Post by goldensandslash on Aug 4, 2020 7:44:27 GMT
Thirteen years ago, Magic the Gathering released a set called "Future Sight" where they showed some cards that hinted at Magic's future. Well, now it is the future -- thirteen years later. Let's see how they did.
In this thread, I will be examining each futureshifted card individually and evaluate whether I think it should be reprinted or not. There are 81 of them in total, so let's get started.
Arcanum Wings || 1U || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature has flying. || Aura swap {2}{U} ({2}{U}: Exchange this Aura with an Aura card in your hand.)
Aura swap seems fun. I do want this to come back when/if we get a set with a heavy Aura theme.
Aven Mindcensor || 2W || Creature -- Bird Wizard || 2/1 || Flash || Flying || If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
Already reprinted in Amonkhet, and as an Amonkhet Invocation.
Baru, Fist of Krosa || 3GG || Legendary Creature -- Human Druid || 4/4 || Whenever a Forest enters the battlefield, green creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain trample until end of turn. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Baru, Fist of Krosa: Create an X/X green Wurm creature token, where X is the number of lands you control.
Ah yes, grandeur. So, the idea behind this is that if you have multiple copies of a legendary card, then all copies beyond the first would suck, because you can't play them, due to the legend rule. The problem is that nowadays, legendary means something very different than it meant back in Future Sight. Specifically, it means that it can be your commander. The commander format is far more popular now than ever before, and so legendary creatures are always evaluated with Commander in mind. And in commander, grandeur is useless, because commander is a singleton format. So yeah, I don't see this one happening anytime soon.
Bitter Ordeal || 2B || Sorcery || Search target player's library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles their library. || Gravestorm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)
Gravestorm seems way too good to be a major set mechanic (much like storm), so I'm glad this one hasn't come back. One other thing to consider is the flavor here. This card, along with QUITE A FEW futureshifted cards, seems to hint at a future set that's based on the Victorian era and has a graveyard-based theme. So far we have yet to get this. Could be interesting if we do get that at some point though.
Blade of the Sixth Pride || 1W || Creature -- Cat Rebel || 3/1
This is a vanilla creature. So what makes it futureshifted? It's that it's a full-art card. So I will examine full-art vanillas first: I'd love to see them someday. As for the card itself, sure, why not? A 3/1 for 1W works. We first got that as a vanilla in Journey into Nyx (Oreskos Swiftclaw), but also got it in Dragons of Tarkir (Dromoka Warrior), Shadows over Innistrad (Devilthorn Fox), Ixalan (Raptor Companion), Dominaria (Knight of New Benalia), Ravnica Allegiance (Prowling Caracal), and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (Savai Sabertooth). So clearly R&D is willing to make it happen. So why not make a Cat Rebel out of it?
Blind Phantasm || 2U || Creature -- Illusion || 2/3
Here's the blue member of the cycle: a vanilla 2/3 for 2U. I really want this to happen. We have had functional reprints in Rise of the Eldrazi (Jwari Scuttler) and Dominaria (Tolarian Scholar), but man... Blind Phantasm is REALLY high on my list of wanted reprints, more than these functional reprints. Why? Because I actually, a long time ago, made a "Beginner's Cube". It was a cube full of cards that make it easy for beginners who are just learning Magic for the first time. And one card that I badly wanted was Blind Phantasm, not only for its vanilla body of being a 2/3 for 2U, but also for it being an illusion, which is very flavorful for blue. The problem is that the futureshifted card frame could confuse new players. I wish they would do this in a normal card frame, for my sake. Also, this card shows Jace Beleren in the artwork, a full year before that character ever existed!
Bloodshot Trainee || 3R || Creature -- Goblin Warrior || 2/3 || {T}: Bloodshot Trainee deals 4 damage to target creature. Activate this ability only if Bloodshot Trainee's power is 4 or greater.
Already reprinted in Scars of Mirrodin, Modern Masters 2015, Jumpstart, and Double Masters.
Boldwyr Intimidator || 5RR || Creature -- Giant Warrior || 5/5 || Cowards can't block Warriors. || {R}: Target creature becomes a Coward until end of turn. || {2}{R}: Target creature becomes a Warrior until end of turn.
Already reprinted in Morningtide, Conspiracy, Duel Decks: Mind vs Might, and Battlebond.
Bonded Fetch || 2U || Creature -- Homunculus || 0/2 || Defender, haste || {T}: Draw a card, then discard a card.
Of all the futureshifted cards, I believe this to be the least futureshifted of them all. The only thing odd about it is that it simultaneously has defender and haste, which is a bit contradictory. But I don't see this one coming back, because it's a blue card, and blue is not the color of haste. In fact, this card is the only mono-blue card in all of Magic that has haste. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a color-shifted version of this card, to be red, the proper color of haste. Of course, if it were red, the ability would have to discard then draw, rather than draw then discard, but that's easily done.
Bound in Silence || 2W || Tribal Enchantment -- Rebel Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature can't attack or block.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. But that doesn't really count, does it? It's just a reprint set. So how about seeing it in a real set? Well... I'm skeptical. 2W for a pacifism is fine, but it being a Tribal card really really hurts it, since Tribal is considered to be a failure.
Bridge from Below || BBB || Enchantment || Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. || When a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters and Ultimate Masters. Could we see it in a real set? Well, I'll just point out that this card was so good in Modern that it ended up getting a spot on the Modern banlist. Yeah... not likely to see this again. The idea of a card that does nothing unless it's in the graveyard is interesting, but man did R&D get burned by this. Turns out a dredge deck that self-mills their entire library in a turn or two doesn't care about such restrictions.
Centaur Omenreader || 3G || Snow Creature -- Centaur Shaman || 3/3 || As long as Centaur Omenreader is tapped, creature spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
Huh. So this is predicting the return of the Snow supertype. I'm all for that.
Darksteel Garrison || 2 || Artifact -- Fortification || Fortified land has indestructible. || Whenever fortified land becomes tapped, target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. || Fortify {3} ({3}: Attach to target land you control. Fortify only as a sorcery. This card enters the battlefield unattached and stays on the battlefield if the land leaves.)
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. But let's examine fortifications as a mechanic. They suck. Here's the thing. They are just Equipment for lands. But the thing is... lands are SIGNIFICANTLY different from creatures. Think about what the majority of equipment do. They grant power/toughness increases and they grant abilities. In terms of power/toughness increases, that won't work, because lands don't have a power/toughness. In terms of abilities, sure, but there's not much that lands want for abilities. You can give it indestructible, as this one does, or you can give it hexproof/shroud. Other than that... there's not really much. Keywords like first strike, flying, deathtouch, haste, trample, and so forth won't make sense on a land. So you'd need to go for non-keyworded abilities. Which is fine. You can make a land tap for two mana, or for mana of a different color, or whatever. But the options there are thin. So thin, in fact, that I doubt you could build an entire set with these. So you'd only end up with a small handful of fortifications, and at that point, you're better off just making them Auras that enchant lands.
Daybreak Coronet || WW || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature with another Aura attached to it || Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 and has first strike, vigilance, and lifelink. (Damage dealt by the creature also causes its controller to gain that much life.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters 2015 and Ultimate Masters. "Enchant creature with another Aura attached to it" is interesting rules text. I wouldn't mind seeing it again.
Death Rattle || 5B || Instant || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) || Destroy target nongreen creature. It can't be regenerated.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. Okay, why the hell wasn't this in Khans of Tarkir? Not only does it have delve, the mechanic that would go on to be shown off in Khans of Tarkir, but a black card that specifically destroys something that isn't green? That's perfect for Sultai, which is the clan that had the delve mechanic in the first place! It feels like all the stars aligned and they still didn't do it. And yes, I know that Murderous Cut is in Khans of Tarkir and is, for the most part, better, but still. This was handed to them on a silver platter. Sadly, such an opportunity is unlikely to come up again, because of the "it can't be regenerated" clause. That clause makes no sense on a modern-era card, since they stopped doing regeneration.
Deepcavern Imp || 2B || Creature -- Imp Rebel || 2/2 || Flying, haste || Echo--Discard a card. (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. This is a nice card, but sadly it has echo, and I neither want nor expect echo to ever return. It was a bad mechanic.
Dryad Arbor || Land Creature -- Forest Dryad || 1/1 || (Dryad Arbor isn't a spell, it's affected by summoning sickness, and it has "{T}: Add {G}.") || [Green color indicator.]
Already reprinted in From the Vault: Realms. Oh my god the number of rules issues that this card has is insane. For that reason alone, I never expect to see it (or another Land Creature) ever again. On top of that, the From the Vault: Realms printing has a lot of issues. Specifically, its rules text is blank, so it shows merely a green mana symbol in the text box, just like a basic Forest. This means that, at a glance, you'll think it's a basic Forest unless you look at the card name, color indicator, or power/toughness box locations of the lands that your opponent has in play. I have seen many many players erroneously attack, not realizing that the opponent has a Dryad Arbor in play, because they keep it near their lands, but it is, in fact, a creature. And that changes combat math. This happens over and over again. It also happens that sometimes a player will forget to move it to their graveyard if a Pyroclasm effect is cast, because they'll forget that it's a creature. On top of that, I have seen many new players assume that it functions like a Forest, and that they can tap it for mana after playing it, even though it has summoning sickness, so it can't be tapped for mana the turn it comes into play. In hindsight, they probably should have made this enter the battlefield tapped just to solve the summoning sickness issue (and entering tapped is not a strange ability to have on a land). But never mind all that, because the OTHER thing about Dryad Arbor is that it is way too powerful, because it can take advantage of effects that affect either creatures or lands. Green Sun's Zenith, with X = 0 lets you ramp for just one mana, thanks to Dryad Arbor! That's clearly not the intent of the card, but you can do it anyways. And that's just one of many examples.
Edge of Autumn || 1G || Sorcery || If you control four or fewer lands, search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. || Cycling--Sacrifice a land. (Sacrifice a land, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Already reprinted in Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons. As for a real reprint, sure, why not? Seems like a fun card. It does different things depending on whether you have lands or not. That's a neat design.
Emblem of the Warmind || 1R || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature you control || Creatures you control have haste.
So the idea here is that it's an Aura, but it does nothing to the enchanted creature, it instead provides a global effect to all your creatures. That's... really fucking stupid. Hope to never see this one again.
Fleshwrither || 2BB || Creature -- Horror || 3/3 || Transfigure {1}{B}{B} ({1}{B}{B}, Sacrifice this creature: Search your library for a creature card with the same converted mana cost as this creature and put that card onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. Transfigure only as a sorcery.)
This card seems broken. First of all, it's a 3/3 for 4 mana, which is okay. But then it also has transfigure on top of that? Yes please. Transfigure is based on Transmute, the Dimir mechanic from the original Ravnica block. The only difference between the two is that Transmute required you to discard the cards with transmute from your hand, not the battlefield, and then put the tutored card into your hand, not the battlefield. Regardless, tutors are not fun, because they result in repetitive gameplay. It's why we more often than not see "look at the top (number) cards of your library for a card" instead. We don't get full-on tutoring very often now (except searching for basic lands), so I don't see them making this card, never mind making a full keyworded mechanic around it.
Flowstone Embrace || 1R || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || {T}: Enchanted creature gets +2/-2 until end of turn.
So here's a weird one: enchantments that tap. That's a unique idea. Only three enchantments in all of Magic tap, and all three of them are futureshifted. Here's the first one. I must say, I'm not a fan. Most players put the Auras behind the objects that they enchant. And then, when they tap the creature, they turn the entire pile sideways, often including the Auras. Technically, the Aura doesn't tap, but most players will turn it sideways anyways, even if incidentally. I notably don't do this, but I am the exception. I see more players do it than not, and because of that, I see tapping Auras as a future best avoided.
Fomori Nomad || 4R || Creature -- Nomad Giant || 4/4
Here's the red full-art vanilla. Interestingly, this card already pre-existed in Magic, as Obsidian Giant from Portal Second Age. It has since been functionally reprinted as Bonebreaker Giant in Magic 2012. All three of them are Giants, but this is the only one that's also a Nomad. Not that this means much. A 4/4 for 4R seems a little on the weak side to be honest, but it's acceptable. Flavorfully, this takes place on the plane of Ir. We've seen this plane on one card in a Commander deck (Ruhan of the Fomori) and one Planechase plane (Turri Island), but it's never been a full setting. Why not? Well, the fact that it's called "Ir" might have something to do with it. That's a bad plane name. Especially because Magic sets are often named after the plane they take place on. Can you imagine trying to market a product called Ir? Yeah, understandable that this plane is mostly unexplored.
Frenzy Sliver || 1B || Creature -- Sliver || 1/1 || All Silver creatures have frenzy 1. (Whenever a Sliver attacks and isn't blocked, it gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. So, this shows off a few things. First of all, the return of slivers. Yay! I'd be on board for that. Unfortunately, this is the old style of slivers, where it affected ALL slivers, not just yours. Because of the change to only affecting your own slivers, I doubt we'll see this card again. But there's also a whole mechanic here to untangle: frenzy. We did see this return on a single card from Unstable, but other than that, this is the only card with frenzy. Is it a good mechanic? Not really. Yeah, it's fine on a single card, but imagine if this was a full mechanic in a set. If my opponent attacks me with a ton of creatures that all have frenzy, well, I can't block all of them, so something has gotta get through. And, well, that'd be a problem when I'm punished for not blocking everything.
Ghostfire || 2R || Instant || Ghostfire is colorless. || Ghostfire deals 3 damage to any target.
Already reprinted in Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons and Duel Decks: Merfolk vs Goblins. Oh hey, look. It's a bad version of Lightning Bolt. Why does this cost three mana? That's absurd. The real thing here is the flavor text. It not only mentions Ugin the Spirit Dragon, a character who would not exist for another 8 years, but also... this one flavor text has inspired many card designs (most obviously Ghostfire Blade). Obviously, the big thing here is a colorless instant, which, at the time, had never been done. All colorless cards prior to this one were either artifacts or lands. Ghostfire is not. Well, we already saw colorless cards of other types in Rise of the Eldrazi. As for a colorless card that costs colored mana, we already got that too, as the devoid mechanic from Battle for Zendikar block. Sadly Ghostfire couldn't be reprinted there due to a flavor issue. The devoid cards are meant to be tied to the eldrazi, and yet, Ghostfire is not an eldrazi card, it's about the spirit fire of Ugin.
Goldmeadow Lookout || 3W || Creature -- Kithkin Spellshaper || 2/2 || {W}, {T}, Discard a card: Create a 1/1 white Kithkin Soldier creature token named Goldmeadow Harrier. It has "{W}, {T}: Tap target creature."
So, the big thing here is tokens with names. We already have a few of those, but they're the exception, not the rule. Future Sight included a not-futureshifted cycle of cards that made tokens with names, and they're all based on cards that already exist. The blue one made Cloud Sprite, the black one made Festering Goblin, the red one made Spark Elemental, the green one made Llanowar Elves, and the colorless one made Metallic Sliver. That leaves white, which got a futureshifted card, because, at the time, Goldmeadow Harrier did not exist. Of course, it later would exist in Lorwyn. As for the concept of making tokens with names, I don't really like it. It's okay every now and then, but one thing is, unlike back in Future Sight, we now have token cards. If you start including tokens with names as a regular thing, then the token cards may look more like actual Magic cards and may confuse new players. So I think I'm fine without this mechanic.
Graven Cairns || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {b/r}, {T}: Add {B}{B}, {B}{R}, or {R}{R}.
Already reprinted in Shadowmoor, Zendikar Expeditions, Iconic Masters, and Double Masters. So... Future Sight did this thing. There's a cycle of lands at rare that are dual lands of each of the allied color pairs. But each land seemingly comes from a different cycle in the future. This one is the Rakdos one, and it is the filterland cycle from Shadowmoor. Of the futureshifted land cycles, this is the only one that has since been completed. And yeah, it's a good land.
Grave Scrabbler || 3B || Creature -- Zombie || 2/2 || Madness {1}{B} (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.) || When Grave Scrabbler enters the battlefield, if its madness cost was paid, you may return target creature card from a graveyard to your hand.
Already reprinted in Ultimate Masters and Commander 2019. This is another "future Victorian graveyard theme" card (along with Bitter Ordeal, Bridge from Below, Death Rattle, Grinning Ignus, Patrician's Scorn, Street Wraith, Tombstalker, and Yixlid Jailer). If not for that, it really wouldn't have been futureshifted. This seems like a fairly normal card.
Grinning Ignus || 2R || Creature -- Elemental || 2/2 || {R}, Return Grinning Ignus to its owner's hand: Add {C}{C}{R}. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. The idea behind this design, I think, is that you can cast it for {C}{C}{R}, then bounce it, recast it, bounce again, recast again, and so forth, only paying {R} each time, and you can increase your storm count indefinitely. That's... stupid. Also, the elegance of the way the card looks ended up getting mangled when they changed the {2} to {C}{C}. It was neat seeing the mana cost equal the mana you got from it. Because of this, I doubt we see it again.
Grove of the Burnwillows || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {T}: Add {R} or {G}. Each opponent gains 1 life.
Already reprinted in From the Vault: Realms and Iconic Masters. This is the Gruul futureshifted land. It's pretty broken. I get what they're trying to do here, it's like a reverse painland. But the problem is that the opponent gaining life isn't nearly as bad as you losing life. So this card is pretty OP. It's pretty much just a straight-up dual land with no downside. I think it could be fixed by upping the lifegain. If the opponent gained 2 or 3 life from each use of this, then it'd be more balanced. But a version of this that's unmodified? No thank you.
Henchfiend of Ukor || 3R || Creature -- Ogre || 3/2 || Haste || Echo {1}{B} (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.) || {b/r}: Henchfiend of Ukor gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
So, the idea here is that the echo cost requires black mana, but you don't need to be playing a black deck to use this card. This card works just fine in mono-red. That's a neat idea, and I'd love to see something similar again, but sadly, it has echo, and I doubt echo is coming back. Echo was a bad mechanic. The other fun part about this is hybrid mana, which debuted one year prior to Future Sight, in Ravnica block. It was just a block mechanic at the time, but Future Sight hints that we'll see it again. Indeed, we have seen it many many many times since then.
Homing Sliver || 2R || Creature -- Sliver || 2/2 || Each Sliver card in each player's hand has slivercycling {3}. || Slivercycling {3} ({3}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Sliver card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. First, let's talk about the problems with old-style slivers. Then let's talk about the problems with tutor mechanics. Mix them together and you get a card that should never come back.
Horizon Canopy || Land || {T}, Pay 1 life: Add {G} or {W}. || {1}, {T}, Sacrifice Horizon Canopy: Draw a card.
Already reprinted in Zendikar Expeditions and Iconic Masters. So, this is the Selesnya dual land. It's really really good. It actually was fleshed out into a full cycle in Modern Horizons, but that was with enemy-colors. The allied-colored version of this cycle still has yet to be completed. Maybe someday. This card depicts the plane of Pyrulea, so maybe if we ever spend an entire expansion there, we can see the full cycle.
Imperial Mask || 4W || Enchantment || When Imperial Mask enters the battlefield, if it's not a token, each of your teammates creates a token that's a copy of Imperial Mask. || You have hexproof. (You can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.)
Huh. So the futureshifted thing here is the fact that it references teammates. We had already previously seen this in Unglued, but here it is in Future Sight, hinting that it would come to black-border. And, well, it kinda has. Oath of the Gatewatch featured the surge mechanic, which referenced teammates, and then there was Battlebond as well, that's all about teams and teammates. Of course, Imperial Mask itself has still not been reprinted, but if we ever get a second Battlebond, I'd love to see it.
Imperiosaur || 2GG || Creature -- Dinosaur || 5/5 || Spend only mana produced by basic lands to cast this spell.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. This card takes place on the plane of Muraganda, which is a prehistoric plane. I'd love to see it in a full expansion someday. As it stands now, the only cards from Muraganda are this card, the futureshifted card Muraganda Petroglyphs, the commander card The Mimeoplasm, and the Planechase plane Feeding Grounds. But the idea of a prehistoric plane seems cool.
Korlash, Heir to Blackblade || 2BB || Legendary Creature -- Zombie Warrior || */* || Korlash, Heir to Blackblade's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Swamps you control. || {1}{B}: Regenerate Korlash. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Korlash, Heir to Blackblade: Search your library for up to two Swamp cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
Here's the black member of the grandeur cycle. All the things I previously said about grandeur still hold.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage || 3U || Legendary Creature -- Human Wizard || 3/3 || {X}{U}{U}, {T}: Return target creature with converted mana cost X to its owner's hand. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Linessa, Zephyr Mage: Target player returns a creature they control to its owner's hand, then repeats this process for an artifact, an enchantment, and a land.
Here's the blue one. Same as last time.
Logic Knot || XUU || Instant || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) || Counter target spell unless its controller pays {X}.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. Again, this is a Delve card in Sultai colors, and would have been ideal for Khans of Tarkir. Maybe they'll find another opportunity to use delve though.
Lucent Liminid || 3WW || Enchantment Creature -- Elemental || 3/3 || Flying
So, the futureshifted part here is that it's an enchantment creature, which, prior to this, wasn't a thing. Nowadays, we have an entire plane (Theros) for enchantment creatures. So this isn't too special. As for this card in particular, it's awful. For {3}{W}{W}, I expect a lot more than a 3/3 flying. Heck, you can cast a Serra Angel or a Baneslayer Angel for that mana.
Lumithread Field || 1W || Enchantment || Creatures you control get +0/+1. || Morph {1}{W} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. So this is an interesting idea: a morph card that you play as a creature, but then can unmorph it and it's no longer a creature. That's a fun little twist on morph. There's two other futureshifted cards that do this, but it has yet to be seen outside of futureshifted cards. I hope that they explore this at some point.
Lymph Sliver || 4W || Creature -- Sliver || 3/3 || All Sliver creatures have absorb 1. (If a source would deal damage to a Sliver, prevent 1 of that damage.)
Wow, absorb sounds so miserable to play against. It makes all of your combat math so much more difficult to do. Do you attack or not? Takes a lot longer to decide if your opponent's creatures have absorb (especially in a hypothetical scenario with absorb 2, absorb 3, or absorb 4). And if both players have absorb decks, then it creates a stalemate way too easily. On top of that, this is an old-style sliver again, so it's likely to never come to fruition.
Mass of Ghouls || 3BB || Creature -- Zombie Warrior || 5/3
Already reprinted in Tenth Edition. This is the black member of the "full-art vanilla" cycle.
Mesmeric Sliver || 3U || Creature -- Sliver || 2/2 || All Slivers have "When this permanent enters the battlefield, you may fateseal 1." (To fateseal 1, its controller looks at the top card of an opponent's library, then they may put that card on the bottom of that library.)
So, fatesealing is scrying but for your opponent. So you can guarantee that they mana flood! It's absolutely terrible. I hate everything about it. I hope to never see it again.
Mistmeadow Skulk || 1W || Creature -- Kithkin Rogue || 1/1 || Lifelink, protection from converted mana cost 3 or greater
Already reprinted in Shadowmoor.
Muraganda Petroglyphs || 3G || Enchantment || Creatures with no abilities get +2/+2.
So, this is once again a card from Muraganda, a plane that I really want to see. It hints at a theme of "vanilla matters". This is a VERY popular request from players who give it absolutely no thought whatsoever. "Vanilla matters" is BORING. Because vanilla creatures are boring. On top of that, there's loads of design problems. Suppose I made a card that said "creatures with no abilities have trample", or something like that. Well, now the game goes into an infinite loop, because a vanilla creature DOES have an ability, namely trample, so it would no longer be affected by this card. Thus, it no longer has any abilities. Thus, it gains trample, so it is now no longer affected, it loses trample, and repeats infinitely. And this is just one problem. There's a whole slew of problems. Mark Rosewater did a Drive to Work podcast (episode #444) all about vanilla matters and why it can never work as a theme, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. Sure, Muraganda Petroglyphs is fun as a one-off card, but it'd never work as a major set theme. Still, flavorfully, I do want a set based around Muraganda.
Nacatl War-Pride || 3GGG || Creature -- Cat Warrior || 3/3 || Nacatl War-Pride must be blocked by exactly one creature if able. || Whenever Nacatl War-Pride attacks, create X tokens that are copies of Nacatl War-Pride tapped and attacking, where X is the number of creatures defending player controls. Exile the tokens at the beginning of the next end step.
So, this one shows off the Nacatl, which are native only to the plane of Naya (Alara), a plane which, at this point, didn't exist. Now it does though, so if we ever go back there, would I want to see Nacatl War-Pride? Ehhh, not really. It feels like a boring card to play against, because your blocks are already decided. It gives too much control to the attacking player.
Narcomeba || 1U || Creature -- Illusion || 1/1 || Flying || When Narcomeba is put into your graveyard from your library, you may put it onto the battlefield.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters and Guilds of Ravnica. So... I don't consider that Guilds of Ravnica reprint to count. That's cheating. The original Future Sight card depicts the plane of Iquatana. This plane is later shown on the planechase card The Aether Flues, and it's also mentioned in the flavor text of Jace's Phantasm. But it is definitively NOT Ravnica. So as far as I'm concerned, Narcomeba is still in the future. Maybe we'll see Iquatana someday. Maybe not. I could take it or leave it on this one.
Nessian Courser || 2G || Creature -- Centaur Warrior || 3/3
Already reprinted in Theros. This is the green full-art vanilla.
Nimbus Maze || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {T}: Add {W}. Activate this ability only if you control an Island. || {T}: Add {U}. Activate this ability only if you control a Plains.
Already reprinted in Iconic Masters. Here's the Azorius dual land. It's a neat design. Fun fact: the original Azorius dual land from Future Sight, which ended up being cut during development, was just a straight-up dual-land except that it gave you a poison counter each time it was tapped. That's basically a dual-land in 99% of all games, so I am glad that they changed to this version instead.
Nix || U || Instant || Counter target spell if no mana was spent to cast it.
This card is confusing. I'm glad that they haven't brought this one back.
Oriss, Samite Guardian || 1WW || Legendary Creature -- Human Cleric || 1/3 || {T}: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Oriss, Samite Guardian: Target player can't cast spells this turn, and creatures that player controls can't attack this turn.
Here's another grandeur card. All the same stuff I've previously said about this mechanic still applies.
Patrician's Scorn || 3W || Instant || If you've cast another white spell this turn, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost. || Destroy all enchantments.
Other than showing off that Victorian plane, there's not much else here. Next!
Phosphorescent Feast || 2GGG || Sorcery || Chroma -- Reveal any number of cards in your hand. You gain 2 life for each green mana symbol in those cards' mana costs.
Already reprinted in Eventide.
Quagnoth || 5G || Creature -- Beast || 4/5 || Split second (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't cast spells or activate abilities that aren't mana abilities.) || Shroud (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities.) || When a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard Quagnoth, return it to your hand.
This seems normal, but the futureshifted part here is the keyword shroud. Prior to this, shroud was unkeyworded (same with lifelink, on the futureshifted cards Daybreak Coronet and Mismeadow Skulk).
Ramosian Revivalist || 3W || Creature -- Human Rebel Cleric || 2/2 || {6}, {T}: Return target Rebel permanent card with converted mana cost 5 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
We saw Rebels quite prominently in Mercadian Masques block. Each one has an ability that lets you bring out another Rebel that's the next mana cost up. So, for example, this one. It has a CMC of 4, but has an ability that gets you one with a CMC of 5. The thing that's futureshifted about it is that this one pulls them out of your graveyard, while the others pull them out of the library. Seeing as how we've not seen Rebels since Mercadian Masques block, I doubt we'll see them again. As I said above, tutoring is not fun.
River of Tears || Land || {T}: Add {U}. If you played a land this turn, add {B} instead.
Already reprinted in Iconic Masters. This is the Dimir dual land. It has three problems with it. One, a full cycle of this would take twice as long to complete as a normal cycle, because it's asymmetric. You can swap the two mana symbols here and you get a completely different card. So twice as many lands are needed if you want to get every combination. Problem number two: this card can get confusing, because a lot of people misunderstand that on the turn you play it, that counts as having played a land, and it will tap for {B}, and not {U}, on that turn, even though it wasn't in play at the time you played the land. Third, this card depicts the plane of Arkhos. And Arkhos is one of two planes (along with Mongseng) that we see in Planechase that we can NEVER go to again, due to there being issues involving the name of the plane. With Arkhos, the issue is that it is already trademarked by another company. It's a greek myth plane, which sounds cool, but it couldn't be used, so they had to make a fresh greek myth plane from the ground up instead, Theros. (Mongseng features a similar issue -- it can't be used because "mong" is an ableist slur, and so its world got re-tooled into Tarkir.)
Sarcomite Myr || 2U || Artifact Creature -- Myr || 2/1 || {2}: Sarcomite Myr gains flying until end of turn. || {2}, Sacrifice Sarcomite Myr: Draw a card.
Already reprinted in Planechase. So the futureshifted part here is that it is a colored artifact. We technically already had one in the game in the form of Transguild Courier, but that can be cast without spending any colored mana. This one requires blue. Nowadays, colored artifacts are a common enough thing, but back then, this was new. Additionally, this card's flavor text mentions Brudiclad, a character who is a Phyrexian. So I guess we'll see the Phyrexians again. Oh wait, we already have. Since Future Sight, they went and conquered Mirrodin. Sarcomite Myr would have been a good card to put in New Phyrexia, if only colored artifacts had a more prominent presence in that set. Ah well.
Second Wind || 2U || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || {T}: Tap enchanted creature. || {T}: Untap enchanted creature.
I've already expressed my views on Auras that tap. They haven't changed.
Seht's Tiger || 2WW || Creature -- Cat || 3/3 || Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.) || When Seht's Tiger enters the battlefield, you gain protection from the color of your choice until end of turn. (You can't be targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything of the chosen color.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2017. This was the first card that granted a keyword ability to a player (before you bring up Imperial Mask, that wasn't keyworded at the time), so that's neat. For what it's worth, I consider this one to have already been reprinted, even though it hasn't been in a "real" set. The commander deck it is a part of is all about Cat tribal, and I can imagine them putting in Seht's Tiger as a new card in that deck first, and then throwing it back in time to Future Sight.
Shah of Naar Isle || 3R || Creature -- Efreet || 6/6 || Trample || Echo {0} (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.) || When Shah of Naar Isle's echo cost is paid, each opponent may draw up to three cards.
Echo {0} is a neat idea, but I still don't want echo to come back.
Shapeshifter's Marrow || 2UU || Enchantment || At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player reveals the top card of their library. If it's a creature card, the player puts the card into their graveyard and Shapeshifter's Marrow becomes a copy of that card. (If it does, it loses this ability.)
I really don't get what they were going for here. I guess it's like Clone, except you don't know what you're copying? Seems dumb.
Skizzik Surger || 4RR || Creature -- Elemental || 6/4 || Haste || Echo--Sacrifice two lands. (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)
Yet again, we see another "card with an unusual echo cost." And yet again, I have to say that I hope we never see echo again.
Snake Cult Initiation || 3B || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature has poisonous 3. (Whenever it deals combat damage to a player, that player gets three poison counters. A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)
So, at this point in Magic's history, poison counters are an obscure thing from VERY early in Magic's history. This hints that they may come back. And, well, of course, they did. And made quite a huge impact on the game. I think infect does work a lot better than poisonous does, since it enables you to use pump spells to increase the poison output. Though the advantage with poisonous is that you get to inflict poison damage and regular damage at the same time, rather than just one or the other.
Spellweaver Volute || 3UU || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant instant card in a graveyard || Whenever you cast a sorcery spell, copy the enchanted instant card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. If you do, exile the enchanted card and attach Spellweaver Volute to another instant card in a graveyard.
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. Oh boy is this one weird. I have no idea what on earth it is meant to be doing, so I'm glad that this hasn't become a regular thing. Let's not enchant cards in graveyards, k?
Spellwind Ouphe || 1G || Creature -- Ouphe || 1/3 || Spells that target Spellwind Ouphe cost {2} less to cast.
That's a neat ability. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing this one again.
Spin into Myth || 4U || Instant || Put target creature on top of its owner's library, then fateseal 2. (To fateseal 2, look at the top two cards of an opponent's library, then put any number of them on the bottom of that player's library and the rest on top in any order.)
Already reprinted in Archenemy. I've already said how much I hate fateseal, so I hope this never comes back for real.
Sporoloth Ancient || 3GG || Creature -- Fungus || 4/4 || At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Sporoloth Ancient. || Creatures you control have "Remove two spore counters from this creature: Create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token."
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. FINALLY! A card for your "spore counter" deck. Wait... what? Is that a thing? I guess...
Steamflogger Boss || 3R || Creature -- Goblin Rigger || 3/3 || Other Riggers you control get +1/+0 and have haste. || If a Rigger you control would assemble a Contraption, it assembles two Contraptions instead.
Already reprinted in Unstable and Mystery Booster. So... this is a joke. They never intended to make Contraptions and assemble into a thing. So it's written in such a way that it would not work. The joke was that in R&D, they'd never do it, but players would keep expecting it, and so they could laugh at the players. But then Aaron Forsythe mentioned in an article on DailyMTG that they were never planning on doing it. As a result, now the joke was no longer funny. The only way for the joke to be funny again is if they DID do it. But it was deliberately worded to be as difficult for them to design as possible, given that they were originally never going to do it. Well, now they had to. And they eventually did so in Unstable. So what do I think about this? Well... let me just say that as a black-bordered mechanic, I loved this mechanic. Until Unstable came out. Here’s why: Steamflogger Boss was a very funny joke. And then Contraptions actually came out in Unstable and they were a huge disappointment. First of all, you want to know what “assembling” does? Well, after years of waiting, it turns out it’s just an action that you, the player, can do. That’s not right. Steamflogger Boss’s templating implied it was something that your creatures can do. And yes, Unstable did have creatures that could assemble Contraptions, but it was functionally the same thing. I guarantee you that if Steamflogger Boss had never existed before Unstable, they would have templated it differently. Joyride Rigger, for example, would just say “When Joyride Rigger enters the battlefield, assemble a Contraption”, rather than “it assembles a Contraption”. And yes, I know that restricting it to things that creatures can do makes “assemble” even more difficult to figure out, from a design perspective, but that’s THE WHOLE POINT. It was meant to be a mechanic that did not really exist. They shouldn’t have made it exist. But let’s ignore all that and look at the far bigger problem: Riggers. Why did they tie this creature type down to the mechanic like that? There was no reason to do so. Why are there no Artificers or Advisors or Soldiers or such that can assemble? Wizards R&D doesn’t like it when mechanics are tied to creature types (see also: separation between Walls and Defender), so why did they do so here? But let’s ignore that and look at the bigger problem: Steamflogger Boss is itself stupidly overpowered right now. It is a 3/3 for {3}{R}. That’s a pretty reasonable rate for a vanilla creature in red. But it isn’t vanilla. It has rules text. Luckily, in a pre-Unstable world, that rules text was mostly meaningless and could safely be ignored. And it probably was, when development got their hands on it and costed it. Now, though, you can’t ignore its rules text. This thing DOUBLES your Contraption output for just FOUR MANA (and gives you a 3/3 creature to boot!). That’s insane. Fortunately, there has never been a World Championship match where Contraptions were legal in the format, so people never really got a chance to break it open, but trust me: the potential is there. There’s so much broken stuff you can do with this card if you allow silver-bordered cards.
Storm Entity || 1R || Creature -- Elemental || 1/1 || Haste || Storm Entity enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each other spell cast this turn.
So, this is basically a creature with storm. Storm is broken, let's move on.
Street Wraith || 3BB || Creature -- Wraith || 3/4 || Swampwalk (This creature can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a Swamp.) || Cycling--Pay 2 life. (Pay 2 life, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters, Masters 25, and Mystery Booster. So, the idea here is that a non-black deck can still run it if they want the card draw. And that isn't even too weird of an idea, since non-blue decks sometimes run Gitaxian Probe for the card draw. So yeah, I wouldn't mind having this card back. There's just one problem: swampwalk. Not only do I hate landwalk abilities with a burning passion, but finally, after 23 years of the game, R&D finally decided to agree with me and remove them from the game. As such, this one ain't coming back.
Tarmogoyf || 1G || Creature -- Lhurgoyf || */*+1 || Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters, Modern Masters 2015, Modern Masters 2017, and Ultimate Masters. So, the original printing of this card featured reminder text that listed the card types, and among them was planeswalker, a card type that did not yet exist. Obviously, planeswalkers have since gone on to be such an iconic part of the game that you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone without planeswalker cards in their collection. Will we see this card again in a real set? Fuck no. It's way too broken. It's only two mana. At that point, if it's a 0/1 or a 1/2, then you're getting a bad deal. If it's a 2/3, you're getting an okay deal. If it's a 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 6/7, 7/8, or 8/9, then you're getting a superb deal. That's massively lopsided in favor of the high end. Why is it so broken? Well, originally, Future Sight was going to have planeswalker cards, as futureshifted cards, but R&D couldn't work out how to get them to work in time, so they were pulled from the file. The cards in question would later go on to become Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, and Garruk Wildspeaker. When those cards got removed from the file, the cards that were originally in Future Sight prior to this planeswalker experiment got put back into the file instead. One of those cards was Tarmogoyf. Except the guy who put it back in did so from memory, and he got two details wrong. First, the power/toughness was meant to be */* instead of */*+1. Secondly, the mana cost was meant to be {1}{G}{G} instead of {1}{G}. As such, Tarmogoyf was accidentally printed as being more powerful than intended. If it had been printed correctly, would it still be broken? Probably, yeah. Magic players will find a way to make a card like this work.
Tarox Bladewing || 2RRR || Legendary Creature -- Dragon || 4/3 || Flying, haste || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Tarox Bladewing: Tarox Bladewing gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is its power.
So, this is the final grandeur card. This time, there is a bit more to discuss. Specifically, the flavor. This implies that Rorix Bladewing will continue his dragon brood. Indeed, we saw this in Dominaria with Verix Bladewing, which, of course, also creates a token named Karox Bladewing. Neat.
Thornweald Archer || 1G || Creature -- Elf Archer || 2/1 || Reach (This creature can block creatures with flying.) || Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2014, Eternal Masters, Duel Decks: Nissa vs Ob Nixilis, Commander Anthology, and Mystery Booster. This feels like a very not-at-all-futureshifted card. After all, all it has are just two evergreen keywords. So what's going on? Well, much like shroud and lifelink, these keywords weren't actually keyworded at the time, so this was the first time we saw either reach or deathtouch. Obviously both have become staples of the game. As for the individual card, Thornweald Archer still has yet to show up in a real set, but I would like it to someday.
Thunderblade Charge || 1RR || Sorcery || Thunderblade Charge deals 3 damage to any target. || Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, if Thunderblade Charge is in your graveyard, you may pay {2}{R}{R}{R}. If you do, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
So this is basically a sorcery with flashback that you can keep flashbacking forever. That's a fun idea. I don't think I'd want it as a main mechanic of a set though.
Tombstalker || 6BB || Creature -- Demon || 5/5 || Flying || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. As previously said, delve was the Sultai mechanic in Khans of Tarkir, and here is yet another card with delve in Sultai colors. So why was this not in Khans of Tarkir? It totally would have fit there. I don't understand Wizards of the Coast sometimes.
Vedalken Aethermage || 1U || Creature -- Vedalken Wizard || 1/2 || Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.) || When Vedalken Aethermage enters the battlefield, return target Sliver to its owner's hand. || Wizardcycling {3} ({3}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Wizard card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)
I already talked about slivercycling. All my problems there apply to wizardcycling too. Tutor mechanics are not fun. Interestingly, I like the design of the rest of this card. It basically is a sideboard card specifically for a matchup against a sliver deck.
Virulent Sliver || G || Creature -- Sliver || 1/1 || All Sliver creatures have poisonous 1. (Whenever a Sliver deals combat damage to a player, that player gets a poison counter. A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. I've already talked about slivers. I've already talked about poisonous. I've run out of things to say on both topics. Next!
Whetwheel || 4 || Artifact || {X}{X}, {T}: Target player mills X cards. || Morph {3} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
This is the second of the "noncreature permanents with morph" that Future Sight showed us. As I said last time, I'd love for this to be expanded upon.
Whip-Spine Drake || 3UU || Creature -- Drake || 3/3 || Flying || Morph {2}{W} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
The futureshifted thing here is that you can play this card in a mono-blue or a mono-white deck. You don't need both colors. The idea of using morph in this way is certainly unique. I'm a fan.
Witch's Mist || 2B || Enchantment || {2}{B}, {T}: Destroy target creature that was dealt damage this turn.
This is another "enchantment that taps" effect. Unlike the previous two, this one is not an Aura, so it's a little more forgivable. That said, it really just reads like an artifact now because of it, since artifacts tap and enchantments don't. Because of that, it doesn't really do much to stand out.
Yixlid Jailer || 1B || Creature -- Zombie Wizard || 2/1 || Cards in graveyards lose all abilities.
Oh my god yes. I want this in, like, every graveyard-themed set ever. R&D is always hesitant to print answers to their threats within the same set, and it often results in those themes hitting harder than intended. Answers are necessary. And I hope to see this card someday in a graveyard-themed set (with a Victorian theme), as an answer to any graveyard shenanigans that come up.
Zoetic Cavern || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || Morph {2} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2011, Commander 2014, Commander 2015, Commander Anthology, and Masters 25. This is the final "noncreature permanent with morph" card. Unlike the other two, I'm not a fan of this one. Because it's a land. Not only can it be used as a dumb ramp card (cast it as a creature, then unmorph it when it's about to die, and it doesn't count as your land for the turn), but also: this card faces a lot of similar problems to Dryad Arbor, since this one is also both a creature and a land. Luckily, this one is a lot better about it, since it's never both a creature and a land simultaneously, but it still has SOME issues. I'd be okay with never seeing it again. Though if it were to come back, I wouldn't complain about that either.
In this thread, I will be examining each futureshifted card individually and evaluate whether I think it should be reprinted or not. There are 81 of them in total, so let's get started.
Arcanum Wings || 1U || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature has flying. || Aura swap {2}{U} ({2}{U}: Exchange this Aura with an Aura card in your hand.)
Aura swap seems fun. I do want this to come back when/if we get a set with a heavy Aura theme.
Aven Mindcensor || 2W || Creature -- Bird Wizard || 2/1 || Flash || Flying || If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
Already reprinted in Amonkhet, and as an Amonkhet Invocation.
Baru, Fist of Krosa || 3GG || Legendary Creature -- Human Druid || 4/4 || Whenever a Forest enters the battlefield, green creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain trample until end of turn. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Baru, Fist of Krosa: Create an X/X green Wurm creature token, where X is the number of lands you control.
Ah yes, grandeur. So, the idea behind this is that if you have multiple copies of a legendary card, then all copies beyond the first would suck, because you can't play them, due to the legend rule. The problem is that nowadays, legendary means something very different than it meant back in Future Sight. Specifically, it means that it can be your commander. The commander format is far more popular now than ever before, and so legendary creatures are always evaluated with Commander in mind. And in commander, grandeur is useless, because commander is a singleton format. So yeah, I don't see this one happening anytime soon.
Bitter Ordeal || 2B || Sorcery || Search target player's library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles their library. || Gravestorm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)
Gravestorm seems way too good to be a major set mechanic (much like storm), so I'm glad this one hasn't come back. One other thing to consider is the flavor here. This card, along with QUITE A FEW futureshifted cards, seems to hint at a future set that's based on the Victorian era and has a graveyard-based theme. So far we have yet to get this. Could be interesting if we do get that at some point though.
Blade of the Sixth Pride || 1W || Creature -- Cat Rebel || 3/1
This is a vanilla creature. So what makes it futureshifted? It's that it's a full-art card. So I will examine full-art vanillas first: I'd love to see them someday. As for the card itself, sure, why not? A 3/1 for 1W works. We first got that as a vanilla in Journey into Nyx (Oreskos Swiftclaw), but also got it in Dragons of Tarkir (Dromoka Warrior), Shadows over Innistrad (Devilthorn Fox), Ixalan (Raptor Companion), Dominaria (Knight of New Benalia), Ravnica Allegiance (Prowling Caracal), and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (Savai Sabertooth). So clearly R&D is willing to make it happen. So why not make a Cat Rebel out of it?
Blind Phantasm || 2U || Creature -- Illusion || 2/3
Here's the blue member of the cycle: a vanilla 2/3 for 2U. I really want this to happen. We have had functional reprints in Rise of the Eldrazi (Jwari Scuttler) and Dominaria (Tolarian Scholar), but man... Blind Phantasm is REALLY high on my list of wanted reprints, more than these functional reprints. Why? Because I actually, a long time ago, made a "Beginner's Cube". It was a cube full of cards that make it easy for beginners who are just learning Magic for the first time. And one card that I badly wanted was Blind Phantasm, not only for its vanilla body of being a 2/3 for 2U, but also for it being an illusion, which is very flavorful for blue. The problem is that the futureshifted card frame could confuse new players. I wish they would do this in a normal card frame, for my sake. Also, this card shows Jace Beleren in the artwork, a full year before that character ever existed!
Bloodshot Trainee || 3R || Creature -- Goblin Warrior || 2/3 || {T}: Bloodshot Trainee deals 4 damage to target creature. Activate this ability only if Bloodshot Trainee's power is 4 or greater.
Already reprinted in Scars of Mirrodin, Modern Masters 2015, Jumpstart, and Double Masters.
Boldwyr Intimidator || 5RR || Creature -- Giant Warrior || 5/5 || Cowards can't block Warriors. || {R}: Target creature becomes a Coward until end of turn. || {2}{R}: Target creature becomes a Warrior until end of turn.
Already reprinted in Morningtide, Conspiracy, Duel Decks: Mind vs Might, and Battlebond.
Bonded Fetch || 2U || Creature -- Homunculus || 0/2 || Defender, haste || {T}: Draw a card, then discard a card.
Of all the futureshifted cards, I believe this to be the least futureshifted of them all. The only thing odd about it is that it simultaneously has defender and haste, which is a bit contradictory. But I don't see this one coming back, because it's a blue card, and blue is not the color of haste. In fact, this card is the only mono-blue card in all of Magic that has haste. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a color-shifted version of this card, to be red, the proper color of haste. Of course, if it were red, the ability would have to discard then draw, rather than draw then discard, but that's easily done.
Bound in Silence || 2W || Tribal Enchantment -- Rebel Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature can't attack or block.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. But that doesn't really count, does it? It's just a reprint set. So how about seeing it in a real set? Well... I'm skeptical. 2W for a pacifism is fine, but it being a Tribal card really really hurts it, since Tribal is considered to be a failure.
Bridge from Below || BBB || Enchantment || Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. || When a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters and Ultimate Masters. Could we see it in a real set? Well, I'll just point out that this card was so good in Modern that it ended up getting a spot on the Modern banlist. Yeah... not likely to see this again. The idea of a card that does nothing unless it's in the graveyard is interesting, but man did R&D get burned by this. Turns out a dredge deck that self-mills their entire library in a turn or two doesn't care about such restrictions.
Centaur Omenreader || 3G || Snow Creature -- Centaur Shaman || 3/3 || As long as Centaur Omenreader is tapped, creature spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
Huh. So this is predicting the return of the Snow supertype. I'm all for that.
Darksteel Garrison || 2 || Artifact -- Fortification || Fortified land has indestructible. || Whenever fortified land becomes tapped, target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. || Fortify {3} ({3}: Attach to target land you control. Fortify only as a sorcery. This card enters the battlefield unattached and stays on the battlefield if the land leaves.)
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. But let's examine fortifications as a mechanic. They suck. Here's the thing. They are just Equipment for lands. But the thing is... lands are SIGNIFICANTLY different from creatures. Think about what the majority of equipment do. They grant power/toughness increases and they grant abilities. In terms of power/toughness increases, that won't work, because lands don't have a power/toughness. In terms of abilities, sure, but there's not much that lands want for abilities. You can give it indestructible, as this one does, or you can give it hexproof/shroud. Other than that... there's not really much. Keywords like first strike, flying, deathtouch, haste, trample, and so forth won't make sense on a land. So you'd need to go for non-keyworded abilities. Which is fine. You can make a land tap for two mana, or for mana of a different color, or whatever. But the options there are thin. So thin, in fact, that I doubt you could build an entire set with these. So you'd only end up with a small handful of fortifications, and at that point, you're better off just making them Auras that enchant lands.
Daybreak Coronet || WW || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature with another Aura attached to it || Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 and has first strike, vigilance, and lifelink. (Damage dealt by the creature also causes its controller to gain that much life.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters 2015 and Ultimate Masters. "Enchant creature with another Aura attached to it" is interesting rules text. I wouldn't mind seeing it again.
Death Rattle || 5B || Instant || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) || Destroy target nongreen creature. It can't be regenerated.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. Okay, why the hell wasn't this in Khans of Tarkir? Not only does it have delve, the mechanic that would go on to be shown off in Khans of Tarkir, but a black card that specifically destroys something that isn't green? That's perfect for Sultai, which is the clan that had the delve mechanic in the first place! It feels like all the stars aligned and they still didn't do it. And yes, I know that Murderous Cut is in Khans of Tarkir and is, for the most part, better, but still. This was handed to them on a silver platter. Sadly, such an opportunity is unlikely to come up again, because of the "it can't be regenerated" clause. That clause makes no sense on a modern-era card, since they stopped doing regeneration.
Deepcavern Imp || 2B || Creature -- Imp Rebel || 2/2 || Flying, haste || Echo--Discard a card. (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. This is a nice card, but sadly it has echo, and I neither want nor expect echo to ever return. It was a bad mechanic.
Dryad Arbor || Land Creature -- Forest Dryad || 1/1 || (Dryad Arbor isn't a spell, it's affected by summoning sickness, and it has "{T}: Add {G}.") || [Green color indicator.]
Already reprinted in From the Vault: Realms. Oh my god the number of rules issues that this card has is insane. For that reason alone, I never expect to see it (or another Land Creature) ever again. On top of that, the From the Vault: Realms printing has a lot of issues. Specifically, its rules text is blank, so it shows merely a green mana symbol in the text box, just like a basic Forest. This means that, at a glance, you'll think it's a basic Forest unless you look at the card name, color indicator, or power/toughness box locations of the lands that your opponent has in play. I have seen many many players erroneously attack, not realizing that the opponent has a Dryad Arbor in play, because they keep it near their lands, but it is, in fact, a creature. And that changes combat math. This happens over and over again. It also happens that sometimes a player will forget to move it to their graveyard if a Pyroclasm effect is cast, because they'll forget that it's a creature. On top of that, I have seen many new players assume that it functions like a Forest, and that they can tap it for mana after playing it, even though it has summoning sickness, so it can't be tapped for mana the turn it comes into play. In hindsight, they probably should have made this enter the battlefield tapped just to solve the summoning sickness issue (and entering tapped is not a strange ability to have on a land). But never mind all that, because the OTHER thing about Dryad Arbor is that it is way too powerful, because it can take advantage of effects that affect either creatures or lands. Green Sun's Zenith, with X = 0 lets you ramp for just one mana, thanks to Dryad Arbor! That's clearly not the intent of the card, but you can do it anyways. And that's just one of many examples.
Edge of Autumn || 1G || Sorcery || If you control four or fewer lands, search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. || Cycling--Sacrifice a land. (Sacrifice a land, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Already reprinted in Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons. As for a real reprint, sure, why not? Seems like a fun card. It does different things depending on whether you have lands or not. That's a neat design.
Emblem of the Warmind || 1R || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature you control || Creatures you control have haste.
So the idea here is that it's an Aura, but it does nothing to the enchanted creature, it instead provides a global effect to all your creatures. That's... really fucking stupid. Hope to never see this one again.
Fleshwrither || 2BB || Creature -- Horror || 3/3 || Transfigure {1}{B}{B} ({1}{B}{B}, Sacrifice this creature: Search your library for a creature card with the same converted mana cost as this creature and put that card onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. Transfigure only as a sorcery.)
This card seems broken. First of all, it's a 3/3 for 4 mana, which is okay. But then it also has transfigure on top of that? Yes please. Transfigure is based on Transmute, the Dimir mechanic from the original Ravnica block. The only difference between the two is that Transmute required you to discard the cards with transmute from your hand, not the battlefield, and then put the tutored card into your hand, not the battlefield. Regardless, tutors are not fun, because they result in repetitive gameplay. It's why we more often than not see "look at the top (number) cards of your library for a card" instead. We don't get full-on tutoring very often now (except searching for basic lands), so I don't see them making this card, never mind making a full keyworded mechanic around it.
Flowstone Embrace || 1R || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || {T}: Enchanted creature gets +2/-2 until end of turn.
So here's a weird one: enchantments that tap. That's a unique idea. Only three enchantments in all of Magic tap, and all three of them are futureshifted. Here's the first one. I must say, I'm not a fan. Most players put the Auras behind the objects that they enchant. And then, when they tap the creature, they turn the entire pile sideways, often including the Auras. Technically, the Aura doesn't tap, but most players will turn it sideways anyways, even if incidentally. I notably don't do this, but I am the exception. I see more players do it than not, and because of that, I see tapping Auras as a future best avoided.
Fomori Nomad || 4R || Creature -- Nomad Giant || 4/4
Here's the red full-art vanilla. Interestingly, this card already pre-existed in Magic, as Obsidian Giant from Portal Second Age. It has since been functionally reprinted as Bonebreaker Giant in Magic 2012. All three of them are Giants, but this is the only one that's also a Nomad. Not that this means much. A 4/4 for 4R seems a little on the weak side to be honest, but it's acceptable. Flavorfully, this takes place on the plane of Ir. We've seen this plane on one card in a Commander deck (Ruhan of the Fomori) and one Planechase plane (Turri Island), but it's never been a full setting. Why not? Well, the fact that it's called "Ir" might have something to do with it. That's a bad plane name. Especially because Magic sets are often named after the plane they take place on. Can you imagine trying to market a product called Ir? Yeah, understandable that this plane is mostly unexplored.
Frenzy Sliver || 1B || Creature -- Sliver || 1/1 || All Silver creatures have frenzy 1. (Whenever a Sliver attacks and isn't blocked, it gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. So, this shows off a few things. First of all, the return of slivers. Yay! I'd be on board for that. Unfortunately, this is the old style of slivers, where it affected ALL slivers, not just yours. Because of the change to only affecting your own slivers, I doubt we'll see this card again. But there's also a whole mechanic here to untangle: frenzy. We did see this return on a single card from Unstable, but other than that, this is the only card with frenzy. Is it a good mechanic? Not really. Yeah, it's fine on a single card, but imagine if this was a full mechanic in a set. If my opponent attacks me with a ton of creatures that all have frenzy, well, I can't block all of them, so something has gotta get through. And, well, that'd be a problem when I'm punished for not blocking everything.
Ghostfire || 2R || Instant || Ghostfire is colorless. || Ghostfire deals 3 damage to any target.
Already reprinted in Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons and Duel Decks: Merfolk vs Goblins. Oh hey, look. It's a bad version of Lightning Bolt. Why does this cost three mana? That's absurd. The real thing here is the flavor text. It not only mentions Ugin the Spirit Dragon, a character who would not exist for another 8 years, but also... this one flavor text has inspired many card designs (most obviously Ghostfire Blade). Obviously, the big thing here is a colorless instant, which, at the time, had never been done. All colorless cards prior to this one were either artifacts or lands. Ghostfire is not. Well, we already saw colorless cards of other types in Rise of the Eldrazi. As for a colorless card that costs colored mana, we already got that too, as the devoid mechanic from Battle for Zendikar block. Sadly Ghostfire couldn't be reprinted there due to a flavor issue. The devoid cards are meant to be tied to the eldrazi, and yet, Ghostfire is not an eldrazi card, it's about the spirit fire of Ugin.
Goldmeadow Lookout || 3W || Creature -- Kithkin Spellshaper || 2/2 || {W}, {T}, Discard a card: Create a 1/1 white Kithkin Soldier creature token named Goldmeadow Harrier. It has "{W}, {T}: Tap target creature."
So, the big thing here is tokens with names. We already have a few of those, but they're the exception, not the rule. Future Sight included a not-futureshifted cycle of cards that made tokens with names, and they're all based on cards that already exist. The blue one made Cloud Sprite, the black one made Festering Goblin, the red one made Spark Elemental, the green one made Llanowar Elves, and the colorless one made Metallic Sliver. That leaves white, which got a futureshifted card, because, at the time, Goldmeadow Harrier did not exist. Of course, it later would exist in Lorwyn. As for the concept of making tokens with names, I don't really like it. It's okay every now and then, but one thing is, unlike back in Future Sight, we now have token cards. If you start including tokens with names as a regular thing, then the token cards may look more like actual Magic cards and may confuse new players. So I think I'm fine without this mechanic.
Graven Cairns || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {b/r}, {T}: Add {B}{B}, {B}{R}, or {R}{R}.
Already reprinted in Shadowmoor, Zendikar Expeditions, Iconic Masters, and Double Masters. So... Future Sight did this thing. There's a cycle of lands at rare that are dual lands of each of the allied color pairs. But each land seemingly comes from a different cycle in the future. This one is the Rakdos one, and it is the filterland cycle from Shadowmoor. Of the futureshifted land cycles, this is the only one that has since been completed. And yeah, it's a good land.
Grave Scrabbler || 3B || Creature -- Zombie || 2/2 || Madness {1}{B} (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.) || When Grave Scrabbler enters the battlefield, if its madness cost was paid, you may return target creature card from a graveyard to your hand.
Already reprinted in Ultimate Masters and Commander 2019. This is another "future Victorian graveyard theme" card (along with Bitter Ordeal, Bridge from Below, Death Rattle, Grinning Ignus, Patrician's Scorn, Street Wraith, Tombstalker, and Yixlid Jailer). If not for that, it really wouldn't have been futureshifted. This seems like a fairly normal card.
Grinning Ignus || 2R || Creature -- Elemental || 2/2 || {R}, Return Grinning Ignus to its owner's hand: Add {C}{C}{R}. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. The idea behind this design, I think, is that you can cast it for {C}{C}{R}, then bounce it, recast it, bounce again, recast again, and so forth, only paying {R} each time, and you can increase your storm count indefinitely. That's... stupid. Also, the elegance of the way the card looks ended up getting mangled when they changed the {2} to {C}{C}. It was neat seeing the mana cost equal the mana you got from it. Because of this, I doubt we see it again.
Grove of the Burnwillows || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {T}: Add {R} or {G}. Each opponent gains 1 life.
Already reprinted in From the Vault: Realms and Iconic Masters. This is the Gruul futureshifted land. It's pretty broken. I get what they're trying to do here, it's like a reverse painland. But the problem is that the opponent gaining life isn't nearly as bad as you losing life. So this card is pretty OP. It's pretty much just a straight-up dual land with no downside. I think it could be fixed by upping the lifegain. If the opponent gained 2 or 3 life from each use of this, then it'd be more balanced. But a version of this that's unmodified? No thank you.
Henchfiend of Ukor || 3R || Creature -- Ogre || 3/2 || Haste || Echo {1}{B} (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.) || {b/r}: Henchfiend of Ukor gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
So, the idea here is that the echo cost requires black mana, but you don't need to be playing a black deck to use this card. This card works just fine in mono-red. That's a neat idea, and I'd love to see something similar again, but sadly, it has echo, and I doubt echo is coming back. Echo was a bad mechanic. The other fun part about this is hybrid mana, which debuted one year prior to Future Sight, in Ravnica block. It was just a block mechanic at the time, but Future Sight hints that we'll see it again. Indeed, we have seen it many many many times since then.
Homing Sliver || 2R || Creature -- Sliver || 2/2 || Each Sliver card in each player's hand has slivercycling {3}. || Slivercycling {3} ({3}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Sliver card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. First, let's talk about the problems with old-style slivers. Then let's talk about the problems with tutor mechanics. Mix them together and you get a card that should never come back.
Horizon Canopy || Land || {T}, Pay 1 life: Add {G} or {W}. || {1}, {T}, Sacrifice Horizon Canopy: Draw a card.
Already reprinted in Zendikar Expeditions and Iconic Masters. So, this is the Selesnya dual land. It's really really good. It actually was fleshed out into a full cycle in Modern Horizons, but that was with enemy-colors. The allied-colored version of this cycle still has yet to be completed. Maybe someday. This card depicts the plane of Pyrulea, so maybe if we ever spend an entire expansion there, we can see the full cycle.
Imperial Mask || 4W || Enchantment || When Imperial Mask enters the battlefield, if it's not a token, each of your teammates creates a token that's a copy of Imperial Mask. || You have hexproof. (You can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.)
Huh. So the futureshifted thing here is the fact that it references teammates. We had already previously seen this in Unglued, but here it is in Future Sight, hinting that it would come to black-border. And, well, it kinda has. Oath of the Gatewatch featured the surge mechanic, which referenced teammates, and then there was Battlebond as well, that's all about teams and teammates. Of course, Imperial Mask itself has still not been reprinted, but if we ever get a second Battlebond, I'd love to see it.
Imperiosaur || 2GG || Creature -- Dinosaur || 5/5 || Spend only mana produced by basic lands to cast this spell.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. This card takes place on the plane of Muraganda, which is a prehistoric plane. I'd love to see it in a full expansion someday. As it stands now, the only cards from Muraganda are this card, the futureshifted card Muraganda Petroglyphs, the commander card The Mimeoplasm, and the Planechase plane Feeding Grounds. But the idea of a prehistoric plane seems cool.
Korlash, Heir to Blackblade || 2BB || Legendary Creature -- Zombie Warrior || */* || Korlash, Heir to Blackblade's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Swamps you control. || {1}{B}: Regenerate Korlash. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Korlash, Heir to Blackblade: Search your library for up to two Swamp cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
Here's the black member of the grandeur cycle. All the things I previously said about grandeur still hold.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage || 3U || Legendary Creature -- Human Wizard || 3/3 || {X}{U}{U}, {T}: Return target creature with converted mana cost X to its owner's hand. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Linessa, Zephyr Mage: Target player returns a creature they control to its owner's hand, then repeats this process for an artifact, an enchantment, and a land.
Here's the blue one. Same as last time.
Logic Knot || XUU || Instant || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) || Counter target spell unless its controller pays {X}.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. Again, this is a Delve card in Sultai colors, and would have been ideal for Khans of Tarkir. Maybe they'll find another opportunity to use delve though.
Lucent Liminid || 3WW || Enchantment Creature -- Elemental || 3/3 || Flying
So, the futureshifted part here is that it's an enchantment creature, which, prior to this, wasn't a thing. Nowadays, we have an entire plane (Theros) for enchantment creatures. So this isn't too special. As for this card in particular, it's awful. For {3}{W}{W}, I expect a lot more than a 3/3 flying. Heck, you can cast a Serra Angel or a Baneslayer Angel for that mana.
Lumithread Field || 1W || Enchantment || Creatures you control get +0/+1. || Morph {1}{W} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. So this is an interesting idea: a morph card that you play as a creature, but then can unmorph it and it's no longer a creature. That's a fun little twist on morph. There's two other futureshifted cards that do this, but it has yet to be seen outside of futureshifted cards. I hope that they explore this at some point.
Lymph Sliver || 4W || Creature -- Sliver || 3/3 || All Sliver creatures have absorb 1. (If a source would deal damage to a Sliver, prevent 1 of that damage.)
Wow, absorb sounds so miserable to play against. It makes all of your combat math so much more difficult to do. Do you attack or not? Takes a lot longer to decide if your opponent's creatures have absorb (especially in a hypothetical scenario with absorb 2, absorb 3, or absorb 4). And if both players have absorb decks, then it creates a stalemate way too easily. On top of that, this is an old-style sliver again, so it's likely to never come to fruition.
Mass of Ghouls || 3BB || Creature -- Zombie Warrior || 5/3
Already reprinted in Tenth Edition. This is the black member of the "full-art vanilla" cycle.
Mesmeric Sliver || 3U || Creature -- Sliver || 2/2 || All Slivers have "When this permanent enters the battlefield, you may fateseal 1." (To fateseal 1, its controller looks at the top card of an opponent's library, then they may put that card on the bottom of that library.)
So, fatesealing is scrying but for your opponent. So you can guarantee that they mana flood! It's absolutely terrible. I hate everything about it. I hope to never see it again.
Mistmeadow Skulk || 1W || Creature -- Kithkin Rogue || 1/1 || Lifelink, protection from converted mana cost 3 or greater
Already reprinted in Shadowmoor.
Muraganda Petroglyphs || 3G || Enchantment || Creatures with no abilities get +2/+2.
So, this is once again a card from Muraganda, a plane that I really want to see. It hints at a theme of "vanilla matters". This is a VERY popular request from players who give it absolutely no thought whatsoever. "Vanilla matters" is BORING. Because vanilla creatures are boring. On top of that, there's loads of design problems. Suppose I made a card that said "creatures with no abilities have trample", or something like that. Well, now the game goes into an infinite loop, because a vanilla creature DOES have an ability, namely trample, so it would no longer be affected by this card. Thus, it no longer has any abilities. Thus, it gains trample, so it is now no longer affected, it loses trample, and repeats infinitely. And this is just one problem. There's a whole slew of problems. Mark Rosewater did a Drive to Work podcast (episode #444) all about vanilla matters and why it can never work as a theme, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. Sure, Muraganda Petroglyphs is fun as a one-off card, but it'd never work as a major set theme. Still, flavorfully, I do want a set based around Muraganda.
Nacatl War-Pride || 3GGG || Creature -- Cat Warrior || 3/3 || Nacatl War-Pride must be blocked by exactly one creature if able. || Whenever Nacatl War-Pride attacks, create X tokens that are copies of Nacatl War-Pride tapped and attacking, where X is the number of creatures defending player controls. Exile the tokens at the beginning of the next end step.
So, this one shows off the Nacatl, which are native only to the plane of Naya (Alara), a plane which, at this point, didn't exist. Now it does though, so if we ever go back there, would I want to see Nacatl War-Pride? Ehhh, not really. It feels like a boring card to play against, because your blocks are already decided. It gives too much control to the attacking player.
Narcomeba || 1U || Creature -- Illusion || 1/1 || Flying || When Narcomeba is put into your graveyard from your library, you may put it onto the battlefield.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters and Guilds of Ravnica. So... I don't consider that Guilds of Ravnica reprint to count. That's cheating. The original Future Sight card depicts the plane of Iquatana. This plane is later shown on the planechase card The Aether Flues, and it's also mentioned in the flavor text of Jace's Phantasm. But it is definitively NOT Ravnica. So as far as I'm concerned, Narcomeba is still in the future. Maybe we'll see Iquatana someday. Maybe not. I could take it or leave it on this one.
Nessian Courser || 2G || Creature -- Centaur Warrior || 3/3
Already reprinted in Theros. This is the green full-art vanilla.
Nimbus Maze || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || {T}: Add {W}. Activate this ability only if you control an Island. || {T}: Add {U}. Activate this ability only if you control a Plains.
Already reprinted in Iconic Masters. Here's the Azorius dual land. It's a neat design. Fun fact: the original Azorius dual land from Future Sight, which ended up being cut during development, was just a straight-up dual-land except that it gave you a poison counter each time it was tapped. That's basically a dual-land in 99% of all games, so I am glad that they changed to this version instead.
Nix || U || Instant || Counter target spell if no mana was spent to cast it.
This card is confusing. I'm glad that they haven't brought this one back.
Oriss, Samite Guardian || 1WW || Legendary Creature -- Human Cleric || 1/3 || {T}: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn. || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Oriss, Samite Guardian: Target player can't cast spells this turn, and creatures that player controls can't attack this turn.
Here's another grandeur card. All the same stuff I've previously said about this mechanic still applies.
Patrician's Scorn || 3W || Instant || If you've cast another white spell this turn, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost. || Destroy all enchantments.
Other than showing off that Victorian plane, there's not much else here. Next!
Phosphorescent Feast || 2GGG || Sorcery || Chroma -- Reveal any number of cards in your hand. You gain 2 life for each green mana symbol in those cards' mana costs.
Already reprinted in Eventide.
Quagnoth || 5G || Creature -- Beast || 4/5 || Split second (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't cast spells or activate abilities that aren't mana abilities.) || Shroud (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities.) || When a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard Quagnoth, return it to your hand.
This seems normal, but the futureshifted part here is the keyword shroud. Prior to this, shroud was unkeyworded (same with lifelink, on the futureshifted cards Daybreak Coronet and Mismeadow Skulk).
Ramosian Revivalist || 3W || Creature -- Human Rebel Cleric || 2/2 || {6}, {T}: Return target Rebel permanent card with converted mana cost 5 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
We saw Rebels quite prominently in Mercadian Masques block. Each one has an ability that lets you bring out another Rebel that's the next mana cost up. So, for example, this one. It has a CMC of 4, but has an ability that gets you one with a CMC of 5. The thing that's futureshifted about it is that this one pulls them out of your graveyard, while the others pull them out of the library. Seeing as how we've not seen Rebels since Mercadian Masques block, I doubt we'll see them again. As I said above, tutoring is not fun.
River of Tears || Land || {T}: Add {U}. If you played a land this turn, add {B} instead.
Already reprinted in Iconic Masters. This is the Dimir dual land. It has three problems with it. One, a full cycle of this would take twice as long to complete as a normal cycle, because it's asymmetric. You can swap the two mana symbols here and you get a completely different card. So twice as many lands are needed if you want to get every combination. Problem number two: this card can get confusing, because a lot of people misunderstand that on the turn you play it, that counts as having played a land, and it will tap for {B}, and not {U}, on that turn, even though it wasn't in play at the time you played the land. Third, this card depicts the plane of Arkhos. And Arkhos is one of two planes (along with Mongseng) that we see in Planechase that we can NEVER go to again, due to there being issues involving the name of the plane. With Arkhos, the issue is that it is already trademarked by another company. It's a greek myth plane, which sounds cool, but it couldn't be used, so they had to make a fresh greek myth plane from the ground up instead, Theros. (Mongseng features a similar issue -- it can't be used because "mong" is an ableist slur, and so its world got re-tooled into Tarkir.)
Sarcomite Myr || 2U || Artifact Creature -- Myr || 2/1 || {2}: Sarcomite Myr gains flying until end of turn. || {2}, Sacrifice Sarcomite Myr: Draw a card.
Already reprinted in Planechase. So the futureshifted part here is that it is a colored artifact. We technically already had one in the game in the form of Transguild Courier, but that can be cast without spending any colored mana. This one requires blue. Nowadays, colored artifacts are a common enough thing, but back then, this was new. Additionally, this card's flavor text mentions Brudiclad, a character who is a Phyrexian. So I guess we'll see the Phyrexians again. Oh wait, we already have. Since Future Sight, they went and conquered Mirrodin. Sarcomite Myr would have been a good card to put in New Phyrexia, if only colored artifacts had a more prominent presence in that set. Ah well.
Second Wind || 2U || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || {T}: Tap enchanted creature. || {T}: Untap enchanted creature.
I've already expressed my views on Auras that tap. They haven't changed.
Seht's Tiger || 2WW || Creature -- Cat || 3/3 || Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.) || When Seht's Tiger enters the battlefield, you gain protection from the color of your choice until end of turn. (You can't be targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything of the chosen color.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2017. This was the first card that granted a keyword ability to a player (before you bring up Imperial Mask, that wasn't keyworded at the time), so that's neat. For what it's worth, I consider this one to have already been reprinted, even though it hasn't been in a "real" set. The commander deck it is a part of is all about Cat tribal, and I can imagine them putting in Seht's Tiger as a new card in that deck first, and then throwing it back in time to Future Sight.
Shah of Naar Isle || 3R || Creature -- Efreet || 6/6 || Trample || Echo {0} (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.) || When Shah of Naar Isle's echo cost is paid, each opponent may draw up to three cards.
Echo {0} is a neat idea, but I still don't want echo to come back.
Shapeshifter's Marrow || 2UU || Enchantment || At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player reveals the top card of their library. If it's a creature card, the player puts the card into their graveyard and Shapeshifter's Marrow becomes a copy of that card. (If it does, it loses this ability.)
I really don't get what they were going for here. I guess it's like Clone, except you don't know what you're copying? Seems dumb.
Skizzik Surger || 4RR || Creature -- Elemental || 6/4 || Haste || Echo--Sacrifice two lands. (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)
Yet again, we see another "card with an unusual echo cost." And yet again, I have to say that I hope we never see echo again.
Snake Cult Initiation || 3B || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant creature || Enchanted creature has poisonous 3. (Whenever it deals combat damage to a player, that player gets three poison counters. A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)
So, at this point in Magic's history, poison counters are an obscure thing from VERY early in Magic's history. This hints that they may come back. And, well, of course, they did. And made quite a huge impact on the game. I think infect does work a lot better than poisonous does, since it enables you to use pump spells to increase the poison output. Though the advantage with poisonous is that you get to inflict poison damage and regular damage at the same time, rather than just one or the other.
Spellweaver Volute || 3UU || Enchantment -- Aura || Enchant instant card in a graveyard || Whenever you cast a sorcery spell, copy the enchanted instant card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. If you do, exile the enchanted card and attach Spellweaver Volute to another instant card in a graveyard.
Already reprinted in Mystery Booster. Oh boy is this one weird. I have no idea what on earth it is meant to be doing, so I'm glad that this hasn't become a regular thing. Let's not enchant cards in graveyards, k?
Spellwind Ouphe || 1G || Creature -- Ouphe || 1/3 || Spells that target Spellwind Ouphe cost {2} less to cast.
That's a neat ability. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing this one again.
Spin into Myth || 4U || Instant || Put target creature on top of its owner's library, then fateseal 2. (To fateseal 2, look at the top two cards of an opponent's library, then put any number of them on the bottom of that player's library and the rest on top in any order.)
Already reprinted in Archenemy. I've already said how much I hate fateseal, so I hope this never comes back for real.
Sporoloth Ancient || 3GG || Creature -- Fungus || 4/4 || At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Sporoloth Ancient. || Creatures you control have "Remove two spore counters from this creature: Create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token."
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. FINALLY! A card for your "spore counter" deck. Wait... what? Is that a thing? I guess...
Steamflogger Boss || 3R || Creature -- Goblin Rigger || 3/3 || Other Riggers you control get +1/+0 and have haste. || If a Rigger you control would assemble a Contraption, it assembles two Contraptions instead.
Already reprinted in Unstable and Mystery Booster. So... this is a joke. They never intended to make Contraptions and assemble into a thing. So it's written in such a way that it would not work. The joke was that in R&D, they'd never do it, but players would keep expecting it, and so they could laugh at the players. But then Aaron Forsythe mentioned in an article on DailyMTG that they were never planning on doing it. As a result, now the joke was no longer funny. The only way for the joke to be funny again is if they DID do it. But it was deliberately worded to be as difficult for them to design as possible, given that they were originally never going to do it. Well, now they had to. And they eventually did so in Unstable. So what do I think about this? Well... let me just say that as a black-bordered mechanic, I loved this mechanic. Until Unstable came out. Here’s why: Steamflogger Boss was a very funny joke. And then Contraptions actually came out in Unstable and they were a huge disappointment. First of all, you want to know what “assembling” does? Well, after years of waiting, it turns out it’s just an action that you, the player, can do. That’s not right. Steamflogger Boss’s templating implied it was something that your creatures can do. And yes, Unstable did have creatures that could assemble Contraptions, but it was functionally the same thing. I guarantee you that if Steamflogger Boss had never existed before Unstable, they would have templated it differently. Joyride Rigger, for example, would just say “When Joyride Rigger enters the battlefield, assemble a Contraption”, rather than “it assembles a Contraption”. And yes, I know that restricting it to things that creatures can do makes “assemble” even more difficult to figure out, from a design perspective, but that’s THE WHOLE POINT. It was meant to be a mechanic that did not really exist. They shouldn’t have made it exist. But let’s ignore all that and look at the far bigger problem: Riggers. Why did they tie this creature type down to the mechanic like that? There was no reason to do so. Why are there no Artificers or Advisors or Soldiers or such that can assemble? Wizards R&D doesn’t like it when mechanics are tied to creature types (see also: separation between Walls and Defender), so why did they do so here? But let’s ignore that and look at the bigger problem: Steamflogger Boss is itself stupidly overpowered right now. It is a 3/3 for {3}{R}. That’s a pretty reasonable rate for a vanilla creature in red. But it isn’t vanilla. It has rules text. Luckily, in a pre-Unstable world, that rules text was mostly meaningless and could safely be ignored. And it probably was, when development got their hands on it and costed it. Now, though, you can’t ignore its rules text. This thing DOUBLES your Contraption output for just FOUR MANA (and gives you a 3/3 creature to boot!). That’s insane. Fortunately, there has never been a World Championship match where Contraptions were legal in the format, so people never really got a chance to break it open, but trust me: the potential is there. There’s so much broken stuff you can do with this card if you allow silver-bordered cards.
Storm Entity || 1R || Creature -- Elemental || 1/1 || Haste || Storm Entity enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each other spell cast this turn.
So, this is basically a creature with storm. Storm is broken, let's move on.
Street Wraith || 3BB || Creature -- Wraith || 3/4 || Swampwalk (This creature can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a Swamp.) || Cycling--Pay 2 life. (Pay 2 life, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters, Masters 25, and Mystery Booster. So, the idea here is that a non-black deck can still run it if they want the card draw. And that isn't even too weird of an idea, since non-blue decks sometimes run Gitaxian Probe for the card draw. So yeah, I wouldn't mind having this card back. There's just one problem: swampwalk. Not only do I hate landwalk abilities with a burning passion, but finally, after 23 years of the game, R&D finally decided to agree with me and remove them from the game. As such, this one ain't coming back.
Tarmogoyf || 1G || Creature -- Lhurgoyf || */*+1 || Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1.
Already reprinted in Modern Masters, Modern Masters 2015, Modern Masters 2017, and Ultimate Masters. So, the original printing of this card featured reminder text that listed the card types, and among them was planeswalker, a card type that did not yet exist. Obviously, planeswalkers have since gone on to be such an iconic part of the game that you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone without planeswalker cards in their collection. Will we see this card again in a real set? Fuck no. It's way too broken. It's only two mana. At that point, if it's a 0/1 or a 1/2, then you're getting a bad deal. If it's a 2/3, you're getting an okay deal. If it's a 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 6/7, 7/8, or 8/9, then you're getting a superb deal. That's massively lopsided in favor of the high end. Why is it so broken? Well, originally, Future Sight was going to have planeswalker cards, as futureshifted cards, but R&D couldn't work out how to get them to work in time, so they were pulled from the file. The cards in question would later go on to become Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, and Garruk Wildspeaker. When those cards got removed from the file, the cards that were originally in Future Sight prior to this planeswalker experiment got put back into the file instead. One of those cards was Tarmogoyf. Except the guy who put it back in did so from memory, and he got two details wrong. First, the power/toughness was meant to be */* instead of */*+1. Secondly, the mana cost was meant to be {1}{G}{G} instead of {1}{G}. As such, Tarmogoyf was accidentally printed as being more powerful than intended. If it had been printed correctly, would it still be broken? Probably, yeah. Magic players will find a way to make a card like this work.
Tarox Bladewing || 2RRR || Legendary Creature -- Dragon || 4/3 || Flying, haste || Grandeur -- Discard another card named Tarox Bladewing: Tarox Bladewing gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is its power.
So, this is the final grandeur card. This time, there is a bit more to discuss. Specifically, the flavor. This implies that Rorix Bladewing will continue his dragon brood. Indeed, we saw this in Dominaria with Verix Bladewing, which, of course, also creates a token named Karox Bladewing. Neat.
Thornweald Archer || 1G || Creature -- Elf Archer || 2/1 || Reach (This creature can block creatures with flying.) || Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2014, Eternal Masters, Duel Decks: Nissa vs Ob Nixilis, Commander Anthology, and Mystery Booster. This feels like a very not-at-all-futureshifted card. After all, all it has are just two evergreen keywords. So what's going on? Well, much like shroud and lifelink, these keywords weren't actually keyworded at the time, so this was the first time we saw either reach or deathtouch. Obviously both have become staples of the game. As for the individual card, Thornweald Archer still has yet to show up in a real set, but I would like it to someday.
Thunderblade Charge || 1RR || Sorcery || Thunderblade Charge deals 3 damage to any target. || Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, if Thunderblade Charge is in your graveyard, you may pay {2}{R}{R}{R}. If you do, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
So this is basically a sorcery with flashback that you can keep flashbacking forever. That's a fun idea. I don't think I'd want it as a main mechanic of a set though.
Tombstalker || 6BB || Creature -- Demon || 5/5 || Flying || Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.)
Already reprinted in Modern Masters. As previously said, delve was the Sultai mechanic in Khans of Tarkir, and here is yet another card with delve in Sultai colors. So why was this not in Khans of Tarkir? It totally would have fit there. I don't understand Wizards of the Coast sometimes.
Vedalken Aethermage || 1U || Creature -- Vedalken Wizard || 1/2 || Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.) || When Vedalken Aethermage enters the battlefield, return target Sliver to its owner's hand. || Wizardcycling {3} ({3}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Wizard card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)
I already talked about slivercycling. All my problems there apply to wizardcycling too. Tutor mechanics are not fun. Interestingly, I like the design of the rest of this card. It basically is a sideboard card specifically for a matchup against a sliver deck.
Virulent Sliver || G || Creature -- Sliver || 1/1 || All Sliver creatures have poisonous 1. (Whenever a Sliver deals combat damage to a player, that player gets a poison counter. A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)
Already reprinted in Premium Deck Series: Slivers. I've already talked about slivers. I've already talked about poisonous. I've run out of things to say on both topics. Next!
Whetwheel || 4 || Artifact || {X}{X}, {T}: Target player mills X cards. || Morph {3} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
This is the second of the "noncreature permanents with morph" that Future Sight showed us. As I said last time, I'd love for this to be expanded upon.
Whip-Spine Drake || 3UU || Creature -- Drake || 3/3 || Flying || Morph {2}{W} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
The futureshifted thing here is that you can play this card in a mono-blue or a mono-white deck. You don't need both colors. The idea of using morph in this way is certainly unique. I'm a fan.
Witch's Mist || 2B || Enchantment || {2}{B}, {T}: Destroy target creature that was dealt damage this turn.
This is another "enchantment that taps" effect. Unlike the previous two, this one is not an Aura, so it's a little more forgivable. That said, it really just reads like an artifact now because of it, since artifacts tap and enchantments don't. Because of that, it doesn't really do much to stand out.
Yixlid Jailer || 1B || Creature -- Zombie Wizard || 2/1 || Cards in graveyards lose all abilities.
Oh my god yes. I want this in, like, every graveyard-themed set ever. R&D is always hesitant to print answers to their threats within the same set, and it often results in those themes hitting harder than intended. Answers are necessary. And I hope to see this card someday in a graveyard-themed set (with a Victorian theme), as an answer to any graveyard shenanigans that come up.
Zoetic Cavern || Land || {T}: Add {C}. || Morph {2} (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for {3}. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
Already reprinted in Commander 2011, Commander 2014, Commander 2015, Commander Anthology, and Masters 25. This is the final "noncreature permanent with morph" card. Unlike the other two, I'm not a fan of this one. Because it's a land. Not only can it be used as a dumb ramp card (cast it as a creature, then unmorph it when it's about to die, and it doesn't count as your land for the turn), but also: this card faces a lot of similar problems to Dryad Arbor, since this one is also both a creature and a land. Luckily, this one is a lot better about it, since it's never both a creature and a land simultaneously, but it still has SOME issues. I'd be okay with never seeing it again. Though if it were to come back, I wouldn't complain about that either.