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As the sun sets on the Outlaws of Thunder Junction prerelease, attention will be pointed towards the Draft next. So far, we’ve seen what archetypes work the best, how games of Limited are played, and how the mechanics feel. I walked away from the event having three-nilled all of them with only two games dropped combined. Overall, Outlaws Of Thunder Junction is a promising Limited format with a ton of potential for interactive games and varied decks – and some of the mechanics surprised me.
The mechanics feel useful
Mount
Going into the weekend truthfully, the Mount mechanic had yet to convince me of its ability. I’d expected you would want to attack without bothering to saddle. However, in both the prereleases I attended I wound up playing Selesnya (White/Green) Mounts, and they felt fantastic. Very rarely was I not saddling, and the effects they have are very impactful for Limited.
Giant Beaver, Rambling Possum, and Congregation Gryff were all fantastic Mounts, as was Ornery Tumblewagg (though that’s a Rare so don’t expect to open that often). Bridled Bighorn felt like one of the strongest commons in the entire set (not Pauper-playable, but a card you’ll be very happy to see in Limited), making 1/1 Sheep when it attacks while saddled.
A lot of the best Mounts have Vigilance, making them great offensively and defensively. The common Mounts sometimes felt better than Rare or even Mythic Rare creatures.
Plot
Plot provided a lot of unique choices in games. The decision to either Plot a card and essentially take a turn off when you do or play a Creature to advance your board state that turn was always hard. Most cards with Plot cost around three or four mana (with a small handful for only two two), so the earliest it can be done is around the time you want to be casting a creature every turn.
It becomes a minigame of sorts of do you take a turn off for a beneficial effect or do you play a creature to stop your opponent from getting too far ahead. Plotting made games feel dynamic, and choices much more important.
If you are lucky in your pack openings, Railway Brawler is one of the best plot cards. Against one opponent, I saw a chain of Railway Brawler cast from Plot into a 6/6 Creature to leave me with a 12/12 to deal with (this was one of the only games I lost during my prereleases). Dust Animus is another fantastic Rare with Plot, coming in with two +1/+1 counters and Lifelink if you control five or more untapped Lands when cast. This card won me every game I played it in, as there aren’t a large number of good creatures with Flying. This makes it easy to get in for damage and gain the life lost from Plotting.
Spree
Of the three new abilities, Spree was the one that felt the least impactful. Most of the time, you’ll only be using one of the abilities, and it’s usually too mana-intensive to do more than one. There are only 21 cards with Spree, many of which are average at best.
Spree cards are in an awkward position where they get better the longer a game goes on, but by the time you have the mana to use them explosively, it is often around the time you and your opponent go into “top-deck” mode.
Trash The Town and Rustler Rampage are the best among the Spree cards, acting as battle tricks that don’t require a large mana investment with all the modes being relevant. Although a Rare, Great Train Heist is the best of the Spree cards for Limited, giving you an extra combat turn, First Strike and a minor stat boost to Creatures if you have mana to dump into it.
Crime
Committing a Crime is the act of targeting anything an opponent controls or the opponent themselves. Unfortunately for Limited, it felt generally pointless. Crimes by far felt like the weakest mechanic, as the payoffs for committing Crimes are generally weak. Perhaps because of how easy it is to commit a Crime, the payoffs were toned down to not be too strong, but the balance just isn’t there.
The only card that makes it worth committing to Crimes is Gisa, the Hellraiser since crimes give you two tapped 2/2 Tokens, but considering it’s a Mythic Rare, this isn’t something you can expect to do often.
Most crime payoffs only give you a +1/+1 counter such as with Lazav, Familiar Stranger or Vadmir, New Blood, but both don’t feel particularly special as they can be removed before they ever become problematic as it takes a while for them to reach that point.
Breaking News
The Breaking News bonus sheet includes cards that can commit Crimes. The inclusion of the bonus sheet makes each Limited game feel more dynamic, as you can choose to get a Creature from a pack, or a Breaking News card to get interaction of some sort. Breaking News is where a lot of the removal comes from in Outlaws Of Thunder Junction Limited, and you’ll often find a few playables in your packs.
Since prereleases are Sealed formats, it’s a nice precursor for Draft when the choices of what you pick in your packs when they get passed to you. For the most part, the Breaking News cards aren’t anything too egregious, and feel more like they compliment the format rather than centralize them as they have the potential to do (such as with the Brothers’ War Limited formats).
Oko, Thief Of Crowns is one of the only cards in Breaking News where if you open it you’ll probably be winning with ease anytime you see it in your hand. The rest just give you interaction of some kind, helping clear the battlefield of problematic creatures and get rid of bombs.
Overall, the Breaking News bonus sheet adds a lot to the format, helping to make each game feel unique since they can help shape the route you go in terms of colors when you start building your deck. There aren’t too many build-around cards in Breaking News, which is what you want with bonus sheets. They should be a backdrop to the main set, not the focus.
How Games Felt
Games often felt slower compared to more recent Limited formats, with games generally not really getting going until turn two or three. The higher-mana payoffs and weaker low-mana creatures make delaying your board state worth the price of staying exposed until you can start casting them. Aggro decks don’t feel particularly good in Outlaws Of Thunder Junction, and midrange decks seem to be the stand-out playstyle in terms of strength.
Green and White felt like the two strongest colors, with Black a bit behind. Red and Blue felt a little weaker comparatively. Green and White have access to some of the best Creatures and removal spells, especially when taking into account the Breaking News bonus sheet that gives you even more options in those colors. I had attended one of the prereleases with a friend, and we both were on Selesnya decks, and had we not been paired round one, likely would have both gone 3-0 at the event. The color combination just has everything you could ask for in Limited – good removal, good Creatures, good early game, and good top-end. While the archetype for Selesnya is Mounts, even if you don’t open enough, the generics in these colors still often enough to stand above other color combinations.
While the Crime and Spree mechanics sort of missed the mark, generically blurring into obscurity, the introduction of Mounts has done enough legwork to make the set fun and playable. With the Draft at the end of the week, I’m looking forward to getting stuck into new changes and potentially reassessing my thoughts.
