Magic: The Gathering’s latest set is taking the Wild West, spinning it on its head and throwing it through a black hole of possibility. Outlaws of Thunder Junction is one of the best looking card sets in years, with wanted criminals, multidimensional demons, sorcerers and more emerging from the planes of Thunder Junction.
It’s also the 100th Magic: The Gathering expansion set since the trading card game was brought to life back in 1993.
Quest Daily caught up with MTG’s Vision Design Lead, Mark Rosewater, and the Worldbuilding Team to talk all about the Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
This is the 100th MTG expansion! How are you feeling about that milestone?
Mark Rosewater: I’m feeling pretty excited by it. Day in and day out, we’re just focused on working on the set at hand, so it’s nice to take a step backwards and see all the work we’ve done over the years. I feel like a proud poppa watching my kid graduate from college.
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What is Outlaws of Thunder Junction and what can we expect to pull from the new set?
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is Magic’s first-ever frontier-inspired plane. This set is all about villains, and it takes advantage of the new Omenpaths from the Phyrexian War. Omenpaths make it so that multiple characters can be pulled across the multiverse and on to one plane, which is something we’ve not been able to do before.
Fantasy Wild West isn’t a genre combo we’ve seen much, where did the inspiration
come from?
The worldbuilding seed for Thunder Junction came from what we call the Omenpaths – a new chaotic system of portals between planes that resulted from the last Phyrexian War. For most worlds, Omenpaths are unreliable doorways, dangerous roads into the unknown – but we thought, what if there were a world where many of these gateways converged? What if there were a world made of other worlds, a society made of other societies – peopled with travelers, scoundrels, opportunists, and spellcasters from other far-flung places? That, combined with careful discussions with cultural consultants, led us to the fantastical frontier setting of Thunder Junction. It’s a look and feel we haven’t seen from Magic before, with high desert landscapes, razor-train heists, cactusfolk, and thunder magics.
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The “Wanted” cards look the part! As do the newspaper Instants and Enchantments.
What is the team’s favourite card type from the new set?
The Breaking News frames feature powerful crimes from throughout Magic’s history (found in both Play and Collector boosters) and are particularly cool, the updated art and flavor text really help convey the setting. The textured foil versions of the mythic rarities of these cards found exclusively in collector boosters and look really awesome.
What are some of the highlights and new mechanics players can expect to learn from Outlaws of Thunder Junction?
One of the new mechanics is “committing a crime” or any spell or ability you control that targets an opponent or any of their permanents on the battlefield or cards in their hand or graveyard. This applies to cards from earlier sets.
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Plot is a mechanic that gives you an alternate cost that allows you to exile a card face up. You are then able to cast it for free on any future turn. This mechanic tries to capture the idea of plotting a master plan that comes to fruition on future turns. The set also has a mechanic called spree which allows you the option to do multiple effects, each with its own mana cost. You can choose to do as many as you can pay for.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is available now from retailers in a variety of boosters, bundles, and commander decks.
