Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: card games, eSports, Ikoria, magic, Magic: The Gathering, Mark Rosewater, MTG, MTG Arena, Tabletop, wizards of the coast, WotC

Head "Magic: The Gathering" Designer Teases "Ikoria"

Mark Rosewater, head designer for Wizards of the Coast's huge-name trading card game Magic: The Gathering, has hunkered down in his home to self-quarantine out of concern for the spread of COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus. As far as we are aware, he doesn't have it, but he is still working from home in order to bring a bunch of new sets and products to us as consumers. Good on Mark.

Yesterday evening, MaRo (as Mark is also known) got around to doing something that he hasn't done in recent years, which is that he teased trivial tidbits from Magic's upcoming set, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. The teased list can be found on his official Tumblr page "Blogatog", or by scrolling down just a little bit.

Mark Rosewater writes:

Previews for Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths don't start until April 2, but I've been getting a lot of requests from people cooped up at home that are eager for any content, so I decided to do something I used to do all the time back in my column in The Duelist. I'm going to be giving you a Maro Teaser where I give tiny hints of things to come. Note that I'm only giving you partial information.

The following can be found in Ikoria:

• Magic's seventh Egg

• A card with the text "four or more times this game"

• A card with the text "total power 10 or less"

• Magic's largest power/toughness granting aura.

• A card with the text "X is the number of times this creature has mutated"

• Magic's third and fourth card with "(Zero is even.)" reminder text.

• Three cards with the text "different name(s)"

• Twelve different types of counters

Note that the above bullet point was amended after Mark published this list, saying "Oops, there's actually thirteen different type[s] of counters. I searched for counter and planeswalkers don't actually say "counter" on them. So that's twelve not counting loyalty counters." Moving on!

• A card that says "choose a kind of counter at random"

• A card with the text "remove eight foreshadow counters"

• And a cycle that players have been asking us to make for over ten years

In addition, Ikoria has creatures with the following creature types:

• Dinosaur Turtle

• Shark Beast

• Demon Kraken

• Elemental Otter

• Brushwagg

• Hellion Horror

• and a Nightmare Squirrel (Yes, a Squirrel in a Standard-legal set!)

Hopefully, this can tide you all over until the previews begin on April 2^nd. Enjoy!

Well, there you have it, folks – MaRo has given us some small scraps of what could be the most ridiculous set we have seen since, well, Theros: Beyond Death. Keep in mind though that Mark has done this sort of tease before, and some of the hints in the past have been rather disingenuous. However, for those wondering about the creature types, Mark has gone on the record to say that there are no Changeling creatures in this set, so that clears that up!

What do you think? What marvels of Magic design are we apt to see here with Ikora: Lair of Behemoths? Let us know your theories in the comments!

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