Sets (OTJ) Outlaws of Thunder Junction Previews

Soo.... I really like this card!


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"Legion Foundry" {1} {R}
Artifact
When Legion Foundry enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target.
{2} {T}, sacrifice another artifact: Create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact Creature token.

It's an over costed, sorcery speed shock that can convert your food, Chromatic Star or any other dinky artifact into a 3/3 repeatedly! I'd love to play it with Gilded Goose or Oni-Cult Anvil

Came here to post this as well, this seems Riptide Lab-core as hell and it synergies with 1/4 of my Cube in one way or another. Love it to pieces already, only wish it could also sacrifice itself for the effect.
 
This maybe naive, but it really seemed like the power (and toughness) creep happened when they started to push ETB ability creatures (Mulldrifters). When most of the important cards are mulldrifters, you can/have to push removal hard to keep up. So removal has been power crept basically every set and so Baneslayers need to be power crept every set too. If I can (almost) unconditionally kill anything with a 2-mv removal spell then the risk-reward of Baneslayers in magic shifts tremendously towards needing to have ultra-beefy boys to justify the mana cost disparity.
I think it's less that the power level of removal has necessarily gone up and more that people are running more removal due to how must-answer the creatures are. Which of course means that less immediately impactful creatures get squeezed out, pushing the power of threats and making it so people need to run more removal to deal with things...

My current design theory is that the removal in a format should be slightly cheaper than the major threats. This comes from looking at a bunch of Constructed stuff, where the threats tend to cap out at +2 MV over the most prevalent removal unless they're instantly winning the game or being cheated out. You can increase the spread if your format is lighter on removal or if the removal's really conditional, but in general? The two should party together.

...

substitutesynthesizer.jpg


Substitute Synthesizer - {2}{U}
Artifact
When ~ enters the battlefield, scry 2.
Whenever another artifact with mana value 3 or more enters the battlefield under your control, create a Karnstruct.

I feel unnecessarily targeted by this card. :p
 
Came here to post this as well, this seems Riptide Lab-core as hell and it synergies with 1/4 of my Cube in one way or another. Love it to pieces already, only wish it could also sacrifice itself for the effect.

Sacrificing to itself would've been very cool. Then it'd be a build your own Twinshot Sniper variant as well as an engine.

Regardless, I may run this over Pyrite Spellbomb. I like how it synergizes with:



and it's easier to recycle as a shock with a Welder. The 2 mana upfront cost over the 1 and 1 of Spellbomb might be significantly tougher on sequencing, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.
 
hasn't been a multi-format all star for a while. The question is how good it would be in standard, I guess playable but not back braking.

I will not participate in the power creep talk although I will admit I like a little power creep if it is done very slowly and in a tasteful way. So no Universes Beyond Marvel Iron Man cards.

But I actually think Counterspell would break Standard. It is still one of the best cards in the game. As an example it is completely uncutable from any blue Duel Commander deck which has access to most cards in the game but not stuff like Mana Drain.
 


This card speaks to me. Besides having a really cool name and art while also mentioning Omenpaths to players who might not be too familiar with the story, it’s also a build-around avocative card.

The lands enters tapped. How about finding some without downside then?


You get five lands over five/six turns. How about adding a combo to your deck that a single card can setup both?


There’s also the option to add some value lands that you might not want to play normally but can still be valuable if you get to cheat them out.
 
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Substitute Synthesizer makes me want to dump a hand full of Frogmites and Myr Enforcers like the good old days.

Omenpath Journey is underwhelming on turn 4, but it definitely seems like a card to ramp to Eldrazi with.

Pest-Control-showcase-BIG-265.jpg

Cool answer to the excess of tokens we have these days.

Lotus-Ring-BIG-265.jpg

This is a decent equipment with a ramp option for my Eldrazi. Not sure how that ring fits on an Eldrazi's finger, but I can worry about that later. Combo potential with equip cost reduction.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
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Huh, this card has civilization, a custom mechanic I'd been using in my cube for a bit now.

I think this card is bad, it's a 3 color Squire that pays you back on your upkeep, but huh, neat that me and wotc are thinking of the same stuff
 
Believe it or not, the little creature is a living map to the multiverse with lifetime updates. It shows every plane, every omenpath, and it updates in real time.
Google Maps. Are Vraska and Jace stupid?
(What you said lines up with some Reddit thing I saw, so I think you're right.)
 
I don't get it. The Omenpaths led to some vault that has the lovechild of Crash Bandicoot and Bulbasaur inside? Who drew that ugly thing? What's the lore here?
Hey, I think he’s Cute! Not every artist does a good job drawing him, but that’s true of every Magic character.

Lore-wise we don’t know who Loot is beyond what Onder said— he’s a baby of some sort with a map of the multiverse in his head who was locked away in the Fomori Vault under suspended animation for some nondescript amount of time. We don’t know what species he is or where he comes from. He’s probably not a Fomori himself since he’s not a Giant, although it’s possible they’re retconning the species to match the “alien” flavor a little bit better. That said, we know the Fomori were involved with this little guy some how. To be honest, I think he was purposefully not explained yet to build suspense and his home plane will be revealed at some point in the future. As is, we literally know more about Vraska and Jace’s sex life than Loot.


Does it have any connection to The Mystical Archive in The Biblioplex in Strixhaven on Arcavios?
He could, but there currently aren’t any sentient beastfolk on the plane. They would need to introduce whatever species Loot belongs to on the next visit. To be fair, the set taking place on Arcavios in a couple years is explicitly not focusing on Strixhaven, so it’s possible he is from a civilization on the plane that just doesn’t attend College.
 
That person must have also read Alison Lühr’s two-parter then. I can honestly recommend this story. It’s well-written and touches delicately on some adult topics.

Part 1
Part 2
The only gripe I have with the story is that part 2 seems to cram every relevant bit of information on what happened after the phyrexian invasion into one story and therefore feels a bit disjointed. But I agree that the story is otherwise well written and worth a read.
 
Also, BIG (the OTJ aftermath set they decided to just shove into the list slot because aftermath sucked) is delivering again! This time a chonky Cactus boy with artifact AND graveyard synergies. It reminds me a bit of Carnage Interpreter in that it's an overstatted body with a ton of value attached... Only without the downside of discarding your hand.

Screenshot_20240403-093200-01.jpeg

From a mechanics point of view I love the card and it's a good fit for my cube, but I'm a bit worried that it is too strong. Is this stronger than Esika's Chariot?

Also, 10 more BIG cards to spoil, so far there were a lot of interesting (and quite strong) designs among them.
 
Still don’t know how to upload pictures if they are too big or wrong file type.


(Collector’s Cage)

We have a new hideaway mechanic. It’s called Hideaway! :) But now with a number. And now the permanent doesn’t enter the battlefield tapped.

Jokes aside they were making this change in 2022 with New Capenna I believe.
 
Still don’t know how to upload pictures if they are too big or wrong file type.
My phone sucks at editing images so I downloaded Snapseed. Now when I take a screenshot I can edit it directly and save it in lower resolution to post :).

Also, I have the impression wizards looked at my cube [or insert your own cube here if you care about artifacts and graveyard] and decided to fill out some blanks:

Transcript:
Sandstorm Retriever {2} {G}
Creature - Human Artificer
When Sandstorm Retriever enters the battlefield, create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact Creature token.
{2}, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature token you control. They gain trample until end of turn.

I'm not 100% sure how much I like a 4 Mana discard payoff and I already run The Raven Man, Archfiend of Ifnir and maybe some others. However I do like the color shifted Blade Splicer! My green artifact section has more of a non-creature token focus, but it's still interesting!
 
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Transcript:
Sandstorm Retriever {2} {G}
Creature - Human Artificer
When Sandstorm Retriever enters the battlefield, create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact Creature token.
{2}, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature token you control. They gain trample until end of turn.

I'm not 100% sure how much I like a 4 Mana discard payoff and I already run The Raven Man, Archfiend of Ifnir and maybe some others. However I do like the color shifted Blade Splicer! My green artifact section has more of a non-creature token focus, but it's still interesting!

Sandstorm Retriever is an easy include. I've been waiting for more blink targets in green, as well as good creatures for sacrifice/Birthing Pod strategies.

This may be the set that finally gets me looking into +1/+1 counters and token subthemes again. It's at least getting closer to viable at high power levels.
 
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