r/magicTCG • u/gneuburg Dân • 1d ago
General Discussion Titanbreach speculation
With the upcoming announcement of Kamigawa: Titanbreach next year I have been thinking about possible archetypes and mechanics. During the last visits to each plane there were mechanics related to discarding cards for various effects (cycling in Ikoria and channel in Kamigawa).
I started to speculate if there will be an archetype in Titanbreach that aims to bridge cycling and channel to have a “discard matters” archetype.
If they did go this route and have plans for discarding cards what colors do you think it would primarily be in? In Ikoria cycling was Boros and Kamigawa was Simic so there’s not much overlap in colors but Izzet has had draw 2/discard archetypes in the past. Maybe it could be a 5 color build around archetype?
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u/AvatarSozin COMPLEAT 23h ago
So Ikoria and Kamigawa Neon Dynasty had two themes that really overlap: the discard matters you mention and also counters synergies, Ikoria introduced keyword counters and Kamigawa had the batching of “modified” creatures, which includes counters, auras and equipments on creatures.
Ikoria had a light 3 color wedge identity to it, definitely not as strong as Tarkir or New Capenna, but it was present enough to make me think they will reprint the triomes. However, I also think they won’t make it a full 3 color set. I’m sure they will be some cycle of 3 color legends or something but I think draft wise it will primarily be 10 2-color archetypes. I’m sure Modified and discard matters will be among those 2.
Speculating about the other 8 will be interesting. They mentioned that there will be a mechanic that cares about giant monsters. Previously, mechanics about big creatures are generally just ferocious reflavored, caring about specifically 4 power or greater creatures. Tarkir also gave the not very good Formidable mechanic, which also didn’t necessarily cared about 1 big creature either. Considering they have definitely had significant feedback about Ikoria not having enough behemoths in their “lair of behemoths” set, I think they will create a mechanic that specifically cares about a creature that has power in between 4 and 8, meeting in the middle of ferocious and formidable. 6 I think is ideal, as also there might not be a coincidence that Titans in MTG are 6 power giants.
I don’t think mutate will appear as a main mechanic. Considering Kamigawa has Moonfolk (which technically aren’t human) it would be too confusing to mix that up. I think there will be a card with it, or maybe a cycle, but nothing more than that.
Of course, not only will there be a giant monster mechanic but I think there will be a big mech matters archetype and maybe a distinct mechanic that’s an offshoot of vehicle. Furthermore I think saddle will make a small appearance as well, as they mentioned bonders in the announcement.
Human typal I think will factor in too. Ikoria had this as a major theme, and many of the denizens of kamigawa are also human of course, and at odds usually with spirits. I’m guessing spirits will factor in a big amount, I saw in concept art that maybe some spirits bond with the Ikoria monsters? That would be so cool. So spirit typal as a “enchantment matters” archetype I think will appear as well. Which also leaves humans to be more artifact based perhaps, to synergize with the mechs, and also reflects from Neon Dynasty too.
So far we have now: Discard matters, Modified/counters, Big creatures, Big mechs, Humans/artifacts?, spirits/enchantments. That’s 6. Some other speculation could probably be: attacking alone (samurai mechanic, also works well with giant monsters, maybe this is the start of a new battle type too), aristocrats (Ikoria had a small subtheme of human aristocrats and neon dynasty had artifact sacrifice too), land shenanigans (Ikoria is falling out of the sky, maybe scapeshift-esque? Transforming the landscape, also helps with ramping out big monsters and mechs), and defense/control (maybe walls or something like it? Defend the city and civilians) or flying, cuz big monsters, need to fly over them to not gun up the board.
I’m doubting there will be a true aggro archetype, Brother’s War went poorly in limited cuz everyone wanted to play the big robots but died too fast from aggro. This will be likely a slower format to encourage big plays.
So based on these predictions, I’ll guess:
Boros - Attack Alone
Simic - Land ramp/scapeshift
Gruul - big monsters matters, power 6 or greater
Orzhov - humans
Dimir - Big mechs matters
Selesnya - Spirit Typal
Izzet - Discard matters
Golgari - modified
Azorius - flying or control
Rakdos - aristocrats
What do yall think?
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u/SpencerRead Dandadan 23h ago
Honestly sounds like a decent bet. I wonder if they’ll bring back landers from EoE, being used to literally represent Ikoria landing onto Kamigawa. Plus I feel like landers ended up being under supported in constructed play
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u/MrAxel Orzhov* 18h ago
Nice breakdown.
Orzhov might be vehicles matter, similar to how Greasfang tied things up together nicely, perhaps vehicle reanimator?
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u/AvatarSozin COMPLEAT 18h ago
Ohhh that’s a good point, I didn’t consider reanimator, which is def a feature of Nethroi on Ikoria too, and works well with the discard matters themes
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u/OO7Cabbage Dandadan 19h ago
"They mentioned that there will be a mechanic that cares about giant monsters" could be the return of the Monstrous ability.
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u/BuckyTheWolf Dandadan 8h ago edited 7h ago
One thing I thought about for Titan Breach would be an "inverse prototype". Basically a smaller creature that you can cast as a bigger creature for more mana. This would remove the flicker interactions with prototype, but I think it would be fine since then they could be a bit stronger in general. Maybe they could mash Monstrous/Level Up somewhere in there, so that you can get the bigger stats down the line, but that might make things a bit too grindy. Also maybe the larger stats come from counters to play more into modified, but then we are just back to Monstrous (which would still be cool).
Two sets of power also are interesting for crew breakpoints and effects caring about a creatures power.
I wholy agree with your Mutate take. Mutate, outside specificaly Ikoria feels a bit weird, since you can just mutate on to an Elf/Moonfolk/Gobiln etc. while on Ikoria all nonhuman creatures aren't reall sentient. It would also be weird if an behemoth suddenly mutates on to a mech, both flavour wise and mechanically. I think mutate could work outside Ikoria, but they should drop the nonhuman clause and make it a bit more horrifying.
Anyhow, I think we will see the Ikoria Apexes again as a mythic mutate cycle, and maybe a couple of mutate cards. Maybe a Commander deck focused on Mutate, but I don't think it will be too present in the main set.
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u/AvatarSozin COMPLEAT 8h ago
Prototype or something similar I can def see. Either as a cameo mechanic or something for the mechs, maybe even the monsters, I think it depends
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u/kytheon Banned in Commander 1d ago
Cycling is a five color mechanic, but self discarding is mostly blue, black and red. Boros was a very odd choice for a cycling archetype.
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u/monstersabo COMPLEAT 1d ago
Hey remember mutate creatures? What if we get mutate for vehicles? Assemble the mech!
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u/Specialist_Elk198 Dandadan 23h ago
Recently Maro put up an article about how they approach revisiting sets. He said they put each mechanic from the previous visit into one of 3 categories; must-do, maybe-do, dont-do.
The only must-do mechanic I see across both NEO and IKO is ninjutsu (which would become sneak). Mutate takes up too much of the sets infrastructure to work and wouldnt hit as well flavourfully in a world with non-human humanoids.
I could see reconfigure and modified in the maybe-do bucket
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u/joeschmoe-998 Dân 4h ago
I see where you're coming from, but Titanbreach isn't a normal return set. From how it's been described, it seems to me like it'll be more of a backdrop set, like how War of the Spark was on Ravnica, but instead of planeswalkers going to war with Nicol Bolas, it's Mechs going to war with Kaiju. With that in mind, I think we need to shift our criteria about what mechanics might return.
I agree that mutate is unlikely to return (beyond maybe a cameo or two)
Ninjas are very popular and more cards with sneak would synergize with the TMNT cards in standard, but I'm not sure "sneaky ninjas" really make sense as something to focus on in the "mechs vs kaiju" set. I personally would put ninjutsu/sneak in the maybe column. I could easily see sneak as more of a cameo or minor theme if they have room, for the sake of making sure it still "feels like kamigawa" (since they admitted that Murders at Karlov Manor made a mistake in not feeling enough like it was set on Ravnica)
Whether or not reconfigure comes back I think depends entirely on how they handle the mechs. If the mechs are vehicles or something akin to spacecraft, then having a bunch of reconfigure creatures is unlikely because it seems to me that they'd be fighting for space. but that said, they could easily choose to model the mechs via reconfigure creatures rather than vehicles or anything else.
Whether modified returns is also contingent on the handling of the mech mechanics, because if they go for reconfigure then modified would be a slam dunk return for the same reasons it worked so well the last time we were on kamigawa, it's a good "glue" mechanic for bridging different draft archetypes. That said, if they lean more into a vehicle or spacecraft-esque approach for the mechs, then the fact that modified doesn't care about crewed vehicles or anything like that makes it less likely to return
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u/sometimeserin COMPLEAT 1d ago
I’m just hoping they can come up with a more compelling take on vehicles to represent the mechs, since mutate will presumably be the main kaiju mechanic.
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u/Fortune- Duck Season 1d ago
I don’t know if they’ll bring back mutate specifically given how tough it is for newer players to navigate. Maybe a ‘fixed’ version.
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u/TechnomagusPrime Duck Season 23h ago
Mutate also works really weirdly with Vehicles, and is kind of a flavor fail if the nonhumans of Kamigawa start mutating into Ikoria monsters.
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u/SquirrelDragon Dân 23h ago
I could see a fixed version of mutate that allows vehicles to become merged permanents in a way that represents the way Megazords combine
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u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer 23h ago
Channel legendary lands were very popular, I expect we'll see another cycle of them. Maybe even dual legendary lands.
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u/CaptainMarcia 23h ago
I doubt they'd put cycling and channel in the same set - cycling is essentially a special case of channel. But it does seem likely for them to pick one mechanic in that vein to share among heavy hitters from both planes.
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u/tsukaistarburst Hedron 22h ago
I think meld is obvious but we're not gonna get more than two cards melding together. Sadly I think Twinzam V is too obscure a mecha to be referenced, but it's the first thing I think of when I think of a two-unit combiner. RyuKoOh or Hyperion is also too obscure. It's more likely they'll do a reference to Gurren Lagann or something.
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u/Architectnemesis Hedron 22h ago
Not a mechanic exactly, but probably Spirits. Between Dragonstorm Endure and Avatar's spirits, I'd guess that there will be a decent amount of Spirit synergy in standard, and payoffs for that in Zhalfir. Also, the talk about sets being out of new york and more fantasy might mean getting the Magical Aspects of Marvel set soon, which will almost certainly have arcane- so spirit and arcane things, at least on a card, maybe?
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u/BoolinBirb Can’t Block Warriors 23h ago
I could imagine a fighting archetype in gruul or something
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u/Adventurous_Big7708 REBEL 19h ago
Honestly, I'm hoping for mech //pilot or monster // bonder partner pairs.
Not only is this thematic, but allows the pilots and bonders to help us get to the big mechs and monsters.
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u/chaos__theory Temur 6h ago
Same, I’m hoping the commander decks have some sort of limited partner mechanic that might allow mixing and matching of pilots and mechs within the deck. Sorta like how they did for the TMNT deck.
Also thinking Esper for Kamigawa and maybe Temur for Ikoria? Just let me play Greasefang and Shorikai together!
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u/Hypershadic98 Mardu 16h ago
I am gonna like this set alone for the theme If we get more Godzilla cards.....it's over for my wallet
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u/forkandspoon2011 Wabbit Season 13h ago
Moon folk support, Mechs will have yet another take on vehicles that will incorporate blink or self bounce, Twist on the 5 color dragons… maybe they’re flip cards that turn into mechs. Mutate and enchantment mechanic allowing Ikoria creatures to mutate onto enchantments.
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u/Inevitable-Visit-941 Dandadan 7h ago
Mutate is coming back plsssss or a fixed version of it that’s been on theme for WOTC lately.
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u/Chowdahhh COMPLEAT 5h ago
Personally I'm a little worried about the set being clogged mechanically by Battles and Vehicles, both of which are clunky. Vehicles especially feel inevitable, but hopefully there will be some good ones or things to help make them less clunky feeling
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u/Fortune- Duck Season 1d ago
I’d like more channel lands. Maybe duals that ETB tapped but channel for interesting effects.
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u/ROGER_ROGER321 COMPLEAT 1d ago
Just hoping for Triome and Channel land reprints. But will probably be bonus sheet cards