MTG Thunder Junction: Best cards in Breaking News

Collect some hugely powerful and costly reprints with this brand-new MTG bonus sheet appearing in Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

As well as the hundreds of excellent new Wild West-themed cards appearing in MTG’s Outlaws of Thunder Junction set, the Breaking News bonus sheet included in Play and Collector Boosters features valuable reprints of many powerful spells from across MTG’s history.

Breaking News recasts Instants, Sorceries, Artifacts, and Enchantments as hot-off-the-press headlines featuring crimes on the frontier plane of Thunder Junction.

There’s a lot to enjoy here for both collectors and deck-builders looking for exceptionally powerful new additions. Below, we’ve collected our picks for the most powerful cards in Outlaws of Thunder Junction’s Breaking News, so you’ll know what to keep an eye out for when cracking some packs.

MTG Outlaws of Thunder Junction Breaking News: Best Cards

#5: Crackle with Power

WotC

As the only X-cost spell on this list, Crackle with Power has made a name for itself as a top-tier burn card. Its strength lies in its simplicity, allowing you to deal more damage to more targets as an increasing amount of mana is paid.

While this card can serve as a costly removal tool for pesky Creatures that would otherwise have too much toughness to touch, Crackle with Power is most often deployed as a way to deal burn damage straight to opponents. With the right setup, this card can take players out of the game without entering combat even once.

For Commanders that can afford it – through cost reduction like Rowan, Scion of War, or Treasure generation like Prosper, Tome-Bound – Crackle with power can end games in an instant. While it can initially feel underpowered in the early turns, the only limit to this card’s burn damage is how much mana you can pay into it.

#4: Contagion Engine

WotC

Proliferate is one of MTG’s most useful abilities, and this high-cost artifact combines proliferate with non-destruction removal. When Contagion Engine ETBs (enters the battlefield), its controller puts a -1/-1 counter on each Creature a target opponent controls. Then, through proliferate, these counters grow and grow until the Creatures they’re attached to inevitably die.

-1/-1 counters handily get around the indestructible mechanic, but they’re far from this card’s only use. Poison Counters can be placed on opponents and then proliferated with this card, taking players out of the game in a short handful of turns.

If Poison Counters aren’t your thing – and they can sometimes be a touchy subject among MTG players – Contagion Engine’s full-throttle double proliferation is still useful in a wide variety of decks. Manipulating the Lore Counters on Saga cards is a novel way to run this card too. With enough mana to spare, you’ll be able to play multiple Sagas and activate each one of their steps on the same turn. Talk about speed-reading!

#3: Overwhelming Forces

WotC

For a cost of 6BB (six generic mana and two black), Overwhelming Forces wipes out every single Creature belonging to a target opponent, and fills its caster’s hand with one card for each Creature destroyed.

In a one-on-one game, this card is practically a death sentence for the other player, taking out their whole board and stocking your hand full to bursting with new options even if you don’t finish them off on the same turn.

While other generic black mana board wipes like In Garruk’s Wake can take out every opponent’s board and leave yours standing, sometimes you don’t have the Creature power to swing for the win right away. In situations where just one player needs to be dealt with immediately, Overwhelming Forces can be relied on to tear apart an otherwise runaway win in a flash.

The prohibitively high mana value is the only thing holding back Overwhelming Forces, but even then it can be well worth building up to. One-sided board wipes are always a joy to pull off – even if opponents might be tearing their hair out – swinging the balance of a game completely in your favor and often setting up for the win.

2: Reanimate

WotC

While there have been plenty of high-power, high-cost spells on this list, Reanimate has a huge impact on the game for the cost of just one black mana. Reanimate can fetch back a Creature from any graveyard – not just your own – and place it under your control.

Reanimate’s catch that it is slightly harmful to cast, dealing damage to its user equal to the revived Creature’s Mana Value. But this is a small price to pay for the sheer versatility of this card, bringing back either your own or your opponents’ best dead Creatures and still leaving you with mana to spare for the rest of the turn.

#1: Mana Drain

WotC

Mana Drain is a strong contender for the best counterspell Wizards has ever produced, and its hugely inflated price tag is a testament to that power.

For just UU (two blue mana), this card can counter any target spell, and give you colorless mana equal to that spell’s cost at the start of your next main phase. Few other cards in the game’s history can so handily shut down an opponent’s play while also handing you ammo for your next cast.

Most alternative MTG counterspells offer variations on the theme – being better in certain aspects and worse in others – but Mana Drain is a strict upgrade. It isn’t hard to justify placing it in any blue mana deck you have, and for that reason, it’s the top Breaking News reprint on our list.

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