3. Cards in weird places

3.1. Set booster exclusives

No, not the commander exclusive few cards like in Midnight Hunt to Lost Caverns, this one had its intention more in common with the Theme Booster cards (or as we eventually known and hate them, Jumpstart parodies). As in, casual cards for kitchen table decks just as much as in that value engine format. Surely, no one playing Constructed would need these cards, right?

Like that last time, there’s one rare cycle of big creatures. Two are flying Angels, two are Berskerers wanting other creatures, two are Surtland Giants with attack triggers, and lastly there’s a lone Elf Warrior that doesn’t have the second devotion, so it’s distinctly the simplest card of the bunch. Flavor wise, there’s a Boros pair of flavor texts and a Golgari pair of quotes.

Uncommons wise, it’s quite a mess. Maybe it’s better to divide by archetype than by colors:

• Angels got two white cards, guess which one is cheaper because the cheaper one is quite important to this game at this point I feel, one black card I can’t make out who is here, and one Orzhov card, wait can theme boosters get this thing?
• Dwarfs get two red artifacts, two white cards. There’s a split between explicitly calling for them, Equipments and Vehicles, and to create tokens.
• Elves get two black cards with incredible hair work in the dark, and one green spell that does the Krenko thing. It’s surely an odd split.
• Giants get one wonky looking (on the board) mind control spell, and one pump plus impulse curious spell. Don’t think this made them good.
• Shapeshifters get a card draw engine that explicitly mentions itself yet there’s still a copy limit, and a bounce spell that lacks flavor text.

Something I notice: these are all enemy pairs kindreds! Imagine if they just made a set with these five kindreds, then put the others in the next one, how much more fleshed out would everyone be?

3.2. Commander decks

This is the only pair of commander precons ever made that has exactly 8 new designs in each deck, and have each deck be priced at that affordable mark just slightly over the planeswalker decks. Compare to what we have now, we do have to wonder what we have lost.

Much like Zendikar, this set chooses one kindred and one set mechanic for its precon pair. Unlike that set however, the set mechanic deck stayed firmly in a color pair instead of a trio. So this time, red gets absolutely nothing. But hey, we get two opposing color pairs.

Both commanders cost 4 mana once again, but they’re smaller this time, just 2/3s. They have one or two keywords, one ability that creates 1/1s as opposed to giving buffs, differing in whether to limit that creation to one at a time or is basically squirrellink from Unstable. The other ability is more exciting and has a zero digit somewhere in it, whether it’s the enabler for the ability, or the payoff for the token ability.

Rares wise, the additional new designs sreally show themselves here. First off, through a bicolored card for each deck. The foretell creature is a card draw engine, while the enchantment for the Elves is a deathtouch lord and a drain engine.

For the foretell side, only one card lacks the keyword and it’s a passive three stage card, believe it or not. What pairs can I make overall? One pair is creatures that get a 2 mana discount through foretelling, another pair are magecrafts costing 4 base and get just as much discount, and the last card is to mass bounce to pair with that tiered creature, reluctantly.

For the elves’ side, each color get one big creature that is an engine for everyone’s upkeeps, one 3 drop sorcery that provides card advantage and one artifact or enchantment that each have an activated ability to cheat death. The odd one out here is a card that asks for a creature type instead of just spelling Elves, because it came from a serpent, actually the artifact mentions that too.

4. Showcases set

4.1. Generic vertical: Planeswalkers, Pathways, Foretells

Once again, I think the ZNR article covered the pathways better than this one can.