Howdy Pardners, its that time again! The previews have arrived for Magic the Gathering's upcoming hundredth expansion, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, and we Pandemonioids (patent pending) are up to our bolo ties in hot takes. Join us for a quick tour of our favorite cards from the sandiest set since Amonkhet!

Oko, the Ringleader

Yes, we're starting with the boy, and yes we want to call him Four L-oko. Our first Oko card was so strong that he was banned in almost every format, so naturally we couldn't have broken in half part deux. This iteration of Oko is like what would happen if you made a Gideon card, but tried to make it interesting. Being able to turn your planeswalker into any critter you have is a great tempo play, and if you have no beastly five drop you'd like to give pseudo haste, Oko has a failsafe in making an Elk that he can mirror if need be. With a super fun ultimate, and Faithless Looting as his +1, this seems like a killer Simic tempo piece that keeps the pressure on if you build your board for the boy (it him, Oko, the boy.)

Tinybones, the Pickpocket

Another boy, back for round two! Its our favorite undead cutpurse, doing his famous Ragavan impression. While much more situational than that simian scallywag, Tinybones takes advantage of your opponent's refuse, making their descend/craft/collect evidence fodder work for you in this graveyard heavy meta. We could imagine him cracking into Pioneer perhaps, but probably not Moder

High Noon

This new lock piece for Boros, has all of us stirring. Not only does it throttle combos in their cribs, but it also has a super strong sac ability that can slice off a quarter of an opponent's starting life total. In the game where number go down, that one-two punch keeps the fight fair until you're ready to play dirty, and then its no holds barred bub. Pop it off on the endstep before your turn if you really want to make them wince.

Terror of the Peaks

Its the triumphant return of an all-star from Core Set 2021, Terror of the Peaks saw a lot of play with Omnath, Locus of Rage when they shared standard together. A formidable threat on its own, we think it'll have a much bigger impact than some of the other big ticket reprints that we've seen in the last two years.

Caustic Bronco

"Hey, what if we fixed Dark Confidant, and by fixed I mean what if we made him busted in half?" While the saddle mechanic is a rad remix of vehicle technology, the payoff for having a 3 power nerd riding this bronco is incredible! I'm personally considering it in standard, using all of those high cost commons that either have cost reducers or landcycling to soulburn my opponents out of matches. Will it work? I can't say. But will it be glorious? You bet your bottom dollar!

Basic Desert Pinglands

"Y'all ever hear of a desert cube?"

This ten-card cycle looks to be really efficient mana fixing at common, and at keeping the games on the clock. I'm not saying that these will be new Pauper all-stars (although a kid can dream, right,) but since lands that damage someone outside their own controller are few and far between, it'll be interesting to see how a game with 17-18 starting life will differ from one with 20.

But seriously, look up desert cubes and tell me you don't wanna brew something.

Loot, the Key to Everything

Recently called "MTG's Grogu," by PleasantKenobi, Loot is one of the special BIG SCORE cards (its kind of like the list, but different somehow,) and it has a huge effect where it impulsive draws anywhere between 1 and 5 cards at the beginning of your upkeep. Given the prevalence of pseudo draw in storm/prowess/spellslingers situations, this could either be a semi-squishy Temur commander, or a super oppressive control piece for modern and pioneer, where you keep your grip full while dishing out answers left and right.

Rodeo Pyromancers

This seems really good in pauper, especially with suspended or plotted or free spells, and hey, we'll have to see if that's a problem at 4 mana with 4 toughness. I'm excited to brew storm or eggs or egg storm with this, what about you?

Bristly Bill, Spine Sower

I have a sibling who runs +1/+1 counters decks whenever he can, and while he's never gotten his hands on doubling season, Bill feels like a good sideways take on similar effects as seen on Dragonsguard Elite and Biogenic upgrade, but on a stick and with a landfall trigger that seems awfully abusable in this Standard meta, let alone formats rife with fetch lands. Since the card is mono green, its easy to see this effect going off on turns 3 or 4, making a well set up board into a team of absolute units, or at the least one really buff Bill.

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds

There are 64 cards in standard right now that reference your upkeep, and while I haven't yet cracked what this synergizes with there, it seems very strong/weird. This is probably for all those Timey-Wimey commander folks who want a new angle for getting their suspenders off. But you gotta think, hey, they made her for standard, right?

Lost Jitte

I miss the old jitte

straight from the go jitte

chop up the soul jitte

but this is ok. like its actually probably good, its just not the jitte folks remember, and so there's been some back and forth about how awesome this card really is. I think if we'd never met Umezawa's Jitte, we'd be losing our minds right about now (especially in proliferate standard) but maybe that's just one cardboard addict's opinion.

What about you? What cards are you excited for, and in which formats? Everything looks stronk, but does any of it look broken in half at the hip? Let us know, either when you visit for our prerelease, happening April 12-18th, or when popping in to pick up your Thunder Junction preorders. Either way, say hey, and we'll say hey back. Its what we do. Yee-haw everybody!