The legendary Magic: The Gathering Planeswalker Ashiok returns to Standard, with their card shown for the first time during Wilds of Eldraine spoilers at MagicCon Barcelona on July 28.
Many Planeswalkers lost their Spark following the Phyrexian invasion throughout the Multiverse, but Ashiok was not one of them. New Wilds of Eldraine (WOE) spoilers were revealed during a Magicon Barcelona panel, including the planeswalker card Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator. In addition to the WOE spoilers, artwork was also previewed for the upcoming The Lost Caverns of Ixalan set as well.
Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator
Many on the plane of Eldraine are in a magical sleep and Ashiok is tapping into their dreams, turning them into nightmares.
- Casting cost: 3BB
- Type: Legendary Planeswalker—Ashiok
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Starting Loyalty: Five
- Passive ability: If you would pay life while your library has at least that many cards in it, exile that many cards from the top of your library instead.
- Plus-one: Look at the top two cards of your library. Exile one of them and put the other two into your hand
- Minus-two: Create two 1/1 Black nightmare creature tokens with “At the beginning of combat on your turn if a card was put into exile this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.”
- Minus-seven: Target player exiles the top “X” cards of their library, where “X” is the total mana value of cards you own in exile.
Related: When does MTG Wilds of Eldraine release?
With a starting Loyalty of five, Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator can drop onto the battlefield and create two nightmare tokens with a power and toughness of 1/1 to protect them. The Loyalty ability also pumps up the stats on any card put into exile during that turn.
Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator is a Mono-Black Planeswalker that will slot into a variety of Standard builds, providing card advantage by exiling cards from their controller’s library and then using those exiled cards to punish an opponent with their ultimate ability.
Players can test out Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator during prerelease Wilds of Eldraine events that start on Sept. 1.
