Cavern of Souls, a powerful and sought-after land card, is going to be reprinted into Magic the Gathering‘s Standard format. During a preview panel at Magic Con Vegas on Friday, Wizards of the Coast revealed that the highly valuable card will be printed at mythic rarity in the upcoming Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
Cavern of Souls was first printed in the MtG set Avacyn Restored in 2012. Despite being reprinted as recently as the MTG Lord of the Rings commander precons, it remains a very expensive Magic card. That’s due to its sheer power – it’s good enough that it sees play in the MtG Modern, Legacy, and Vintage eternal formats. Not to mention it’s a flat out excellent card in any typal Commander deck.
When Cavern of Souls enters play, its controller specifies a creature type. The Cavern taps to produce colorless mana, or one mana of any color that can only be used to cast creatures of the chosen type. Creatures cast using that mana can’t be countered. It’s an immensely powerful answer to the cheap or free counterspells that dominate non-rotating formats. It’s also great in typal decks, which we’ll see plenty of with Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
The dinosaur typal archetype returns, and we’re getting a new version of extremely large dinosaur mom Ghalta. Ghalta Stampede Tyrant is a 12/12 with Trample for five colorless and three green mana; when she enters the battlefield, she brings with her any number of creature cards from your hand.
Wizards states that the theme of exploration will return in the new Ixalan set, but doesn’t specify if we’ll see the Explore mechanic that characterised the first trip to Ixalan return as well. Double-faced cards are back, however. Huatli, Poet of Unity is a new legendary creature who can transform into a dinosaur-themed Saga.
Wizards also revealed the first in a new cycle of Gods. Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might, is a red God that rounds up the amount of noncombat damage your opponent suffers from any source to his current power – if he’s ever killed, he flips into a land, and can be flipped back provided your opponent suffers four or more noncombat damage in a turn.
We can see him going very nicely with all those Raid Bombardments and Impact Tremors that were printed in the Wilds of Eldraine Enchanted Tales bonus sheet.
The Wargamer team is still working out what Wilds of Eldraine standard cards we should be adding to our decks on Arena, so the news that one of the most powerful lands ever printed is coming into the format is… interesting.
You can keep up to date with the MtG release schedule with our guide. Keep your eyes peeled for news of more Secret Lair drops as well!