We’re back with another riveting card preview for Magic: The Gathering (MTG)’s Wilds of Eldraine expansion, and this time we’re showing off the wickedly awesome Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.
Agatha’s Soul Cauldron is a 2-cost colorless Legendary Artifact, and covers a wide array of situations to make it suit most MTG decks. Its abilities are as follows:
You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate abilities of creatures you control.
Creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have all activated abilities of creatures exiled with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.
[Tap] Exile target card from a graveyard. When a creature card is exiled this way, put a +1/+1 token on target creature you control.
Right off the bat, there’s a lot of strong tools to work with. The initial ability to no longer color-lock you when paying for abilities is already really strong, meaning you won’t have to worry about suddenly not having the tools to pay for some big plays.
Note the limitations on the ability, however: you can only share activated abilities of creatures, so none of those “When a creature enters the battlefield…” type tricks can be shared.
On a simple level, however, it’s a good way to ramp mana. If you’re playing a white/green Commander Deck, for example, you can exile cards like Scaled Nurturer and suddenly have any buffed creatures on your side turn into mana generators.
You can also pair it with Coastal Bulwark or Goblin Picker for additional utility, letting you draw cards or, in Bulwark’s case, get more of them into your graveyard for future uses of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.
That being said, if you’re out for blood, Black cards are your best friend- exiling Avatar of Woe avails you of its hefty summon cost, giving all of your buffed creatures the ability to nuke other creatures off the board for almost free.
Since Soul Cauldron doesn’t discriminate the source of the +1/+1 counters either, you’ll also be able to pair it with cards like Biogenic Upgrade or Jugan, the Rising Star to distribute them to multiple creatures- creating a veritable army of high-utility abilities.
Admittedly, there will be some downsides- Agatha’s Soul Cauldron being an artifact means it’s going to soar to the top priority for removal, especially if you’re nuking boards or ramping faster than you should. There’s also the case for its cost- activated abilities aren’t cheap, so setting up the ideal board will be quite the feat of mana.
That being said, the reward for it can be a true threat in Commander games- just look at Distruptive Pitmage, which combined with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron just turns MTG into a game of extorting your opponents out of their ability to even play the game.
Agatha’s Soul Cauldron willl be available in MTG WIlds of Eldraine, which launches September 8th and will be available at all friendly local card stores. Thanks again to our friends at Wizards of the Coast for the opportunity to check out this card.
