Double Masters 2022, Against the Odds Style | Exclusive Double Masters 2022 Previews
I love Masters sets. They are often super fun to draft and fill a much-needed role in the Magic ecosystem by giving Wizards a place to reprint expensive cards that don't fit into other products. While there was a bunch of controversy with the first Double Masters, mostly based on the high prices of sealed product, when all was said and done, the set did its job by lowering prices on a lot of important Commander, Modern, and Legacy cards. Even if you didn't open a single Double Masters booster pack, the set benefited you by dropping the prices of singles that you needed. Double Masters 2022 should do the same, which is incredibly important, especially right now, at a time when the cost of formats like Modern and even Commander can be pretty high.
Anyway, thanks to Wizards hooking us up, we've got not just one but two Double Masters 2022 preview cards to show off for you today. Take a peek at the cards; then, we'll briefly discuss their impact and purpose.
First up in the mythic slot is Divine Visitation, which currently costs around $12. While this isn't a Mana Crypt or Force of Will, it's also certainly not a Tree of Perdition or Comet Storm either. With booster packs of Double Masters 2022 going for around $10 or $11 each, you won't be disappointed to see a Divine Visitation staring back at you if you crack a pack, especially considering you'll get another rare or mythic along with some potentially valuable uncommons and commons.
When it comes to reprints, we tend to focus on cards that are currently expensive. Everyone wants Doubling Season, Mana Crypt, and friends to be reprinted because those cards cost a lot of money. However, in reality, there's an even better way to reprint cards: doing it before the card's price gets too out of hand. Considering how much Commander players love tokens; the cost of other token payoffs like Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, and Parallel Lives; and that Divine Visitation is an aging one-print mythic, it feels like the kind of card that could eventually end up being $30 or even $50 if not reprinted. Rather than waiting until everyone is complaining about $50 Divine Visitations, reprinting it now in Double Masters 2022 means that Divine Visitation is likely to stay accessible. While it might not be quite as exciting as opening an ultra-expensive Doubling Season in a pack, from a practical perspective, Divine Visitation is a good card to reprint now, just to make sure it doesn't end up at Doubling Season prices in the future.
As far as gameplay is concerned, Divine Visitation is mostly a Commander card for token decks. While we have pulled off a couple of janky combos with it in the past (with the most obvious being Divine Visitation and Bishop of Wings, which gains infinite life with the help of a sacrifice outlet), in general, players tend to just play it for value with commanders that make small tokens. Having your Emmara, Soul of the Accord, Thalisse, Reverent Medium, Hazezon Tamar, or Darien, King of Kjeldor make 4/4 Angels rather than 1/1s is pretty sweet!
As for our second card, Fiery Justice, I'm not going to even try to sell you on the merits of including it in Double Masters 2022. As far as I'm concerned, this is exactly the kind of card I don't want included in a Masters set. While the card can do some funny things (we played it in a very bad but very funny Against the Odds deck that tried to make the opponent gain life so we could drain them with Tainted Remedy), outside of Against the Odds shenanigans, there are really no redeeming qualities to this reprint. Fiery Justice is currently a bulk rare. It's been reprinted multiple times (including in Commander precons); it sees play in 0% of Commander decks, according to EDHREC; and it sees essentially zero play in 60-card formats outside of Penny Dreadful—a Magic Online–only format built on the gimmick that every card legal in the format costs just $0.01. It even has the same art that we've gotten for the last few reprints. Perhaps there is some reason the card will be necessary for Double Masters 2022 limited that isn't obvious yet. But if you decide to crack some Double Masters 2022 boosters, my thoughts and prayers will be that you don't open a Fiery Justice in one of your rare slots. But hey, at least I'll be able to get a head start on my "worst rares of Double Masters 2022 video," where Fiery Justice will most likely make the list.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. Thanks again to Wizards for hooking us up with two sweet Double Masters 2022 previews! What do you think of the cards? Let us know in the comments! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
