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Yesterday, OTJ Limited was finally available. I hit the ground running firing up some drafts, but unfortunately, they briefly shut it down on MTGO for some bugs during the first game of my second draft. Most cards were fixed when it came back online, though some are still a bit bugged. However, the experience wasn't too tainted, and I'm enjoying OTJ Limited thus far. It's high-powered but not overly fast-paced. Removal is important because there are a lot of high-powered rares. Interacting with them is mandatory, but there are many ways to blank removal with cards like Snakeskin Veil and Take Up the Shield at common, or ones like Fleeting Reflection and Smuggler's Surprise at higher rarities. Hard counterspells are better than usual because of the high-powered nature of the format, but soft counters are at their worst due to the plot mechanic. Plot makes it so you can play a high-impact spell's mana cost before it hits the stack, which makes it easy to play around soft counters. Plot is an all-timer mechanic. I love how it allows for explosive turns and the decision to either play your spells for plot costs for potential bonuses or cast your spells to get them on the battlefield immediately. Two-drops aren't as important as they've been in recent sets and there are lots of powerful cards and cards that scale with mana to bring you back into a game where you've fallen behind. Bear in mind that I've played almost exclusively on MTGO, so the experience on Arena may be different with the handsmoother. The common desert dual lands smooth out the crime mechanics perfectly. Without them the crime cards would be meaningfully worse, so adding those to the set is a huge win, and it's a chef's kiss when combined with desert synergies. What currently draws me to this set is that I think it will be incredibly re-playable. The draft experience feels different every time because of the high-power nature of the packs. I don't feel forced to draft a curve and a few removal and combat tricks. I can draft a deck that has a theme or synergy, play a longer game, and watch my deck operate how I want. If you design a Limited set with a fantasy to pursue, it's important that the fantasy is worth pursuing and will be fun and competitive when you're able to finally draft that perfect Izzet Plot deck or that great BG Self Mill deck. While I love the format and think it's fun, it may be more high variance as a result of how unpredictable the games can be due to the amount of rares. I'm fine with adding variance if it includes adding fun, and in true Dave Humphreys fashion, OTJ hit the mark perfectly. Let's take a look at a couple of the decks I've drafted so far. While I've been winning more than losing, I'm not yet getting trophies every draft. If I keep it, maybe I can find some holes in the drafting meta and get an exceptionally high win rate. Deck 1 Izzet Plot Here's a run-of-the-mill Izzet Plot deck. This deck almost felt like playing Pioneer Phoenix since it was equipped to spend mana every turn, interact often, and I never flooded or missed land drops due to the Highway Robbery. Stoic Sphinx is insane and carried me for a couple of games, but Malcom also did a lot of work when I was able to prolong games. Red removal spells will likely be this archetype's key commons. You'll want to take Razzle-Dazzler fairly high, as you can often get gridlocked by various green-reach creatures without great ways to interact. Expensive plot cards like Loan Shark and Djinn of Fool's Fall are sitting at about replacement level because there are a lot of options. The early part of your curve is more important for this archetype because it needs to play a tempo-positive game vs. larger creatures. This was a 2-1 deck losing to lots of Cactarantulas. Deck 2 Orzhov Sacrifice This deck looked great while drafting it, but ultimately it was not very good. The curve was nice and tight, and I had removal to push through my smaller creatures, but the creatures were too underwhelming. There's a lot of value in this set, so making small positive exchanges like curving a Nezumi Linkbreaker into a Ruthless Lawbringer isn't enough to keep pushing damage. My deck would often flood out in long games while my opponent had 10 or so life. Orzhov decks have been bad in recent Limited sets with the new Limited design approach because the archetype tends to lack traction in most formats. Its cards are mostly low impact and the synergies are too soft and understated for modern-day Magic. I'm sure I'll try drafting Orzhov again, but my hunch is it's a lane you actively want to avoid, and I sort of feel like that about white in general. White needs to be aggressive in formats like this that are high powered and I don't think it's quite there. This deck went 1-2 and was by far my worst deck. Deck 3 RGu Ramp Multicolor green is one of my current favorite decks to draft and this was my first go at it. I picked up a lot of lands to help facilitate splashing some solid blue uncommons and round the deck out so it wouldn't run out of gas. Roxanne, Starfall Savant is strong and absolutely busted when paired with Cactusfolk Sureshot. I was able to play Roxanne many times and attack in the same turn to kill a four-toughness creature with both of my Meteorites. That sequence is good enough that I'm curious to find other potential playable ways of giving Roxanne haste in the future, perhaps having Roxanne push a card like Lavaspur Boots into the playable category. These green decks want a bit of removal, but you can also be confident casting huge creatures every turn. Snakeskin Veil makes plotting big creatures like Freestrider Commando safe and effective and can punish opponents when they spend four or more mana to try and interact with your large creatures. Also, Snakeskin Veil protects the creatures you're trying to fight, so I like to play at least one Snakeskin Veil. I'm coming around to thinking that's the correct amount, as when the game develops if you don't have a lot of ways to generate card advantage Snakeskin Veil can rot in your hand, especially if you have multiples. I was surprised at how solid Primal Command was in this deck. If I didn't have any truly busted creatures like Roxanne I likely wouldn't play it, but its versatility made it one of my better draws. This was another solid 2:1 deck. Deck 4 More Multicolor Green This was close to my best deck and it showed. I started with a pick-one-pack-one Oko and took Doc Aurlock to follow it up and lock in. Someone else was in my colors despite all Simic gold cards, and none of the cards came back that I thought would. I ended up much lower on plot cards than I wanted to with my two Doc Aurlocks. Endless Detour and Kellan both fell into my lap, Endless Detour was a tenth or eleventh pick, and I took Kellan fairly early pack three in a pack that was otherwise empty. I didn't anticipate playing the splash, but my alternative cards were too weak and I wanted more interaction. Kellan was fine when I drew it but not a high-powered mythic you should take early to build around. Oko was disgusting. It hits hard, always left me in the game protecting itself, and ran away with at least two games on its own. Pest Infestation is strong but not a massive bomb. You should take it over every common and likely uncommon, but it's not at the same level as Oko since it only shines deep in the game or when your opponent has some targets. Fblthp, Lost on the Range was better than I had hoped, but that's likely a matchup thing. It is a three-mana future sight with the caveat you don't get to play a land off of it like future sight, but there are ways to manipulate the top of your deck. I'd almost always play it because it's a cheap enough spell that you can cast deep in a game and get immediate value. It won't get buried if you cast it on the play against basically any deck if you follow up with interaction on later turns. Solid deck that got an easy 3-0 trophy. Oko did a lot of the heavy lifting, and I'm starting to believe green could be one of the best colors, if not the best. Deck 5 BGuw Self-Mill I haven't had a chance to play a real match with my last deck. This is something of a self-mill deck with Rise of the Varmints as a payoff, but it's mostly just a 4c-green-value deck that can play creatures on curve and hit hard, as well as bog down the board with creatures and removal while taking over with value cards. This is not the best deck for Intimidation Campaign, but it's too good to not play with all these deserts and removal. Villainous Wealth can end any slow game on the spot, or win a game out of nowhere. I had a lot of tough picks this draft, as my archetype was very open. I'm missing a key common in Desperate Bloodseeker, which I saw twice and opted to take one of my first deserts over and an Honest Rutstein the second time. I expect a 2:1 on average with this deck because it has a lot of ways to generate value, a solid curve, and decent removal, though I wish I had one or two copies of Desperate Bloodseeker and/or Desert's Due to Round it out. So far OTJ is an extremely fun Limited format. It's high-powered, there are a lot of actions and decisions in the draft and gameplay. I didn't think I'd enjoy plot as a mechanic nearly as much as I have, but unlike recent sets, I'm always excited to get right back in the queue when I finish my draft.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) has its full release around the corner and, for what I believe is the first time, the OTJ packs will have a secondary set inserted into them, The Big Score. The Big Score is comprised of 30 cards that were added from what would have been the Aftermath-equivalent set. You can conclude that these are cards that are part of the main set as they will be legal in all formats, including Standard. Let's take a look at some of the most interesting inclusions. Lost Jitte This has been quite the controversial preview. Many have said it's super strong and maybe stronger than the original Jitte. Others say it's unplayable. It's funny that our community can be hyperbolic, but in many cases, one of the things can be true, and this card fits that case. This is either a card that warrants a slot in decks with cards like Urza'a Saga or Stoneforge Mystic, or it simply isn't. My stance is this card is too weak to include in every deck playing Urza's Saga, but it will be a potential tool in creature-heavy decks playing Saga, as it won't be a poor draw on its own. This card will shine the most when Saga is still in play, and you can use it to create an additional construct by untapping Urza's Saga. Umezawa's Jitte got multiple counters a turn making it more difficult to come back from. The Lost Jitte can ramp your mana some or make a creature not block, but its snowball effect is not that big. Lost Jitte is strong but also beatable in Limited. In Constructed, it will be another tool to add to the Saga toolbox, but I'm skeptical that Lost Jitte sees any long-term play in even those decks. I'm not a big believer in Lost Jitte, but I can see situations where certain decks might want a one-of in their Saga toolbox. Bristlebud Farmer Four-mana creatures have come a long way since Ernham Djinn. Bristlebud Farmer has a sizeable body as a four-mana 5/5 trample and a solid enters-the-battlefield effect providing two food immediately, and if you can start attacking with the Farmer, you can sacrifice food to get real cardboard into your hand. This is a tough card to evaluate. It's strong on its face, but four-mana cards have to be so good to see play because there are so many options and you can only play so many due to the steep mana cost. While this card looks great, you have to compare it to Standard's best four-drops such as Sheoldred, the Apocalypyse. While Bristlebud Farmer is nice, it's worse than Sheoldred. Without a mana dork that costs one-mana, cards that look strong on their face aren't good enough in Standard since they need to compete with several years of other four-drops and years of synergies. Bristlebud Farmer doesn't have much synergy at the moment. Bristlebud Farmer would be an excellent card against an aggressive field of red decks, as it's tough to kill with damage-based removal and the extra food tokens will be relevant if it dies before it gets the opportunity to get into combat. I like Bristlebud Farmer, but not being one of the best four-drops in the format means I don't think it will see much play unless its ability to make two food tokens plays a role in it being included in a deck. Harvester of Misery This is probably my favorite card from The Big Score. Harvester of Misery has a modal ability where it can act as a cheap removal spell early and a sweeper on a stick later. Harvester of Misery punishes small-creature decks early and late. This card will be prolific if there's a standout deck with lots of small creatures. If the Standard format shapes into more of a midrange grindfest, Harvester of Misery will sit on the sideboard or perhaps not be seen at all. I suspect we'll see this card plenty, potentially even outside of Standard, because it's so flexible with a high upside. While discarding it isn't the most efficient removal, it's good enough in many scenarios. Harvester of Misery is like a better or fixed Massacre Wurm. It won't hit as hard, but you don't mind seeing it in your opening hand, and you can get it into your graveyard, which makes it an excellent tool for decks reanimating creatures from the graveyard, whether that be from a card like Cruelty of Gix or as a card to add to your cube. Nexus of Becoming While Harvester of Misery is potentially my favorite card, Nexus of Becoming is next, if not top, on the list. Nexus of Becoming is so powerful if you're able to fit in enough high-end cards to cheat into play for big effects. My first thought was cheating Atraxas into play and starting a chain, but even putting redundant copies of itself into play is powerful since it draws you additional cards and you can find a big hit. Portal to Phyrexia is another juicy play with this, and even Harvester of Misery would play nicely in a deck with Nexus of Becoming because both are cheap removal spells that can double as a powerful play off Nexus. On top of Nexus, we discussed Make Your Own Luck, which could act as a redundant way to cheat a bunch of expensive, high-impact plays into play. Boseiju being legal is a big problem for Nexus, and this idea may be a bit too clunky. However, there are a lot of neat ways to build with this card and the potential is high. I'm a big fan of Nexus of Becoming, and this is the card I'm most excited about building around in Outlaws of Thunder Junction or The Big Score. Fomori Vault Fomori Vault looked cool to me at first glance. It's a value land that can let you dig deep into your deck if you're able to support it well enough with a plethora of artifacts in play. There are tons of options for value lands, and while this may be a card you want a copy of in a deck like that, those decks are uncommon or creature-heavy and want the value lands to put pressure on the opponent. While Fomori Vault can act as a discard outlet, it's just a Desolate Lighthouse with added steps. It reads like it could be strong, but it's not that easy to have a bunch of artifacts in play. If I want a colorless value land, I have many choices, and this isn't the top of the list. Fomori Vault is probably a cool Commander card, as people tend to play lots of artifact mana, and you're limited to one copy of lands per deck. It's mostly a miss, but you may occasionally see a copy in 60-card formats. Legion Extruder I've seen some compare Legion Extruder to Bonecrusher Giant, and I can say without question this is not even close. Stomp was an instant, which was and is an important part of its play pattern and power level. Being able to pass on turn two with Stomp mana up, kill the opponent's creature, and immediately slam a 4/3 on an empty board was incredible. With Legion Extruder, you get to play at sorcery speed and at best kill something. Even though it lets you turn food and treasure into 3/3 golems, it's going to require that effect to be outstanding for this card to be playable in your deck. That effect may have some corner-case situations, however Legion Extruder is mostly too weak for any real consideration. A much closer comparison for Legion Extruder would be Omen of the Forge. I'd expect it to see the little play that Omen has, but rather in specific situations where you're building an artifact deck that wants to keep artifacts in play and wants a cheap removal effect or some way to sacrifice artifacts. I'm not a big fan of this one and while I won't be surprised to see a few copies here and there it is far from a format staple like Bonecrusher Giant. Tarnation Vista Speaking of wanting random cardboard cards with colors sitting in play, Tarnation Vista wants just that. We've seen many versions of lands that enter tapped, and you choose a color they can produce, so we need to focus on its second ability to evaluate this card. Tarnation Vista's biggest upside is producing more than one mana when it's tapped. To get to that point, you need three different colored mono-colored permanents in play to produce one additional mana. That's not a tough nut to crack. It's possible to build your deck in a way to make that easier, as you can have mono-colored permanents with low value sitting in play with cards like Legion Extruder. Tarnation Vista comes into play tapped, meaning its upside would have to outweigh that downside for this to be a strong land choice. My initial inclination is that it will be too inconsistent to consider this land in any 60-card format. This is more of a Commander card that any deck can and will want to play because it will be useful more often in a typical EDH game-state. The cost of lands coming into play tapped is too high these days to only produce a single color of mana and with such an inconsistent additional upside. Memory Vessel This is a fixed Memory Jar that doesn't force opponents to discard. If you activate this and don't win on that turn, your opponent will get to play with their fresh seven cards. Memory Vessel gets exiled on use, so there's no recurring it repeatedly to deck the opponent. One of my favorite use cases is in sloppy Vintage Cube games. Memory Jar was a broken card because of all the small pieces of the card, including how it forced the opponent to discard, so cards like Megrim were the win condition or casting an Upheaval in the middle of a Jar activation left the opponent with no resources. Memory Vessel is powerful and worth trying as a redundant Jar for a cube. You don't have to worry as much about your opponent drawing cards like Force of Will or Force of Negation because the cards don't go into their actual hand and they'll need something already in it to pitch to cast those. While I love the callback to one of my all-time favorite cards, I don't understand this card since it will never be used fairly. Perhaps this is an effect desired for Commander players, but in 60-card formats this will never show up, and if it does it will be in a deck using it to piece together a combo. I doubt we'll see much from Memory Vessel. The Big Score is a nice added twist to booster packs that you'll commonly see in drafts. With all these extra potentially strong cards being Standard-legal, I wonder if we see something break. Outlaws of Thunder Junction and The Big Score are just around the corner with an April 19 release date. I'm most excited to get into the draft queues, but I also want to put together a nice Nexus of Becoming deck. OTJ is the most excited I've been for a set in a couple of years, and I'm hoping it's as fun as it looks.

I don't usually sing praises of Magic sets before I play them, but for the first time in years, I'm getting excited reading through the previews. Limited is my favorite way to play Magic, and this set looks fantastic in that regard. Desert synergies, powerful gold cards, cool mechanics, and creatures that can block efficiently are all reasons why I'm looking forward to the set. Regarding Constructed, I've highlighted a few cards with some potential. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is a generically powerful creature in lots of contexts. Something most recent Standard decks have been missing is two-drops with the ability to snowball. Bristly Bill can do that, but while the mana in Standard is close to its best, we don't have fetch lands to really abuse Landfall. Where I'm most excited about this card's potential is alongside Slogurk. Bristly Bill can put counters on Slogurk allowing it to be returned easier, double its counters in the late game, and work in any versions with Splendid Reclamation or the like. Bill is also legendary to reduce the cost of channeling lands like Otawara and Takenuma. Slogurk decks also typically play high land counts, so you'll never miss a land drop that is beneficial for Bill. It seems to fit in nicely and synergize so well with my favorite card in Standard, and it's a powerful threat that can stand on its own as the game develops. Bristly Bill has other potential uses. I can see it as a nice "curve topper" in an aggressive shell. You can plan to cast Bill on turn three after curving out and following up with a fetch land, whether it be a card like Evolving Wilds in Standard or a true fetch land in Modern for a deck like Hardened Scales. Bristly Bill looks like an all-around solid two-drop that can also have a big impact later in the game. I like this card a lot. Caustic Bronco Speaking of two-drops with snowball potential, Caustic Bronco is the latest Dark Confidant variant. This card looks like it could see some play if the Standard format allows it to attack regularly, which if paired with a lot of removal and/or Raffine, it very well could. I love the idea of curving this into Raffine and opening the door to draw extra cards and filter through them. Later, you can saddle it to start draining the opponent's life and the game should end quickly. Outside of a deck like Esper, it could potentially see some play in a deck like Golgari Midrange. One of the big issues with two-drops recently has been they don't leave behind value, which leads to three-drops dominating the format. Cards like Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Wedding Announcement, and Raffine dominated Standard for so long and we didn't have many ways to get extra cards at two mana. Caustic Bronco isn't a broken card, as its design is similar to a card like Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, but it is an option at three mana that will help you play through mulligans and other powerful cards that generate tons of value. I think Caustic Bronco makes sense to try in decks like Golgari Mid, Esper, and potentially Dimir Midrange. Slick Sequence Slick Sequence is easily my favorite design of the set, which is why I'm highlighting it here. It's so simple but beautifully designed. Slick Sequence allows for one-for-one early interaction, and it becomes more powerful as the game develops. It leaves you up a card when you sequence it with another spell and kill something. Additionally, it's designed to work well with plot, a key set mechanic. I'm not sure this card will see any Constructed play. It's almost there, and I could see it in something like an Izzet Prowess deck with a card like Slickshot Show-Off. I love this card and hope there are enough two-toughness creatures in Standard for this to see play. Make Your Own Luck This is a cool design with potentially powerful applications. Obviously, my mind is immediately drawn to Eldrazi with cast triggers that can take advantage of Make Your Own Luck or perhaps Atraxa. Its obvious home in Standard would be Domain, as you could high roll an early 0 mana Atraxa into play. The problem with pure card draw cards is that you fall too far behind on the board to a point you can't recover. When permanents are providing value and threatening your life total, spending a turn not adding to the board can be devastating. Make Your Own Luck makes up for it by giving you back tempo and hopefully recouping at least the amount of mana you spent on it on the following turn, giving you an opportunity for an incredible follow-up turn. A Pioneer Marvel deck is the first deck that comes to mind after reading Make Your Own Luck. Aetherworks Marvel had issues with redundancy and hitting the correct pieces when you spun the Marvel and looked. Make Your Own Luck is a solid plan B. It's likely not good enough, but I'm interested in trying to build and test it out. Make Your Own Luck's biggest issue is that it's a five-mana card that incentivizes you to play lots of other expensive cards, and we all know you don't have a bunch of time to dawdle these days. Brainstorm effects could potentially fix this issue some, but they're few and far between. Make Your Own Luck is a cool card, and I'd like to try it out, but I think it will be too clunky. I definitely want to see how it plays in Vintage Cube, though. Aven Interrupter Aven Interrupter is a new and flashy white three-drop reminiscent of Spell Queller. The Interrupter will chew up a ton of the opponent's mana by exiling their spell and forcing them to spend two extra mana to cast it on a later turn. It works against cards like Supreme Verdict and can be used to protect your spell from a counterspell. It looks solid on its face and likely will see a lot of play, but the taxing effect is attached to the creature, so you can shock the Interrupter and freely cast your spell. This isn't necessarily a big problem, but Aven Interrupter will play best at the top of the curve in a white aggressive deck, and there are already many options for that at three mana. At the very least, I expect white aggro decks to play some of these in their sideboards against slower controlling decks since it will be a nightmare to lose so much mana and tempo to this card. Aven Interrupter is all-around solid, cleverly uses the set's new mechanic, and provides a lot of utility. We will see a decent amount of this card in the future. Seraphic Steed Here's another powerful two-drop that can snowball like crazy. A Seraphic Steed on turn two into a four-powered three-drop on three is going to end a lot of games before they get a chance to start. This two-drop also has first strike that makes blocking it exceptionally hard. After it's saddled and connected once, it will be easier to saddle and make another 3/3. It will be hard to lose a game when this creature makes two tokens. While I think this card is good, it forces you to play out creatures to saddle it. Instead of your spent mana interacting with your opponent's blockers, it will be providing new jockeys to ride this steed, making it vulnerable to a few blockers. Seraphic Steed is powerful if unchecked, but it's less exciting if it can't create an Angel and live through it. It's a solid card that might see some play if a deck can support it, but it's not worth building around too much. Assimilation Aegis Assimilation Aegis is a weird card but in a good way. It's not the most powerful removal spell since it's relatively mana-inefficient, but it provides us with the ability to clone what it exiles, which adds a lot of upside. I can see a world where the opponent cheats an Atraxa into play and we're able to exile and clone it for a huge hit. However, if an opponent puts an Atraxa into play, they're going to have a bunch of extra cards, such as a Leyline Binding to exile this. I like how this card overlaps into the Commander world as a cool card for that style of gameplay but also a card with practical uses in 60-card formats. One of the most potentially useful applications is as a one-of to tutor up with Stoneforge Mythic in eternal formats as a removal spell for the midgame. I like that this card exists, and I love how it was designed, except for the lack of ward 1. An Aegis is a powerful magical shield, and adding ward 1 to this mythic rare seems reasonable. Other than that, I'm glad we have another potential tool in Stoneforge Mystic's toolbox. I love what I'm seeing so far, and I'm excited to play with Outlaws of Thunder Junction, especially in Limited.

Preview season is back, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction has showed some interesting designs and put a spin on a few old ideas. Let's take a peek, starting with Oko. Oko, The Ringleader I love the design of this card. I'm worried it's not quite good enough in any format, but its play patterns are strong on open battlefields. Typically, we'll play this on turn four, make a 3/3 Elk, and pass the turn hoping to untap intact. At that point, we can attack for six damage copying the Elk and even making another. This reminds me of a pushed Garruk Wildspeaker, and it has a higher ceiling since it can copy tons of relevant creatures, however a lot of the stronger creatures are legendary, and Oko will legend rule in that case. In a highly interactive deck, Oko works as a card engine to get an extra card if you commit a crime, otherwise it can filter cards if you need more gas or want to fill up your graveyard. I'm interested to see how this will play alongside a card like Slogurk, the Overslime since they have the potential to synergize. I like Oko, and while it may not be nearly as strong as it would have been in prior years, it will likely see some play in Standard and maybe Pioneer. Jace Reawakened Jace is back, and this one is interesting. Many people have pointed out its synergy with Valki, God of Lies, as it's a clean way to cheat Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor into play. We also could cast zero mana suspend cards like Crashing Footfalls. While this is a nice bonus for Jace, that would likely be your plan B. You'd want to play Jace because of how much mana it functionally produces. We can cast three or less mana spells for zero throughout the game, which seems strong if it's sitting in play. It makes sense that Jace isn't castable until turn four because it would be broken if castable on turn two. You could start storing away spells to cast on a later turn while piling up a huge mana advantage. Having Jace come out on turn four means the game will have settled, and your opponent has an opportunity to get on board first before this can take over the game. I could see Jace being a bigger role player in a format like Legacy where the average converted mana cost is lower. Allowing Jace to cast every spell in your deck would be a nice boon. Ultimately, Jace is likely an overall miss because of the inability to cast on the first three turns, which are the most relevant turns in modern Magic. Insatiable Avarice We have a Spree card, which seems the same as a split card with fuse, but it's cleaner and on a single image with more than two modes. Insatiable Avarice is a nice tool for the Mono Black toolbox since it can be used as card advantage in the form of a three-mana draw, but it's also a way to give a deck like Mono B Aggro a little reach with the ability to target the opponent. The Vampiric Tutor mode will mostly be used in the late game on top of the draw three or in cases where you're so low on life that you can't afford to draw three but have no other use for the card. This is a cool card to exist, as it will give these Mono Black decks a tool in their tool belt, but it pushes any Mono B deck into contention because of its existence. The mechanic isn't revolutionary because it's an expansion of past mechanics, but hopefully it's fun to use. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride We get our first look at the saddle mechanic. Saddle is effectively crewing but for creatures. Creatures that are mounts function as normal creatures, but they'll get an additional ability when saddled. The Gitrog monster looks cool as a five-mana 6/5 trample haste, but that's where it ends. In some cases, you can cash in a three-powered creature to draw a few cards, but if the Gitrog is connecting then you're probably in a good spot. It's worth noting that this saddled ability won't function if it connects to a planeswalker, which is significant since I could see back-and-forth games as ones you'd want to sacrifice damage and board presence for cards in hand. Overall, I evaluate the Gitrog as a 6/5 trample haste creature for five mana, which may be playable in some decks in a small number, but it's likely not good enough in modern Magic. Rakdos, the Muscle Rakdos, the Muscle is another five-mana 6/5 creature, but this one looks better than the Gitrog. While it's missing haste, it makes up for it with its ability to protect itself. You can simply cast Rakdos with any other creature in play, and they're forced to use multiple removal spells or risk you being able to get tons of cards sacrificing three- or four-mana creatures for value. Ultimately, this card is clunky and will likely want you to have a relevant synergy, whether that's part of a sacrifice deck or a deck with threaten effects to steal opponents' creatures as food. Rakdos provides versions of Cat/Oven Sacrifice decks with a tool like Korvold without having to add an additional color. While it's not quite the Magic ecosystem where we build around five-mana sorcery-speed creatures, Rakdos has a huge body with flying and trample, the ability to protect itself, and a way to generate a ton of card advantage. Rakdos will likely see play as a one- or two-of in Standard decks and, if not for Jegantha, maybe Pioneer. Colossal Rattlewurm Yet another 6/5 creature, but this one is for four mana and has flash in ideal circumstances. We haven't seen how many Deserts there will be, but this leads me to believe that we'll have a common cycle of lands and newer versions of the older Deserts like Ramunap Ruins. This is a sick creature if we get a bunch of playable Constructed Deserts to go with Rattlewurm. If not, it's solid but unspectacular. The ability to play this alongside counterspells or instant-speed interaction will make or break this card. If we get a strong enough cycle of lands to combine with Rattlewurm, it's essentially a flash 6/5 trample for four mana that gives you a Rampant Growth to boot if or when it dies. In the last few sets, they haven't been shy about pushing creature sizing on creatures with no downsides. While vanilla creatures are usually not good enough for Constructed, Colossal Rattlewurm will have legs if there's support. Return of Fast Lands I like having a solid dual land that gives functional mana in early turns for Standard decks. It feels bad losing Standard games because you played a tapped land on the wrong turn. While that will happen with fast lands, at least you develop or interact on the most important turns with these. Since fast lands are Pioneer staples, I'd expect to see them printed more. It will be awesome to have all ten fast lands in Standard. Outlaws of Thunder Junction looks interesting so far, but a lot of the newer mechanics feel like older mechanics that went through the washing machine and came out slightly different. I'm not excited yet, but from a Limited player's perspective, the return of Desert mechanics is excellent. I loved Hour of Devastation Limited, and it's usually good to have Limited sets where there's tension between drafting lands and spells. I'm excited to see how the rest of the set pans out.

We just had a scheduled banned and restricted announcement, and it was different than I expected. First we have the unrestriction of Ponder in Vintage. Vintage has tried to regulate power levels in the past, but recently there have been so many supplementary products with pushed power levels that it's hard to keep cards like Ponder restricted. The big change we see is the banning of Violent Outburst. There's been some criticism of this banning, but most people agree it's a necessary change. Violent Outburst was the only instant-speed-cascade effect for decks like Rhinos and Living End. The worst part is the deck could protect its combo with Force of Negation for 0 mana by using it on the opponent's turn. I haven't played much with Living End, but having the ability to use your combo to disrupt other creature combo decks, like killing a Primeval Titan or a Yawgmoth at instant speed, is a problematic play pattern. Ultimately, Modern is a busted format with more going on than just this cascade stuff, so I can't be confident this will make the format any better. It may slightly change the dynamic, but we still have decks like Yawgmoth and Amulet Titan that are in the running for being dominant. My biggest takeaway from this announcement was not what was there but what wasn't there. Pioneer had no changes to the format. While I haven't played Pioneer in a while, I have watched it a lot, including this past Pro Tour, and the format looked more fun and robust than in the past. However, Phoenix was the most played deck going into the Pro Tour, and the players knew that would be the case, yet it still finished with a nearly 60% win percentage. It's exceptionally rare for a deck that is the most played to have that high of a win rate because the Pro Tour players often know what the most-played deck will be and choose their decks with that knowledge, yet Phoenix still managed to crush the Pro Tour. If we saw Seth Manfield and Team CFB bring Phoenix to the event rather than Vampires and we had no new deck to talk about and distract us, there may be many more voices pushing for a banning in Pioneer. That said, what exactly should be banned from Pioneer to weaken Phoenix? I'm less confident in that. Most people say it's time for Treasure Cruise to kick the bucket, but Cruise is a fun card for the format that people enjoy casting. With checks and balances, such as Fetches being banned in Pioneer, you can look in another direction. Banning Cruise is functionally the same as banning Arclight Phoenix. The deck simply won't exist. Phoenix can't use Dig Through Time because mana efficiency is important in that deck, and Dig will still be available for other decks and is often the preferred card for other archetypes. Cruise also gets hurt by the counterplay to Phoenix from cards like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void. There are some approaches to weaken the Phoenix deck, such as banning a cantrip like Consider, which they've done in the past to weaken decks like Storm in Modern and the aforementioned restriction of Ponder in Vintage, but you could also do something crazy like ban Lightning Axe to make the deck weaker against creature decks and to cards like Vein Ripper and Sheoldred. Let's remember it wasn't too long ago that Phoenix was only an average deck in the format. The deck has gotten two new cards, Picklock Prankster and Sleight of Hand. If those weren't printed, the deck's power level may have remained where it needed to be. Phoenix is a tight deck, and the absence of any of its pieces outside of Cruise and Phoenix will weaken, but not break, the deck. You can hit those if they want to destroy the deck, and if not, then it's the dealer's choice. We can wait a bit to see how Pioneer shakes out. Let the Metagame react, and if action needs to be taken do it before the next major Pioneer event like a Regional Championship or Pro Tour. It's good to not immediately ban something that overperforms. Keep in mind this is a game that people like to play. When a deck is the best, people will play and learn that deck. Giving the metagame time to adapt allows players to find answers and gives them space to play a deck they just acquired after watching it at the Pro Tour. Some people like playing overpowered decks, and some like to fight against them. There was no outcry for a banning of Phoenix before the Pro Tour, so let it sit and see how it settles. If nothing can compete, then it's time to reconsider things. We should let it play out right now and think about what cards could be banned to make the deck the appropriate power level. Phoenix is a popular deck and it’s easy to adjust, rather than nuke, the deck. Ultimately, I liked how they handled this banned and restricted announcement. They did an excellent job pulling the trigger in Modern but keeping Pioneer untouched. I got excited about a Constructed format for the first time in a while when I watched Pioneer at the Pro Tour. To me, that is a big enough sign to let things be for a bit.

While the Pro Tour was fun to watch, we also got a peek at some upcoming cards. First, we saw Nathan Steuer's world championship card, which you can see in his X post here: Duelist of the Mind is a sweet, fun design that seems like it could see a lot of play. We see a new game mechanic called crime, which means casting a spell or activating an ability that targets an opponent or their stuff. Duelist of the Mind seems nice as a powerful threat in eternal formats, especially Legacy combined with Brainstorm, though it will suffer from the existence of Lightning Bolt. There's been speculation about adding this to Phoenix in Pioneer. While that seems on the surface like a good home, committing a crime isn't always going to be easy to use as a functional discard outlet for Arclight Phoenix. Ledger Shredder will lead to smoother games since it functions with Phoenix better. Duelist of the Mind will hit harder on Phoenix turns when you string it together with cards like Consider and Treasure Cruise. Overall, that damage is more negligible. A big strike against Duelist of the Mind out of Phoenix concerns the post-board games where the opponent brings in cards like Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace. Duelist will be less explosive without access to Treasure Cruise. Duelist also suffers from not having growing toughness, so it can never get out of range of a card like Lightning Helix or Fiery Impulse. We could add more threats to Phoenix, but we still need to be careful about our spell rations for bringing back Phoenix. Phoenix got better when Sleight of Hand was added to the Pioneer format, which made the deck more consistent. Picklock Prankster didn't hurt either. Regardless, Duelist of the Mind is a fantastic addition to Standard and will play nicely with Raffine. The synergy is amazing, and Duelist of the Mind is similar to what I want from a solid two-drop in Standard. It's not too snowbally, is resilient to two-damage removal like Shock or Play with Fire, and has a powerful enough ability to close games. It won't close the game if unchecked in two turns and won't spiral into an out-of-control advantage for the player, but if left alone it creates a threat that must be dealt with. I love the design and can't wait to give it a try. While there were a bunch of Modern Horizons 3 reveals, I'm going to focus on the most flashy—Emrakul, the World Anew. Emrakul is a madness Eldrazi that requires colorless pips to cast off of madness, but it can be cast for 12 mana of any variety if cast fairly. Of course, no one wants to do anything with this but cast it for its madness cost. This is one of the most unique cards I've seen in a long time, and it has a lot of new concepts. For instance, "protection from spells and from permanents that were cast this turn" means you can't get rid of it by using spell-based removal or cards like Brutal Cathar. However, you could use a card like Seal of Doom to kill it, as you can cast it past the turn and kill it on the opponent's turn. This is an interesting line of text. If Emrakul does see play, maybe we'll see some clever ways to work around this ability. Cheating it into play is the ultimate goal. We will see cards like Eldrazi Temple come back from old Eldrazi decks to work around that steep six colorless mana cost. You don't want too much of any one-color card because it's difficult to play Eldrazi Temple in a typical two-color deck. Instead, you need light splashes and cards that aren't too color-intensive. Regardless, pain lands are your best friend in building these mana bases, which means you want light splashes that aren't super color-intensive. If you want red as a base color, Battlefield Forge and Ramunap Ruins are your new Mountain. When looking at what shell to start with, Underworld Cookbook is the most obvious card that can easily madness out Emrakul, and it saw a lot of play at one point in Modern. Underworld Cookbook and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar have seen play in and out of Modern since the release of MH2, mostly in tier-two decks. We may be in a decent spot to put these cards and supporting ones in a deck with Emrakul. If a deck like this were to exist, we would see a lot of creature decks cease to exist. Emrakul punishes creature decks far more than any kind of combo or control deck, so it puts the tension on creature decks to close quickly. If not, Emrakul will make short work of them. Asmo and Cookbook make that difficult since this combo attacks creature decks cleanly and efficiently and suffers in other matchups. While almost every Modern deck is winning with creatures, they're not really winning by attacking consistently over several turns. It’s usually one or two attack phases. Violent Outburst was probably the most broken card remaining in the format before its ban. Without a fundamental change to how cascade works, a deck like this will always exist unless you ban all of the no-cost suspend cards that can create giant boards. I doubt that's happening, so this is where the format is currently. I'm not sure Emrakul can fight its way through the Footfalls, Living End, Amulet Titan metagame. I suspect people will test it for a bit, and it will end up in Commander decks. Emrakul looks powerful, but Modern seems to be too streamlined and fast, as a deck would need to consistently put together great starts that can compete with the top tiers. Ultimately, Emrakul likely can't be your main game plan and is more likely a supplemental plan in a deck that doesn't exist yet. Maybe we can go back to playing Thought-Knot Seers or maybe there is more unseen support for the archetype in Modern Horizons 3. I have seen a lot of hype around Emrakul, and while it looks powerful and cool, I'm skeptical because it requires too many hoops and will be too slow in many games. Six mana is a lot in Modern unless you're winning the game on the spot with a lot of redundancy like Amulet Titan can accomplish. Emrakul can come into play, but you still lose on the opponent's combo against some decks, and other decks will be too fast. You can play Emrakul at instant speed with madness. That means once you get to the six mana threshold, you have counterplay to a deck like Living End or in some spots against Titan, but that's a lot to ask to set up that board state while having access to your discard outlet, your mana, and your Emrakul. There are a few more exciting cards from MH3. While I don't know how much of them we'll be seeing soon since the set doesn't release until June, I'll likely take a better look at those in the future. Until then, I'm looking forward to trying out both of these cards previewed at the Pro Tour.

This past weekend was the first Pro Tour in a long time. The large gap made this one extra exciting, at least from where I was sitting. We saw the world champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz draft a tough seat, start 0-2, and finish in the Top 8. Former world champion Seth Manfield won the Pro Tour against current Player of the Year Simon Nielsen on an incredible run with his fourth Top 8 finish in a row. If the star-studded cast of finalists wasn't enough, Seth and teammate Sam Pardee both made Top 8 with a new Pioneer archetype, BR Vampires featuring Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord cheating into play the exciting new mythic rare Vein Ripper. This is the Pro Tour-winning deck, and while there were a couple of different choices with Seth's deck, all the decks were functionally the same with some small deviation. The deck looks like a mess at first glance, and it might even be one. This was a testing team trying to iterate on a new archetype that was completely unknown or, at the very least, not taken seriously by other Pro Tour competitors. I can imagine it wasn't the only deck this team worked on. Having been part of that testing team for many years, I know how big of a time crunch you're under with multiple formats and a new archetype to work on while ironing out and getting reps with stock decks like Phoenix. I had to cancel my trip to Chicago because of extenuating circumstances, but I watched every minute of the Pro Tour. There were things I loved about this deck and things I didn't like so much. For one, Smuggler's Copter looked mediocre, especially in Seth's version of the deck with fewer Dusk Legion Zealots sitting around to crew it. Every creature wanted to spend the turn attacking, not crewing. While Smuggler's Copter is fine in games where you curve into creatures and put more of them on the battlefield, the creature count seemed too low in this version to make it work. This Vampire deck looks like a typical Rakdos Midrange deck, except you can draw into a combo that can quickly kill and puts a ton of pressure on the opponent. I love that aspect of the deck. I've not been shy in voicing my disdain for Rakdos Midrange ever since I played Explorer at Worlds a couple of years ago. It contained a smaller card pool, was the same as the Rakdos deck, but it was unplayable. J-E-D, my pick for the best player and current world champion, played Rakdos and went 0-6 with the deck. Rakdos is good at picking apart certain decks and can be tuned to beat a lot of stuff, but it can't beat everything. If you try, you'll be pulled in too many directions and suffer. This Vampires deck has its own proactive game plan that is powerful and resilient. Will it stand the test of time? I usually have a good opinion about this, but I could see it going either way. With the deck being new I don't know its entire Pioneer matchup chart, but from the looks of the games, it didn't seem particularly good against Lotus Field and was close with Phoenix. Now that the element of surprise is gone, I suspect those decks will react in kind and make it even tougher. However, we haven't had the Magic community hive mind working on this archetype yet, and I'm sure there's tons of work to be done. Red may not even be the best splash. We could see white added with its many Vampire cards that may make the deck attack from a completely different angle. This combination of Sorin into Vein Ripper is a nice game plan that will likely be around for a bit until we start seeing the game plan become weaker than the metagame. You can't just add a couple of clean answers to a Vein Ripper into your deck and think you're going to fair well against this archetype. This is a Thoughtseize and Duress deck, so you can't simply plan to answer their threat and go on with your life. You need a proactive game plan that punishes when they mulligan for a fast start, as they won't have all the pieces all the time. We'll see tons of iterations of this Vein Ripper deck, and we'll see the usual suspects trying to react. If I were going to play a Pioneer event tomorrow, I'd likely register Izzet Phoenix and try to find a nice plan for this Rakdos deck since the post-board Leyline seemed like the biggest issue. Vein Ripper is a pain for Phoenix, but if you can get your game plan going, it should be easy enough to rip through your deck, get a Phoenix in play, and Lighting Axe the Vein Ripper. Lastly, I'd like to talk about the deck that went under the radar and is registered by a long-time friend of mine, Ben Stark. Ben has a reputation as being a great Limited player, but his approach to Constructed is often overlooked. People meme about not "netdecking," but Ben takes that philosophy to another level. He's always looking for a new archetype and exploring a new idea. Here's Ben's Boros Burn deck that we'd be talking more about if BR Vampires didn't win the Pro Tour. Ben saw that Lightning Helix is a strong Magic card and brought an old favorite archetype of many, Burn, to the Pro Tour. He may not think so, but he seems to have fallen in love with Burn over the past few years. It fits his strengths as a Limited player since games with Burn can get scrappy. They often involve setting yourself up to maximize damage and draw key cards according to your game plan. Combat plays a bigger role in a deck like this than it does in other archetypes, which Ben is world class at figuring out. What I love about this archetype for this Pro Tour was that the top decks in the room, Lotus Field and Phoenix, had to have been strong matchups. Phoenix cannot gain life, so you can race them with creatures and Lightning Helix to swing races. This deck should often win on the play against Lotus and will almost always beat Lotus when it stumbles without a turn-four win. I prefer this approach to a deck like Simon Nielsen's runner-up Boros Heroic. Heroic is the type of deck you need to play perfectly at all times. There is no room for error because timing a spell wrong is devastating. My advice is to not play that deck if you're not Simon. In his own words, it has all bad matchups, and he's playing too well and running too hot to lose. Ben's deck will give you wiggle room. It's easy to play and attacks the metagame from a nice angle. Ben went 7-3 with the deck and, much like the BR Vampires deck, there may be some tuning to do here. However, a deck like this is easier to build than an optimized BR Vampire deck. I won't be surprised to see this deck do well in the coming weeks on MTGO. While there were obvious cuts to the production quality of this Pro Tour, the players are what makes Magic—Simon's friendly banter, J-E-D's calm composure, and Seth's nervousness, though he still plays as close to perfect Magic as you can expect out of a human being. As long as we can, I'll watch and cheer for my friends and peers. For now, Pioneer got a whole lot more exciting, and I'm anxious to see where it goes from here.

Commander as a format is all about the efficiency of your removal. Unlike a one-on-one format like Modern, you've gotta get the most out of each card your play. Thoughtseize, for instance, is an extremely powerful card in just about every 60-card format, but completely unplayable in EDH. This is because in Commander, spending a card to remove a card is a net negative for you. To go truly even, you need to spend a card to remove three cards, since that's how many opponents you're up against. Thus, the board wipe, aka sweeper, remains a necessity in even the most casual of decks. Usually the downside of casting a card like Wrath of God or Farewell is that you have to take your turn off to reset the battlefield, theoretically putting you last in the order to begin rebuilding your boardstate. That's why the best sweepers are the most efficient, they either cost less mana, give you some benefit, or deal with multiple types of card. Now, we all know about the cards Blasphemous Act, Damn, and my personal favorite: Vanquish the Horde, but I'm here to tell you about some of the less-popular wipes and why you should consider including them. Doomskar Probably the most popular of the sweepers here, Doomskar is still an often-overlooked piece from 2021's Kaldheim. Though foretell is a rarely-revived mechanic, meaning you're not likely to be bluffing very hard with the face-down part of it, paying two mana to let it sit in a zone that's practically uninteractable is nice. The fact it turns into a three-mana creature sweeper later on grants you the chance to follow it up with some other spells on that turn. Hour of Revelation In the same vein as Vanquish the Horde, Hour of Revelation gets cheaper when you want it, and is only really six mana before the board has hit critical mass. Instant-include in mono-white decks, but a little harder to justify the more colors you add due to the irreducible triple white in its cost. Sunfall A five mana exile-all-creatures spell is not terribly overcosted, and it has the upside of making a big-ol' token that becomes a creature for two mana whenever you want. A favorite of control players in Standard, I would expect the cash price on this card to come down when it rotates out of the format. Out of Time Enchantment removal isn't quite as common as it probably should be in Commander, which means that the likelihood of this getting dealt with is pretty low. Even if it does get removed, you're forcing an opponent to spend resources taking it out for what only cost you three mana. Small bonus: This card doesn't allow commanders to go back to the command zone when they're phased out, meaning you don't have to worry about someone recasting it on their turn. Last One Standing The "wider" the board is, the better Last One Standing is. Chances are, if there's 20 1/1 Goblins on the board, and 10 other big scary creatures, you'll only be leaving a puny gobbo on the battlefield. Since you're already running at least black and red, you probably have efficient single-target removal to handle that last creature if it does happen to be worth taking out. Terisiare's Devastation I'm not gonna act like this one should see more general-use play, but looking at EDHRec makes me think this card is just not being used outside of the precon it was included in. Any black+ artifact deck should at least be considering this card. Gets around indestructible, ramps you with artifact tokens, and you can choose whether to clear the board or keep the heavy-hitters around. Oversimplify Oversimplify might be five whole mana with a drawback, but it does exile, and it's in two colors that don't have many options for sweepers anyways. If your local Simic player ever complains about not being able to deal with a big boardstate, show them this card. Depopulate/Shatter the Sky/No Witnesses These are all the same card: Day of Judgement with a semi-symmetrical card draw effect. If you're going for a truly budget deck these are good options that aren't overcosted. Terror Tide Terror Tide is, frankly, a hilarious card in graveyard decks. It beats indestructible due to giving -X/-X instead of destroying, and your wallet will thank you for running it over Damnation. Planar Collapse I know what you're thinking, "who wants to wait a turn to wipe the board?" That's fair in some situations, but you gotta consider just how efficient a two-mana board wipe is. Waiting a turn sucks, sure, but there have to be more than 2,000 decks that want this. Nobody's gonna play a creature until this thing resolves anyways, and it means you get first dibs on casting creatures after it fires. P.S. You could probably find a fun janky way to abuse it such as putting Shielded by Faith on a Sun Titan. Anzrag's Rampage One-sided artifact sweeper that cheats out a creature for a turn is pretty great for five mana. It's too new to actually call it underrated, but I recommend it all the same. Fade From History This card should be in every single mono-green and gruul deck that doesn't consist of over 50% enchantments. Four mana to clear the mana rocks, the artifact creatures, and value pieces like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe is great. Everything Comes to Dust This card is a slam-dunk include in any white+ deck that wants to go wide, especially if it's focused around a particular creature type. Magic has so many creature types that you rarely have to worry about this not hitting your opponent's biggest threats, and in the very worst case scenario, it's gonna be a convokable sweeper that exiles artifacts and enchantments. One More Thing... This list isn't gospel, you shouldn't run all of these cards in all of your decks, but you should be looking at them to take up those slots in the 99 that aren't just Wrath of God, Damnation, or any other yawn-inducing card that is generically good, but might not actually be the right fit for you.

Today was the first day that Murders at Karlov Manor was available on online platforms. I was fortunate to be invited to the Alphafrog Invitational sponsored by Daybreak Games on MTGO and spent the day drafting to prepare. This was as stacked a draft pod as you could get with players like Reid Duke, Nathan Steuer, and Karl Saraap. Of all these high-profile players, I was chosen as the featured drafter. You can go find my draft on YouTube or the MTGO Twitch channel if you're interested in seeing the draft from my perspective and understanding my approach to this format in its infancy. Here is my deck's final screenshot before I was whisked away. My thoughts on the format are centered on it being hard to block, but not overly fast due to creature sizing. Because of the disguise mechanic, creatures in the early game are not that big and you can trade early or take a more aggressive approach. Blocking can be punishing, as many combat tricks have investigate tacked on, so every time you lose a creature in combat in that fashion, you're down material in the long run since they get to crack their clue later on. This means I want to hit the ground running, and I highly value two-drops and any good spell that's two or less mana. In Limited, you want to plan out your turn, and your next turn if possible, based on spending mana efficiently. In this format, you're incentivized to figure out how the game is going to go for more than just two turns; you want to look at the next few to plan how to spend the maximum amount of mana and keep the tempo positive over several turns. Between efficient tricks, clue tokens, and morph, there are many ways each turn to dump mana. This often means being patient with disguise creatures and not flipping them until you're out of ways to press the board. White is currently my favorite color, but I don't think it's much better than anything else. I also like red because of cards like Shock and Galvanize. Instant-speed interaction is strong because you can get a ton of tempo when you interact with a creature that loses its ward after it becomes undisguised. White has a nice curve of creatures at common and some synergies with Detectives. Thinking Cap will likely be undervalued early in the format and end up being a high pick, much like Pirate's Cutlass from the original Ixalan. There are a lot of strong rares. The format is bomb heavy, so, staying low to the ground and getting underneath players with stronger cards is the best approach if you're not opening a ton of bombs. Three-mana cards are worse than they look because of disguise. You get glutted at three mana, so you need a good reason to take a three-mana card over a cheaper one. Value over the replacement level is not high enough on a card like Inside Source. In general. three-mana 2/2s that bring a 1/1 body along with them are always strong. While Inside Source is quite good, I like to take a solid two-drop like Marketwatch Phantom or even Novice Inspector over it because good three-drops are more accessible. The new Play Boosters setup feels more impactful than I anticipated. While you don't get two rares every pack, some strange circumstances pop up that are nearly impossible to read. If you were passed a pack with two strong rares in a format like March of the Machines, you could easily identify that a foil rare was taken if a common is missing. With play boosters, there can be a bunch of normal rares so it's hard to narrow down what the opponent may have taken since it could be anything from a List card to a better rare of the same color they passed. My knee-jerk reaction to this set was I wouldn't like it much and that it's too tempo-heavy, too focused on combat, and your drafting goals were simplified to curve out with creatures and make sure you can continue to attack. Nathan beat that out of me in the finals, as he just played rare after rare in his five-color green deck. The fixing, card quality, and cheap removal are there to go deep if you want. In the games I lost to Nathan, it was as simple as not having a two-drop on two. I may be able to leverage my advantage if I did, and I even considered casting one of my premium disguise creatures as a generic 2/1 on turn two because I knew how important that would be. Out Cold has my vote for the current most underdrafted common. Blinding Beam was considered one of, if not, the best commons in a strong Limited format many years ago. That effect's biggest downside is usually losing a card when it doesn't work, so using it defensively rather than proactively means you're likely to get buried down the road. With Out Cold, you get to make a clue and use it defensively to stabilize or as an up-tempo spell to push your onboard advantage. I lost the finals with my strong UW deck in a close three-game set, but I like that I went into the draft with a plan and was able to execute it against the best the world has to offer. I recommend this set for Limited currently, which is an endorsement I didn't think I'd make, but it's definitely going to be fun for at least a little while.

I found a few cards in this set to look at and wrap up this investigation. This set is especially exciting given we're also going back to the Pro Tours after what feels like an eternity, and this will be the first set when we return. Intrude the Mind This is an interesting mythic rare that plays like a Fact or Fiction variant. This will often be an instant-speed 3/3 flier that draws two cards for five mana. That's a pretty pushed rate, but it still feels slow for present-day Standard where we have incredibly powerful three-drops. Intrude the Mind will play well in flash-style controlling decks, so it has an opportunity to fill a role. However, it's too expensive for most formats and potentially too slow in Standard. This leaves it as a bomb for Limited, which is always a big miss. You can do some cool things with this card, such as casting it in combat and making piles of 5/0 or 4/1 to ambush an important creature or draw a bunch of cards. This card may have enough juice if the Standard format is slow and grindy. I could even see this card in small numbers in a Pioneer Creativity deck, but it's likely just worse than Shark Typhoon. Reenact the Crime Reenact the Crime looks powerful at a glance, but the more you think about it, the less exciting it feels. In a dream scenario, we're doing something like discarding something expensive and powerful like an Ulamog, Emrakul, or in Standard an Atraxa will have to do, and then Reenacting our desired payoff. As you set this up by digging for pieces with looting effects you have to accomplish the entire combo in one turn. Then, you are just reanimating a giant creature or spell, so it's a combination of a bad Mizzix's Mastery or Zombify. The upside is you are casting the copy, and you will get on-cast effects, but the setup seems too ambitious when there are easier ways in eternal formats, like Through the Breach, to put a creature in play. In Standard formats, we don't get much better than a reanimation of an Atraxa, but there are more straightforward ways to accomplish this action. After all these hoops, the card is weak to graveyard hate, which is abundant these days. While the card looks powerful and right up my alley, it seems too much to ask to have to target a card that went to the graveyard in the same turn along with the casting cost of Cryptic Command. Krenko's Buzzcrusher Krenko's Buzzcrusher slightly resembles Town-Razer Tyrant, one of the more powerful cards from the original Alchemy sets. Krenko's Buzzcrusher is templated in a weird way where it doesn't target lands, which gets around the hexproof ability of Lotus Field in Pioneer. However, one big issue is that this is a four-mana card, and if you try to cast this on turn four against Lotus Field on the draw, you are still potentially already dead. While this card is playable in other match-ups, it's not very good. I'd rather have Damping Sphere in basically every deck. I think if they wanted to make a card like this to specifically handle Lotus Field, a narrow and low-percent deck, they should have made a three-mana version that could attack the deck on the play and draw. Case of the Ransacked Lab I wanted to highlight the new card type Case. None of them thus far look great, but this one is interesting and potentially powerful. A common play pattern with this would be either slamming it on turn three, untapping and casting a bunch of cantrips to solve the case, and then getting a huge boost of card advantage. Cards with flashback or jump-start, like Radical Idea and Think Twice, would make this card trivial to flip, but the problem is a deck focusing on this card would be filled with air. Unless you want to play this card in a deck like Phoenix in Pioneer or a Storm deck in Modern, it wouldn't have a great home, as you'd fall too far behind on tempo in most cases. On top of that, cards like Boseiju and Otawara exist, which would embarrass the effort put into solving this. The card type is certainly interesting, but I'm not in love with any of the Cases at first glance. Archdruid's Charm Archdruid's Charm has potential to see play alongside Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in a dedicated lands deck potentially with Field of the Dead, Valakut, or the likes. It's hard to cast, clunky, and most modes are not efficient enough for Modern-day MTG. We're no longer in a world where you get too many bonus points for versatility. You need your cards to be consistently great. Outside of an instant-speed Rampant Growth with no Basic restriction, I'm not excited to put this card in my stompy Mono-Green deck or anything. The search-a-land mode is strong if what you want to do is supported in a Mono-Green deck. Llanowar Elves into turn two cast this for Nykthos, turn three cast a Cavalier of the Thorns is a thing you can do, but Nykthos is more powerful when you're playing permanents every turn and not using a crucial turn to spend mana to put it into play. My hunch is this will see some play in some deck at some point, and its existence is something to keep in mind. It's not an every-Mono-Green-deck card like Archmage's Charm, which was completely busted if you could cast it easily. Fugitive Codebreaker This is a solid-looking card. Fugitive Codebreaker reminds me a lot of Den Protector as a morph with a value mechanic. The difference is that Fugitive Codebreaker requires you to consider it more when building your deck, but it's also a much better two-drop. As a two-drop in any deck filled with spells, whether that be a dedicated Izzet Prowess-style deck or a Mono-Red-Burn deck, it can threaten to deal tons of damage when unanswered. As the game develops, you can then start chaining them while you empty your hand. A perfect midgame scenario is you have four to five lands, five spells in your graveyard, and you can morph this for three, flip it in the same turn to reload your hand, and still deal some damage. This will play through cards like Aether Gust and Disdainful Stroke, which is a nice added benefit. This card looks strong enough because it's serviceable at two mana, and it will often be your best draw in the midgame in a deck that wants this card. I hope I get to play a tier-one deck with this card in the near future. Long Goodbye Long Goodbye is a nice format staple for Standard. With the introduction of Disguise to MTG, we got a removal spell that can fight through Ward, which impacts disguised creatures and cards like Raffine. In many cases, this will be less efficient than Cut Down, but it will be more consistent in killing what you want and trading up on mana. It's a card we'll be seeing a good amount of in Standard and potentially eternal formats. While eternal format players tend to play cheaper creatures, Long Goodbye is not that efficient compared to more powerful removals like Fatal Push, but it also hits cards like Wrenn and Six. I suspect we'll see a lot of this card in the coming couple of years of Magic. Even if it's not super exciting, it's just a solid bread-and-butter Magic card. Ezrim, Agency Chief Ezrim looks incredible. A five-mana 5/5 flyer will often dominate the skies. The ability to gain hexproof with an activation means you need to kill this with the trigger on the stack if you're lucky, or often not at all. While this isn't as unbeatable as Dream Trawler since it can technically be raced, I'm excited to try this card in Standard in place of Ao because it will be more difficult to manage, still provides immediate value, and slides right into Esper decks with Raffine. This is a Baneslayer and Mulldrifter rolled into one. The more food you have to feed it, the better it becomes. While five mana cards have a high bar to clear, I think this gets through. Murders at Karlov Manner looks kind of exciting. At first, the power level looked tame, but I think it got itself up to being solid. There don't look to be any flashy cards like Fable of the Mirror Breaker that will definite formats for years to come, but there are a lot of interesting designs that could create new archetypes or potentially push A-tier decks into the S-tier. I'm already booked and have all accommodations set up for the 75k in Chicago at the Pro Tour. I'm excited to get back to playing paper Standard for the first time in years. I hope to see you there.

We now have more insight into what's going on with the Murders at Karlov Manor, including more previews and new game mechanics. Let's first look at the new mechanics. Disguise Disguise is a fresh new look at morph. Like morph, a disguised creature can be cast face down and then turned face up after paying the morph or disguise cost. The only difference between disguise and morph is that a disguised creature has ward 2. This is a cool but uninspired spin on morph. It will also lead to obnoxious situations in paper Magic where people forget it has ward and judge calls about taking back a play are made. Collect evidence Collect evidence is a more inspired mechanic that feels similar to delve. If you want the additional benefit, you exile a casting cost worth of cards from your graveyard equal or greater to the number on the card as an additional cost. This is a cool mechanic that is a delve and delirium mix where getting cards into your graveyard provides value as games progress. I'm interested to see how this plays out in Limited and Constructed. Let's get into some previews. No More Lies No More Lies jumps out to many old-school gamers. Mana Leak was a controversial card in Standard sets, but since then Magic has come a long way. It's been time for a while to bring it back. No More Lies is more restrictive on where it can be played as a gold card, which will make it less ubiquitous across Standard and Pioneer. I could see this backfiring and being a bad thing. It will narrow where we can play such a strong card and what cards can be played with it, but I like this twist in a large Standard with a much longer rotation. This card is a surefire staple in both Pioneer and Standard. Massacre Girl, Known Killer While a cool callback to a sweet card and character, Massacre Girl, Known Killer has a big problem: Having the same casting cost as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Massacre Girl, Known Killer wants you to get into combat and trade off creatures so that you draw cards via the wither mechanic, but that's not what competitive Constructed is about these days. I suspect this card will sit in trade binders and Limited decks. Krenko, Baron of Tin Street I haven't had enough time to process how far you can push this version of Krenko, but this card looks incredibly strong. A 3/3 haste for 3 is at rate for a playable creature if we get something extra, and this has a built-in lord effect and a way to generate creatures in true Krenko style. Krenko seems ripe for abuse in older formats that already play Goblins. While it will need a lot of support, it may have some legs in Standard as well. Krenko will play especially nice with clue, treasure, and food tokens. This card isn't busted since it needs help, but we'll likely see a lot of builds revolving around this card in eternal formats. You can probably already find something on my friend and teammate Jim Davis's stream. No Witnesses Wrath of God, Depopulate, or whatever you want to compare it to, will be just as good as those variants. There's not much to say about this one because it's mostly a carbon reprint of former versions with the flavor of the new set. It's a solid option in all formats that want this effect, but in modern-day Magic, we can't rely on it for too much since threats have become more powerful and diversified. Sharp-Eyed Rookie Sharp-Eyed Rookie takes evolve to the next level. This creature can grow as long as you continue to cast bigger and bigger creatures, and you get a card of value in the form of a clue with this card. Sharp-Eyed Rookie only needs to trigger twice for it to be incredible, and even once you can evaluate it as a two-mana, 3/3 vigilance that produces a clue. The card looks solid in curve-out green decks with high-creature density. We don't have many of those at the moment in Standard, but I could see a sequence of Sharp-Eyed Rookie, Glissa, and Sheoldred as a 2-3-4 punch that puts the screws to the opponent, as they're all must-kills. One aspect I like about Sharp-Eyed Rookie is that while it asks you to play directly into sweepers, it also gives you clue tokens to help replace the cards you lost, which will be important in tight, grindy games. Sharp-Eyed Rookie is a two-drop that will likely see play in the right home, but it's not a staple or a card you want to build around, as cracking clues isn't cheap. Aurelia's Vindicator This appears to be the first Constructed-focused disguise creature. It looks interesting and like a mash-up of both Exalted Angel and Angel of Serenity. Aurelia's Vindicator, even cast at four mana, gives you an evasive creature that can be tough to kill with ward 2 on the front side that also wins races on behalf of the lifelink. If disguised and flipped, Aurelia's Vindicator can sweep your opponent's board and provide a huge tempo boost and maybe pick up creatures from your graveyard so that you can potentially loop multiple copies, much like we used to do with Angel of Serenity. The way Aurelia's Vindicator reads, I believe we can exile creatures permanently by making it leave play before the resolution of its trigger, potentially with a bounce spell or flicker effect. Aurelia Vindicator's 2 toughness is a huge strike against, as the card might have some legs in Standard otherwise. It trades with creatures like Faerie Mastermind and dies to Shock, which makes it less exciting. There's a world where this card sees some play since it can go over the top of any creature deck given enough mana. Sadly, I don't think we live in that world, and the real draw would be a large lifelink flier rather than a cool disguise card we want to play for its awesome ability. Maybe the full package has it end up somewhere in some numbers. Surveil Lands Last but not least for this week, we have Surveil Lands. These lands are all playable and direct callbacks to the Scry lands, though they're better for a few reasons. For one, by surveiling, you can add cards to your graveyard to be used in a myriad of ways. Another huge reason these are better is that they are fetchable. I'm curious to see what number of these we see played in Modern, but my guess is that every deck playing a lot of fetches will want a single copy to turn fetches into lands that can scry in grindier, longer games. You may even see these in a format like Legacy where you want to put a specific card in your graveyard. You can fetch an Undercity Sewers, put surveil on the stack, cast Brainstorm, and put an Atraxa into the graveyard to Animate Dead. These are going to see play, and while the full utility isn't as easily used in Standard or Pioneer, we will see them beyond those formats. We likely want to avoid playing them in Standard and Pioneer because we've seen in recent years how punishing it can be to play tapped lands off-curve. I will for sure pick up a set of these, and I'm excited to see how they play in Cube since they're fetchable and provide a unique way to put cards in the graveyard. So far the set looks mundane and nothing jumps out as a card I need to build around or that will affect the formats too much. No Lies Told is my current pick for the most exciting card, and while it's strong, I hope we see something more exciting next week.

It's a new year and MTG has a new set coming around the corner. I'm especially interested this time around because I've already booked Magicfest Chicago and registered for the Standard 75k. I'll start my testing process once we have a full idea of the set. Until then, I'll look at each card and think about and relearn the format. Each individual set could have a lot of impact on the format if they decide to turn the crank on the power level, but in general each Standard set will have less impact because of how large Standard is becoming with the new rotation cycle. Let's take a look at some cards that seem interesting thus far. Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth is an interesting card. It has Rogue Refiner vibes, a three-power, three-mana creature that provides a Clue token that is comparable to "draw a card" when you factor in the use of an artifact token on top of the mana cost to get your card. Additionally, we get the potential in the late game to turn any Clue into a Sphinx's Revelation. This effect is huge in games where boards stall out, which isn't typical in Standard these days, but long, back-and-forth games can happen in grindy formats like Standard, especially postboard when people bring in appropriate interaction. There will be times you peel Alquist with 10 mana, which you can then tap out to make a 3/3 that also draws four cards, much like a Hydroid Krasis. This card will be excellent in those kinds of games, and vigilance allows you to set this up a little better while still pressuring life totals and planeswalkers, providing you with a 3/3 that can always block. This is the card I'm most excited about trying based on the previews. It may be too slow for current Standard, but I could see it being quite good given a deck that tries to develop a long game plan. Lightning Helix A beloved reprint, Lightning Helix is sure to see play in any deck that can cast it, but casting is going to be the issue. I see Lightning Helix as more of a defensive card right now. It's a removal spell with life gain that can help more controlling or slower decks, such as Domain, push into the late game where you're able to overpower your opponent. With the mana the way it is in Standard currently, it's a difficult card to cast in aggressive decks. We likely won't see it splashed in a deck like Mono Red. Helix is an appropriately powered card for Standard. While it's sure to see play, it's not good enough to wrap your deck around, as we have a huge Standard since sets keep being released. Helix will provide additional reach even in slower decks, so it's not strictly a removal spell because it can also help you close in a lot of situations. Lightning Helix is an excellent printing because it's an appropriate power level, will see some play, and some players may get excited enough about it to try Standard again after having not played in a while. I'm especially interested in trying Lightning Helix in a deck with Chandra, Hope's Beacon. It's a solid card and a great reprint. Rakdos, Patron of Chaos Rakdos, Patron of Chaos is certainly powerful, but six mana likely won't see play. For six mana, a card needs to provide immediate value. While Rakdos can do that, situations where it eats an instant-speed-removal spell and provides nothing will be devastating having spent six mana. Ideally, Rakdos comes into play, draws two cards, attacks the following turn, and draws two more. Basically, any six-mana card is going to run away with games untouched, so you want six-mana spells to provide immediate value all the time and not just when the opponent doesn't have it or when they're tapped out. We'll probably see some people slide a copy into various Rakdos decks as a top-end finisher, but I'm unlikely to put this card in my deck over something like Chandra Hope's Beacon. Novice Inspector I wish they had just reprinted Thraben Inspector because I don't want to see multiple copies of this effect in Cubes, and I know I will. I've never been a huge fan of Thraben Inspector, but it has its spots. I'm not expecting this card to age well in Standard, but it will see play, at least for a while. It's worth noting that having a newly named Thraben Inspector is a big addition for Boros Convoke in Pioneer, which I think is kind of cool. Does it make that deck significantly better? Not really, as it doesn't change how the deck plays functionally, but it does make it a bit more consistent. Deduce This is an interesting card for Pioneer Creativity decks. If you're looking to cast Creativity for X=1, then this card has a shot at seeing some real play. Deduce is not a card we'll see played for reasons outside of wanting to do something with that artifact token, but there are many places where it could be a role player. It's not the most exciting card, but it's interesting to try when you want a token. Because it has investigate, you can split the mana cost as its fail mode and enable artifact and token synergies without actually being an artifact itself. Gleaming Geardrake Last but not least is my favorite card I've seen thus far—Gleaming Geardrake. This is a bit of a sleeper pick from me, but Gleaming Geardrake provides value and puts two artifacts into play with one spell, which is an excellent follow-up to a card like Patchwork Automaton. The most obvious old-school synergy would be with Arcbound Ravager, killing at an incredibly fast rate. There's lot of area to explore with Gleaming Geardrake outside of old Modern decks that won't be good enough, like traditional Ensoul decks in Pioneer. Gleaming Geardrake is far from a slam dunk, but it's an all-around awesome design that is likely to find a home in at least some tier-2 decks. This card has a high ceiling with tons of artifact synergies, such as decks that make treasure, with Cat Oven, or anything else in this space that can produce lots of artifact tokens. This is my favorite design in the set thus far. It reminds me a bit of Bloodtithe Harvester as a two-drop that provides value and is a scary threat to boot. I don't see anything groundbreaking for Standard, or any format for that matter, so far. However, a set with investigate as a key mechanic should be a lot of fun, and I'm hoping they're saving the best previews for after winter break. Regardless, there are some interesting cards that I'm excited to try.