This set, for the most part, looks normal except the uncommon slot getting 10 more cards and the fact that three DFCs have snuck in the rares and mythics slot.
| Set | W | U | B | R | G | C | 2M | 3M | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TLA-M | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 20 | |
| TLA-R | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 60 |
| TLA-U | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 5 | 20 | 110 | |
| TLA-C | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 6 | 10 | 81 | |
| Total | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 40 | 17 | 43 | 7 | 271 |
The big cycle to note here are five DFC sagas. The front side takes 4-4-5-6-6 mana of 2 devotion to give you a three chapter Saga, one of them repeats a really simple chapter, the others do offer your far more complex things. All have the third chapter be to blink transform them into a legendary creature that you can’t use as a commander unfortunately, just ask any NEO character in these backs. Four of them are colorless Avatars of the four elements, the black one is just a black creature that firebends, so that’s double dipping for one. Annoyance for the second is that those colorless creatures’ front sides all have the name template of “The Legend of <name>”, while the black one changes Legend into Rise and that made me wish each one got a different word.
It’s hard to imagine a reason for why green lacks that third mythic. I mean two of the gold cards does have green, but all three have red. Surely that explains why mono red didn’t have a commander, a pretty familiar position with UB sets I feel.
Is there a good reason in the colorless cards? You got one that turns scry and surveil into free casts, that sounds like cascade and discover so how red is that? The other one is an artifact that scales with the number of creatures sharing a kindred, finally answering the question of “what a white lotus do”, kind of. Certainly a more green kind of card, but still it’s a colorless artifact.
One cycle to note about the elements are the “<Element>bender Ascension”, something that takes clue from the original Zendikar block (that the likes of ZNR forgot). TIL there never was a quest subtype on these. You know the drill, you do thing, get quest counters then if there’s enough quest counters you get good stuff. Through obviously, there are differences. For one, the Temur trio decided to group the reward right into the track to complete them, something only the red Zendikar ascension did. Secondly, the more important distinction, these quests all offer something upfront to help you get to the goal, Zendikar quests didn’t do this. So I guess that’s why we only have 2 and 3 mana quests here, no more 1 drops. Through that 1 drop was mono black which we don’t have anymore. Ultimately, it certainly reflects the 16 years of Magic desginers realizing people might think these quests are useless because completing them would be hard.
The other cycle to note are some monocolored utility lands. Because obviously we ain’t putting the shocklands here. Unlike about 2 previous cycles that checked for basic land types, these now just check for a basic land, which while cuts off all the shocks and triomes out there, may ends up giving you a good position anyway if that checked land produces a different color.
So what utility do you get with these lands? Each land does have their element’s watermarks, so surely their abilities but bend that right? True for the Gruul lands, not with the others. White land does something new with these utility lands, by counter pumping the whole board. Blue land trades 1 devotion for you needing to loot instead of draw like the Eldraine black land. Black land trades one devotion so the creature works wonky instead of just a vanilla like the Eldraine white land. None of these uses waterbending to cheat the mana sink, and they costs 2-3-3-3-4 mana to activate, with no stipulations.
Flavor wise, the Simic lands use entirely unique words and weirdly doesn’t come with any titles, black land is the typical fantasy naming structure, and hopefully the Boros lands each have individual words be common enough. Outside of the two Gruul lands needing to explain their bendings, the other lands can have some flavor text.
With color balance finally being achieved for monocolor at least, let’s allege another cycle into existing. Each non-blue color have an Ally (oh wait green has two, but well I mentioned it above) that actually synergizes with them, not with the literal keyword of Rally or Cohort, but each in a different way. Blue’s argument for lacking one is that its only normal creature is a 1 mana 3/3 with a stun drawback, that sounds familiar. Fusion creature wise, your other choices are a white commander, a black creature and a green creature at mythic.
The dual colored cycle, save for the DFC, is actually complete, because the three Abzan pairs just get normal earth nation creatures in the place of actual commanders. One actually earthbends, one is about sacrificing and one is about Allies.
Is not filling the tricolor commanders cycle worth it for these two last lands (yeah the Azorius DFC ate a slot already)? One of them is basically a subtly power crept Sliver Hive for Allies, the other is a Cave that has this creature ability, something people certainly wished had existed back in the BFZ days with the awaken cards.
An idea last in in the Brother’s War, it certainly adds up with the misconception that these elements are just focused on a single color each. Three are magecrafts, one is a creature and one is an artifact that scales throughout the game. Three of the elements are featured, Air is missing but hey we featured all three kinds of subtypes, Lessons, Allies and fusion monster. The two Lessons also has flashback to take advantage of when you get more of these basic lands, the other magecraft is just expensive for the one time use.
I’m still not sure how well this kind of little sidetrack actually works out in reality. You know that wall deck in DMU needed quite a bit more than just this one card.