There's a hoedown happening on Thunder Junction, and y'all are invited!

The motif may be a little silly, but Outlaws of Thunder Junction is shaping up to be a very powerful and impactful set. Theres a lot going on, as because all of the new mechanics are all so backwards compatible, we need to reevaluate many of the cards we've already got to parse how they work with the new cards. This is just excellent set design, and we're going to be unpacking all the things we can do with Thunder Junction for a while.

As of writing this, the majority of the main set, as well as a lot of the Big Score bonus sheet, have been previewed, meaning we've got a pretty good look at the set as a whole. This means it's time for first impressions in the form of my love/hates! Note that these are not just static rankings. The point is to shed light on cards I think are being over or undervalued based on first impressions. The point of my Love/Hate article is not just to call cards good or bad, but to view cards based on the first impressions people have been having or are likely to have. The goal is to dispel undue hype or to draw attention to cards that are being overlooked.

Let's get started!

Love - Slickshot Show-Off

Whoa boy, now this is a prowess creature.

Slickshot Show-Off has a lot going for it. At face value this is a two-mana sort of super-prowess beater, having both flying and haste which are just about two of the best keywords you could ask for on your aggressive creature. Rather than getting +1/+1 like normal prowess for each non-creature spell, Slickshot Show-Off gets +2/+0 which is incredible. Because it has the built-in evasion the toughness isn't nearly as important, and the damage potential here is off the charts. A single Monstrous Rage means this attacks for 6 damage, and if you get into things like Twinferno then one hit kills start to be a real scary thing.

However, that's just the face value. Once you add on the plot mechanic, Slickshot Show-Off really starts to show its range as a card.

The biggest issue with two- and three-mana prowess creatures is that you often don't have much mana left over to get in a lot of triggers before your opponent has a chance to kill it. This is why Monastery Mentor sees almost no play (except in decks that can return it to the battlefield for 1 mana, circumventing this problem), because too often it dies before you can really use it.

If you plot Slickshot Show-Off, you can then play it on a future turn with all of your mana available and really start to go nuts. You'll be able to cast potentially three or four spells easily, and furthermore you get to choose when you want to go for it, so your opponent has to respect the possibility of it every turn. Add in the potential for protection spells or big combo kills, and we've got a real winner.

Hate - Archmage's Newt

From one spell-based 2-drop to another, but this one is a bit of a miss.

Archmage's Newt draws easy comparisons to Dreadhorde Arcanist, a card currently banned in Legacy and a major player in Historic. The ability to cast spells from your graveyard is a powerful one, as cheap spells are often the backbone that great decks are built on.

However, there's a number of issues here.

First off is that Archmage's Newt has to actually deal combat damage to a player, meaning you can't utilize your extra spell immediately to plow the road or get immediate value. This is a far taller order than an attack trigger. Furthermore, you've gotta pay for the card too! While Archmage's Newt does have the saddle ability, which allows it to cast the spell for free if it has been saddled, adding a 3 power creature to the equation just adds another step to an already complicated puzzle.

It may look like past winners, but Archmage's Newt is not it.

Love - Forsaken Miner

Black has always had a certain class of 1-drop - the 2 power, probably can't block, and has some sort of a recursive condition. The best of these is probably Gravecrawler, a card that has seen a lot of play over the years, but there are many more forgettable options like Cult Conscript and Dungeon Crawler.

However, Forsaken Miner has perhaps the easiest trigger of them all... just commit a crime!

Duress, Cut Down, Lord Skitter, Sewer King... the list goes on and on, but committing a crime is a pretty easy thing to do. And you're able to spend a single Black at instant speed and return the Forsaken Miner over and over again as the game goes on. Add on the fact that this is also both a skeleton as well as an outlaw and we've got a fantastic 1-drop.

I love this one!

Hate - Generous Plunderer

Making treasures is an extremely powerful ability it Magic, so any card that can do so should always draw some attention. However, Generous Plunderer is a bit too generous.

Generous Plunderer is decently statted, obviously much more so than a card like Wily Goblin which only existed to make some treasure. However, there are a few problems here. First off is that you have to wait an entire turn cycle to get your first treasure, and the second and perhaps most damning factor is you are also giving your opponent a boost as well. Ramping your opponent into turn four Sunfall or turn three Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is rarely going to be worth playing a Grizzly Bear to ramp yourself.

And it's not even a pirate!

Love - Arid Archway

Most of y'all don't remember bouncelands.

It obviously started with Karoo and friends, but the original Ravnica: City of Guilds showed us the true power of the bounceland with Boros Garrison, Dimir Aqueduct, Selesnya Sanctuary, and Golgari Rot Farm. The idea is simple - you play this land that taps for 2 mana, but have to return one of your lands to your hand so you stay at the same amount of mana. So, you're just playing a tap land and not ramping, what's the deal?

The deal is that you're essentially playing a land that draws you another land. This is huge.

Now of course the Ravnica versions were also mana fixers, while Arid Archway is just colorless, but don't discount how powerful a land that draws a card for free is. Furthermore, Arid Archway is a desert which will have synergy with various things in the set, as well as giving you extra value if you return a desert. There's a number of Rampant Growth effects that care about deserts in the set, and Arid Archway turns those into Cultivates.

Don't sleep on this one.

Hate - Lost Jitte & Lotus Ring

Look, I get it. Nostalgia is a thing. However, don't let it blind you when it comes to our next two cards.

Lost Jitte may look and sound like Umezawa's Jitte, but it couldn't hold Umezawa's Jitte's jock strap. They are fundamentally different cards, as the bar for a one-mana equipment that equips for 1 mana is far lower than two-mana equipment that equips for two, but the abilities on Lost Jitte are definitely more in the Goldvein pick school of thought than one of the most powerful equipments of all time.

Lost Jitte does seem playable if your deck cares about +1/+1 counters, but this a fringe card, nothing more.

And as for Lotus Ring, that sure is a lot of words for a Vulshok Battlegear!

3 mana to play and 3 mana to equip is an ungodly amount in modern day Magic, and for that cost you better be creating some sort of insurmountable advantage. Giving your creature a bit of a boost and vigilance... and then also the ability to off itself just to get your mana back is a disaster.

Maybe this card is for Commander or something, but it looks quite poor for any sort of serious play.

Love - Tinybones Joins Up

Amusingly, Tinybones Joins Up looks like a silly Commander card, but this is not a card to sleep on.

Hopeless Nightmare gives a similar effect and has seen some fringe play in Constructed, but Tinybones Joins Up gives us so much more. Like Hopeless Nightmare, Tinybones Joins Up will snag a card for only 1 mana which is a decent resource exchange, but what makes it really stand out is the effect it has on the rest of the game.

Tinybones Joins Up is a crime machine.

Whenever you play a legendary creature you get to commit a crime and do a little chip shot damage, and there are a ton of legends and effects that care about committing crimes. The card that immediately comes to mind is Gisa, the Hellraiser, which will trigger instantly, but there are also a ton of other crime effects in the set to work with.

Tinybones Joins Up does all of this for only a single mana and small investment, which is excellent.

Complete Set Review And More!

Frankly, I can't wait to dig into this set.

There's a bunch to unpack in the set itself, but also figuring out how these cards interact with all the other cards in various formats is going to be awesome.

I'll be doing my complete set review today live on stream and it will be going up on YouTube on Sunday, as I get to get into the nitty gritty of every single card in the set for both Constructed and Limited.

I'm also super stoked for the return of the MTG Arena Streamer Event! This means I'll be doing my Ten New Brews on Wednesday next week against a bunch of other content creators as we get our first look at the set, which should be an awesome time. That will also be live on Twitch and later on YouTube, and my article right here on CoolStuffInc.com will go over all ten decklists with my detailed thoughts on each!

With Bronze to Mythic to follow, as well as a trip to Seattle for Pro Tour Outlaws Of Thunder Junction, this is going to be a busy month to be an outlaw!