Ikoria speculation

[CommanderMaster999]

What do you guys think is happening for the new upcoming Ikoria set

(Besides being Godzilla/kaiju focused)

[SecretInfiltrator]

I had high hopes that they would allow you to draft a second deck for your own pet monster that would work similar to the Contraption deck (from Unstable)/Hydra deck (from Hero's Path), but Mark Rosewater has gone on record that they won't introduce a new game component.

They could still easily try something similar to amass/bestow, where you have creature cards, but if you already control a <supertype> creature the new creature instead enters as an Aura attached to that creature (with a similar resilience clause as bestow/totem armor) and they become a composite creature, so you would have a build-your-own-monster situation, but as opposed to host and augment you are restricted to a single beast.

Maybe it's a lot tamer and we just get a lot of iconic creatures and big creatures like we did in Shards of Alara.

[mosskirin]

My guess was something like this:

"Combine <Cost>" means "<Cost>: Attach this permanent to target creature you control, and it stops being a creature for as long as it's attached. Combine only as a sorcery."

This plays in the thematic space of Godzilla, other kaiju, Voltron, gattai super robots, etc. It's kinda like a mix between Bestow and Equipment, like the former but less threatened by removal blowouts and so you have more freedom to make massive, crazy creature combinations. Some simple exampes as to how the mechanic could work:

Floatsac Behemoth
4U
Creature - Mutant Leviathan (C)
Flying, Combine U
Attached creature gets flying and gains +3/+3.
3/3

Adrenaline Slasher
RR
Creature - Mutant Insect (U)
Double strike, Combine 1RR
Attached creature gets double strike and gains +1/+1.
1/1

Primordial Antecedent
1GG
Creature - Mutant Beast (R)
Combine 1GG
Whenever Primordial Antecedent or attached creature deals combat damage to a player, draw that many cards. Attached creature gains +2/+2.
2/2

I think this would really capture the feeling of "building your own monsters," like you're mashing together different Lego sets to come up with powerful combos.

I like SecretInfiltrator's idea.

[darrenhabib]

You'd have to say that they are going to have "alternative costs" or abilities. I can't imagine you can just have high casting big fatty creatures and say it'll work. The Eldrazi had Scions and Spawn to help pay for costs.

It might be that they start off like a hatching version of themselves that can transform (maybe not the literally mechanic) into their bigger beastly self?

Maybe there will be a new resource "biohazard"(like energy e) which will be used to partial cast the spells, lol.

[ilovesaprolings]

Imho it's blackborder Grusilda, monster masher
That, or something similar to Atla Palani and her eggs

[Occo]

I feel like Grusilda would be a little bit of a nightmare to create rules for.

That's an interesting idea moss. Definitely a direction I could see them taking, though Maro's statements on it being "completely new" makes me think that's not the approach they're going to take.

[Melriken]

So Ikoria is a Monster plane that lets you build your own monster... this is Godzilla world.

How has Magic done things like Godzilla in the past?
Giant creatures with Giant Costs:
-Any of the Eldrazi Titans or other large eldrazi
--Hand of Emrakul
--Artisan of Kozilek
--Bane of Bala Ged
--Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
--Emrakul, the Promised End
-other giant creatures
--Ancient Brontodon
--Blightsteel Colossus
--Gigantosaurus
Giant creatures with downsides or extra costs:
-Eater of Days
-Dread Slag
-Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
-Phyrexian Dreadnought
Smaller creatures that can become giant:
-Transcendent Master
-Kargan Dragonlord
-Figure of Destiny
-Warden of the First Tree
-Arbor Colossus
-Cairn Wanderer
Cards that modify other creatures:
-Octopus Umbra
-Eldrazi Conscription
-Chromanticore
-Colossus Hammer
-Scale Up
-Bastion Protector

Of those the only ones that really seem to let you BUILD a monster are the Cards that modify other creatures (equipment, auras, etc) or the cards that modify themselves (Cairn Wanderer or Arbor Colossus for example) and even those seem a bit dicey...

So something like Enchant Mutant creature (including bestow style variants, basically a creature version of Splice) or Rayami, First of the Fallen style creatures seems most likely...

So I am going with splice for creatures...

Lava breath 2RR
Sorcery - Monster
Kaijudo 1RR (As this spell resolves Create a 2/2 Colorless Kaiju creature token and exile this spell. When you cast a Monster spell you may pay this cards Kaijudo cost and exile it from your hand, if you do that Monster spell gains the text of this card other than the Kaijudo ability)
Creatures created by ~ enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter has "R: this creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn." and is red in addition to it's other colors.

Wings 2U
Sorcery - Monster
Kaijudo U (As this spell resolves Create a 2/2 Colorless Kaiju creature token and exile this spell. When you cast a Monster spell you may pay this cards Kaijudo cost and exile it from your hand, if you do that Monster spell gains the text of this card other than the Kaijudo ability)
Creatures created by ~ enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter has flying and is blue in addition to it's other colors.

Spined Tail GG
Sorcery - Monster
Kaijudo GG (As this spell resolves Create a 2/2 Colorless Kaiju creature token and exile this spell. When you cast a Monster spell you may pay this cards Kaijudo cost and exile it from your hand, if you do that Monster spell gains the text of this card other than the Kaijudo ability)
Creatures created by ~ enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter has Trample and is Green in addition to it's other colors.

It came from beneath the Bay 3GGUU
Sorcery - Monster
Create a 6/6 legendary Green and Blue Kaiju Creature token with Indestructible named "Godzilla".

The Kaiju spells create the token and self exile regardless, the exile is so that you can mark the token with the spells that made it (which is why paying the cost also exiles the spells)

[Judge Irenicus]

I've literally no clue but the idea they're splitting the gods&heroes and the monters themes from the original Theros on Theros II (the former) and Ikoria (the former) is bugging me.

Since they already (and very recently) fixed monstuosity that theme has to get a new halo tho

[The Fluff]

I'm curious on how they would approach this. Giant monsters have been repeatedly done in the past... mirrari mutated giant green creatures in Judgment like the Krosan Cloudscraper, the gargantuans in Naya, monstrosity mechanic in Theros.

how would they do this in Ikoria in a way that feels fresh?

[CommanderMaster999]

Hmmm

I'm wondering

Could Ikoria be garruks homeplane?

[CommanderMaster999]

We got one update



There's what Ikoria looks like

It looks alarmly identical to zendikar

And the behemoths kaijus are eldrazi sized so clearly probably ramp spells and probablymcost reduction

And I can't wait to see what the other behemoths look like (clearly so e will look different from that one)

[SecretInfiltrator]

Thank you for providing the image! I wouldn't be to worried about similarities to Zendikar yet. No floating pieces of landscape are visible, and those crystal structures might be a visual cue for the plane. IF I ignore those aspects I mght as well say the plane looks like Tarkir or Dominaria, Alara etc. There is nothing definite going on and the focus is clearly the creatures here.

Besides the behemoth there is a whole stampede of diverse critters which may indicate that on Ikoria wild creatures just show a high grade of biodiversity and soecies may be nonuniform to go with the "build your own monster" philosophy.

That figure with cloak and bow seems to lead the stampede, maybe showing some in-world evidence of pet-kaijus. I am calling the big one as a Gigantamax Pokémon. ; )

Unfortunate thing... Ikoria.com just redirects to the general "Upcoming Products" page. That's a silly call from the responsible people, because the first thing I saw was images of Ixalan cards showing me some juicy Dinosaur art. That could have been easily avoided.

Fun fact: Ixalan.com is in WotC's hand, but Eldraine.com is not. Dominaria seems to be a corporation specializing in Augmented Reality.

[CommanderMaster999]

Thank you for providing the image! I wouldn't be to worried about similarities to Zendikar yet. No floating pieces of landscape are visible, and those crystal structures might be a visual cue for the plane. IF I ignore those aspects I mght as well say the plane looks like Tarkir or Dominaria, Alara etc. There is nothing definite going on and the focus is clearly the creatures here.

Besides the behemoth there is a whole stampede of diverse critters which may indicate that on Ikoria wild creatures just show a high grade of biodiversity and soecies may be nonuniform to go with the "build your own monster" philosophy.

That figure with cloak and bow seems to lead the stampede, maybe showing some in-world evidence of pet-kaijus. I am calling the big one as a Gigantamax Pokémon. ; )

Unfortunate thing... Ikoria.com just redirects to the general "Upcoming Products" page. That's a silly call from the responsible people, because the first thing I saw was images of Ixalan cards showing me some juicy Dinosaur art. That could have been easily avoided.

Fun fact: Ixalan.com is in WotC's hand, but Eldraine.com is not. Dominaria seems to be a corporation specializing in Augmented Reality.

Yes sir

And by the way that human figure I'm 90% sure it's Vivian that must be her new home plane since bolas destroyed her real home

[CalebLost]

We got one update



There's what Ikoria looks like

It looks alarmly identical to zendikar

And the behemoths kaijus are eldrazi sized so clearly probably ramp spells and probablymcost reduction

And I can't wait to see what the other behemoths look like (clearly so e will look different from that one)

Isn't that Vivien?

[SecretInfiltrator]

When I first looked at the art I didn't recognize Vivien. The lighting appeared to be a light-skinned character with a side appearing darker because of shadow, but it seems the other way around with a dark-skinned Vivien in glaring light. The Arkbow and hood/cape pretty much give the character away though. Without reading the novels this is the first time we actually have a chance to see this character in action in their own story arc as well.

[Atraxian]

I wonder if Ikoria will have a spot for angels.
Either as defenders of human settlements against the big creatures or as some kind of divine drivers of orderly big creature development, like if you had an angel from Naya.

[ilovesaprolings]

I wonder if Ikoria will have a spot for angels.

Honestly i hope not. If Ikoria it's really kaiju world, i'd like to see them move away from the classic angels, sphinx, demons and dragons and try to do something different like felidar, kraken, leviathans, horrors and elementals

[CommanderMaster999]

I wonder if Ikoria will have a spot for angels.

Honestly i hope not. If Ikoria it's really kaiju world, i'd like to see them move away from the classic angels, sphinx, demons and dragons and try to do something different like felidar, kraken, leviathans, horrors and elementals

The two most obvious are missing from your list

Dinosaur and beast

But however Also there's insects, spiders, lizards, atleast one gorilla behemoth , horrors, mutants, plants and hydras

And I'm sorry there is no dodging dragons there are dragon kaijus most particually King Ghidorah

By the way I'm thinking there might be a new creature typing for the behemoths and a type that can be errated for older creatures

[ilovesaprolings]

The two most obvious are missing from your list

Dinosaur and beast

And I'm sorry there is no dodging dragons there are dragon kaijus most particually King Ghidorah

Green is the color with historically the most variance betwen its "behemoths", so i'm not worried about them doing only hydras.
Dragon i know that they have to put at least one of them in, but i hope it will be only 1-2 and there won't a tribal dragon component.

[folding_music]

- high incidence of creatures with native hexproof or indestructible plus hopefully trample in all colours
- "At the end of each of your turns, if you played exactly one spell this turn, do X" - or some other pseudoabilitized encouragement to cast large creatures
- Eldrazis with Megamorph (and not 2-cost Eldrazis but ginormous ROTE types)
- Emerge and/or Devour
- a new Cloudpost, a new Wayfarer's Bauble, an attempt at a fixed Grim Monolith

[CommanderMaster999]

- high incidence of creatures with native hexproof or indestructible plus hopefully trample in all colours
- "At the end of each of your turns, if you played exactly one spell this turn, do X" - or some other pseudoabilitized encouragement to cast large creatures
- Eldrazis with Megamorph (and not 2-cost Eldrazis but ginormous ROTE types)
- Emerge and/or Devour
- a new Cloudpost, a new Wayfarer's Bauble, an attempt at a fixed Grim Monolith

I don't think we're getting eldrazi's unless emrakul left the moon and went to Ikoria (or if there's more titans like a theorized)

Anyway maybe a they will have cost reduction similar to Ghalta, Primal Hunger but in a harder form

[The N82O Molecule]

Ikoria is starting to look like a great place for the ol colorless mana to shine.

what your looking at in the art is mana rocks (shard). imagine. your a pewny beast, minding his/her own business. step into a "shard" and boom, not pewny anymore. idk man this is the speculation department.

I cant wait to read about the world build. small settlements of "humanfolk"? rather "cave persons"?

I hope this isn't some rich planeswalkers hunting ground. . .if so I will need many fox.

the creatures do look to be of dino design. well except the huge hate bear ram turtle stegosaurus.

[CommanderMaster999]

Ikoria is starting to look like a great place for the ol colorless mana to shine.

what your looking at in the art is mana rocks (shard). imagine. your a pewny beast, minding his/her own business. step into a "shard" and boom, not pewny anymore. idk man this is the speculation department.

I cant wait to read about the world build. small settlements of "humanfolk"? rather "cave persons"?

I hope this isn't some rich planeswalkers hunting ground. . .if so I will need many fox.

the creatures do look to be of dino design. well except the huge hate bear ram turtle stegosaurus.

Yea the crystals could replace eldrazi scions/spawns for the mana pop em for mana

Secondly mana rocks like back in the old days but power level reduced (weaker basalt monolith for example)

[The N82O Molecule]

next thing I would ask is, do you remember rise of the eldrazi limited? pros and cons? cause I think we are going to do it again.

[ilovesaprolings]

Ikoria is starting to look like a great place for the ol colorless mana to shine.

I don't know if they want to link their new battlecruiser environment with colorless again. It may end up too similar to roe