Fate Reforged Preview Mechanics

mythicspoilers, my go-to for my cut-and-paste magic art needs, has a good selection up for Fate Reforged. I'm going to try avoid drooling over mythics and rares because of their limited impact on drafting. First we'll review some mini-trends

Allied Colors

 

Mono-colored creatures with bonuses granted if clan colors are active. Pretty damn good bonuses actually. These appear to be passing the vanilla test with flying colors so any deck with just one of the triggering colors would be more than happy to gobble them up.

Dis or dat

 

With apologies to You Don't Know Jack, we appear to have more mini-charms all over the place. Color me a fan: more choices = more entertaining and interesting game play.

Let's get to the new mechanics.

Bolster

 

Bolster is a new mechanic that grants counters to a creature of yours with the least toughness. I don't know what to think about this. Seems like a reasonably efficient way to spread counters around but it won't make a bigger guy into a spectacular threat. Will obviously work delightfully well with Outlast chieftans but that hardly constitutes an incredible insight.

Dash

Dash gives the option of a cheaper summon with haste but it returns to your hand at the end of the turn. Sort of a mini-ball lightning. I see it granting flexibility if you don't have a three-drop you can find something to do with your turn. All of the displayed Dash cards so far have a semi-sorcery ability so I see some Quadrant utility in the late game by helping it immediately break a stalemate rather than having to wait a turn for summoning sickness.

Manifest

 

Manifest allows any of your cards to be turned into a morph. SAY WHAT. Let's go step-by-step through the mechanics. Cards are Manifested off the library into 2/2 colorless creatures. If they are a creature, they can be morphed (or un-morphed depending on how you like your verbs) for its casting cost. If the card is anything else (land, spell, etc.) it stays as a 2/2, forever.

Some additional thoughts. In Khans, the morph cost is almost always less than the casting cast (barring some ridiculous triggered ability like Master of Pearls or my good ladyfriend, Kheru Spellsnatcher). So not only is the manifest (presumably) costing you a card but you're also having to pay a premium to flip it face up.

On a third hand, I think if you Manifest a Morph, you can still pay the cheaper morph cost.

The way Manifest works on Rageform fascinates me. It would be beyond sweet to actually land that on a creature but that is classic Best Case Scenario thinking. No I'm still not playing Taigam's Scheming but we could be looking at additional synergies on library manipulation. I see Manifest rewarding decks committing to a heavy creature presence. Or maybe...