Hey, everyone! Brandon Sanderson here. If you’re new, you might know me as the author of The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and some of The Wheel of Time books. I'm not sure if those of you reading are going to be Magic fans, or Brandon fans, or what. But I get to talk about Magic: The Gathering today because Wizards of the Coast sent me a preview card from the upcoming Tarkir Dragonstorm set, and as a longtime Magic fan, I’m so excited.
My Love for Three-Color Magic Cards
I am old. And being old, my very first expansion set of Magic was Legends, and I instantly fell in love with the Multicolored Creatures. They were all terrible back then, but I fell in love with them. I remember cracking open a pack and pulling a Chromium—a three-color creature. Back then, creatures' spells were one color. Getting one that had three was just mind boggling to me. I fell in love with three-color cards, to the point that eventually, when they released the Invasion block, which was also doing some of these things, and they released these Lands that tap for one man of three different colors, I just bought a ton of them.
They were terrible. But I collected them all and I put them in every deck.
Naturally, Khans of Tarkir became one of my all-time favorite sets. It featured incredible three-color cards and introduced Morph, a mechanic that let you play high-cost creatures early with any mana color and later flip them for powerful effects. That was an inspired design choice! I even built a Khans of Tarkir cube draft so I could keep playing it as much as I wanted.
My Exclusive Magic: The Gathering Preview Card
Now, let’s get to the exciting part. Wizards sent me a Jeskai-aligned preview card—my favorite tricolor pair! And here it is:
Flamehold Grappler is a rare 3/3 first strike human monk that will cost you the full Jeskai pie to cast, but will let you copy one of your spells after casting it. So much fun!Copying your own spell effects aren't always the most powerful, but they are often among the most fun. And these days, building your wacky control decks that try to stall the game, not as viable as it used to be, but it is, when you can pull it off, really awesome. So I am looking forward to playing with this Jeskai card and to copying my spells and doing all kinds of very cool things.
The Return to Tarkir – Tarkir Dragonstorm
Beyond my preview card, I’m thrilled that Magic is returning to Tarkir with Tarkir Dragonstorm, releasing April 11th. This isn’t a sponsored post—Wizards didn’t pay me to talk about this—I just genuinely love Magic and am excited to see how the new set turns out.
My Khans cube is definitely getting some upgrades. I’ve already mixed in some Tarkir-themed cards from other sets, plus a bonus sheet system for easy sorting. Now, with this new set on the way, I’ll have even more cool cards to add.
Final Thoughts
I've always said on my podcast that there's one easy way to my heart, and that's through Magic cards. And they sent me one that isn't even out yet. So that makes me super excited.
Thank you for reading my rant about how much fun it's been to watch Magic start making actually good three-color cards and three-color lands. And I'm as excited as you are to find out what they're going to do with the new set.
