Soulless Jailer allegedly leaked for Magic: The Gathering - stats, abilities, gameplay impact, and more

At first glance, the recently leaked Magic: The Gathering card Soulless Jailer seems incredibly powerful. But if you look at it closely, it’s still great; a tad restrictive, but great. The card wording is pretty specific and prevents some frustrating graveyard gameplay from happening.

However, it does not stop all examples of graveyard retrieval from happening.

That said, for 2 colorless mana, it’s an exciting card, and I can see it being effective in several formats, like Pioneer and Commander. It’s hard to say if it will become a must-use in Magic: The Gathering Modern decklists, but I’m leaning towards a 'nope'. It’s still a handy card that can do quite a lot, depending on what kind of MTG you’re playing against.

This card is not an official reveal from Wizards of the Coast and should be taken with a grain of salt.

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What can the leaked Soulless Jailer do in Magic: The Gathering?

Sorry, but the Soulless Jailer is likely not an immediate replacement for Grafdigger’s Cage, but what they do is similar. This new Magic: The Gathering card could be helpful in a variety of prison decks across several formats. But what exactly does this leaked card do?

Soulless Jailer

• Mana Value: 2
• Rarity: Rare
• Type: Artifact Creature - Phyrexian Golem
• Stats: 0 power, 4 toughness
• First Ability: Permanent cards in graveyards can’t enter the battlefield.
• Second Ability: Players can’t cast noncreature spells from graveyards or exile.

So, what does this mean? This will stop some graveyard abilities from triggering, in particular, Unearth.

However, while this says, “Permanent cards in graveyards can’t enter the battlefield”, that text specifically allows for some loopholes. Not all creatures are stopped from entering play from your graveyard.

Why? Because when you cast a creature from the graveyard in Magic: The Gathering, it doesn’t just immediately leap back into play. It goes to the Stack first. From there, it resolves and enters play. For that reason, you can still cast creatures from the graveyard and use abilities like Escape to put creatures back in play.

Escape is an alternative casting cost and, therefore, hits the Stack before going into play. So any ability similar to this will still be able to bypass the Soulless Jailer in your Magic: The Gathering matches.

You can’t cheat cards out of your graveyard, but what if your permanents have alternate cast costs from the graveyard? They can be cast in Magic: The Gathering.

However, this prevents you from casting noncreature spells from the graveyard. For example, Soulless Jailer stops Muldrotha, the Gravetide, from casting noncreature cards from the graveyard.

While this Magic: The Gathering card isn’t overpowered, it’s really quite interesting. It stops very specific functions, like Cascade and Unearth, while allowing others, like Escape, to work as intended.

So what cards does this stop? It stops Cauldron Familiar from coming back into play with its own ability. The same goes for Arclight Phoenix. It also stops some obnoxious combos in other formats. Moreover, it stops Greasefang, Okiba Boss from bringing back Vehicles. It won't stop you from casting Commanders, though. That's still perfectly fine to put into play from your Command Zone.

I can see this card being a useful sideboard card in case your opponent wants to use very particular graveyard shenanigans. I think, alongside certain other graveyard hate cards, it could be an amazing way to set up a prison deck. It will have uses in Commander and Pioneer, but it's unclear if it will affect the Standard meta.