So it’s now an easy comment to say I have become obsessed with Magic: The Gathering. My journey has taken me from never having touched the game at all to loving every quirky and difficult element of MTG. Now my excitement for prerelease events is next level, and while I may have been a touch cynical about the Outlaws of Thunder Junction theme, this may be one of my favourite sets to play yet.
But she’s got a new hat!
This one isn’t as bad for newbies as Murders at Karlov Manor was, and the reason is that it’s a new plane. Thunder Junction is new for newbies and old timers. Some old villains have come through the omenpaths to travel to this snazzy new plane. Why have they come? For a good old-fashioned heist.
As always, you can read the whole plot over at Magic’s story website. It’s a surprisingly fun story if you want to read or listen. The good news is that if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, the set is fun as hell to play.
Time to get your crime on
The biggest mechanic introduced is committing crimes. You commit a crime any time you target an opponent or their stuff. This felt a bit weird going in to label most of what you do in Magic as “crimes,” but there is a key function that kicks in when you commit crimes.
A lot of cards have effects when you commit a crime, e.g., token creation, dealing damage to someone, etc. Very quickly, you will discover when you are playing that ignoring these cards is going to really hurt you. Not generating tokens when you commit crimes means you really don’t benefit from your burn or counter spells.
Another major mechanic is spree spells. These come with a cost to cast, and then a cost to add whichever effects you want from a list. You can pick or choose from the ones you want to use. You can drop 3 mana to get another land out, or save it for a bit longer to get a land out AND a dope as a green elemental.
The other interesting mechanic is the use of mounts. Can’t travel ye olde west without a mount. These are kind of like vehicles where you can tap your creatures to saddle a mount. The big difference is that a vehicle can’t do anything without someone driving it, whereas mounts can attack on their own but get bonuses for being saddled.
So what is it like to play?
This is what I love the most about the set; it’s so damn fun to play. I have consistently had matches that have swung back and forth. So many times, even when I have lost a lot of games, I have come so bloody close to winning. The only time this didn’t happen was when I pulled an Oko and committed too early to his colours instead of focusing on the cards being passed to me.
Anything from a good spree, a great crime effect, or just some great enchantments can totally shift a game. I have beaten experienced players, and I have been slapped by people I can normally beat. It’s a really fun set that depends on how you play, how your opponent plays, and the luck of the library.
A decent chunk of this is all the bonus sheets. Since there were originally plans to have an epilogue set that got released called the big score, WOTC learned their lessons from that and just brought them into the main set. That means you can pull the normal Thunder Junction cards, the special guests cards, and the commander cards that you can pull. On top of this are the Breaking News cards, which are reprints in a cool style, and then there are the Big Score cards, which are just a bunch more standard legal cards.
I am going to be magicing a lot Friday night while Thunders of Outlaw Junction is around, as it’s an absolute bloody blast.
Drawn Out Duel
For the most part, the bulk of the cards are just fun, wild west-style art. There is some silliness, like a slime wearing a cowboy hat, because … Cowboys, I guess. But for the most part, it is all well designed around the Wild West theme. There is a bit of fun with coyote and roadrunner cards that, if you put them side by side, are the coyote chasing the roadrunner, but for the most part, it’s classic magic style.
There are mixed views on the Wanted and Breaking News cards, but I bloody love them. The Breaking News cards are reprints that are done on a newspaper called Prosperity and just look bloody awesome. Wanted cards are for a handful of the baddies, and as you can guess, they are designed like Wanted posters. The design of the characters on these is really bloody awesome.
Get your loot on
Of course, you can buy single packs; the value loot comes in the boxes. As always, you can buy a booster box for either heaps of Play Boosters or Collector Boosters. Play Boosters are the normal Boosters, and collector boosters have heaps more rares and Mythics as well as heaps of foil cards. With the extra sets here, I was surprised at how much awesome stuff I pulled from some collector boosters. They are expensive, though, and there is a lot of fun to be had in the Play Boosters.
The bundle, as per usual, comes with 9 Play Boosters to crack open. Alongside that are the 30 land cards, 10 of which are the fancy full-art variety, a promo card, and the spin-down die. Given that the full arts for this set are bloody gorgeous, I was very happy here. One weird thing is that the old Boxes used to have an inner box that was a really handy way to hold a deck or separate cards. But they pulled it out here.
I also checked out one of the other main products, a preconstructed commander deck. I checked out Quick Draw, which is a red blue deck that slings spells and hits hard. Just how I like to play. I was using it against other precons and some other homebrewed decks and it held its own consistently and was fun as hell to play.
One slight change for these commander decks is that they don’t contain the thicker hard cards that older decks did, which is a shame as I liked them. Instead, they have swapped them out for some bounty cards. These you can use in a Commander game where you can meet the conditions and collect the bounty prize. The longer a bounty is unclaimed, the more valuable it is. If you ask me if I would rather have the thicker proxy card or an added way to shift up a game, I’ll take the latter, thanks.
Should you check out Magic: The Gathering Outlaws of Thunder Junction?
Oh my god, yes. Even if the theme doesn’t land with you, it’s the most fun set I have drafted so far. Games flow back and forth and there are some really cool and fun cards to collect. Add this to the fun addition to the Commander precons – this is just a slam dunk of a set. My god, I hope Bloomburrow is this good. Because with that theme and this gameplay, I would have to take out a second mortgage.
Jump down to Bea DnD and check this one out ASAP. Or just buy some cards and play at home!
Whether the theme clicks with you or not, it's just a whole lot of bloody fun to play. And games are meant to be played right?
