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Wizards Announces TimeShifted® Card for Theros

Posted on Friday, August 16th, 2013 by Jethro
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Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




That’s right: Daybreak Coronet. A Wizards spokesperson explains:

We know how much players love Bant hexproof, and we don’t want the deck to die in standard just because Invisible Stalker is rotating out. So we’re printing some broken auras and beloved cards to really bolster the deck (e.g., Armadillo Cloak and Gladecover Scout). Keep an eye out for some sweet new hexproof cards in Theros, too! :wink:

Obviously the flavor of this card is a perfect fit with Greek fairy tales.

If I can talk briefly about our most popular format: Modern! Reprinting this lets Modern hexproof players aquire a playset with ease, lowering the barrier to entry significantly. Nothing pleases me more than imagining modern GP’s next season filled with bright-eyed young players fielding Bant Hexproof. Eagle-eyed players will spot how this card points towards an aura sub-theme in Theros. Well, I can officially tell you such sub theme does not exist, this card was printed entirely as a constructed hole-filler and is useless in Limited. Enjoy Theros!



Meanwhile, in a parallel universe…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




Surprising no one, it’s Nimbus Maze! Wizards Says:

Innovation is expensive. Thus, when it’s time to design a new cycle of dual lands, the first thing we do is find the quickest, easiest solution. Sometimes, that’s just an enemy color version of previously allied-color lands (a la Innistrad). Other times, we look to the Future Sight lands and try to find a fit. To be honest, 80% of the reason we’re doing a Greek fairy tale set is so we could reprint these.

We also love how well these combo with Guildgates.



Concurrently, in an alternate dimension…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




Well, color us intrigued! Let’s see what Wizards has to say:

Market research shows that this was one of the most popular cards in all of Future Sight, and indeed in Magic from all time. For that reason, we’ve made a cycle of these things for Theros. Try and guess what the other colors do! (Hint: The green one’s “Hexproof.”)

There was concern from the creative department that this didn’t fit the tone of Theros; we solved this by making absolutely 100% sure that the red guys on Theros like attacking things. Phew!



Elsewhere in the multiverse…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




Wizards writes:

With Witchbane Orb rotating out and the enchantment theme in Theros, we already had this card in mind. But when marketing revealed their brilliant plan to replace Standard next season with Team Hydra Fighting, this went right into the file and stayed there.


We also knew it would be great for Commander, and love how well it interacts with Populate. [EDIT: The employee who said this has since been fed alive to The Bees.]



Meanwhile, in a totally different totality…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




How this complies with the New World Order, we’re not quite sure. Luckily, Wizards explain everything:

A huge part of “enchantments matter” is creating enchantments that matter. The matter of these enchantments matters because the more an enchantment enchants is directly correlated to how much its matter matters. The enchantment of an enchantment aura is how much its enchanting matter enchanting matters to the game’s matter; this blue matter matters more than most blue matter because it’s enchantment removal. (Not enchantment removal but enchantment removal, see?)



In another layer of reality altogether…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




Rosewater says:

We asked our in house judges what the interaction was between this card and Opalescence. They immediately fell into a stupor, so we took that as a licence to print as many enchantment creatures as took our fancy. There was concern from development that a 3/3 flyer for 5 wasn’t powerful enough to compare with modern creatures, so we gave white 4 extra Mythic Rares to compensate. Thank goodness we were able to go back in time to reverse-engineer the flavor text!



Simultaneously, in a non-comparable temporal frame of reference…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




A Wizards spokesperson was on hand with this to say:

If you have any doubt that this card makes sense with Greek fairy tales, just rewatch the Disney film Hercules. Hell, that’s all the research we did. We have, however, had to make an adjustment to the art, as well as changes to the mana cost, watermark, flavor text, name, type line and text.



Meanwhile, in the darkest of all timelines…



Wizards of the Coast has announced a TimeShifted® card, originally from Future Sight, that will be printed in Theros!




We were shocked at this one — still, it is an enchantment. Let’s see what Wizards said in the announcement:

With Snapcaster Mage rotating, we wanted a new tool that did exactly the same thing for control decks. We knew we wanted it to be an enchantment, and that’s when Mark Rosewater brought up the idea of Spellweaver Volute. Turns out Mark had long wanted to put “enchanting things in graveyards” into Magic, and had used Future Sight to soften everyone up to the concept.

We also recognized the backlash against the New World Order, so this card and the rest of its cycle are to appease players who want more complexity in their game. Still, we couldn’t just let Theros be the most complex set ever, so we’ve also included extra vanilla cards, including, for the first time, vanilla Instants and Sorceries.



Well, that announcement has certainly whet our appetites for Theros!