After migrating homes every couple of sets (from Discord, to Twitch, back to Discord, and to Tumblr), the Gladiator Big Talks are now here, on the Gladiator website! For those that aren’t aware of what I do, I’m SeismicLawns, semi-professional fool and buffoon, and for the past 2 years now, I have taken a look at every single new-to-arena card joining our format with a set, and talked about every single one, from the really bad commons to now Chrome Mox, all with very little literal or mental editing. I sort these all by color and collector number (which usually follows names), and the extras (bonus sheets, Special Guests, commanders) in their own subsection. If you’d like to just see my thoughts on your favorite or least favorite card, Ctrl + F is your friend, as there’s a whole lot of words between this paragraph and Country Roads.
White
Air Response Unit: French vanilla moment. I have come to the realization that, for this format, the bar for vehicles to see any reasonable play is for them to be cheap, hyperstatted, and provide utility outside of just turning sideways, and this provides on none of those points.
Alacrian Armory: 4 mana is a lot for how narrow this card is in our format, but in standard, pioneer, or limited, I could see it being something. Here, though, it’s really awkward to make a deck where this feels worthwhile, much less one where this isn’t also strictly necessary for the deck to function.
Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion: You’ll play Basri because it’s a 2/1 for 1 that has multiple avenues of added utility, but you’ll keep it in your deck after you use it to trigger Guide of Souls so that your Ocelot Pride copies a creature with lifelink or when you’re on the back foot so you block with Basri, then cash him in after blocks for another blocker with lifelink.
Brightfield Glider: Flying vigilance is cool on a 1 drop, but unfortunately this does not have the better of those two innately, and getting saddle 3 online is very unlikely without hurting your board state to chip in damage.
Brightfield Mustang: Cards like this make me stoked for limited (and this is a dope card for Ellesandra’s Horse deck) but I think, outside of decks that have committed far harder to a theme than they should, you shouldn’t touch this limited common.
Broadcast Rambler: Alright now this is podracing with limited commons
Bulwark Ox: I like this card in a dedicated counters deck, but outside of that, it’s only defensible in a generic deck. The sac effect is quite nice, but it’s hard to make this into an actual Luminarch Aspirant effect without already being decently ahead.
Canyon Vaulter: Now this is podsurfing on limited commons!
Cloudspire Captain: I think this is pretty strictly a limited uncommon, but someone who’s fiercely dedicated to the cars deck could certainly get away with running this gal.
Collision Course: I like that this is modal like abrade, but being at sorcery speed really hampers what you can do with this, to the point where I’d rather just play Thraben Charm, and I haven’t seen that card as much as I thought I would.
Daring Mechanic: Hey look it’s me when I cut my hair and there’s a shark on my right.
Detention Chariot: We have Oblivion Ring at home - O ring at home: is this damn card. The worst thing is that I could unfortunately see myself playing this in a first draft of a cycling deck.
Gallant Strike: In metas where control is becoming more prevalent and you want to still be able to kill green creatures I like this card a good chunk. Being able to cycle on an empty board or after your opponent holds up a Counterspell is a great feeling, especially when it’s not an embarrassing card otherwise too.
Gloryheath Lynx: 2/3 with lifelink for 2 is really nice, and being able to repeatedly get lands for the cost of a little pressure is huge, especially with the number of games I’ve lost to not hitting my 3rd or 4th land on curve.
Guardian Sunmare: This card is admittedly not great, but being a tutor that can be repeatable and that has ward 2 is incredibly exciting for combo decks, especially ones that need 2 pieces that can be found of this horse to go off, like Nadu, Winged Wisdom decks.
Guidelight Synergist: I’m not a huge fan of this card, just like I’m not a huge fan of Filigree Attendant, but it can be a tolerable topend for the deck if you feel you need more past Kappa Cannoneer and a pile of good 4s and 5s I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Interface Ace: It’s sure as hell a wall of no-card-draw-mens (yea i know this joke doesn’t land don’t worry)
Leonin Surveyor: I think this is the most promising of the SYE cards that exile from your graveyard, but I do think these are all balanced pretty well for limited, which is to say not in a way that makes them very appealing for Gladiator.
Lightshield Parry: I’m pretty intrigued by a Mutagenic Growth with cycling, but I don’t think it has the juice to make the cut long term in a home.
Lightwheel Enchancements: I’m reminded a lot of Sentinel’s Eyes, but this one is online from the grave later and can actually be countered in a way that matters. However, if it resolves or you can get Speed 1 some other way, it’s way more effective, to the point where it makes all threats relevant and able to trigger your enchantresses for the rest of the game.
Lotusguard Disciple: The fact that this doesn’t have flash makes me pretty uninterested in it. A wind drake is fine, but it’s not great on curve and it’s still a middling effect in the mid-late game.
Nesting Bot: I have gotten Myr Sire into first drafts of decks surprisingly often and recently, and the fact that this is cheaper and still 2 artifact bodies and one of them can eventually be Savannah Lions means I’m excited enough to try it in WUx bots decks, and definitely in WRx Goblin Engineer builds.
Perilous Snare: This is not the best Oblivion Ring when there’s a bit more artifact removal than enchantment removal running around, but the payoff at the end makes me pretty excited if you’re already in an artifacts or engineer shell and can capitalize on the card type.
Pride of the Road: I think this card is almost playable, but only if you’re in a deck that can pretty confidently get max speed by precombat turn 5, which is a hard, but I think almost doable task. There, this is a good statline that dodges most 2 mana toughness based removal and makes your best threats lethal while not needing to get vulnerable or ever tap.
Ride’s End: I guess this is the best version of this limited common we’ve gotten so far, but it’s still no swords yknow.
Roadside Assistance: Lifelink is an underrated keyword, but it’s not enough to singlehandedly carry a card from middling to playable.
Salvation Engine: I’m not high on this card, but noncreature reanimate engines are usually much safer than the creatures… except for the fact that this does turn into a creature before you can trigger it, making it vulnerable to Infernal Grasp and Swords to Plowshares, though not to Go for the Throat, so that’s probably a mark in its favor?
Skyseer’s Chariot: I’m not a fan of a soft Phyrexian Revoker, and while this has some plusses over the Phyrexian lil guy, it doesn’t add a significant amount of power or provide much more in utility to really want it over either Revoker or Anointed Peacekeeper.
Spectacular Pileup: Hitting indestructible gods like Tajic, Legion’s Valor and having Cycling 2 for the matchups where you don’t need wraths make me raise an eyebrow in a world where you never have to play 5 drop wraths if you don’t want to.
Spotcycle Scouter: It’s no Smuggler’s Copter, but I do like me a car that adds 2 power to the board and scries on entry more than I should. This realistically does all the things I want a car to do (except have evasion, but it’s a common, who was expecting this to have evasion?)
Sundial, Dawn Tyrant: Look I don’t know how to tell you 2 mana 3/3s are good other than just saying 2 mana 3/3s are good. That said, I’m not 100% certain I’d play this in generic white aggro decks, but I will for sure play it in bots or generic many-colored aggro strategies, where this statline typically either requires a Green pip or 2 of the same color.
Swiftwing Assailant: Look: the bar is so comically high for 4 drops, of course the mediocre bird doesn’t make into the 4 drops that are playable club.
Tune Up: Wake up babe, new Refurbish just dropped! I don’t know what colors the deck wants to be (other than RW), but there is certainly a deck that wants to put Portal to Phyrexia or Parhelion II into the graveyard, and you’re more than happy just playing this as Refurbish 2 in that deck.
Unswerving Sloth: I did my homework and y’all won’t believe it, this doesn’t really combo off with anything. Our extra combat creatures either require some other resource to get extra combats or have safeguards to not go infinite. Unfortunately, I think this sloth needs to be able to go infinite pretty easy for it to find a home anywhere.
Valor’s Flagship: Unlike in Pioneer (where I think this still doesn’t see play), we don’t have a deck that provides a really easy home for enormous cards that want to put themselves in the graveyard. Parhelion II at least provides some staying power, and we generally don’t think about touching it, and this big ship provides less.
Voyaging Glidecar: You know, this car does provide some utility and is very cheap. Unfortunately, adding 1 power and 2ish toughness makes the crew ability pretty unappetizing. Thankfully, the tap 3 creatures ability provides some nice scaling potential, especially for go-wide decks. You could certainly be playing worse cars, but it’s not the next Guide of Souls or anything.
Voyager Quickwelder: 3 drops that make artifacts cheaper are pretty dime a dozen, and this one is an artifact, which helps, but it’s ultimately second rate on arrival.
Blue
Aether Syphon: mmmm tasty aether (don’t play this card)
Bounce Off: This is one of our best unsummons in the format, but it doesn’t quite get over Into the Flood Maw, and it’s a slot that, if you want more than one of it, you should rethink some of your life choices sometime.
Caelorna, Coral Tyrant: This gal’s cool as hell but I’m not interested in playing her anywhere in this format.
Diversion Unit: It’s an interesting play on Malevolent Hermit for skies or bots decks, but it gets the job done despite its flaws, I think. I’m not a huge fan of only hitting instants and sorceries, but I get why it says those words, and it still counters a wrath or dig or removal spell just fine.
Flood the Engine: Being 3 mana really kills all excitement I have for playing this card here at sorcery speed.
Glitch Ghost Surveyor: Say hello to the first Glitch Ghost called out by name, and she’s not good!
Guidelight Optimizer: I have wanted to love so many of these artifact dorks and none of them have felt great in practice, save my soft spot for Renowned Weaponsmith.
Howler’s Heavy: That’s not nice to Howler, he’s trying his best. Oh, also, yes I will try this card in the Cycling deck.
Hulldrifter: WOWIE ZOWIE this card suucks in our format. The whole point of Mulldrifter and others like it is to add a blocking body to the board while also progressing your hand. Meanwhile this is just like if Lórien Revealed lived in its parents’ basement (and like no shame I’ve done that too).
Keen Buccaneer: I’m glad this Buccaneer is Keen, because that hopefully means they’re keen enough to know they’re not a good gladiator card so I don’t have to tell them.
Memory Guardian: Wake up babe new affinity threat with Thoughtcast mana just dropped! This one is actually huge, and goes a long way to giving the deck a density of over-efficient threats that act as rewards for playing the mid artifacts of the deck.
Midnight Mangler: Me when I be mangling (my leftover enchiladas) at Midnight (actually like 11 because I have work tomorrow).
Mindspring Merfolk: Look, the bar for merfolk is pretty damn low, and this guy is above that bar, if not just by a bit. Being a 1 drop that can buff your team at instant speed and draw some cards is pretty nice, but it’s also a 1 drop that draws cards for X and pumps your team that still manages to fall off a chunk in the lategame. That said, I think there’s plenty of times where you will be willing to activate this just for the pump and any cards you get (even 0) is just gravy.
Mu Yanling, Wind Rider: After reading the little blurbs for the legendaries, I’ve grown to be a lot cooler with Mu Yanling being here, but her card’s deeply mid. Having another flying payoff is cool, and the fact that she can block or attack without putting herself (the Coastal Piracy) in the red zone makes me kind of want to try her in skies.
Nimble Thopterist: Sometimes I wonder why I legitimately think about every card in the set for these big talks, but it took a while for me to get to that point this time. Alright, moving on.
Possession Engine: I can’t get over how much I love the Shark just chillin on the back of the car goin like BWA. Unfortunately this card sucks ass, especially since the play pattern is to crew the car with the stolen creature, which makes the car more vulnerable to giving back the stolen creature.
Rangers’ Refueler: At this time, I’m assuming this will be the only exhaust ability you can count on using to trigger itself, and this card takes so much mana to do any of the things you can do with it that I become fully disinterested.
Repurposing Bay: 3 mana for an artifact pod is nice, but 2 mana to go up the chain hurts a lot. I don’t think we have amazing artifact pod lines like we would real pod, but it could have some legs if you have a WU artifact deck with fiddlebender and a ton of toolbox hits. Som
Riverchurn Monument: I will say this card is interesting solely for its exhaust ability in dredge-style or turbo mill decks. That said, it’s still very bad. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Roadside Blowout: Drag Under is rarely a card that interests me, and the mana value 1 rider goes a long way, but I don’t think it gets into any decks on account of sorcery speed and a still bad rate for any other hits.
Sabotage Strategist: Being a lingering Tamiyo +2 is neat, but being on an X/2 is rough, especially considering the way around that small body is a 7 mana exhaust ability.
Scrounging Skyray: Fliers that grow big in synergistic decks gotta be one of my favorite genders, and this is a very cool sidegrade to the lil fox from IKO.
Skystreak Engineer: I really hope exhaust becomes a pseudo-evergreen mechanic in the next year or so, because the limited and standard exhaust decks are working with pools of pretty dog effects like this, and I do want some of these exhaust synergy pieces to be good in gladiator, but we need each card to be closer to loot’s level than this, and that density only comes over time.
Slick Imitator: I am always going to give a little bit of an eyebrow to most copy effects (I played a clones deck in canlander for gods’ sake) but max speed just takes way too long to justify it on a 2 mana 1/3.
Spectral Interference: Quench this spell is not, also I haven’t seen any of its iirc multiple functional reprints in other decks before.
Spikeshell Harrier: Hey look it’s the Mario Kart Blue Shell™ haha funny. All things considered, I was kind of surprised when a few of my friends saw this card and said “huh neat it’s the card that can reduce speed” and then first responded with saying “huh” when I replied that it’s cool the Mario Kart Blue Shell™ did that, like they hadn’t clocked that as the reference at all until I pointed it out and they like play Mario Kart so it’s not like a foreign concept to them
Stall Out: These stun effects are typically not worth a card, especially with how many cards in our format have statics or triggered abilities that don’t care about them attacking specifically.
Stock Up: This card is interesting, but I think I’d generally prefer Quick Study or Brainsurge’s instant speed over this for now. I’m guessing certain decks aren’t as concerned with that, though, and are just wanting to see as many cards as possible, and this is sure 1 card more than Brainsurge looks at.
Thopter Fabricator: I like the Draw-two rewards, but this one’s a little awkward with how expensive it is. That said, though, it is a flier that adds 2 power from what it takes to crew it, so it does check a couple boxes.
Trade the Helm: Why they gotta make these exchange effects like 200 mana I just want to play them on 3 with a Goblin Electromancer or something but noooo they all got be expensive to the point of unplayabiltiy.
Transit Mage: I think this is a pretty solid slam dunk in artifact combo decks and nowhere else, but that’s good enough to find your Aetherflux Reservoir or Paradox Engine.
Trip Up: This is one of the better Misleading Motes effects we’ve gotten, and cycling is a big add to it. However, Horned Loch-Whale just keeps outclassing these effects for the foreseeable future. Maybe a 3 drop version of this would be interesting.
Unstoppable Plan: I just wanna find out what this card… does in any format. It feels like a card that was, at one point, way too busted and was taken out back and shot, or they were thinking that it’d be cool with like a The One Ring level card but either we haven’t seen it or they literally were thinking it’d go well with The One Ring and not that The One Ring wouldn’t last to see the plan.
Vnwxt, Verbose Host: Look, a 0/4 that needs you to hit your opponent 3 times is not good enough straight up, even if its max speed effect is pretty damn good.
Waxen Shapethief: Flash clone is nice, and having cycling on a flash clone is really cool, but I’m admittedly way too high on clones consistently, so my opinion is probably invalid.
Black
Ancient Vendetta: I’m not gonna tell you that this card is truly awful and shouldn’t be played in any format, but if you’re playing it, your willpower to try and stop very specific combos is much stronger than mine and I would probably just play Memory Lapse or Sheoldred’s Edict.
Back on Track: Hahaha get it because “back on track” normally refers to working at a task again but here it’s a literal interpretation heeheeheehoohoohoo
Carrion Cruiser: Our bar for Raise Dead effects in this format is unfortunately very high, which is rough because this card has some kind of rad vibes.
Chitin Gravestalker: This needs to be a 3 drop for you to be ok with it (and that said you need to get it to 2 mana to be impressed with it), and while I think it’s very doable to get 3 dudes in the yard by turn 3, getting 4 in by turn 2 seems like enough of a stretch that I would usually be cutting it if I didn’t have some specific strategies to use with it.
Cryptcaller Chariot: This requires a level of dedication to an idea that would make me assume that you’re also on Drake Haven, and be honest with me, you’re not on Drake Haven, are you?
Cursecloth Wrappings: I really like Whip of Erebos, frankly more than I should, and this card doesn’t fill the same slot, but it does give me the same joy in a card that feels like it’s playable in the current year. In reality, this is more like a Phyrexian Arena effect, but that’s great too, especially in decks with cheap, powerful threats to get back, like 3animator, where you don’t have to exile 6 cards to embalm an Abhorrent Occulus.
Deathless Pilot: We’ve got at least 2 really consistent guys that recur themselves turn after turn, so the bar is definitely gonna be higher than a bear that costs 6 total on repeat viewings (wait no that’s Duskmourn’s thing, right?)
Demonic Junker: I thought about this card for a while, and the only conclusion I kept coming back to was that reducing the cost by 3 which is easy enough to make consistent, makes this arguably worse than Ravenous Chupacabra. Anything past that is nowhere near a guarantee, and I unfortunately think you need to be always getting this down to 1-3 mana to make it worth your time, and that’s not a trivial cost. Thought Monitor gets away with it because it’s always a creature and 2/2s that draw you 2 cards for 4 are hard to come by, but I only rarely see Chupacabra’s sleeved up right now.
Engine Rat: Yo they made Typhoid Rats better??????? stop the presses eh!
Gas Guzzler: Our bar for creatures a bit above rate, especially in black, only continues to climb, so much that any downside can be an excuse to cut a card and any upside should probably be ironclad. While this is a Diregraf Ghoul in stats, the chances that you’re going to see it get up to max speed alive seem slim, and to be able to capitalize on that card draw effectively seem a little bit more slim by extension, so I’m not a huge fan of the guzzler.
Gastal Raider: The fact that this actually discards the card rather than holding onto it temporarily is nice, but 3 mana is just an awkward point in time for any discard effect in our format, where you really want to either hit them before turn 3 or right before you combo off (this is also a good reminder that I should write an article about timing discard spells depending on the matchup some time).
Gonti, Night Minister: I really like to have these cards either have deathtouch or evasion, but extending the goods to all your creatures individually rather than collectively like Rev, Tithe Extractor does is a huge upside, and could make it a pretty strong contender for a UB evasion focused deck.
Grim Bauble: A Stab that can get recurred with a Goblin Engineer is just enough to pique my interest, but so much of our removal now is focused on clearing 3+ toughness that the Bauble seems just small enough of an effect to be a hard sell.
Grim Javelineer: The fastest way to might heart is writing “Whenever you attack” instead of “Whenever this creature attacks,” and this girlie gets a lot of mileage out of that text. Getting a little boost and a reward for its death makes a lot more attacks reasonable if not profitable, though I do struggle to think of how many decks this has staying power in as essentially a 3 mana 4/2.
Hellish Slideswipe: It’s a new Annihilating Glare that can occasionally draw a card, but I hope your density of Vehicles isn’t high enough to make this enticing and I hope you’re not going as deep for removal that you’re starting to play Bone Splinters-esque cards.
Hour of Victory: My rule of thumb is that if Demonic Tutor is at uncommon in a limited environment, it’s not good. I think that this will not buck that trend. DT is busted at 2 mana, but it’s only played in select decks at 3 mana, it isn’t played at 4 mana, and I’d be shocked if one saw significant play at a cumulative 5 mana.
Intimidation Tactics: Honestly Despise with cycling doesn’t look the worst to me, and if you’re playing a black deck that wants to soften early pressure on it without just having a dead card on turns 5+, I don’t think this is a bad option, as much as I hate targeted creature discard most of the time.
Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant: This is a really good rate for a creature with 7 power, but 2 toughness is a deal breaker when we have Rotting Regisaur around, and when this guy isn’t great, he’s desperately bad.
The Last Ride: I don’t love that the costs are mostly inverted for a Greed effect, but putting a death’s shadow on a greed effect is certainly a way to get me interested. That said, I haven’t seen a death’s shadow in a while, but it’ll probably pop back up once or twice here.
Locust Spray: Cycling for a Black is nice, but this spell should usually just be a removal spell that usually works instead of one that rarely works and is a mid cantrip when it doesn’t.
Maximum Overdrive: We have a small pile of these effects and I’d almost always rather the cards that let it die and return the creature these days.
Momentum Breaker: You could honestly do worse than an enchantment edict that you can sacrifice later in the game for a little bit of life. Hell, I even think it’s playable in like Enigmatic Incarnation specifically.
Mutant Surveyor: This is a mid-tier limited common, but it’s also a shade and those always get my interest. I don’t play them, but they catch my interest.
Pactdoll Terror: This card’s bad most of the time but if you can curve it into a haunt the network or play it into a myr battlesphere or just otherwise get 3+ triggers off it the following turn you’re quite happy with it. That said, I’m not super excited about black based affinity decks these days and this probably doesn’t make it into engineer.
Quag Feast: I don’t think this has a lot of homes, but it does a great job of being removal that still progresses your graveyard in decks that need that (which is to say 3animator, reanimator, and dredge). Otherwise, we have fell and you’re not playing it.
Ripclaw Wrangler: 4 Mana discard one is an effect that I only want to cast from the graveyard on a 6/6.
Risen Necroregent: This is the kind of design I like for limited SYE! cards, but it also is a 5 drop in a format that is only getting faster and faster.
Risky Shortcut: This card has felt great to play in limited, but I don’t know how it’ll compare with our 2 mana/instant speed effects that do the same. I imagine in Bx aggro decks that want their sign in bloods, this will be effective to still push some damage through.
Shefet Archfiend: In a world with Perforator Crocodile and Harvester of Misery, this guy is too expensive and too symmetrical to be interesting for our format.
The Speed Demon: Assuming you’re not playing other speed cards, I really like this demon, where it usually represents 1-2 cards drawn the turn it comes in, and is a beater with a significantly tangible benefit for 0 extra mana, when most of our other options are either card-neutral (like Doom Whisperer) or have a much faster timer than losing max 4 life. I’m pretty hesitant to running 5 drop demons in MonoBlack decks, but if I do, this is probably my top consideration.
Spin Out: Hero’s Downfall is a card that I think is surprisingly close to being playable, but this is much worse for us.
Streaking Oilgorger: Why’s Oil George gotta be streaking? (Also jesus this card’s bad)
Syphon Fuel: good ol 5 mana limited removal, gotta be one of my favorite genders.
Wickerfolk Indomitable: There’s worlds where this card can be a pretty integral combo piece, but it requires enough pieces that I’m more interested in the easy ways to break Intruder Alarm.
Wreckage Wickerfolk: This card isn’t good for our format, but a flier that puts 2 cards in the bin is more useful than I’ll probably give it credit for.
Wretched Doll: I’m not paying mana to surveil in this economy, what am I, made of mana?
SPECIAL GUESTS
Lord of the Undead: I’m not sure why this guy’s here but he seems to be having a good time. Play him in zombies I guess 🙂
Bone Miser: This card’s cool and you’ll play it if it’s correct to an won’t think about it otherwise, which is about where you expect this card to be. Anyway they call me Bone Miser, whatever I touch, turns to bone in my clutch: I’m too much!
Red
Adrenaline Jockey: I do like this effect, but I don’t think I like 2 of them that much to end up running this guy.
Boommobile: Flametounge Kavu this really is not. Crew 2 is an interesting part of this on effectively a 6/6, but I’m not too excited by the Exhaust cost of X2R, if it was XRR or X1R, I’d be a lot more interested.
Burner Rocket: This rocket’s pretty good if you pretty exclusively treat it as a trade up machine, where it acts as a way to make a creature trade up further on etb, then can turn a smaller creature into something that trades up further. I think this card’s surprisingly playable, but will probably fade into obscurity unless it’s positioned perfectly to ruin my day specifically.
Burnout Bashtronaut: It says goblin therefore it is playable Realistically, this is a shade with some evasion, but if it gets to the end-game it still can pretty handily hold its own, which I appreciate for red decks that want to poke in consistently.
Chandra, Spark Hunter: I started out thinking that this was like Minsc and Boo, but I’ve realized it’s more like…uh….not that. Its static and 0 combined is pretty cute, and the +2 is pretty interesting, but as a whole, as soon as that 3/2 becomes outclassed, this card becomes awful without significant support, and there’s very few artifacts that make me particularly excited for her +2.
Clamorous Ironclad: Yeah this card just doesn’t have the juice yknow
Count on Luck: Triple red REALLY hurts this card’s prospects, but I think our bar for a card advantage engine outside of mono-red is a bit higher than this card anyway. I don’t even know if it’ll see play in non-aggro mono-red decks, frankly. I wouldn’t count on luck ngl.
Crash and Burn: Rip to a real potential card name of Crash // Burn, but this card is for sure 4 mana, which is a step too far, especially when the creatures that Witchstalker Frenzy hits that this doesn’t is a quite small section.
Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer: More copies of Trash for Treasure are always appreciated in this house, even if the deck it fits in is quite unexplored for just how much Portal to Phyrexia is a real card. I think outside of going big, this card isn’t particularly interesting.
Draconautics Engineer: Goro-Goro is pretty underwhelming, but one that grows itself and makes its dragon at an easier cost is enough to raise an eyebrow. That said, when Goro-Goro was good, it wasn’t because of one activation of its haste ability: it was because of consistent activations of its ability and maybe getting a dragon every blue moon. All-in-all, I think this card is better than my kamigawan son, but not by nearly enough to slot into anything but some pretty medium goblins decks.
Dracosaur Auxiliary: This goblin curves out really well and I think that folks will appreciate it a lot to go this into 3 drop into dragon into 3-4 drop and haste. This dude just makes so many lines that are cool as hell and push you far ahead. The downside is that this is a vanilla 2/2 if you don’t get to use its abilities, and you feel pretty bad losing out on haste in order to protect it, but such is life.
Dynamite Diver: This is one of the less interesting ping-on-death creatures we have, especially since the norm seems to be hitting equal to power these days.
Endrider Catalyzer: ![][../../../static/assets/DFT-big-talk-1.png]
Endrider Spikespitter: This is an awkward card for constructed formats, where it treats it essentially as a vanilla 3/4 barring some pretty dedicated decks that probably shouldn’t exist.
Fuel the Flames: I think this is by a pretty large margin the most playable pyroclasm effect after pyroclasm, and might even clear pyroclasm in the right metas or decks, where the instant speed and cycling costs help shore up the effect’s biggest weaknesses.
Full Throttle: Gee, Billy, why’d your mom let you have THREE combat phases? The answer is “because there’s a 6 drop in my deck” but I could see this doing real work in a deck like Sneak Attack or even medium red, pretty much any deck with Inferno Titan, to just mount an awful amount of board pressure in 1 turn.
Gastal Blockbuster: I know why this card sucks in constructed (and therefore doesn’t suck in limited), but uh it makes it so this sucks in constructed, but we have shatters on creatures already.
Gastall Thrillroller: Wizards is desperately trying to figure out how cheap and how repeatable they need to make Lava Axes before they become playable, and I think we’re getting close. I don’t think this one is going to have much staying power but it’s on the right (race)track.
Gilded Ghoda: When’s the last time you saw a KLD Magda resolve? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Goblin Surveyor: Wow a goblin that’s not goblins playable what’s the world coming to
Greasewrench Goblin: This goblin’s pretty cool but I think it’s too reliant on abusing its exhaust ability for me to be particularly interested in a Savannah Lions but I’m admittedly lower on slightly above rate statlines than many in our format.
Hazoret, Godseeker: I love Hazoret so goddamn much yall have no clue, and this Hazoret is very interesting. She allows a lot of very good creatures to consistently get in, and rewards you for that by becoming a 5/3 with indestructible, which is nothing to scoff at. It still gets got by The Wandering Emperor quite poorly, but it does legitimately dodge a lot of removal, such as bolts!
Howlsquad Heavy: What is Quadheavy and why is Howl that. But uh anyway, this is a nice addition to the list of Rabblelikes and it will do just fine here, where it doesn’t necessarily throw itself and your other goblins in the fray and still has a reason to get to its end state, especially if you’re running Muxus and probably too few lands to cast it.
Kickoff Celebrations: One of the worst Thrill of Possibility effects in our format, it quite literally puts the value of getting to max speed at one (1) mana and that’s frankly disrespectful not gonna lie.
Magmakin Artillerist: I will begrudgingly play this card in the cycling deck, but I’m not happy about it, because I wanna go back to IKO where I can get this card for 1 less on both sides.
Marauding Mako: Is this creature inherently exciting? I don’t think so, but it does look like it can get quite big in decks with floating, literal baby jace, scrapwork mutt, seasoned pyromancer, bitter triumph, etc. Even if this only gets up to a 3/3 half the time it’s out, it’s still a very respectable 1 drop for decks that are throwing cards into the yard often.
Outpace Oblivion: I always keep an eye on these 3 mana 5 damage spells, but this one doesn’t excite me, even though it can pretty reliably push through an extra 2 damage in the late game, that tool isn’t something I want to spend the instant speed and anti-indestructible tech of Soul Sear
Pacesetter Paragon: This guy’s not great, but he’s really cool when you want to do really specific things in limited.
Pedal to the Metal: These effects are neat, but usually not playable. This doesn’t look like an exception.
Prowcatcher Specialist: Talk bad about these boys and you’re gonna prowcatch these hands–actually nah pikers with haste ain’t it these days.
Push the Limit: A format that is very focused on generic power of cards is rarely enticed by a high-impact narrow spell, and without a density of otherwise playable mounts I don’t think we’re getting there with this.
Reckless Velocitaur: I really like this guy’s vibes, but I seriously doubt we’re going to have anything resembling a cars deck in the near future.
Road Rage: We are at the point where we have a moderate number of bolts for creatures, so I’m not excited about a shock for creatures.
Skycrash: If you were in the market for a literal shatter, this is better, but I wouldn’t be playing a literal shatter.
Spire Mechacycle: I’m skeptical of any Car typal card, but if the cars deck featuring the voice of Owen Wilson is a thing, then this car(d) will do some funny work in it.
Thunderhead Gunner: Big shout out to sharks with reach, my new gender goals.
Tyrox, Saurid Tyrant: This guy is legitimately quite interesting: 4 power from a 2 drop is pretty huge, especially when we’re a format that is inconsistent enough that we can get in with 2s relatively unobstructed often, and this is more damage than usual to push in. Plus, this trades with a quite high number of creatures, especially compared to its red peers.
SPECIAL GUESTS
Chandra’s Ignition: I think this is a really funny card in commander, just because it’s a selective sweeper and it’s funny with deathtouch or lifelink, but in all reality this card’s not great for competitive formats, needing you to have a board presence and more specifically one that outclasses your opponents’ somehow..
Galvanic Blast: This card’s dope as hell for artifact decks, and over other shock+’s that we’ve seen in the past, where it jumps up to 4 and does so to face pretty easily, plus it has a shark with a gun, which is a huge plus.
Green
Afterburner Expert: I don’t think this card’s anything in our format at the moment, but I’m really hoping exhaust appears more in the future, because this is a card I want to be worthwhile long term for the format, but it’ll take at least another 1-2 sets of exhaust cards for this to be an enticing card.
Agonasaur Rex: I don’t think I would play an 8/8 trampler for 5, but I do think I would play Revitalizing Repast that gives trample and an extra counter and draws a card for 3, whose mdfc back side is a 5 mana 8/8 trample. The analogy’s kind of left me but you get my point I think.
Alacrian Jaguar: big cat :3
Autarch Mammoth: Sorry hun, you’re a six drop that isn’t prime time <3
Beastrider Vanguard: This is one of the more competitive creatures with an expensive card draw ability, but it’s not worth playing a 2 mana 2/2 for it, especially for it not to fill up your graveyard.
Bestow Greatness: I have been waiting for a titanic growth upgrade for a while, but I don’t think this card makes me feel interested in playing a card in this slot. Interesting to know we have more options for this card though.
Defend the Rider: This protection spell will see play, but it’s a weird one–it’s better the less you want to go t1 fetch a surveil. This’ll mean it’s best used in 2c or certain 3 color lists that want to have some more versatility in their slots, and fulfills a pretty similar role to Revitalizing Repast, replacing the power gain and land option with a minor flash threat, and that’s almost certainly good enough.
District Mascot: Attacks while saddled is great on big idiots, but on smaller creatures, it’s a lot more vulnerable and a lot less appealing to me. A shatter effect similarly doesn’t make me excited, but it is a good outlet for counters decks, I guess.
Dredger’s Insight: I like the continued stream of cards that trigger when things leave your graveyard, but this is one of the more lackluster entries in that series. I think you’ll still play it in most decks that have Insidious Roots, but it’s really overshadowed by Malevolent Rumble and Grapple with the Past for me.
Earthrumbler: I will say that it’s awfully easy to turn this into a creature, and feigns a lot of the protections that other protected threats have, namely, not being a creature on the opponent’s turn and being an artifact, and so dodging the only doom blade that really sees play, Go for the Throat. That said, it is pretty middling for a 5 drop, so I don’t think it’s unseating Thrun or carving out a new slot.
Elvish Refueler: I don’t think there’s any world where this card is good… yet. 2 mana once a turn to pump itself up by 1 counter isn’t exciting, especially on an understatted 3 drop, it doesn’t give the thing you want off soul cauldron, and, ironically, refueler works best with one exhaust ability you want to recur, which is specifically hard to make work in gladiator. In a high density of exhausts, it’s less impactful to get one back a turn, and in a low density it’s far less likely to have any good effect.
Fang Guardian: Wolfpack Alpha my beloved (and pretty bad)
Fang-Druid Summoner: Vanillas are pretty bad in this format, and none of them are so good that they’re worth playing a 4 drop to tutor one to hand, though there is a world where someone curves this into Terrian and gets away with it (I want to live in that world).
Greenbelt Guardian: This is a card that doesn’t excite me, but does have more strengths than a lot of cards I’m unexcited by, where it curves nicely and gives utility to break board stalls decently. It also triggers Nadu, but you shouldn’t play this in Nadu decks.
Hazard of the Dunes: This card is difficult to write about because the only thoughts in my head are “BWA” and “BEEG” and this guy’s not good, but it does reduce my mental capacity to roughly two words + the words in the rules text.
Jibbirik Omnivore: I’m pretty low on just stat-sticks without either going above and beyond or having utility on top of being slightly above rate.
Loxodon Surveyor: It’s always the green commons that get me, because I tend to write these in preview order, then set number, so it’s always some green common that gets me to think “damn, I could have been done days ago if I didn’t talk about this specific common,” but I remain strong.
Lumbering Worldwagon: Crew 4 is an ungodly cost, and I’m really low on vehicles already. I think decks hyperdevoted to lands will have trouble crewing this, and decks with the creature size/density to crew this reliably don’t feel rewarded enough by a rampant growth.
March of the World Ooze: Making all your dudes 6/6s almost makes my head turn for token/go-wide decks, but 6 mana is a really steep cost to pay, especially when the other mode is very middling in most matchups, and has few applications when it can actually be engineered to trigger and have trigger matter in the course of the game. I think ultimately, it finds the same fate as most 6 drops that don’t immediately end the game on their own.
Migrating Ketradon: I love 6 mana 6/6s more than I realistically should for this format, and this does a lot to stabilize and enable versatility, but like if you’re reanimating here you got a big crocodile.
Molt Tender: I think Molt Tender gets a lot done, especially for multicolor decks, and is, in certain decks, better at adding mana than Deathrite Shaman. That said, it’s really reliant on having roughly 9 fetches in your list and hitting one early consistently, as opposed to DRS really only needing one player to be on a density of fetches.
Ooze Patrol: The huge ooze is enormous, but unfortunately it’s right outside of the mana value I’d prefer it at. Being at 4 removes it from being reanimated easily, and 4 mana means your slots for this card are ones usually reserved for evasive or pervasive threats, so one that is just beef is really hard to justify in a four drop slot.
Oviya, Automech Artisan: This is the closest an Elvish Piper has gotten to being playable in a Sneak Attack shell, and I am really interested in her trample-granting, but Elvish Pipers are hyper-vulnerable in the format, and without haste, I don’t think one will be playable.
Plow Through: Bushwhack kind of just fully takes the singular slot for fight spells with incredible utility, and the utility here’s not incredible.
Point the Way: You shouldn’t play Explosive Vegetation. Even if it is 2 Explosive Vegetations (which, in your deck, it won’t be if you’re running it), it’s just too late a point in the game for non-utility lands to matter.
Pothole Mole: ![][../../../static/assets/DFT-big-talk-2.png]
Regal Imperiosaur: Look I know I say I don’t love stats for their own sake but this is a 3 drop with 5 power and the monogreen deck sometimes wants to play a utility land and this lets you do that while not compromising on raw power.
Rise from the Wreck: This kind of card (a la Grim Captain’s Call) always is a little funny to me, but unfortunately I think in our format it’s usually Raise Dead and occasionally two of them, but not often, and essentially never all 4 options, and I think you need to consistently hit 3 cards with this for me to be impressed.
Run Over: I will say for instant speed punches this is pretty good, and if you’re playing a GW deck that happens to have a small pile of Mounts, then this is going to usually be fine, on the level of Master’s Rebuke but without hitting planeswalkers, and occasionally will be obscene
Silken Strength: I don’t love these flash auras in green, even in sanctum stompy lists, because you just have so much protection from white that your green is pretty incentivized to just be repping damage and this sure don’t.
Stampeding Scurryfoot: I love this lil guy and in the future, if Exhaust gets more support than just this set, I’d be so happy to sleeve him up, but he’s pretty mid if you’re not abusing his ability quite a bit.
Terrian, World Tyrant: As much as I like this guy, if I wanted to play him, I would already be playing Gigantosaurus, and that card’s just bad unfortunately.
Thunderous Velocipede: Damn maybe I should just build BEEG GREEN (the caps are necessary), because this guy sounds super fun in it. Like, if 3 is on the low end of my curve and I can run this into like Thrun, Prime Time, and then Hoof, I might fall in love with this card.
Veloheart Bike: You should be playing Ancient Cornucopia first (this body is not worth playing), and I haven’t seen Ancient Cornucopia cast at all in our format.
Venomsac Lagac: Why’s he so angy 😔
Webstrike Elite: You’ll play this guy in MonoGreen and he’ll be better than Kalonian Tusker, but I doubt he’s got much staying power
SPECIAL GUESTS
Pathbreaker Ibex: I love big idiots, but this guy is really bad. We have better hits for decks like sneak to gain trample easier, and the potentially large buffs come at the cost of a deeply bolt-able 6 drop.
Multicolored
Aatchik, Emerald Radian: I could see it in dredge style lists, but 6 mana is so much for a dude that drops off hard in the face of a scooze. Legitimately, I think I’d play this one if we got OG Grist, but I don’t think it’s got a slot right now.
Apocalypse Runner: This is just a bit more expensive than I’d like, considering I would really like to just use it on little guys to gain life and make them unblockable, but I could see it in MaRdUIN your evening lists.
Boom Scholar: I’ll keep this one filed away for if Exhaust sees more action.
Boosted Sloop: This is Looter Scooter after a life of hard drugs and petty theft. Think twice before you choose the life of becoming a multicolor uncommon, kids. I don’t think this is a great card if it just sits around, and it’s certainly not as free to cast, crew, or trigger as the copter itself.
Brightglass Gearhulk: Ranger of Eos eat your mythicified heart out, jesus. For 60-card formats, this can grab the same named permanents, but for us, it can grab any combination of two for mana dorks, Guide of Souls, Ragavan (yes i think you should play this in 3 color shells the mana is basically free), Ocelot Pride, Static Prison, Utopia Sprawl, and Lavaspur Boots and Shadowspear too? so yeah this has a lot of use as long as you’re playing the best cards in the format.
Broadside Barrage: The good news is that this card represents the best mode and a fraction of the second best mode of Flame of Anor all of the time, but the bad news is that’s all it does, meaning the really nice ceiling of Flame is never going to be reached, but if you were already playing Flame as a more versatile Soul Sear and only have a couple Wizards, this slots into a similar slot alongside Flame.
Broodheart Engine: Surveiling 1 on upkeep is pretty nice to both smooth out your draws and fill up your graveyard, but our cheap total reanimation is getting more and more competitive (and easier to cast, giving more ability to not play green), so this will probably not see play except in specific brands of reanimator that are pretty zero’d in on playing green for other reasons.
Captain Howler, Sea Scourge: I was just talking a few weeks ago, reminiscing about Tour d’France, and I’d legitimately like to revisit it, and cards like this really help make that possible. It also makes me increasingly glad that Psychic Frog is banned, because I don’t want to see a frog get +3x/+x and regain x+1 cards each turn, where H is the number of cards in hand.
Caradora, Heart of Alacria: Right now, a tutor for a vehicle or mount is not that enticing of a card on a 4 drop to me, and the rest of the card is pieces I’m not too conditioned to be excited about: a 4 mana 4/2, and a hardened scales effect tied to that 2 toughness is not a huge vote of confidence for me, at least until about 6 mana.
Cloudspire Coordinator: No one was really playing Veteran Motorist, and I don’t think this card is much different, despite being significantly better on multiple axes. I do legitimately think it’ll be a funny card to see in standard, though.
Cloudspire Skycycle: The word “other” absolutely throttles any of my interest for this card, especially since this is probably my most evasive body on the field. That said, it still represents 3 extra power, so it could be worthwhile in very specific shells that don’t want to play the more exciting 4s for some reason.
Coalstoke Gearhulk: This big idiot does a lot, and it’s all good, but I’m a little bit skeptical that it’s enough to A) convince people to play RB aggro when RW has a similar quality of creatures and infinitely better removal, and B) overcome the hurdle of 5 drops, where it doesn’t have significant protection to itself, and outside of the turn it enters, doesn’t have a fully game-winning effect.
Debris Beetle: I think I’ve softened a little bit on my dislike of Vehicles in constructed formats, but I think it’s still a decent way from really enjoying this card–it really is nearly a Siege Rhino in added power and effect, but that card is well past its prime, unfortunately.
Dune Drifter: I think this card will have some interesting homes in formats where it can get an LED or Lotus, but here I’m not particularly excited about paying 2 mana for what is essentially a Raise Dead effect (in that you still have to pay the cost of the creature, not in the sense that it goes back to hand).
Embalmed Ascendant: I get that some people see zombie and blartist effect and just will say this card’s good enough without hesitation, but this card’s not great. Speed is ironically a big speed bump in being able to kill your opponent, and it’s rough that a blood artist is usually going to be an easy way to ensure that your speed increments, making it more awkward to have it be the payoff.
Explosive Getaway: Ok look, I love my flickers just as–slightly less than the next guy, but it’s a hard sell to get me on board with a 5 mana sweeper, especially when it’s in the color of Sunfall and only deals 4 damage. That said, Loot is a cute lil guy in this art, so a bit of respect.
Far Fortune, End Boss: The bar for 4 drops is incredibly high, but being one that immediately gets up to 2 speed and starts as a 4/5 is a good start. That said, this is a 4 drop that deals 1 damage before it gets to untap, and if it gets swords’d or Go For the Throat’d, it’s really rough.
Fearless Swashbuckler: 3/3s with haste for 3 are not bad, but they can trick you pretty easily into playing them with weird flashy “other words”. This one, thankfully has a bunch of words that I refuse to read because they’re scarcely, if ever, relevant! Hooray! Though Ellesandra will admittedly kill me once by using a tiny idiot to crew Scooter and hit me for 6 while also looking at 4 cards and keeping 1, discarding the rest to do unspeakable things to me from the graveyard, I’ll give the card that.
Guidelight Pathmaker: This dudes is 6 mana, it could grab time vault and–ok in this format if it grabbed time vault I would probably play it, but it could grab a lot of very good cards and still not be worth the amount of mana you put into it.
Haunt the Network: Ok so this card’s not good, but it might be enough. A 10-14 point life swing is nothing to scoff at, and I would be worried about it not being impactful on the board if it didn’t add a pretty decent couple of bodies for the artifact midrange deck. Is this card a great rate? Absolutely not. Will Ellesandra defend syr choice to play this card in a mediocre artifacts deck? Yes, and it’ll be a correct choice.
Haunted Hellride: This card is cool, and I’m glad that it operates well without being crewed, but its effect is smaller than I want for a 3 drop, and the car’s body doesn’t make me too excited either.
Ketramose, the New Dawn: Even if you ignore this card being a creature that participates in combat, it is comically easy to draw 3 or more off of this guy by just playing white and/or black spells, and it’s, for the most part, just as easy for the opponent to either play poorly to deny you draws or to give you extra draws. In the face of Ketramose, Deathrite, Scooze, The Wandering Emperor, Dig Through Time, and more all become sorcery speed effects if the opponent doesn’t want you drawing a pile of extra cards, and that makes up for a lot of potential worry.
Kolodin, Triumph Caster: I’m sure you can do a weird mediocre combo with this guy, but he doesn’t really excite me, especially given the general quality of mounts/vehicles in the format right now. However, I’m writing this on January 21st, so that take might be totally wrong by the time this card releases or by the time you read this.
Lagorin, Soul of Alacria: If you have any other mount or Vehicle out, this attack trigger is brutal on a flier. Otherwise, it’s still not horrible to use a recruiter or token or mana dork to make this beast grow each turn.
Loot, the Pathfinder: Wow this is Savage Knuckleblade if they were somewhat cute and a lot more reasonable. Being able to represent 5 damage before regular strike damage is really nice, and if you either play this on 6 mana or untap with it, the value you’re getting off of it is pretty insane. Also, I’m just all here for creatures with haste and double strike, gotta be one of my favorite genders.
Mendicant Core, Guidelight: For the most part, I’m going to ignore the fact that this has speed, but being a creature that hits hard in WU bots does legitimately pique my interest, and if you can get to max speed it can turn a game you were already doing pretty well in into a victory pretty decently.
Mimeoplasm, Revered One: Everything about this card is just bad enough to make me feel a little pity for the ‘plasm, especially since it only really feels impactful at 6+ mana, only exiles from your graveyard, and likely needs to untap in order to utilize its copy ability to the best efficiency.
Oildeep Gearhulk: Ok so this card’s clearly good enough, but it just… doesn’t make me feel anything, and that’s unfortunate, because it just means I’m a jaded husk of a magic player who trudges on needing goofier and goofier magic to sate her. I go to my LGS and ask for the hottest standard tech: they sell me a playset of Stormchaser’s Talent and Enduring Vitality. I sigh and take it, consigning myself to the fact that even standard combos don’t excite and entice me anymore. I get another gray hair.
Pyrewood Gearhulk: This isn’t an amazing hoof, but now that Mana Drain is banned, I’d be pretty excited to try this out in a ramp shell with a good number of dorks. Menace and vigilance is a pretty mean combo for elves to have, and this goes a long way to making Gruul Go-wide legitimate. Hot Take alert: I don’t think this goes in sneak–the deck goes a long way to put eggs into 1 or 2 baskets at a time, and unless you’re putting in 2-3 threats in the span of 2 turns, this guy’s not more impressive than Wurmcoil, and if you are putting in a lot of threats, you’re already winning and you didn’t need a minihoof to do it.
Rangers’ Aetherhive: I was starting to think these gold uncommons were a bit too generically good, but here simic is, back on their hyperspecific bullsh*t 🙃
Redshift, Rocketeer Chief: Yo if I had a nickel for each RG cost legend that’s a little overstated and has additional text to add some nice utility, I’d have enough nickels to build my 2 drop slot in bard class. Yeah, play it in bard class, dismissed.
Riptide Gearhulk: While the best part of Unexpectedly Absent is its mode to put a permanent on top for 2, the fact that this is still on rate with it at X=3 and also comes with a pretty annoying body is really cool for our format. I don’t think it’s the greatest top end you can get in these colors, but it’s splashy and effective enough that I think it deserves a seat at the table of WU 5s.
Rocketeer Boosbuggy: I think that most vehicles are bad if you’re just looking at them for damage, and I don’t think this one’s much of an exception, even factoring in the exhaust. Getting mana is nice, but we already have cards like Magda and they’ve dropped off a ton in terms of play rate, and the Buggy represents the same amount of added damage.
Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied: This design is super cool, and it’s pretty easy to build a deck where you can make her draw 2 cards more than half the time and enable her to attack/block more than half the time. The payoff is a really impressive creature that’s hard to remove and accrues a lot of value, but you do have to trivialize the cycle of going from even counters to odd and back to even each turn for it to seem worthwhile. I think there’s bant decks that definitely have that capability, though.
Samut, the Driving Force: I do really like the idea that Samut is the manifestation of some sort of Drive Force, but I think this card takes too much work to really send it home. You could cheat it in and then try to pop off, but at that point, if you ever have a way to consistently cheat a thing in (frankly the norm) you probably are bottlenecked on cards, not mana, so I’m probably not going to try sleeving this up, though I applaud the folks who want to. I just don’t see a world where you’re getting effects out of samut that lead to a cohesive deck or an increase in quality over your other 6 drops.
Sita Varma, Masked Racer: I think in decks with Nadu, this girl goes pretty hard, and by turn 5 this can represent upwards of 8 extra damage on the ability pretty easily, plus in Nadu combo lists specifically, it represents a finisher that can utilize the grillion mana you get off the combo very effectively. Plus it’s a 2/3 for 2 that makes your opponents’ blocks awkward, and I’m not gonna complain with that.
Skyserpent Seeker: This is a very weird Baleful Strix, in that it always draws you Explosive Vegetation and takes the card with it if it doesn’t make it to a point where you have 4 open mana. I don’t think that is particularly good, but I think it’s just good enough that it will find a couple homes, if not only temporarily.
Thundering Broodwagon: 6 mana for conditional removal ain’t it, chief, especially when I’m also not particularly moved by the size of the car, or cycling for that matter.
Veteran Beastrider: Look, it’s a 3 mana 3/4 that essentially gives your team vigilance and has added utility past that, so it’s worth getting a home in at least generic GW decks. I don’t think it has the juice to make it into 3 color lists, but it definitely has it for GW.
Voyage Home: This is a lot worse than Thoughtcast and Thought Monitor, but it still gets the job done and is playable in UWx artifact decks. It’ll feel great at 2 mana, but like with most affinity cards, knowing when to play them at higher costs anyway versus saving them to be more mana efficient is the big skill variable for the deck past just the things you need to know for aggro or aggro-slanted-midrange decks.
Winter, Cursed Rider: We don’t really have a UB artifacts deck or a UB aggro deck at present, but this does the job in either of those lists. That said, I don’t think they’ll find a home.
Zahur, Glory’s Past: I don’t think we’re at the point where Zahur is outclassed yet, but I think fairly soon we’ll be unhappy with a sac outlet that is limited to once a turn. However, I think we need one more unrestricted sac outlet for me to be ready to shoo this one out.
Commanders
Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist: Damn I’m so glad we banned Psychic Frog, because I would be annoyed by someone curving this into Frog with protection into a 3 mana 4/4 Valgavoth. You can still get a t4 valgavoth with this card pretty easily (Even a turn 3 one if the stars align) but it takes a decent amount more effort, and I appreciate that. This card is probably good enough though in white inclusive reanimator decks.
Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic: I want to think more on Pia, but I think she’s pretty nice, though she is a pretty low impact card if you’re not deep in energy. If you can make a 6/6 once or a 4/4 twice off of her, I think you’re sufficiently happy.
Saheeli, Radiant Creator: I think this is one of the energy cards that really demands that you put a lot of effort into either energy or its trigger, though I think if you’re playing Elle’s energy deck, it’s probably a worthwhile effort.
Temmet, Naktamun’s Will: Unfortunately, 5 mana is roughly equivalent to a million in this format, though I could see it barely making the cut in zombies specifically, if not only because it goes off the turn it comes in.
Colorless
Aetherjacket: This card isn’t good enough to be seriously considered, but it will be pretty cool for limited.
The Aetherspark: This equipment does go to pretty high loyalty pretty fast, and once it’s equipped, rotating between its first two modes seems pretty backbreaking if you’re in an aggro deck and can attach this to anything with 4+ power, and, while the -10 is legitimately the least powerful of the modes in my opinion, there will be turns where it just wins the game pretty outright.
Camera Launcher: This card’s limited bait, but it’s closer than it looks for this format, I think. Being 1 mana cheaper on either side would go a long way to making it a legitimate card for artifact decks, but right now it’s a bit too mid on both sides for me to care about slotting it in.
Guidelight Matrix: The cars deck isn’t real, it can’t hurt you.
Lifecraft Engine: I think this should see play in checks notes dwarfs lists that I’m fairly sure only Ellesandra will play. Otherwise, you probably have access to better lords, though one that selectively is a creature as opposed to not being one (Patchwork Banner) or always being one (Adaptive Automaton) has its benefits. Generally, though, playing a colorless anthem like this is usually a sign your creature type of choice is pretty dry for options.
Marketback Walker: This is neither Walking Balista nor Hangarback Walker, though I still think it has a home. Where Hangarback wanted to be in decks with a pile of artifact and/or sacrifice synergies, and Ballista wants to be a big mana payoff or a combo piece, I think Marketback really will only have a significant home in counters decks, and I don’t think that place will solidify while there’s such a deep prevalence on white exile-based removal.
Marshals’ Pathcruiser: I think you need to be able to exhaust this in order to ever care about it past it being a Lay of the Land, and this is a pretty bad one of those.
Monument to Endurance: I think this card will be fine in your discard decks, but not cycling itself and being pretty expensive compared to most of the other cards’ effective costs in those lists hurts its chances. However, don’t underestimate the power of a bolt every turn for cycling, as that will add up fast, especially if you’re already playing cards that advance your gameplan.
Pit Automaton: I don’t think we’re in the space to be running any dorks for abilities, but it could be closer than you think, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw cards like Omen Hawker sleeved up in, say, a few years’ time.
Racers’ Scoreboard: This card couldn’t realistically be much better, but being at 4 mana means that being a Catalog effect in colorless with minor upside just isn’t enough.
Radiant Lotus: I think this card will be pretty bad, but fine enough in specifically an artifact combo deck like paradox, where combining this with an Emry, Lurker of the Loch can turn a game around, and win with a Paradox Engine and some other cheap artifacts that probably draw cards.
Rover Blades: This is a really cute design, but it’s also not really for our format. Very cute skates though <3
Scrap Compactor: Scrap Compactor? I hardly even know ‘er!
Skybox Ferry: Cars with cycling are legitimately quite nice, though I think this one doesn’t provide enough other utility for me to be interested.
Starting Column: Don’t play manaliths in this format. It’s not needed and they’re not good.
Ticket Tortoise: Don’t play creatures with defender in this format, it’s only for cowards and cowardly decisions lose in this format.
Walking Sarcophagus: I was about to say that you don’t need me to tell you this card is comically bad, but then I remembered that you do, at the very least because that’s the whole goddamned conceit of this blogging superfranchise so what else would I do
Wreck Remover: This card honestly could be so, so much worse: getting the best parts of a scooze effect on a nearly-on-rate creature in colorless isn’t horrible, and I could see this in a “Monobrown” deck or any deck that hyper-prioritizes a density of colorless threats.
SPECIAL GUESTS
Chrome Mox: I don’t have to tell you that this card is very good and should be played in a lot of decks. I also don’t have to tell you that getting 2 drops on turn 1 is pretty damn good and that it’s easier than ever to turn your cards that are bad mid-late game into other resources that can be good. What I can tell you is that I don’t think this card will be banned outright (within a couple months of release), both because a lot of the council (myself included) want to give it the dues it deserves, and also because this is a big experiment for the format: this is the first piece of genuine fast mana that the format has, and I for one would love to see that experiment go well. If it’s showing that it isn’t going well and the card makes the format as a whole worse, we’ll ban it reasonably quickly, but we are going to see how often it wins games, why it does or doesn’t, how often people decide to play it and why, and how it makes the gladiator experience feel. I’m optimistic, but that optimism could very well be misplaced, or just riding the high on us banning 3 2-drops that are particularly egregious to be able to see on turn 1. NOTE FROM 2/20: I still haven’t seen a ton of Moxen played yet, but I think it’s so far inoffensive enough that we’re not going to act at the speed we did for Natural Order, but for me at least, the jury is still out.
Lands
Amonkhet Raceway: Despite this effect probably being worse, I think this raceway is more likely than Avishkar to slot into decks. It seems particularly easy in 2 color aggro decks for this to do great work at ensuring you don’t lose ground against wraths. Start your engines on lands notably doesn’t give a moment for your opponent to crack a fetchland in response, so it’s very possible to get to 2 speed on its first turn in play, then it really incentivizes opponents to make their fetch decisions at sorcery speed for the rest of the game. On this land and Muraganda Raceway, that’s a pretty significant effect.
Avishkar Raceway: Being a rummager on a land is very nice, but it’s a lot of work to get there, and the decks I would want it for seem like they would take a while to get to max.
Country Roads (and co.): Take me home, to the place, I belooooooong, West Virginia? Mountain Plains, mama, Country Roads, take me home. This land’s not that good, and the token is really small for coming at the cost of a land. The other ones are all just as bad.
Muraganda Raceway: I think this is playable in 2 color aggro decks that don’t have a ton of pips for all the reasons I state with Amonkhet’s track, but this effect is notably worse by turn 4 than it is on turn 1. Ancient tomb this is nowhere near.
Night Market: Common fixing land moment, though cycling is neat. Also, good on Gonti for becoming a Legitimate Businessperson!
The Enemy Colored Verges: I am beyond stoked to finish out this cycle. Only having the allied ones presented two problems: 1 - I couldn’t prioritize the lands that started adding a certain color, which hurt dramatically their playability in 4 color mana bases, even if a single fetch trivializes the vast majority of them, and 2 - the amount you can play in 3 color is more limited than desired. With all 10, both problems are mostly solved, and I can remain happy. :)