The release of Magic the Gathering’s newest block continues to march closer, like the restless multitude of undead warriors players expect to see in Innistrad. The first set’s two biggest mysteries have already been unraveled. We’re talking about the planeswalkers (and eternal enemies) Garruk and Liliana.
Those who have been following the storyline know that Liliana has just gotten her hands on a mystical veil which has increased her power significantly. They will also know that when Garruk finally tracked her necromantic shenanigans back to their source, Liliana put one sizzling dark curse on him. So they aren’t friends, and neither one of them is likely to have white mana in their casting cost any time soon. Let’s look at what the cards actually do.
Liliana of the Veil 1BB
+1: Each player discards a card.
-2: Target player sacrifices a creature.
-6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of his or her choice.
Garruk Relentless//Garruk the Veil-Cursed 3G
Garruk Relentless (G)
When Garruk Relentless has two or fewer loyalty counters on him, transform him.
0: Garruk Relentless deals 3 damage to target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power to him
0: Put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield.
(3)
Garruk the Veil-Cursed (G/B)
+1 : Put a 1/1 black Wolf creature token with deathtouch onto the battlefield.
-1 : Sacrifice a creature. If you do, search your library for a creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
-3 : Creatures you control gain trample and get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of creature cards in your graveyard.
Obviously there are plenty of questions to answer here, the least of which being, “Why does getting a powerful artifact make Liliana cost less and have (in a vacuum) weaker powers?” The designers’ commitment to making use of the graveyard in Innistrad may satisfy that question, but right now our readers are probably wondering more about Garruk, specifically “How does this work?”
Let me break it down for you, starting with Innistrad’s new mechanic “Double-Faced Cards” or “Transform” as it’s being called. There are cards in the new Innistrad boosters which literally have no “Magic” back to them. They have art and rules text on the front and art and rules text on the back. In order to play with them in a constructed, unsleeved deck, players will need to make use of the ‘checklist’ tokens which come with many Innistrad boosters. These will only ever replace basic lands.
Simply mark up this card to indicate which card it is standing in for (one unique checklist card for each double-faced card) and place it into your deck with the rest of your cards. The checklist has a ‘Magic’ back so that no hidden info is revealed from your library or hand. When it comes time to reveal that card (someone is looking at your hand, you discard it or put it on the stack or battlefield) simply reveal the checklist card, set it aside, and replace it with the double-faced card it represented (which has been sitting on the sidelines, hopefully in some anonymous fashion.
It’s important to remember that these double faced cards are only ever revealed face up (the day side, it seems) and have the properties of only the face-up side in every zone except the battlefield under the specific condition that the card has been ‘Transformed’. The back sides of these double-faced cards have no mana cost (this is different from a mana cost of zero, you can literally not pay for or play the back sides of these cards, even if some strange rule tries to let/make you).
Drafting will be awkward to say the least. Each pack will have one double-faced card in it, which means that if you fan out your opened pack, the back of that card will be showing to the other drafters. These back faces are not considered hidden information, but players are allowed to take steps to hide the information, including starting their draft piles with one basic land so that any multi-faced cards drafted can be placed under that land to prevent other players from seeing what they’ve taken.
You can find a healthy, official explanation of these cards
here.
Meanwhile, Garruk is just a big double-faced planeswalker in a pretty ambiguous rules situation. Now typically, double-faced cards remain the same object when they flip. That means counters stay on, enchantments and equipment don’t fall off. I assume this means that a Shock targeting my Garruk Relentless will still be targeting my Garruk the Veil-Cursed if I decide to Shock him first in response. Maybe. But what about attacking Garruk Relentless with a Tormented Soul. Is Tormented Soul still attacking my planeswalker if I ping Garruk Relentless with Gut Shot, transforming him into Garruk the Veil-Cursed before blocks?
The new double-faced cards are still murky water that continues to be stirred by rumors and speculation. Our advice: keep up with Wizards of the Coast’s official announcements and, of course, Digital Overload.
