The Outlaws of Thunder Junction debut video premiered today and was followed with a Weekly MTG stream that showed off countless preview cards, the mechanics, Commander face cards, bonus sheets, and booster fun treatments for the upcoming Magic: The Gathering set.
For a quick overview of the story and set, watch the debut video above. For more details on the design and rules interactions with the cards in the set, check out the Weekly MTG stream below.
Lands
Let’s kick things off with two cycles of lands featured in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. The enemy-colored fast lands are getting reprinted with new art and borderless art variants that form a panorama.
There are also 10 common desert duals that happen to commit a crime when they enter the battlefield by dealing one damage to a target opponent.
Planeswalkers
Outlaws of Thunder Junction has two planeswalkers: Oko and Jace!
Jace was originally going to appear in the epilogue set for Outlaws of Thunder Junction, but when that subset was merged into the main set, Jace was included. Going forward, Standard-legal sets will continue with the recent trend of only having a single planeswalker.
Mechanics
It’s time to dive into the many new mechanics in Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
Plot
Plot is a new keyword that allows you to pay a cost up front and exile a card from your hand, making the card “plotted.” On a future turn, you may cast a plotted card from exile without paying its mana cost. Both paying the plot cost and casting the card after it has been plotted have to happen at sorcery speed.
Crimes
The new rules term “committing a crime” covers a range of actions you will typically make in a game of Magic. You commit a crime as you cast a spell, activate an ability, or put a triggered ability on the stack that targets an opponent, a spell or ability an opponent controls, a permanent an opponent controls, or a card in an opponent’s graveyard.
Spree
Spree is a new keyword that appears on modal instants and sorceries. With spree cards you pay the card’s casting cost then pay the additional costs for the additional modes you would like to use. Notably, you can’t cast spree cards just for their casting cost to trigger prowess or add to storm count. An additional cost for at least one of the modes must be paid.
Mounts And Saddle
Mount is a new creature type that the saddle activated ability appears on. Saddle is an activated ability that functions somewhat similarly to crew that you activate as a sorcery by tapping any number of untapped creatures you control other than the mount with saddle with total power N or more, where N is the number included in the saddle keyword.
Outlaws
Outlaws is a collective noun that refers to the following creature types: Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, and Warlocks.
Deserts
Outlaws of Thunder Junction has a small desert theme with a handful of cards offering players payoffs for using the deserts in the set in Limited or combining with the other deserts printed in Amonkhet block for Constructed purposes.
Legends
A host of legendary creature cards get their own cards, including Kellan, Annie Flash, Vraska, Rakdos, and more.
Breaking News
The Breaking New bonus sheet consists of 65 cards that commit crimes (20 uncommons, 30 rares, and 15 mythic rares) with one appearing in every Play Booster of Outlaws of Thunder Junction. These cards are all reprints and will only be legal in formats they already are legal in, but they are able to be used in Limited.
Breaking News cards also have special textured foil variants for the 15 mythic rares that can only be found in Collector Boosters.
Special Guests
The List for Outlaws of Thunder Junction will be made up of 10 Special Guests and all of the cards from The Big Score.
The Big Score
There are 30 mythic rares in The Big Score, combining with the 10 Special Guest cards to make 40 cards total in The List for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. These mythic rares from The Big Score are Standard-legal and have extended-art treatments in addition to their vault frames, which are exclusive to Collector Boosters and can be in either traditional foil or nonfoil.
Five of the Vault frames also appear in raised foil with a special elevated golden stamp embedded in the frame. Raised foils are also exclusive to Collector Boosters.
Commander Face Cards
Take a look at the four face cards for the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks.
Commander Bounties
Special to the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks are the new bounty cards that add a minigame to your multiplayer fun. Commander games using bounties will feature a shared bounty deck, which consists of at least six of the 12 total bounty cards with no more than one of any particular bounty card.
Bounties begin on the starting player’s third turn with the top card of the bounty deck being revealed. Each bounty card describes the condition under which a player may claim their reward. Only the player whose turn it is can claim a reward, and only one reward may be claimed per turn. There are four levels to the bounty, with scaling rewards that increase each turn the bounty remains unclaimed. Once a bounty is claimed, flip over the next card in the bounty deck. If all bounties are claimed, shuffle the bounty deck together and start again by revealing the top card.
Promos
The Outlaws of Thunder Junction promo packs will contain special promo versions of five uncommons.
And the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Bundle will come with an alternate art Bundle promo version of The Key to the Vault.
For more information on all the card treatments and pack contents, check out the official Collecting Outlaws of Thunder Junction article from WotC.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is scheduled to release on April 19. View our official preview gallery.
