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First Battle Card From Magic: The Gathering’s March Of The Machine Previewed

Take a look at the new card type coming in March of the Machine

Ghalta and Mavren illustrated by Zezhou Chen

Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Press Start, the first Battle card from March of the Machine has been revealed. Check out Invasion of Zendikar/Awakened Skyclave!

Ever since Atraxa, Grand Unifier was previewed from Phyrexia: All Will Be One, Magic: The Gathering players have been wondering what the Battle card type would be. Now we get to see one, and while we don’t have any other rules information on how these work, we have a general idea.

Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Invasion of Zendikar is an uncommon Battle — Siege that cost 3G. When it enters the battlefield you can search for two basic lands and a put them on the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. It also has the reminder text for siege (As a Siege enters, chose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it’s defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)

The next part is where there is still some confusion. Invasion of Zendikar has a 3 in a star in the bottom right of the text box, similar to a planeswalker’s loyalty. We still don’t know if it functions like loyalty and the card would be defeated with an attack for three damage or from direct damage like a Lightning Strike (or if it can even be targeted by spells). Perhaps it needs three instances of damage to be defeated? What we do know is if it is defeated, you transform the card to its back side and cast it.

So, if you can defeat Invasion of Zendikar, you will end up with a 4/4 Elemental creature with vigilance and haste that is also a land that can tap for any color of mana. In traditional Magic, or 1v1, you will make your opponent defend and you will attack it. But in Commander, all other players can attack it, though it is unclear if there will be any Battles with back sides that other players will want to transform.

We also know that each pack of March of the Machine will contain at least one Battle card. So, now that we know what one looks like, we can assume the Limited formats will feature a lot of these new card types.

It is likely we will get more information on Battles and how they work tomorrow with the March of the Machine debut stream at 9 AM PT on twitch.tv/magic and on YouTube.

What do you think of Invasion of Zendikar and the new card type? How exactly will they function? Let us know what you think in the comments on Facebook and Twitter.