Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) Limited Set Review: The Big Score and Special Guests

Hey everyone! Are you ready to get crazy with cowboys? All of Magic’s villains (At least the currently available ones. Sorry, no Elesh Norn in a cowboy hat) are up to some shenanigans on Magic’s newest plane. They are setting up a massive heist so we are getting all kinds of bonus sheet stuff going on here that will surely shake up limited formats. While it won’t happen often, you will assuredly remember that time you got destroyed by Mana Drain.

Per usual, I’ll be grading the entire set for limited purposes. Maybe one day I’ll get to see sunlight again, but today is not that day.

Here’s the usual grading scale:

• 5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Gruff Triplets, Virtue of Persistence, The Eternal Wanderer)
• 4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Virtue of Loyalty, Imodane's Recruiter, Realm-Scorcher Hellkite)
• 4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Faunsbane Troll, Gumdrop Poisoner, Talion's Messenger)
• 3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Candy Grapple, Hearth Elemental, Torch the Tower)
• 3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Shrouded Shepherd, Spellscorn Coven, Sharae of Numbing Depths)
• 2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Evolving Wilds, Archon's Glory, Flick a Coin)
• 2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Mintstrosity, Ice Out, Grabby Giant)
• 1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Titanic Growth, Scarecrow Guide, Territorial Witchstalker)
• 1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Dark Tutelage, Kindled Heroism, Impact Tremors)
• 0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. Cards that “could” be situationally decent, but bad in most situations. (Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mana Flare)
• 0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. They rarely print cards this bad these days. (Hew the Entwood, One with Nothing)

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The Big Score

Collector’s Cage

Rating: 4.5/5

This can cheaply pass around counters to your team while conveniently letting you set up the solution to trigger the hideaway ability. Basically you end up getting to cast the best card in your top five as a bonus for something that you’d be happy to be doing anyway.

Grand Abolisher

Rating: 1.5/5

Just a dude. Unfortunately, it’s a hard to cast dude that mostly just shuts down counterspells.

Oltec Matterweaver

Rating: 4.0/5

You were going to be casting creatures anyways so you might as well make a bunch of 1/1s while you’re doing it. You are ahead as soon as you get one token and everything from there is just gravy.

Rest in Peace

Rating: 0.5/5

You really shouldn’t be playing this in limited. There might be some really far out there reasons to do it, but even then you should have better options.

Esoteric Duplicator

Rating: 1.5/5

Mindslaver is in this format so the dream is alive to make your opponent cry (or just concede, which lets be honest is the better response). There are multiple other comical things to do with this, but you need to have something nutty because the four mana draw a card isn’t up to snuff.

Simulacrum Synthesizer

Rating: 0.5/5

I’m sure that someone will come up with some crazy deck to pull off with this, but for the vast majority of the decks it is hot garbage.

Worldwalker Helm

Rating: 1.0/5

Another far too situational card to want in most limited decks. I would be interested if it triggered off any token instead of needing to be an artifact token.

Greed’s Gambit

Rating: 2.0/5

This is a difficult card to grade as most people’s mileage will vary with it. It is a TON of value up front before it slowly sucks everything away like a time share. Usually, you will want to wait until you’re empty handed so you can try to play everything before losing it, but there are going to be times you should just slam this and try to win through the air before you lose out.

Harvester of Misery

Rating: 4.0/5

This has two good modes with either the instant speed removal that can be used as a trick or the big old beater that casts Infest when it hits play. Can’t go wrong with that as long as you don’t play out too many small creatures first.

Hostile Investigator

Rating: 3.5/5

As long as they have a card in hand, this is amazing right out of the gate. If they are empty handed, it’s actually pretty bad. There is a huge difference between a 3 for 1 and paying four mana for a 4/3. That’s what’s holding it back from bomb status.

Generous Plunderer

Rating: 2.5/5

I hate giving my opponent treasure tokens. You never know when they might have an ill-advised splash that you just let them cast or have some synergies that need it. Still a solid creature that might get a few extra damage in based off of what they are doing.

Legion Extruder

Rating: 3.0/5

Not really worth it on its own because a two-mana sorcery speed Shock is a bit below the curve these days. As long as you have some ways to make treasures this can crank it up from meh to OMG in a hurry.

Memory Vessel

Rating: 1.0/5

Memory Jar was a true classic… in constructed. It still had a place in limited because you could set it up so you were the only one getting the value. This is not that. I could go through all the ways this isn’t that great of a card, but just don’t play it and you’ll be better off.

Molten Duplication

Rating: 0.5/5

If I was a betting man (and I do have a bit of a gambling problem), I would say that I will never play this card in limited. I’m leaving it at 0.5 for the off chance some of you find something interesting to do with it.

Territory Forge

Rating: 0.5/5

There are a few cards that you can sideboard this in against, but you’re still probably better off leaving it there.

Ancient Cornucopia

Rating: 1.5/5

We’ve already established that you don’t want to be rocking Manalith these days. This one at least gains you a decent chunk of life through out the game.

Bristlebud Farmer

Rating: 4.5/5

Somewhere Juzam Djinn is crying himself to sleep wishing he went into farming. A 5/5 trample for four is already a great card. This gives you two extra relevant game pieces that have multiple synergies running around the set including on this card that can turn them into actual factual cards.

Omenpath Journey

Rating: 1.5/5

I don’t know about this one, there will certainly be matchups where the long-term value ends up being worth it. There are also times your opponent plays Bristlebud Farmer and this is your follow up.

Sandstorm Salvager

Rating: 4.5/5

We’re usually thrilled getting 3/3 worth of stats across two bodies for this cost. Here we’re up to 4/4 to start off with that also puts counters on ALL of your tokens when you activate it.

Vaultborn Tyrant

Rating: 4.0/5

This sure is pricy, but packs a ton of value into it. You already get an extra card and three life when this ETBs, then it offers the same deal every time you drop another chonker onto the field. Dies to removal you say? It comes back the first time that happens along with another card and 3 life package.

Loot, the Key to Everything

Rating: 2.5/5

Potentially powerful? Yes. Extremely fragile? Also, yes. Difficult to cast? Once again, yes. It’s a nice little card advantage engine, but slow and has all the previously described problems.

Pest Control

Rating: 1.0/5

Even with cycling, this is still just a sideboard card against a token heavy opponent.

Lost Jitte

Rating: 1.5/5

Umezawa's Jitte this is not. While half the cost to both cast and equip, this is slow and really underwhelming.

Lotus Ring

Rating: 3.0/5

This is pricy and the sacrifice ability is very rarely going to come up. That said, the +3+3 and vigilance can dominate the board. The indestructible definitely matters so you don’t get it blown up after you committed to an attack.

Nexus of Becoming

Rating: 3.5/5

This is a nice long-term effect that really adds up over time. The extra card every turn is great and you don’t even have to wait to get that first one provided you drop this in your first main phase. Turning any random creature or artifact into a 3/3 can prevent you from falling behind on board, but I suspect that after the first one you’ll usually be better off just casting your creatures.

Sword of Wealth and Power

Rating: 3.5/5

One of the cool things about the other swords were the random auto-wins against someone playing those two colors. Even if only one color matched up, it put them in a bad position blocking wise threatening to get one of those busted triggers. Instants and sorceries is cool and all, but it doesn’t affect them blocking at all.

The triggers are kind of underwhelming too as a treasure is always cool, but not game changing. While the copying of a spell is going to have a pretty big variance and you might need to use your last removal spell to get through with this.

I’m not knocking this card; I’m setting reasonable expectations. I’m always playing it and happy to draft it, just not the same bomb level as some of our previous swords.

Torpor Orb

Rating: 0.5/5

Not a limited card. Extreme corner case of sideboard against a deck stacked with creature ETBs.

Transmutation Font

Rating: 4.0/5

Want to draw an extra card every turn for only two mana? This has your back. Need to stabilize on life? Also, here for you. Only have one mana and need to filter a card right now? I guess you can use this for that too.

Have some completely busted artifact and need a way to tutor it up onto the battlefield? This can get the job done on that after a few turns of popping out the other ones.

It generates a whole bunch of game pieces (for no additional mana) with versatility packed in. That seems like a card that will play way better than it reads.

Fomori Vault

Rating: 2.0/5

The cost of playing a colorless land is very real even if it comes into play untapped. This also asks you to have artifacts (at least one) to do anything else. On top of that it’s pricy to activate essentially costing four mana. I’m not done yet, it’s not actual card advantage, just rummaging.

All of that out of the way, there are a lot of decks I’d play this in. I suspect that I will never have the opportunity to draft it on Arena though because random mythics get picked up well before they should.

Tarnation Vista

Rating: 2.0/5

What in tarnation?!? Sorry, had to get that one out of the way.

This is basically Mirage Mesa that isn’t a desert. If you have two monocolored permanents, you’re still tapping two lands to add two mana. It doesn’t count gold cards so you’re really never going to make this mana positive.

Special Guests

Stoneforge Mystic

Rating: 3.0/5

Do you have equipment in your deck? Then this card is amazing as long as there is still one in your deck when you draw this. If you don’t this is unplayable.

Brazen Borrower

Rating: 4.0/5

Brazey B can do a lot for you. Bouncing one of your opponent’s permanents followed by an on-rate flyer continues to show how good of a mechanic adventure is.

Desertion

Rating: 4.0/5

The cool thing about this is that you aren’t restricted on which cards you can counter, just whether or not you get to steal it. While you would obviously prefer to steal a creature, you can still say no when they try to kill you with a removal spell.

Morbid Opportunist

Rating: 3.0/5

This was an easy 3.5 if not 4.0 in Midnight Hunt so you’re probably wondering why I have it so low here. Decayed was one of the things that made this so amazing. You could just swing your random 2/2 that you got as a throw in and cash it in for an entire card.

It’ll still be good here and will occasionally take over games, but it’s not going to be an automatic pile of free cards like it was in Midnight Hunt.

Port Razer

Rating: 1.5/5

Five mana creature that provides zero value when it enters or leaves. Understatted without any abilities that helps it get through. Needs to connect with their face to be more than a 4/4. Pretty sure you can do better.

Scapeshift

Rating: 0.5/5

This is a constructed card, but technically you can use this to make sure you only draw gas for the rest of the game. Wouldn’t really recommend it.

Mystic Snake

Rating: 3.5/5

A 2/2 really meant something when this was originally around, now it’s just outclassed by a lot of things. Still a strong card with a difficult mana cost. Not going to stop me from slamming this snake if I’m already in these colors.

Notion Thief

Rating: 2.5/5

This is an odd one to rate because against some decks it is just straight up a 3/1 flash for four. You’d never play that card.

Against other decks it is an insanely busted card that they can’t possibly beat. You only really need to get one card to feel like you’re up on the deal so I’m rating it in the middle with the caveat that it could go either way,

Desert

Rating: 3.0/5

While the cost of a colorless land is real, this shuts down all of your opponent’s one toughness creatures or lets you trade up. It also conveniently commits a crime every time you do so. You could even combo it with Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot to blast bigger creatures while drawing a card.

Prismatic Vista

Rating: 3.0/5

You always play Evolving Wilds and paying one life instead of coming into play tapped is a deal you would make most of the time.

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Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back tomorrow to finish my limited review with the Breaking News cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Until then, stay classy people!

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

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