One of the revelations about Dragon's Maze contained in the recent magicthegathering.com Arcana article on the much-anticipated third set of the current block's prereleases actually gives us details about a card appearing in the set. Specifically, we now know about one of the Dragon's Maze mythic rares. According to Monty Ashley, rather than appearing in place of one out of eight rare slots as an ordinary mythic would, this land will only appear as the fifteenth card of a booster pack. (You see, in Dragon's Maze boosters, the usual basic land will be replaced with a Guildgate at common frequencies, a shockland at rare frequencies, and this mythic at mythic rare frequencies.)
All of this begs the question: What could this mythic rare land that everyone is getting excited about possibly do? It seems most likely that the actual location it represents will be Niv-Mizzet's illusionary labyrinth, the Dragon's Maze of the set title, and that seems to be "officially" named the Implicit Maze. An MTGSalvation rumor mill thread courtesy of respected rumor hound and global moderator TK-421 has the land's abilities looking like this:
Implicit Maze of Mizzet
Legendary Land - (Gate?) (Mythic)
Tap: Add 1 to your mana pool.
At the beginning of your (upkeep?/end step?), if you control ten or more Gates, you win the game.
Given the amount of alternate win conditions so far in Return to Ravnica block (there are four such cards so far if you count Vraska the Unseen's lose-the-game-on-combat-damage ultimate), it would be disappointing and unfulfilling of players' expectations if there weren't such an effect in Dragon's Maze. The mythic rare land is a really special, epic-feeling card indeed, especially since the only other mythic land ever printed in a normal expansion was Eye of Ugin, which was extremely important to the Zendikar block storyline. This card would be a very good place to put an autowin condition indeed. Caring about Gates allows for a "unite-the-guilds" master plan on Niv-Mizzet's part and certainly would promote the use of a marginalized land type. I really would like to see this land printed. Then again, MTGS's reliable sources, while almost always correct, should be taken with a grain of salt. (Remember the 0/1, damage-proof, flying Spirit from Innistrad block that never, uh, materialized?)
What do you think the Implicit Maze will wind up looking like in card form? Let me know in the comments.
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