It feels like War of the Spark just came out last week (and Modern Horizons came out yesterday), but here we are getting ready for another big shakeup in Standard!

Core Set 2020 is here, bringing with it a bunch of new toys for Standard. One of the most intriguing things about the set is how heavily it props up the unsuccessful Ixalan themes, with a lot of support for underrepresented tribes like Vampires and Dinosaurs. It is great to see those tribes get the help... but Ixalan rotates in a few months! Still, we've got quite the collection of tools for decks old and new, so let's get started.

Here are my loves and hates for Core Set 2020!

Love - Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

Look, I know tribal-based planeswalkers haven't done very well historically. Yeah, grabbing a Nissa's Chosen or two with Nissa Revane was all right, but Liliana, Untouched by Death was downright embarrassing. I'm here to tell you that Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is different.

Very different.

For starters, three mana is much less than four. Sorin is easy to cast and comes down early, while also going right up to five loyalty if needed. This is very important, made even more obvious by the fact that Standard is currently defined by a three mana planeswalker that can start on five loyalty. But while Sorin is much more restrictive than Teferi, Time Raveler, there is still a lot of power there.

Yes you must play a bunch of Vampires to make Sorin work, but the payoff is huge. Sorin makes your vampires bigger, pushes them through blockers, gains life so you can race (and afford more Adanto Vanguard activations), and is a repeatable removal spell for creatures, planeswalkers, and players! That is a lot of value for only 3 mana, and those are just the plus abilities! The -3 ability won't be used nearly as often, but being able to put more things on the board, even if it's just another Adanto Vanguard is a powerful option to have. While you'd need to go to Modern to put anything absurd into play Show and Tell-style, something like Champion of Dusk is a powerful curve topper in Standard and would be excellent on turn three.

Sorin singlehandedly makes Vampires a playable deck in Standard.

Hate - Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer

Three mana planeswalkers are usually great, but they can't all be great.

Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer slides into the "flying matters" theme present in Core Set 2020, but fails because of how few options it presents you. While Sorin can pump up your different creatures, target all sorts of things, and put things into play the turn you cast it, Mu Yanling does one thing: She gives an opponent's creature -2/-0 and makes it lose flying. That is all she can do the turn you cast her and that's simply not good enough.

Mu Yanling is often going to play as "Three mana, suspend 1, make a 4/4 flying token" and in a world of Teferi, Time Raveler bounces and abundant removal that's not even close to good enough. She could see some sideboard play out of Blue aggressive decks against control decks just by virtue of being a non-creature threat against removal heavy decks, but that's because planeswalkers are just good in general, not because she is good.

Mu Yanling is a total miss.

Love - Lightning Stormkin

Lightning Stormkin is not a world beater. It's not a Teferi, Time Raveler or a Nissa, Who Shakes The World. It's not a card that defines a format, nor a card that makes the game completely revolve around it.

Rather, Lightning Stormkin is a Blue collar Magic card. It shows up to every game ready to put in the work, gets along well with all of your other cards, and wants to clock out at the end of the day knowing it did its part as best it could. It probably shares a lunch break with Paradise Druid, Skymarcher Aspirant, Elite Guardmage, and Viashino Pyromancer, where they all talk about grabbing a beer at happy hour when the tournament is over and maybe watching some Twitch.tv at the bar.

It's easy to ignore cards like Lightning Stormkin, but identifying them early makes deck-building for a new format much easier. A 2/2 haste flier for two mana is excellent, but Lightning Stormkin goes beyond that by providing two relevant creature types, as well as possibly touching the "flying matters" theme as well. Don't forget, Wizard's Lightning and Adeliz, the Cinder Wind are still legal in Standard, and Izzet Wizards decks have been on the edge of playability for a while now. Lightning Stormkin may just be the cog they need to work.

Without a job to do, Lightning Stormkin may end up unemployed, but the grit and hard work is there waiting for someone to pick it up.

Hate - Omnath, Locus of the Roil

This card couldn't have cost three mana?

At its floor, Omnath, Locus of the Roil is a difficult to cast Hill Giant that deals one damage to a creature when it enters the battlefield and landfalls to be a little bit bigger. That's hardly playable in Limited, let alone worth the absurd mana cost in Constructed.

Clearly Omnath is meant to be played with other elementals in a tribal style deck, but the issues here are numerous. Omnath barely compares favorably to Volley Veteran, a card that has seen no play in a much better, single color tribe. Furthermore, Omnath doesn't really reward you for playing a bunch of elementals beyond his enters the battlefield trigger; if his landfall trigger gave all elementals a +1/+1 counter maybe we could talk more, but it's likely still not worth the investment of four color-intensive mana for a 3/3.

Omnath is clunky, expensive, fragile, and unexciting. Elementals are going to need to do a lot better than this if they're going to be anything worth playing.

Love - Lotus Field

Lotus Field scares me.

At face value, Lotus Field isn't really worth the trouble. While there isn't really anything in Standard that could punish you for putting all your eggs in one basket, Lotus Field is awkward to use because you get all 3 mana in one lump, monochromatic sum. This makes it tough to use as a manafixer because while it taps for any color, most multicolored decks are interested in cards like Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, not Goblin Chainwhirler.

So you really need to be doing something more with Lotus Field to be getting good value out of it, and something more is going to mean tapping it more than once a turn. There are two very good ways to do so in Standard at the moment: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner. Teferi is the better of the two in a vacuum, but leaves you Limited to only casting instants with your extra Lotus Field mana. Kiora however is something else entirely.

If you play Kiora on turn three, when you play Lotus Field on turn four you'll have access to 6 mana that turn, and 8 mana the next. That's a lot of mana in a very short time frame, without having to rely on fragile mana creatures. This is a big deal. Add this to the fact that this combo can fit into any deck with green or blue mana and you've got quite the engine.

Watch out for Lotus Field.

Hate - Cavalier of Gales

Wizards of the Coast really likes to make a big cycle of Mythic rares in Core Sets. We started with Primeval Titan and friends (which was a bit too far over the mark), then saw Soul of Innistrad and friends (which was quite a bit below the mark), and most recently saw the tri-colored Elder Dragon legends in Core Set 2019 (more casual staples than Constructed powerhouses).

Well the Core Set 2020 cycle is the Cavaliers, and they look much like their NBA namesake does without Lebron James- embarrassing. While they do have some immediate effect when they are played, Brainstorm or Beast Within hardly compare to Moan of the Unhallowed or Arc Lightning. And unlike the titans, they don't threaten to single handedly take over the game once they attack. Lastly the Cavaliers also fail the Teferi test; the enters the battlefield triggers aren't nearly worth their costs, meaning that Teferi just embarrasses them.

Cavalier of Gales is the best of the set and doesn't stack up well next to God-Eternal Kefnet. Just like Lebron James, I'll take a pass on these Cavaliers.

Love - Hanged Executioner

Another solid role-player, Hanged Executioner is a very nice little package for three mana.

Essentially just the front half of a Lingering Souls, Hanged Executioner comes with a nice little rider text that allows you to exile an opponent's creature. This ability will not be used super often, but the existence of it will dramatically change how your opponents have to play their games. Think about how good it feels when your opponent uses a removal spell on your Lingering Souls token, and then realize that Hanged Executioner is a card that incentivizes your opponent to do just that. That's great!

Being a spirit is also surprisingly relevant, as it's easy to forget that Supreme Phantom is still a Standard legal Magic card. And of course, "flying matters" is also a theme in Core Set 2020, and two fliers for three mana with upside is pretty good. Favorable Winds is still legal, as well as new cards like Winged Words and Empyrean Eagle.

Hanged Executioner is simple and effective; I'm a fan.

Hate - Leylines (Yes, All Of Them)

Why do they keep printing more Leylines? It has to be one of the worst mechanics ever, and they're rarely playable except in extreme scenarios where you need Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sanctity to defend against early game degeneracy.

The opportunity cost of putting Leylines into your deck is so high because they are never even close to worth four mana. So you end up with a card that is okay if it is in your opening hand, and basically uncastable if you draw it literally any time after that. It's an awful gameplay experience, and yet they keep going back for more.

Would Leyline of Combustion even be playable as anything more than a sideboard card at one mana? Do we really need weird, super high variance sideboard cards? Why put Leyline of Anticipation into Teferi, Time Raveler Standard? Why do I have to listen to people tell me how perfect, eight card turn two kills are now possible in Standard because of Leyline of Abundance?

The literal only good thing about Leylines in Core Set 2020 is that Leyline of the Void and Leyline of Sanctity will go down in price. That's it.

Love - Marauding Raptor

Where was this card last year?!

When Dinosaur was introduced as a creature type in Ixalan, the excitement level was high. Dinosaurs are a huge part of our culture and the thought of them tromping around on Magic battlefields next to Elves, Angels, and Dragons was just awesome. The problem was that they never really got the support they needed to break into competitive play. Medium-sized midrange ground creatures frankly aren't that exciting, and enablers like Drover of the Mighty and Otepec Huntmaster were too fragile to make much of a difference. The enrage mechanic also flopped because it was only very good against Red and Green.

Better late than never right?

Marauding Raptor is awesome, attempting to solve basically all of Dinosaur's problems at once. It's a cost reducer, it's sized well, it attacks well, and most importantly it makes enrage actually matter! Get your Ranging Raptors and Ripjaw Raptors ready, because Dinosaurs are finally ready to take the stage.

Old And New

I'm not gonna lie I am super pumped to start brewing up Core Set 2020 Standard decks. There are a lot of new exciting things to do, as well as a lot of powerful upgrades to decks that just weren't quite there yet. By propping up cards that previously didn't have enough support it's almost like the set is much bigger than it is, because those Dinosaurs, Vampires, Goblins, and Spirits that aren't seeing play are now on the table too.

I'll be jamming out ten new Standard brews on my stream this coming Monday as part of the special MTG Arena Core Set 2020 streamer preview, and next Friday you can expect me to go over all ten decks with grades and reports on how they did and what to expect from them in the future!