A boatload of spoilers for upcoming Magic: The Gathering set Murders at Karlov Manor have been revealed, and as well as lots of legendary creatures and all the new set mechanics, we got to see the one and only MTG planeswalker that comes out with this batch. This Kaya planeswalker card takes a moment or two to get the hang of, so we’ll break it down for you real quick.
The new MTG Planeswalker card Kaya, Spirit’s Justice is all about bringing creatures back from exile… sort of. She has three loyalty abilities, and a more complex triggered ability. That first ability re-contextualizes the rest of her effects, so we’ll tackle that right off the bat.
Kaya’s new card states that whenever one or more creatures you control are exiled, or creature cards are exiled from your graveyard, you can pick a token and have it turn into a copy of one the exiled creatures until the end of the turn. The creature also gets flying.
This could let you cheat out enormous monsters way ahead of schedule, regardless of their color identity. While you wouldn’t get to benefit from enter the battlefield effects, there are still plenty of tricks you could do.
Looking at what’s available for Standard MTG Arena decks, we’re thinking Gisha, Sun’s Avatar could be fun – if you can find some other good MTG dinosaurs for the deck. An early, flying Paladin of Predation might work well in a Toxic deck too. And there’s probably something way better and more obvious that we’re missing here.
The rest of Kaya’s abilities become much stronger once you take her triggered effect into account. First off, we have the Planeswalker’s +2 effect, which has you Surveil 2 and exile a card from a graveyard. As you can see, this is the main way you’ll be triggering her token-transforming effect, loading up your graveyard with goodness. But, if you don’t have a token out to transform, you can always +1 instead to make a 1/1 flying Spirit token.
Finally, this Kaya card also comes with removal. Her -2 effect has you exile a creature you control, then you get to pick a creature from each of your opponents and exile that too. That’s a pretty great rate, especially paired with her other effect. It makes us wish this planeswalker card could be an MTG Commander.
With Kaya’s versatility, reasonable cost, and the fact that two thirds of her abilities tick her loyalty up instead of down, we can imagine her card seeing competitive play, though you’ll need to be running the right creatures. We’re more excited to try out some gimmick decks, however!
Check out our dedicated guide for more Murders at Karlov Manor spoilers. And don’t miss the 2024 MTG release schedule, which has every upcoming MTG set plus all the extra Universes Beyond and Commander deck gubbins.