Brago, King Eternal
Well, we have started to see the cards from Conspiracy trickle in and this guy looks pretty sweet! A 4 mana (a white, a blue and 2 colourless) 2/4 flying spirit that whenever it deals combat damage to a player you may exile any number of nonland permaments you control and then return them under your control. This guy is pretty awesome because if he connects you can blink your team and get the benefit of the enter the battlefield triggers all over again. We’ve seen that ability to be extremely powerful…so let’s look more closely at him.
Conspiracy is intended to be a Draft format and will then allow the cards to be played in some of the older formats, casual, and EDH, but not Standard or Modern. So, if this guy is a draft card a 2/4 for 4 mana is pretty reasonable. You will want to be careful because his casting cost makes him tough to cast and you have to be in the right colours to make him work. If you are in W/U then he will likely be a pretty good pickup. As for his ability, in draft I can expect that he will have limited value blinking your stuff. You may have a couple of Enter the Battlefield triggers to exploit, but you need to work pretty hard to get there and hope Brago doesn’t get whacked by removal or blocked. So, you’re really looking at a 2/4 for 4 mana. He would be better with Hexproof, but that would be pretty busted and unfair. Maybe there will be a ton of Enter the Battlefield triggers to exploit. Who knows? But just looking at this guy and his stats, he will just be ok in Draft.
Now, in OTHER places he will be BONKERS. Let’s just state that there is no way that he will ever see play in a competitive eternal format like Legacy or Vintage, but in EDH this guy could make a real splash. If you have a deck built to exploit ETB triggers this guy will go crazy!!! Hello Thragtusk, Acidic Slime, Angel of Serenity…and on and on we go. With the right EDH deck this guy will be extremely powerful and your opponent will need to be wary. Heck, he’s Legendary so you could opt to use HIM as your general instead of as a support piece and have some fun interactions with him there. Also Casual players and Johnnies out there are probably DROOLING at the chance to break this guy in some sort of disgusting combo that I haven’t conceived of yet.
On the whole, Brago is pretty interesting as far as a card goes. I will hold off on a full pronouncement of his impact until we see more of the Conspiracy cards spoiled, but if this is the beginning then we might be in for a super fun and interesting new set.
