The contraption design is so, so cool, but does not feel mechanically "jokey." I was worried we wouldn't see any actual joke cards of old until I saw HANGMAN. That's the stuff. It looks like we will get a premium blend of mechanically cohesive cards and silly meta joke effects. I wish hangman was an upkeep trigger though. Won't people just leave it as 1/1 and never activate it? I can't tell if I want to make faction decks, or just a set of duel decks using all the contraptions between them. Decisions decisions.
I think the mirrored expansion symbol is a really cool touch, just saying.
The inverted expansion symbol is fascinating, for the fact that it's two different expansion symbols in one printing.
It kind of gums up the abstract data type established by all foregoing... logic.
It's the rule of cool happening here. It doesn't have to align with precedent or even logic for that matter as long as it is cool. It's just cool, so why not? I honestly wish magic would do more stuff like this. Just shatter precedent in a big way for a special character or card.
The only real stinker I can see is the ixalan card (You can tell they knew it was the worst of the cycle). I like pretty much every other card, even Elbrus.
The 6+ dumb ways to KO master of waves is pants on head deck design. Decks are solid enough to make the leave-out even more glaring. Also too much "Hey this card has a goblin/merfolk in the art, put it in hurr." It's crazy that the same company that makes commander decks also makes duel decks.
Is it a dragon? Does it look like a super saiyan version of a dragon? Then it's Kaijudo. (I love that Nira card as I loved Duel Masters back in the day).
I wasn't expecting any more casual dino cards (yeah I won't shut up about that deck), but I counted 6-7 new includes within this last spoiler. This will probably be my favorite set yet. I'm a sucker for dinos man.
Edit- and they made not One, but TWO fight cards with dinos in the art. Yasss.
@Rhyperior: Hey man. I totally feel you on the power difference between fungusaur and our cool new spinosaurus here. However, Strictly better is almost like a scientific term for many in the magic community. Like the word "theory" in science. It might sound like us forum goers are just being pedantic, but the term "strictly better" signifies something about the growth of the game in general. It's a more loaded than X is better than Y even though they do similar things. Imagine for a moment you were making a casual deck centered around enrage. For your curve, you might have Fungusaur at 4 (maybe just one because it's classic), then Snapping Sailback at 5. These two cards can both be played in the same deck, and a whole turn worth of difference is not trivial. Join us, and maybe you can school a player someday about what strictly better means
TLDR, yeah Fungusaur is WAAAAY worse than Snapping sailback, but this community expects you to use the term "strictly better" correctly.
It's the rule of cool happening here. It doesn't have to align with precedent or even logic for that matter as long as it is cool. It's just cool, so why not? I honestly wish magic would do more stuff like this. Just shatter precedent in a big way for a special character or card.
Edit- and they made not One, but TWO fight cards with dinos in the art. Yasss.
TLDR, yeah Fungusaur is WAAAAY worse than Snapping sailback, but this community expects you to use the term "strictly better" correctly.