This set looks surprisingly normal at this table’s surface level, almost as if the Shadowmoor influences aren’t felt. Well, maybe except for the few DFCs stapled onto the typical rare and mythic amounts.

3.1. Mythics

It’s truly baffling to see some color imbalance here. How come black just have two cards while Azorius has four? Well, the former trades one of its slot for… a colorless artifact, whose ability does not resemble a black card in the slightest (it more resembles a non-Black creature combat card, how surprising). The two other colors went for DFCs that technically should be considered Orzhov and Simic respectively, but well you could totally just choose to never transform them.

How are these slots used? First off, each non-black color has a giant spell that surely has a sea of words to match. Actually, blue has two. Then each Grixis color has a different huge creature that deal with -1/-1 counters, whether having them on themselves to be really cheap, or dishing them out. Selesnya’s huge creatures, however, are literally Giants that focus on arrival triggers to match. There’s an enchantment to blitz stuff out, it feels like the odd one out. There’s two almost last creatures that are the most direct references to the original sets, one being literally a reprint, the other is literally a Magus of the enchantment.

And lastly, we get an Ajani, of all characters. I know, he’s part of the Lorwyn Five and all, but still, reading the abilities make me think of just a new character at this point. Wasn’t that exactly what I said about Oko? Point is, this set would have lived just fine without these two planeswalkers.

3.1.1. Incarnations cycle

The most infamous cycle of this kindred is surely the MH2 ones, where you get the choice between paying a lot for a decent creature plus an arrival ability, or pitch a card to “get just the arrival ability”, abilities that Modern hasn’t had the ability to access all by itself before. These things turned out to be absolutely insane because you don’t just have those two modes, you have the third one being if you flicker, you get a creature plus trigger, all for I think, 0.5 white mana.

This cycle is a derivation of that and also a Shadowmoor cycle of hybrid spells that do different things for the different colored mana spent to cast them. Here, we ask for 2 devotions of each color so the evoke cost is exactly 2 hybrids so you get exactly one mode and the casting cost is 5 or 6 mana so you got ample time to find both colors.

Let’s go back to the flickering dilemma. Because of how the flickered copy wasn’t paid mana for, none of the arrival clauses would trigger, leaving you with a stat block. And then you got airbending, which does allow you to put 2 mana in, which certainly will count, so finally, we found a case where airbending is better than just flickering. Ultimately, it’s one problem solved.

Now onto the last fun facts. How does the two modes synergize? Boros and Simic’s pairs are simple enough there are room for reminder text. Dimir’s card can bounce then thoughtsieze a card, so that could total to removing it. Gruul’s card is… infuriating, 3 damage versus a land plus 2 life surely doesn’t total to 3. Orzhov’s card is a 2 for 1 alright, thankfully it has that “up to” clause so you don’t end up evoking what you just reanimated. Boros’s one has to swap the order of the colors so that the synergy of hasting newly created tokens actually works. Simic’s one is whatever.

Name wise, the two allied cards went for two syllable names while the enemy ones have three syalles that all end in the letter ‘s’, specifically “ness” if you have 5 toughness.

3.2. Rares

It’s nice that the monocoloreds are balanced right? It’s surprisingly a rarity in these in-universe sets. And then you turn your head to the multicolored and that turned out to be where the imbalance has settled to. Is that worth it to have a single colorless card?

3.2.1. Monocolored

3.2.1.1 Monocolored/Champions

Do I sound ignorant for thinking champion nothing more than a drawback mechanic? Maybe, back then a 5 mana 7/7 might not be as terrible as it is today. Power creep has done plenty to these creatures, and that especially makes these additional costs look unnecessary.

How do we do it now? For one, we need two different lines of text to explain the whole ordeal. First off, you behold a creature of the kindred and exile it, how janky. This is an improvement over the old way because 1. You can discard a card instead of sacrificing something you paid mana for, 2. Your opponent can’t counter the champion by killing the sacrificed creature 3. Look, it’s behold from Tarkir. Or is it? Because if you choose to sacrifice and the champion dies, the sacrificed creature is now bounced instead of returning to the board. I get it, we don’t want to make this second ability even wordier than it already it, and the alternative would basically spells out you can cheat creatures from your hand, but still.

What do we get for this drawback cost? The green one answers it best, going from a 2/3 draw engine to a 6/6, still for 4 mana. Black is the cruelest case, trading blight for blight. White is a weird case, but I can totally be cynical and say should I trade the deathtouch and life swing on card draw of Sheoldred for an anthem for this obscure kindred?

The last thing to notice is that all of the cards cost 4 mana 1 devotion. This is a feature that old Magic’s cycles used to uphold a lot, and now we kinda move on from for the most part. Granted, with this additional cost, the total cost is a lot more nebulous now.

3.2.1.2 Monocolored/Convoke spells

You could read this cycle as a clever reference to Conspire, or you could go off the literal flavor of creatures banding in together to cast these spells. The latter will certainly explains why these cards all want to scale with your board width of a kindred. Wasn’t this kind of spell called Kindred <Word> back in some commander precons set? Well, this time, we also expand the category to a creature with an arrival trigger to make a protection effect feel less overpriced.