The Talent Cycle was a Bloomburrow sleeper set of 14 enchantments, each with three abilities you could unlock. Like the Class enchantments, these abilities can radically transform the game if you invest in leveling them up. However, a few talents were automatic standouts in Standard and Commander: Innkeeper’s Talent and Stormchaser’s Talent, specifically.

However, some talents go unrecognized. Today, I want to discuss one of my favorites: Gossip’s Talent.

With such a fun name, Gossip’s Talent looks unassuming at first. Surveil is a less popular effect than Scry, and when you think of making things unblockable, you don’t think of creatures with power three or less.

But there are lots of fun creatures with power three or less that do some devastating effects on damage, like:

• Unstoppable Slasher: a quietus effect on a stick (a creature that halves opponent life totals on damage) that resurrects itself when it dies, allowing you to surveil. I’ve had a lot of fun with this in Standard.

• Brago, King Eternal: who can blink all your nonland permanents on combat damage.

• Drana, Liberator of Malkir: who uses her first strike to significantly strengthen your whole squad on combat damage.

• Most creatures with Infect

• Most creatures with Toxic

• A whole lot of other creatures with Saboteur effects. Here are the ones on Scryfall that you can use >>>

One last bonus for Gossip’s Talent is that creatures who deal combat damage get blinked. Not only does this allow you to get Vigilance in Blue (if you think about it), but it also means that you can swing with vulnerable low-power creatures that often populate blink decks, decks frequently criticized for being unable to finish games. Swing your unlockables, blink their effects, and keep the value train going (to a game state that will win).

Bonus Card

March of the Machine: Aftermath was a pretty underrated (and undersold) set and many of the cards printed suffered from the market failure. But Reckless Handling is a Gamble at worst and, in the right decks, can burn every player at the table. Plenty of artifact decks do pinging, and even more have red, so there’s no reason not to run Reckless Handling, whether you already run Gamble or not.