As of the moment I'm writing this, we have almost every card from Throne of Eldraine previewed, and I am excited to dive into this story book world. As with past sets, I want to run through the cards I think will have the most Constructed impact.

Let's open our books to Chapter 1.

This card is free. And even when it isn't it's still an acceptable card. With Simic Flash being a deck this card could potentially be the thing that makes it all stick together. If you're playing Modern you can add this or Tron or Neoform or Amulet to add some consistency to these already powerful decks. This card is plenty scary and I hope it actually does nothing.

This reminds me of the Titans of old. Creating two 3/3s off the bat already represents a ton of power and the kinds of decks I'd want to play the Archon in lean me toward playing small creatures. In a world of mana dorks you often have an issue with your payoffs not being good enough to take over or your payoffs not impacting the board enough. Archon solves both of those issues by helping your mana dorks become threats and being a fine payoff on turn five or six. I expect this to also be solid in token strategies as well moving forward.

This card is going to make combat a headache forever. The abilities on the beast make it a formidable foe, especially in a world where players have access to Gods Willing or protection from Green. Having Deathtouch means you'll always be able to jam if you need and can pressure quite a few board states. Thankfully it doesn't have hexproof so Lava Coil will at least be a solid answer to it.

An Evolving Wilds with upside is going to be an interesting card in Standard. A semi enabler for three-color decks but overall seems kind of odd placed. It is true the card gets much better after turn three so it's possible the card could be good. I'm going to hold out hope but probably buying 4 off the bat just in case. With Experimental Frenzy in the format I could also see this card being good in those decks. Fetchlands in Standard are normally scary but without being able to nab any duals I think we're safe for the moment.

The Red decks could always use more reach and an effective four powered creature is going to hit hard. This card already pairs well with what you're trying to do early and gives you way more reach. If your deck also contains Cavalcade of Calamity then it turns your smaller creatures into effective lightning bolts as well. I think this might be a good spot in your first build of the deck when you're not looking to grind and can instead board into Experimental Frenzy.

This card is likely not good enough for Standard but has a major impact potentially in Modern. Mox Amber has always been on the cusp of playability and has really needed a good enabler. Emry happens to be an exceptional one and plays well with a variety of decks. The ones I'm looking at first are going to be Jeskai Ascendancy and Urza. Emry makes me feel even better as it helps make Goblin Engineer a more consistent tutor.

Welcome back Hero's Downfall. The Adventure cards all look excellent in art and design and I'm excited to see how they play out. A card like Murderous Rider is welcome for any Standard format and having a card that manages cheap planeswalkers is going to be excellent. Getting to trade in your removal spell for more value later in the game as a creature means that board states will be harder to navigate. I'm quite excited to play with this card heading into the new format. It's also a Knight which means we have plenty of room for synergy!

Three-mana planeswalkers are usually bad news and Oko seems like a well balanced card. However creating Food tokens could prove quite valuable depending on the context of the format. In addition to that Oko creates both blockers and attackers so it is able to pressure other planeswalkers while ensuring that it doesn't meet its own untimely demise. Another big selling point of Oko here is the high loyalty. This helps Oko survive an initial attack after making a Food token which in turn forces your opponent to invest more resources into trying to get it off the table.

Continuing on the trend of planeswalkers, Garruk was a lock to make this list. Garruk is very similar to Elspeth, Sun's Champion (although toned down quite a bit). Creating multiple blockers or attackers and being a removal spell immediately complicates board states and forces the opponent to find an answer. While Garruk can never tick up into an ultimate, that is unneeded when you go so wide with a bunch of Wolves. If you pair Garruk with Tolsimir, the value is likely too much for most decks to contend with and I think is a good place to start building with.

All the planeswalkers I think are home runs and very Constructed playable. Being able to filter your draws is awesome for any planeswalker and if you're playing something like Arclight Phoenix or any of the Jump-Start cards there is plenty of value to be gained. Alongside a card like Crackling Drake there is some real concern for ending the game in a single turn. I'll not be surprised to see Izzet be a powerful strategy heading into the format.

Have we not learned by now that Lands with words attached to them for cheap activations end up being more powerful than they appear? I don't expect these cards to be dominant but they will certainly be role players.

X-cost Artifacts are usually excellent cards when they don't have any drawbacks and this card appears to have none. Unfortunately it looks like multicolored cards aren't dominating and might not be but you do have protection from Teferi and that feels great. However if multicolored permanents start to pick up this can be an excellent card.

Overrated

I've also decided to add what I think are some overrated cards that look great but wont make any impact.

The format looks like it could be speeding up and that will cause players to be emptying out their hand, getting into combat effectively, and playing cheap removal. All of these things are bad news for a lowly 2/2 with Haste just trying to make his way downtown to steal your cards. Overall I think the Red decks might have better options and Robber will look downright silly for awhile. Maybe a sideboard card for control decks though.

There's been a lot of talk about this feathered friend but unless your deck is built around cards that can produce Food tokens at will this Goose will be few and far between on being able to actually make an impact on the board. Likely your best bet is Oko but the jury is still out on if Oko is actually good or not. Even if you did have four Goose and four Oko that still likely is not going to be consistent enough for our Goose.

In general I think Pithing Needle effects kinda suck and are even worse when most of the planeswalkers have abilities that are unaffected by this. I'm sure some sideboards will have this card but you're probably better off saving yourself the trouble and playing better cards.