As we wade fully into #MTGWOE preview season, a few random, early thoughts from your favorite (?) filthy casual, soft-headed #MagicTheGathering elder:

[Hopeless Nightmare] looks... strong! As someone who cut his teeth on cards like Soul Warden, Exhume, and Priest of Titania, it does my grizzled old heart good to see decent power in cheap common cards. This card might not make many waves in Standard, but I have a feeling it'll be a useful piece in Pauper and possibly some other formats. I suspect it *won't* become format-defining anywhere, but I still expect some fun things from this little common.

[Asinine Antics] looks like turbo [Humility] at first glance, but it has a few pretty significant downsides compared to the OG "mini creatures" effect. First, it can't affect creatres that enter the battlefield after you cast it. Second, the use cases for this effect as a one-off aren't really there when compared to harder mass removal like [Farewell], [Damnation], or Wrath of God]. An effect like this is much better when it's continuous. Finally, this card being in blue hobbles it a little, as the most obvious strategy with a one-sided hoser like this is to use it as a combat trick, either to push trample damage through or to murderblock a full assault, and both of those strategies want a wide spread of creatures on the board, which blue isn't particularly happy doing. That said, I could see this becoming relevant as an occasional finisher in Simic decks that leverage green's creature advantages, and I think it'll make for some fun kitchen table board states in any case.

[Discerning Financier] is going to be great fun, but doubly so when you have to play second, as you run a good chance of earning free Treasure tokens just by playing normally. The card draw effect is nice at 3 mana, though formats with access to (generally) better white-compatible draw effects like [Dawn of a New Age] or [Reckoner Bankbuster] will likely still prefer those. In any case, it's splashable, it fixes mana at the very least, and it has 3 toughness, putting it out of range of some popular removal like [Play With Fire]. It wants slower, more casual formats to really shine, but I think it'll be tons of fun in places like Brawl, Commander, and Gladiator. (And as with any card that passively cares about lands, it *could* end up being broken in the right deck - I just don't see it yet. Maybe if you can legally sac the Treasure in response to the trigger, and then still draw a card? But TBH I'm not sure whether that's possible.)

[Spiteful Hexmage]: I want to follow [Lunarch Veteran] or [Soul Warden] with this as a turn-2 drop. A 1/1 doesn't care about being Cursed (in fact, it even provides an extra permanent to sacrifice or otherise manipulate!), and this approach nets you a superior board state against most decks by turn 3, which is nothing to sneeze at. It feels like a great card for aggressive Orzhov decks of all stripes, too, which is fun considering all the BW love in this set (and powerful BW cards from past planes like Ixalan). Perfectly usable in monoblack as well, but it feels better tuned to Orzhov, at least to me.

Last but not least, a note on creature types: With #Bloomburrow coming next year, it's exciting to see Wizards adding more Mouse, Otter, and Fox creature types in #WoE, along with others. This'll hopefully ensure that Bloomburrow players who like to use typal/tribal creature strategies have some depth of choice in their card pools. (Did you know there are currently only two Mouse cards in #MtG, not counting the Mouse creature token?)

What #Eldraine cards have you excited, intrigued, or nonplussed this preview season?