Jumpstart 2022 - 7point Highlander Set Review

 

Set symbol too busy, needs to be simpler.

Release date: December 2nd 2022

Latest set released at the time of writing this - The Lord of the Rings - Tales of Middle-earth

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

This is the third Jumpstart set (2020, 2021, 2022). The booster of the set are 20 cards with several basic lands in each; The idea of the Jumpstart sets is that you can shuffle 2 random boosters together facedown and make a 40 card ready-to-play deck to teach your friend how to play and demonstrate the fun random potential of the game. There are 768 reprints of uncomplicated cards and then there are 51 cards that have never been printed before. These are the cards we're interested in.

I bet Fireshoes likes this card.

I've recently moved back to Melbourne but I was living in Geelong during the covid lockdowns. As the lockdowns lifted I organised a few 7PH tournaments at the local store and to my delight we got a little crew of 6 locals playing regularly on Wednesday nights. One such local was Nando, who has been a Goblin fan for about 20 years. It didn't take any convincing for him to build the Goblin deck. 

When ~ got printed Nando was very high on her and added her immediately. I knew Goblins were desperate for 2drops but I had tried Spike Jester before and it was bad, so I dismissed ~ as another Spike Jester, but after the endless praise of ~ from Nando, I decided to give her a go and he was right, ~ is good enough. I'd say she's significantly worse than:

• Goblin Recruiter
• Conspicuous Snoop
• Rundvelt Hordemaster
• Battle Cry Goblin
• Moria Marauder
• Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
• Munitions Expert

-and at about the same level as Warren Instigator and Metallic Mimic (Mimic has a low rank because it's not a Goblin outside of office hours. It won't take calls from Muxus, Snoop, Ringleader, Realmwalker or Hordemaster).

You need to tweek your card choices to get enough synergy for ~ to work: She really shines when you curve her into Goblin Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss/Squee, Dubious Monarch. Other less exciting interactions include:

Goblin Chieftain (but you often don't attack with Cheiftain himself because you don't want it to die)

Goblin Warchief

Goblin Ringleader

Murderous Redcap

Munitions Expert (extra power as a flash blocker)

Pashalik Mons (flash blockers)

Battlecry Goblin

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Den of the Bugbear

Cacophony Scamp (sideboard)

Fireblade Charger (sideboard)

-but all these add up to playability.

CARDS THAT ARE NOT PLAYABLE NOW, BUT COULD BE IN FUTURE!

Let's see what juicy Krakens/Leviathans/Octopi and Serpents we can flip:

Thing in the Ice

Reservoir Kraken

River Serpent

Striped Riverwinder

Cryptic Serpent

Tolarian Terror

Sword Coast Serpent

Lava Serpent

Tidal Terror

Bladecoil Serpent

Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Hullbreaker Horror

Koma, Cosmos Serpent

Simic Sky Swallower

Trench Behemoth

Stormtide Leviathan

Trench Gorger

Inkwell Leviathan

So there's plenty of juice. Next question is, are there enough cards other than ~ to take advantage of all these ocean bois in our deck?

Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep

Quest for Ula's Temple

Runo Stromkirk (Startling Development)

Ok, Quest for Ula's Temple is the real payoff here. The rest including ~ are not worth building a whole deck around. This is where our trail ends I believe. Not enough payoffs for running all the sea monsters.

There were a few cheap sea monsters in my Scryfall searches and it got me thinking, am I willing to pay 4mana to get this? The question reminded me of a realisation I had when building a blink deck with Thraben Inspector; I could make a tonne of clues with the Inspector but I never had the time to crack them. I realised that drawing a card in the midgame is worth less than 2mana in 7PH, which is pretty crazy compared to the format 10 years ago. Bringing that realisation back to ~, I think we would be happy as long as our flipped sea monster costs 3 or more. Of course we also need to recover the 2mana spent on ~ himself, so we want our first sea monster to cost ≥5mana. Also, we would need to make sure that we never whiff, otherwise we lose the game from tempo loss.

No relation to Ashcoat Bears.

I'm not saying ~ is playable right now, but I can imagine there being a few rat tribal sets in the future, and who knows, could happen.

I intend to show up to my local Wednesday night 7PH one week with a Thrumming Stone + Rat Colony deck, just for laughs. Perhaps ~ will be in there.

CONCLUSION

This three-card set review took me ages. I tried going too deep on a few cards then realised they weren't playable. The main thing I got out of it is that I'm going to stop evaluating +1/+1 counter synergy cards so highly (Benevolent Hydra) until I build the deck again and see how it looks.

Thanks, Mulch