Somehow, it’s spoiler season again. This time, I don’t think we’re as keen on the shakeup to Standard as perhaps we have been for the last year. Standard is in a good place, the field is relatively diverse with viable options across aggro, midrange, control and combo strategies. That said, I’m sure some will be happy to see the back of a few powerful format definers such as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger amongst others.

Ixalan is looking exciting thus far and despite the early spoiling of a large number of the cards, the hype continues to build helped in part due to last hurrah of the block system and the presence of Pirates riding Dinosaurs. In the mechanics of Ixalan, we see the return of Vehicles. This time being seaborne craft rather than those cruising the land or sky. We have an old favourite returning in Raid, possibly one of the most flavourful of all the mechanics from Khans of Tarkir block. It appears it is being put to even greater use here, appearing primarily on Pirates. On the same theme, Treasure tokens are making a “first” appearance.

These artifacts hearken back to the Gold tokens from Theros block made by Gild/King Macar, the Gold-Cursed and the Etherium Cell tokens generated by Tezzeret the Schemer. The Dinosaurs themselves often have the mechanic Enrage which those of you who have played Hearthstone I’m sure will have no problem grasping. When the creature is damaged, you receive a particular effect. Double-faced cards last seen in Eldritch Moon also make a return with the first card being spoiled demonstrating a type transformation that we have not seen before.

Finally, we have Explore. This mechanic is only found on creatures and reads “Reveal the top card of your library. Put that card into your hand if it’s a land. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature, then put the card back or put it into your graveyard”.

This mechanic looks great. Let’s take Tishana’s Wayfinder for example.

This card looks well suited for Limited. It’ll will either function as a 3 mana 3/3 that allows you to manipulate the top card of your library or a 3 mana 2/2 that draws you a land. A 3 mana 3/3 is a fine rate and the added bonus of being able to set the top card of your library only increases the skill testing nature of the card on both the deckbuilding and gameplay angles.

Do you want that card?

Does that card provide benefit if it is put in the graveyard?

Does knowing the top card of your library affect your play moving forward?

Does your opponent knowing what you are going to draw next turn affect their play?

Can you manipulate the top of card of your library to your advantage before playing the Wayfinder?

Here we see an example of Explore affecting the way you play before it even triggers. If you can keep your opponent’s board clear of blockers so that you can continue to make use of your Emperor’s Vanguard, you will start to snowball advantage with your creature becoming harder and harder to block or accruing card advantage putting yourself further ahead of your opponent in a resource-based struggle.

Deadeye Tracker provides yet another way of exploring. For a cheap initial cost, you can steadily convert cards in your opponent’s graveyard to stats on Deadeye Tracker or more lands for you. This punishes your opponent for trading off and for milling over the top card of their library when exploring themselves. Although spending 3 mana for a 2/2 that let you “scry 1” isn’t the best rate being able to do it at your leisure is of benefit. However, a 1/1 creature has never been particularly stellar in the vast majority of Limited formats and so the jury is out on whether this card will be strong player in the Ixalan format.

The random nature of explore will likely be its downfall in Constructed. With Tishana’s Wayfinder,  around 40% of the time it is going to be a Borderland Ranger of sorts that doesn’t let you pick the land but can give you non-basics. Almost every printing of Borderland Ranger has seen play in Standard. On the other hand,  around 60% of the time it is going to be a 3 mana 3/3 which isn’t remotely close to be playable in Constructed. Without some repeatable source of library manipulation, it is hard to envisage the card ever making it. Fingers crossed for a Sensei’s Divining Top reprint. Removing the inconsistency from Explore would also allow it to more reliably set up graveyard interactions perhaps allowing for the milling of Eternalize/Embalm cards or providing a target for a reanimation spell.

Similarly as a 4 mana 4/3, Emperor’s Vanguard just doesn’t have the stats to make it into Standard. Let alone the fact that the ability takes a whole turn cycle and you successfully dealing damage to your opponent with it before you receive any benefit – at which point a +/1+1 counter hardly seems worth it.

Deadeye Tracker could see some sideboard play as a Dragonmaster Outcast–esque creature against control but there are a lot of moving parts on the card. Needing cards to exile to the ability, the investment of 2 mana and the risk of just having your 1/1 become a 2/2 all stack against the Tracker.

That said, the mechanic itself though looks very promising for gameplay and given that we’re less than 100 cards into the total 279 cards in Ixalan, I’m sure there will be plenty more exploration to be done.