Sooo new set, what are the commons to look out for? My first glance list from the spoilers:
White: Choking Restraints - 3 CMC Pacifism with a minor but relevant upside, sweet. Desperate Sentry - Considerably better Dauntless Cathar with delirium, yet perfectly acceptable without it (if slow). A good payoff without much risk. Sigardian Priest - The non-human clause is annoyingly relevant, but it's still a strong tapper. Ironclad Slayer - 3/2 for 3 with a potentially great payoff, natural synergy with Choking Restraints (and Dead Weight+Boon of Emrakul in Black).
Blue: Drag Under - Sorcery speed hurts, but Repulse is a very high bar to hit. The card is still strong. Enlightened Maniac - 0/2+3/2 for 4 is playable in of itself. But the CMC is on the 0/2, so this works super well with any Emerge. Exultant Cultist - Usually weaker than Byway Courier, but still fine and has natural Emerge synergy. Ingenious Skaab - Watercourser was already good, this is even harder to enter combat with. Tattered Haunter - Welkin Tern's strength depends on how many 1/1 spirits are flying around, but it'll still steal games. Wretched Gryff - The body is very efficient when dropped for 3-4 mana (2-3 CMC sac), and it replaces the sacrifice with a card. Very easy to get your mana's and card's worth, this could end up blue's top common and a top 5 overall common.
Black: Boon of Emrakul - Perfectly fine removal, if not quite on Dead Weight's level. Gavony Unhallowed - A less all-in Unruly Mob. This is at least usable if nothing dies, and still has a pretty great payoff if things do work out. Olivia's Dragoon - The workhorse of any vampire deck, and totally fine if vampire's don't pan out. Thraben Foulbloods - Paranoid Parish-Blade with a comparable if not superior delirium payoff at common, can't ask for more. Succumb to Temptation - Probably weaker in limited than Sign in Blood (harder to play draw-go), but every black deck still wants at least one.
Red: Brazen Wolves - Usually stronger Howlpack Wolf, sweet. Galvanic Bombardment - 2 damage for a mana is very playable, and is occasionally better later on. Neato. Thermo-Alchemist - Entirely dependent on how slow the format is. Having said that, Lobber Crew was a very real threat in slow-ish RtR limited, and this has a better untap condition.
Green: Backwoods Survivalists - 4/3 for 4 with relevant upside, count me in. Bloodbriar - Usable if nothing ends up sacrificed, great if even one thing does. This works with Emerge and any clues from the SOI pack, in addition to a party bag of various sac effects. Prey Upon - We were a bit spoiled by Rabid Bite, but this'll do work as always. Ulvenwald Captive - As Dire Wombat put it, it's Voyaging Satyr with Monstrosity. Good early game, good mid game, great late game, good spot for a common to be in. Wolfkin Bond - This is markedly worse than Knightly Valor, but it's still efficient as a 5 drop common. It of the Horrid Swarm - This one needs a bit more work than blue's emerge common, but this is probably efficient enough where you're content saccing a three drop.
Blue's common base looks super solid, rest seem alright.
I'm a little concerned about the spot that green is in. Prey Upon has always been very good and Ulvenwald Captive seems great (Voyaging Satyr with Monstrosity? Yes please), but the high value of both is dependent on having other quality creatures to ramp into and fight with, and those seem to be really missing. Backwoods Survivalists is perfectly fine, but it's only conditionally better than Summit Prowler, which means green really lacks an generically strong body at common. Maybe if green had good common Emerge enablers I'd think, well, you can be an Emerge deck with It of the Horrid Swarm for mid-game beef, or you can be Delirium with Backwoods Survivalists, but all the good Emerge enablers are blue.
I'm just concerned that green may end up in the position of providing good support cards (Captive and Prey Upon) to decks relying on other colors for their bread and butter, which if true would make me hesitant to start a draft in green.
I mean Knightly Valor was a premium card in both sets it was in and Wolfkin Bond loses the vigilance, but is common in a smaller set.
Also the welp is uncommon. Would add Alchemist's Greeting to reds commons though. Not sure if it will be slightly better or slightly worse than Boulder Salvo, but either way is a great card.
The vigilance is quite relevant, it's a keyword that scales very well with the added beef. But you're right, I think Bond still deserves a mention.
Greetings seems a little situational. Discard is a bigger hurdle than another spell, and Red is lacking good discard outlets even at uncommon (Furyblade in Vampires, perhaps). I do NOT want to be stuck casting that at 5 mana sorcery speed, Thottle was marginally playable as is.
I'm not sold on Wolfly Valor. Vigilance on the enchanted creature was very significant, and it was in a set with Populate (not that Knight tokens were the ideal thing to populate, but still).
I also pegged many of the same cards that appear on your list. There are also a few others that I think are just generically strong but slightly boring and/or serve important roles in some decks.
This is really just for the delirium decks, but I was always a lot happier playing Wicker Witch than I expected I would be. Field Creeper is miles better, so I think it is a good common for dedicated delirium decks.
Faithbearer Paladin is close to Dawnstrike Paladin. Point of power goes to Faithbearer along with the easier casting cost, but vigilance on a big-butted lifelinker is cool. Anyway, both seem like good cards and pretty close on quality while serving slightly different roles.
Swift Spinner is no Nephalia Seakite, but at least it blocks like one. Fliers were a bit of a problem for green in Shadows and this guy should certainly help. Attacking into 2GG was dicey enough with Pack Guardian and now the sky isn't safe either.
I will wait and see with Prey Upon. Unnatural Aggression was not sub-par because it cost 3, it was sub-par because it was too situational in which it sometimes had nothing meaningful to do. That may have been due to green being bad in BFZ to begin with, though, so I'm not sure. If green here has some decent common sizable creatures, then Prey Upon can be good.
I don't think I like Desperate Sentry much. For 3 mana a 1/2 sometimes has basically no effect on the board and its best use would be a chump blocker if your opponent is attacking on the ground. The payoff for that is to just get a 3/2 which is not much of a payoff in my view. Facing flyers or a deck which is not attacking early the sentry can't even chump block. I like Dauntless Cathar a lot more since the immediate 3/2 is relevant as is the 1/1 flyer later. In a deck which can attain delirium quickly, the sentry goes way up in value but I don't think that there are a high percentage of delirium-matters decks which can attain delirium all that quickly. On the other hand, if the set has a good number of 1 toughness ground creatures, then the 1/2 can be relevant a good amount of the time and the sentry could be quite good overall.
Green does not have decently sized creatures at common, so I don't think Prey Upon will be that good (I'm pegging it as a 2.5). Just ask yourself which green common creatures can actually kill a 3/2, and you'll find nothing that costs any less than 6. However, prey upon has one huge upside compared to unnatural aggression, and that's that it is extremely tempo efficient as it only costs one mana. This lets you do things like emerge out the common 4/4 and prey upon their dude which you could never do with unnatural aggression.
Regarding green seeming weak, one thing to keep in mind is that the overall power level seems pretty low. White for instance, has exactly one common/uncommon creature with 4 or more power. How does white even deal with a 4/4? It has zero efficient combat tricks at common, so it'll need to heavily rely on its pacifism and tapper to deal with anything even remotely big. Wolfy valor might be better than it looks simply because of how weak removal/tricks are in the format.
I'll try to get a limited review out sometime soon so we can argue more concretely about the value of certain cards as everyone's definition of "good" seems to be slightly different.
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White:
Choking Restraints - 3 CMC Pacifism with a minor but relevant upside, sweet.
Desperate Sentry - Considerably better Dauntless Cathar with delirium, yet perfectly acceptable without it (if slow). A good payoff without much risk.
Sigardian Priest - The non-human clause is annoyingly relevant, but it's still a strong tapper.
Ironclad Slayer - 3/2 for 3 with a potentially great payoff, natural synergy with Choking Restraints (and Dead Weight+Boon of Emrakul in Black).
Blue:
Drag Under - Sorcery speed hurts, but Repulse is a very high bar to hit. The card is still strong.
Enlightened Maniac - 0/2+3/2 for 4 is playable in of itself. But the CMC is on the 0/2, so this works super well with any Emerge.
Exultant Cultist - Usually weaker than Byway Courier, but still fine and has natural Emerge synergy.
Ingenious Skaab - Watercourser was already good, this is even harder to enter combat with.
Tattered Haunter - Welkin Tern's strength depends on how many 1/1 spirits are flying around, but it'll still steal games.
Wretched Gryff - The body is very efficient when dropped for 3-4 mana (2-3 CMC sac), and it replaces the sacrifice with a card. Very easy to get your mana's and card's worth, this could end up blue's top common and a top 5 overall common.
Black:
Boon of Emrakul - Perfectly fine removal, if not quite on Dead Weight's level.
Gavony Unhallowed - A less all-in Unruly Mob. This is at least usable if nothing dies, and still has a pretty great payoff if things do work out.
Olivia's Dragoon - The workhorse of any vampire deck, and totally fine if vampire's don't pan out.
Thraben Foulbloods - Paranoid Parish-Blade with a comparable if not superior delirium payoff at common, can't ask for more.
Succumb to Temptation - Probably weaker in limited than Sign in Blood (harder to play draw-go), but every black deck still wants at least one.
Red:
Brazen Wolves - Usually stronger Howlpack Wolf, sweet.
Galvanic Bombardment - 2 damage for a mana is very playable, and is occasionally better later on. Neato.
Thermo-Alchemist - Entirely dependent on how slow the format is. Having said that, Lobber Crew was a very real threat in slow-ish RtR limited, and this has a better untap condition.
Green:
Backwoods Survivalists - 4/3 for 4 with relevant upside, count me in.
Bloodbriar - Usable if nothing ends up sacrificed, great if even one thing does. This works with Emerge and any clues from the SOI pack, in addition to a party bag of various sac effects.
Prey Upon - We were a bit spoiled by Rabid Bite, but this'll do work as always.
Ulvenwald Captive - As Dire Wombat put it, it's Voyaging Satyr with Monstrosity. Good early game, good mid game, great late game, good spot for a common to be in.
Wolfkin Bond - This is markedly worse than Knightly Valor, but it's still efficient as a 5 drop common.
It of the Horrid Swarm - This one needs a bit more work than blue's emerge common, but this is probably efficient enough where you're content saccing a three drop.
Blue's common base looks super solid, rest seem alright.
I'm just concerned that green may end up in the position of providing good support cards (Captive and Prey Upon) to decks relying on other colors for their bread and butter, which if true would make me hesitant to start a draft in green.
Also the welp is uncommon. Would add Alchemist's Greeting to reds commons though. Not sure if it will be slightly better or slightly worse than Boulder Salvo, but either way is a great card.
Greetings seems a little situational. Discard is a bigger hurdle than another spell, and Red is lacking good discard outlets even at uncommon (Furyblade in Vampires, perhaps). I do NOT want to be stuck casting that at 5 mana sorcery speed, Thottle was marginally playable as is.
This is really just for the delirium decks, but I was always a lot happier playing Wicker Witch than I expected I would be. Field Creeper is miles better, so I think it is a good common for dedicated delirium decks.
Dawn Gryff is boring, but clearly solid. Wind Drakes have been having so much upside lately (Nimbus Naiad, Spectral Shepard) that it seems boring, but this is clearly still a strong common.
Faithbearer Paladin is close to Dawnstrike Paladin. Point of power goes to Faithbearer along with the easier casting cost, but vigilance on a big-butted lifelinker is cool. Anyway, both seem like good cards and pretty close on quality while serving slightly different roles.
Fiend Binder is another core set throwback. Worse than Master of Diversion, but that's a solid card to be compared to.
Irrespective of meld, I think Midnight Scavengers is pretty good. Black has a ton of good low drops to return as is. Recurring things like Heir of Falkenrath, Rancid Rats, or Crow of Dark Tidings is sweet. Indeed, there are a lot of evasive low drops in black.
Swift Spinner is no Nephalia Seakite, but at least it blocks like one. Fliers were a bit of a problem for green in Shadows and this guy should certainly help. Attacking into 2GG was dicey enough with Pack Guardian and now the sky isn't safe either.
I don't think I like Desperate Sentry much. For 3 mana a 1/2 sometimes has basically no effect on the board and its best use would be a chump blocker if your opponent is attacking on the ground. The payoff for that is to just get a 3/2 which is not much of a payoff in my view. Facing flyers or a deck which is not attacking early the sentry can't even chump block. I like Dauntless Cathar a lot more since the immediate 3/2 is relevant as is the 1/1 flyer later. In a deck which can attain delirium quickly, the sentry goes way up in value but I don't think that there are a high percentage of delirium-matters decks which can attain delirium all that quickly. On the other hand, if the set has a good number of 1 toughness ground creatures, then the 1/2 can be relevant a good amount of the time and the sentry could be quite good overall.
Regarding green seeming weak, one thing to keep in mind is that the overall power level seems pretty low. White for instance, has exactly one common/uncommon creature with 4 or more power. How does white even deal with a 4/4? It has zero efficient combat tricks at common, so it'll need to heavily rely on its pacifism and tapper to deal with anything even remotely big. Wolfy valor might be better than it looks simply because of how weak removal/tricks are in the format.
I'll try to get a limited review out sometime soon so we can argue more concretely about the value of certain cards as everyone's definition of "good" seems to be slightly different.