Magic in recent memory has been defined by mechanics that if you just squint you can see the exact path to get there using previous mechanics. This set is ultimately no different. With flavor being what justified them being combined the way they are.

1.1 Station = Level up + Crew

1.1.1 Frame review

Something I definitely want to say first is that lmao they finally do the oversimplified Magic card frame I can stand behind. Which is to say, I like the black border, and having the art breaking out of the frame just that much feels like the right amount. They didn’t get a frame design I have presume because 1. The vehicles you have to crew every turn, so they need their own attention on the board 2. These spacey things want to be really big. 3. Vertical art is just more natural to vertical cards you play.

It's the smaller things that irk me about this frame. First off, the counter threshold, it’s a circle centered to the left pinline unlike all the other number headers in Magic which is pushed in, things like loyalty costs, Saga chapters or the levelers’ arrows. This design makes sense for the oversimplified frame direction, but functionally it’s middling. One of the reason to oversimplify the frame is for the things to grow really big, so you want a really big cost, like two digits. Then you have to put the plus after the number, so that’s three characters in this tiny circle. Which is frankly while those older things chose to push in for just a bigger, or at least wider, symbol.

That’s the left, the middle I got criticism about the opacity. You know the levelers have pretty clear dividing lines between their different levels, by having distinct levels of shades to the text box. Now onto these things, I mean you can see a dividing line, just not well at all. I feel like this is due to the text box needing that transparency for the art to justify being vertical. The other reason is that most of these just have two states, since unlike the levelers, the first state of these things actually has to provide something.

Lastly, the right, the power and toughness box. These things look weird to me, being that oversimplified. Size wise, they’re smaller than normal P/T boxes. Even though I look at the dividing line and I totally see enough space to put a normal P/T box in. And with the theme being some of these things can get big, you should have put a proper P/T box to host those big stats. Texture wise, they’re like the circle just that the outline is as thick at the main card’s pinline and there’s just a flat gray inside the box. This is certainly the thing that stood out to me with these things.

1.1.2 Cards selection

The most important part to mention is that this mechanic goes on 2 different subtypes, one is Spacecraft artifacts, and the other is Planet lands. Spacecraft is like big Vehicles, and Planet is like back in MOM they were thinking about making land cards to represent Planes.

At mythic, the cycle to note are the five Planets for this system. Which is why there won’t be more, the alternative is to just call these things “Artifact Land – Spacecraft”. Before all the convoking, these lands just simply arrive tapped and taps for a color without being otherwise fetchable. The special mode will take 12 charge counters to get there, and for that the two Simic lands are fixed scaling lands that ask for 1 mana, the two Rakdos lands ask for 2 mana and something sacrificed for other resources, and lastly white ask for 4 mana to copies stuff. Each has the typical name structure of one unique word (or two in black’s case), then one adjective and one fancy noun. All five have artworks done by the same artist so that’s fun.

The other mythic is an actual Spacecraft that really likes multiples of 10. After that UB cactus, I guess that 100 doesn’t feel as novel anymore.

Onto the rares, each color has a normal spacecraft except white has a commander too. White and blue each has three tiers, the middle asking for 2 for an ability and the last tier ask for multiples of 3 for 8 stat points and two keywords. Then the black one is like the blue one’s charge cost reduced by 1 each because the mana cost is the highest, and for that there are two abilities. Which leaves the remaining Naya trio, yes I’ll bring the commander into this part. They all cost 3 mana, the Boros pair has an arrival trigger so in case you can’t get the creature the card is still worth something, the Selesnya pair ask for 7 charges to be the x/5 creature with an ability, and the Gruul pair are both 4/x and not a commander I suffice.

The last three rare spacecrafts see two being 5 mana, 2 having the charge tier be a creature so you get an arrival ability upfront, and two are just colorless instead of 5 colors, which is how you make a multicolored commander alright, creating and drawing cards make me question. Frankly the black ship of this trio is the mana rock really, flavored to be a giant elevator, so obviously you don’t want it flying around space.

At uncommon, each color gets precisely two cards and that isn’t a joke, I can’t help but be happy for once. Most of them follow the arrival trigger then big charge cost for the creature with one exception, that being useless unlike you get the 3 power, which is definitely way less. The charge cost from here ranges to 7 (BG), 8 (UBRG), 9 (WU) and 10 (W). Effects wise, blue, black and red both divides equally between helpful pieces for yourself and harmful pieces to the opponent, then for green and white I kinda think back to MOM’s uncommon battles and kinda sees the pattern, but like, do I?

I did laid out these into two rows and I gotta realize, there’re four that ranges at just 3 and 4 mana, while the rest ranges at 5 and 6 mana. Which is very infuriating not gonna lie, I wish there was just two cycles for the two ranges, after all how is a lightning bolt got power decrypted to this deep?

And lastly, at common, there are two colorless cards. One of them a 7 mana 7/7 at 7 charges that deals… 10 damage, did Griselbrand made this? The other one is a 2 mana 2/2 that surveils 2, it gets to be a creature when it has… 4 charges, I guess that is 2 doubled but still.

Lastly there’re the precon spacecrafts, both of them ask for 3 to get on the middle tier, which is more than their commanders ironically enough, and their last tier see one stick at 8 like the commanders while the other went for 50% more. Both stat boxes at this tier are fully divisible by 4, you can’t say that about their commanders.

1.2 Warp = Evoke + Adventure

Isn’t warp supposed to be a synonym for teleport? Then I’m not too sure what’s so teleporty about this mechanic. It is like evoke, not exactly, in the sense of you getting a temporary permanent. It is like adventure in the sense that you get a second cast, the proper cast, of the permanent. But there’s one big stipulation between the two, which distinguish it from actual evoke, is that the thing has to survive until the end step to get into the adventure zone. Which is to say, there’s a window for removal, which frankly happens way more than countering Adventures. So that’s a risk you carry. Maybe it doesn’t happen as often as I would fear, because most things on warp don’t have haste. So you literally have to use them for their abilities and not much else. Not sacrificing too, but maybe flickering can work.

It’s definitely infuriating to see no cycles anywhere in these rarities. Like do you fill in the black rares slot with a colorless Eldrazi and an Izzet card? Even the commons and uncommons seem to have that kind of holes.