Mike and I often joke about a “bloodbath waiting to happen” when referring to certain cards before a new set is released. There is no joking when it comes to the exclusive Top8Magic preview card. We are going to need a towel to talk about Glory of Warfare because the bloodbath is about to begin.

Somebody get me a towel!

This is no ordinary Crusade we are talking about here. Speaking strictly from an offensive persepctive it represents two Crusades when you have more creatures than your opponent and are doing the math for a alpha strike. I guess it also represents two Crusades when you are on your heels as well. Imagine a board full of token creatures — maybe you happen to playing Spectral Procession and Siege-Gang Commander in a deck that can support the Glory of Warfare for some reason — and your opponent attacking with a Woolly Thoctar. Obviously your opponent would never actually do that but imagine for a moment that they did. You could put four tokens in the way and your opponent could only kill one them since you have a +2 on defense from the enchantment.

This card is ideally suited to Windbrisk Heights powered decks. Green-white tokens has become a popular deck based on its success at the recent 5K results. I had been wary about the inclusion of Overrun in that deck simply because there were scenarios where it was going to be a dead card in your hand. The counterargument that was made for the inclusion of Overrun in that deck over Garruck Wildspeaker was that you could tuck the Overrun under the Heights.

Brian Kowal, the brewmeister of the very popular red-white tokens deck that has been ubiquitous in Standard commented on Overrun in the green-white tokens deck saying, “You don’t know fear until there is a possiblity that Overrun is under a Windbrisk Heights.” Tucking Glory of Warfare under the Heights may be 33% — or more when you factor out trample — less scary, it does allow you to upgrade from green to red and all the fiery goodness that implies. The deck already has a handful of creature based card advantage engines that can play well with Glory of Warfare:

• Spectral Procession — This becomes a squadron of Rishadan Airships that will usually finish your opponent off in two turn
• Siege-Gang Commander - Bigger nastier goblin gangs make for happy commanders.
• Cloudgoat Ranger — The landlocked version of Spectral Procession without the Siege-Gang ability to grenade themselves. Still when they send their Ranger skyward it is as a 7/3 flier. Like I mentioned earlier each creature getting a +2 to their toughness makes for some difficult-to-attack-into board positions
• Windbrisk Heights — This card is possibly the most impacted by the inclusion of GoW in the Standard format since it means that if there are sufficient attacking creatures to activate the Heights you have to worry about at least six more points of damage if this enchantment is hiding under there.

Other token generating cards that may get a boost from Glory of Warfare include:

• Dragon Fodder — In block I could see this getting some play…especially when played in conjunction with…
• Goblin Assault — Spitting out a 3/1 hasty attacker each turn sounds a lot more appealing. They will never have much of an opportunity to benefit from the boost on your opponent’s turns but let’s be honest…who cares?
• Spore Burst — I don’t know how much domain is going to get played in Standard or Block but you rarely get to see this many tokens out of one card if you can meet the requirements. It also brings to mind the old standby…
• Ordered Migration — Even better than Spectral Procession but even if this somehow got played in a format old enough for it to be legal I would be shocked to see Glory of Warfare make it there as well.
• Martial Coup — A staple card in Block Constructed, Glory of Warfare will make the army of Coup tokens into a formidable team that may only need one attack step to mop up the game.

Tribally I cannot imagine any group being more excited about the Glory of Warfare than the Kobolds — and any 0/1 tokens that are kicking around out there.

• Kher Keep — This has shown up in a handful of Extended decks and seems exciting with Glory of Warfare. This represents a real threat that can mount over time. Again, not sure that the decks playing with this card want to be playing with GoW but it does call to mind another land that has seen play in Standard…
• Springjack Pasture — I could see this being a one-off card that provides a steady stream of 2/1 or 0/3 critters for the tokens decks playing with Glory of Warfare. The ability to sacrifice goats and make mana could also play nice with Martial Coup.
• Springjack Shepherd — I have dreams of this guy being Constructed playable but I know it will likely not come to pass. You could easilly power out an army of six or seven tokens on turn four with a seamless draw but despite the upside potential he is nearly useless without the Glory of Warfare in play and does not give you the guaranteed card advantage of cards like the Procession or Cloudgoat. Still the dream of the Draw Goat deck lives on.

One of the more interesting ramifications of this card comes on the defensive side of the table. Assuming that weenie players can use Mark of Asylum to shut down Volcanic Fallout this card will close off Infest as an option. It also shuts down Pyroclasm or any sorcery speed sweeper that does two damage. I have been talking about tokens mostly but if you take 2/2 creatures into account it also shuts down Firespout. All in all this is a pretty exciting card that should justify the bloodbath pronouncements at the beginning of the column!