Warding a Shrine

This project started in 2017 with an humongous, damaged pile of chaff from the Kamigawa sets, and the distant goal of turning that pile in a relatively playable box of memories. My playgroup discovered Magic in the early 2000s and the eerie aestethic of this block sticked with me from the first pack, remaining one of my favourite Planes to this day. Iteration after iteration, i try to mantain a curated environment faithful to that feeling.

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Design Goals

Following the release of Neon Dynasty, criteria and goals of the Cube changed slightly, but the core intention remains. I'm trying to rappresent nearly every tribe, mechanic and archetype from the original block, merging the NEO's goodies with the old Legends and gameplan. Synergy is preferred over power, when possible (bye, Umezawa's Jitte), but flavour wins over all.

I choose to follow some rules in the card selection:

• Only cards from the Kamigawa Plane and Kamigawa-adjacent (or neutral) art
• Singleton, except for future fixes in the manabase
• Near-equal number of cards per color and color pair
  For the art choice, particularly in the NEO Extra, flavour wins again over consistency.

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Mechanics & Archetypes

The original Kamigawa block is populated with parasitic mechanics. With the introduction of modern-age cards, i tried to tie the old, slow synergy with the new keywords.

Arcane - the poster child of parasitic mechanics - and his cousin Splice, slipped slowly in the domain of incidental synergy. Together with the whole Spirit creature type, Arcane spells becames an additional enabler for Spiritcraft triggers in every color, grinding value with small payoff.

Ki Counters are one of such payoff. The new Modified status check for any kind of counter, gifting new life into the Baku and Flip Cards cycles. A Cunning Bandit is now a nice enabler for the Modified deck, upgrading himself without losing eventual Auras or detaching Equipments during the flip.

Bushido, the trademark keyword of the samurai creature type, enfatizes the tension between blocked/unblocked statuses albeith in a very uninteractive way. Takeno, Samurai General has left his men once and for all, ousted by the new Exalted dudes. His keyword, however, stays. A healty mix of technology-enhanced and classic samurais lead the aggro in in a somewhat cohesive archetype, even dotting and with flavour.

Channel and Ninjutsu are two of the mechanics that made a return in NEO from the original block. Ninja is one of the most supported archetypes on the plane, and Channel is an amazing tool in every color, encouraged in thanks to the best girl and the Soulshift shenanigans, stapled in the grindy gameplan.

Last but not least, the Shrines are now a 17-cards archetype with creatures and support, triggering all the enchantment-related goodies. Junky and powerful without consistency, as all the pentacolor archetypes should be.

Unredeemable

Wisdom persists in the few occasional beaters that happen to care about handsize. Of the -maros, only Kagemaro, First to Suffer and his boardwipe on a stick will surely stay, along with the moonfolks and snakes Patrons for the Offering cycle.

Of the five Epic spells, Enduring Ideal and Eternal Dominion earn their place in the Cube thanks to the myriads of new Enchantment targets for the former and the flashiness of the latter.

Sweep is a one-sided reverse timewalk. This is the only piece of the pseudo-cycle in the list, surviving only because you lose the lands upon resolution, dodging counterpells, and the mass-discard can be game-ending against an empty board.

The poor Zuberas and their common death trigger can't be properly supported in singleton. Each one is now a single Spiritcraft-triggering body, lost in a 400+ cards sea, waiting for some kin, a lucky drafter and a well timed Devouring Greed.

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