The former is of course more reliable and has pretty pictures, but the latter is far more comprehensive; right now there are only eleven of the set's 180 cards that are yet unknown (assuming MTGSalvation's spoilers are reliable, which they tend to be). With almost all of the set spoiled now, each of the colors and color pairs has taken shape, and it is rapidly becoming possible to consider how the cards will interact with each other and with Shadowmoor, and to begin to discuss each color pair's unique personality.

Of the enemy colored pairs, I think my own personality most closely matches green-blue, but as far as actually playing the game goes, red-white looks the coolest to me so far. So this first article will be about them: once the Boros Guild, now just a bunch of angry hobgoblins and disillusioned kithkin, red and white combine to create a passionate but organized military force.

There are still a few red-white cards that have yet to be revealed, but most of the cycles have been completed. Red-white is a very aggressive and combat-oriented pair, since both red and white love combat, and this is certainly reflected in Eventide cards. The red-white Avatar doesn't look especially impressive by itself: it's a 3/4 with haste that gives attacking creatures +2/+0. Alone, it's strictly weaker than the Demigod of Revenge and less interesting than most of the other Avatars. However, with red-white's penchant for first and double strike, additional attacking power can be quite useful.

The corresponding aura also seems somewhat unimpressive on its own; it grants a simple attack pump for red and lifelink for white. But again, with first strike and double strike, these become much more valuable. Since there are as many as 5 red-white creatures in Eventide with first or double strike, plus an instant that grants double strike to any creature, it's clear that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Red-white has its obligatory damage-to-attacking-or-blocking-creatures spells, but it also has Moonhold, a neat card that can prevent your opponent from playing lands and creatures for a turn. Something control-based like this doesn't seem very in-color for red and white, but given red-white's aggressiveness, something that slows down your opponent certainly makes sense for a color pair that wants to get damage through as fast as possible.

The red-white liege is quite powerful. A 2/4 for 5 mana, its special ability essentially casts Lightning Helix whenever you cast Lightning Helix. That is to say, "Whenever you play a red spell, Balefire Liege deals 3 damage to target player. Whenever you play a white spell, you gain 3 life." (I can already see Grinning Ignus being this guy's best friend.) This means that he causes a 6-point life swing whenever you play any red-white spell. And with 16 red-white spells in eventide, none of which (so far) cost more than 5 mana, this is just dandy. So that's awesome.

But there are a few other cool red-white cards to talk about. One is a guy that starts out as a little Kithkin soldier and blossoms into a gigantic spirit avatar warrior giant demon cyclops king lord. Well, just a Kithkin Spirit Warrior Avatar, but you get the idea. Basically, it comes into play as a regular old 1/1 Kithkin for 1, but you can "upgrade" it by paying various mana costs. 1 mana makes it into a 2/2, then 3 more makes it into a 4/4, and finally, 6 mana makes it into an 8/8 with flying and first strike. (You have to do each upgrade to get to the next, though; you can't jump right to 8/8.) So as long as you can keep it alive long enough to pump it to hugeness, it's an amazing card at any point during the game. If you play him early, you have a guy out early that you can make stronger and stronger throughout the game. And if you don't draw him until late game, you probably have enough mana to pump him up to full strength in only a few turns. It just seems too good to be true! (And maybe it is; again, I don't know how reliable the spoilers really are.)

Finally, I should talk about Spitemare. This guy is a 3/3 for 4 mana, but whenever he's dealt damage, he deals that much damage to target creature or player. With a 3/3 body, that can come quite in handy even if you only get to use it once. Plus, at 4 mana (2 of which are colored), he's quite reasonably priced. If your opponent has lots of 2/2s, this guy can take out two at a time. And of course, if you can pump him up (say, with the liege), he's even more dangerous.

So basically, red-white seems quite awesome, and there are still 2 more yet unspoiled red-white cards! I realize that I've left out some cards from my discussion, but I've tried to touch on the most remarkable and/or interesting and/or powerful ones. I'm really looking forward to Eventide, and hoping I'll be able to draft red-white when I get a chance. How about you?