Outlaws of Thunder Junction Spoilers | Holy Cow, a Two-Mana Jace! Gitrog, Vraska, Rakdos and More! 

Where's the cowboy hat Seth

seth keeping us on our toes by switching out words like "warlock" and "warrior" so that we actually watch the video and read the cards instead of just listening to the audio in a different tab. go off dyslexic king 👑

Ashiok was the one that hired the "crew" of civilians, including Oko, Vraska, and others, to break into the vault. At the very end, it was revealed that Ashiok was actually just Jace in disguise!

Never thought I'd say this, but there are so many wraths in standard that you are going to have to make cuts in which wraths to not use

Insatiable avarice and Sheoldred can be either draw 3 gain 3 life, or your opponent draws 3 and loses 9 life. I call that value

5:30 Careful : Warlocks are outlaws, not warriors

So going to saddle Yargle and Multani onto the Gitrog.

Jace was pretending to be Ashiok in the story, shown in the art

Saddle is the love child of Crew and Enlist

In future sets id love to see more pirate cards with the crime mechanic. Especially with treasures. I think that could be a fun way to spice up pirate support.

Rakdos says " until YOUR next end step." 😂 Not till end of turn

Mr. Frog isn't a mutant he is a gosh darn mount. What troubling times we live in even thought he technically was a mount on the art for Thalia and The Gitrog Monster.

According to the current rules, Spree's mana cost (for tutoring and cast restrictions and such) is the value in the top right, and casting it without paying that still requires you to pay for the choices you make.

I know its easy to forget because of how forgettable it was but powerstones are still in standard for Transmutation Font 😅😅 Helps pay for the cost of the card, the cost of the ability, and the necessary sacrifice of 3 artifact tokens!

Amazing how sentiment yesterday was 'hurr durr cowboy hats' and today it's OMG GIMME

While overall the set looks really cool, I still kinda hate the whole "everyone can move between planes" thing, since now we see the same legendary characters constantly, not just planeswalkers. Not that I've ever cared that much about the MTG story, but I dunno, it was neat to see whole new casts on each new plane.

Jace seems like he'll be pretty strong in the Blue/Black poison/proliferate deck. Most of the spells cost 3 or less to Plot, and you can proliferate him to get to the ultimate very quick, then double all the proliferate spells and get to 10 poison counters pretty fast.

Is this the first time WotC has reused a legendary creature's title? We had Etrata, the Silencer, and now we're getting Vraska, the Silencer? Can we lobby for Lickspit Bojangles, the Silencer for the next set?

Remember when Time spiral block was considered "too complicated." I feel like they said "hold my beer" on recent standard sets.

It's a spring set, but it's feeling a lot like Throne of Eldraine power level.

HOLY COW...this set looks like a rootin' tootin' good time! 🤠

Props to Seth for talking about all these in one sitting

I hope deserts can become a deck like gates or caves!

20:20 You misspoke a little: Rakdos exiles equal to the creature's mana value, meaning Oni Cult is not a good sac outlet for triggering Rakdos - tokens aren't worth anything. However, graveyard recursion plebs are good for Rakdos, and similarly cat does work, but I see this having about zero play because his ability is not going to activate often: you are usually sacrificing artifacts or tokens, rarely creatures with real mana value. One of the only standard examples I could imagine is Bloodtithe Harvester's ability to sacrifice itself, in which case you do get to rip two off the top of a library. What I could see is a Jund combination of Rakdos and Gitrog focused on recurring creatures like Mosswood in order to eek out extra value.

Another detail about Rakdos, the Muscle that you missed is that it says "Target Player" and not "Target Opponent", so if you wanted you could target yourself with Rakdos' trigger to dig deeper into your deck for an answer.

19:06 Ladys and Gentleman, this is Rakdos No. 5

My favorite time of the year!!! I love spoil days and I could not wait to see your video on the new cards. These and your podcasts are my fav haha!!!

24:10 I believe what they are going for is two things: Discard insurance. The card is in exile, not your hand, so discard effects can't hit it. Especially relevant for cards whose resolution is dependent on what's on the field, like wraths, clone effects, combat tricks, etc. Storm/adjacent enabling. Banking up a bunch of spells that you can cast for free to up your storm count/trigger the "second spell" mechanic in the set/etc. Whether this theory will actually be playable in practice, remains to be seen

Should have been mount two on gitrog would have been a flavor win, since I'm pretty sure all Thalia's have 2 power to include the one mashed up with the frog.

Seth is such a legend for doing a 1 and a half hour preview video, thank you Seth this was so helpful!❤

Oltec Matterweaver.. Well - thousand moons smithy (/barracks) makes artifact creature tokens - that can easily be in double digits power and toughness..

Seth, New Commander Clash idea! Normal Commander, but you are allowed to have 2 commanders. Stipulation is they have to be 2 different versions of the same character. So many of these characters' cards work well with each other.

Holy Cow might be a staple in Pauper, considering we're playing overseer. It also blocks Feries, heals against Mono Red, Scrys for one, and has flash.

Your speaking stamina is through the roof! 1.5 hours non stop. Thanks for putting in such an effort set after set :)

If I'm understanding this correctly, if you Plot one of the Spree cards, you pay the mana value up-front, but then can choose which modes to cast it with later on as those are additional costs. This could in essence let you play those cards sooner than they would otherwise straight from your hand as you would be investing the mana across multiple turns.

The Gitrog Mountster edit: I love Holy Cow, its my fave card. As for the ramp wurm, its ridiculously powercrept, no idea what the designers were thinking.

Did the cowboy hat not get delivered yet?

Something I just thought of. Picking a ringbearer makes that creature legendary. So vraska joins up combos well with Smeagol and other Ring tempts you mechanics.

Rakdos is until the end of YOUR next end step. Anything you sacrifice on your opponents turn you get to untap and play with.

1:28:41 Thanks for the shout out!

Oltec is going straight into my Ginger Sculptor deck!

They def added the skeleton text on gisa for synergy with the new tiny bones, who triggers her crime effect really well and gets buffed.

Yee ha yee ha cowboys 🤠 🤣 😆 😂 😜 😎 🤠 🤣 😆 Jace is back yo.

I must be the only person who was happy Jace disappeared for a few sets

My first thought for Rakdos was using cards like Mob Rule to sac other players creatures and milling them that way.

32:22 theres a lot of good candidates this episode, but this one caught me off guard

Vraska the Silencer feels like a really deliberate design choice to have the creature come back as a tapped treasure token instead of just creating a tapped treasure token. Gives a little extra juice to the card. Not sure it see's play over Glissa, although this is arguably better latter in the game. I hope it sees play.

I came for the cowboy hat saffron olive variant 🤠. I'm keeping the hope 😅

Rakdos has crim written all over it. Vraska, her closest comparison is Shelob child of ungoliant. The token loses all the card types, it gets its name, super type (legendary for example which is very important), abilities, and most importantly it gets its cmc... if paired with Karn Silver Golem you pay 1 you turn that treasure token in to a create with stats equal to the cmc. As for Yuma... going in 99 of Hazazon decks... but with more deserts now and deserts now... hear me now... Dune themed Commander deck... with that I say "LISAN AL GAIB!" Each time I cast either of them

Does oher axalon pump the ping damage from the new deserts? That might make playing oher more palateable. You play oher on turn 5 before your land drop, and you can play that land before anyone gets priority.

I’m really surprised he didn’t mention how much the key to the vault would synergize with the new kellan

Tanaka was my instant thought for the key to the vault. Tis definitely going in.

Wonder if ramping out Transmutation Font with Powerstones is a possible play.

1:24:29 Yes! It's important to let a mana base be functional without it costing half your deck.

Wzup Seth hey I was looking at you channel and I noticed that if I'm specifically looking for your spoiler videos there isn't a category for those videos only for every set idk what it would take to organize that where viewers can easily find and benge watch them all together.

Golgari legends would be pretty hype, especially with the new Tinybones (and possibly Gitrog and Varaska)

12:00 According to the MTG Wiki on Jace, Jace disguised himself as Ashiok after meeting back up with Vraska (after the two somehow reversed their compleation), and he hired Oko to steal a thingy on Thunder Junction, which presumably let him reignite his spark, and the art will be him shedding the guise of Ashiok now that he has his power again.

My Belbe deck is hyped for Tinybones Joins Up, may try to fit in Gitrog as well!

A lot of the cards in this set give me the feeling that the bigwigs of Ravnica are treating Thunder Junction like a West World style theme park.

While the skeletons tag on Gisa isn't hugely impactful, it does have a really sweet synergy with Tinybones, turning the little guy into a 2/2 with deathtouch and menace that commits a crime if they fail to block it.

So I think what cracks me up about "committing a crime" is that Wraith effects where you mass murder the board and the commit the war crime of torching your own army too, not a crime.

Notable thing about Vraska, the Silencer: You said you get a "treasure token copy". It's not a token, nor is it a copy. You get THE CARD. This is relevant both for anti-reanimate bonuses, and for dodging effects that sweep tokens or the like.

12:33 All mechanics are kicker, multikicker is kicker, spree is kicker

Freestrider is kinda nutty since it can grab deserts, and the deserts commit crimes when they enter. In theory you can chain through your deck grabbing all of the deserts and pinging your opponent every time.

vaultborn tyrant seems like it could actually give life to a mono green ramp strategy, given the fact that it pretty much double cantrips and if you make it to casting another biggo that's just gravy

Also, with Insatiable Avarice, note that it’s target player, not just you. So, if *you* have a Sheoldred, you can essentially pay BBB to have your opponent lose 9 life

Rakdos exiles cards based on the mana value of the sacrificed creature, so you can't do it with tokens. But there are sacrifice loops that will combo off with Rakdos to win the game, not sure if you can do that in Standard tho

Gisa going straight in scarab god zombies

Instant wrath with extra modes is a nasty insurance against Gleeful Imodane's . Then there's Jace coming turn 4 and leaving a 2 mana counterspell threat and pre-casting stuff for free at a +1. Azorious control is looking mighty fine.

In EDH, Final Showdown is tutorable with Spellseeker, Micromancer and Sunforger. It’s amazing.

Insatiable Avarice is crazy. It can even be a finisher card along with Sheoldred... by making your opponent draw 3 and taking a total of 9 damage.

Rakdos reads "mana value," not "power" as Seth stated. So it doesn't work with tokens. It's still going to be a decent combo piece, but not nearly as powerful as stated here.

Final showdown is going to slot into vintage cube cheons so well

Blue/White have way too efficient interaction on Arena. Especially Brawl, where there's the 1 mana enchantment that always hits Commander, Swords, Get Lost, Wash Away, Counterspell and now Bovine Intervention and potentially Mana Drain. A good UWx draw you don't get to play to the board at all, anything you do resolve gets Sunfalled/Farewelled/etc. and then you're just dead to whatever their wincon is.

could you cast Jace during the pregame actions if you were to also get two gemstone caverns onto the field with luck counters

Gitrog would go 👌 in Henzie. Blitz out a creature, saddle it to Gitrog, sac it through Gitrog

Does this mean you will still be able to build oops all wraths after the next rotation?

This set is already so good Seth completely glossed over one of the scariest Standard cards from the set. Slickshot Lockpicker - Better Snapcaster Mage in Standard specifically I know that is a massive claim, but to understand it some context. Back when Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty came out, Seth played a deck on stream I'd built that was based around the new double-sided Sagas that flipped into creatures, Meathook Massacre, and Tatsunari, Toad Rider and ended up playing the deck to 4-1, losing to the Hinata/Magma Opus combo deck but also winning against it. The whole point of that deck was that you could leverage the 'time delay creatures' aspect of those Sagas to have insanely explosive turns later or have creatures come down after a Meathook wrath for free. You pay some mana, get some minor effects, then three turns later get a threat for free to overwhelm the opponent. In comes plot, the best mechanic of this set. Plot is very similar to the Saga creatures from Kamigawa 2, but you decide when to flip any time after a single turn. It lets you give up one of your early turns to double spell later when it is least convenient for the opponent. Another great example of this is Slickshot Show-Off, where instead of having to just cast it into removal on turn 2, you plot it, then cast it for free and triple spell as soon as the opponent's shields are down or you have a comfortable amount of protection. Snapcaster Mage is a great magic card, obviously, but a key awkwardness of the card is it essentially tacks a two mana additional cost to any spell you want to cast from the graveyard. That's not a big deal for things like Expressive Iteration or Lightning Bolt, cheap cards that have a bunch of power, but it gets awkward when you're trying to scrape together enough mana to flashback a Cryptic Command or Supreme Verdict. Slickshot Lockpicker gives up the utility of working with counterspells to solve this cost inflation awkwardness of Snapcaster. You play the plot on Lockpicker, now you have a floating Snapcaster [at sorcery-speed, sure] waiting in exile until it becomes relevant and you don't have to pay additional mana into the card you want to cast, you just cast it at its normal mana value. So what? Let's investigate the play pattern of the card. Standard. Turn 2 you play removal to stay alive, turn 3 you plot Slickshot Lockpicker. The opponent knows about it. You already have removal in the graveyard. That Lockpicker represents a 2/3 and the removal spell you just cast on the prior turn with two additional mana up on turn 4. The opponent has to choose whether to go wider and have to deal with potentially two removal spells and a 2/3 blocker or to hold back and try to play just enough to make you pop the Lockpicker before playing their scary threats. Either way, you're likely making it to turn 5. If you had to use Lockpicker, you got a bunch of tempo back and are likely not too uncomfortable. If you didn't, turn 5 you slam Sunfall. Equalize the board. Now you have Lockpicker in exile with the ability to just cast another Sunfall whenever you want, no extra cost, and it will stay like that until they either play enough to force the play, exile the Sunfall from the graveyard, or you feel comfortable enough in the position you give up on it and use Lockpicker for something else. I'm envisioning a deck that's playing Jace and Slickslot Lockpicker to have absolutely brutal double and triple spell turns on a whim starting turn 4. Fblthp is probably good too, especially with Jace to plot it into play and get immediate value, but I think Jace and Lockpicker having immediate value with no additional mana investment and no setup past the mana investment makes them the first two plot cards for a control deck.

So I've been messing around with all the typed duals and triomes along with swamp cycling to create perfect wubrg so I can cast full power drag to the bottom faster. Manabased are insane in. Incidentally, I was inspired to give Dying to Serve a try, which is how I built the shell. All this in service to get a neat necromancer vibe running cruelty of gix and virtue of persistence, and cycling cards to get a bunch if zombie tokens, using corrupt as a pay off for playing all swamps wubrg for some nice reach. I like corrupt.

With Vraska - will a Sheoldred treasure token be legendary? If not, use the new Oltec Matterweaver that makes a copy of a token you control, and you'll be able to get a LOT of nasty effects.

key to the vault looks like it's great with cryptic coat, maybe equipment deck?

I will now commit my life to collecting Holy Cow's

I felt the same way about plot at first, then thought of some uses, but now it seems like every other card in the set I'm like "Oh, thats interesting, how do I.....oh that works really well with plot!"

So happy about Saturo. I can finally play a synergistic Ninja deck in Commander without everyone freaking out about Yuriko

Do Mount creatures NEED to be saddled to attak/block the same way vehicles need crewed? Or is there just some extra benefits from doing so?

Im not sure if this matters as i dont know that there is a good way to pump both but illuminator virtuoso is a rogue

Kellan definitely needs to be at least tried in Kethis decks in Historic. Especially now that we have Plaza of Heroes, and that the Enigma Jewel ramps thanks to not one, but TWO different lands that tap for two and fix colors using 1 generic (Interplanar Beacon and another from lotr called Great Hall of the Citadel, which can be used to cast ANY legendary spell, including legendary sorceries like Urza's Ruinous Blast). Just to give you an idea of how fast that deck became: turn one jewel, turn two Kethis thanks to the lotr land, turn 3 you cast the ring for 2 (one less because of Kethis' static, another less thanks again to the lotr land+jewel) and with the spare mana from the jewel you can already start drawing. So, basically Kellan could speed things up even more in the middle game by using either Emry's or Kethis' ability - it's difficult to say for sure until he's tested in an actual game but the possibility of him synergysing with the archetype is there.

Final showdown is also 1 mana in your deck, so you can fetch it with sunforger!

Insatiable Avarice with Sheoldred could also be used on the opponent for 9 damage. (Just hope he does not have instant removal for Sheoldred)

I don't know how you'd pull it off,but I believe there is a loophole. Jace can't be cast on the first 3 turns on your turn. Is there a way to flash him in on turn 3?

I made it to top 300 last season with a warrior brew of hammertime that had over a 70% win rate over probably 50+ games. Hammertime is definitely a thing in historic, it just has to be built differently. Stoneforge will bring it up to probably over 80% win rate.

Do you think Oltec would be a combo worth building with Vraska?

28:00 another crazy part about this. It loses all other card types, including Legendary. So if your opponent makes the mistake of playing a second Sheoldred...

Double down seems like one hell of a card for Commander.

I’ve probably said it sometime before, but I love these videos because Seth just sounds so happy and jolly and enthusiastic all the time that it makes me feel good watching him talk.

Thank God been waiting allllll day!

Kellan, the Kid sounds fun with something like Knowledge Pool. You can basicly do a reverse birthing pod chain with skipping some steps if you don't have the inbetween cmcs

Abzan and Rakdos are looking good to me ^^ have to try it .... can't wait ^^

correct me if I'm wrong, but attacking an opponent targets that opponent, right? So attacking the opponent would trigger the new Magda's ability?

fun fact about spree, it works with both cascade and storm. just cast a bunch of one mana cards and ornithopters to make a lethal tendrils