Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) Limited Primer: Multicolor, Colorless, and Lands

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ) will hold its prerelease events on April 12, 2024, and officially release a week later on April 19, 2024. Want to know more about card ratings for Limited and some potentially fun synergies? Then check out this series of OTJ Limited primers!

For the mechanics, see this article: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Mechanics Explained

Rating Scale

5.0: Unconditional must-pick
4.0: First-pick quality
3.5: Strong enough, but not necessarily a first pick
3.0: Above average (you will really want it in your final deck)
2.5: Average, maybe around the 6th or 7th pick in a draft
2.0 to 1.0: Below average (you’d rather not play it than play it)
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable (basically don’t play it; it will only help you lose)

Multicolor

A tally of the main categories of the 51 multicolor cards in this series:

• Three-color R / MR legends: 10
• Two-color R legends: 10
• Two-color U legends: 10 (echoing the draft approach for each color pair)
• Two-color U cards: 10 (echoing the draft approach for each color pair)
• Other single cards for two- or three-color groups: 10 (including 4 legendary enchantments matching the 4 mythic legendary creatures, 5 two-color instants / sorceries, and 1 white-blue mythic equipment)
• R legendary creature with four colored mana requirements: 1 (the black-red Scorpion Dragon)

cephille: 3.5

A 5/5 flying trampling Scorpion Dragon with four colored mana requirements. The color requirements are so heavy that even in a straight black-red deck it won’t necessarily arrive on time on turn four, which cost it some points. The ability’s price is a bit high, but there is a chance to sacrifice three little guys to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon to put a high-cost or color-screwed fatty from your hand onto the battlefield. It may be useful, but in Limited, where creatures are king, trading three for one may not be so great.

cephille: 3.5

A six-mana 4/5 with flash and three colored mana requirements. When she enters, she digs for a permanent with mana value 3 or less to put onto the battlefield tapped, and whenever she becomes tapped, you exile the top two cards of your library and may play them this turn. Getting two for one on entering is basically no loss and may give you an advantageous blocker, and next turn, when you attack, saddle, or crew, you can impulse-draw extra cards. But note that her second ability exiles two cards whenever she becomes tapped, and this is not optional. So when the opponent taps your Annie on their turn, unless those two cards are instants or have flash, it effectively just exiles the top two cards of your library, so keep that interaction in mind in Limited.

cephille: 2.5

A four-mana legendary enchantment with three colored mana requirements. On entering, it deals 5 damage to an opposing creature or planeswalker, which is really a far cry from the other excellent red removal spells (once again it’s you, Scorching Shot, your presence is just too bright!). The second part, letting a legendary creature’s triggered abilities trigger an additional time, depends too much on synergy. If the same pack had other good mono-colored removal, I wouldn’t take it, so I can only give it an average score.

cephille: 4.0

A creature-only equipment version of Touch the Spirit Realm. Then, paying two mana to equip lets it become the creature exiled by the equipment, which is like spending five mana to grab the opponent’s big threat for yourself, and that is quite powerful. Don’t forget it can also exile a creature you control, which may have wonderful uses at the right moment!

cephille: 3.0

A three-mana enchantment. On your turn, Outlaws have first strike, and when you commit a crime you can create a 1/1 red Mercenary (Outlaw). Although it can only trigger once per turn, if the opportunity arises we can take multiple copies of this enchantment and repeatedly commit crimes on our own turn and the opponent’s turn to build up an Outlaw army!

cephille: 3.0

A five-mana spell that digs up a permanent from the graveyard and returns it to hand, well suited to a black-green deck that excels at grinding out long games.

cephille: 3.0

A four-mana 3/4. Whenever you create one or more tokens each turn, you can create an additional black 1/1 Vampire with lifelink. Although it triggers only once per turn, that’s enough. There is also an activated ability that lets you pay two mana to sacrifice another creature or artifact to draw a card. In a token deck it will be an important payoff, but if you aren’t, you don’t have to play it.

cephille: 5.0

A six-mana 6/5 Giant with reach. It enters with a giant ox whose power and toughness equal the number of lands you control… uh… so that means at least 12 power for six mana, and one of them keeps getting bigger? Okay, let’s keep reading: when you attack, you can draw a card and then put a land card from your graveyard or hand onto the battlefield… Hmm, wonderful! I arrive on time on turn six to make 12 power on the board, and if I have a creature that can attack that turn, when I attack I can draw a card, maybe keep ramping, and my ox gets even bigger…

If Izoni, Center of the Web was the apex bomb of MKM, then this blue-green six-drop is likely the king of OTJ bombs. I hope I’m the one who opens it and the opponent doesn’t have it, or has it but can’t reach six mana. In Limited, when I face this card from an opponent, aside from a sweeper or two removal spells, I don’t know how I can win…

cephille: 3.0

With Malcolm here, how could Breeches, Eager Pillager be absent? A three-mana 3/3 with menace. Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, you may sacrifice an artifact; if you do, flip a coin, and if you win, copy that spell; if you lose, that’s okay, since you can deal damage to any target equal to the sacrificed artifact’s mana value. Considering that the artifacts in a blue-red deck are probably zero-mana ones like Treasures, it’s still worth a gamble. Winning the flip and copying a spell is quite attractive.

cephille: 3.5

Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder from Commander 2016 is a great partner for a herd of oxen! A four-mana 4/3 that exiles the top card of your library when it enters or attacks. If it’s a land, you create a 2/2 Ox (which gains double strike from Bruse Tarl’s static ability!). If it’s a nonland card, you may cast it until the end of your next turn. Both outcomes are profitable, and you only need to protect your Bruse Tarl carefully, and soon he will lead his herd to trample your opponent!

cephille: 3.5

A four-mana 4/4 with reach and ward (2) that gives other creatures with power 4 or greater trample and haste. Its excellent stats and its ability to make later attacks more aggressive are so Gruul!

This fighting cactus keeps reminding me of Contra XD

cephille: 2.5

A three-mana 1/4 flier with lifelink. If it’s saddled, it gets at least +1/+1 when attacking (it is itself a mount). Unfortunately, saddle 3 is a bit demanding, and without other mounts it is basically just a 1/4 lifelink flier that is much better at blocking than attacking.

cephille: 2.5

A great partner for plotting and flashback!

cephille: 2.5

Eriette of the Charmed Apple continues to use her deadly charm in Thunder Junction! A four-mana 4/4 lifelinker with three colored mana requirements is quite good. However, although her ability looks very powerful at first glance, unfortunately OTJ + OTP have only the 4 Aura cards shown below, and judging by the color combination and the Auras themselves, they aren’t a good fit with Eriette. Turning a pile of Auras into Mind Control will probably have to wait for another format. So she is just a four-mana 4/4 lifelink creature, and you shouldn’t need to splash into three colors for her.

cephille: 3.0

A four-mana 2/4 that enters with a 1/1 Mercenary. Played onto an empty board, at worst it gives your Mercenaries an extra +1/+0 every time they activate; paired with a few cards with activated abilities that target a creature or player, it should be quite good. Fortunately she isn’t in the blue-red or black-red color pairs, or the synergy with the commit-a-crime theme might be too strong.

cephille: 2.5

This is how red-white Mercenaries build an army. Any deck in this color pair, or touching either red or white, that needs to produce lots of tokens to gain an advantage can play it (for example, with cards like Kambal, Profiteering Mayor or Laughing Jasper Flint, you can consider splashing red/white and playing this sorcery to chase a higher ceiling). However, judging by its value for creating tokens, X likely needs to be at least 3 to be worth it; if you play this color pair and get stuck on three or four lands with a hand full of this card, it is a bit awkward.

cephille: 2.0

Ghired, Conclave Exile, who debuted in Commander 2019, also makes an appearance in Standard. A three-mana 3/3 with haste and three colored mana requirements. If you can’t play it on time on turn three, its value from an attacking perspective drops a lot. The static ability gives your nontoken creatures an additional tap ability to create a token that entered under your control this turn. If you play red-white Mercenaries, red-green Treasures, or other token-producing strategies, you can consider splashing a third color for extra resources, but it is still mostly the icing on the cake.

cephille: 5.0

The Gitrog Monster gets better with every version. A five-mana 6/5 with haste is already powerful enough, and after it connects you can sacrifice the creature saddling it. If you do, you draw X cards equal to the sacrificed creature’s power, and put up to X lands from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. Just connecting once and drawing a pile is already a huge profit, and you can often do it multiple times. The Gitrog Monster is invincibly strong, and I hope I get to open one in Limited too!

cephille: 3.5

Old Rutstein opens a brand-new shop in Thunder Junction! A three-mana 3/2 that far outclasses his senior Gravedigger, and his static ability that makes your creature spells cost one less is very noticeable in Limited. If you see him and your deck touches at least black or green, grab him. You won’t be disappointed!

cephille: 1.5

Could you be the long-lost brother of Disinformation Campaign? Although discarding is replaced by each opponent losing one life while you gain one, which is much weaker (so this enchantment entering the battlefield doesn’t make you commit a crime), committing a crime is still much easier than surveilling. I think it is still a payoff card for blue-black or Grixis decks that care a lot about the commit-a-crime mechanic. However, note that the current Limited format is faster and its cards are stronger than the Guilds of Ravnica (GRN) Limited of the time. Whether this card is too slow in OTJ Limited or its tempo is actually acceptable needs further verification.

cephille: 3.0

A four-mana 3/3 flier with vigilance and decent stats. Combined with plotting or impulse-draw effects it can also draw cards, and reliably gaining an extra card or two is great value.

cephille: 3.0

A three-mana 4/2 isn’t great by itself; she should be paired with other red-green creatures with power 4 or greater to make Treasures. She can make them on her own too, but once she attacks she probably won’t come back. Interestingly, if the opponent has two 1/1s and you attack with her, you can sacrifice the Treasure created after attacking to kill one of the 1/1s and keep her alive; likewise she can trade with an opposing x/5 creature this way. When you’ve made enough Treasures you can also use her to finish the game or as a Treasure machine gun to shoot down the opponent’s little guys. She’s the type with poor stats but a helpful ability, so I’ll give her an above-average score for now.

Jolene, the Plunder Queen from the new Capenna Commander deck learned a new move in Thunder Junction: the Rozan Rising Dragon Fist! And the thing behind her is a snake-horse, so the whole composition is quite incongruous and pretty funny XDD

cephille: 3.5

Kambal, Consul of Allocation was a real jerk when he first debuted in Kaladesh, and this time is no exception. A three-mana 2/4 is already top-tier stats, and whenever you or an opponent creates a token, it creates a huge advantage for you. It is suited to building around by creating lots of tokens to make the opponent lose a lot of life, and the first time each turn the opponent makes a token, not only do you get a free tapped copy, but they also lose another life. It’s the kind of card that may not necessarily lock up the win, but draws maximum hate. Before making tokens, the opponent has to consider the consequences of letting you freeload. And if your opponent doesn’t notice its effect… then congratulations, you’ve made a killing!

cephille: 3.0

Plotting a card with mana value 3 or less on entering is already quite good, and when your deck has enough legendary creatures, every one that enters puts a +1/+1 counter on your whole team! If the card plotted on entering is a legendary creature, it can start working next turn. Taking this enchantment and then collecting enough legendary creatures should be a powerful draft approach. Even if the colors are wrong, as long as the cost is three or less, you can still plot and cast it with this enchantment, which is quite potent!

cephille: 3.0

A three-mana 3/3 flying lifelinker with three colored mana requirements is very strong. But its ability looks like it needs to link with plotting or other impulse-draw mechanics in Limited, and when it triggers successfully you can cast from hand a permanent card with total mana value equal to or less than that spell, and if you don’t, you may instead put a land onto the battlefield.

Uh… I really don’t think this passive ability is very profitable in Limited. First you have to plot, and you also need the right cards in hand, which is not easy to pull off as a way to gain resources; and even if it works, merely putting a land onto the battlefield isn’t that great. So this card’s score is stats plus ability: not bad, but not worth a first pick, and don’t forget it has three colored mana requirements, so it may not come down on time on turn three.

Kellan found his father after a long search but his wish went unfulfilled. That’s okay, we already knew your old man was no good. It’s truly gratifying that he didn’t turn to the dark side by touching black, what a good kid.

cephille: 3.0

A four-mana 2/3 flier, on the edge of passable. Later, if you can do two things in one turn, it grows and draws cards. Triggering it even once is great, but if you can’t, it’s more ordinary. But the Izzet pair should still be able to trigger its ability fairly easily, so I’ll give it a higher score for now.

Judging from the background story, this guy was sent by Ludevic from Innistrad to disgust his old flame Geralf.

cephille: 4.0

A three-mana 4/3. If it survives the turn, starting from your next upkeep it starts stealing from the opponent (NTR-style), and if you cast their creatures this way, they can become your endless Mercenary battalion, growing your number of Outlaws more and more! The opponent must remove it on the very turn it is cast, or else they’re waiting to be snowballed by their own cards until they lose! The pity is that you can’t use the opponent’s lands, which is worth noting in Limited.

Also worth noting, this card has a small combo with Obeka, Splitter of Seconds: with two upkeeps each turn, the lizardman’s ability triggers twice, and after a few turns the opponent’s library will be empty.

cephille: 3.5

A three-mana 1/4. When you commit a crime, you can put a +1/+1 counter on it, exile any card from a graveyard, and if it’s a creature, become that creature. As long as you keep it alive and keep committing crimes, it should bring you a nice payoff!

When will the mystery surrounding Dimir’s spymaster Lazav finally reach the main storyline?

cephille: 3.5

A three-mana 3/3 whose prowess easily gets a boost in the Izzet pair, and when you cast a multicolored instant or sorcery from your hand, instead of putting it into the graveyard after it resolves, you can plot it to cast again next turn? The ability looks super strong, but there are only 5 multicolored sorceries/instants in the OTJ main set. But don’t forget that OTP + BIG have a total of 24 more multicolored instants/sorceries! Let’s study this card’s overall ceiling!

Of the 29 multicolored instants/sorceries across Limited OTJ + OTP + BIG, after removing the 3 counterspells that can’t benefit from Lilah’s ability (Ionize, Hindering Light, Voidslime), among the remaining 26 instants/sorceries, 2 are usable with exactly red-blue, 12 are usable with red-blue plus one other color (including 1 card for the Grixis color group, Cruel Ultimatum), and another 12 can only be used if you play four or more colors. Considering most red-blue or red-blue-plus-one cards are only uncommons, and OTP is a separate pack slot, if you see this legend early in a draft, you might try building around her with a red-blue-plus-one spells approach!

cephille: 3.0

A five-mana sorcery that draws three isn’t much, but what if one of them could be plotted to cast for free next turn? The ceiling is quite high in constructions with high-cost spells, and at worst it at least lets you cast the highest-cost card among the three you see for free.

cephille: 3.5

The new Malcolm, a two-mana 2/2 flier with haste that fits the Outlaw theme and explores when you cast your second spell each turn. It suits low-curve Izzet decks, and coming down on time on turn two can put real pressure on the opponent!

cephille: 3.0

Marchesa, the Black Rose, who first debuted in Conspiracy, doesn’t miss the Outlaw festival in Thunder Junction either! Leaving aside the excellent stats of a three-mana 3/4 with three colored mana requirements, whenever you commit a crime you can pay an additional one to do a Nagging Thoughts. Don’t forget, the Grixis color group is naturally very good at committing crimes, and the new Marchesa lets you earn a steady stream of card resources on top of your crimes. If not for the three colored mana requirements, it would deserve a 4.0.

cephille: 3.0

A two-mana 3/2 that also gives your Mounts and Vehicles hexproof on your turn, and grows when it attacks. If you play the green-white pair and have already taken some good Vehicles and Mounts, she is a must-pick. With 3 power she is also a great source for crewing/saddling.

cephille: 2.0

Obeka, who also debuted in Commander 2019, has come to Thunder Junction too. A four-mana 2/5 with menace is great stats, but the three colored mana requirements make it harder to cast. Her ability gives you extra upkeep steps after combat equal to the damage she dealt to the opponent. This usually isn’t an effect built for Limited, and in most cases I wouldn’t want her in my deck.

cephille: 5.0

The dreaded Oko, Thief of Crowns is back! This time, though the casting cost is lowered to four and the starting loyalty is 3, its power is still off the charts. It has a static ability that lets it become a copy of target creature I control, and it also has hexproof. [+1] draws two and discards two, or discards one if you’ve committed a crime; [-1] makes a 3/3 Elk; [-5] can copy any nonland permanent other than Oko himself (and with no restriction to nontoken!), a solid bomb!

cephille: 3.5

A two-mana sorcery that looks at four and takes one is already deep enough, and as your lands increase it can become nearly a Demonic Tutor, which is a bit outrageous. As for the plot ability, it’s hard to see what the point of putting it on this card is, so just treat it as a bonus!

cephille: 3.0

A five-mana creature that digs from the graveyard and also grows by two sizes, and a legendary creature dying deals damage to the opponent equal to its power, which should trigger at least once. Overall the value is not bad.

cephille: 4.5

A five-mana 6/5 flying trampler is top-notch. This time, besides being able to sacrifice another creature to give Rakdos indestructible until end of turn, whenever you sacrifice a creature you can exile the top cards of any player’s library, a number equal to the sacrificed creature’s power, and you may play them until your next end step, as long as you can pay for them.

Our muscleman Rakdos, aka the Ravnica brawl king and flying divine beast, lives up to his reputation! This ability lets you use cards from the top of both your own library and the opponent’s, truly representative of the black-red pair, a dashing real man who is both pure and NTR… (muted)

cephille: 2.5

A three-mana 3/3 legendary creature with three colored mana requirements. When you cast a modal spell, choose up to X, where X is the number of modes chosen for that spell:

• Exile the top card of your library. Until the end of your next turn, you may play it;
• Put a +1/+1 counter on Riku and it gains trample until end of turn;
• Create a 1/1 blue Bird creature token with flying.

This clearly goes with the Spree mechanic to earn more advantage. If your deck has lots of Spree cards, it might be close to 4.0 in power; if not, it’s just a three-mana 3/3.

What is a modal spell? Here is an unprofessional explanation: a modal spell is one that has two or more options to choose from:

• Charms: for example Izzet Charm
• Commands: for example Cryptic Command
• Confluences: for example Mystic Confluence
• Escalate: for example Collective Brutality
• Spree: there are many in this series, for example Final Showdown
• Other spells with a choose-one-of-two or choose-one-of-three: for example Crux of Fate, Pick Your Poison, and so on
• But for cards like Farewell, Sublime Epiphany, or Casualties of War that can choose up to four or five options, since Riku of Many Paths does not say you can choose the same mode multiple times, even if you choose four or more modes, you can still only choose each of the three modes Riku gives you once at most.

By the way, looking at the art, you’d never guess this version of Riku is the original Riku of Two Reflections.

cephille: 4.0

A cute kitty! A five-mana 4/3 that creates a tapped Meteorite when it enters or attacks, knocking out a blocker and continuing to ramp! Her passive effect lets created Meteorite or Treasure tokens tap for two mana of any combination of colors, so with her around you can basically try the five-color legends league.

cephille: 3.5

A three-mana 3/2 that sacrifices another creature on entering, letting you trade small for big. Pity it can’t sacrifice itself, but that basically makes it a three-mana sorcery-speed catch-all answer. Even so it is still very strong, and I would definitely play it in white-black.

cephille: 2.5

If you have enough cards with plot, it should be worth a higher score, but if you don’t, in Limited it’s just a two-mana 2/3 with menace.

Each of Satoru Umezawa’s effects is a bit awkward with the ninjutsu mechanic… worthy of a runaway ninja!

cephille: 4.5

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds’s mana-burst ability has always been great, and this time is no exception. A four-mana 4/5 with vigilance is top-of-the-top stats, and casting a creature spell also creates a red 1/1 Mercenary token as a bonus. If you cast a common 2-to-3-power creature and Selvala is no longer summoning sick, you can at least burst out 3 mana.

cephille: 3.5

A two-mana 2/2 first strike lifelink Mount, and saddle 4 even creates a 3/3 Angel!? It is itself a good partner for pumping up with auras, and in the midgame saddling it can create a flier for air combat, which is quite strong!

cephille: 2.5

A two-mana red-blue Shock is nothing special, but in the mid to late game, with enough mana, or paired with a plot card used the previous turn, drawing a card is OK.

cephille: 2.0

In Limited she is just a two-mana 2/3. Of course, you can try to pick up more damage-dealing removal spells and permanents when drafting, but don’t expect to draw cards from her XD

cephille: 3.0

Vial Smasher the Fierce makes a dashing entrance! A two-mana 3/2 is a quality aggressive creature, and paired with red and black cards that create Mercenaries and Rogues to build an Outlaws-themed deck, it should rack up a big pile of damage quickly.

cephille: 2.0

Vraska’s signature enchantment. When it enters, you can put a deathtouch counter on each creature you control, and when your legendary creatures connect with the opponent you can draw cards. I think it’s a win-more kind of card, since your deck needs lots of legendary creatures, you may have to play three or more colors, and playing a bunch of poorly synergistic legendary creatures just for this card’s draw effect may actually lower the deck’s consistency. Although deathtouch counters have value in combat, if you don’t have many creatures or they’ve all been removed, this enchantment’s effect becomes very poor.

cephille: 3.0

The body is a three-mana 3/3 deathtouch, which passes. Her ability needs more setup, but her presence makes things much more of a headache for the opponent in combat. Whether they can accept having their creatures grabbed to gain an enter-the-battlefield ability when they die is a question, and you can use removal spells to optimize this effect proactively (note, though, that if the opponent’s dying creature is a token, Vraska’s ability won’t trigger).

Vraska seems to have shed Phyresis, but also lost her spark.

cephille: 2.0

A card that’s a bit hard to evaluate. A five-mana 1/4 with flash is completely failing, but she seems to go with the plot theme, encouraging you to use lots of cards with plot to cast spells from exile while creating 2/2 flying Spirit tokens to add pressure on the board.

cephille: 2.5

A three-mana 4/2 with vigilance has somewhat subtle stats; to gain life and draw cards you first have to find a way to tap it, so it seems to be meant for saddling Mounts.

Artifacts

cephille: 2.0

At first glance it’s a very common three-mana ramp artifact, but as long as your deck has enough sources to trigger commit a crime, it can also become a slower source of card resources. It isn’t very strong, but it’s playable.

cephille: 2.5

Eight mana to blow up a land and a creature (considering the artifact bombs in OTP and BIG, an additional artifact-removal effect is even better). Although it’s a bit slow, if you have ramp sources to activate its ability as soon as possible, it should be very profitable, and it’s a card I want to explore uses for.

cephille: 2.0

It gives you a Treasure on entering for a one-shot ramp, and the equip cost is cheap, making it a decent filler, and if your deck needs to sacrifice artifacts, you can consider one copy.

cephille: 2.0

A variant of Swiftfoot Boots. Although hexproof became ward (1), which is considerably weaker, it at least adds +1 power, so one copy in a more aggressive deck should be fine.

cephille: 3.0

A five-mana Vehicle with crew 1 and 6/5 stats is a playable card. When attacking, it creates Treasures equal to the number of creatures that crewed it, so if you need to burst out mana you can crew with a few more creatures, and that flexibility is quite nice.

cephille: 2.5

When your deck has enough Mounts, it’s even worth an extra 0.5 points. A two-mana 3/3 Vehicle with crew 2 that even gives you a chance at a small ramp; it should be worth building a Mount-centered creature deck around it.

cephille: 2.0

Ramp, life gain, and a creature all in one, for only three mana! But in essence it is still filler-level strength.

cephille: 1.5

A three-mana 2/4 defender that can’t attack. In the mid to late game it can blow up a land to draw cards, but by then creating Treasures should no longer be critical. Sideboard material.

cephille: 2.5

On entering, it can put a basic land or Desert on top of your library (optional), and it is itself a Mercenary, so it also links with the Outlaw theme. A two-mana 1/2 has unremarkable stats, but you can always find a use for it.

cephille: 2.0

A three-mana 3/2 that surveils 2 on entering, a decent filler.

cephille: 1.5

This card’s strength depends on whether this set is fast or slow. If it’s fast, a body with 4 toughness can block most early creatures and let you drag the game into the late game, which should be fine in slower color pairs like blue-black. If the set’s speed is on the slow side, it shouldn’t make the main deck, and you should play other cards with higher value.

The ability is to pay two mana to put a card from a graveyard on the bottom of the library; by the time it gives you an advantage the game is usually very late, and in general it won’t excite anyone. Of course, if you face a weird deck that wins by milling, it will be your lifesaver.

Lands

cephille: 1.5

A bounce Desert! The potential of this card in Constructed is worth exploring, but let’s set that aside here. In Limited, a land entering tapped is fine, but bouncing a land and stalling your own tempo is hard to accept. Also, this Desert taps for colorless mana, which is awkward in a multicolor environment. Of course, if you can build a Desert-themed deck, this land lets you reuse your own Deserts and surveil 1, a small payoff, but the tempo should still be rather clunky.

cephille: 2.5

A Desert that can surveil 1 on entering, and it itself produces colorless or fixes colors. Play it if you need to; it should perform even better in a Desert theme.

cephille: 2.5

Although it can fix the color you’re currently missing, it must enter tapped, which stalls tempo somewhat, and compared with the two-color crime deserts of the same set it is still weaker, but if your fixing is lacking you can still main-deck it.

cephille: 3.0

By sacrificing four lands in total, you can make a creature unable to block. In a more aggressive deck I’d be happy to play one as a breakthrough in combat. It has the Desert type itself, which also links with some themes in this set, so I gave it an above-average score.

cephille: 3.0

It is itself a Desert, and becomes quite good when your deck has five or more Mounts. The ability activated at three mana not only has a chance to put a Mount into your hand but is also a mana sink in the mid to late game, letting you look at the top card of your library and filter it away.

cephille: 3.0

In an environment with a certain share of multicolor cards, excellent two-color fixing lands like fastlands get a 3.0 from me at the start of release. And even in situations where they must enter tapped, since you will still have plenty of basic lands to pair with in Limited, entering tapped doesn’t hurt the mid-to-late-game tempo too much.

At long last, our Standard format finally has all 10 colors of fastlands to use. I’m moved…

cephille: 3.0

Besides completing the five enemy-color fastlands, this set also has 10 two-color Deserts, all of which deal 1 damage to the opponent on entering, and this effect happens to link with this set’s mechanic commit a crime, so these 10 two-color lands also have a nickname: “crime deserts.”

Basically, all two-color fixing lands are worth 3.0, and considering that a single land can pair with both commit a crime and the Desert theme, these two-color Deserts may deserve an even higher pick order in a draft.

Conclusion

The multicolor cards of Outlaws of Thunder Junction should be quite fun to use in Limited, but I’m still a bit worried that cards with three or more colors will be unplayable because of fixing difficulties. When drafting, picking fixing may become even more important in pick order, and taking Treasures or other fixing means will also matter more for two-color decks that need to splash a third color. I hope everyone has fun in the coming OTJ Limited season!

This time, multicolor, artifacts, and lands total 82 cards

• Average score is 2.9
• Highest score is 5.0
• Lowest score is 1.0