Usually I can just shove this per-cards review to the main set’s article, but this time we don’t have that to rely on. This was during a time when the core set was killed for good to made room for the 4th expansion per year (like Crimson Vow), and it seems to be decided that just one Jumpstart set per two years is enough to get new players in. Turns out it wasn’t. So we got our black sheep here.

1.1 New designs

As of 3 years after this set came out, only 13 of these cards have made their way on Arena. Another black sheep fact I’m sad to deliver.

At mythic, it’s a very chaotic ordeal. Blue has its second card in a totally normal creature because it can be as legendary as it really wants. The others are commanders, unsurprisingly, where the Mardu trio are monocolored and the other two are stranger. One is blue with a triggered ability that asks for 1 bant hybrid, but well who draws that symbol, so just spell them out. The other is a monkey that gives Gruul bananas, good thing the art shows green-ish bananas rather than yellow, otherwise someone would be really decrying for yet another Naya commander.

At rare, the cycle to note are five commanders that uses abilities that ask for mana (whether triggered or activated like the green ones) to get their second color identity, which the enemy leftward color. This is to “complete” the cycle that original Jumpstart started, and unfortunately right now the full 20 cards cycle still hasn’t been completed. What else is here that got that color imbalance? Omnath colors each got a monocolored commander where funnily enough, all but one still asks for mana so you could see a case to put hybrid mana into that. You can then find normal creatures in Jund colors and lastly one sole red enchantment.

Uncommons show some rare sense of color balance, if only red takes in the two colorless artifacts. The closet thing to a cycle here are four Saskia creatures that have activated abilities that ask for mana, actually white has two, one a tap and the other only usable in combat. Blue probably didn’t participate because it’s way more concerned with prowess than all the other colors being relatively creature heavy. On that note, one blue spell weirdly needs to have 3 long line of text yet doesn’t have any flavor text on it. The name of that thing may hint to how it came to be, I guess.

And at common, we’re down to chaos once again. Where black somehow got a mana rock while the other colors didn’t. And also where creatures are relatively understated, except for maybe a 4 power insect for 3 mana.

1.2 Anime artworks

This is this set’s big claim to fame, replacing the original one’s single unique basic land per pack. It’s certainly sad to lose the chance to have a sea of basic lands fine tuned for every theme (like an island shaped to be a book, a mountain drawn from lightning, or a plains with a dog on it), but well maybe it’s more practical that way. Both for you to get some easy waifus and for NotC not even needing to put any effort into a different frame for these cards. And for that latter, these things surely ended up looking jarring.

Each theme seems to have exactly one card here, and it seems to be that blue have gotten two colorless cards.

At mythic, we have one tree led by a waifu and three monsters At rare, that ratio still holds, if you count a husbando as a monster too. Stars to denote a devoid Eldrazi and a Vehicle that calls for white mana, so overall no blue cards are here.

And here comes the bulk of the cards, being common and uncommon. White seems to be the luckiest color, followed by black and red is surely the swingiest.

At uncommon, each color of Simic decided to let a WAR planeswalker double dip, which I certainly find really bizarre, like I guess the original anime versions were only in Japanese so here’s a more readable version but also we don’t want to change the contract of the old artworks to get them back in (WotC used to change their contract from per-print to per-artwork back in the ancient days, but maybe they can’t bring that for the Japanese artists or something), well maybe ultimately those things can’t be reprinted because they would lose value that way or something.

What else is interesting?

• Monsters wise, you can have one in white and three each in Gruul.
• Black has a vampire in a very sparkly elaborate suit, so you know that’s where your androgynous rep is. That and blue’s flat merfolk, something about looing at those always give me a feeling.
• White has Lavania arresting a man, we all dream of this in our lives. And lastly, we got a blue Spirit that is way too visible, way too visibly wearing a skirt and wearing thigh highs and all that constitutes a really obvious waifu.
• And lastly, we got the two mana rocks which have the challenge of putting a waifu on the artwork somehow. One is more elegant about it, having us be kind of helpful to the waifu. The other has the waifu wearing this boob armor harnessing the stone. The latter isn’t important detail I feel.

At common, we finally get far more variety. And yes, this is where red’s big stash is.

• Red has one man whose artwork looks the most normal of the bunch, that and a green insect, leaning far more to the typical 3D model feel Magic tolerates.
• Each color of Golgari also have one prowess card that puts the focus more on things than persons (granted you do see hand on one of them), which certainly doesn’t feel like the first things you think about when you want anime artworks.