Preview Review - The Big Score
June 17, 2024 by
Joshua Clough 
(Oltec Matterweaver | Art by Inkognit)
There's gold in them hills!
Hello and welcome back to Preview Review, the series where we take a look at sleeper hits from recent sets! With the perpetual preview machine firing on all cylinders over at Wizards of the Coast, it’s easy to miss some potentially powerful picks for your commander decks.
In this article we’re going to be revisiting one of the most controversial bonus sheets of all time, Outlaws at Thunder Junction’s subsheet The Big Score. Initially intended to be a product resembling March of the Machines: The Aftermath (And changed, for better or worse because we all remember how well that set performed) The Big Score introduced some wonderful relics from across The Omenpaths.
When the set originally released back in April, it was hard to gauge what supply for this product was going to be. That led to the prices of some cards going absolutely crazy as they saw play in some of Magic: The Gathering’s other competitive formats. It seems like cards from The Big Score could spike at any time, so before that happens let’s take a look at which of these treasures could fit in your collection.
Molten Duplication
Starting off with one of my favorite cards from The Big Score, we have Molten Duplication. This card is so nice I run it twice, literally - it’s made its way into several of my own decks since it was printed.
The effect on Molten Duplication is so powerful that you’ll often find this kind of effect as part of the card design for legendary creatures intended to be your commander themselves. Decks like Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds are built around effects like these but you’ll find that Molten Duplication has a home in any deck that you’re looking to either grant pseudo-haste to an impactful creature or simply double up on a sweet enters the battlefield trigger.
If we read this card as ‘for one generic and one red mana, copy target enters the battlefield ability’ then it’s already a sweet card. You can double up on powerful abilities like that of Etali, Primal Conqueror or Dockside Extortionist. You’re more than happy to commit Molten Duplication for the opportunity to either snatch multiple cards from your opponent’s libraries or the ability to go extremely mana positive.
Sometimes it’s not that deep though, and you just need a creature to be granted haste so it doesn’t have to survive a full turn rotation before it can make an impact on the game. Cards like Old Gnawbone and Ancient Silver Dragon would be gross if they had haste, so why not grant it to them! Ultimately, this card will only get stronger over time and if you’re paying two mana for another copy of your favorite creature then it’s going to definitely grant you more than two mana’s worth of effect.
Fomori Vault
Fomori Vault is a card that’s much, much better than it looks but we might have to crack this vault to figure out whether or not it deserves a home in our decks. Let’s begin with looking at the floor. It’s a land that comes in untapped and taps for colorless mana, and that’s enough for the Eldrazi fans. For everyone else though, where exactly does this card find a home?
While this card shines in artifact builds or colorless decks, I honestly think it’s worth considering in a lot of decks that don’t run green and need that bit of card advantage. Especially if they can utilize their graveyards too. Rakdos, Esper, Mardu, Boros and more will all find use for this card. That’s ultimately going to be because even if those decks aren’t built around artifacts, then their mana ramp certainly will be. These are the colors of Talismans, Signets and Treasures. (Yes, that’s right this card counts Treasures. As well as Clues, Maps, Blood, Foods and whatever else has been printed since I wrote this article.)
For three mana and the additional cost of discarding a card, which let’s be honest, in colors like Rakdos might end up being more of an upside, we can look at the top X cards of our library where X is the number of artifacts we control, put one of those cards into our hand and the rest on the bottom of our libraries in any order. While this is closer to card selection than card draw, the cards we’re able to view makes this card a real contender. It reminds me a little of the card War Room, which is played in 264,440 decks on EDHREC. We don’t have the life loss here, we don’t have the card draw (we’re still going to end up with the same number of cards in hand) but Fomori Vault feeds the graveyard and in decks that prioritize Treasures then we could be looking at an insane amount of cards. This card is definitely worth a try in your utility land slots in your decks and I’ve got a feeling this card will start to trickle up in price over time, especially as they get scooped up by the Eldrazi players...
Oltec Matterweaver
Moving down the list a little to Oltec Matterweaver, this card is a budget powerhouse and in the right archetypes can get you a lot of reward for your mana investment.
First let’s take a look at the stats. For two generic and one white mana you’re getting a 2/4 creature. At first glance, this should tell us this card isn’t going to be attacking all that much but it’s going to be blocking quite nicely.
Why is this relevant, I hear you ask? Well, here’s an exercise for you. Go to the Top Commanders tab at the top of this website and see how many of them this humble card can block and still live. It blocks five of them and lives in the top ten commanders alone.
Stats matter, but anywho let’s talk about what this card actually does. Oltec Matterweaverwants to be in a deck with a high concentration of creatures, because for each creature spell you’re getting either a 1/1 Gnome artifact creature token, or a token that’s a copy of target artifact token you control.
That first option is great for an aristocrats deck, feeding into all of your Village Rites and Corrupted Convictions quite nicely. The second option is great for all of the noncreature artifact tokens decks floating around these days. All you need is to have one Treasure token on board and Oltec Matterweaver will grant you an additional Treasure each time you cast a creature. It may as well say ‘Creature spells cost one less to cast’ which would provide a nice bit of cost reduction in white. All you need is one token and the value engine is roaring and ready to set off! Try this card in Marneus Calgar or Caesar, Legion's Emperor if you want to see this card hit its true potential.
Transmutation Font
Transmutation Font is a little bit of a simpler pick this time, but I want to bring it to everyone’s attention because of its resemblance to another classic card that sees plenty of play in EDH, Kuldotha Forgemaster.
Kuldotha Forgemaster is played in 39,833 decks versus Transmutation Font’s 3712 and while that’s lots to do with how recent the card is, you’ll find that this card can do a good impression for a fraction of the cost. Kuldotha Forgemaster is known for cheating artifacts onto the battlefield and when that could be anything up to a Blightsteel Colossus then people have learned to fear this card a little. Due to this you’ll find that it often is removed before you can activate it and because it’s a creature it can be hit with a lot more removal than Transmutation Font can.
Transmutation Font is also, notably not a creature so while it’s ability costs mana it can be activated the turn it’s played, giving your opponents a smaller reaction window.
Now I’m not saying that you should rip all your Kuldotha Forgemasters out of your decks, but I’m saying that for your decks that are running it then Transmutation Font offers you a nearly identical second copy. It’s a little slower but a lot more resilient, its criteria is more niche but its ability to fulfill that criteria by creating tokens itself means it's more useful, considering that no one was ever attacking with Kuldotha Forgemaster it may as well not have been a creature to begin with!
It’s always worth considering these effects; there’s the mantra in Commander to try to play the least flashy version of an ability if you don’t want to get it countered or removed. I think that Transmutation Font is enough of a reinterpretation that you’re likely to steal a game with it.
Gold Rush
Bonus sheets like The Big Score are only getting more common in Magic: The Gathering products. While the main mythic chase cards are in the main set, sleeper surprises on the bonus sheets can easily surprise the table. What do you think of these cards? What do you think of bonus sheets in general? Let me know in the comments. Some folks think they’re best for reprints only so we don’t end up with random bonus sheet cards costing a fortune! Did Outlaws of Thunder Junction get it right by having multiple bonus sheets? Or did we all just get confused opening our packs? Find out all this and more in the next Preview Review. I’ve been Josh, and I’ll see you in the next one!
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Joshua Clough
Joshua is a Medical Researcher from the UK. He's played Magic since Dragons of Tarkir and loves all things Commander, the more colours the better! When not playing Commander, he can be found insisting Jund is still a viable deck in Modern and painting tiny plastic miniatures on Twitter @PrinceofBielTan
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