Magic: The Gathering's Wilds of Eldraine expansion reveals first planeswalker of set, Ashiok Wicked Manipulator

Ashiok Wicked Manipulator may be the only planeswalker in Magic: The Gathering’s Wilds of Eldraine expansion. We know that many planeswalkers lost their spark, but somehow, Ashiok has their back. The gender-neutral planeswalker has some incredible new powers, though whether it becomes game-breaking is up to the playerbase. They are packing some fantastic abilities, especially if you’re a fan of milling players out in fun, new ways.

However, not everyone is going to agree. We’ll examine what Ashiok Wicked Manipulator can do in Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming expansion and what it could mean for your decks in the future.

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What can Ashiok Wicked Manipulator do in Magic: The Gathering’s Wilds of Eldraine expansion?

The Ashiok Wicked Manipulator is the only known planeswalker in Magic: The Gathering’s next set. They are still the stuff of nightmares, but this version of the planeswalker is built around exiling your own cards and potentially punishing others.

Wilds of Eldraine has had some exciting cards, such as Syr Ginger. Here’s what this upcoming Magic: The Gathering card can do in your decks that at least splash in black to the decklist.

Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator in MTG (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator

• Mana Value: 3BB
• Type: Legendary Planeswalker - Ashiok
• Rarity: Mythic Rare
• Base Loyalty: 5
• Passive Ability: If you would pay life while your library has at least that many cards, exile that many cards from the top of your library instead.
• +1 Ability: Look at the top two cards of your library. Exile one of them and put the other into your hand.
• -2 Ability: Create two 1/1 black Nightmare creature tokens with “At the beginning of combat on your turn, if a card was put into exile this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.”
• -7 Ability: Target player exiles the top X cards of their library, where X is the total mana value of cards you own in exile.

As far as Standard goes, you could easily mill someone else out, though it will take some time. However, thanks to Adventure Spells, you could quickly put some high-cost cards in your exile pile and never cast them. That -7 (Ultimate) ability is based on the total Mana Value of all your exiled cards.

For example, if you have 50 mana in casting costs, you could force a player to mill 50 cards right off the top of their deck. With as many ways as players can exile cards, this won’t be hard for Ashiok Wicked Manipulator.

The passive ability for this Magic: The Gathering card seems to read that whenever you lose life or pay life, you would exile cards instead. Ultimately, you’ll need to defend Ashiok so these abilities can keep going. I’m also a fan of the -2 since, as long as you keep exiling cards, those creatures will grow.

I’m curious to see if Ashiok Wicked Manipulator will be a hit in other deck archetypes, such as self-mill and Oracle self-mill decks. Nonetheless, I think it’s a powerful card and could be very interesting regarding the meta.

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Wilds of Eldraine will be released on September 8, 2023, for tabletop and on September 5, 2023, for MTG Arena players. You can learn more about the new role mechanic here.