Whoa, spoiler season seriously snuck up on me! I suppose the silver lining of ‘already falling behind’ is that I don’t have to try and kill myself perusing the list of daily drops and make a post. Then again, this blog hasn’t exactly been suffering from excessive effort.

A quick primer on the Benalish Dad’s, no-it-really-IS-different-from-LR’s-grades, rating system

• Game-shifters (Bombs). They are (pick two to three) efficient, powerful, sustainable advantage, and/or catch you up when behind.
• Power (Reasons) These powerful cards usually only fulfill one of the ‘bomb’ criteria. They tilt the battlefield rather than remake it like a true bomb.
• Draft-shifters (build-arounds). When placed with proper support, these can be as powerful as bombs/power cards. Build-a-bomb!
• Signals (best commons). A common that fits in any deck of that color (most frequently reliable removal or a very solid 2/3-drop) can be one of the best signals.
• Variable Playable. These are good cards that generally have a home in a few of the color’s archetypes, but not all of them.
• Filler. Signals’ lamer cousin. Generally these are cards that are totally playable, but don’t really have a good home
• Avoid. The weird rares, the off-rate creatures. Generally speaking, if you never put one of these cards in the 40 you’ll be better off.

Let’s do a super-quick primer on the mechanics of cyberpunk Kamigawa. Looks to be a doozy.

ninjutsu

Ninjutsu is back! I remember being confused by this in one of the Masters set and I see no reason why I’ll suddenly get smarter. Unblocked attackers can bounce back to the hand and can put a Ninjutsu card into play instead. As I recall, it makes defending rather tricky since you always have to respect a surprise swap.

sagas

Sagas! I loved how these have played out, as it’s an interesting trade-off of power and time. You get three turns, usually when it’s cast (“I”), beginning of next turn (“II”) and then the big finish (“III”) the turn after that. I like seeing the uncommons, the art is just stunning, and I am excited.

vehicles/crew

Vehicles are back! One has to tap creatures with a sum total of power equal to the crew cost. In the example above, tapping 4 power to enable a 5-power attacker isn’t the greatest deal in the world. Of course, this comes in as a mini (or max) Flametongue Kavu, so I think this will be pretty good. Keep an eye out for uncommon vehicles, generic or colored, and anything that boosts the crew cost.

Reconfigure

We come to our first new keyword: Reconfigure. Looks like a fun twist on the “Living Weapons”, where it casts as a creature, but you can shift into an equipment to boost another creature. These cards look reasonably priced and dangerously flexible.

Channel

I wonder if this is the first keyword that is recycling the name of an Actual Magic Card? Anyway, looks like a twist on Bloodrush, where you can pay the normal casting cost or the Channel instead. I assume it can be used at instant speed, but I’ll need to check with a real judge for that. Great flexibility, especially on lands.

Modified

Modified doesn’t appear to be a keyword per se, but it’s interesting that they’re introducing it as a mechanic. A card that is modified in any way (including +1/+1 counters! or counters of any sort!) is considered “modified” as triggers accordingly.

You know what, this is already overstimulating me a little so let’s call it there and pick some fun ones to dig into. It’s looking like Kaladesh on steroids and I looooved Kaladesh.