Shadowmoor Previews: Grin & Bear It

Posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 by Skeletor
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Posted in best of, mtg

Welcome to week two of Shadowmoor previews! Today I am going to introduce you to the first ever ultramegacycle minitheme. Shadowmoor has a minitheme of Bears, implemented as an ultramegacycle of common creatures: The Nonrarebear cycle. As you know, 2/2 creatures for 2 mana are often players favorite creatures, and they are also the easiest things in the world to design. Basically what happened here was we ran out of names and ideas simultaneously, so we randomly selected an existing card to expand into an ultramegacycle minitheme. It’s not that there aren’t more ideas or names to be thought up, it’s just that we don’t care anymore.

Without further ado, let me introduce to you the first member of the new family of Nonrare Bears.




Exciting, isn’t it? Right? Well, maybe that’s why we spoil rares instead of commons. That’s why this week I have decided to spoil 10 commons from the nonrarebear ultramegacycle minitheme.










Additionally, we recently made the commitment to make all blocks work well with the blocks surrounding it. Unfortunately, that requires effort and communication between teams, so we have chosen a new strategy: Each block will be released with errata for the previous block to make the two blocks seem like a continuous flow. In this case, all Bear cards from Llorwyn block have been given errata to make them 2/2s for two mana. The following is a list of the affected cards:

  • Amoeboid Changeling
  • Avian Changeling
  • Blades of Velis Vel
  • Cairn Wanderer
  • Chameleon Colossus
  • Changeling Berserker
  • Changeling Hero
  • Changeling Sentinel
  • Changeling Titan
  • Crib Swap
  • Ego Erasure
  • Fire-Belly Changeling
  • Game-Trail Changeling
  • Ghostly Changeling
  • Mirror Entity
  • Moonglove Changeling
  • Mothdust Changeling
  • Nameless Inversion
  • Shapesharer
  • Shields of Velis Vel
  • Skeletal Changeling
  • Taurean Mauler
  • Turtleshell Changeling
  • War-Spike Changeling
  • Wings of Velis Vel
  • Woodland Changeling

Until next time, may all your creatures be 2/2s for two, and may all your google image searches for “Underwear Bear” have safe search turned on. Seriously.