cephille's Wilds of Eldraine (WOE) Limited First Look — Mechanics

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Note: The quantities mentioned in the WOE mechanics below are statistics based on the 277 cards that can be opened from the main set, i.e. draft boosters, plus the 63 reprinted enchantment cards in the supplementary set, Enchanting Tales (WOT), for a total of 340 cards. They do not include out-of-numbering Jumpstart cards, showcase cards, borderless cards, or extended-art cards exclusive to Collector Boosters that can be opened from set boosters.

Mechanics

New Mechanics

1. Role Token

Total: 34
18C, 10U, 5R, 1MR

Role tokens are all enchantments with the Aura subtype. The enchanted creature receives the corresponding bonus or penalty, and some Role tokens also trigger an additional effect when they leave the battlefield. If the permanent the token is about to enchant already has another Role you control, the existing Role is put into the graveyard. The 6 Role tokens that appear in WOE are as follows:

• Cursed Role: The enchanted creature is 1/1.

  6 cards in total, appearing in white, blue, and black.
  Note that you cannot cover a Cursed Role token that the opponent attached to your creature first with another Role token of your own.

• Monster Role: The enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has trample.

  5 cards in total, appearing in the red-green color pair.

• Sorcerer Role: The enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has “Whenever this creature attacks, scry 1.”

  4 cards in total, appearing in the white-blue color pair.

• Royal Role: The enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has ward {1}.

  4 cards in total, appearing in the white-green color pair.

• Wicked Role: The enchanted creature gets +1/+1. When this Aura is put into a graveyard, each opponent loses 1 life.

  10 cards in total, appearing in the red-black color pair.

• Young Hero Role: The enchanted creature has “Whenever this creature attacks, if its toughness is 3 or less, put a +1/+1 counter on it.” If you later put another Role on that creature, this Role is put into the graveyard.

  5 cards in total, appearing in the red-white color pair.

2. Bargain

Total: 20
11C, 5U, 2R, 2MR

Bargain is similar to kicker, in that both let you pay an additional cost when casting to boost the spell’s effect. The slight difference is that bargain restricts you to sacrificing an artifact, an enchantment, or a token to pay the additional cost. When deciding whether to use a card with bargain, you should still focus on whether the effect of casting it without bargain meets your deck’s expectations; of course, if the bargain effect is very powerful, you can also build around this theme to specialize.

3. Celebration

Total: 9
4C, 3U, 2R

Celebration looks at whether two or more nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control this turn, and cards with celebration get a bonus effect from it. Note that celebration appears only in red and white. The red-white color pair mostly rewards players for attacking, and this set’s celebration mechanic is largely designed around that theme. The triggered effects of celebration can basically be divided into two types:

a. The celebration ability triggers during your combat phase or when the card attacks
b. The celebration ability triggers whenever the celebration condition is met each turn

Players also need to pay special attention to the timing in using these two types. Basically, having two nonland permanents enter the battlefield under your control each turn is not easy to achieve consistently in Limited. So when using cards with celebration, you still need to rely mainly on the card’s own strength, and building with celebration as a bonus is more realistic.

Returning Mechanics

1. Adventure

Total: 50
14C, 16U, 13R, 7MR

Adventure, the core mechanic of the previous visit to Throne of Eldraine (ELD), unsurprisingly returns on this revisit. But WOE adds two new kinds of adventure cards:

Enchantment adventure cards (a cycle with one in each of the five colors, all mythic rares)
Adventure cards whose permanent is a different color from the adventure

The combination of these two also greatly strengthens the versatility of adventure in Limited. Of course, going back to the core of the adventure mechanic, it is the very profitable two-for-one concept. With the right adventure cards chosen, it greatly reduces two problems: big creatures getting stuck in hand early in the game, or conversely, low-cost creatures being too weak when top-decked late. In WOE Limited, the advantage adventure brings is absolutely not to be underestimated.

2. Saga

Total: 8
5U, 3R

Sagas are permanents of the enchantment type. When a Saga enters the battlefield, and after each of your draw steps thereafter, a lore counter is put on it and the chapter ability corresponding to the number of lore counters on it triggers (i.e. when the Saga enters, a lore counter is put on it and chapter I triggers). After chapter III triggers, the Saga is generally sacrificed, but some sets have specially designed Sagas where something else happens (i.e. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker from NEO). The Sagas in WOE are of the ordinary Saga design.
Basically they work with cards that care about enchantments. Worth mentioning, if you want to avoid some of the downsides of a Saga’s chapter III, you can also sacrifice the Saga before then to feed a card with bargain and squeeze out value. And if chapter I of a Saga makes another token, it can also trigger “celebration”!

3. Food token

Total: 24
10C, 8U, 6R

Food tokens are artifact tokens. You can simply pay {2}, tap, and sacrifice one to gain 3 life, or use other permanents in this set that work with Food to get more value. In WOE it is mainly the black-green color pair that can make Food tokens and work with them, but a few cards of other colors (of higher rarity) also have links to the Food mechanic.

4. Stun Counter

Total: 7
2C, 4U, 1R

A stun counter makes it so that if a permanent with this counter would become untapped during its controller’s untap step, instead one stun counter is removed from it. In this set it should work closely with the idea of white-blue tapping creatures to gain more value.

Enchanting Tales

Total: 63 cards
18U, 30R, 15MR

A WOE sub-set made up entirely of reprinted enchantments, similar to March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends. These reprints do not change the original format legality of the cards; none are usable in Standard, but they can be used in Limited.

Want to use Doubling Season in Limited to make Food and Role tokens by the truckload? Or have too much Food and want to use Sanguine Bond to kill the opponent outright?

Enchanting Tales will make your dreams come true!