With Modern Horizons 2 preview week kicking off today, Gavin Verhey used today’s episode of Good Morning Magic to give MH2 Easter egg from some of the cards already revealed.
While players might notice many of the cards previewed so far are influenced by older cards in Magic history, Verhey dived deeper with cards like Diamond Lion, Dakkon, Shadow Slayer, and Flametongue Yearling.
Clearly an inspiration from Lion’s Eye Diamond, but that isn’t all that’s going on with this artifact creature. The flavor text is from Afari, Tales, an often quoted source for flavor text in Mirage block showing up on Mystical Tutor and a few other cards. If you look closely at the art you’ll notice the necklace the lion is wearing is a replica of the earing from the woman in Lion’s Eye Diamond.
The starting loyalty is based off the original Dakkon Blackblade from Legends, who has power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control. The Blackblade itself, from Dominaria, also copies the lands you control theme, and is seen in the art, which is composed by Richard Kane Ferguson, the artist for the first Dakkon Blackblade card.
This art shows the Kavu in the same pose and location as the original printing of Flametongue Kavu, but that art has rarely been used so not everyone caught the reference.
