War of the Spark || Crack-A-Pack - March 29, 2022 

I mean, Dovin was really on-flavor with the uncommon of him. "Not the scariest planeswalker, but just really annoying" is basically his entire character summed up in a single sentance.

This was a pretty pushed set and my friends and I have very fond memories of opening a stacked box. Foils of Karn, Teferi, and Liliana were among the cards we pulled; such good times!

To hopefully clear up the Ghostform vs Invasion conundrum: it is commander. Ghostform acts like a blink spell because you just enchant your commander and farm value with recurring it. Thinking Muldrotha, Tayam Luminous Enigma, any other commander I'm blanking on that brings aura/enchantments back from the yard. Or maybe you're just a black deck with ETB focus.

Graham: "Weasel, vole, ermine." Matt: *badger, hedgehog, squirrel*

you see, Graham, in Commander, we have a card we can gaurentee in our opening hand that's a creature that potentially gets back Kaya's Ghostform. it is called Go-Shintai of Life's Origin/Ghen, Arcanum Weaver/Muldrotha the Gravetide/Lurris of the Dream Den. Also, we could choose to make that card that starts (effectively) in our opening hand be soemthing that has a dies trigger that is really nice, like Kokusho the Evening Star/Junji the Midnight Sky/Elenda the Dusk Rose. Some people also like to play kaya's ghostform in Superfriends decks too. Shitterblossom, sadly, does not create evasive bodies or multiple bodies. it makes a big dumb idiot that after 6 glacial turns MIGHT get lifelink.

“You don’t see little buildings sprouting on trees” *Mishra’s Factory has entered the chat*

Kaya's Ghostform slaps in commander decks. I run it in Muldrotha, and forcing your opponents to have two removal spells to get her off the board really helps a threatening commander like her stick, even if you're not recurring it every turn.

"Did you ever see a magic card just do things?" Nope, my friend tends to play blue.

I’m surprised to see no one mention Lurrus with Kaya’s Ghostform.

I think Kaya's Ghostform sees play in Pioneer. I think the Black White Aura deck plays it. I'm not sure though as I don't have any experience playing that format. Can someone let me know if I'm on the right track?

In my 'limited' experience, Kaya's Ghostform was often used to get extra uses out of the uncommon walkers in the set. Ashiok mill and Davriel discard were made stronger with Ghostform.

Dang, I started the game with this set. It was a very weird introduction to magic, getting the massive payoff of a long story arc as the first set I opened that also had a planeswalker per pack really warped my idea of how a normal set was for a while.

Yeah, the trick with Kaya's Ghostform is it targets creatures AND Planeswalkers. You can do GROTESQUE things with it since it effectively lets you recycle walkers, get ridiculous sacrifice value, it protects key engine creatures from exile effects, and it goes really well with graveyard commanders and anything that wants to do sacrifice/combo kill loops.

Defiant Strike is a staple in Feather decks, both in this standard and in Historic.

I’m assuming the blue tape was painters tape

Kaya’s Ghostform on Ashiok was a sick combo.

I literally had the moment figuring out that Ninja's Kunai can go face last night 😭 I fought so hard to stabilize but still lost to that.

Ghostform sees play in some pauper combo decks, I believe

Graham: Why *Kaya's Ghostform* ? Me: Allow me to introduce *Light Paws* , *Lolth* , and this BigGiant Mutate stack to you, Graham.

You know what? Im just going to say it: Graham appears to be a pretty chill dude.

Yep. Kaya's Ghostform has that commander value. So often I see it among EDHRec lists for nearly anything that has black from what I saw.

1:15 the pack reclosing itself was too spooky 4 me! The problem with Dreadhorde Invasion compared to Bitterblossom is that the Armies don't have flying.

Kaya's Ghostform is a combo piece as well as a value card, and it's especially helpful that it saves the permanent from exile. Stick it on Sun Titan and watch him laugh off a Swords to Plowshares, or use them with a sac outlet to get infinite ETB/death triggers.

Ahhh war of the spark. It certainly wasn't my first set but it was the first one that really got me interested in the lore

Kaya's Ghostform is one of my favourite cards. It let's you use the oven to reset Lurrus.

If lazotep didnt have a melting point, how could they have cast it to the eternals?

I did a draft of this set in Japan, Graham, and a buddy decided to draft ALL the copies of Demolish just so he could wreck my mana base. It was hilarious and HE WON every game in our match.

Are we *EVER* gonna get to that pack of Dragon's Maze?!

The flavor text on Chainwhip Cyclops remains one of my favorites

I run Dreadhorde Invasion in just about everything!

Before Lurrus was banned, Kaya's Ghostform was an excellent way to keep it around nigh on forever in multiple formats

i had a deck built around dreadhorde invasion for the standard rotation of this set.. felt real good building it myself and going gold for the first time on arena with it lol

The Emmara quote is bullshit. Compare Vitu-Ghazi, which is a lot of tiny buildings on a tiny tree. Compare... A lot of Selesnyan buildings, actually.

Wow, I had no idea they had even released War of the Spark in English. Okay that's not true, but I really wanted the Japanese alt Liliana, as it was Amano, also I wanted the playmat but they weren't selling them outside of Japan, had to import it, so I just didn't.

Hey, I love Kaya's Ghostform, it isn't great, but I played a bunch of a Lurrus deck that ran it, and, I probably could've played better things, but it was fun. So Huzzah for that card I guess.

Kaya's Ghostform is Muldrotha's friend

Fun fact: War of the Spark is 3 years old

Kaya's Ghostform/Sun Titan/Altar of Dementia/Zulaport cutthroat or any drain = insta win.

Dark blue tape looked like Painter's Tape, but BC might be one of the places that mainly has the Green painter's tape. Yes, I paused this only 0:53 in just to say. Engagement! *jazzhands*

God, I remember getting multiple Aid the Fallens a couple times. It was super annoying with Ashiok and any big dumb blocker.

Ahh, Kaya’s Ghostform, for when you want to nuke the battlefield with Massacre girl twice

Bitterblossom creates a constant stream of evasive tokens that goes wider and wider; Dreadhorde Invasion just makes one token that gets slighty bigger every turn. If the lifelink clause applied to any zombie with power 6 or greater, it would be kind of a cool zombie tribal card. As it is, it's just kind of like a way worse Ophiomancer.

"No matter how defiant I was!" That was a pretty medium segue, Graham. I think that'll have to be... *Strike* one.

> Where do you get dark blue tape? It's painter's tape. Tears easily, stays on flat surfaces, peels easily. I generally keep a roll on hand instead of masking tape. I've more than a few boxes labeled with the classic black sharpie on painter's tape, and... yeah. Spring for a silver marker or something if you're going to do that.

Bitterblossom isn't even that good anymore, Graham. It's been a long time since Fairies and Tokens were competitive Modern decks.

2:23 "oh no" That quiet "oh no" as you remember "reading the card explains the card"

People are talking about ghostform in commander, but other than just giving value for recurring your commander it also just straight up enables some infinite loops -- cards like iridescent drake/sun titan/renegade rallier/boonweaver giant let you get infinite sac effects, and *particularly* ghostform also works when the creature goes to exile meaning you can get infinite mana off of Food Chain (among other effects that specifically try to not let you go infinite by exiling the creature)

Excellent, as always. You do the outro however you like Graham.

Ghostform is good because it's super cheap protection from removal for your big bomb you just played (or your commander). Worst case, your opponent has to two for two you on it.

I have definitely attacked with a Teyo's Lightshield in my day.

Ghostform is also played in the Orzhov Auras pioneer deck

I use Kya’s Ghostform in multiple commander decks to this day. To me it reads, one mana double etb!

Fear the zombie cyborg squirrel aristocrat alliance. That of cource means that only artifacts and black creatures can block.

Dreadhorde Invasion only ever makes one token, and that token does not fly. It is much worse than Bitterblossom for at least those reason. Being a zombie and caring about zombies is nice for the tribal decks though.

Little buildings don't sprout on trees? What are tree-houses then? checkmate W/G

In a format full of board wipes and removal, Ghostform is crazy good.

According to my records, this is the fourth pack of War of the Spark opened in this series. Two English, two Japanese.

The dreadhoard invasion is cheap because it was in the zombies precon from midnight hunt.

I won't have Kayas Ghostform slanded in much a manner

4:27 Yeah you can exile the creature in the graveyard in response to the trigger to make it go away for good. Done it plenty of times in Historic.

I mean any zombie token can be 6 power if you have 5 tokens and a Coat of Arms, so there's that

it's better to go wide than to go tall, so that's why dreadhorde isn't in bitterblossom price range. or so i think.

Kaya's ghostform protects a stack of Mutated cards. 🤷

Kaya's ghostform is played in pioneer auras some too.

I think dread is in the blue/black zombie commander deck

Defiant Strike sees play in Pioneer. Fun fact.

Only prerelease I’ve won, I was hungover too.

this just in Graham doesn't know what painter's tape is

Dreadhorde Invasion pretty bad, but also it's been in multiple pre-con decks which had much better stuff in them, so it was never going to hold any kind of value.

does Painter's Tape not exist in Canada?

For the love of God stop this madness!

Engagement for the engagement god!

Ghostform is great with Lurrus

Don't ever call me a challenger

I have a Kaya’s Ghostform in my budget mono-black sacrifice deck to protect my commander.

That’s a cool hwip!

I'm honestly a little disappointed Graham didn't read Chainwhip Cyclops's flavor text. Some of the best in the set. Urgdar is so wise...

War of the spark my beloved!!!

I always forget that Kaya's can go on planeswalkers. Also relevant is it brings stuff from exile back.

when a pack in spanish :D!?

I'd love for you to increase bit by bit the psychedelic trip when cracking the pack.

meow

I have only just realised how great the flavour text is on the Chainwhip Cyclops

What even does "that goes face?" mean exactly?

Crack! A! Pack!

Set was cool

Engagement!

I dont thik I have ever head the phrase "that can go face" in magic discussion before, and I love it. :)

Voles, ermine and WEASLINGS!!!!

Badderblossom.

Can confirm, Kaya's Ghostform has a lot of utility in Commander, though I don't know why, as a common, it's somehow the most valuable card of the pack.

Best card in this pack was Graham's REZ shirt.

The special effects in this one are really top notch.

I love dreadhorde invasion I had so many opponents bleed out from it while I kept killing their singular token

Engagement!

Did I transition to an alternative universe?!?!? (1) I drafted this set a lot - I do not remember Chainwhip Cyclops at all!!!; (2) A 14-minute Crack-a-pack :D :D :D Thanks for these - enjoying it a lot