Everyone’s favorite firebrand is back in Magic: The Gathering! With another high profile War of the Spark spoiler for this season, we get to see the latest iteration of the Gatewatch’s own pyromancer, Chandra, Fire Artisan. Bringing impulse draw to red decks, Chandra is yet another rare planeswalker to be revealed through spoilers.
Insights
A 4 converted mana cost Planeswalker with 4 loyalty, Chandra comes with a static ability and two loyalty abilities. Chandra’s static acts as a self-defense mechanism, dealing damage if she takes damage herself. Her +1 ability provides impulse draw, exiling the top card of your library and allowing you to cast it. Her ultimate, a whopping -7, will do the same, but for the top seven cards of the library. This will trigger her static ability, dealing 7 damage to your opponent or to one of their walkers!
Is she playable? In standard, she will contend the 4 mana slot with another similar card, Experimental Frenzy. Despite the ability to peel lands off the top in case you have both cards out, it is a pretty crowded spot. The fact that it’s easier to remove, of course, is another downside. Despite these flaws, she’s still a pretty strong Planeswalker, and we’ll have to wait to see which card people decide to run.
In the art, we see her surrounded by Dovin Baan’s Thopters, in a feud that started back in the Kaladesh block.
Together with Chandra, of course, we also got a look at her signature spell:
Chandra’s Pyrohelix
Chandra’s Pyrohelix, a reprint from Kaladesh, is an instant for 2 mana. It allows you to split 2 damage between two targets, or hit one target for 1. It’s a pretty good card for limited, but it hasn’t seen competitive play. In this set, with uncommon planeswalkers being able only to tick down, perhaps it will come more into the spotlight.
With the ability to also ping smaller white creatures, which have been prominent in the meta, Chandra’s Pyrohelix could be a very easy add to Draft and Sealed decks.
