MTG Arena Jumpstart: Historic Horizons Spoilers and Highlights

Davriel, Soul Broker (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Davriel): Here’s a fascinating version of Davriel, Davriel, Soul Broker. He feels like an incredibly complicated card, but he’s not. He is, however, incredibly powerful. I vastly prefer him to Sarkhan. Out of the planeswalkers I’ve seen so far, Davriel is my favorite of the spoilers for MTG Arena Jumpstart Historic Horizons. He can do pretty much anything you need and only runs four mana. He has a base loyalty of 4 and can do the following:

+1: Until your next turn, whenever an opponent attacks you and/or planeswalkers you control, they discard a card.
-2: Accept one of Davriel’s offers, then accept one of Davriel’s conditions.
-3: Target creature perpetually gains -3/-3.

Davriel very much feels like a devil in disguise. He can offer you incredible power, but it comes at a cost. When you use his -2, you will receive three offers to choose from and three conditions. You have to pick one of each.

Davriel’s Offers:

Draw three cards.
Conjure a Manor Guardian card into your hand.
Return two random creature cards from your graveyard to your hand. They perpetually gain +1/+1.
Return a random creature card with the highest mana value from among cards in your graveyard to the battlefield.
You get an emblem with “Creatures you control get +2/+0.”
You get an emblem with “Spells you cast cost 1 Black less to cast.”
You get an emblem with “Davriel planeswalkers you control have ‘+2: Draw a card.’”
You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, you gain two life.”

Davriel’s Conditions:

You lose six life.
Exile two cards from your hand. If fewer than two cards were exiled this way, each opponent draws equal to the difference.
Sacrifice two permanents.
Each creature you don’t control perpetually gains +1/+1.
You get an emblem with “Creatures you control get -1/-0.
You get an emblem with “Spells you cast cost 1 Black more to cast.”
You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, exile the top two cards of your library.”
You get an emblem with “At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose one life for each creature you control.”

Subversive Acolyte (2-Cost Creature – Human): This isn’t quite a Shapeshifter. You can pay two mana and two life to choose a new form, but you can do it only once. For a 2/2 for two black, it’s pretty rad. Here are your choices:

Human Cleric. It gains +1/+2 and gains lifelink.
Phyrexian. It gains +3/+3 and tramples and “Whenever this creature is dealt damage, sacrifice that many permanents.”

Is there even a choice? Phyrexian is the correct answer in almost any situation.

Manor Guardian (3-Cost Creature – Demon): A 4/3 for three, each player seeks a non-land card with mana value two or less when it dies. Ehhhh. I don’t want other players to seek cards, only me. But it’s not terrible. It’s a neat card, but I”m not a huge fan of it.

The offers are all incredible, and some of the offers feel bad. If you aren’t running creatures or running a control deck, several of them are inconsequential. I’m a huge fan of this card, but it is wildly powerful.

Tome of the Infinite (3-Cost Legendary Artifact): Wow, Tome of the Infinite can do a lot. This card’s power level is absolute insanity. It fits perfectly into Historic, on that note. You can tap one blue and tap this to Conjure a random card from the Tome of the Infinite’s spellbook into your hand. That card perpetually gains “You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast this spell.” The cards you can access in this are cards you normally can’t find in MTG Arena to boot, for the most part. The list is:

• Light of Hope
• Swords to Plowshares
• Force Spike
• Ponder
• Dark Ritual
• Duress
• Assault Strobe
• Lightning Bolt
• Fog
• Giant Growth

Swords to Plowshares?! Oh, I adore this card. It’s so damn strong. You don’t get to pick the spell, thankfully. I can’t wait to see what decks maximize the use of this card.

Bounty of the Deep (3-Cost Spell – Sorcery): A nice, useful sorcery. It seeks a land card and non-land card for three mana if you have no land cards in hand. Otherwise, you seek two non-land cards. So it is valuable, no matter what happens.

Ethereal Grasp (3-Cost Spell – Instant): These “perpetually” cards are coming in hot and heavy! This one’s a classic “tap target creature” spell. However, it perpetually gains “This creature doesn’t untap during your untap step” and “8 Colorless: Untap this creature.” Wow. What a great way to stop a huge incoming creature that came into the game far too fast.

Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv (4-Cost Legendary Planeswalker – Sarkhan): The reason a card like this would work is that it’s digital-only. It’s the first of the planeswalkers I saw in the MTG Arena Jumpstart Historic Horizons spoilers. It uses both the new Perpetually and Conjure mechanics. Starting with four Loyalty, here is what Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv can do:

+1: Dragon cards in your hand perpetually gain “This spell costs one less to cast,” and “You may pay X rather than pay this spell’s mana cost, where X is its mana value.”

0: Conjure a Shivan Dragon into your hand.

-2: Sarkan, Wanderer to Shiv deals three damage to target creature.

No huge, game-winning bomb, but you can make your dragons wildly cheaper every turn. I like the card a lot and it can just conjure Shivan Dragons! A classic MTG staple for casual play back in the day, the Shivan Dragon could be inflated. You could pay one red to give it +1/+0 until the end of the turn. It was honestly a lot of fun to use. 

Scion of Shiv (4-Cost Creature – Dragon): A 3/3 Flying, this proto-Shivan Dragon is, in its way, much better. You can pay three mana to give it +1/+0 perpetually. So it’s a permanent buff, and it has flying. So if we can make it cheaper to cast, using Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv.

Wingsteed Trainer (4-Cost Creature – Human): If you want to create more and more flying creatures, you can use the Wingsteed Trainer to do exactly that. When this ⅔ for 4 comes into play or attacks, conjure a Stormfront Pegasus card into your hand. It’s neat, but I’m not sure it’s going to be wildly used. At least, it’s a solid attacker as a ⅔. You can always buff it or flip it out of play and back again.

Baffling Defenses (2-Cost Spell – Instant): Now this is amazing. “Target creature’s base power perpetually becomes 0.” This is amazing because it’s an Instant. This isn’t an Aura that your opponent can get rid of. To stop this, you have to counter it. How does this work, exactly? Does it perpetually trigger no matter what? I know it remains even if it changes zones (graveyard, exiled, your hand). But does it override other buffs? Wizards did say that this change stays “no matter what,” so that is ridiculous.