Hi everyone! It’s been a while I know, so let’s jump right in after a little housekeeping.
I do not support the use of neural network (“AI”) technology to create new Magic: The Gathering cards. Part of what makes MTG so great is the way it grew from being one man’s ambition to the work of a huge team of creatives of all sorts–game designers, writers, artists, coders, animators, actors, and more. None of these people are replaceable. All of them have created vibrant original work that they never intended to see used to train computers to push them and their colleagues out of their work. I am not anti-AI whatsoever. My day job at the moment is training large language models to produce code. I’m hopeful it will one day relieve lots of people from having to reinvent the wheel over and over again and rewrite code that’s already been perfected. But art can never be perfected. Art is the birthright every human should be able to claim if they wish. And as long as one needs to have a job in the arts to practice them full-time, I will always deplore any development of technology which pushes artists out of jobs. MTG needs to foster its creative community, not abandon it.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the fun part! Mark Rosewater has dropped his teaser for OTJ, and before I look at any leaks, I want to go through the teaser with you guys and share my reactions.
“A new batch of five related creature types”
I have actually been spoiled on this one–the outlaw batch includes a bunch of “evil” creature types. I don’t recall which ones off the top of my head, except that it includes mercenaries, warlocks, rogues (but not ninjas), and two other types. A quick search says they’re assassins and pirates. This whole thing frustrates me. I’m generally opposed to breaking up existing batched creature types like rogues and ninjas, and the decision on which types were in and which were out feels super arbitrary. Warlocks are kind of an unsatisfying catchall for anyone who can use magic, which means we’re likely to see characters which have never been warlocks before getting the type even when it doesn’t really fit the character. Rogues are beginning to feel like their entire mechanical identity is being in random batches. Assassins are clearly there to lay the groundwork for the Assassin’s Creed decks, and that’s fine. Similarly, pirates were seeded in LCI, and I’m generally happy to see these typal themes stretching across two sets rather than needing to be contained in one. I’m glad to see mercenaries back again, too, as long as they get a touch-up to their own mechanical identity and don’t just become trinket text on outlaw cards.
“A card capable of returning three different card types from the graveyard to the battlefield”
We get this a fair amount, so I’m not sure why it’s in the teaser. Maybe it’s interesting in that it gets types that don’t get as many reanimation effects, like lands or planeswalkers. Maybe the way it does this will make it worth nearly top bidding. Currently? Snore.
“A mechanic players have been asking us to do for many years gets made as the setting was the perfect place to finally do it”
This could be a lot of things, but my guess is this is referring to creature vehicles, or, as I like to call them, horses. That’s a little facetious, but I suspect that it’s just a way for creatures to ride creatures and not just vehicles. Honestly, I feel like Enlist was a good flavorful way to do that and, had it just been called something else, would’ve been fine as the way to represent this forever. But it’s not the end of the world to have a new mechanic too.
“Dual lands with a land subtype that has never been on dual lands before”
This has to be deserts. That’s cool if you’re a desert fan!
…I want to go back to Amonkhet now.
“A new modal mechanic that introduces something different to think about”
The phrasing here irks me. Every new mechanic should bring something new to think about. If I had to guess, the creature heavy things we’ve seen so far (typal themes, creature vehicles, lots of legendary characters) make me think we’ll need to consider our board presence, maybe something like spells that have different effects if you control 0 (ghost town), 1 (shoot-out), or more than one creature.
Note: As I was trying to find information for later, I stumbled across a spoiler that says I was totally wrong. Oh well! Personally, I don’t think it’s so different to past modal mechanics as to warrant this phrasing, but maybe it feels very different in actual play.
“A card that can swap/exchange control of up to three different card types”
There’s that “Three different card types” thing again. I suspect this is some kind of batch, then. Historic doesn’t feel like a great fit for a set that’s built on the conceit that the American West was built on uninhabited, unclaimed territory (I couldn’t make it through this post without an eye roll at that), so we’re probably getting a new batch–maybe legendary creatures, planeswalkers, and the new creature vehicles are conspirators, or artifacts, lands, and auras are loot.
“A new creature token that has an ability no creature token has ever had before”
My guess is that this is done to make Mercenary tokens (which are mentioned here) mechanically unique, probably with some sort of typal tutor or impulse ability. Maybe something like “(cost), Tap, Sacrifice Mercenary: Look at the top N cards of your deck. You may put an outlaw from among those cards into play.” Or for something a little more red (since that’s apparently the color of mercenaries now), “(cost), Tap, Sacrifice Mercenary: Look at the top N cards of your deck. You may exile an outlaw from among those cards. If you do, you may cast that card from exile.” Part tutor, part impulsive draw, part throwback. All fun.
“A typal card for Skeletons and Zombies”
Not much to say here other than that this is cool and I don’t think it’ll be a draftable archetype. It’s giving “direct-to-commander mythic rare” energy.
Creature tokens in the set:
These I think are a general part of the draft environment.
- 1/1 red Mercenary
- As discussed above.
- 2/2 white Ox
- 2/1 green Varmint
- Gotta have some cattle to rustle. “Varmint” as a creature type, even just on tokens, irks me, but whatever.
- 1/1 white Sheep
- Could come from a new generous gift type effect, or just represent livestock.
- 1/1 blue Bird
- Aside from bringing back unwanted memories of Alrund’s Epiphany, I think this is probably part of the draft environment.
- ∗/∗ Blue Ox
- This belongs on this plane, but is probably a one-off made by a rare. It’ll probably be the size of the number of cards you have in hand.
And these I think come from legendary villains.
- 2/2 white Spirit
- We’ve only seen this particular type of Spirit before on one card (Obscura Ascendancy) so I can’t say who brought this to the party. The creature type is ubiquitous too, and we’ll have more than our fair share of necromancers on the villain plane.
- 3/3 white Angel
- We’ve seen these before on New Capenna. I can’t imagine any New Capennan villain wanting to summon them, but maybe it’s a “hunted” type effect where your opponent gets an angel as a downside on an efficiently costed demon.
- 1/1 black Vampire Rogue
- I’d think these are Innistradi vampires. Sorin could very well be here, and has a history of making vampire tokens. My wish, though, is for either the Sengir brood or Drana to be behind these. Obviously, they’re rogues so they can benefit from outlaw typal.
- 2/2 blue and black Zombie
- These are obviously Innistradi zombies, as made by Gisa and Geralf. Hopefully we’ll see some more decayed; I like that mechanic.
- 3/1 red Dinosaur
- These are Ixalani dinosaurs, as seen in LCI. I hope we get to see Saheeli and Huatli again and they’re mechanosaurs, but I don’t expect a miracle here.
- 3/3 green Elk
- Something something stupid sexy Oko.
- 4/4 red Scorpion Dragon
- I think this is going to come from whoever the plane’s new villain is. They will also look awesome, have flying, and end games of limited.
- X/X green Elemental
- I’d love villain Nissa, but since she just got redeemed (again), it’ll probably be another green villain. I can’t think of any that still have loose ends and aren’t named Oko off the top of my head. This probably comes in at the size of the number of lands you have in play.
Some of the planes with legendary Villains in this set:
This will be less predictions and more of a wishlist. Since the villains will likely be re-themed in order to make good outlaws, I don’t have any mechanical guesses about what characters will bring, and my Vorthos tendencies tend towards the heroes.
- Dominaria
- Weirdly, considering my first set was Mirage, I don’t care about many Dominarian villains. I’d like to see Baron Sengir, though.
- Eldraine
- All I want for Purim is for Oko not to break standard this time.
- Fiora
- This is just Marchesa. There aren’t any other characters on Fiora that anyone cares about, are there?
- Innistrad
- I know we’re getting Gisa and Geralf, and that their story is really good. (I’ve been holding off on reading the story until I see all the cards since I prefer constructing my version of events from flavor text and card context.) I’d love to see some evil cathars, since I think they’re an underrated villain option on Innistrad, but now is probably not the time. I do think we’ll probably see Sorin and know if he lost his spark. (I hope he did.)
- Ixalan
- Maybe the Aclazotz plotline is continuing here? That would be fun.
- Kaladesh
- I want Dovin Baan in this set so I can point removal at his smug face. I understand he’s dead. I want him deader.
- Kaldheim
- I never played Kaldheim, but Tibalt’s dead, right? He never even got a card? What other villains are there on Kaldheim to care about? Fynn the Fangbearer?
- Kamigawa
- I refuse to care on principal considering Ninjas aren’t Outlaws.
- New Capenna
- I don’t think we know which family demons are alive, so I’m hoping more to hear about what happened than to see any particular one of them. Xander was my favorite anyway, and he’s definitely dead. I thought Jetmir was dead too (he’s my second favorite) but apparently he’s not, so I guess he can show up.
- Ravnica
- If Vraska isn’t officially confirmed for the set yet, they should stop messing around and do it. Obviously it’s Vraska. If we get anyone else (other than Dovin Baan), I’d like Rakdos. In a cowboy hat. Just a regular sized cowboy hat on a gigantic demon.
“Then repeat this process X more times.”
This is a great way to do an X spell that’s a little more complicated. I’m surprised this line of text isn’t out there already. I’d probably put it on a mass fight spell here, with the flavor of a shoot-out where you have X fights. (That’d probably have to cost something like XXGG, though.) You could also have it on an Invoke Despair type card where an opponent needs to sacrifice something X times or face some kind of consequence.
“if it wasn’t cast or no mana was spent to cast it.”
Considering you can “plot[…] cards from your hand”, which probably means that you aren’t casting them the normal way, I assume this interacts with the plot mechanic, either as hate or support. I think it’s probably hate because it would then also kill Bramble Familiar combo and discover decks, which are probably going to be even more annoying after rotation if nothing’s done about them. That’s a shame, because I was excited to build around Quintorius Kand in Standard or Brawl, but maybe it won’t be playable. If it is hate, it’ll certainly make cEDH stax more annoying.
“Plotting cards from your hand costs {2} less.”
This is what I was talking about with regard to plot. I think it’s a way to pay for spells ahead of time, sort of like foretell. I’d guess it’s on the signpost uncommon for the plot deck in Limited, and thus probably not playable in Constructed.
“You can’t cast this spell during your first, second, or third turns of the game.”
This and the “no mana was spent to cast it” card makes me wonder if we’re getting free spells with this text on them. Free spells in Standard sounds like a nightmare, though, so probably not.
“That card gains flashback {0}”
I can’t wait to play against free Breach the Multiverse for the next 3 years. Jokes aside, this is probably costed out of Standard playability, specifically because we have a ton of high-cost instants and sorceries that really shouldn’t be reanimated for free.
There’s a lot of talk about casting things for free going on here, and I would just like to use this space to beg Wizards to ban Atraxa. It’s time. She’s been in standard for a while. Every deck has perfect mana to cast her (except mono-red). She’s homogenizing the format. I’m sick and tired of her. I know the right thing to do is see if the triomes rotating will kill domain ramp, but I don’t want to spend the whole OTJ format not playing OTJ cards because you have to play 4 Atraxa and 4 Sheoldred.
“Target creature becomes a white Rabbit with a base power and toughness 0/1.”
This is an unplayable blue combat trick. You can’t fool me, Maro.
“When you win that flip, copy that spell.”
KRENKO???
“If a triggered ability of a legendary creature you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time.”
I’d like them to slow down the panharmonicon effects. They’re very cool, but they’re best used sparingly or they lose their cool factor. Also, every time they print one, they have to either find a new thing to double or make a better version of one that exists (or a worse version, I suppose) and I think they’ll find themselves having used up their design space quickly at this rate.
“You get that many additional upkeep steps after this phase.”
I’ve seen rumors that this will be on an Obeka card, and I’d love that, because she’s cool and I want to know more about her. Mechanically, I’m not sold on this upkeep doubling thing that the Ninth Doctor does. If this is any good and in the right colors, it might be playable in Virtue of Persistence/Portal to Phyrexia reanimator decks in Standard.
“Oxen you control have double strike.”
The set clearly has an Oxen typal limited archetype. There are people who are excited about this, but it’s not my table at the buffet. The set feels clogged with typal stuff and, while I’m usually a fan of typal, it feels like the boring easy way that they do tropes rather than giving creature types mechanical themes. The detective typal effects in MKM didn’t feel like they were detectives, just that it was another creature class type getting the usual typal effects. Having two “hat typal” sets in a row would be a huge frustration to me.
Creature Type Lines
- Creature – Armadillo
- Not much to say here other than that they are clearly putting in the work to get us ready for Bloomburrow by adding more descriptive creature types than just “beast”. Nicely done.
- Creature – Shark Rogue
- Every piece of fantasy media apparently needs a shark who’s a card shark/loan shark for those puns. Undertale spoiled me on the dream of having shark people with depth.
- Creature – Plant Bard
- I’ve heard this is going to be cactus people, which will be awesome if they depict anything other than saguaros and really frustrating as someone familiar with Arizona life if they don’t. I’d love to see a Teddy Bear Cholla with the plant type Plant Bear. Considering they won’t even depict penguins for fear that the playerbase might not recognize them, though, I suspect I will just be seeing the same old stereotypical saguaros.
- Creature – Coyote
- Why do canines get a ton of different creature types and felines just get cat? The world may never know.
- Creature – Homarid Mercenary
- They knew all the older fans were going to get mad about a Western set, so they put Homarid Mercenaries in it. I’d be more frustrated if I hadn’t been holding out for a Zhalfir set for a decade and a half.
- Creature – Rhino Brawler
- This could’ve been a berserker.
- Creature – Ox Angel
- Holy Cow! (Looking into the camera like I’m on The Office.)
- Creature – Porcupine Mount
- Told you creature vehicles would be a thing.
- Legendary Creature – Kor Advisor
- This doesn’t fit Nahiri’s style, but I’m not sure I know another villainous Kor. Other than Elas, who should be dead. I love the Kor, though, so I’m a fan.
- Legendary Creature – Giant Scout
- I don’t know who this is, but maybe it’s someone from Lorwyn. We are returning there, after all.
Names
- Claim Jumper
- I get the feeling this will be a signpost uncommon.
- Form a Posse
- Could be a sorcery spell that makes mercenary creature tokens?
- Gold Rush
- This makes treasure. It might also give creatures haste.
- Great Train Heist
- I’m not really sure what this card does other than make treasure.
- High Noon
- This feels like an enchantment to me.
- Quick Draw
- This probably just gives something haste, but I hope it lets you cast things with flash.
- Reach for the Sky
- Maybe a green aura that grants reach?
- Resilient Roadrunner
- Funny beep beep meme. I wish more people got to see real roadrunners, they’re cute and nothing like the cartoon.
- Shoot the Sheriff
- This is either big red burn or a black spell that reads “Destroy target legendary creature.”
- This Town Ain’t Big Enough
- I try not to raise the “this doesn’t feel like Magic” objection too often, but this just feels cheesy. The fact that the line has to be cut off to fit on the card isn’t helping the matter. I feel like Magic can and should do tropey genre planes without having to stare into the camera and Say The Line. If the genres it’s working with aren’t deep enough to be subtle, maybe it should leave them to mature until they are, but it’s not even that. These are deep genres that can stand up to being depicted in Magic without needing to name a bunch of cards after TVTropes articles.
I don’t have any unsolicited designs to add to this article–nothing really grabbed my attention as something I wanted to work with yet. That being said, as we head into spoiler season, I’ll probably find more inspiration, so watch this space!