Secrets of Strixhaven Set Review

The mechanics. The set. Let's go.

I think this set is a very cool one. Why bury the lede? Prepare is a great twist on the Adventure mechanic that fits in really well with a Strixhaven set. Repartee is probably the coolest BW mechanic since Extort, and possibly just as powerful. Increment does something really fun with the UG school, cementing it as the 'big mana' style of play colors. And the others, Flashback, Infusion and Opus all feel like they fit their respective takes on the color pairs (RW, BG, and UR respectively).

The introduction of the Avatars as the next Eldrazi style big bads is great, as it presents a nice mechanical counterpoint to the Eldrazi, caring a lot about color. 

 This set has me excited to play with it! 

Part of this is the mechanical overlap I'm seeing that reminds me of another set I really liked: Dragonstorm.

For example: Opus wants you to play spells, but if the spells cost 5 or more, you get an extra bonus. However, if you're slipping in a few Increment cards that also get bigger if you spend more mana, well isn't that just frosting? Or, if you have a deck using Flashback, isn't that pretty cool for some cards with a Repartee ability? 

I feel like WotC has been doing a very good job of presenting 3 color sets without making them 3 color sets, and it's definitely making for a more dynamic game. 

Let's talk colors. 

White
Interestingly, the White Emeritus is probably the weakest of the bunch. It probably doesn't matter much because there's some really good removal in this color and Stirring Hopesinger looks like an incredibly powerful effect. 

However, I should note that the Emeritus of Truce can also represent a swing in the boardstate if you're behind. That's not nothin'. 

In the meantime, there's cool things for Blink style decks, and possibly the strongest Lesson with Restoration Seminar? 

Blue
The hype machine that is the Emeritus of Ideation has got to be a thing, right? Five mana for that suite of abilities and the ability to Ancestral Recall? 

I know it's a terrible idea but I want to be the guy who makes the deck with Echocasting Symposium and Phage. Still, someone should live that dream!

I have a feeling that Encouraging Aviator will be a rockstar in limited. If I am reading it right, you should be able to attack with it, have it become prepared and in response to your declaration of attackers, cast Jump to give another creature you control flying. That's pretty strong.

I think Skycoach Conductor might have a place in my new Flash deck, and I really want to see how the Increment creatures go in my 1000 Shards deck. Future me actions. 

I think I like how Orysa Tide Choreographer can help dig players out of stalemates but I'm not sure it's good enough. Neat concept though.

Black
I feel like this color is the most consistently powerful in the set. It isn't incredibly flashy, but it feels very reliable. 

Even Ral Zarek, the planeswalker doesn't seem over the top. That's a good thing! (Also quite a character shift!)

It also seems like it has the most creatures that can re-prepare themselves, and that's interesting. And every Black creature with Lifelink just got a boost in their stock. 

Red
They are really trying to reward the '3 spells in a turn' deck happen, aren't they? Emeritus of Conflict seems like a fairly good reward. Add in Blue flying creatures and card draw for a little bonus and you can go a long way on very little mana. 

I'm very glad to see a card like Maelstrom Artisan. Land destruction isn't a popular strategy but non-basic land destruction should've been a dial WotC turned often. Keeping greedy manabases in check is a good thing. 

But aside from that card, like Black I feel like this color is reasonably consistent. I don't think they're doing anything new in Red, however developing its reach in the Instant and Sorcery area of the game is good. I also believe there's a nice balance between the creatures you want to run for payoffs, like Thunderdrum Soloist, and the spells you cast.

Green

While Green has a very strong Lesson-giving your creatures a permanent +2 every turn should end games rapidly-I feel like this color might be the underpowered one in this set. There's a lot of land searching, but having a bunch of mana for the Quandrix school is reliant on payoff cards and I don't see much in the way of big haymakers. Generating mana to cast spells to grow creatures means having spells to cast. Similarly, I count 3.5 ways to gain life in the color while I could 6.5 ways (I count pest tokens as a half) in Black. So how effective is it to build into Witherbloom?

I'm not saying that Green is bad; just that it seems like a great support color and not a main reason to go in a particular direction. 

Multi

This is where one would expect the set to shine, and it does. This is where I'm finding the support for going into GB-really a lot of glue for any color combination. I see this especially at uncommon, where a lot of these cards will be relevant in draft, however I'm excited for all of my enemy-paired Liege decks which should get some dynamite creatures to add!

Art/Colorless

The artifacts all fall in the 'workhorse' class for me; small effects you add to your deck to help smooth things out where your colors might be lacking. Nothing seems particularly bad nor exciting. 

The colorless creatures are, to me, all about teasing a future set. Yes, they're supposed to also be payoffs for a 4 or 5 color deck in sealed/draft, excepting The Dawning Archaic, which has some weird combo potential I'm only vaguely aware of right now. But what I really see them doing is taking another big bad slot as the Eldrazi did, as I mentioned before. 

So it's too bad that they aren't very exciting. I don't think they are awful, and they are clearly designed for Commander but...they also aren't very threatening and require a lot of setup for their rewards. 

Lands

I'm always happy to see dual lands of any sort get reprinted, and the new common lands function well for their ability. I think that Skycoach Waypoint is overcosted for what it does though: four (3 + tapping the land) to prepare an unprepared creature is taxing and honestly I think that if the cost had been reduced by one, you'd generate more excitement. 

Petrified Waypoint is obviously a niche card meant to help solve a problem I don't know we have, and Great Hall of the Biblioplex is unexciting as well. 

Still! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this set. I think there's cool things to do, the limited gameplay looks interesting and there's already some cards I want to utilize in decks I already have. Really happy with this one!

Set Review: Lorwyn Eclipsed

Mechanics article. 

Set list here. 

Added bonus; the behind the scenes creation of the Lorwyn Eclipsed trailer!

Let's get cracking with the mechanics.

I'm not sure Vivid is a mechanic, but it's a very intuitive thing to understand and that's always good. 

Hybrid mana feels less like a mechanic and more like a feature. Cards don't do something because of hybrid mana, they just become a little more versatile to cast. Still; good feature to have in any set, and it is a good signal boost for Shadowmoor.

Blight is something I'm definitely interested in, as "drawback" mechanics provide inspiration to do something unusual. -1 counters let WotC turn some different knobs on creature abilities, and they wisely did not include +1 counters to avoid confusion. Dig it.

Changeling & Kindred: Kindred is something I think players have been hoping for since the original Lorwyn, so it's nice to see that codified. Changeling has been around long enough that I don't feel like it's adding anything new to the game but it still finds a good home here.

Finally, double-faced cards offer a pretty neat way to illustrate Lorwyn/Shadowmoor's duality. Do I wish there were solutions beyond DFCs? Yes, but the game is this way now. Might as well howl at the moon. 

However, in the I don't like it column, we have Behold. There are a couple reasons for this. 

First; to do what they did for Lorwyn Eclipsed, the templating on the mechanic changed. The mechanic in Dragonstorm provided you with a bonus if you did it and was a "may" effect. One card in Lorwyn Eclipsed mirrors this: Celestial Reunion. None of the other cards have that conditional on them. Why do that? Now they aren't even consistent within the set. 

Second: with the other new cards, you cannot chose not to pay the Behold cost: either you pay it or in the case of 5 spells (6 if you include Flashback on one), you cannot play the card, in the case of 5 spells you pay an additional 2.

The mechanic is a drawback one and now it feels different: again, I think this inconsistency is a bad thing.  

Set thoughts overall:

This time, I'm finding hard to do color breakdowns. The cards feel "flatter" from a power stance, and not interconnected in the way Bloomburrow cards were-another typal set. Likely this is because Lorwyn Elipsed has a lot more heavy lifting to do, to represent two different blocks. The blatant interactions are just that, but there isn't anything that feels unusual here. Little that catches my eye to do something new or different. 

I'm not saying the set is bad, more that it may take some time to reveal itself for what it is, providing a lot of possible options for players to make decks work in Limited environments. Certainly there's a soft nudge towards making three-color decks, with Vivid and hybrid mana, and at least a couple possible 'go wide' options in goblins and kithkin. 

How it interacts with the larger ecosystem of Magic is harder to predict but my guess is that it doesn't overthrow any old decks or create new ones. Instead, it offers options and gives newer players cards that are good, but might be overlooked by more established ones.

All in all Lorwyn Eclipsed seems like something that doesn't have an immediate right answer or obviously powerful thing to do. There's some cool cards, and the opportunity for a lot of interactions and that feels great. The more the set can reveal itself through play, the more engaging it is. 

Set Review; Edge of Eternities

OK, here we go with the usual official link and the readable one. (Although I feel like the readable one is getting a little more cluttered now). Let's get to it.

Mechanically this set seems to want to go s l o w. That's what I get when I see Station-this is an iteration on Crew which takes longer but leaves the object in question with the abilities permanently; becoming a creature if it's a Spacecraft, gaining an extra ability if it's a planet.

Since the costs for Station activation swing pretty widely, there's two considerations: first, is the permanent worth playing to begin with? Second: if the Station cost is fulfilled, does that matter?

My feeling is that because this is a Limited mechanic we are talking about, the answer is at best, 'maybe'. WotC has gotten pretty good at developing Limited formats, and it does seem like even in colors like White and Red who often get the good small creatures, the 2/2s for 2 just aren't there. Which suggests there will be time to achieve the Stationing. 

But will players enjoy going that slowly? I know that the Aetherdrift format was just not for me and Crew played a big part of how that felt. 

However, some of the speed may be mitigated by the Warp mechanic, which might as well have a big sign on it saying "I'm here to make Station playable". 

Again: there aren't many creatures that have a value of Warp being 2 at common (which is where you will find the enablers for a strategy) -I count 3- which again, suggests a more deliberately paced game.

That said; looking at Warp as a "sorcery with benefits" is probably the best thing and I think it's fairly useful!

Is it enough to make Station worthwhile, though? I'm very dubious. Maybe just play good Magic instead? 

Void is a nice take on Revolt, a mechanic that is just fine and lander tokens are this set's mana fixing-which because they cost an additional 2 beyond whatever you just paid for, suggests again: Slow set. I wish the cost had been 1 because this seems expensive for what it does.

Let's get to the colors!

White
Emergency Eject might be one of the best spells of it's type in awhile. I get to destroy your best permanent AND you have to pay 2 mana to get a land? 

Hell yeah. 

There's some useful cards (Starfield Shepherd) and the traditional "I will cost $30+" tokens card (Exalted Sunborn. Note; I'm not mad that these exist I just wish that they didn't cost an insane amount of money every time.) but not a lot that interests me.

Blue
I do appreciate how innovative they are getting with Blue removal--Desculpting Blast (a very bad name) has all kinds of versatility to it, from taking away their best attacker, especially if it's Stationed, to saving one of your creatures and replacing it with a flier. 

I also dig the flavor of Tractor Beam. Good stuff there. 

Black
Here's a great example of my concerns about Station: Entropic Battlecruiser. That is a 4 mana permanent that I have to tap another creature to turn on. That other creature represents an investment of mana from 1-X, so turning it on is cheap but the larger cost of creating a non-attacking or defending creature is hidden and that isn't cheap. 

Now obviously this is just one example and there are plenty of Station permanents that do something when they arrive. But Entropic Battlecruiser is a rare, and as such is meant to be a marquee card, one that shows off the mechanic that WotC is doing!  And it does so but maybe not they way we're hoping.

One card I do like is Timeline Culler. It's not incredibly strong but it is recurring damage and my experience is that this quality is good. 

Red
Continuing my concerns from Entropic Battlecruiser; Debris Field Crusher. How should we feel about a 5 mana sorcery that does only 3 damage to any target and becomes useful with an 8 power investment? 

I like the flavor of Cut Propulsion, and I think Memorial Team Leader is a great example of the Warp mechanic as Sorcery With Benefits that I was talking about earlier. Weapons Manufacturing looks like a cool build around card. It may not be the best thing (spoiler; it isn't) but it seems like fun!

Green
I am almost always excited about cards like Frenzied Baloth, because they do one thing pretty well; get around countermagic. Anytime I see that quality, I think there's a shot for it in older formats like Modern or Legacy. 

One other interesting thing is that Green is the only color to have Warp on non-creature permanents. Red offers you a creature that can give artifacts you control Warp too but it's a unique implementation of the mechanic that is restricted to this color.

But I don't see a lot of exciting stuff here, aside from that. 

Multi
There's a lot of nice payoffs for the underlying themes of the set; Artifacts, things leaving play, +1 counters. and so forth. One card I'm really excited about is Singularity Rapture, but this is mostly because I have a Szadek, Lord of Secrets commander deck.

Colorless/Artifact
C'mon; Thrumming Hivepool and no Slivers in the set??

There's definitely some big swings here-from Tezzeret to The Dominion Bracelet they do some splashy things....but why aren't they interesting?. Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnaught is a great example. 100 damage to something! AWESOME!

Wait. Why do I need to do that if I am attacking for 20 in the air to begin with? And I need 20 counters on it to get there? 

Land
These...are meh. Sure, the effects look awesome if they are active, but as with many things in Magic, once effects like Evendo or Uthros are available to players--shouldn't they just have attacked for 12 instead? 

It's win more. 

Which...really starts to get at how I'm feeling about Edge of Eternities at large. This set feels really safe. That isn't inherently bad--my friend Noah pointed out that you don't want every set to break eternal formats. And that is true. I've lived through it and the game was either chaotic as hell or "We know the Best Deck and will play nothing else". 

Neither of those are good places to be in. 

However, this set feels dull. I hope it isn't! I hope I'm wrong about the gameplay being slow and not very dynamic. But there are echoes of Aetherdrift, a set that was supposed to be about racing and speed and instead felt like a drag. 

Space travel is an incredibly dynamic notion, rich with storytelling ideas and possibilities!

And in Edge of Eternities I instead see the mundane. 

Commander
There's handful of interesting cards here-for me the best is Patrolling Peacemaker. Getting to do things in response to actions your opponents must take? I'm in.

Uthros Research Craft, Planetary Annihilation, Exploration Broodship, Surge Conductor and the dual lands round out the other cards I'm interested in.

The reprints look fine-nothing amazing but I ain't mad. 

Tarkir: Dragonstorm - Set Review

Alright: we've got the official spoiler list here,  what I feel is a readable list here, and the mechanics article, in case you haven't seen that.  

No sense in burying the lede here; so far I'm a fan of Dragonstorm! I think there's some neat cards, I really like how the mechanics create identity and distinction for the clans of Tarkir, and I think the execution of the shard aspect of the set is handled well. 

There's a couple silly cards but maybe they aren't as bad as I think? Let's talk.

White
One important note is that while Clarion Conqueror is a damn good body at the price, it shuts down everything, including your stuff. Important to keep that in mind during pre-release weekend. But I haven't seen an ability like that in awhile, so I'm glad it's there. 

The Devotees-we'll start with Mardu since it's first-are a VERY smart way to help fix colors in this set. I feel like these are smart design choices that will help people enjoy Dragonstorm and I was very glad to see each one. 

The Flurry ability reminds me that this set looks to be fairly mana hungry-at least in Limited. I'm already wondering if 17 mana sources is correct. But in constructed, I just want to start looking for any spell I can play without paying mana to try and maximize cards like Sage of the Skies as early as possible. That could easily come out turn one with a Lotus Petal, City of Traitors start, and having two of those that early? YIKES.

United Battlefront seems weird and is probably bad, but I want to mess around with it anyway. 

Blue
The Renew ability on Agent of Kotis just reinforces what I was saying about Flurry: having enough mana in your games is probably going to be a big deal. Assuming there's a payoff, anyway. But getting to four mana and then deciding that you want to spend it putting +1 counters on a creature isn't a bad decision, just one that you don't want to blow your tempo on too much.

Similarly, a card like Bewildering Blizzard feels like it could be backbreaking--but you still have to get to six mana to play it.

Did Winternight Stories need to be a rare? I feel like we've gotten other effects like this at uncommon and they've been fine. What's the upgrade here? It doesn't seem THAT much better.  

Black
Avenger of the Fallen looks bonkers. That is all.

I also really like the design and feel of Hundred-Battle Veteran. 

There's a new legendary enchantment, which is wild! I haven't seen one of those (The Sibsig Ceremony) in a long time. 

Red
Channeled Dragonfire is making me rethink whether or not Harmonize is a good ability. Seven mana to flashback two damage is bad and it doesn't matter how you slice it. Reducing the cost to reasonable by tapping a five power creature? How is THAT good? Firebolt came out in Odyssey and it was fine but nobody was going to mistake it for a format defining card. 

It may be that Harmonize has a similar issue that Vehicles in Aetherdrift had. But we shall see. 

Dracogensis is a stupid card and I hate it. It isn't interesting, it allows for very stupid things to happen, and practically screams "Glory of Cool Things". It's particularly insufferable for Commander, the format it's obviously for. 

Green
I'm very happy to see a Craterhoof reprint; the card is too expensive and a lot of fun. 

Is Dragon Sniper one of the best one drops ever? Certainly one of the best defensive ones and I bet will be an all star in the Limited format due to all the flying creatures. 

Multicolor
Here's where the money is, right? Auroral Procession feels like a color pie shift: I would expect this as a G/B card, not G/U. Perhaps this is allowed because of the philosophy of the color wedge in this set? 

I think all of the Sieges are flavorful and interesting, really like those choices. 

Call the Spirit Dragon; this card is stupid and I hate it. It even says "win the game" on it, but then it makes you jump through  hoops in order to do so. This actually makes it worse, since making all your Dragons indestructible should already win you the game. Another card that is particularly insufferable for Commander, the format it's obviously for. It's unfun, and scuttles interaction. 

Digging a little further; there's a lot of very cool things that start around the five mana slot. Again, making me think that the Limited environment might reward players who plan for a late game and have the mana for it. 

Artifact/Land
Ugin on its face reminds me of Sire of Seven Deaths; if you can cast that, you win. And on one hand: OK, big mana spells should do big things! But on the other, if you've ever played against a Sire of Seven Deaths you know how unfun that is. Crushing to any gamestate it enters into, it flips the game around in ways that don't allow it to be unflipped. 

I'm not a huge fan of these designs, but Ugin might be slower and more interactive. We shall see.

The rest of the artifacts are solid: good role players to help us do cool things in the format. I'm not upset about any of it: Mox Jasper will be broken as soon as someone can utilize a (changeling) Shapeshifter with it, but...I'm actually OK with this. It's conditional and most shapeshifters don't have other abilities that keep players from interacting. 

The common and uncommon lands are known quantities, good mana fixers. No notes. 

The rare cycle of lands, these are cool! They are mostly great mana fixers I think: the abilities on them are neat but not broken by any means. Still; don't sleep on them, they have great utility. 

All in all, I like this set and I'm eager to try it out! Will the Omens be as interesting as they appear? Does this set need good mana planning in Limited? How important will Reach be? 

I'm interested in finding out. Let's go!

Aetherdrift Set Review

Here we go! The official list here. A list you can read here. Mechanics article here. 

Maybe it's just the times I'm living in, but this set is not exciting me. 

First, there's the sheer volume of text and mechanics and stuff on everything. Little of it seems meaningful and less of it fun. Let's start with mechanics:

Start Your Engines. I saw a comment on Reddit that said this should have been called Momentum, because then it could be used in any set. Start Your Engines means that if it isn't a racing set, the mechanic cannot be used and I really like this critique. Momentum is less flavorful but more versatile-and there are perhaps more fun ways this could be explored on other planes. 

It doesn't solve the problem though: this mechanic is booooooooooooooring. Like the City's Blessing before it, the mechanic only truly becomes meaningful if you get to "max speed" but otherwise isn't worth much. It adds in a bookkeeping layer and I know that whenever I think bookkeeping, I think fun! 

It also doesn't behave in a way that feels consistent to me: you Start Your Engines only if a Start Your Engines card tells you to, but you only increase in speed if you do damage to an opponent. So once you've Started, none of the other Start cards matter. And can you increase your speed on the same turn you start your engines? It looks like you can, because the trigger is a loss of life but you can only increase your speed once a turn, and 0-1 is an increase. 

Of the 42 cards that care about speed in the set, four have interactions that do not involve Max Speed and one of those is there to reduce your opponent's Speed. 

That is not, despite what the mechanics article says, 'plenty'. 

Worse, this all feels like 'win more'. If I have a 3/3 with flying and haste, what does lifelink do for me?  

Exhaust. Boy, it sure is a good thing that nothing puts +1/+1 counters on cards in Magic, otherwise you'd really have to invest in some bookkeeping to know if you've used an Exhaust ability or not!

And no, it doesn't matter if the Exhaust abilities are good (some are!) the issue is one of clarity. As with Monstrosity and Renown, these abilities don't play well with the rest of the game. And if you've got a Loot, +1 counters don't even go on the creature so now you've got to do bookkeeping to make sure that you don't re-use the ability. 

For a set that is about racing through three worlds, this mechanic is pretty damn insular. 

Vehicles & Mounts. First of all this is a flavor fail: under what circumstances am I supposed to believe that Boomcycle and Bullwark Ox are on competitive terms in this race? 

I didn't talk about Mounts or saddling in my Outlaws of Thunder Junction set review but having played with that mechanic I can say: I don't care for it. It seems like a neat idea, because I could use a freshly summoned creature to use it, but it rarely paid off for me. 

I think this is because the payoff can't be worth the cost. If I'm tapping a creature with 3 power to attack with Caustic Bronco, that's three power I'm leaving behind that can't block for me-and that's after investing however much mana I needed to create the saddling creatures. So then I'd better do something awesome with that, right? 

But that awesome thing can't be game breaking-which is totally reasonable but makes this a cost not worth paying. Since you must Saddle or Crew as a sorcery (at least if you want to attack), any instant speed removal means you're really down-they've taken out your crewed creature AND tapped another to get a bonus. 

They've tried to mitigate that through cards like Interface Ace and Cloudspire Captain so the cost to crew is blunted, but that overlooks the other problem: if I've paid seven mana for a Valor's Flagship, why do I have to do anything else to get that to do it's job? 

Finally, this set just seems overstuffed. 

The artwork doesn't feel consistent-Full Throttle looks like a completely different thing than Spectacular Pileup. Or even Chandra, if you want: Throttle looks like something out of a funny cartoon, Pileup is just a rainbow explosion, and Chandra is referencing Akira, which is such serious business that it doesn't fit together. There's clearly supposed to be some teams (U/B has the haunted racers going) but I cannot suss out who is what beyond U/B. Everything is, sigh, coming too fast and it's all a blur.

It's also interesting to me that the Commanders decks for this set don't utilize any of these mechanics. One Exhaust card, one Vehicle (a reprint), no Mounts, no Start Your Engines. It's as though these mechanics didn't exist: instead we have zombies and energy. Maybe they've never overlapped and I just didn't notice, because the rest of the set gave me plenty to talk about. More charitably, this is a way to represent the planes of Amonket (via zombies) and Avishkar (via energy), while Muraganda gets something I do like: five vanilla legendary creatures! 

I'm serious here: I think that Terrian, Tyrox, Kalakscion, Caelorna, and Sundial are pretty neat. 

I hope it's more fun than it looks. But it doesn't feel very engaging. I'll know more after Sunday's pre-release, I suppose!

Set Review: Duskmourn: House of Horror

The easy link for review. Official link because official. A link to the mechanics of the set for anyone needing a refresher. 

Sigh...look the first thing we need to talk about is Baseball Bat. More than any other card, I feel like this one symbolizes what's wrong with the set. 

Duskmourn doesn't have a consistent feel, and that is a problem. While I understand that the notion is to pull from 80's horror and haunted house films, and that the underlying premise for the set is one where the plane opens doors to other dimensions to lure unsuspecting entities in the feeling of this set is, in my opinion, not only inconsistent but at odds with Magic at large. 

As a game evoking fantasy realms, I am actually perfectly fine with the art deco and noir stylings of New Capenna, and I thought the reimagining of Kamigawa into Neon Destiny was inspired, the steampunk leaning Kaladesh set didn't give me any pause at all. Magic is a very big game, and reimagining things is what keeps it vital thirty years on. 

Unfortunately, Duskmourn feels like it took some shortcuts. Because a baseball bat is a very specific, very iconic thing. It represents a game born in America, utterly disconnected from any fantasy realm at all. It shouldn't exist in Magic, because Earth is not a place in the game. There are no wizards here, no ogres to fight, no rat ninjas to speak of. 

And there is, quite simply, no way for me to get away from the fact that now the fantasy realms of Magic have been diminished by the real world. 

It feels lazy, which is possibly the worst things about it. That item could have been reimagined as any number of things, with flavor text to help illustrate it's importance. An item used by survivors to help them navigate the mansion--think of the Lobo from World War Z (the book). It could have been cool. 

Instead a baseball bat has made Duskmourn, and even Magic itself more mundane. And it comes alongside cards like Chainsaw-which doesn't appear to have been transformed by the multiverse at all- and Fear of Abduction and Unidentified Hovership which pull from the Gray Aliens trope of the X-Files (among other sci-fi references).

I want to be clear: I am not objecting to a card like Break Down The Door; or Bear Trap (bears have long been in the Magic universe), clowns, dolls, or even Saw, as blades of all sorts are part of every universe I can think of-fantasy or otherwise. 

I am disappointed in what feels like a lack of creativity in the name of fan service, or worse, playing it safe so that the audience 'gets it'. 

Whew. That was a lot, wasn't it!

So let me talk about what I like.

I particularly like the enchantment creatures as nightmares but the enchantment creatures as a whole are cool. This feels like SUCH a flavor win, from the ethereal eeriness of the nightmares to the Enduring cycle. Well done there. 

I think the choice to have Manifest expand to the top two cards of your library is a great one, offering players interesting decisions to make. 

I dig on the Rooms: once again Wizards is finding new and interesting things to do with the Enchantment type and I'm all for it. The rooms feel like they are evoking games like Betrayal in the House on the Hill which is a very cool nod.

When Duskmourn leans into the haunted house stuff, I dig the art and concepts there. Meathook Massacre II, Midnight Mayhem, The Rollercrusher Ride--these cards suggest to me an infinite space of unsettlement, where you just never know how large or small it is going to be. I'm reminded of the mansion in the first Resident Evil from 1996, where it somehow contained a frankly bizarre number of horrors-which was the point. 

And at the end of it all, I'm interested in how the set plays. Do I wish the artistic direction had been more creative? I absolutely do.

Do I think the mechanics work? I do, and I am looking forward to messing around with it!

Edit: I'm out of town soon, so the next post will be on Thursday the 26th!

Bloomburrow Set Review

The readable link and the messy one. 

So, in the interest of not burying the lede, I think Bloomburrow is one of the most exciting sets I've seen in awhile. I can't wait to get my hands on it: I think the art direction is wonderful and the mechanics are exhibited in compelling ways. It looks like a lot of fun with cool choices to be made so let's get into it!

Mechanics. I like the ease of Offspring. It's very clear what it does and the uses are pretty obvious. Like most kicker-style mechanics, there is always that tension; should you go for the early boost, or can you wait to get something better? In this case, the something better is tangible and less vulnerable to basic  removal so that consideration becomes more complex!

Gifts are another great mechanic. It's been awhile since WotC has done a 'drawback' mechanic but I really appreciate the execution on this one. Again; what choice are you willing to make to advance your gamestate? What risks are worth it? 

Good stuff.

Forage is the one I'm most so-so about. Because it's reliant on other resources (having a food or having enough cards in the graveyard to use), the reliability of the mechanic isn't there so now we're talking about straight up power. And the power level isn't that high--but that doesn't mean this is bad, either. 

Valiant is Heroic redux. I'm not upset about that but I wish they'd made it so the trigger could happen whenever your opponent's targeted the creature, too. It's also limited to the first time you target the creature; we'll see if they boosted the power level appropriately.  

Expend is the most awkward mechanic to explain I think. Also, it's the most fiddly as you have to keep track of exactly how much mana you've spent. That part isn't fun but it does reward you for doing what you want to do in Magic: cast spells. So I'm not too down on it.

I also like that they've brought back Class enchantments. These are such elegant ways to show progress and I feel like even new players can get them easily.

White
I can't say there are any card standouts here but at the same time, everything seems useful. I do enjoy the tie to Black with things that are triggering on life gain or loss. Also, I dig the artwork on Crumb And Get It. It isn't going to be easy to really stand out in Bloomburrow--this set is packed with great art and I bet a lot of people are going to have multiple favorites. 

Blue
Dour Port-Mage is weird in a good way. I like the synergies that it can represent and the way it can push a tempo-oriented deck. I also appreciate the support for the card there. The use of the Threshold mechanic is a bit odd but I think will work OK for Limited matches. 

Black
Fell might be my favorite artwork in the set. But there are also Bat Warlocks and I mean...bat warlocks, people. The use of color throughout Black reminds me a little of Wilds of Eldraine and I like that. There's a smattering of Threshold cards but I'm not sure that's the U/B theme for this set, especially since it's so clearly about creature types. But as with White: not a lot different but all of it useful.

Red
Festival of Embers looks like a strange one. The cost probably puts it in the Commander realm but the ability is quite good. Flamecache Gecko has a little bit of Burning-Tree Emissary energy and that card is certainly better than it has any right to be. 

Green
Possibly the weakest of the colors this time around-although that isn't saying much. I consider the power level here to be pretty even amongst the colors, and while nothing is leaping out at me, there isn't anything that sucks either. Possibly most damning is that the artwork all seems to come from the same 5 color palate and it makes things look very samey. That's unfortunate, since the art is so good! But perhaps it will stand out better when mixed with the other colors, instead of when I look at all the Green cards at once. 

Multi
I love that there's a Mentor cycle, because I get to add to my Liege decks. I also would've preferred it if Mabel, Heir to Cragflame let you search for an actual card, instead of generating a token, but that's mostly because I would've liked to see art for it. Other than that, this area feels like a good spot for shoring up the themes of the other cards in the set. 

Artifacts/Lands
Again; good stuff-nothing too overpowering but with excellent synergies for players to look for and exploit. 

So all in all, I feel like Bloomburrow may be a home run of a set! Looks like a solid power level, great art, fun interactions within the set and a lot of cool things to do. I have high hopes for this set and can't wait to get it in my hands.

Modern Horizons 3 Set Review

Alrighty, let's get ya hooked up with the official gallery and the readable one.

There's a lot of hype for MH3, and I get why: the last Modern Horizons sets have helped shift metagames across multiple formats. Making a dent in a format like Legacy or Vintage is difficult but the sets still did it, plus it's fun to see what happens when the designers decide to amp things up a bit. 

I see a little less of that, this time around. Don't get me wrong, there are some very powerful effects here! But I don't see cards with the same kind of obviously high power level that I did when the incarnation cycle from Modern Horizons 2 was printed, or Hogaak from the original. 

This might be due to the elevation of Eldrazi and all the things that the set is trying to do to make that work. Remember, this is still meant to be a draftable set! So if you open Kozilek, the Broken Reality, they want to give you the ability to play it. 

So sure, Emrakul, the World Anew is powerful but I doubt anyone's going to use the Madness ability to get that into play anytime soon.

Instead, one thing I'm seeing is a lot of flexibility in the cards being put out here: a lot of cards and mechanics with multiple options, and using energy to help restrain the power level so players can't just go big mana and make games drag out.

Of course, out in the bigger ecosystem of Magic who knows what kind of power is being unleashed. Is Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor going to create a deck akin to the Hammertime ones? Could Harbinger of the Sea make merfolk a legit powerhouse? 

It's certainly possible! I will say that there are exciting possibilities available; affinity decks getting some help from Black and Red, the Allied fetchlands, and a whole new suite of double faced spell/lands. 

The reprints seem solid, too, even for a player as entrenched in the game as I am, there are some good cards I never got ahold of, usually due to cost, as with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, but others just weren't in a play set, as with Nadier's Nightblade. 

So all in all I think this is one of the better sets: it is going to tilt the applecart but doesn't look like it's going to upend it, and offer players access to some cool reprints to boot!

Set Review: Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Got the MTG nexus link, but we got the official one too. As always, I'll start talking about the mechanics, and then go from there. 

The take on Outlaws is certainly better than the Party "mechanic" of Zendikar Rising. While thematically fun I don't see this helping create a subtype deck of Outlaws that starts to take over. Still, I'm all for giving a boost to these kind of 'profession' types as opposed to creature types.

Crimes are a very good thing for the game. Like Landfall, anything that rewards you for doing what you want to do in the the game already has a leg up on any other mechanic. More of these!

Spree feels like the most potentially confusing mechanic of the set. You have to pay the cost AND pay additional costs just to do anything. That is not how Magic cards typically work and it seems like there's a possible 'feel bad' to this one. The card is useless at it's mana value and I don't like that. It also means that players have to think about the card differently, which isn't inherently bad but it does throw off calculations when searching for cards to build decks with. 

For example: if you need a one Blue cost spell to draw cards, then Three Steps Ahead is going to show up in your search for such a card. But it doesn't work like that at all. 

That feels frustrating.  

Plot, on the other hand looks very cool. A way to reward strategic thinking, Plot seems like it might reward players who like to get into long game situations. 

As for Commander's Bounty mechanic? Seems neat! And a way to make multiplayer games interesting without breaking things in half, unlike Exploring the Dungeon or Monarch.

The most impactful news about this set might come from The Big Score subset. I want to say outright: I hate this. 

Usually cards from The List have been cards that were reprints; cool, thematic cards that WotC could find from other sets that just didn't quite fit into the story of this set. Reprints are good and necessary for the game!

The Big Score is taking The List slot in booster packs and of the forty cards, there are three reprints that I am aware of. Which turns The Big Score into an added rarity slot, not a cool way to get older cards into newer player's hands. 

Are the cards good? Yeah, they seem quite good. Is this a shitty way to exploit players? Yes. 

Let's move on.

White
Let's not pretend they haven't been storing the names Bovine Intervention and Holy Cow for a decade. Glad to see them finally get some time in the sun.

Another Round looks like the kind of card that could be a finisher for a deck but I'm not sure what kind of deck that might be.

With all the Mercenary tokens being created, I'd bet Vengeful Townfolk will be a house in Limited environments, and I really like the flavor of High Noon. I'm also seeing more +1 counter stuff than I feel I usually do. But I'm having trouble mustering some excitement for this color; cards seem expensive and don't quite do cool enough stuff.

Blue
Loan Shark is, of course, far too civilized to for this outlaw town. I kinda love it. 

By now certain notions are starting to get a little clearer: I like how Blue and Red have the opportunity to use Plot to gain bonuses, as on Razzel-Dazzler. That's some nice synergy. 

More flavor wins with This Town Ain't Big Enough, too. 

Black
I think Pitiless Carnage has potential. The ability to Plot that card means you can just put it in storage; if the game goes sideways on you or gets deadlocked, there are worse things than sacing a couple permanents to fill your hand and get you going. 

Tinybones, the Pickpocket might be the best card of the set though. It's at least one of the most interesting, offering something in Black that I don't see terribly often. 

Now, this is an idea that only an old player is going to consider, and it is probably bad but Rakish Crew plus the Mercenaries of old might make for an interesting deck. Maybe something to mock up!

Red
Alright, look: Coyote-Roadrunner is pretty great. This is definitely more a 'if you know you know' but I am old enough to know. 

I also really want to like Stingerback Terror but I just don't know that there's something there. 

Green
Ah, there's more +1 counter cards. That must be the GW draft theme. Seems like it could be very strong!

Multicolor
It gets a little weird here. There's a lot of characters I didn't expect to see from places far from their origin. On the one hand; ok that's neat. But on the other; why are they there? Just because?

I'm not objecting; I actually want to know more about Thunder Junction, now. Is it a kind of dimensional wayport? Mos Eisley for Magic? I could get behind that! The story parts I've read are so concerned with the goings on of Oko and company that there isn't much setting being set. 

Artifacts & Lands
They're all fine. There are now a lot more deserts than there have been in Magic: I wonder if there's a deck to be built around that subtheme. I'm probably just hoping against hope but I do like the subtheme of these deserts doing a point of damage to opponents. The basic lands are also very striking, just another thing WotC has been doing very well these past few years.

Conclusion
I'm sure by now it's pretty clear I'm not extremely high on this set. I don't hate it: WotC is good enough at these things by now that sets are usually solid. Unfortunately, at least for me the cards don't seem to be very interesting. Or at least they aren't inspiring!

That doesn't mean this isn't worth playing! There are still plenty of Sealed matches ahead of me and Plot does pique my interest as something to mess around with. Playing the cards always illuminates the experience a lot more than just reading and evaluating Plus, there are a lot of flavor wins; Thunder Junction feels like a place I want to hang out in and see more of. 

But the obvious good cards are obvious and The Big Score leaves a very sour note in my mouth. So until I get to play some games, I'm more cautious about this set.

Murders at Markov Manor Review

Whoooooo let's get to it! The official gallery is here (though I still think it's cluttered and the fact that an "Available In" button is needed confirms what a mess Magic product is like these days) but for those of you who would like a cleaner layout, I've got you covered. Twice even. 

This set is interesting to me and it might be because MKM is the first set where I've noticed how damn many mechanics are being stuffed into sets now. Yes, the base mechanics are there and more prominent but WotC is clearly not worried about using any mechanic they want at higher rarities. 

And while I understand why, I sympathize for any newer player trying to get a grip on things. Magic sets are always stuffed with information and I wonder when they'll hit a saturation point. Clearly, they think they haven't hit it yet. Let's dig in.

Mechanics! 

I appreciate the way they have upgraded Morph with Disguise and Cloak. Vanilla 2/2s for three mana were never amazing, and getting a chance to play with the toys you bring to the game is important. Good job.

Investigate is a solid limited mechanic, a proven contender and thematically great with this set. 

Collect Evidence, I'm realizing, is fixing Delve. Took me long enough! Hopefully this will allow for strong but not broken cards, instead of Delve's "this is trash" vs "this destroys games" power variance. A little wait and see here but positive curiosity. 

Finally, Cases, which I find to be worded very awkwardly. It's the reminder text, honestly, that is throwing me. That they want the solution to trigger at the end step makes sense for a couple reasons: first, thematically that perfect and second, controlling when the resolution can happen allows them to make powerful cards that don't ruin the game. However, something about the way the reminder text goes throws me off; do I have to solve the case if I can? Once it's solved does it stay solved (it does, according to the article but that isn't intuitive for me). Since Cases don't automatically get sacrificed like Sagas do, there's a bit of memory upkeep. A minor thing but still a thing. 

It's still interesting and I'm really glad to see WotC use enchantments in unique ways that other card types just won't support. Now let's talk colors.

White
There might be a deck to build around 2/x creatures. White has always had a subtheme here but with Disguise and Detective themes, there might be an interesting skeleton, starting with Delany, Streetwise Lookout and Assemble the Players. 

Not much else catching my eye here. 

Blue
I appreciate the opportunity that a card like Behind the Mask offers, since it can be aggressive early but defensive later. Similarly, Burden of Proof give both a Blue player or a detective oriented deck some room. 

Coveted Falcon is a very weird creature; I suppose there's a high risk, high reward potential but the list of things to Donate is slim. Still, there's the card for the combo players, right?

Here's where I start to realize that mana is going to be a very important resource during MKM Limited matches. There are quite a few mana hungry cards in the set and it's going to be wise to be judicious about mana use and timing. 

The Blue cards here could be incredible tempo swings, returning permanents to hand. 

Black
So far, Black has my favorite art from the set: Unscrupulous Agent, Outrageous Robbery, Macabre Reconstruction, Long Goodbye, Toxin Analysis (the flavor text helps with that one too!). A whole lot I enjoy!

I appreciate the choice that Barbed Servitor offers the opponent; that should make for some interesting matchups. But the rest of the color seems fine.

Red
I wonder if the artist for Concealed Weapon knows what the word 'concealed' means. 

There is a combo deck involving Crime Novelist, I just don't know what it is yet. But I already know there are infinite sacrifice outlets; so there must be a benefit for generating infinite red mana. A ready-made partner is the new Krenko. 

Speaking of, Krenko's Buzzcrusher is giving me more of that nonbasic land hate I love. Keep it coming.

Vengeful Tracker could be an all star in Limited. Whoa. It might even be a neat counter to Goblin Bombardiers for a turn. 

Green
Jeeze Analyze the Pollen is expensive for what it does. A card for Commander, I suppose. Speaking of: Pride of Hull Clade seems to be that kind of silly fun. 

Will Slime Against Humanity finally let us make the kindred ooze deck we've been thinking about for decades? What? Just me?

Multicolor
Typically, Ravnica sets are where multicolored cards are meant to shine. There's some interesting, powerful cards, for sure. What interests me though is the split cards playing out in wedge colors; I wonder if the next set will be a three color wedge set, a la Khans. It's been awhile since a three color set joined the fray and these cards might help bridge some gaps.

Artifacts and Lands
Not much in the way of artifacts here; Cryptex seems especially terrible but the rest are fine. The Surveil lands-which don't have a nickname yet that I know of-are quite good. I was someone who downplayed the Temples from Theros back in the day, only to play with the cards and find out they were very good at what they were doing. 

These have basic land types and allow for players to add to the graveyard. That makes them significantly better and without any other drawbacks that I am aware of. If you're not sure about them, I say get them.

My feelings about Murders at Markov Manor as a set are that: this seems like a pretty neat Limited set, but an underwhelming constructed one. I could be wrong; with ward 2, it could be that Disguise becomes strong enough for constructed decks. But as a limited set, I think it'll be fun!

    

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan-Set Review

Of course we lead with a link to the spoiler list that we can all read.

I want to start this off with brief look at mechanics and an example of making something harder than it ought to be. 

We have in the same set, Descended, Descend 4/8 and Fathomless Descent. 

All of these things do different stuff and yet use the same root word because that stuff is also similar. 

First, I thought they learned from the Threshold example, where WotC has admitted that it would've been better to have Threshold work like Threshold N, where they list a number and cards care about if you've hit that number or not, instead of tying it to a specific number.  

Why not just have Descend (n)? You can set that number to anything-including X!-and do exactly what they want to do, while still allowing for some flexibility. Plus, you've just reduced your keywords from three to one. 

Worse, they are using different words to do the same thing. Look at Starved Revenant-Descent 8- and Stinging Cave Crawler-Descend 4. 

They can't even get the templating right!

Second, while I understand that making sets thematically cohesive in every way you can matters, it shouldn't come at the expense of clarity. Since Descended is only a triggered state, using that word when you also have Descend in the same set means that you've increased the mental costs for players. 

I'm trying to read spoilers and getting confused. It's irritating because I know they could just write it as a triggered ability. Taking Broodrage Mycoid from the article as an example: At the beginning of your end step, if a permanent entered your graveyard from anywhere, etc etc.

It works exactly the same and it doesn't increase the complications. 

Moving on.

White
I really like the art on Dusk Rose Reliquary. 

Fabrication Foundry is doing something interesting: mana rocks in White are unusual. That it's tied to artifacts makes sense but it's unusual. I was not expecting an artifact subtheme in this set but given the narrative themes, it makes sense. 

What's really interesting to me, so far anyway, is that this might be the first artifact set WotC has done where there isn't a clearly broken artifact. Maybe? The effects are powerful but the costs to Craft is keeping that in check. 

Favorite dinosaur: none. Soaring Sandwing is fine for a common but I don't like the art there. 

Blue
Cogwork Wrestler is a neat card with great art. I like this. Confounding Riddle too, and I have been a fan of effects like Confounding Riddle since I saw Supreme Will. 

I'm also a fan of Tishana's Tidebender and what it does. Feels a little out of place in Blue-the exile part is very White-but I like the toolkit the card provides.

Favorite dinosaur: you know, for a setting that is supposed to have dinos everywhere, there are remarkably few dinos. I mean. Marauding Brinefang will do but c'mon!

Black
Bloodletter of Aclazotz lets Black get in on the 'double damage' train Red has, and I dig it. Also, I really want to try the Bloodthorn Flail in my Madness deck. This seems very strong. 

This color is the first place where I'm really noticing a difference in the art in regards to setting. A lot more cavernous zones, contrasted with pieces like Synapse Necromage or Malicious Eclipse that are a little silly and a city scene, respectively. 

Favorite dinosaur: Sigh. I guess the Vistage of Dread will do.

Red
Huh. I thought Etali had been corrupted by the Phyrexians, but apparently they're still around to bestow favor upon folks. I'm ok with that!

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun looks like another neat card for a Madness deck. 

Favorite dinosaur: why are the dinosaurs here all so ugly! This sand-brown color is entirely lacking in comparison to their cousins in the original set! So I'm giving this one to Dinotomaton. 

Green
It's hard not to look at Glowcap Lantern and not smile. It's cute! 

While I'm seeing some solid cards here, there's nothing catching my eye that stands out. Even Ghalta seems fine, but hardly mind blowing. 

Favorite dinosaur; Easily the Pathfinding Axejaw. Dino with a headlamp? Hell yes.

Multicolor
Some nice cards here to help build up or around for decks. Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar seems very cool, and Quintorius Kand has an ability I've never seen. Should be good for the brewers!

Artifact
Can't say too much flashy here: the Hunter's Blowgun is a nice blend of function and flavor, and I love Throne of the Grim Captain and The Millennium Calendar. 

Lands
It is great that Cavern of Souls is getting a reprint. I like the caves thematically, and more crittur lands are always fun. Sunken Citadel seems like it could be HUGE, I'm just not sure where, yet. 

And that's it. This set feels fine right? I'm not overly excited about anything here but nothing stands out as being bad or good. The basics are all there; now I just need to see how it plays out. Is Craft really a thing? How much of a pain is the "descent" mechanic to remember? 

Also, I don't get much storyline from these cards, and I feel like that's a missed opportunity. The art is outstanding and really does help separate the inner world of Ixalan from the outer but the only story event I can see happening is a bat god creating eternal night. 

Is that the way it ends? 

Still, good job, let's have some fun!

Unreadable Garbage-a Wilds of Eldraine set review

Yes, the title is clickbait. 

Except where it isn't. Here is the official WotC card image gallery. By way of contrast, here is the official March of the Machine gallery. Further contrast: MTGNexus gallery for Wilds of Eldraine, so you can see the difference. 

The official gallery is full of information that offers an incredible amount of noise. Who approved that? 

Thanks, I hate it. 

Now, let's talk about the set, which I'm much more positive about!

White
The color feels very standard this set. Nothing stands out, which is a little surprising since White is supposed to be associated to Auras specifically. But it's not bad, either. I'm just not finding something to talk about-not the art, nor the mechanics; they work, they just aren't raising my eyebrows. 

Blue
I really want Chancellor of Tales to be a bit beefier. I understand it needs to have a mana value of 4, otherwise it becomes breakable, but even with flying, a 2/3 isn't going to make the cut in a constructed deck. 

And Extraordinary Journey seems very expensive. I suppose it's meant for Commander but as an Enchantment, I'm not sure it offers players the board wipe they want. Despite that, it's very in Blue as a color. 

I really dig the tension represented on Ingenious Prodigy. 

Black
There's something obvious that I'm missing about Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator's first line of text, because it's just so weird. There's something that they want to keep us from breaking easily, otherwise the card wouldn't be quite so expensive. 

I appreciate the candy-themed monsters in this color. They are both creepy and fun, keeping the lighter elements of the set while still providing some excellent monstrosities. 

I'm also curious if Not Dead After All is referring to Ayara, Widow of the Realm, letting us know she didn't die in March of the Machine. If that's the case, then I'm more interested in the story of this set than I was before...but I don't see much throughline in other cards. Perhaps a plot detail they will pick up in a future set?

Red
I've got a Rats deck and I'm keeping it around for now because of what Red is doing in WoE. We'll see how it plays out.

There's a few interesting takes on Red's abilities-Food Fight for example-but I'm really struck by the art for the color in this set. I feel like they really got to capture some great stuff. I can't pin any one point down, but overall I like what's been done.

Green
Feral Encounter is a weird card. It wants to do a LOT, but I don't know that it's worth it.

But the rest of the color seems to be falling into the same place White is: everything is fine, but nothing is standing out. 

Multicolor
In WoE, the multicolor stuff feels like icing on the cake. There to illuminate draft archetypes, spotlight cool characters, and reinforce the set's mechanical themes. I actually like how this is handled. 

Artifacts and Lands
Actually I can say much the same here as I did about multicolored cards. Nothing truly amazing, but all well blended into the set overall.   

Overall; I like how they've decided to treat Auras in this set, working around the card disadvantage aspect of them. I don't appreciate the sheer number of them: the execution feels very inelegant. Still, there's some positives there. 

I welcome back Adventures, those were always neat. I like the incorporation of different sorts of fairy tales, not just the reliance on Authurian legends that WoE brings. That really expands the world in positive ways. 

I'm not so big on Celebration. The "nonland" clause makes me think it just won't be helpful as often as you'd like. Similarly, though Bargain fits very nicely into much of the set, it is a drawback mechanic that has me wondering if the Bargains are worth paying for. However, there are already Aristocrats decks out there, so perhaps something in Black or Black/Red could be really intriguing in the constructed realm.

All in all, I like where this is going and am looking forward to the pre-release!

March of the Machines-Set Review

The new set is up, and here! Let's talk about it.

First: New card type! I think that Battles are a cool thing but I'm not sure it actually encourages interaction-at least so far and certainly not in duels. 

In the case of Planeswalkers, players are forced to manage them in some way because their suite of abilities, if not managed, will take over a game. The Battles don't have that kind of power at this point. 

Second, the hidden cost to get the full benefit of the card is very real: the lowest count on Battles is three the highest seven, so now instead of reducing your opponent's life total by that amount, you've effectively given them a free wall. Are the ETB benefits of any of these Battles strong enough to make them worth it on their own? I'm not sure. 

In multiplayer, though these cards might have a real chance to shine and change the politics of the table. That IS cool and I look forward to what that will mean. 

The only other new mechanic is Backup and I have to say: I really like this. The effect it offers provides interesting strategic options which is always a plus. 

Incubate isn't exactly new but what I will say about it is that it's a mana sink, so it's probably well suited to the Limited environment. 

White
Sunfall might be the big removal spell White could use. Costing one less than Phyrexian Rebirth is a thing, and having a creature after it's over is a great way to close the game out. 

The Phyrexians seem slow in this set, largely the result of the Incubate mechanic I suppose. WotC has been creating very good limited environments lately though, so I suppose it's worth seeing things in action. I do like the Phyrexian tribal support overall-Norn's Inquisitor and Phyrexian Censor look like important keys for an actual tribal deck. But I'm not jazzed about what's here-it's not bad, it isn't exciting. 

Blue
Corruption of Towashi is what I was thinking of when I said the Phyrexians were slow. Paying five mana to create a token that one has to pay two more mana into so that a 4/4 creature and a card can be drawn seems like a Bad Deal. Seven mana for a 4/4 and a card? This is a strategy that seems like it needs a lot to go right. 

Zhalfirin Shapecraft seem like one of the more interesting Blue "gotcha!" spells to appear in a bit. Making anything that's a 3/2 or less better for only two mana really has some potential.

A small world glitch: the mechanic 'Stun' does not appear in Kamigawa or Neon Dynasty to having that be the Battle's ability feels weird. Stun was a mechanic from Dominaria...so what gives?

Black
I'll start with another world glitch: why does every other creature infected with the Phyrexian oil end up understanding a greater compleatness, and Ayara, Widow of the Realm is somehow unaffected? 

After that, there's some great art here: Mirrodin Avenged, Ichor Shade, Breach the Multiverse...just very cool stuff. However, the cards themselves aren't shaking things up for me. Nothing here seems bad, right? (Except for Scorn-Blade Berzerker but...) Nothing seems great, either. 

Still, Scorn-Blade can go in my garbage cube, and it's been awhile since I've had an addition!

Red
Well I was bummed that Etali got compleated! I love that dinosaur! Also, there are dinosaurs again!

Invasion of Karus might be the a playable Battle-the ETB effect is pretty good, the mana cost is within tolerance and the follow up isn't bad. I'm not sure if the flip effect is worth the squeeze but it's worth consideration. 

Bloodfeather Phoenix might fit into my Phoenix deck and that one is right on the edge of maybe tier 1.75 playability! So I'm interested in that. 

I do wonder when Red will have a critical mass of 'play from exile' cards to make it a force to be reckoned with on Blue's level. It's already starting to happen since there's a Red storm deck utilizing Galvanic Relay. I don't believe Wrenn's Resolve is the critical mass card to do that but you know it's coming.

Green
There are more dinosaurs! 

Looks like Green is getting the 'holy shit' Planeswalker this time. Wrenn & Worldbreaker can arrive turn 2. I'm sure that won't cause any problems whatsoever. 

It took this long but I've noticed a small milling theme in this set. Nothing too obvious but I've read that the next Ixalan set is supposed to take place underground-a "Journey to the Center of the Earth" vibe and I am hoping that mechanically, this is a link to that. 

Multicolor
The partnership cards are big and dumb. That is a compliment, of course; we should have big and dumb in the multicolor portion of the set where it's clear that the Phyrexians are going to get their asses kicked. Most of the cards are signaling Commander, but Errant and Giada and Baral and Kari Zev have some potential in other formats! They're cheap enough, have some evasion and generate value that can rapidly become overwhelming. 

After that, Marshal of Zhalfir could be a fun lord or a new Knights deck. There's already a White Knights deck (ha!)-splashing Blue has a lot of benefits. Add that with Invasion of New Phyrexia and you could really close a game out. 

Artifact
Whoa! For a set called "March of the Machines" this deck has fewer artifact cards than they've done in a long, long time. I'm glad the Sword cycle is done but there isn't much to talk about here. I suppose things might've looked different if the Phyrexians were going to be winners, but since their plane is getting winked out of existence...

The lands are all commons, and...that's it!

Overall impressions
Well, for something that was hyped as 'changing Magic forever' March is underwhelming. A new card type is cool, but I am wholly unconvinced regarding its power level. Is there a lot of potential in Battle cards? Of course. 

But look at how long it look WotC to make enchantments truly interesting, with the advent of Sagas-or on the other hand, how long it took for them to produce broken Planeswalkers (Jace the Mind Sculptor) or equipment. Umazawa's Jitte.

Phyrexia: All Will Be One review

 As per usual, we have the set list here. The commander lists are here, but since there's only 16 new cards there, I leave it to the reader to evaluate those. Let's get going!

To begin with I want to say that I don't find Toxic to be a very compelling mechanic. For any creature with power greater than 1, the effect is almost always competing with regular damage as a win condition and this makes Toxic seem pointless. A 2/2 with Toxic 1 kills me at the same pace on both poison and damage axes. 

The attempt to make Toxic relevant gets ugly for me with all the cards that provide a bonus if an opponent has three or more poison counters: if I'm able to attack for 8 damage in the air, why do I need poison to win me the game? If I'm able to get 3 poison counters on someone, how much work is it to get the last 7? 

It all feels like it's at odds with each other. It also feels at odds with the set's story-this is the set where the Phyrexians have the upper hand. Poisoning the flesh is what they do-why isn't that easier?  

The other mechanics-a new take on Living Weapons (For Mirrodin!) and Proliferate- are fine. Proliferate will make a lot of Commander players happy that's for sure, and it absolutely takes the sting out of playing Compleated Planeswalkers. Oil counters are a non-mechanic to me: there is nothing distinct about them to separate them from Experience counters or any other non-+1 counter. It's a thematic thing, nothing more. 

White
The Phyrexians are kicking the hell out of everyone else, aren't they? 

I'm already noticing a tension in this set, between using Oil counters, Poison counters and wanting artifacts to matter. There's a lot happening here and I can't help but wonder if there's just too much? Or maybe it's just right and it feels like a lot because of how it's manifest: Kemba, for example, cares about artifacts...but only equipment. Plated Onslaught outright has Affinity for Artifacts and is portrayed as a Phyrexian card. 

I suppose that's what is troublesome to me: On the artifact planet, how do we really distinguish between our heroes and our villains? Mechanically, that is. 

Blue
I like what Blade of Shared Souls is doing, and I expect someone to break Encroaching Mycosynth. 

I hate Ichormoon Gauntlet. Mostly because I tire of the interactions of Planeswalkers and I don't think enough is done to keep the card type in check. Do we really need to give that card type the ability to boost itself for free? 

Black
Of the cards here, Drivnod, Carnage Dominus is the first "ooo, wait" card I've seen. Death triggers haven't gotten a lot of attention but here's something that, as far as I know, does something new in the game. That's interesting. 

8/3s for five aren't usually great but if you can get an indestructible creature for 6 mana then that might be worth it. Plus, you can team Drivnod up with Vraan for fun times!

Huh. Looks like I was a little mistaken about Toxic; we have a creature that has a Toxic value equal to its power in Sheoldred's Headcleaver (what an awkward title!) 

Red
Here's another place where the set's tension clashes: Bladegraft Aspirant is a Phyrexian creature type but it cares about equipment, something I thought the Mirrodin faction cared about. That's why keyword the riff on Living Weapons "For Mirrodin!" is...for Mirrodin, right? Furnace Punisher is another: if the Phyrexians are all about corrupting oil that changes their enemies, why does Furnace Punisher want to see basic lands? 

I do think Blazing Crescendo is one of the better pump spells we've seen in a long time. Very aggressive, allows for you to dig further and cheap: there isn't another spell that I can think of that comes at such a good rate. 

Interestingly, Red is the only color that has no interaction with Poison counters at all! Blue has a couple and is pushing proliferate; Red has a couple proliferate cards but nothing mentioning Poison! I assume this is because of story reasons but it is still odd. In New Phyrexia, Blue/Black/Green were the poison colors. Here it seems to have slid into White/Black/Green (some Blue). 

It's a dramatic shift for story purposes but I'm not sure that it flows well from what was established on New Phyrexia.. 

Green
Interestingly, here is the place where Toxic gets a boost. But, the mana value on all the cards that use Toxic to end the game quickly are very high. Examples: Tyrannax Atrocity and Rex, and Paladin of Predation, Basically: Sure you might get to end the game in two attacks but also you just paid 7 for that and if you aren't in a position to win by then, that's on you. 

None of this inspires confidence in me though. Players who have infect decks aren't going to benefit from any of this with the exception of Venerated Rotpriest. 

It's fine, I suppose. The Limited environment will be happy and that is really the point. 

Multicolor
I want to get this out of the way: No, I don't really like that Atraxa, Grand Unifier mentions a new card type that won't exist until March of Machines. This feels like the weakest form of hype: a way to get players to hyperfixate on a NEW THING WHAT COULD IT MEAN while ignoring that this card is just a wordvomit of abilities that are kind of insane. The original Atraxa is insane and this is even worse, since it effectively refills your hand on top of everything else.

Is that good design? I don't think so. It'll get people hyped though. 

I am wary of Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler's design. They did this kind of thing a lot during War of the Spark and it gave us some of the most oppressive, unpleasant Planeswalkers to play against, ever. Same thing with Kaito and the Eternal Wanderer. Kaya is less of a problem because that mana cost is outrageous but I don't like that, either. All of these constant effects on Planeswalkers make me very suspicious and eat into design territory that I wish they did not. 

Artifact
Mirran Safehouse is some unusual card design! I don't know what we'll do with that yet but someone's going to break that card. 

Still, if there's any point in the set that shows that the Phyrexians have won Mirrodin, here it is. Two Myr, the Prophetic Prism and the Sword of Hearth and Home are all that seem to be left of the plane. I don't even know if Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut is Phyrexian now. 

Though as a complaint: Why is Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch only available in the Commander product? This character seems important! 

I had to read Soulless Jailer several times and check the explanations for how it worked to understand how it works.  If it wasn't an 0/4, I would even say that it has potential! There are better options to do what it does, but redundancy or availability for budget players are all good things.  

Land
Now it's always good to get a reprint of lands that are in demand. The reprints of rare lands from Scars of Mirrodin are more than welcome, and I hope that this continues. Fundamental game pieces shouldn't be expensive to acquire. 

The spheres are a new thing for Magic and...I question their existence. Mostly because: what is the connective tissue that ties them together? Will they-or should they-exist on non-Phyrexian planes? The rare ones seem explicitly tied to Phyrexia via abilities (3 of the 4 mention Phyrexian related things the last artifacts), the commons via names. There's nothing wrong with that, unless of course one of these cards explodes, becomes necessary for a deck and now cannot be reprinted because Phyrexia isn't a place we can go anymore.

Or, with March of Machines, becomes the thing and spheres are all we're getting for the next year. Well, all we're getting from MoM. And hey, if that becomes 'the villains win but are thwarted for now' set, then cool.

But with the only other in-universe set we're getting this year being Wilds of Eldraine, followed up by The Lost Caverns of Ixalan in 2024 (I can see spheres here, maybe) I don't see this land type being expanded on for now.

They don't suck though! 

So what do I think about all of this?

Well, I think it's ok, but with a caveat. I'll be interested in reading about why they made the choice to have Toxic instead of Infect as a mechanic, and certainly the design stories are ones I'll be looking for in the next few weeks: Phyexian mana, oil counters in Red but no poison, Spheres, and so many other choices made that I'm very curious about.

In the end though, this seems like an interesting set that wants to live inside itself and not do a lot of interaction with the external environment. There's a meaningful miss here: The Brothers' War or Dominaria could've had oil counters incorporated into it, for example. This kind of dripfeed could have been put in either of those sets (or both!) to help illustrate the rise of Phyrexia (DU) or the initial infection (BW). That's the caveat: this set feels very insular and its tendrils do not seem to reach into other sets. 

At least, not yet. 

The Brothers' War Set Review

 Alright, the spoiler list is out and here we go!

I've been pretty down on this set but a couple things I have liked, mechanically, has been Unearth and Prototype. 

Unearth fits perfectly with the Brothers' War storyline, and Prototype is not only a sort of reverse Kicker mechanic but also meshes well with the story overall!

They did good with these and I'm glad to say so. 

What they did bad is something that is very much a "my headspace" thing BUT: artifacts with only colorless casting costs should all be grouped together. They messed with how sets are ordered by adding cards that have no color in the mana value but have an ability/alternate casting cost in with that color. 

This mucks up how I sort cards! I have a lot of Magic cards and have been sorting them a certain way for a long time, using the number of said card to help subsort within my sort. Putting artifacts in like this messes with that and I do not like that. Do not. Alright, I'm done.

The dynamics of The Brothers' War is odd, since this set is ostensibly about two brothers using powerful artifacts to wage war, snowballing a verdant land that wants nothing to do with them or their artifacts. 

So W/U/B/R all have a strong artifact tie-in, while G should sit out on its own with land themes and minor artifact ties.

White
I think my favorite card here is Soul Partition. Feels very in theme for the color, as an instant offers the kind of response window you want from this card, and the taxation theme is absolutely on point. Really well done.

Blue
Well, I guess Teferi is taking the crown as the new Jace. Let's print a million of those!

Seriously, why have the major plotlines of Magic centered a Blue mage? Why isn't Jaya or Vivien saving the multiverse? (Jaya being dead now that's more of a challenge but still!)

Black
Once again, we have Jeremy Wilson with the awesome art. You won't even have to guess. 

I do like Hostile Negotiations. That's a cool take on Fact or Fiction! I don't know if it'll make as big an impact but the potential is there. And it's certainly a fun subgame. 

Red
I wish cards like Draconic Destiny said "when this creature leaves play" instead of "when this creature dies" because it would help make exile effects less annoying. Cool card though.

I'd also like to see more land destruction, now that Fall of Kroog is reminding me of that. Except I'd like it to be non-basic land destruction. Reward us for basics!

Green
Audacity is not bad as a fixed Rancor. Seems absolutely playable and useful in any deck that would like more copies of Rancor.

I would like to know why Green, the anti-artifact color has more artifacts with a colored activated ability/association than any other except White (they're tied). 

Can they think of no way to bring artifacts to green? Should they? 

Gold
I got nothing here. They're all fine, I suppose? They don't stand out as doing something particularly awesome. 

Artifact/Land
This is where I expect to see some cool stuff! The set is about artificers doing artificer things! Let's GOoooooo o o   o   o     o

Hm.

For me there are two interesting elements here: the Worker cycle, one for each Urza's land, and The Stasis Coffin..which is also a callback. 

How is it that the artificers set has no innovative artifacts?

I don't want to be grumpy about it. I do think the Urza Workers cards are neat and the Stasis Coffin is interesting! But this was the area where The Brothers' War should've made its case to justify the set and I'm not seeing it. 

Ah well. At least the rest of the painlands are back, so manafixing is in order, and Demolition Field is more nonbasic land hate. 

But there we have it. The Brothers' War, the definitive telling of a story that set up the entire Magic universe feels like a skippable set. I wish they'd taken more risks but I suppose this set just wasn't trying to shake things up that much. 

Dominaria United Review pt 2

 The links: Full set, Commander.

White
Anointed Peacekeeper is the sort of card one hopes to see in the color-but at 3 mana, it's probably going to have a similar impact as Elite Spellbinder did. Unfortunate, because I do think the taxing mechanic is cool. 

I'm struggling to find something interesting in White after that, a card that isn't immediately obvious as a powerhouse. There's plenty of cards that are fine or appropriate for Limited formats. I do think there's at least one Enlist creature that's going to make my Trash Cube, so that's fun! The Trash Cube hasn't gotten a lot of love, lately.

I think the art for Prayer of Binding and Captain's Call are interesting and distinctive. That's cool.

Blue
I like the space that Academy Loremaster is working in. That's a very Blue space, and suits the color well.

I've read some people are down on Defiler of Dreams but I don't see it. It's a flier with an incredible suite of abilities. What's not to love? 

I am quite surprised by the introduction of Impulse! That card hasn't been Standard legal since Visions, which means any format made since Modern hasn't touched the card. Yet I also think that Impulse is a very good card-powerful, but not overmuch. Tolarian Terror looks like it could become a new Gurmag Angler. Maybe even better than Angler, since it has some built in resistance to removal and can be cast before a Murktide Regent without impacting the Regent's cost. 

It has finally dawned on me that with Protect the Negotiators, WotC is really feeling confident enough to let some unusual art styles represent. I like it and as a spice to the regular cards, it helps create nice contrasts in the work between the traditional art (which is still good!) and the unusual stuff. One could make an argument that the Sagas did this already but I would say that they helped pave the way, because the card type was doing something unique. 

Black
The new Braids looks out-freakin-standing. 

But Extinguish the Light is a card that worries me a little. Three mana Planeswalkers have generally been a place where they get overpowered easily. I'm hoping that Extinguish is more of a 'we're still keeping on this, and Liliana has been printed in this set' than a 'we're gonna give you SO MANY 3 mana Planeswalkers!'. 

I'm excited for The Raven Man and it is 100% because of my R/B madness deck. I know it's a payoff card, not an engine but that payoff is pretty dang useful for an aggressive deck. 

Red
I was talking about Defiler of Instinct with a friend and it could have some real legs. Goblins are cheap and there are Kobolds again. It could set up situations where you get some payoff from DoI right away instead of needing to untap, and that's not something to sniff at. 

I wonder how Meira's Outrider can be in this format! The possibility of getting a 4/4 body that does five damage to your opponents when it ETBs is nasty. But even if you only get 2 damage off, this is a fairly good deal for five mana. That it can block fliers is also a nice payoff for that mid-late game.

Is Shivan Devastator really a Mythic? It isn't particularly complicated, is isn't cheap, it doesn't have anything particularly amazing going for it. It doesn't even have much hydra aspect to it-it doesn't grow on future turns, or shrink by removing counters in lieu of taking damage. It's just a big dumb idiot. 

Green
Hexbane Tortoise, there's the shitty Enlist card I've been hoping for! 

It's probably just me, but Territorial Maro resembles Matt Ryan as Constantine.

There isn't much in Green for me to glom onto either, though. As with White, there is plenty of functional stuff, things to make Limited work, but there isn't a card that seems exciting. That's unexpected, since I would think Green would benefit from Domain being a mechanic. 

Multicolored
In a set called Dominaria United, this is where I'd expect to see some flashes of greatness.

Instead, I get a lot of role players. That isn't bad though! Cards that can step in and help boost a deck from mediocrity to 'maybe good!' are important. Magic decks aren't just sixty cards acting independently, you know?

So I can appreciate the design of cards like Queen Allenal of Ruadach or Rivaz of the Claw, while also not seeing where they are pushing on the game in a new way. I dig on Astor, Bearer of Blades as a card that fits well into my Hold The Heathen Hammer High deck and look forward to giving it a try!

The big exception to this is Meira, Scholar of Antiquity. The two most anti-artifact colors netting a card that wants to use artifacts? Feels weird and is likely nasty, especially since the abilities don't require mana to use. 

Now ordinarily I'd probably shrug this card off as a weird 'WotC doing things I don't get to fill a slot' thing, however the next set is The Brothers' War. TBW is predicted to be a heavy artifacts set, because of the storyline it concerns itself with-the conflict between Urza and Mishra, both artificers. 

So a card like this could be the sort of thing that gives Red/Green something to do in The Brothers' War aside from just Hulk Smash. 

Colorless/Artifacts/Lands
Another 4 mana Karn that does dumb things. Woo. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the visual direction artifact creatures have taken. These feel futuristic in a set that should have a classic fantasy feel. But I'm not gravitating to anything here.

The lands do some interesting things this time. Painlands are fine color fixers and common lands with basic types are going to give Limited formats a needed boost, but it's Thran Portal, Crystal Grotto and Plaza of Heroes that grab my attention. Plaza for being the new Commander staple card, Thran Portal as a new City of Brass and Crystal Grotto will be, as the scrylands from Theros were, underrated. 

Commander
I am not a Commander expert, so with that-

Emperor Mihial II is a nice boost for Merfolk, Moria Gravyard Haunt and Activated Sleeper have cool things to do, I like The Reaver Cleaver and even Rosnakht a little,  Iridian Maelstrom is a card long overdue, and the update to historical figures is fun, even if they aren't always good. 

I don't know that these cards are great and I'm not seeing some impressive/necessary reprints. They're meh-meh to me. 

So: Regular set-seems fine. Commander set-seems eh.