Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) Limited Mechanics Review • MTG Arena Zone

Table of Contents

Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) Limited Guides
Plot
Outlaws
Committing a Crime
Spree
Mounts and Saddle
Wrap Up

Hey everyone! It’s new set time which means it’s time for me to be locked back into the content creation dungeon pumping out articles for you. I’m sure I’m supposed to be using all kinds of cowboy related words like yeehaw and giddy up, but I’ll try to keep it serious for a bit. (Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts…)

We’ll be kicking it off with the usual review of the limited mechanics of Outlaws of Thunder Junction: Plot, Outlaws, Committing a Crime, Spree, and Mounts and Saddle.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction Art by Caroline Gariba

Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) Limited Guides

Plot

Buy on TCGplayer $0.43 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.69 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.09 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.15 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

The plot of OTJ involves all the bad folks doing cowboy cosplay…oh wait, this is the mechanics article so I guess I should talk about that type of Plot instead.

Plot is an ability that you can pay the Plot cost and exile the card at sorcery speed. On a later turn you can cast it as a sorcery without paying the mana cost.

Sometimes this lets you pay less mana, but it is also for setting it up so you can play spells at a more advantageous time. It’s a great way to be able to trigger “when you play your second spell” cards early in the game. It’s also a way to get value from a trigger once you have a better target for it without letting your mana go to waste for a turn.

Outlaws

Buy on TCGplayer $2.51 Buy on Card Kingdom $3.49 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.17 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.49 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.16 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

While not necessarily a mechanic, there are a ton of cards that refer to outlaws. That feels like it should be expected in the cowboy set. An outlaw is any creature that is an Assassin, Mercenary, Pirate, Rogue, or Warlock. There are plenty of them in the set so you’ll often be able to trigger these with ease.

Committing a Crime

Buy on TCGplayer $8.17 Buy on Card Kingdom $11.99 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $1.06 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.69 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.13 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

Committing a crime occurs when you do pretty much anything that targets an opponent, their spells, a permanent they control, or a card in their graveyard. This just has to go on the stack to be considered a crime, it doesn’t matter what happens to it afterwards.

There are a lot of powerful cards that love for you to commit crimes. If your deck has some of these, try to find some of the repeatable effects that let you commit crimes instead of relying on a couple of removal spells to get the job done.

Spree

Buy on TCGplayer $0.13 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $12.18 Buy on Card Kingdom $15.99 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $1.02 Buy on Card Kingdom $1.49 view card details

Spree is very simply a modal card that you can choose to pay the additional cost for to get that ability. You can choose any number of the options (as long as you can pay for it), but you can’t choose any of them more than once.

This is a very flexible limited mechanic that lets your cards fit into different parts of your curve. Sometimes you just need to pop them off early, but they are great top decks later in the game when you can get the full bonanza.

Mounts and Saddle

Buy on TCGplayer $0.25 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.49 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.35 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.59 view card details

Buy on TCGplayer $0.05 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

The creature type mount mostly just means that it will have a saddle ability on it. They also typically have another ability that triggers when it attacks while saddled.

You can pay the saddle cost by tapping any number of other creatures you control with total power equal to or greater than the saddle cost. You can only Saddle as a sorcery.

This is a fine limited ability that lets you still get some value out of your creatures that no longer have clean attacks. You’ll often want to saddle even if they could get through because the value might be worth more than the couple of damage you’d be missing out on.