October 31 was a big day for MTG Lost Caverns of Ixalan spoilers, with a bunch of new cards revealed during the Halloween Weekly MTG stream. As well as some ‘special guest’ reprints and Jurassic World dinosaurs, there were some intriguing new MTG cards from the main set.
The first of the new MTG Lost Caverns of Ixalan spoilers worth highlighting is Xavier Sal, Infested Captain. This Human Fungus Pirate wouldn’t look out of place in Davy Jones’ crew, and has a couple of interesting abilities that make him a neat MTG Commander. He can remove a counter from a permanent to Populate, producing a copy of a creature token you control. Or he can sacrifice a creature to Proliferate, adding a counter to anything that already has one.
The abilities on this MTG card work well together, as each one fuels the other. You sacrifice a creature to proliferate, making more counters. You remove a counter to populate, making more creatures. We can see there being some neat interactions with Sagas, MTG planeswalkers, poison, or tokens. Overall this seems like an incredibly open-ended Commander, and we’re pretty sure there’ll be plenty of MTG combos that make him go infinite.
Another card worth inspecting is Tetzin, Gnome Champion. This heroic gnome has a very interesting niche theme: double sided artifacts. You need to pay four mana and exile six artifacts to transform him – no easy task, though his self mill ability helps somewhat. Then, once it transforms into the Golden-Gear Colossus, the creature can flip double-sided artifacts.
All-in-all, it’s intriguing, but very odd. We suppose it’s designed to pair with Transformers cards, though maybe you could cheat and throw in some double-faced creatures, turning them into artifacts with Liquimetal Torque? Here are the double-sided artifacts available so far in this MTG color combination.
Those cards were both from the Ixalan Commander set, so you won’t be able to build MTG Arena decks with them. This last card’s from the main set though, Contested Game Ball.
Essentially, this card creates a little minigame. You can tap it to draw cards, but if a player hits you, they get to steal it and use it themselves. Then after five cards have been drawn, the match is over, and the ‘winner’ gets a treasure token.
Just as this previous spoiler card that deals 1000 damage is a reference to the Mayan calendar people thought spelled doom in 2012, this new card is a reference to the ancient ball game played throughout Mesoamerica from at least 1650 BC.
Check out the MTG release schedule to see which MTG sets will come out next year. There’s a wild west romp in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, and a murder mystery to solve in Murders at Karlov Manor.