A look at Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
This past week has been pretty exciting. We got a good look at what Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty looks like, and it looks pretty interesting. There are several Planeswalkers, an excellent cycle of lands, and Ninjas.
Let’s take a look at some of the cards and my thoughts on them.
Boseiju, Who Endures
I’m starting here because my thoughts differ from what I see in the mainstream. This is an excellent card and probably the best of the cycle. In eternal formats there’s no doubt this will see a ton of play, especially Modern. It’s a quick fix to a lot of problematic cards like Blood Moon, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, and more.
Many people assume the cost is free because it’s like a basic land, and it may even be better than free because it can be found with cards like Expedition Map.
While I agree this card will see play, adding more basic forests to decks is not free, and you’ll still need to consider and balance how many basics you want for many of these issues.
In addition to that, the act of using this card to get out from under something like Chalice of the Void is a steep cost. You’re spending an early turn’s worth of mana to kill the problematic permanent while also giving your opponent free mana.
Assassin’s Trophy was overhyped at first, and while I understand this is not that as it’s able to be put into play, the issue I have with this card is it’s not solving all the problems cleanly.
That said, this card is incredible and pretty free in some cases. In a deck like Amulet I expect to see a couple of copies, but I don’t think every deck should necessarily go out of the way ruining their mana bases to include this card.
Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
This is a land that’s far less hyped. It’s a high cost to pay for a couple of 1/1s, and it doesn’t look as good when compared to a card like Den of the Bugbear.
That said, this card creates haste creatures that can pressure planeswalker or start dealing damage immediately. It provides some additional flood mitigation for decks like Mono Red aggro or Gruul Werewolves.
This card will certainly see some play across almost all formats, especially given it replaces a mountain, which means it’s not impacted by Blood Moon and can be a boon with Blood Moon providing a free threat from a land when Blood Moon is in play.
Otawara, Soaring City
It’s hard to argue that any of these lands aren’t great because in many cases their opportunity cost is so low. Otawara is no exception.
This isn’t a mana efficient card but provides a service much like Boseiju in that it can solve an issue from problematic permanents, albeit temporarily. It’s a land that can remove a blocker or bounce a creature that has auras on it, in addition to bouncing that Chalice that you’re locked under so you can counter it on the way back down.
While not as good as Boseiju, this is an incredible tool to be able to access. I expect this card to see play across all formats, though likely in small numbers as it’s hard to fit lands that produce one color in many cases.
Lion Sash
Lion Sash is another card garnering a ton of type. As usual, I’m a little lower on it than the rest of the world, but I still think Lion Sash is solid. Lion Sash is an early look at the new mechanic reconfigure.
While Lion Sash is undoubtedly a solid card, it suffers from being too low impact in the early game. It’s hard to evaluate this as a two-drop, as it will have little impact early and on turn two will trade with a card like Spikefield Hazard.
What I like about reconfigure is you can somewhat protect the creature from actual creature removal if you can successfully equip this and resolve it.
However, you can also end up spending mana to equip, only to get your equipment destroyed in response by a creature removal spell. So equip with caution.
The comparisons to Scavenging Ooze are spot on, and in many cases Lion Sash may be better as it’s in a color that more often has tons of tiny creatures floating around to equip. Scavenging Ooze isn’t quite a busted card these days and saw only a little play when it was Standard legal not so long ago.
Lion Sash will see some play for sure, but I’d temper my expectations.
Tamiyo, Compleated Sage
When I first read Tamiyo, I thought it was busted. However, Phyrexian mana’s new twist changed that for me. I assumed I could play this on turn four, activate it to lock down my opponent’s only threat, and play protect the queen until I could get off a game winning ultimate.
That said, there are two issues here. The first is that Tamiyo will have less loyalty at four mana. That is a significant blow to this card on turn four, but I like the design of the mechanic. It’s an awesome way to safely call back to Phyrexian mana and adds to the flavor of the card.
The second is that the ultimate is not an emblem. This is an artifact that we can interact with, and we can interact with it easily when you look at both the blue and green lands discussed earlier.
I will note that if you’re looking to ramp to something big, say Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant, you’ll have a window to get your free mana immediately, which is nice.
Tamiyo is a tough one to evaluate overall with reference to Standard and Alchemy without playing with it, as I think it’s a card that will be defined by the format rather than define the format. In a world full of aggressive decks, I don’t see Tamiyo having a big impact.
Even lands like Den of the Bugbear can pose a big problem for Tamiyo. If the format is focused on midrange strategies then maybe Tamiyo has some uses. While I think it’s a well-designed, cool card, I’m not sure a four- or five-mana planeswalker with these abilities has what it takes right now.
The Wandering Emperor
This is a nice card. It’s a flash planeswalker that can do many things of relevance while flashing in at instant speed. While this card isn’t broken, it’s extremely useful.
In Standard, it’s a great answer to a card like Goldspan Dragon as it will be able to get rid of the dragon, leaving something behind before the treasure is even in play from the attack.The card has some definite problems.
First, it has to minus to create creatures making it difficult to snowball the opponent.
Second, there’s no ultimate if you choose to tick up.
That said, this is a card you’re going to consider each and every time you want to attack or block as it’s a combat trick, removal spell, and if you choose to do nothing, it will come down and start making tokens immediately.
It’s a well-designed card that will see some play, particularly at the top end of low curve aggro decks where the uptick and additional creature are most valuable.
Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh
Last for today, but certainly not least, we have Tezzeret Betrayer of Flesh.
I love this card. It checks a bunch of boxes for planeswalkers. As usual, Tezzeret would like to be put into a deck with a lot of artifacts. It can turn Darksteel Citadel into a house, it can draw cards, has a likely game winning ultimate, and to boot has a useful static ability.
One use of the most obvious uses for the static ability is reconfigure. I’m imagining this in a deck with a card like Lizard Blades, turning a treasure token or something into a 4/4 and equipping it for free with Lizard Blades and dealing ten.
Tezzeret has an aggressive cost but does require a build-around effort. If the support is there for Tezzeret, I like what this card could do. This is the card I’m most excited by that I’ve gone over so far, even if it’s not necessarily the best.
This week I went over some of the more high profile cards from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. So far, Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh is my favorite, but the best card on this list is still Boseiju, Who Endures. While I think Boseiju is overhyped, it is certainly a staple in all formats moving forward.
Next week when the set is further previewed, I’ll look at some of the more interesting cards left to discuss.
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