We’re back at it again with another card preview for Magic: The Gathering (MTG) and this time, we have “Hostile Investigator” from the upcoming Outlaws of Thunder Junction Expansion, thanks to our friends at Wizards of the Coast.

Hostile Investigator is a 4-cost Creature card that plays with the idea of discarding cards and generating Clue tokens through the investigate mechanic.

Hostile Investigator | Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Hostile Investigator (Extended Card) | Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Hostile Investigator (Showcase) | Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast

To summon the Hostile Investigator, you would need to spend 3 mana of any color and a black mana, totaling up to 4 costs and it has a stat of 4/3.

The effect and card text of Hostile Investigator is as follows:

When Hostile Investigator enters the battlefield, target opponent discards a card.

Whenever one or more players discard one or more cards, investigate. This ability triggers only once each turn. (Create a Clue token. It’s an artifact with “2, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”

Based on its description, you can see that this card puts a spin on the discard playstyle as every time when one or more players discard a card, you investigate, generating a Clue Token.

While this effect only triggers once per turn, having some supply of Clue Token, where you can spend 2 colorless mana to draw a card, opens up for more future setups as there will be options to play from your hand.

Worth noting that the Hostile Investigator also forces the opponent to discard a card when it enters the battlefield, always generating a Clue token for the player that summons it.

Hostile Investigator is also part of The Big Score, a special subset of 30 mythic rares with their own set symbol, set code, and frame (on select cards and can also feature in the vault frame), and they are all Standard legal.

And that’s it for this round’s card preview! Hostile Investigator will be available as part of Outlaws of Thunder Junction, the one-hundredth expansion for MTG, available April 19th, 2024. Our thanks to Wizards of the Coast for letting us check out this card ahead of the set’s release!