Whatever the reason, the anonymous Magic player did what pretty much any MTG player would bought all the packs and cracked them. Among those cards was the new Elspeth planeswalker. As a huge fan of Elspeth Tirel, and someone who was angered by her untimely death at the hands of Heliod during Journey into Nyx, I’m very pleased to see her return.

The leaked photo was tiny, but it’s good enough to tell the details. Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis is a four mana White planeswalker (2WW) with 5 loyalty counters when she enters the battlefield. Notably she has three abilities which all take loyalty counters, with no 0 or plus abilities. However, this Elspeth planeswalker has an additional mana-activated ability that we’ll get to in a moment.
Her first ability is -1 (remove one loyalty counter) “Up to two target creatures you control each get +2/+1 until end of turn.” Obviously, that’s very solid. The second ability is -2 (remove two loyalty counters) “Create two 1/1 white Human Soldier creature tokens”. That’s a pretty standard Elspeth ability. The final loyalty ability is -3 (remove three loyalty counters): “You gain 5 life.” These abilities are all decent.
But, it’s the Escape ability that’s most interesting about this Elspeth planeswalker. For six mana (4WW) and removing four cards from your graveyard into exile, you can cast Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis from the graveyard. While this is a fairly hefty cost, the most notable thing is that as long as you can pay those costs, you can use her Escape ability as many times as you wish. Not only is it a flavorful ability considering Elspeth’s return from the dead, it’s also fairly useful.
We’ll find out if this Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis is the real deal soon enough. However, I’m hoping she is, as she is a card I would happily play, not just in a regular 60-card deck, but as my Brawl Commander or Oathbreaker, as well.
How would you play Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis?