Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Preliminary Reviews Part VI

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 4

Just as free of an inclusion as the other legendary channel lands but a rather less useful effect. It isn't really interactive and is just a very low tempo way of getting action instead of a land. Castle Lochthwain seems significantly more exciting than this and even that was a bit slow for cube. 

Weaver of Harmony 3

Too narrow for drafting cubes but quite the house in enchantment creature decks and quite the reason to build such an archetype. 

Spirit-Sister's Call 2

A bit like a Recurring Nightmare which cannot loop things but doesn't have an ongoing cost nor a restriction to just dorks. All told this is way too narrow and slow for cube but it is powerful and likely to do some good things in places like EDH.

March of Wretched Sorrow 5

I'm stumped on this one. It is too slow without the cost reduction but it is too costly with it. You don't want to be going two for one to kill something with 2 toughness! None of the modes you can play this in are good by themselves but perhaps the flexibility of the spell is enough to push it over the line. Absolutely one for testing, if I were forced to guess I would come down on the side of not good enough but we shall have to wait and see. The ability to turn black cards in hand into two life a pop is pretty handy when considering things like Necropotence. 

Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice 2

A kind of bad Kor Spiritdancer but still good enough to play in most singleton aura decks. Far too narrow for anything other than aura decks of course.  

Oni-Cult Anvil 2

Cute way to turn the likes of Baubles and Chromatic Stars into extra value and a nice pairing with Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast but the power here is pretty low as far as playable cards go and on top of that it is also rather narrow. 

Okiba Reckoner Raid // Nezumi Road Captain 5

I think this card rather perfectly frames the issue with these saga flip dorks. Compared to most one drop beaters this is nuts, except that it isn't because it is never a 2/2 beater on turn one. First attack is on turn four by which point any crappy 2/1 can have dealt twice as much damage. Mild evasion helps keep this relevant longer than otherwise but it is still a low impact card. In a world with high aggression black decks this has a shot but for general use it just seems to slow.  

Cloudsteel Kirin 1

Lol. This will win some games but mostly it is a below par dork with a risky low tempo desperation mode. There are better ways to avoid losing that don't involve crossing your fingers and hoping one of a a number of your cards don't get answered while you waste your mana and play weak cards.

 

Reckoner Bankbuster 7

A more beaty take on Mazemind Tome. You get three cards for seven effective mana split into nice convenient chunks of two. You also get access to a 4/4 vehicle as well as ultimately getting a good crew for the job. A slow card but playable and versatile. Cube is the kind of setting where this style of card works out very well. It stands alone well and does a selection of useful stuff. Not broken but impressively playable.

Sky-Blessed Samurai 2

In an enchantment based aggro deck sure, this is a cheap fat flier that both adds to and benefits from enchantment theming. Narrow but certainly with potential.

Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion 6

Versatile and somewhat scary card. It is quite like a Fallen Shinobi but a whole lot less narrow. Sadly this is a bit too fragile to impress all that much. If you try and play this for 1BB it is getting blocked or killed all day making it a bad card on the whole. When playing it for ninjutsu the cost is greater as well as requiring more setup. Then you are relying on hitting something good to cheat on mana with. Hit a big spell while on lots of life and you win, grats. Mostly however you will hit lands and middling things that do not help enough to offset the risk of playing Nashi. A card with an obnoxious ceiling but lacking the average performance to go with it. 

Network Disruptor 2

Here is a filler support card if I ever saw one. Low power but also low cost and lots of types and things going on!

Hinata, Dawn-Crowned 3

Decent power level and cool potentials but overly narrow for most applications. I want to cast a big spell with lots of targets on the cheap with this. Sadly, I don't ever want to see this in a cube draft!

Discover the Impossible 6

This may be a little on the narrow side for drafting cubes but the power is not lacking at all. This is at worst an Impulse looking one card deeper for one more mana. Supreme Will was weaker on the card quality side and still used plenty. This then has the ceiling of finding a 2 drop you wanted to play and playing it for you turning this into effectively a one mana Impulse for five. Seems cute in storm decks where you can reduce the cost and get extra storm count on top of your card quality essentially for free. This is a very powerful little card that reminds me a little of Frantic Search, obviously no where near as abusive but still. Sadly I don't think enough cube decks have a high enough count of cheap instants to make this have a good enough average performance but it is pretty close just because it has such a reasonable floor.

Greasefang Okiba Boss 2

The kind of card you could partially build a vehicle deck with and around if such a thing is ever looked worth doing. 

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary 2

Very cool card but rather more on the EDH sort of speed than that of cube. The ramp mode is cool but just too slow. If the ramp were quicker/cheaper then the channel mode would then really push this card with it's potent late game effect. 

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Preliminary Reviews Part V

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki 7

The value here is probably too hard to ignore. For 3 mana you are getting a pair of 2/2s, both with a decent amount of upside. You are also getting the option on a double rummage. This card is pretty slow and it turns out sticking a mana on the activation of Kiki-Jiki really hurts the potency of the card. You cannot really combo with it and so it is more like a flicker than anything else. Still good but not something you would be likely to pay 3 mana for by itself in your average deck (Fury might well disagree with that assessment). In terms of power and value this is easily there but it might be a little aimless and slow to really stand the test of time in cube. It is hardly dominating a board or doing game ending things with tempo or value and those are the sorts of cards that really stand out. It reminds me of Seasoned Pyromancer which is a good thing to be compared to. 

 

Tribute to Horobi // Echo of Death's Wail 5

The ceiling here is obscene but the risks are likely too great. Cards that give downside before they give upside back are just asking for trouble. I will test this and I suspect for the most part it will perform well but it will cost some games and that is going to put people off. Best case scenario is that you take 3 damage from rats then you get 5/5 of stats over 3 bodies and get to beating in the sky for 3 with the option to draw cards for dorks. At two mana, even with a delay of two turns, that is supremely good. The variety of bad outcomes however is pretty damning. People play things like Goblin Bombardment and Skullclamp. People apply pressure quickly too so you might not even be able to play this without it killing you before you ever get to Echo. A delayed 2 mana 3/3 flier is not worth giving your opponent a Forked Bolt or 4 cards, not by a long shot. 

Brilliant Restoration 2

A little bit pricey for what it offers compared to the various things you can use in white to similar effect. Combo and EDH only card and a slow backup for combo at best.

Reality Heist 3

Dig Through Time made into an artifact matters spell, only finding them and reduced in cost by affinity rather than Delve. Very powerful in decks likely to consistently have this cost two mana while having the capacity to produce double blue. One thing I will say about this is that despite the power of the card a lot of the payoff things you want to find with it in an artifact deck are infact the non-artifacts like Urza which this helpfully puts to the bottom of your deck... 

The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration 6.5

Wow. This is a lot of card. It is a two for one with card quality, ramp options or recursion that ultimately turns into a threat with ongoing value generation. Much like the Fable of Kiki-Jiki this is probably too much to ignore power and value wise. It is also more generally useful. Basically we have a Brimaz here which would be foolish with all that extra stuff added if not for the delay which keeps this pretty safe. Brimaz is the kind of beefy snowballing threat you want to curve with, the later the game goes the less scary and relevant he is and with this saga your Architect will not be attacking until turn six. That makes me think you can't really play this in aggressive decks very effectively. Equally the lack of doing all that much on the tempo side of things makes it a little tougher to use in control builds. This may get consigned to just the midrange decks which could well hurt its future prospects. Lots of power but not exactly how and where you want it. 

Light the Way 4

Flexible and cheap. This is a combat trick, value with an EtB trigger, protection, all sorts of things. It is however a bit low powered, aimless, and all too situational. I have been finding more and more than I want all my cards to be things that stand up on their own which this does not. Looks very playable but I just don't see it getting any of that play. 

The Fall of Lord Konda // Fragment of Konda 2

I really like this card but I fear that too many times this just won't have targets. If you do not get to kill something with this then it is terrible. Elspeth's Nightmare had the same issue, if you killed something with it the card was very impressive but if you couldn't the card felt pretty unplayable and so it was culled from cube pretty quickly. 

You Are Already Dead 4

Quite the upgrade to Fatal Blow. Also a one drop cantrip that does something useful. Much as this has a lot of potential it is likely too situational with the floor being a dead card. I think that rules it out for most places.

Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough 6.5

The total package here is nuts. This is a two for one with disruption and tempo and reasonable threat. It can probably even lock out a game against decks with very low curves. The main issue I see with this card is that it does relatively little for the investment for the first few turns. A bounce is nice but at sorcery speed it is hard to get excited about and at four mana it is often going to be very unimpressive. The following turn all you do is get a card which is nice but it is still quite a way behind Repulse or Reduce to Zero. Any two of a 3/3 flier, a card, and a bounce combined together are reasonable uses of 4 mana plus a card and so you would expect getting all three to be a lock in but I still do worry if these cards are all just a bit slow to compete.

Soul Transfer 3

Sorcery speed makes this have no chance. Exile is more of an upside here than the chance of getting both modes. The option to Raise Dead is OK but narrow and low powered. You don't really want to be using your catch all removal in that kind of way. This is certainly playable but there are just too many better alternatives for me to even bother testing this.

Prosperouse Thief 2

I love this card but it is a long way from having enough power or impact to get cube action. Tribal filler at best is what we have here. 

Anchor to Reality 3

A kind of Natural Order / Tinker affair with limited targets. This will see play as all tutors and mana cheat cards seem to in one way or another. Kaldra Compleat is likely the most powerful thing you can do with this. Too narrow for draft cubes but some potential elsewhere. 

Selfless Samurai 4

A two drop Dauntless Bodyguard. This is fine but not good. It is the sort of thing that is helping white aggro decks perform well at present but I don't see this particular version getting all that much action. This being able to protect creatures that are in play after it is nice making it a bit more proactive than Bodygaurd but it is still a lot less exciting than Selfless Spirit. Or even Adanto Vanguard for that matter. Fine and playable that does the right sort of thing but boring card and at a less than impressive power level. 

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Preliminary Reviews Part IV

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Gloomshrieker 2

I might play this if I want a Regrowth on an enchantment. With how narrow this is and how Eternal Witness isn't even good enough any more this is getting very little action.

March of Reckles Joy 7

Yeah, this seems good. It is early card quality, midgame card advantage and late game it does both. The smooth scaling and utility offered by this make it hard to turn down. It is a long way from a bomb or anything and it can misfire and cause you card disadvantage but for the most part it is getting you out of screws, giving you options and giving you value. I get the impression this is just one of those cards you are always going to be happy to see when you draw it. It will do a good job of putting dead cards to use and help massively with hitting your land drops on time. 

High-Speed Hoverbike 1

This just doesn't have the power level to really be in the conversation. It doesn't stand up very well on its own nor does it achieve all that much for the cost of a card. It is cheap and playable, I likely run it over Sky Skiff should I be making a vehicle deck and want another cheap card to pad out the list....

Kappa Tech-Wrecker 3

Pretty sure this is a ninja turtle and not a turtle ninja! I smell fear from the legal department on this... I like Tech-Wrecker but it seems a bit fiddly for what it is and does. It fails to stand up all that well when not threatening to Naturalize things which is a bit of an issue. It is also not the easiest thing to use as a Naturalize which compounds the problem. I do want to abuse EtB triggers with this but that is just being greedy and win more. I'll just play value cards in the value slots and cards like Boseiju when I need answers.

Banishing Slash 2

Sorcery speed, double white, and conditional on the main removal mode with the only real upside being that you might get a free 2/2. Not awful but certainly not good. I am only even considering this if I have near assured 2/2 trigger online. 

Tempered in Solitude 2

Just a little bit too needy to be a good source of value. Decent when working but the mere fact that it might not always be is more than enough to kill its chances. 

Moon-Circuit Hacker 7

Seems like this is mostly an upgraded frontloaded Ninja of the Deep Hours. It is a lot easier to get that first card back with this as well as it being less of a drag should you have to hard cast it. Yes, it is less good than Deep Hours once in play but then Deep Hours was really hard to continue milking value out of. This is good enough for cubes if you already have the right kind of support going, that being good cheap evasive dorks and/or those with good EtB effects, we are talking Baleful Strix sorts of cards. I am probably just about able to support this and so it will be an OK little tempo filler card. Great with the likes of Brazen Borrower too! 

Prodigy Prototype 1

Not bad or anything but just a bit fair and a bit narrow. 

Sunblade Samurai 1

Minor potential in a Replenish style deck as a cheap useful supporting card that puts itself in the bin and then comes back as a different big thing. 

Circuit Mender 4

Upgrade on Filigree Familiar, the toughness extra is nice but the big upgrade is that the card is drawn on leaving play not death making this an interesting flicker card among other synergies. Filler card.

Generous Visitor 2

This is not without potential but it is a bit of an awkward fit. I am not sure I want a generic fat dork that isn't an enchantment in my enchantment decks. One mana cards with scaling do always seem to find a way and so this will crop up somewhere. 

Satsuki, the Living Lore 2

Cute saga support card, fun as a build around but too narrow for cubes, probably not powerful enough either. 

Walking Skyscraper 2

This might get play in a counters deck but it is really far too win more at the point the casting cost is actually appealing. 

Otawara, the Soaring City 8

A highly versatile piece of interactive disruption. While not an answer to all that much it does help deal with things or buy time or just be suitably tricky. We all know how good bounce is, even if it is a little on the pricy side. Bounce on an island? Why yes, absolutely always will I play this. This dealing with manlands is a big help too. 

Mechtitan Core 2

How silly and fun. Reasonably easy to pull off too and not even a high risk play, just one that needs a lot of support. Not a very powerful card but somewhat easy to build around and based on how novel and fun it is I am sure many will do just that. You certainly need to be doing more than just crewing this to be anything other than shockingly bad.

Invoke Justice 2

Narrow and wonky. I cannot see many situations where this is a recursion spell of choice. It certainly is too situational to play without support.

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Preliminary Reviews Part III

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant 2

Pretty potent effect on a somewhat medium body. This doesn't win by itself but it does do bonkers things while disrupting quite well. I can see this used in some recursion decks but mostly it is going to be big boy EDH card. Fun but not stand alone enough for a cube seven drop or thing to cheat into play. 

Tamiyo, Compleated Sage 4

Cost options are cool but the lowered loyalty stops it being all that powerful. Once deployed this is mostly just a tapper. Annoying for the opponent and fairly versatile but slow and low value. You either need premium things to use the minus X on or stall long enough to get the ultimate off. If this were mono coloured it would offer enough to be cube worthy but in gold I am no where near as interested. I do like to see the phyrexian mana symbols used again and with a bit more respect for how powerful it is than the first time we saw them!

Scrap Welder 3

Another fixed version of Goblin Welder being both slower to come online and unable to easily cheat on mana costs. Plenty of value and shenanigans you can do with this but it will need to be in a deck quite specialized and those that would support this tend to be incredibly tight on space. 

Invoke Despair 2

This is a three for one assured with both disruption and tempo being very much on the cards as well. While I like this the problem is simply that there are a few too many low value things that are getting sacked to this rather ruining the potency. If you would ever rather 2 life and the card to the thing that got binned then Invoke is poo and that is happening too often for my liking, especially for a quad black card. 

Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance 7

Great card although relatively low impact. A couple of 1/1 dorks are not getting a lot done unless you happen to be a sac or go wide synergy deck. Low power and fairly low utility but none the less an essentially free piece of value for any deck wanting mountains. Given that I eventually cut Castle Embereth for not doing enough despite being a comparably free addition there is a chance this winds up suffering the same fate. Perfectly powerful and playable enough for cube but perhaps not high enough impact to have it taking up space. 

Kodoma of the West Tree 4

Great if built around but too low average performance otherwise. Ideally you need to be attacking with a modified dork the turn you make this and then be able to modify it or provide more modified attackers there after. Giving your dorks trample and One with Nature on the back of a 3/3 for three is all quite tasty. While many dorks are modified in cube there are not enough to make this a good draft card. 

March of Otherworldly Light 8

This is a cool and interesting card. Very Prismatic Ending but with some twists. As a starting point being compared to Prismatic Ending is a great place to be what with it arguably being the best removal spell out there presently. Not a very hard case to make for modern at least. So, this is instant speed and exile quality removal but it does not hit planeswalkers. That is less of an issue than it used to be with walkers being less problematic and white being plenty adept at handling them. At base line this is tempo negative being X+1 mana to kill something of cost X. While not a great thing for a removal spell to be it is not unreasonable to expect on an instant speed card with no other drawback and such a wide and effective removal range. We are comparing this to things like Cast Out and Council's Judgement and it is looking quite acceptable before we even consider the cost reduction aspect. You never really want to be pitching cards to make this cheaper but you will have to sometimes and it will be a huge help than you can. One mana and a card to exile the Jitte they just made and tried to equip? Sounds like a bargain. This is a perfectly playable card at baseline with a mode allowing you to gain tempo at the cost of cards making this one of the most flexible removal spells to see print. Being just a single white mana to play as well makes this pretty splashable as well greatly upping the playability of the card. This is far from broken but it is ever so on point, it does everything you really want from removal and it does it reliably and well. Comfortably top tier removal in cube where it should outclass Prismatic Ending even if it will not be doing so in formats like modern. Cube has more in the way of things costing 4 to 6 that want answering and so Ending is more restricted by colour requirements on that front. 

Moonsnare Prototype 5

What an odd old card, and dangerously so at that. Did not feel like blue was the colour that needed its own personal Springleaf Drum? This could do some very scary things in modern with Urza and all that jazz. Needing blue to produce then only making colourless does limit this as ramp but then only needing an artifact to tap makes it wildly more convenient to turn on and use. As does having a removal mode bolted on as well making it an ideal little support card to run in loads of places. It is too narrow for most generic drafting cubes where a simple Talisman is going to be safer, tap for more mana, and get more play. As for build arounds and constructed type things this is going to be a cool new toy to help with brewing and potentially push a few things too far in power level. 

 

Hotshot Mechanic 5

Gone are the days when just being a Savannah Lions would earn you a cube slot. Much as this is interesting and powerful it would seem that being an artifact or crewing well offers far too little utility in my white aggro areas to make the cut. Absolutely a card that will wind up doing some cool supporting things in the build arounds. 

Junji, the Midnight Sky 6.5

Pretty threatening and powerful. I like this the most out of the cycle although for all the same reasons as the rest, I don't see it cutting it.

Lizard Blades 4

I don't like these that much but they are better than the others so far and so perhaps I am underrating the reconfigure cards generally. Conceptually reconfigure is cool but it seems over costed and somewhat on the vulnerable side of things. This offers some scary potential but it is super fragile and needs supporting to get much done. 

Twinshot Archer 2

Not powerful exactly but the right sort of thing to get play in tribal and even synergy decks. This is OK in some kinds of Goblin Welder decks and desirable on-tribe interaction for a gobbos deck. 

Invoke Calamity 3

Powerful but too narrow for cube needing both quad red and worthy setup. I can see this being used in combo decks to some reasonable effect. 

Lion Sash 7

White gets a Scavenging Ooze. Likely this is making the cut in cube even though I think I prefer Ooze and Ooze is now somewhat on the cusp for sufficient power level. This is good not for power reasons but because it does quite a lot in a well suited package. This is disruption, it is a cheap body, and it offers both scaling and synergy. I can play this to support my Stoneforge Mystic without having to overplay equipment. It can help you evade mass removal. It is a body I can curve out with early that doesn't turn into a dead late game card. This is a card that doesn't need the reconfigure to be interesting and yet it has one of the more reasonable costing on the ability of the spoiled cards so far.