Hello and welcome to Magic Origins preview week here at Good Gamery! We’ve got a doozy of a preview card for you here today! If you’re the least bit Vorthos, today’s preview card is right up your alley!

In recent sets, the creative folks at Wizards have decided to be more proactive in including pivotal story moments in playable cards. Relevant story scenes encompased in card form that all players can enjoy, such as the defeat of Xenagos at the hand of Elspeth in Deicide or the nexus of two different possible futures in Crux of Fate.

If you’ve been the least bit attentive to the few Magic Origins spoilers that have been trickling in the past few weeks, you ought to know Magic Origins will continue this new trend in Magic story telling. Our preview card today depicts one such important moment. If you’ve read last week’s Uncharted Realms on the Wizards website telling the origin story of our beloved necromancer planeswalker Liliana Vess, you might already be familiar with this scene. If you haven’t, I highly recommend you go and read it but in short, Liliana made a deal with four demons to gain power and stay young forever. One such demon is Kothoped.

Now, our preview card today isn’t Kothoped himself, but he is featured in the art. That’s because our preview card depicts the moment he infuses Liliana with his demonic power, etching her skin with enchanted runes that give her knowledge and power. Without any further stalling, I present to you our preview card:

Amazing, isn’t it?! Pity it’s just a Johnny-fodder uncommon, but you gotta give it credit for the flavor. Wow!

In addition, we sat down with a Wizards employee and were able to ask him a few question about our awesome preview card. The interview went as follows:

Won’t Demonic Tutor be kinda broken in Modern?
It is our understanding that yes, it will be. Which is why we’re preemptively banning it in Modern, to maintain the integrity of the format. The official Banned and Restricted Announcement will be posted on July 13 and more information will be available at that time but basically Demonic Tutor will be banned in Modern as soon as Magic Origins is released.

Okay, but won’t Demonic Tutor be kinda good in Standard as well?
While not as powerful as it would have been in Modern, it is still a concern. We strive to strike a delicate balance in Standard as it is our most played format by a wide margin. Which is why, to ensure the health of the format, we’re preemptively banning the card in Standard as well. Once again, the official Banned and Restricted Announcement will be posted on July 13 and more information will be available at that time but yes, Demonic Tutor will also be banned in Standard as soon as Magic Origins is released.

The card is still uncommon though, won’t that warp Limited in a bad way?
After careful playtesting, we realized that yes, Demonic Tutor does warp limited in a bad way. Which is why, to keep the format fresh, we’re also preemptively banning the card in all limited formats, including prerelease events. The official Prerelease Primer will be posted July 8 and more information will be available at that time but suffice to say, Demonic Tutor will be banned in Limited as soon as you are able to get your hands on it.

What the hell, is the card being banned everywhere?! Why did you put it in the set in the first place?
Not everywhere, no. Demonic Tutor will not be banned in Magic Origins block constructed, for instance. There aren’t really any good cards in the set to search for, so there’s that. There’s also what, Tiny Leaders I guess. It’s already banned there? Good for them. Look, honestly? We were too busy drafting Modern Masters 2015 so we kinda just let Creative do whatever they wanted with the set. I say we got off relatively scot-free, considering the original idea for the set was to tell the origin story of Magic’s antagonists instead. Can you imagine Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Will in Standard again? Man, did we dodge a bullet there!