We’re nearing the first days of Preview Season for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and we’ve seen some incredible cards officially previewed. We’ve also seen some crazy cards that have been leaked out as well! While we don’t know if the leaked cards are even real, some things that Wizards is releasing in art makes it feel like they are real. Today, we have another card leaked that we’d hedge is real, given that we already have another card in the cycle.
DISCLAIMER: THIS CARD IS NOT OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED BY WIZARDS OF THE COAST, AND MAY NOT BE REAL!
Alright, let’s dive into this sweet new card!
Junji, the Midnight Sky
Welcome to the table Junji, The Midnight Sky! This is the Black dragon in the cycle, as we saw
Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
Flying, trample
When Atsushi dies, choose one —
• Exile the top two cards of your library. Until the end of your next turn, you may play those cards.
• Create three Treasure tokens.
previewed already to introduce the cycle. This dragon has some sweet abilities that make it great for commander. Flying and Menace on a 5/5 body is a great start, but really the death triggers are what’s awesome.
The first trigger choice is that each opponent discards two cards and loses 2 life. The card advantage here is the big benefit, forcing your opponents into a potentially rough decision point. The other trigger is to return a non-Dragon creature from ANY graveyard to the battlefield under your control and you lose 2 life. This is the real beef of this ability. Reanimating basically anything from any graveyard is a really big.
What Commanders Are Good for Junji?
There’s a couple of commanders that I could see really wanting Junji.
First off is
Teysa Karlov
Teysa Karlov
If a creature dying causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.
Creature tokens you control have vigilance and lifelink.
. Doubling up on Junji’s Death triggers feels like a great idea. While you wouldn’t get to pick the other ability, getting to double up on both of these abilities can be devastating to your opponents.
The other place that Junji would shine is in
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Whenever another creature you control dies, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step, choose target creature card in your graveyard. If that card's mana value is less than or equal to the number of experience counters you have, return it to the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand.
. Being able to sacrifice and reanimate Junji with ease, really abusing the death triggers makes a ton of sense to me. Additionally, in the same vein, Junji also makes sense to play in
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
This spell costs {1} less to cast for each creature card in your graveyard.
Once during each of your turns, you may cast a creature spell from your graveyard.
. Often times, both of these decks will be playing some premium non-dragon creatures, so being able to reanimate them and your opponent’s creatures is awesome.
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What do you think about Junji? What decks would you want to put it in? Let us know in the comments!