Tarkir: Dragonstorm is here at last! The glorious return to one of the most beloved Magic worlds of all time brings with it tons of awesome cards including a major focus on dragons as well as the return of the five clans. With this comes a whole host of new commons entering the format this coming weekend. The format just saw some pretty big changes this week with the banned and restricted announcement, so does Tarkir: Dragonstorm have what it takes to make an impact? Let's check out several of the cooler commons in the set and find out!

To get things started, I want to talk a little bit about each of the five new mechanics, as well as a couple common cycles. Each of these has only a small number of cards and most of them admittedly aren't particularly great. As such, I won't linger on them too long and will instead rapid-fire through them. Let's get right into it!

Endure

Endure is like the fabricate from the original Kaladesh block, with the only difference being that instead of getting artifact servos, you get a single White spirit. Most of the four options are probably too expensive to be worth any real consideration, but Fortress Kin-Guard is reasonable enough. The two bodies can be solid in go-wide decks or you can just make a decent body for a reasonable rate. Lazotep Reaver has shown up in Sacrifice and Zombie decks in the past, so perhaps there's a home for this card yet.

Flurry

Flurry is a cool way to get value for casting multiple spells a turn. The main downside is that it only allows you to do this once a turn. This is notable especially on Devoted Duelist, which pales in comparison to cards like Firebrand Archer, Kessig Flamebreather, and Thermo-Alchemist as a result. The other two get power boosts, but their base stat lines aren't particularly great. I'm not too impressed with this one and personally doubt any of these will see any kind of play in the current Pauper format.

Harmonize

Harmonize is the latest Flashback variant, allowing you to pay the cost more cheaply by tapping a creature. The Whispers of the Muse nod with Unending Whisper is cute, but unlikely to be viable, and Roamer's Routine is probably more aimed at the likes of Standard and Commander as opposed to Pauper.

Wild Ride, however, has the look of a card with potential. Reckless Charge already sees play in Hot Dogs decks and this is fairly comparable on just about every level. The downside is that you can't really use the creature you just pumped to harmonize it. This gets better if you're using it alongside an extra summoning sick creature, but the odds of you using it on a summoning sick creature, playing a second summoning sick creature, and harmonizing this is unlikely. Even in the best of situations, that's six mana. Despite how cool this new version looks at first glance, I'd still stick with Reckless Charge.

Mobilize

Getting extra attackers and bodies is always cool, especially if you build your deck around it. Remember that Impact Tremors works great with these kinds of abilities. The big issue, though, is the main creatures themselves all boast rather awful stats when it comes to Pauper. For most decks, it's just too little power to be worth trying and will likely lead to these cards being left to the wayside. Shock Brigade maybe has some potential, but only 1 power and being in Lightning Bolt range make me not ever want to consider touching it.

Renew

I love the space this mechanic is playing with. At higher rarities, renew does some really cool things. At common, though, the cards and their respective abilities are fairly underwhelming. Most of them are little more than glorified scavenge - a mechanic that famously doesn't do much in this format to the point that not even Slitherhead did anything. Sagu Pummeler is the most potent of abilities, but both sides of the card are really expensive. The sweet spot is probably Champion of Dusan, but even then the main card is a bit pricey for the statline you're getting out of the deal. I'd love to see this mechanic more in the future on better cards, but right now it's just fine at best.

Omen Dragons and Behold

Now we get to our two cycles I want to cover. There's certainly more but many card in those cycles are clearly weak, so I'm opting to talk about them individually. However, with Tarkir: Dragonstorm featuring plenty of dragons, I want to give these two cycles a bit more focus.

The first of these two cycles I want to discuss are the dragons themselves. These are miles ahead of the majority of dragons already legal in the format, minus the obviously mighty Avenging Hunter, of course. Most of the dragons we already have are weak with poor stat lines and/or mediocre effects. Several of these new dragons continue this trend but they make up for it with a new mechanic: omens.

Omen is a new riff on something like Adventure. The difference, though, is that instead of going to exile where you can recast it later, an omen spell gets shuffled back into your library instead. This allows you to get cheap, solid value early on and then hopefully draw into your big threat later. The big question is, are any of the front sides of the cards particularly worth it? Sagu Wildling and Stormshriek Feral offer copies of Lay of the Land and Tormenting Voice, respectively, both of which are far too weak in Pauper. I don't see being stapled onto a late game creature being enough to make them playable.

Riling Dawnbringer offers you tokens with its omen side. This is solid, but sorcery speed makes it harder to make good use out of in the likes of control-oriented decks. Dirgur Island Dragon's ability is similar to Fire // Ice's Ice side, but only being able to tap one creature is a real limiter. Similarly Feral Deathgorger has a fine enough of an omen, but it's still somewhat underwhelming and has a pretty bad body for the rate on the front side.

Basically, none of these are cards I want to be drawing over and over again and replaying. Compare this to something like Disruptive Stormbrood at uncommon. The creature side isn't super spectacular, but it provides you with a pretty decent removal spell for its omen cost. That's something I'd love to keep putting back in my deck to redraw later. None of the omen spells of any of these commons make me say that, and so I'm not especially hopeful for their chances in the format.

This brings me to the second cycle I want to cover: the behold spells. Behold is basically a keyworded version of the mechanic on Draconic Roar and Foul-Tongue Invocation - both legal in Pauper. Cards like Osseous Exhale and Molten Exhale read like generic Limited cards that historically have never had much power in the format. Most Bite Down effects are quite bad, though, so I'm unsure Piercing Exhale gets there either. It does have the benefit of being easily beheld off an Avenging Hunter so there is that. Additionally, Dispelling Exhale reads more like a Standard card than anything, and probably a bad one even there.

The one card that I've seen some people share around and talk about is Caustic Exhale. This is because it has the potential to be a one-mana -3/-3, which is pretty huge. The problem becomes finding the right dragons to use with it. It's not hard to use something like Changeling Outcast to provide a solid option, but that's just four cards - not exactly the density you want to pull off something like this. If that kind of density can be achieved, this card's power is definitely real, but right now I'm not convinced we're at that amount of viable dragons and/or changelings for this to work.

With those mechanics and cycles out of the way, I'd like to turn our attention now to the remaining individual cards of the set. There's plenty to talk about so let's get right into it!

Abzan Devotee

More Sanitarium Skeleton style abilities are always welcome in the format. This one is a bit pricier on the front end, but has fairly aggressive stats for such a recursive creature that I'm a fan of it. The mana filtration is likely just flavor text, but there may be situations where it has relevance.

Ainok Wayfarer

Self-millers are always great, and Ainok Wayfarer continues the tradition. This is a pretty solid card and so it largely comes down to whether you want to go one card deeper with Satyr Wayfinder instead or have the fail-safe counter instead.

Bearer of Glory

We get a lot of these activated ability anthem creatures and none really see any play. None have had first strike, though, which makes this option a far better attacker than the majority of other options that already exist out there. I'd be curious to see if this gets tried in White Weenies, but I imagine the activated ability being one of the ones that costs five mana rather than four will hold it back in the end.

Coordinated Maneuver

This card is basically just a worse Thraben Charm. The damage dealing side does less damage and the card also lacks the graveyard exile option. If you really want more than 4 of the non-graveyard exile modes, this might be fine, but it's simply outclassed by what already exists in the format.

Cruel Truths

Demon's Due didn't end up seeing any play and Diresight didn't either. Given this track record, I wouldn't bank on this one seeing any play either.

Delta Bloodflies

This is way too fragile to be consistently viable, but if a deck comes out that can protect it and get counters on creatures, this does quite a bit of chip damage in a long game. It's very a "stars aligning" sort of thing or else involves janky synergy plays like Snakeskin Veil to the point I don't think it sees play, but I can at least see the merits. They're almost certainly bad, though.

Dragonstorm Globe

This weirdly intrigues me. Three mana value mana rocks aren't normally great in Pauper, but this one's also an enabler. Dragons aren't very prominent in Pauper, so the question becomes how do you use it? The answer is likely changelings. While most are quite unplayable, there are enough that are solid enough that there could be some amount of play. Additionally, we're almost certainly getting more changelings with the Return to Lorwyn set coming next year. I don't expect this to do much right now, but I'd keep my eyes on it for future possibilities.

Fire-Rim Form

I'm not super high on this or anything, but it is worth noting that this can be a neat trick for Bogles decks to deal with Echoing Truth matchups. You can gotcha their gotcha and ensure you maintain your first strike if your Ethereal Armor gets removed. Not super impactful, but it has its use cases.

Focus the Mind

Well now, this seems like a fairly easy spell to cast for three mana fairly reliably in a variety of different Blue decks. The problem I see here, though, is that we've got better cantrips on average throughout the format. It could maybe be useful for Familiars decks that can lower the cost further, but I feel like those decks just have a number of better options anyways.

Heritage Reclamation

Friendship ended with Return to Nature, now Heritage Reclamation is my best friend. Seriously, what a glow-up for what was previously a totally unplayable card. In most scenarios, it was just a Naturalize with possible upside. Now instead, that upside can draw you a card. The more comparable option here is Wilt, which is just Naturalize with outright Cycling. Wilt sees occasional play, which makes this a better option in many situations thanks to the potential to hit a key card in the opponent's graveyard. It's not universally better because the draw here can still be countered and the colored mana vs. colorless mana is relevant for decks like Tron or something along those lines. Still, this is a good upgrade to have and even if it's not a format mainstay, I expect it to see play here and there.

Humbling Elder

Brinebarrow Intruder has been seeing a decent amount of play in Faeries decks for some time now. This card is a functional reprint aside from the creature types, so it's a no-brainer move to put this in. Splitting it with your Brinebarrows helps deal with Echoing Decay should the card be showing up in the meta, but otherwise it might be better to stick with one or the other for the Echoing Truth value.

Jade-Cast Sentinel

Unless I'm forgetting something, this is the cheapest of this recent trend of artifact creatures that put stuff back in your deck from your graveyard. Most of the other options are more expensive but you can do them multiple times. This one you can only use it once per turn, but it's cheaper and doesn't attack as well. It seems like the juice isn't worth the squeeze on this one, but I could see a world where a deck wants to put stuff back into their deck on a cheaper creature than existing options.

Krotiq Nestguard

Do I like 4/4 defenders where you have to invest a bunch of mana to turn them on? Not really, but it is worth noting that this is a pretty affordable body to use as a blocker until you're set up enough to get your attacks in. I don't think it's particularly viable, but it's worth the note at least.

Monastery Messenger

The mana cost on this one is a bit weird, but the generic mana costs allow you to reduce the mana you pay for it with cards like Sunscape Familiar pretty reliably. This makes it fairly trivial to loop cards with it. If you can't reduce the costs in a meaningful way, though, its playability goes down quite a bit. With only Jeskai Ephemerate decks being fringe up to now - though potentially facing a resurgence with the recent format shakeup - that would be the only non-Familiars style of deck that I could see wanting this right now. It's got a lot of potential, but it just needs the right deck to make it work.

Rebellious Strike

Defiant Strike has shown up in a number of formats thanks to its cheap buff and cantrip working great for Heroic-style decks. One more mana is a lot in a format like Pauper, but an extra 2 power is a pretty big buff for go tall decks like that. The uses for this one are very narrow, but it has the potential to be solid in those specific decks.

Rescue Leopard

Those are some good and aggressive stats, and it allows you to repeatedly rummage every time you attack with it. The problem is that it's really fragile, making it trivial to block or remove. With the right setup, it has potential, but in practice it's probably too easy to deal with for it to be any good.

Ringing Strike Mastery

Bind the Monster has some real competition here. This costs the same and lets you lock down an opposing creature without the life loss. The tradeoff is that if your opponent has access to a lot of mana, they can still make an untap happen. If there's enough ways for this to happen reliably, Bind the Monster is probably still the safer option despite the life loss. If the format leans less on big mana decks, this card likely gets quite a bit better.

Salt Road Packbeast

Search Party Captain saw some play in White Weenies decks after Innistrad: Midnight Hunt released, but has since fallen out of favor. This card is even more costly, making it that much less likely that it'll show up despite the bigger body.

Sarkhan's Resolve

Oh yeah, I love this. Most Plummet variants aren't versatile enough to warrant playing or else are too expensive. This is the first time we've gotten the option for a Plummet or a pump spell on the same card. This is definitely very niche both due to the usual lack of meaningful fliers and the low density of decks interested in a pump spell, but this absolutely makes for a good modal spell.

Seize Opportunity

It's yet another Burn Bright variant and this one provides the benefit of some powerful modality. First, the pump spell is notably improved with an additional toughness rather than the usual +2/+0 these events tend to provide. More importantly though, you can opt for a Reckless Impulse ability for three mana instead. The three-mana cost will keep this from ever being very widely played, but it could be a fine option for low numbers due to the versatility it provides.

Sibsig Appraiser

Interestingly, this could have some implications for Familiars decks. Those decks notably already run copies of Sea Gate Oracle for card selection, though that card puts something on the bottom of the deck. Here, the other card goes to your graveyard, which makes it ripe for grabbing back with the help of Archaeomancer (and Ghostly Flicker/Ephemerate). The lack of toughness takes away the Sea Gate Oracle's relevant block value, but the play on this one definitely seems sweet for the right deck.

Tempest Hawk

These kinds of cards with the Relentless Rats ability sure are getting more and more common these days, huh? As is usual with these sorts of cards, many players will try to build decks with them but they'll never really end up being that playable in the face of a wider meta. Don't expect much from this one and play it at your own risk.

Undergrowth Leopard

Voracious Varmint already exists and sees no play in Pauper. This won't either. Next.

Wingspan Stride

Arcane Flight has seen no serious play at all since its printing in Dominaria seven years ago. The ability to bounce it to your hand and dodge removal isn't going to make this one worth playing.

Worthy Cost

Bone Splinters was outclassed a long time ago. This may have relevance in Standard where planeswalkers exist, but in Pauper we have better options than this.

All in all, Tarkir: Dragonstorm looks like it's going to be a "just fine" kind of Pauper set. That's probably not the worst thing after several tumultuous releases having an impact on the format with cards like Clockwork Percussionist, Pactdoll Terror, and the whole of Modern Horizons 3. There's a number of good workhorse cards in the set, but nothing really stands out as being head and shoulders above everything else. It'll be interesting to see how these cards play out in the brand new format that we have now following the recent banned and restricted announcement.

Magic: the Gathering - Final Fantasy is next on the chopping block, with previews starting on May 10th. You can expect to see me back then to cover that set likely in a little under two months' time. I'm particularly excited for that one, so you might see me go a little deeper than normal just to gush about card flavor in addition to playability. I'll see you then, and in the meantime - best of luck to all the brewers of the world!