New sets are always the most enjoyable part of Magic: the Gathering.

The addition of new game pieces is one of the core features that separates Magic from many other games, as the game is a living, breathing entity that is constantly evolving. New cards get to take you places you haven't been before, forcing you to have to adept and evaluate and not just rely on old heuristics.

However, a big part of a new set release is not only the cards that are in the new set, but how they affect the cards that are already in a format. Standard is currently six sets deep, meaning there are a lot of cards and themes currently legal in the format already. However, because there hasn't been a new release in a while the metagame is fairly formulated at this point. Lots of things have tried, but the format has galvanized into what it currently is. There are occasionally decks that creep up later in a metagame cycle (see Grixis Ramp from last Monday), but once a format is established and the top decks are ironed out, it usually stays as such until the next release.

Of course, a large part of a set release is the influx of new cards, but what's also important is how this effects the cards already in the format. There are plenty of themes and cards that were almost there from previous sets, but just didn't quite make it. It only might take a few (or even one) new cards to help push those cards and themes over the edge into relevance.

So, what should you be watching out for?

Artifacts!

Artifacts have been a major theme of both The Brothers' War as well as Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, but aside from the aforementioned Grixis Ramp deck, most of the artifact synergy hasn't really come to fruition yet. This is a bit surprising and probably can't hold.

Artifacts are historically the most powerful card type in the game, and almost every time there has been an artifact-focused set it has caused something to get banned one way or another (Tolarian Academy, Memory Jar, Seat of the Synod, Skullclamp, Mox Opal, etc). This doesn't necessarily mean that there is or is going to be a card of bannable power level, but just that the generic and flexible nature of artifacts always makes them a card type to watch.

Planeswalkers like Saheeli, Filigree Master and Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh require some deck-building finesse, but both are pretty great payoffs for playing artifacts in a format where it isn't always the easiest to remove a planeswalker. They both draw cards, make threats, and have attainable ultimate abilities. With cards like Voltage Surge and Third Path Iconoclast to defend them, the tools are certainly there if it gets a few more pieces. Even something like Urza's Command can be very powerful if the correct critical mass of playable artifacts is hit, and having access to counterspells to stop Farewell is also big game.

*Cue Billy Mays voice*

But wait there's more!

More Artifacts!

The Blue and Red artifact cards lean a bit more controlling, but there are also a lot of great aggressive artifact-based cards in Green and White. Patchwork Automaton has already seen lots of play in Modern and Pioneer as a hard to kill scaling threat, but it definitely requires a hardcore commitment to playing tons of artifacts. Teething Wurmlet and Yotian Dissident also have the same sort of scaling power, and don't requiring the casting of an artifact spell meaning they work better with tokens and unearth.

Aggressive artifact decks also have a long history of success in in Magic, but they absolutely need to hit critical mass as they are almost always decks that are more than the sum of their parts. Throw another cheap creature threat or excellent one or two mana artifact or two here and we might be talking.

Proliferate was also a major mechanic the last time we did Phyrexian stuff, which plays excellently with +1/+1 counters, which is also a possible avenue. There's crossover into some modified stuff like Kodama of the West Tree, which is the kind of cross-synergy that usually makes good decks hum.

Zombies!

It may surprise you, but all the zombie stuff in the Innistrad sets is still legal in Standard!

Zombies never got off the ground in Standard because they just never really got all the way there. Champion of the Perished is an A+ 1-drop, perhaps one of the best in Standard on raw power level, but the lack of at least one more good 1-drop, as well as another big exciting reason to play Zombies like Cryptbreaker or Dark Salvation, just doesn't make the juice worth the squeeze. Which stinks honestly, cause Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia is one of the coolest cards printed in the last few years.

This has honestly been a rather endemic issue of many themes in Standard sets in recent years, where there's a lot of really cool stuff happening, but not enough to come together and make a competitive deck; party, landfall, allies, reconfigure, modified... the list goes on and on.

Still, with another good 1-drop and a few good payoffs, Zombies could go from nothing to something pretty quick.

Flash!

While not nearly as common of a theme as artifacts matter or Zombies, there's actually a surprising amount of awesome flash cards in Blue and White in Standard.

Obviously, a card like The Wandering Emperor is just great in general, but it gets substantially better when surrounded by other instant speed cards to put your opponent in a real bind. Protect the Negotiators is a nice mix of go wide and counterspell, while the underrated Overcharged Amalgam can get in on the same sort of plan. Even the casualty mechanic on Make Disappear and A Little Chat fits into this mold.

If there were to be some excellent one- or two-mana flash card or enabler and maybe some sort of good removal spell, we could have a really awesome Standard deck on our hands.

And That's Not All!

Frankly, there's just far too many possible themes to go over in just this article alone that could make waves if given the proper tools. There's still lifegain stuff like Voice of the Blessed, five color things like The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest and all the domain cards from Dominaria United, heroic or aura type things with cards like Stormchaser Drake and Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice, good build around planeswalkers like Chandra, Dressed to Kill, fun graveyard stuff like Deathbonnet Sprout // Deathbonnet Hulk and Urborg Lhurgoyf, and big five color human stuff like Jodah, the Uniifer, as well as a bunch more.

This is why it is super important that in your excitement looking over all the new card previews for this or any new set, that you don't stop for a moment and think about the tools you already have. Very often a deck isn't viable but is only one or two pieces away, and then all of the sudden it becomes one of the best decks in the format.

With only a few cards previewed so far and preview season not quite here yet, now's a great time to look over the cards we've already got so you can be ready to be the first to fill in those blanks!