This weekend, we had some previews of things from the upcoming Hobbit, Marvel and Reality Fracture sets. I figured that I’d talk about them for a bit.
Also, for set post-mortems, for new sets, I’m thinking that about a month out from when I post my articles (which I’m now aiming for the Monday after the set drop as my standard) is a good amount of time for post-hype excitement and enough time in the trenches to do one, so since my SoS cube review came out on 4/13/26, I’ll be doing a follow up on it… eventually.
Oh hey, previews. I’ll break them down by color.
White:
I’m unsure what the base rate for this card’s adventure mode is, especially since it’s a sorcery. Maybe it’s X=2, and then casting it after as its enchantment to guarantee some value? It just seems super middling.
It’s… a tutor but it ain’t cheap at 3 mana, and although there are a lot of legendary creatures that happen to be great, I do wonder how often it’ll emulate a creature tutor vs the times when you can’t get a Flametongue Kavu. The juice may be more on the front side as a draw engine but 5 mana’s pretty steep for that too these days, even with an anthem attached. Another speculative card that I don’t have a lot of hopes for.
I talk about this in the Marvel review. But tl;dr – I didn’t like it.
Blue:
In decks that can reliably uptick for card advantage, I’m a big fan. We occasionally see cards that uptick for cards – Chandra, Dressed to Kill, Domri Rade, Kaito Shizuki – all similarly provide cards conditionally, and being able to also use this to get mana’s pretty decent too. I’m guessing this’ll be fine out of 10.
Not bad, probably a fine looter. Switcheroo ain’t bad although I’ve not seen that take off in cubes before.
Dreadhorde Arcanist with some knobs tweaked (it’s legendary, can cast artifacts and any MV of instant or sorcery, but you have to pay the mana cost, although it’s discounted but can die more easily in combat.) Also apparently works with adventure? It’s likely an upgrade to Arcanist. Likely the best card in the preview dump.
Fact or Fiction tends to get brought up in conversations with these kinds of blue cards where someone splits up the cards, and another player determines the pile to take, but Fortune’s Favor introduced a wrinkle with unknown piles, which has been the formula these days. Understandably, Fortune’s Favor isn’t referenced that often because it isn’t a very known quantity.
During my Alchemy grinding days (Standard + Alchemy + LoTR), Grixis was by far the best deck, so my playtime with/against Sauron’s Ransom is likely in the 99.9th percentile. There’s some important distinctions between this and Sauron’s Ransom, aside from the ring text, mainly, that the opponent gets the last say in what you’d get.
My general experience with Sauron’s Ransom was that it was an instant speed draw 2, where you had some form of control over what you drew, where, if the pile with the revealed cards was mid, the better card(s) were face-down. My main concern is when you have times when you cast this with 1 “good card” and 3 mediocre/lands, since usually with Sauron’s Ransom, you could at least potentially play some mind game tricks with it (like putting a mediocre card in the 1-card hidden pile.) Thinking of this as more of a “bulk draw” card instead of being one with selection may be the right way to look at this, similar to a reverse Stock Up, which… doesn’t sound good. I’ll at least try it but don’t have high hopes.
Black:
If Emeritus of Woe requiring 2 creatures to refuel never happened during testing, I have no idea if this is remotely feasible even despite how good the prepared spell is.
This at least follows the pattern of “cheap adventure, equal or higher cost non-adventure” which tends to be where the better adventure cards have played (Questing Druid, Brazen Borrower, Bonecrusher Giant, Picklock Prankster – but not always, with cards like Hildibrand Manderville) but I’m weary of the 2-mana entry fee on Allure of Power. It is nice that, in cubes with monarch/initiative, this pretty much guarantees that a creature can always peck in damage.
Red:
As expected, I’ve seen a lot of comparisons between this and Snapcaster Mage, but I look at this as a worse version (can’t be used to counter things) but still good card that’s more offensive-oriented snappy but still very good and being a way to deal damage ala Philosophy of Fire. I saw some comparisons between this and Robber of the Rich and I think that’s a pretty good comp.
Pretty nutty if you have a treasure from something else but unsure exactly how good it is on its own as a 4-power hasty flier. It’s probably fine there, likely better than something like Rampaging Raptor. The upkeep treasure mode does have some nice upsides (can store treasures, can be useful for things that care about the artifact cardboard) but unsure how often it’ll matter.
update, 6/17/25: I’ve been able to see both of these red cards in action and they’ve both been great. They’ve played as expected, with Stingcaster Mage being a more offensive version of Snappy. It loses some utility by not being able to flash back counterspells on your turn, but I still just like the damage throughput so far. Smaug was in an undefeated Boros deck during Marvel testing and the drafter found it to be a very good finisher, even in decks without other treasure makers.
Green:
There wasn’t anything shown. 🙁
Other:
This feels like an alchemy card without the perpetual text, and my initial impression is that the 5 mana entry fee may be too much, although the potential upside of a kinda-Greater Good is nice, although requiring a mana is annoying. I’ll try it and end up disappointed by it.
Vision, Synthezoid Avenger and The Vision – I also talk about these in the Marvel review.
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