The table to the right of you should clue you in the reason why sets like these are so interesting. Nowhere else would the two colors and three colors columns be that dense, and there’s a pretty elaborate story about how this column came to be.

2.1 Mythics

You look at something like original Alara where it tried to use as many slots for gold cards at mythic as possible, so in the large there was 2 whole shard cycles, then coming to Khans it gets way more in favor of monocolored, so each clan only get their khan up here. Then New Capenna got 20 mythics but still favors monocolored if anything even more heavily. This time we now want a balance, even if the dual coloreds get nothing. They used to get a planeswalker.

2.1.1 Monocolored + Colorless

2.1.1.1 Loose trio of characters

First off, mono white has Elspeth, now ascended to be an archangel, so she probably won’t have the chance to wear cool flapper clothes like back in the last tricolor set, is back to save another day I think. What’s to save when her last card feels too normal for such a status in the lore, like 4 mana for just 3 abilities? Well, now both of those got cranked up by 1, and that additional ability is doubling tokens sounds like fun. The two practical abilities stayed basically the same but of course considering the passive ability it’ll play differently. And the ultimate got changed to not be one, just a creature removal. So I guess she still hasn’t lived up to her status in the lore.

Mono blue has Taigam, who first debuted in two different precons of C17, the first time they broke the tradition of 5 color balanced precons to the mess we have nowadays. One Taigam was Ojutai colored, the other was Dimir to play with the Sultai. You’d assume they would go through 8 other timelines to finish this cycle, but no, we now visit him in the present. Well you could make new characters for those slots really, there’s still time. And turns out he dropped white, but is still part of the Jeskai. Some people really thought he could have been Esper i.e. the only shard card in this wedge set, by maybe even have a hybrid Orzhov to get there, and honestly I found that too funny.

And lastly in colorless there’s Ugin, to the surprise of no one except those who thought he had to stick around in some meditation realm to keep nickle balls there. His original card definitely had a case of Griselbrand syndrome of costing 8 mana for 7 loyalty, and now that’s fixed, I guess all these time Tron got so power crept that number doesn’t seem so scary anymore. What is scary is old Ugin’s middle ability now got turned to 4 lines of text that is the same effect just different clauses for it to trigger, how infuriating. Part of his ultimate also got ripped to be the new practical abilities and the new ultimate now just lets you tutor cards instead of praying on that much card draw.

Certainly feels a bit boring to have all three of these be returning characters. But well, the originality this time lies elsewhere really.

2.1.1.2 Loose trio of enchantments

First off, mono white has Alesha’s title which let you do the Alesha thing twice but they have megamorph now instead of attacking immediately. That justifies being mono white and not Orzhov hybrid. Which would mean the FDN Alesha ironically can’t run this card. Also have they put a new trans character in Mardu this time?

Mono red has a Dragon-only Omniscience, which such a limited selection of castable cards it’s now discounted to 6 mana. One can only wonder how much mana would that actually save over the course of a commander game, and whether that’s really worth doing over just ramping normally that could pay for everything.

Lastly in all 5 colors there’s this set’s version of Meeting of the Five. It probably wouldn’t suck as much, but like the above card, you really have to think about what’s the point of a card having to declare someone with 5 indestructible dragons of different colors the winner of a game? Well I mean if they don’t have haste then yeah that saves a fair bit of time, seems like the main purpose.

Overall, those are pretty short reviews of these cards, they seems obvious in what they do and provide to the game of Magic, unlike certain brutally long walls of text commanders next door. They could have gotten overpriced activated ability that I don’t know tutor cards to places to enable themselves, but well I’m glad they don’t. Still imagine the full cycle.

2.1.1.3 Loose trio of creatures

If you take into account Elspeth and Taigam, that could really loosely be considered a cycle of creatures. Would you really see it that way through, that’s the question.

First off, mono black has a decayed nontoken creature. It’s an overstated Demon since obviously you only attack with it once. So that you can eventually renew it to put decayed counters on creatures, probably your opponents’ or the ones you’re ecstatic to get the death trigger of.

Then mono red has a Dragonstorm, literally, but well this time it won’t take as long to tutor, and it’s also a lord for the Dragons, thank god it doesn’t have haste, through by that point getting mass haste isn’t that hard.

Lastly there’s mono green’s Craterhoof, illustrated by Magali V. What a sentence. The original one was in Avacyn Restored, then Wilds of Eldraine would make a white version, and now we got this one. This one has more tusks and a less open mouth, I can say that much.

So all in all, each mono color gets 1 card except red and white gets 2, and these last 3 cards don’t bother to rectify that fact.