Magic The Gathering March Of The Machine: New Cards, Mechanics and More Revealed

After MagicCon Philadelphia gave players a preview of what’s to come, Wizards Of The Coast shared more details about March Of The Machine–the next expansion to Magic: The Gathering–including new cards , new mechanics, etc.

March Of The Machine marks the end of the New Phyrexia storyline, with the setting depicting the final battle between the evil machine forces and the many planes that oppose them. The official MTG website has shared chapters of the story for the past two weeks – the last of which was posted yesterday – but these cards are being seen for the first time.

Magic The Gathering March Of The Machine main series revealed

The official live stream revealed cards from the Multiversal Legends main, command and sub-set with multiple replays. Some of the main card sets revealed during the livestream include:

• Borborygmos and Fblthp (Legendary Creatures)
  • 6 power/5 toughness creature cards consume one green energy, one blue energy, one red energy, and two additional energy of any color.
  • Ability 1: Whenever Borborygmos and Fblthp enter the battlefield or attack, draw a card, then you can discard any number of ground cards. When you discard one or more cards this way, Borborygmos and Fblthp deal double damage to the target creature.
  • Ability 2: Pay 1 blue energy and 1 any color energy to bring Borborygmos and Fblthp into the third owner’s library from the top.
• Elspeth’s Smite (Instant)
  • Costs 1 white mana.
  • Elspeth’s Smite deals 3 damage to attacking or blocking creatures. If the creature dies this turn, banish it instead.
• Mirrodin revenge (instant)
  • Costs 1 black mana.
  • Destroy a target creature that took damage this turn and draw 1 card.
• Realmbreaker, The Invasion Tree (Legendary Artifact)
  • Three energy costs of any color.
  • Ability 1: Pay two collective energy, then tap Realmbreaker to force your opponent to remove the top three cards from their library. You can then add a land card from that player’s graveyard to a battlefield you control. If this land abandons the battlefield, it must be exiled.
  • Ability 2: Pay 10 common mana, then tap Realmbreaker and sacrifice it to search for any number of Praetorian cards in your library, then add them to the battlefield and shuffle.
• Sword of Once And Future (Artifact – Equipment)
  • Costs 3 energies of any color.
  • Costs 2 extra mana of any color to equip the creature.
  • The equipped creature gains +2/+2 and is protected from all green and black cards.
  • Whenever this sword-equipped creature attacks, you can survey two cards (look at the top two cards in your library and place them back on top of your library or in your graveyard. You can then cast an instant spell or spell that costs 2 or less for free from your graveyard, that spell must be banished after casting.

Magic The Gathering March Of The Machine new mechanics

March Of The Machine not only brings new cards to Magic, but also introduces many new card mechanics to the game upon release. The three most impactful mechanics are Backup, Incubation, and the all-new Card Type Battle.

• Battle card are the most important changes coming to the March Of The Machine, as they allow players to attack their own cards on the battlefield for the first time.
  • Each battle card comes into play with an ability and a number of defense counters on it as indicated on the card itself.
  • The player participating in the battle chooses an opponent to be its defender, then every other player in the game can attack the battle.
  • Once the Battle card’s defense counter is exhausted, this card is banished, then returned to the transformed battlefield under the control of whoever used it first.
    • For example, the battle card Invasion of New Phyrexia transforms into the legendary Planeswalker Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir.
• The backup mechanic allows an incoming creature to make one of your other creatures more powerful through a specified number of +1/+1 counters and a new special ability that can be used until end of turn.
  • Archpriest of Shadows’ card says “Redundant 1”, meaning only one +1/+1 counter can be specified. If a creature other than Archpriest of Shadows receives a counter attack, that creature also gains deathtouch and “whenever this creature deals battle damage to the player or battle, give the target creature card. Spend from your graveyard back on the battlefield.
• Cards with egg hatching feature generates tokens with +1/+1 counter numbers on them, as well as the ability to “Pay two energies of any color to transform this artifact.” When two mana is paid out, the token turns into a creature of 0 strength, 0 toughness with the remaining amount.
  • Glissa, the Herald of Predation has the ability to “Incubate 2 times”, this will generate two tokens, each with two +1/+1 counters on them.

Magic The Gathering March Of The Machine Commander revealed

Along with the cards from the main set, the March Of The Machine reveal also reveals five legendary creature cards that will act as commanders for the special Commander decks that will be released with the set. The five creatures are as follows:

• Brimaz, Calamity of Oreskos
• Gimbal, the prodigy Gremlin
• Kasla, Broken Aura
• Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir
• Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener

Each of these five cards will be included in the March Of The Machine Commander deck, which will also mark the return of the Planechase mechanic. The Planechase card allows each player to receive an assortment of perks, while the “chaos” perk can be activated at any time. The four planes revealed so far for the Commander Planechase deck are the Esper, Jund, Nyx, and Panopticon.

Magical March Gathering of the Legendary Multiverse Machine

March Of The Machine will also contain a subset of cards called Multiversal Legends, which includes previously released cards with a brand new look. These cards will be randomly inserted into booster packs, called Mystic Vault cards in Strixhaven, and each card will have a special unique art style.

Revealed cards for Multiverse Legends include:

• Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• Emry, Lurker Of The Loch
• Niv-Mizzet reborn
• Sheoldred, Whisper One
• Skythiryx, Dragon of Destruction

All cards seen here will be available when March Of The Machine launches in local game stores on April 21. Multiple pre-release events, both physically in store and online via via Magic The Gathering Arena, which will take place before the series’ premiere date.