I wanted to share some thoughts and get some discussion going over some of the cards in the new set. These are the ones I'm most interested in or think are OP, but please share others in the comments!
In general, they are moving Deception to have stat manipulation along with Light. Lots of interesting possibilities there. This card seems like one of the biggest value cards in that vein:
Consider the stat swing for 3 mana:
That's 9 stats for 3 mana.
Here's another card. Absolutely amazing art and OP to boot:
Yes, you do run the risk of pulling an 0/1 Wisp from nature but the overwhelming majority of 1 drops will be great when you add a guaranteed temp fate bonus to them. If you are losing, you can also swing for the fences to get 2 bonuses. Just wait till your opponent pulls Vexxing Vicar + Broccoli. It will happen.
Anubian Death is clearly the focus here, and I'm happy to see it. Zombie death just isn't competitive at Mythic and BWD is toxic and too expensive for most players. Anubians gives hope for new players who want to play Death.
Another win condition they've added for death revolves around the following two cards.
Lots of creatures give you the option to empower 1 to add an heirloom into your hand. If you've built up these heirlooms, then your 7 mana legendary will pack massive damage that can go face. It can clear the board of creatures and then the rest goes face. A great card.
Here's a broken card for death:
Now it only works on 2 mana creatures (and not 1 mana creatures), but come on. RIP Pyramid Wardens, black jags, etc.
Of course, no discussion of Death would be complete without these two:
These two will make quite the team. To be clear: Asenath doesn't summon randomly from the void. You get to pick. He has backline. You'll be playing tons of 1 mana anubians at the same time and then buffing them. Busted. Maybe busted enough to overcome the massive favor these decks will generate for their opponents.
Like Deception, Light is getting stat manipulation tools in a big way. This should give rise to some interesting new archeyptes for Light decks.
Lets get this one out of the way though:
Sleep by any other name...
A board-wide sleep for 2 mana? True, it can't be abused like Siren of the Grave, but consider
Here's another good card. And by good I mean great:
This is a Light's Levy that also gives you 5 stats (2/1 + 1/1) instead of 4 (2/2 acolyte). Plus, the Militant has the ability text to lower strength.
Finally, this card is more flexible than Levy. It can at least do something even if there are no targets to convert. In summary: a strictly better Light's Levy.
Finally, one that's not OP by any means but is interesting to me:
That's quite a lot of value for 1 mana. Enough value that I think the relic removal is free. You can't remove this card for 1 mana. Could be a nice relic hate option.
A lot of focus on creatures surviving damage and getting buffed. This will make the Enrage god power relevant again. Unsure if it will be great or not. You'll also see lots of "deal 1 damage to all creatures" cards being played, which means shadow cats need not apply. Order cards can also get cleared.
First the card that sticks out:
Hooray for new win conditions! Definitely meme deck material. Something to play for fun - and we need fun decks to play. Remember that blessed cards exist, see play, and can split favor in half between players. Now imagine getting to 100 favor and this card not showing up. Honestly, 100 favor is so hard to achieve, I wouldn't mind seeing text like "this card is guaranteed to be the sixth card in your deck." That would give you time to fight for board and then have it show up predictably. Or something like that anyway.
I honestly don't see too many obviously-broken cards. I am excited to combo these two:
There are also some cards that reduce empower cards in your hand.
These should be interesting. Getting these cards to low (or even 0 mana) means that they can be played with their fully-empowered effects much earlier. Could be some fun combo decks to discover.
Echo. Magic is getting lots of echo. However, I think their best/OP cards are their empowered cards.
A replacement for Ancient Text. For aggro and card draw decks, it's probably the better card. It can't protect, but it makes up for it with flexibility. There are plenty of occasions when I want to hold card advantage and would be willing to blow mana for extra damage. This is a great card.
If Blast is amazing, this one is stupidly good. Clearly OP. Save this for your last spell in hand and you've got a Starshard Bolt that can go face that also draws a card.
Last, but certainly not least:
Do you want to play Polyhymnia 4 turns earlier? Ramp magic has (had) diminishing returns because of the way mana locks scaled. Turn 1 Sip of Elixir was great. You pay 2 mana and get an extra mana for the next 3 turns. After 5 mana, though, you don't get that extra mana each turn. Alastrina now lets Ramp magic come at the problem from two angles - unlocking mana and reducing the cost of big cards.
Previously, all cards like this said "lower mana cost of cards not exceeding your unlocked mana". There was a reason for this! This card will allow Magic decks to run multiple 9 drops. As with Dralamar, Magic will be able to use The Trial Begins to guarantee that they get this card when they need it. Add in a few Warp Engineers to reduce the cost of this card, and we could see some pretty busted decks.
Going all in on the regeneration/healing theme. Honestly, it sounds like fun. Don't know if it's enough to make Flourish relevant, but I think it might.
Here's an interesting one for two reasons:
Finally, here's one that will immediately go into my Amazon decks:
An Underbrush Boar for Amazons! This one can go face. Nice! Imagine an empty board and then for 5 mana you deal 7 damage to face (4/3 goes face + 3/1 goes face). You also get 2 Amazon bodies for turn 5 buffs. I don't see how Agrodor Protectors stay in the deck (but maybe you can run both?).
I'm sorry what? Going to get nerfed.
Here's a fun one:
Should be nice for hand-buff War.
1/1
2/2
4/4 for 3 mana after being in hand 3 turns
Just gets ridiculous from here.
Imagine pulling it with Out of Its Misery?
4/4
8/8
16/16
...lol
How about this card:
A Hunt that can go face and gives you 5/3 stats. Immutable has to sell packs somehow right guys?
Oh OK. So neutral cards is where the pack sales are being generated from. This is (at a minimum) a 5/9 frontline at 7 mana that heals your god for 3. You're not getting to 7 mana without a any face damage. A Cyclops Defender is 6/10 (so two extra stats) and doesn't heal anything. So worst case scenario, you're out 2 stat points. Your upside is enormous. A board-wide heal plus converting those heals to strength stats.
Lastly, I wanted to bring up this one:
Why would you run this? If you make it to 9 mana do you really want to roll the dice like this? Odds are both your 9 mana creatures will have summoning sickness and your enemy gives to attack with their 9 drop first. Imagine squeaking by to 9 mana and then giving them the creature that kills you because your second 9 drop didn't have frontline.
I'm excited to play the new set! The balance team clearly has some work to do. I am a little worried that they keep releasing clearly busted cards. I'm only half-joking about driving pack sales. I hope they aren't doing that anyway. Hopefully, they can catch some of this after PTR play.
