Orb of insight

MatthewVII

Well, wizards have released the Time Spiral orb of insight so i guess its high time for the customary findings thread.
Here are the titbits Mark Rosewater gave about the new set:

-An angel that costs two mana (yes, that angel, and she's not some wimpy 2/2)
-a female legend that players have been begging us to do for a long time
a new hermit with a love of tokens and an old keyword (but not the same one)
-a new Lotus (which we know off, Lotus Bloom)
-a Power Nine card with buyback
-a card with the word "squirrel" in its rules text
-a legend who uttered one of the most popular lines of flavor text of all time
-a cycle of artifact mana sources that turn into creatures from the Reserved List

After a bit of searching, i came across this:
Jaya - 3 results
Ballard - 3 Results
I think this is the female legend that players have been begging for, she appears on numerous flavour texts and appears in storylines from time to time

Ancestral - 2 results
Walk - 1 result
I think these are the cards most likely to be the power 9 with buyback

I figured out who the legend with the flavour text was (came to mind fairly quickly)
Saffi - 2 results
Eriksdotter - 2 results
This is of course Saffi Eriksdotter, who says the flavour text on Lhurghoyf "Ach hans run! Its the lhurghoyf!"

The artifact cycle is the totems cycle, of which we have already seen Chronatog totem (the blue one of the cycle). no idea what the other are.

Other findings:
Teferi - 1 result (looks like he has his own card now)
Vampire - 1 result
Shapeshifter - 4 results
Spellshaper - 6 results
Merfolk - 1 result (which we know is Coral Trickster)
Thallid - 14 (Fungi are back)
Sliver - 54 (slivers are back)
Legendary - 20 (plenty of legends in the set)
Equipment - 0 (darn)

Madness - 10 results (hurrah!)
Flanking - 21 results
Buyback - 7 results
Morph - 18 results
flashback - 23 results

kicker - 0
cycling - 0
phasing - 0
banding - 0

anybody find anything else?

Ivan

Any chance you could give us a link to the Orb of insight, for those of us who only have a few minutes to allocate to something like this?

I think the 'Power of Nine' reference is a bit misleading as it may be the same name, hell it might even be the same affect, but I'm 99% positive it wont be the same cost and if it has buyback then I'm 100% sure as buyback cards are generally more expensive than their non-buyback cards.

And, if its not the same cost, then it isnt really a Power of Nine card as that, is really what sets them apart from all the rest.

Still, I hope its Timewalk, though I'd be surprised if it isnt Ancestral Recall.

I am starting to dislike the return of slivers every so often, they are a nice idea and a nice theme but when they are seemingly randomly inserted just because they can be/it has been a while since they last were, well then it just annoys me a little

Still looking forward to this set, more than I have any other in a long long time

cedomination

ok,
of all the power 9 it can only be

ancestral recall
timetwister
time walk

although origianally i thought time walk,if they did reprint it you could just play it and buyback every turn,so i think we can rule that out.

my bets are on timetwister:D

MatthewVII

Ivan wrote:

Any chance you could give us a link to the Orb of insight, for those of us who only have a few minutes to allocate to something like this?

http://wizards.com/magic/OOI_TimeSpiral.swf

About the power 9 card, i refer you to this piece of art revealed at some game con:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=27945&d=1155342370

Clearly skeletons in the Time walk style with a pendulum, making it a pretty fair guess that Time walk could be the revamped card. obviously its cost will have soared greatly, but nice nostalgia nonetheless. Another powerful old old card getting reworked is Wheel of Fortune (renamed Wheel of Fate, if rumours are to be believed). check out art:http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/mtgcom/products/timespiral/creative1_f23bgkgmbqlkrt19.jpg

The fact that its name has "fate" in it leads me to believe that it may have a similar effect to wheel of fortune but with suspend, so that the effect has some sense of premeditation.