MTG Salvation

Back when Future Sight was released, I wrote an article that made some predictions on the direction of Magic design, based on the choices found within Future Sight. One of those predictions was that poison would not be coming back as a regular mechanic. It was then pointed out to me that Mark Rosewater directly said poison would, in fact, be coming back. Consider this my plea for him to change his mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure R&D would do a fantastic job with it compared to its previous incarnation, just like they did with Snow; but – even more so than Snow – I think poison has inherent problems that doom it to failure if it returned on a large scale.

With the release of Future Sight, Wizards of the Coast has promised something they've never done before: a preview of R&D's plans for upcoming blocks long before they're released, or even decided on. But is that what they delivered? Certainly many "futureshifted" cards strongly hint towards directions Magic could go in upcoming sets, but many – in fact most – don't. So which cards are designs we're likely to see more of and which ones aren't?