Table of Contents
- Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty CONSTRUCTED Articles
- OVERRATED: TEZZERET, BETRAYER OF FLESH
- UNDERRATED: THE WANDERING EMPEROR
- OVERRATED: KODAMA OF THE WEST TREE
- UNDERRATED: BLADE OF THE ONI
- OVERRATED: NINJAS
- UNDERRATED: THE INVOKE CYCLE
- OVERRATED: LION SASH
- UNDERRATED: THE KAMI WAR
- OVERRATED: FAREWELL
- UNDERRATED: ONI-CULT ANVIL
- CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED: HINATA, DAWN-CROWNED
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty CONSTRUCTED Articles
- The Winners and Losers of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Standard and the One Deck That May Break Standard
- Review and Preliminary Decklists of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Planeswalkers
- Here Be Dragons! – Review and Decklists with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Dragons
- Three New Graveyard Decks with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three New Tempo Decks Made Possible by Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three Awesome Standard Aggro Decks Made Competitive by Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three Unique Enchantress Decks for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Standard
- Top 5 Overrated and Underrated Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Cards With Decklists and the Card That May Break Standard
- 25 New Standard Decks with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
Hello everyone! With everyone testing out a whole lot of new strategies and cards, I think it’s high time I start dishing out some hot takes! Based on speculation surrounding the cards, I feel that this spoiler season was more contentious than most! There are a lot of ambitious and new card designs which makes evaluating them that much harder as we lack a strong frame of reference for most of them. Nevertheless, I wanted to try and give some insight on what cards are definitely worth the craft and which cards aren’t. Let’s hop right in!
OVERRATED: TEZZERET, BETRAYER OF FLESH
Now don’t get me wrong, Tezzeret’s passive ability can be very, very good. Anything that can reduce mana should always be really heavily looked into to find how best to abuse it. That said, Tezzeret really isn’t that impressive otherwise. It does have some decent abilities, but I feel like I covered it pretty well in my planeswalker review initially.
To sum up again, the plus one is really only good if you discard an artifact, the -2 will leave Tezzeret open to being killed easily with just one removal spell and being blown out, and lastly the ultimate ability is really underwhelming. I know the fervor is mostly focused around Tezzeret’s passive, but there’s hardly any card in Standard that’s even good with it much less broken. Overall, I’d say that Tezzeret may be playable, but even that may be pushing it.
UNDERRATED: THE WANDERING EMPEROR
Planeswalkers (4)
Instants (19)
Artifacts (2)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$272.32
Hold on a second Bob. Everyone knows The Wandering Emperor is good, how is it underrated? Well, that’s how good this card is. I feel like everyone agrees this card is good, but I think it is NUTS. For 4 mana, you are functionally always going to get a minimum of a 2 for 1 with this and considering you can Flash it in, it makes it really hard to kill quickly. Whether you exile a threat, start pumping out 2/2s, make a creature really hard to block, it doesn’t matter, Emperor is obscene.
You can play Emperor happily in any White deck and in most cases it’s going to be correct to play 4. It’s very rare that you have a card you should just (almost) ubiquitously play if you’re in the color, but I think The Wandering Emperor is going to be that card.
OVERRATED: KODAMA OF THE WEST TREE
Kodama of the West Tree I think is the perfect trap for looking like a really good card. Any creature that can give you massive advantages under certain pretenses are prone to players assuming the best of them.
In fairness, the combo between this and Felidar Retreat is a pretty ncie combo. You can give your whole squad counters, attack, get a bunch of lands, then get a bunch of triggers again. I’m sure decks are going to be built with this interaction in mind, but beyond this interaction, what does Kodama do?
You could play a whole deck dedicated to playing creatures that can accrue +1/+1 counters, but most of them are pretty middling beyond Luminarch Aspirant. You could go the Reconfigure creature route, but there are very few in Green and White (White presumably being the color you would inherently pair this with). Finally, if you go the Auras route, I doubt Kodama would be part of that deck.
All this said, maybe a +1/+1 counter deck would be the most reasonable option out of all of these, but there’s still more problems with that idea. First, the only other payoff for going this route is Oran-Rief Ooze which is solid, but not great. Second, I would very much say the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. You’re jumping through hoops to get a middling payoff assuming Kodama or your other creatures live.
All in all, this card is cool and does have a high ceiling, but I doubt its good enough to warrant it’s hype.
UNDERRATED: BLADE OF THE ONI
Creatures (20)
Artifacts (2)
Enchantments (4)
60 Cards
$78.14
Sideboard
7 Cards
$3.23
This is a similar case to The Wandering Emperor, but to a lesser degree. I think most players recognize this card is solid, but I think it’s very strong. A 2 mana 3/1 is not amazing, but far from an embarrassing stat line for a 2 drop in an aggressive deck. However, we would hardly be looking to play Blade if it was just a 3/1. For 4 mana, Blade of the Oni can turn any of your creatures into a 5/5 Demon which is a pretty obscene stat line.
This reminds me instantly of Maul of the Skyclaves, but not only does this have more utility, it’s usually going to make the creature larger than Maul could. I don’t think it’s going to be better than Maul in every instance, but the threat of making anything a 5/5 in the late game while it’s beating down early shouldn’t be underestimated.
OVERRATED: NINJAS
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (22)
Instants (13)
Sorceries (1)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$174.68
Sideboard
15 Cards
$22.65
This is my first of two broad brush strokes I’m going to paint in this article. Trust me, I love Ninjas as much as the next guy, but I really don’t think they’re going to perform up to expectations.
Removal in Standard is at an absolute premium right now between Vanishing Verse, Infernal Grasp, Rite of Oblivion, The Meathook Massacre, and Fading Hope which is going to make Ninja’s lives so much harder. Can you realistically make a tempo negative play to bounce your own creature to try and get a better effect when the removal is so good? I could be way too harsh on Ninjas and maybe there’s more to these creatures than meet the eye, but I feel like this is a mechanic that has been power crept out of modern Magic.
UNDERRATED: THE INVOKE CYCLE
Creatures (21)
Artifacts (4)
Enchantments (3)
60 Cards
$78.48
To paint my second large brushstroke, I think the Invoke cycle in general is seriously being slept on. Let’s break them down.
Invoke Justice can turn any permanent into the graveyard into a DIY Verdurous Gearhulk and you have to remember this is ANY permanent. You can get really cute in Historic with reanimating Omniscience or something, but even getting back a solid creature or The Wandering Emperor can be a really strong play.
Invoke the Winds is a classic Mind Control which admittedly is generally not a Standard playable rate, but being able to take an artifact too may give it more utility than I’m giving it credit for.
Invoke Despair I think may be the most underrated of the cycle as forcing the opponent to lose a creature and/or planeswalker AND hitting them for 2-4 AND drawing 1-2 cards is a lot of text on a 5 drop. Edicting the planeswalker is easily the best part of this card, but I think it’s pretty great all around.
I’ll admit, Invoke Calamity is a card that requires too much IQ for me to break, but a pseudo ritual that can recur powerful instants and sorceries is definitely good.
Finally, 5 mana for two 4/5s with a keyword is very strong, especially in conjunction with Esika's Chariot.
These are hard to cast which is likely why most aren’t considering their competitive applications, but I do believe that most, if not all of them, will see play at some point.
OVERRATED: LION SASH
Let’s get one thing straight right away, I love Scavenging Ooze. It’s one of my favorite cards EVER so I take my Scooze impersonators very seriously. So, when I heard that they made a White Scavenging Ooze I was over the moon, until I read what it did. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO REPLACE MY ONE TRUE LOVE?
Well it’s actually pretty decent. Don’t get me wrong, I think Lion Sash is solid, but definitely not as good as most are thinking it is. It has a bunch of inherent issues compared to Scavenging Ooze that I think a lot of players are overlooking.
First off, a 1/1 versus a 2/2 is a pretty big difference. Second, not gaining a life per activation is surprisingly relevant. Third, being able to hit any permanent rather than just creatures is not going to come up significantly often (barring decks that indiscriminately mill). Lastly, it being an artifact makes it susceptible to more removal like Abrade or Prismari Command. Being an equipment is nice for what it’s worth, but I feel all these factors together are going to make this card fine, but far from amazing.
UNDERRATED: THE KAMI WAR
I’ve made this mistake time and time again. I constantly think that good cards that are hard to cast struggle to see play, however, I’m not making this mistake again. The Kami War is very powerful and it being 5 color is not going to stop it from being a good card in Standard.
If you need any proof, look at the mana cost itself. You’d expect this to be just WUBRG, but it being 1WUBRG is curious, no? The reason it’s 6 mana over 5 is almost certainly that it was initially 5 mana, but in play testing they realized it was too strong and had to nerf it slightly. Even at 6 mana, this is still very powerful.
The Kami War is always going to be a 3 for 1 as it kills something, bounces something, forces a discard (if they’re hellbent, then this is a second removal spell), then a really strong creature that can accrue even more value! That is a whole lot of abilities on one card and although it may be a bit annoying to cast, I think the payoff is going to end up being worth it.
OVERRATED: FAREWELL
Wraths are always a very powerful effect and one that is reminiscent of Austere Command should always be examined. With that in mind, this is one of the strongest wraths we’ve seen in a long time. Exiling ALL creatures, ALL artifacts, ALL enchantments, and ALL graveyards is a lot on just one wrath. For most scenarios, this will be a Planar Cleansing that exiles and knocks off graveyards while we’re at it. All that said, why do I think it’s overrated then? 6 mana wraths generally suck.
Blood on the Snow is an obvious exception to this rule as it can act almost as a pseudo 1 mana wrath if you bring back a 5 mana permanent or even functionally free if you get to 6! That said, paying 6 mana for a purely reactive spell is a really tough ask in Standard right now. I will give two possible scenarios where Farewell could be good though: one, this is going to be great in Commander (not really the scope of this article, but worth mentioning) and two, if you have a Planeswalker on board and get this off, that does make this a better Planar Cleansing.
Nonetheless, Farewell looks to be an amazing Wrath, but if Doomskar or Divine Purge has taught us anything, you want your wraths to get cheaper and more restrictive generally speaking, not less restrictive and more expensive.
UNDERRATED: ONI-CULT ANVIL
Creatures (17)
Artifacts (15)
60 Cards
$125.56
For the penultimate underrated card of the article, we have Oni-Cult Anvil. Now maybe my Magic boomer is showing, but Hidden Stockpile was a pretty strong card back in the day. The deck was good at grinding out other decks by constantly making a bunch of tokens and scrying into gas. Anvil reminds me of Stockpile, but a much better version.
First off, Anvil self fuels for free where Stockpile did require a mana investment. Second and much more importantly, Anvil is its own win condition where Stockpile was just it’s own engine. Both cards are good in multiples, but Anvil kills REALLY fast in multiples. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more conversation surrounding this card as this is an engine that may actually be worth the effort and considering how cheap it is, I really like the odds.
CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED: HINATA, DAWN-CROWNED
So here’s the card you were all probably most excited to see. I’ll give it to you straight, anything that can reduce mana for you or increase mana for the opponent is really powerful. A card that can do both? Now that is very strong. That said, I actually think this card is very likely to break Standard in a certain shell. If you’re curious what that shell is, check out the Premium article for this week! I’m very confident that this deck is at a minimum going to be a high tier option if not just the best deck in Standard.
That’s all from me! What other cards do you think are mis-evaluated by the general player base? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you for reading.
