The release of Gatecrash is fast approaching (I myself will be attending a pre-release event this weekend)  and Wizards have now put up the card gallery of what we can expect to see. I decided to share with you a couple of the ones which caught my eye.

Let's start with some of the nastiest I came across, mostly mythic rares.

At a power rank of 7 and with an ability which will not only whittle down your opponent's library, but leave you with the chance to take over his most powerful creatures without needing to pay their mana cost, the other player will have to focus everything they have on blocking this guy.

Now Aurelia is nasty, allowing you to hammer your opponent with two combat phases! Of course the downside is that to get this Aurelia has to attack and while her power and toughness are good they aren't overly intimidating, meaning she might be vulnerable if the enemy manages to get together a suitably strong flying blocker.

Not much to say about this one. It will just keep getting bigger and bigger, so your opponent will have to deal with it early on else it will quickly grow out of control. The epitome of the Gruul.

Now these aren't the only cards which could prove useful to you, check out some of these others.

This card is very useful for a sneak attack. Build up one of your creatures and then when it is blocked shift them onto another creature which your opponent has neglected. It can also be used defensively if you were to come across a creature with a large number of +1/+1 tokens and the dreaded Trample rule.

Now the guildmages are always good, but it is the Gruul one which looks to me to be one of the most useful. Providing trample for each of your creatures is always useful and of course a cheap 4/4 is always useful in emergencies.

Ever look at an artefact or creature your opponent is fielding and think "Wow that would be useful?" Well now you too can have one. And thanks to the Cipher ability you can use it again and again.

Lifelink is always useful. Then the ability to make opponent's lose life as you gain it is excellent in a life gain deck and when combined with the Orzhov's Extort rule.

Head over to the Gatecrash Card Gallery yourselves and be sure to point out any that catch your eye.