Elesh Norn - What's the last new Praetor gonna look like?

[Knabber]

Hey Everyone,

I'm a really big fan of how Wizards is forshadowing the next big events in Magics storyline. Okay, the last few years were not a highlight in terms of lore and story, but War of the Spark had a nice climax and brought years of ingame-history to an end. That was cool, i would love more of that.

So what are the Praetors up to? I think it's brilliant that Wizards is spreading some of the most iconic and infamous creatures ever printed all around different planes, probably connecting their plans in future sets.

So far we've got a new Vorinclex, a new Jin-Gitaxias and a new Urabrask – all recalling to their original printings and serving some sweet symmetrical effects.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger // Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur // Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
Urabrask the Hidden // Urabrask, Heretic Praetor

As some recent leaks suppose, Sheoldred will be featured in the upcoming Dominaria United. This is not confirmed yet and the leak could as well be a fake.

Sheoldred, Whispering One // Sheoldred, Insidious Conqueror (3BB, 4/5)

Ward – Discard two cards
Whenever a non-token creature you control dies, draw a card. This ability only triggers once per turn.
Whenever a non-token creature an opponent controls dies or an opponent discards a creature card, put that card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. This ability only triggers once per turn

The last missing Praetor is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. I always felt like she was the most powerful of the pack, with the most rememberable art and one of the most unique effects ever printed on a creature. According to the Wizards road map, the last set of the year will be "The Brothers War". Players will stay on the lore-filled plane of Dominaria to experience the fight between Urza and Mishra that could impact the plane and the entire multiverse.
So, long story short: What could the new Elesh Norn look like? Will she appear in The Brothers War or on a different plane? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas. I'll go ahead with a little example:

Elesh Norn, Highest Dread (4WWW, 7/7)
Vigilance
Elesh Norn, Highest Dread enters the Battlefield with a shield counter.
Other Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each creature you control.
For each Opponent, creatures they control get -1/-1 for each creature they control.

[Morganator 2.0]

I doubt the new Elesh Norn is going to be a straight-up better version than the last.

One constant between all of the praetors is that their first ability is on-colour, while their second ability is functionally the opposite, even if that makes it an off-colour ability. Take the original Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. You don't really see -/- abilites on white cards, unless they either have something else that makes them on-white, or it's one of those old cards from before colour restrictions were really in place (like Holy Light).

So each praetor has a theme from their colour in their first ability.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Static buffs
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: Card draw
Sheoldred, Whispering One: Recursion
Urabrask the Hidden: Haste
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: Mana ramp

Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant: Copy effects
Sheoldred, Insidious Conquerer: Aristocrat draw
Urabrask, Heretic Praetor: Exile-based card advantage (have we come up with a slang term for this yet?)
Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider: Counters on permanents

We need to look at the other things that white does. Lifegain is the obvious one, but that's really overdone and isn't what we'd expect on one of the most corrupted beings in the multiverse.

Creating creature tokens while causing your opponents to sacrifice creatures is a possibility, but that seems a little too similar to what the old Sheoldred does.

Maybe something with auras as tokens. Like a beneficial aura that goes on your creatures (similar to Estrid, the Masked) and a harmful aura that goes on your opponent's. That would be cool.

White also has a lot of exile effects, although I'm not sure how that would fit into her first ability. White also has stax effects, but every praetor's second ability is already stax. Stax wouldn't be the first ability.

So yeah, I'm thinking she creates tokens of something. That seems the most likely.

[Slyvester12]

Exile-based card advantage (have we come up with a slang term for this yet?)

I thought this was mostly accepted as impulse draw (in the vein of Act on Impulse and Reckless Impulse, though ironically not Impulse itself).

That, or loot draw (as in Faithless Looting, which I think mostly popularized this as a staple effect in red). I haven't heard this one as much in theory discussions, but it seems to be what a lot of people say when it comes up in game.

In my defense, I hadn't had coffee yet and wasn't thinking straight. Looting is completely different. I do still call that effect impulse drawing and I've heard other people refer to it that way more often than other nicknames. It would be great if WotC just made it a keyword ability tied to red given how many cards have that effect these days.

[anjinsan]

Lifegain is the obvious one, but that's really overdone and isn't what we'd expect on one of the most corrupted beings in the multiverse.

It could be lifegain. Gaining double life already exists on a bunch of stuff, at not-too-expensive costs, so it doesn't seem impactful enough for a praetor. And, what would the other half be? Opponents gain half life? That's powerful in some situations but too narrow. More likely, it would be opponents take double damage, which is a very off-colour effect. Also, this starts to sound very similar to Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.

Maybe something with auras as tokens. Like a beneficial aura that goes on your creatures (similar to Estrid, the Masked) and a harmful aura that goes on your opponent's. That would be cool.

It would, but I think too complicated. We do have new Jin making token copies of things now, but making two different token auras each with unique rules feels... messy. Something to do with enchantments more generally might be cool, though; new Jin does artifacts, instants and sorceries, and enchantments feel pretty white to me. I could imagine something like enchantment-old-Sheoldred, but I'd be surprised, as it feels too similar and enchantments too narrow.

So yeah, I'm thinking she creates tokens of something. That seems the most likely.

This doesn't seem ridiculous. Creating tokens for you each upkeep or something would be reasonable. What would the reverse effect me, though? If it's saccing /destroying it starts to look like Sheoldred again (you get creatures, they lose creatures). You create treasure tokens they sac or tap artifacts would be cool, but seems off-theme.

Counters haven't been done. You could put +1/+1 counters on your stuff and -1/-1 counters on other peoples'. However I think they've pretty much discontinued -1/-1 counters, and this also looks way similar to the original EN.

I see what you mean about stax. Would the first ability then be the on-colour stax and the second the reverse? That'd be a twist (and perhaps too out of keeping). For example: "You opponents can't cast more than one spell per turn. The second spell you cast each turn costs 0 to cast" (or that, but less stupid).

[Potato Chop]

I've had an interesting thought. A couple, actually.

Lorewise, Elesh Norn is the surpreme Praetor - that is, she has taken over New Phyrexia by force. Her exact means are unknown, but it is seen in the latest story ("A Garden of Flesh", https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/garden-flesh-2022-05-03) that she holds a sort of divine right over an army of Phyrexians on New Phyrexia as head of the Machine Orthodoxy, the "church" of Yawgmoth.

The most interesting development in this story was that SPOILER ALERT the nightmare Planeswalker Ashiok was manipulating her mind into a state of dreaming where she created Elesh's nightmare. I'm not going to narrate the story here, but the long and short of it is that now it can be reasonably concluded that under the influence of Ashiok's nightmares, Elesh has developed a paranoia that stems from a foreign sliver of doubt in her own church.

So what do we know about Elesh Norn so far?

• She is the most powerful Phyrexian Praetor with the greatest influence.
• She has a semi-hive-mind connection with the other Phyrexians who preside in New Phyrexia.
• A seed of doubt and paranoia has been planted in her mind.
• She is white-aligned and must (at least partly) occupy that design space.

So what can we extrapolate from this? Well, we can take these properties and convert them into card design aspects.
Elesh Norn's old old character leans into the design area of going wide with her +2/+2 anthem and heavily focuses on her oppressive presence with the more destructive -2/-2. The theme of oppression is a good one - it perfectly represents the weight of her influence, control, and corrupted religion. This theme is seen elsewhere with tax effects (Mana Tithe, Smothering Tithe), spell restriction effects (Deafening Silence, Rule of Law) and -X/-X effects, which are outside of the white color pie. I would also be very surprised if her recent character development didn't make it into the card frame.

So here are my ideas for some lines of text we might see on the new Elesh Norn:

1: Similar style to old Elesh - buff/debuff, focused on amassing a devoted army.

• At the beginning of combat on your turn, up to one target creature you control gets +1/+1 for each creature you control and gains vigilance until end of turn.
• At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, up to one target creature that player controls gets -1/-1 until end of turn for each creature you control. Tap it.

2: Lean into taxation! Similar to the new Jin-Gitaxias though.

• The first spell you cast each turn costs {4} less to cast.
• The first spell your opponents cast each turn costs {4} more to cast.

3: A different take on taxes (static effect):

• Creature spells your opponents cast cost {2} more to cast.
• Creature spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.

4: Something a little spicier. Tokens.

• Whenever you cast a creature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Phyrexian Construct artifact creature token and you gain 1 life. This ability triggers only once each turn.
• Whenever a Phyrexian token you control dies, return up to one target creature card from your graveyard to your hand and each opponent loses one life. This ability triggers only once each turn.

And if anyone wants to tell me that reanimation/disentombing is out of the color pie, go ahead. I'm waiting.

Oh, and one more thought:

5: Combat-centric buffs and debuffs.

• Whenever you attack, each attacking creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of attacking creatures.
• Whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks, it gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of attacking creatures.

Have fun pointing out all the holes and problems in these concepts. Have a good rest of your day wherever you are.

[anjinsan]

I do like the cost reduction/tax thing. It would probably need to be sufficiently different to Jin but also Grand Arbiter Augustin IV basically does that too.

Reanimation is very much White’s thing, especially these days, but those abilities don’t seem quite mirrored enough. Also, again, very similar to this alleged Sheoldred. Possibly something like you create tokens, others sac creatures, but then it’s similar to old Sheo, and if it were on spell cast rather than upkeep it would be way more powerful too.