Introduction

Hey folks! Márcio here and we are going to analyze the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set for Limited. The story of this set is based on a Western theme, with outlaws committing crimes in the Wild West, plots and cowboys with their mounts. Here you will find what you need to know for not committing any misplay crimes during your first experiences with this set.

New Mechanics

Commit a Crime

Committing a Crime happens when you target either opponents or anything that they control (creatures, lands or any other kind of permanent), or a card in their graveyard. Here you have to remember that targeting an opponent’s spell on the stack also counts as committing a crime, so, for example, if you cast Counterspell targeting any spell from your opponent, that counts as committing a crime.

《Vadmir, New Blood》 is a good example of a card that benefits from committing a crime. It gets a +1/+1 counter when you commit a crime (once each turn).

Outlaws

Basically, this mechanic is related to the creature types. All the Mercenaries, Assassins, Pirates, Rogues and Warlocks are considered Outlaws and this might give them some advantage when interacting with different cards. 《Rakish Crew》 is a card that lets you take advantage if you have many Outlaws in your deck.

Mercenary Tokens

Mercenary is a 1/1 creature token that taps for giving another creature +1/+0 at sorcery speed. These tokens are really relevant in this set as they count as an Outlaws.

Saddle

The Saddle ability lets you tap one or more creatures with power equal or more than the saddling cost so the card becomes saddled. Saddle is a twist on the Crew mechanic, so if you are familiar with it, you won’t have much trouble understanding Saddle. Please note that you can only Saddle at sorcery speed.

Let’s take a look at 《Ornery Tumblewagg》. It is a creature that is a Mount, and when your beginning of combat, it gives a creature a +1/+1 counter. When it is attacking while mounted, it doubles all the counters on a creature, which is pretty strong.

Spree

Spree is a way to give your spells more functions much like Escalate or Kicker. It implies paying extra costs to activate more modes of your card.

《Unfortunate Accident》 is a card with Spree, you can play it in many ways. For example, if you play for , it can destroy a creature, if you play it for , you create a Mercenary token, and for , you destroy a creature and create a token.

Plot

The Plot ability works by paying the plot cost of a card and playing it in later turns as sorcery speed without paying its mana cost. It is very important to notice that you can’t plot a card and play it in the same turn, you have to wait at least one turn to cast it at sorcery speed.

Plotting is interesting in many different situations: to protect a specific card from a discard spell, to have mana available in a future turn while you cast the spell so that you can, for example, cast two spells in the same turn.

《Cunning Coyote》 is a good and simple example of a card that can benefit you if you cast it with Plot. You can plot it in turn 2 and in turn 3 cast another creature and coyote without paying their mana cost because of Plot, which gives the other creature +1/+1 and haste.

Top Commons of the Colors

There are many interesting new mechanics in this set but let’s take a look at how they work with what I consider the best commons of each color. The common cards are the cards that will be the base of your Limited deck, so it is very important to pay attention to them.

White

《Mystical Tether》 is the 《Oblivion Ring》 of the format, but casting it with Flash gives it the possibility to be played during combat. 《Eriette’s Lullaby》 is an ok removal for White, especially if you are in a more defensive late-game-based deck. It destroys a tapped creature while also gaining you some life.

《Holy Cow》! The style points on this one is 10/10, can’t wait to cast a 《Holy Cow》 on the table. Apart from that, it’s a 2/2 creature with Flying and Flash for 3 mana that also gains 2 life, which I find pretty ok, especially with a bunch of 1/1 Mercenaries hanging around. 《Sterling Keykeeper》 is a 2/2 that can tap creatures for 2 mana which is usually not the amount you want to be spending for a tapping ability, but it is a playable card.

In general, the Commons of the white color are pretty weak in this edition and, except for 《Mystical Tether》, there is no Common that really calls my attention here.

Blue

《Geyser Drake》《Loan Shark》 and 《Daring Thunder-Thief》 are the creatures to look for in the Common slot when playing Blue.

Additionally, Blue has some good Draw spells like 《Seize the Secrets》 and some versatile counter spells like 《Phantom Interference》 that also lets you create a 2/2 token. 《Take the Fall》 is also a pretty playable combat trick that lets you redraw.

Black

Black has some solid removal spells and some interesting creatures. One of them is 《Vault Plunderer》 which is pretty good, a 3/1 with a redraw, I would like to have as many of those as I can in a deck. Another one is 《Blacksnag Buzzard》 which is a great creature to plot at turn 2, especially if it can come with a +1/+1 counter later in the game.

《Consuming Ashes》 and 《Desert’s Due》 are the removals for the Common slot of black and they are both pretty good.

Red

Red color is full of Outlaws and Mounts. 《Prickly Pair》 gives you 2 Outlaws and a total of 3 power on the board for 1 card, pretty solid creature. 《Mine Raider》 is also a good card to have in the Outlaws-based strategies. 《Quilled Charger》 is a card that at first glance doesn’t seem very good, but it is playable when you need to fill in the curve.

Red has a good range of removal spells in the Common slot, 《Thunder Salvo》 is one of them. it’s especially good when interacting with plotted cards. 《Trick Shot》 might help you to deal with some big creatures while also killing an eventual Outlaw token. Another very good removal spell is 《Explosive Derailment》.

Green

Green has positively surprised me in this edition, the creatures are pretty bulky and the mana accelerators are pretty decent. 《Giant Beaver》 is a very solid creature, 4 manas 4/4 with Vigilance that can be saddled for putting +1/+1 counters on other creatures. 《Cactarantula》 is another chunky creature that can be cast for 5 manas if you control a Desert.

As for 《Freestrider Commando》 and 《Spinewood Paladin》, they are both pretty versatile and can be plotted for a higher or lower cost depending on the availability of your resources.

《Hardbristle Bandit》 is the mana accelerator that you want in Green to help you cast all these big creatures while also fixing your mana color. 《Throw from the Saddle》 is the only green Common removal of the edition, but it is pretty good, especially if you have some Mounts in your deck.

Color Ranking

After analyzing the best Commons in each color, I would give Green the first place as it has a lot of chunky creatures for low mana cost, a good set of removal spells and also some mana dorks that will help you with fixing your colors. It also helps that Green has a good quantity of bombs as we will see in my top 10 cards of the edition section.

Red would be my second pick; it has good removal spells and is good with the Outlaw and Mount strategies.

I think Black gets the third position, as it has pretty decent removal spells and the outlaws make it a great color to be paired with.

Blue and White would be my last picks. Blue, besides being a good support color, doesn’t play the main role in the edition and the White Common cards are way less powerful than the other colors.

Archetype Analysis and Ranking

In this section, I will present the archetypes of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and will already put them in my favorite order for Limited until now. Take into account that the order of this list might change as the format goes deeper in the next months and we have more experience playing it, but this is my first impression of the most powerful archetypes in this edition.

1. RG Ferocious

With Green being the most powerful color of OTJ, it would make a lot of sense to put it in the first place. Especially when paired with Red, this color can put a lot of powerful creatures into play fast, abusing the Mount and Desert synergies. 《Cactusfolk Sureshot》 and 《Jolene, Plundering Pugilist》 are the Uncommons that represent this archetype. Be sure to play with these two, if you can, in your Red-Green decks.

2. BG Midrange

《Honest Rutstein》 and 《Badlands Revival》 represent really well what this archetype is all about, it has a good interaction with the Graveyard and by doing that it gives you a lot of resource advantage. Here you are trying to reach the mid to long game. I’ve been succeeding a lot not only playing this archetype but also splashing the Black-Green cards in my decks with some mana fixing.

3. GW Mounts

《Miriam, Herd Whisperer》 and 《Congregation Gryff》 are the Uncommon headliners of this archetype. They are really good in this color-pair and also synergize pretty well together. Green-White is a really good color combination for this edition and helps to cast all the Mounts and to get advantage with the Saddle ability.

4. BR Outlaws

Black-Red outlaws is a fast-paced strategy, it’s trying to do as much damage as possible using the Outlaw synergy while getting a lot of Mercenary tokens in play to make your attack more powerful and harder for the opponent to defend against. 《Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier》 and 《At Knifepoint》 are the Uncommons that represent this archetype, where every point of life counts.

5. GU Plot

Green-Blue is trying to plot as much cards as it can to take the advantage of them. Green has some pretty big creatures and Blue can draw you cards and have interaction spells, which makes this color combo quite decent. 《Make Your Own Luck》 and 《Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius》 are the cards that pretty much align with the plot mechanic.

6. RW Mercenaries

Red-White is trying to play as many Mercenaries (Outlaws) as possible and be aggressive with them, at the same time it removes the opponent’s creatures from the board. 《Form a Posse》 and 《Ertha Jo, Frontier Mentor》 can make a lot of Mercenaries representing very well what this archetype is willing to do.

7. WU Flash

White-Blue is all about not casting spells during your turn, cards like 《Jem Lightfoote, Sky Explorer》 and 《Wrangler of the Damned》 benefit from casting those spells on the opponent’s turn, so creatures with Flash and Instant spells synergize very well with this color pair.

8. UB Crimes

《Lazav, Familiar Stranger》 and 《Intimidation Campaign》 are the Uncommon cards that represent what Blue-Black is trying to do. It is the most interaction-heavy archetype that is trying to target the biggest number of opponent’s and permanents as possible so it can take advantages of the Commit Crime ability.

9. UR Two Spells

Blue-Red is trying to cast two spells in the same turn, so it can trigger abilities of cards that require this mechanic. Here plot is very important as you can cast a free spell one turn later. 《Slick Sequence》 and 《Kraum, Violent Cacophony》 are the Uncommon cards that represent this archetype.

10. WB Sacrifice

White-Black is trying to extract some advantage of sacrificing your own creatures, you need to setup some sacrifice creatures for this strategy to work, making it a bit clunky. 《Ruthless Lawbringer》 and 《Baron Bertram Graywater》 are the Uncommon cards of this color pair.

Top 10 Most Powerful Cards

Here are my top 10 most powerful cards of the edition. Notice that great part of them are green, this shows how much power this color brings in OTJ. Out of the list but easily on the top 15 I would put 《Ornery Tumblewagg》, and also 《Colossal Rattlewurm》.

10. 《Annie Flash, the Veteran》

Apart from being 3 colors 《Annie Flash, the Veteran》 can be played during combat to shift things around, it is the kind of card that is hard to expect and play around and also gives you a lot of advantages when it enters the battlefield or attacks. Enough to make the top 10.

9. 《Goldvein Hydra》

《Ivy Elemental》 has come a long way since its release in the Odyssey set. 《Goldvein Hydra》 is a powerful card that is very versatile, Trample and Haste make it very aggressive while vigilance also gives it a defensive role. The treasures, when it dies, are just the icing on the cake that makes it less appetizing to be killed.

8. 《Gisa, the Hellraiser》

This card works really well with the Crime strategies, all the Deserts that deal 1 damage to target opponent, removal spells and counterspells. It creates a 3/3 Zombie with Menace while 《Gisa, the Hellraiser》 is in the board. Ward also makes it hard to be dealt with.

7. 《Railway Brawler》

This is a 5/5 Trample-Reach creature that can be plotted for 4 manas and then makes every creature you control stronger when it enters the battlefield, it is just a powerhouse in a card.

6. 《Bristly Bill, Spine Sower》

This is a very interesting creature to have in the board in the early game, you can have it as a drop 2 and it will be a 3/3 already in the next turn with the Landfall ability. The fact that it can also give +1/+1 counters to other creatures and double everything with 5 manas at instant speed will make your opponent want to take this out of the board as soon as possible.

5. 《Bonny Pall, Clearcutter》

This card is crazy, you will have to deal with 2 huge creatures while this guy lets you draw cards every time you attack. The reach is just a cherry on the top here.

4. 《Dust Animus》

This card is just really good any way you want to play it, but plotted, by turn 5 you can have a 4/5 creature with Flying and Lifelink. It is big enough to shift some games around.

3. 《Rakdos, the Muscle》

《Rakdos, the Muscle》 is back again in this set, this time it can protect itself by sacrificing creatures and gaining Indestructible, it also gives card advantage by letting you play cards from your library when you sacrifice creatures. It is strong enough to make it in the top 3.

2. 《Final Showdown》

This is a wrath effect at instant speed that is so versatile, you can use it to give Indestructible to a creature for 2 manas; as a board swipe, for 6 and for 7 you can swipe the board and leave your best creature alive. As a bonus, you can also make creatures lose the leave battlefield or indestructible abilities and make sure that they will hit the bin.

1. 《Terror of the Peaks》

For those who played the M21 Limited, 《Terror of the Peaks》 is a familiar face. It was one of the best cards of that set and I think time did not take a toll on this one. It is still a very strong creature that is hard to be dealt with and will win the game if not taken away from the board. With all of this said, a card that can win the game alone if not dealt with, deserves the first spot in the list.

Bonus. 《Oko, Thief of Crowns》

Be aware that there is a bonus sheet of cards in Outlaws of Thunder Junction that has one card of this selected pool of cards inserted in every play booster. Also, there is a Special Guests sheet that might appear in the Limited pools. There are some pretty strong cards in these sheets and 《Oko, Thief of Crowns》 is one of them.

This card was and is still banned in different Constructed formats and facing one of those in Limited is just crazy. It is, for sure, one of the best cards you can pull in your Sealed or Draft tournament, it may not be seen too often, because it is a mythic in the bonus sheet, but make sure you know it is a possibility.

Conclusions

This is not a simple edition to play. Some games in Outlaws of Thunder Junction Limited will have so many interactions and triggers that you really need to pay attention to them so you won’t miss anything. I would pay extra attention to the Crime triggers, as they are basically interactions that the players are used to have in their games and now, they might trigger some ability.

Talking about the Crime triggers, make sure you take some of those Deserts, they help you to fix your colors while also triggering a Crime. There are some cards that also interact well with the Deserts.

Thes set looks really fun, the format looks pretty much mid-to-late game focused, so cards that give you resource advantage are what you should be looking for to succeed in this format. I hope I could help a bit the players that are going to be playing Outlaws of Thunder Junction in the upcoming months.

See you all next time.

Marcio Carvalho (X)