The last couple of years have seen a huge rise in the number of double-faced cards in Magic. What used to be almost entirely saved for cards like Werewolves, is something we’re seeing all over the place now in a vast array of different forms and functions, and it’s cool to see the design space evolving a bit.
While a lot of these have been great to see, the examples we’ve seen so far in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty are some of the most exciting yet. We’re not sure they’re all going to be winners, but they definitely offer up some fun ideas and have a good bit of potential too.
This saga is a creature now… surprise?
Sagas are an inherently interesting card type. Enchantments are fun anyway, but giving them weird multi-layered effects is a great way of playing around with what they can and should do. However, it’s always felt a bit like some of them needed recursion to be worthwhile, and that’s not always worth the hassle.
Neon Dynasty switches things up by having these sagas tell the tales of characters we actually all remember from the last visit to Kamigawa, and then having those sagas actually turn into versions of those creatures. It’s an excellent way to keep the spirit (pun intended) of the original set alive, while also introducing the more modern take on MTG.
It’s also a great way to have these sagas feel even more impactful. Take Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, for example, which is a three-mana saga that creates a Goblin Shaman initially, then lets you draw cards, and then transforms into a slightly less broken version of the one and only Kiki-Jiki called Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. It’s just a really cool way to use this card type in a way that actually feels historic, and it’s not often we’ve felt as though the game gets the passage of time right, so it’s nice to see.
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