Gatecrash Legends Unveiled

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is sure to spur brews of many sorts. It clones creatures sent to opposing yards (doesn't matter how) while keeping his cloning ability and Hexproof. Creature quality is without question these days and is likely to be the same, if not heightened, come Gatecrash. Lazav is sure to have a healthy assortment of things to copy. Also, Dimir's ability to send creatures to the yard via destruction, discard and mill will make targets plentiful.

On the other hand, cloning while in play means that Lazav will be unable to take advantage of ETB effects of creatures it clones. This means that most of benefits it will get will be bloats in power and toughness and additional abiities such as forms of evasion, Lifelink and Strikes - these are still relevant if for instance Lazav copies into becoming a Griselbrand or Avacyn. Decent copy targets include Thragtusk and Geist of Saint Traft (actually it would be nasty to have your own GST after discarding on the other side).

Dimir Boss Lazav narrates in the new Gatecrash preview-trailer.

From: dailymtg.com

Other potential ideas to build around would be a Hexproof brigade in Esper with Lazav, GST and Invisible Stalker. This will of course be running Whispering Madness along side Flashback spells such as Think Twice, Lingering Souls and Unburial Rites - the obvious theme is related to hand and graveyard domination.

This brings about our other legend: Obdezat, Ghost Council. The Obdezat fits very well into the band of Hexproof threats above by being hard to remove as well - sorcery speed removal are moot and being multi-colored nulls out Ultimate Price. This legend card is an exciting thing to build around making everyone chomping for more Orzhov spoilers.

The Dimir Keyrune has also been shown to be a 2/2 unblockable horror, who then adds to our list of hard-to-kill threats (everyone knows how hard it is window a kill on Keyrunes).

This being the case, the WB guild artifact has to have Lifelink (merely speculating with a dash of wishful thinking). I do believe it to be in theme anyway.

Thanks for reading on the first article for 2013. It looks like January is going to be a busy month while the newly ushered year is looking more and more gorgeous for us planeswalkers.