For a game that’s covered everything from Norse mythology to Japanese Cyberpunk, it’s incredible that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering has gone this long withou🅷t doing Westerns. Despite being one of the most heavily requested set🍰tings, we’ve never had a rootin’, tootin’ cowboy set before Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

With it finally almost here, Wizards of the Coast has broken Outlaws of Thunder Junction out of the Sheriff’s jail and ridden off into the sunset, letting us getting a mighty long look at some of the mechanics, art treatments, and Commanders we&ܫrsquo;ll be seeing when the set launches on April 19.

Story And Setting

O๊utlaws of Thunder Junction is the final set in the year-long arc that’s followed Kellen through the multiverse. In pursuit of his father Oko, he’s gone from Eldraine to Ixalan, to Ravnica, and now to the brand new world of Thunder Junction.

Thunder Junction was originally a barren plane, but with the opening of the Omenpaths after the March of the Machine, all kinds of folk from across ꧑the multiverse have settled here. Including, unfortunately, many villains. A ruthless and lawless world, Thunder Junction is full of too many criminals and not enough sheriffs to bring peace.

Thunder Junction is♓ the first brand-new plane we’ve seen since Streets of New Capenna in mid-20ꦕ22.

Of course, there’s a bigger reason for coming to Thunder Junction: the Vault. Buried in the centre of the plane is a secret treasure that is sure to be the crux of the next big story arc, whicꦅh should take us through to mid-2025.

Mechanics

Murders at Karlov Manor was fairly conservative in new mechanics, but Outlaws of Thunder Junction is going for broke with a whole gang of keywords no꧑t seen ♐in the game before.

New Mechanic: Outlaws

Party’s back, but someone invited to bad kids. Outlaw is๊ a batching mechanic, meaning it ties together already existing types under one banner, and then lets youꦍ do fun things with all of them.

Outlaw ties together five creature types: Mercenaries, Rogues, Warlocks, Pirates, and Assassins. The set is full of such creatures, like Kellen, the Kid being a𝔉 Rogue, and Vraska, t♈he Silencer being an Assassin.

One of the next sets after Outlaws of Thunder Junction is Universes Beyond: Assas🍌sin’s Creed, which could get 🥃a big power bump from the outlaw-loving cards in this set.

These creatures don’t inherently do anything, but other cards will reward you for having them with buffs or special effects. For example, the face of the Most Wanted Commander deck; Olivia, Opulent Outlaw; will give you a Treasure token if one or more outlaws manage to dea𝄹l combat damage.

In formats where both party and outlawᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ cards are legal, like Pioneer, Modern, and Commander, this mechanic could gives Rogues in particular a massive boost, as they’re the only creature type that is beefed ꦛup by both.

New Mechanic: Committing Crimes

Finally, you c♒an commit crimes while playi🧔ng Magic and be rewarded for it. This doesn’t mean you can do a cheeky bit of tax evasion while drafting, though; crime has a very specific meaning in Magic.

Any time you cast a spell or activate an ability that targets a permanent, their permanents, or cards they own in the graveyard or in exile, you are co෴mmitting a crime. This means plenty of older cards also now automatically become crimes, which is thꦍe entire purpose of one of the set’s two bonus sheets – the crime-centric Breaking News.

On top of the crimes themselves, there are cards that care about committing crimes in other ꦯways. For instance, Freestrider Lookout lets you go through the top five cards of your library for a land when you commit a crime, while Magda, the Hoardmaster makes Treasure tokens.

New Mechanic: Spree

Kicker is one of the most successful MTG mechanics of all time, to the point that it’s a common joke in Magic that every other mechanic is effectively just kickꦰer. This couldn’t be truer for spree, which takes the idea of kicker and modal spells and makes them compusary.

Each spell with spree has two costs: the original mana value in the top right corner, and a series of extra costs listed in the card text. You m𒆙ust pay at least one of these, but can choose to pay for as many of them as you like.

Take Unfortunate Accident. You can’t just cast it for one black mana, otherwise nothing would happen. You must pick at least one of its two other abilities and pay their additional costs as we♊ll, m🅘eaning Unfortunate Accident’s actual mana cost is at least one black and one generic, and at most two black, three generic.

New Mechanic: Saddle

While we’ve had all sorts of Vehicles, from cars and trains to flying air ships, we’ve never been able to just… ride a horse. Or, in Magic&rsqu🌱o;s case, Innistrad’s Gitrog Monster.

To saddle a creature with the Mount creature type, you’ll need to tap other creatu♑res for a total power of its saddle cost. This is just like crewing a Vehicle, but the big difference is that, as Mounts are already creatures, they can attack whether they’ve been saddled or not. Instead, other effects become available by being saddled.

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride lets you sacrifice the creatures that saddled it to draw extra cards and put lands into play. We can expect to see plenty of other saddle effects in this set, but ☂I’d personally love to see a way to give any other creatur🌞e a saddle cost to turn Emrakul into a mount.

New Mechanic: Plot

The final new mechanic o🅰f Thunder Junction is a reworked version of Kaldheim’s fortell. Like foretell, you pay a cost to exile a card from your hand to cast on a later ♒turn. However, there’s one massive difference: you get to cast the card for free.

Unlike foretell, you also exile the card face-up so your opponents can se🔯e what’s coming.

You can only caඣst a plotted card on another turn, and only at sorcery speed. This means💞 you’re telegraphing to your opponents what you’re going to play, but finding the right moment to play something for free can be devastating.

While there are costs that are the same as their mana value, and some cost more, the majority of cards with plot will be cheaper to plot than to hard cast. This also fits nicely into all those paradox-centric exile strategies🌱 that have emerged thanks to the likes of the Doctor Who Commander decks.

Bonus Sheets

Outlaws of Thunder Junction is unfortunate because it has not one, not two, but three different subsets🍌 that can be found in booster packs.

This is a lot more ⛄than we normally get, but it’s due to the late cancelation of a March of the Machine: The Aftermath-style epilogue set originally called The Big Score.

The Vault

The Big Score is now known as The Vault, and makes up the vast majority of this set’s version of The List. These are all Standard-legal cards, despite not having the main set’s OTJ set code, and of course can also be played in Commander, Modern, Vintage,🎉 Pioneer, Legacy, and Oathbreaker.

As this was originally its own mini-set, there isn’t an over📖arching theme, and we could find just about anything as previews go on. The first card we’ve seen for The Vault is a new Sword Of card, with Sword of Wealth and Power protecting you from most crimes your opponents want to commit and also letting you copy instants and sorceries of your own for free.

Special Guests

Filling up the rest of The List are th🦩e Special Guests, which were introduced with The Lost Caverns of Ixalan last year.

Special Guests are reprints of older cards, but wiꦉth new art flavoured to the theme of the set. Stoneforge Mystic, the classic Equipment deck staple, is now a blacksmith in the frontiers of Thund♌er Junction, and we’ll definitely see more like it as previews go on.

Breaking News

The original bonus sheet actually intended for Thunder Junction, each and every booster pack includes at least one Breaking News card, and they’re all themed arou🌼nd the various crimes you can commit.

Anything that ca✨n target an opponent could be up for grabs in this slot, ranging from the simple direct damage like Clear Shot, to counterspells like Mana Drain, to even a whole Plainswalker with the infamous Oko, Thief of Crowns putting in an appearance thanks to his ability to steal artifacts or creatures.

Commander

It’s only been a few weeks since the four Fallout Commander decks launched, but we’re already seeing our next batch of four thanks ꦆto Outlaws of Thunder Junction. There are a few neat surprises here though that set it apart from the usual set tie-ins.

The decks are:

• Most Wanted, a red, white, and bleck deck following Olivia Voldaren of Innistrad. Olivia, Opulent Outlaw uses the new outlaw mechanic to make Treasure tokens, and then uses those Treasures to buff up all of your creatures.
• Quick Draw, a red/blue deck all about casting more than one spell per turn. Thanks to its commander; Stella Lee, Wild Card; you’ll be copying spells, exiling cards, and likely making heavy use of plotting.
• Grand Larceny, featuring Gonti, Canny Acquisitor. Theft is the name of the game here, with you focusing on casting your opponents’ spells and taking their permanents. Also, it’s Gonti, one of Kaladesh’s best characters.
• Desert Bloom, the red/green/white Desert deck we’ve been wanting for ages. Led by Yuma, Proud Protector, this wants you to throw lands into your graveyard, and hopefully play lots of Deserts in the process.

Full-Art Commanders

Once the domain of booster fun and Secret Lair, the Commander decks themselves have been experimenting with including fun art treatments as of latജe. Fallout had full-art lands included as standard, and now Outlaws of Thunder Junction is making the face cards a bit fancier.

Each of the♊ four Commander face cards are a full-art treatment, rather than the regular frame they usually get. We don’t know if there even will be regular frame versions of these cards, as right now the only ones we’ve seen have been full-art.

Bounty Cards

These decks have a𒐪n optional minigame to overlay your regular round of Commander, with bounty cards offering up a slightly different twist on the format.

Noཧte: Like Planechase, Bounty is completely optional.

You’ll need at least six Bounty cards (with each deck having three included), but twelve are preferred. They’re shuffled into a face-down deck, and, on the third turn of the game, you reveal the top card toꦦ see a condition. If you’re able to meet this condition, you collect th༺e reward.

However, if you don’t complete the bounty, its reward level goes up, the next p✤layer reveals the next bounty𝓰 card, and they could try and take both at once.

The rewards you get become greater the longer a boun♌ty is out, ranging from making a Treasure token to making two of them and drawing a card. Spread that out over potentially 12 different bounties all out at once, and it could be incredibly explosive to go for the bounties.

The bounties themselves aren’t too tricky, though, so there’s a good chance your opponents could steal them from you. For instance, a൲ll The Outsider wants you to do is cast a card from anywhere other than your hand – like casting your commander, or playing a plotted card.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction releases on April 19.