During The Lost Caverns of Ixalan preview stream, when the announcers started talking about the discover mechanic, they glossed over one really important thing - cascade was a pretty broken mechanic. I couldn't sum it up better than Saffron Olive, so here you go:

Watching Ixalan preview stream:
Them: "Discover is like cascade."
Me: nods
Them: "Cascade has some issues."
Me: sure does, go on
"Sometimes you cascade into a combat trick when you don't want a combat trick."
Me: face palms laughing uncontrollably.

— Saffron Olive (@SaffronOlive) October 24, 2023

Discover is a bit different than cascade, but the fundamental part of the mechanic is the same.

What is supposed to be a fun, random mechanic that gives you some random spell out of your deck, often just ends up being a deck-building puzzle that results in you always getting the same thing every time. In Modern, it's Living End or Crashing Footfalls, and now in Pioneer/Explorer we've got a whole bunch of options.

Time Stamps:

04:56 - Match 1

14:17 - Match 2

27:28 - Match 3

Broken Cascade | Explorer | Jim Davis

• Companion (1)
• 1 Keruga, the Macrosage

• Creatures (25)
• 2 Horned Loch-Whale
• 3 Twinshot Sniper
• 4 Geological Appraiser
• 4 Glasspool Mimic
• 4 Grabby Giant
• 4 Mirror Image
• 4 Omnath, Locus of Creation

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 2 Chandra, Awakened Inferno
• 2 Quintorius Kand

• Instants (3)
• 3 Magma Opus

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Leyline Binding

• Lands (24)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Ketria Triome
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 2 Jetmir's Garden
• 2 Spara's Headquarters
• 2 Xander's Lounge
• 3 Raugrin Triome
• 4 Fabled Passage

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Chandra, Awakened Inferno
• 1 Keruga, the Macrosage
• 3 Reduce /// Rubble
• 2 Doomskar
• 1 Starnheim Unleashed
• 2 Vanquish the Horde

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Now it's important to note that this video was recorded late last week, and various versions of cascade have been running amok in the MTGO Pioneer challenges all weekend, so we are certainly only at the beginning of the road on this one. This is pretty much my first draft, but the power is evident.

While there are a bunch of different ways to get paid off, this particular version is just playing eight clone effects alongside Geological Appraiser, giving you an army of 9 Geological Appraisers when you cast one. With so many cards like Leyline Binding or Twinshot Sniper, playing cheap interaction that "costs" four or more is trivial, meaning just like Modern Temur Rhinos you'll have no problem interacting on the early turns.

Is this the next broken thing in Pioneer? Will we see bans? We will see!