Set Prospective
Neon Dynasty Commander
This article is one of our set prospectives, a series in which we survey the Cube community about the cards they intend to play in their cubes from a particular set. Our survey is conducted between the set’s full-spoiler and official release and is meant to measure and document Cube designers’ first impressions of new cards.
The companion set to Magic’s first cyberpunk expansion, Neon Dynasty Commander offers several new cards among two preconstructed decks. We surveyed the Cube community on any NEC cards they’re testing, collecting 50 responses from a subset of those who responded to the main set survey.
Cube curators are testing a median of one card from NEC and gave that card an average rating of 2.3. It’s pretty clear that there’s a standout in this set, putting Swift Reconfiguration of NEC on similar standing with Ethereal Forager of C21.
Swift Reconfiguration was tested more than 60% of those who filled out the NEC survey (a sample size roughly 5x smaller than the main set survey). Its high rank of 2.3 puts it among cards from the main set like Kaito Shizuki and Containment Construct, which saw strong niche appeal despite a low overall number of testers, but it is tested by much fewer people. Proponents of Swift Reconfiguration will likely value the ability to “kill” opposing creatures while also protecting their own creatures whose power is located in non-combat abilities.
“Shorikai, Genesis Engine is likely the biggest sleeper of Neon Dynasty. Its ability to dodge removal while creating value makes it a stronger engine than even many Planeswalkers.”
Heir apparent to Isamaru as the samurai’s best friend, Yoshimaru offers a strong statline in contexts like Commander and legends-matter environments, but did not see significant test rates among our respondents.
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