Magic: The Gathering Core Set 2020 spoilers gave an answer to Esper Control/Mid-Range and Mono-Red Burn: a reprint of Leyline of Sanctity.
Set to release on July 12, MTG Core Set 2020 contains a mix of reprinted and new cards available to play in Standard and other various Magic: The Gathering formats. With a total of 280 cards in M20, the biggest reprint spoiler to drop today was Leyline of Sanctity.
Leyline of Sanctity
Originally printed in the Magic: The Gathering M11 set, Leyline of Sanctity is one of several Leyline enchantment’s that provides a player the opportunity to begin a match with it on the battlefield. As long as a player has a Leyline in their opening hand, they may begin the match with it on the battlefield.
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Leyline of Sanctity’s enchantment is that of hexproof. Protecting the player from spells and abilities, hexproof before a match begins is a game-changer in the MTG Standard format. No longer can Esper Mid-Range or Control play Thought Erasure, or Dimir play Duress. The same goes for the number one archetype in Standard at the moment, Mono-Red Aggro.
Shutting down Burn is a huge deal, especially considering the help the archetype’s received from M20 spoilers so far. In MTG Standard, there is no Mono-Red “destroy enchantment” card. Gruul has Thrashing Brontodon, but unless the Core Set 2020 has one for Red, burn decks are out of luck.
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How many other Leyline reprints that’ll be in the M20 set is still unknown. Having a few more in the set could prove to shake up the metagame in Standard, however, much like War of the Spark did with its release in May.
Magic: The Gathering Core Set 2020 is set to release on July 12, with a pre-release draft taking place on July 5-6. Digital players will get early access to M20 via MTG Arena and Magic Online when it releases July 2.
