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On the Tabletop

Magic the Gathering Retrospective: Kaladesh to Rivals of Ixalan

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Note: This is part 4 of a 5 part series.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Introduction

After revisiting Zendikar and Innistrad in the first four sets of the new block structure, WotC felt inspired to bring us to three new planes in the next 6. First, we went home with our favorite firebrand. Then, a dragon became a god in the desert. Finally, they must have given a 7 year old kid a 2 liter bottle of mountain dew and a set of sharpies before releasing him into the R&D office. Because Ixalan is a magical tapestry of pirates and dinosaurs woven together with vampires and merfolk.

Pirates and dinosaurs?! What more do you need?!

As with all of the Magic the Gathering sets, there are things that I like and things that I dislike about these six. Because I want to stay positive, I tend to focus on the things that I like. Overall, that was easy to do with this block of sets. There is a lot to like about the current state of Magic and I’m optimistic about the future of the game. Join me as I tell you why.

Kaladesh/Aether Revolt

As I mentioned above, this is the first new plane introduced for a couple of cycles. In addition, as I eluded earlier, this is the home plane for Chandra Nalaar. As a result, we finally got a great planeswalker card for her. When it was spoiled, some referred to it as Chandra, the Mind Sculptor. While I hesitate to agree with that sentiment, it is a good card and it has seen play as recently as this past weekend PT.

Plus, I pulled a foil from my first pack and sold it for 70 bucks on eBay a couple of days later. So, I’m not going to complain about the hype.

Kaladesh is also home to the mystical force known as aether. It is used for magical purposes, but also incorporated into constructs to simulate technology. This latter use of aether introduced a new type of card to the game in the form of vehicles. While their introduction excited me as all new mechanics and card types do, they weren’t the feature of the plane.

Kaladesh is also home to everyone’s favorite token, the thopters, but shockingly, they don’t represent the epitome of this marriage of magic and technology either. Sure, many (perhaps all) of the denizens of Kaladesh utilize thopters in every day life. And, I come here not to bury the thopters. I come to praise them. But, they don’t come close to the cool factor of the giant loveable magic fueled robots, the Gearhulks.

What happens when you fuse the soul of a Snapcaster Mage with a hunk of metal and zap it with some Aether? Oh, this isn’t a riddle. You get this guy.

Two final points before leaving Kaladesh for the deserts of Amonkhet. First, do you love infinite combos in standard? Because, thanks to Kaladesh and Aether Revolt, we got an infinite combo in standard! It was fun while it lasted before WotC banished Guardian to eternal formats. Finally, I mentioned in my previous article that I wasn’t paying close enough attention to see the Eldrazi coming. Granted, I might not have been paying attention here, either, but I was able to fortell the coming of Nicol Bolas.

Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation

This pair of sets had a similar feel to Theros. I’m not as much of a fan of Egyptian mythology as Greek. Still, I find anything based on ancient civilizations fascinating. I once made the joke, after buying a Dremel multi tool, that ancient civilizations were able to build such remarkable structures without such modern amenities. Clearly, they were better men than me. But, I digress.

How is this just like Theros then? Well, you have the return of gods to the game. Just like Theros, each of the gods has a like god from the actual pantheon of Egyptian gods. The big difference is that our favorite (possibly) immortal dragon, Nicol Bolas has taken up residence on the plane as the big boss man, er, god.

Where there’s Bolas, Ugin can’t be far behind and vice versa. Perhaps there will be a reckoning on Ravnica?

Three mechanics introduced in the sets are absolute flavor wins. The first two are embalm and eternalize. Both involve the afterlife of a creature. As we all know, that’s a major theme in Egyptian mythology. Those were neat to see included in the sets. The third gave both Chris and I “WTF” moments initially. I thought the cards were either a joke or misprinted.

We’ve had cards that flip upside down. They have “fused” and “melded” cards together. There have been double sided cards. That format has been the most resourceful for them. They’ve used it on creatures, planeswalkers, and even lands now. So, the concept of a card becoming another card is not new to the game. It’s just that the latest iteration of the concept initially looked…let’s say, odd. I know you’ve seen them, but look at them again with an innocent’s eyes.

I seriously thought the cards were misprinted. It’s just such a jarring design.

Ixalan/Rivals of Ixalan

I already made the joke about the development of the set earlier. Don’t misunderstand me. I actually loved the concept of dinosaurs and pirates. Can’t forget vampires and merfolk, but they’re not nearly as cool as the others. Funny enough, I also already referenced one of the other major developments of the set in the previous section, double faced lands. Certainly not as exciting as pirates or dinosaurs. Not even really as exciting as the less exciting vampires and merfolk. Still worth a mention.

Let’s talk about the dinosaurs for a minute. There are your normal run of the mill dinos. You know the ones, The velociraptor who bags your groceries at the super market, as long as it isn’t chicken. Then there’s the old lady T-Rex who hangs out on the park bench and eats the pigeons. And we can’t forget about the dilophosaur children who attack the bus driver every morning and never actually make it to school.

Adorable.

Then, you have your Elder dinosaurs. You might wonder why the old lady from the previous paragraph doesn’t get consideration for elder dinosaur. Well, quite simply, it’s because she isn’t epic enough. Elder dinosaurs don’t sit on a park bench! They have word vomit for keyword text, or increase your hand size to inifinity, or kill everything on the board, or exile cards from your opponent and give them to you, or…have trample? Okay, so that last one doesn’t seem quite so epic. But, I assure you, it is!

Or, they are uncastable and have little to no impact on the game if you do happen to get to 9 mana.

Lastly on the plane of Ixalan, and most important to a filthy casual player like me, is the hybrid board and card game that Wizards of the Coast released. I’ve gotten to play it a couple of times with the boys and it is a fun way to introduce people to the game of Magic the Gathering. Even as a more seasoned player, I liked the addition of the strategy of the board game element. I’m glad that they will be doing more of this.

The Verdict

All three of the new planes brought innovation into the game. As Chris and I discussed on the podcast yesterday, the two set structure tends to make the second set weaker. It isn’t as much of a problem in the 3 set blocks because you expect one of the sets of the three to not be as strong. But, in a 2 set structure, that means that half of the block is weak. It’s just simple math.

Nevertheless, as I said in the beginning, I like to focus on the positive. There’s plenty from each of these sets that I enjoyed. It may not sound like it on the podcast, but I’m mostly optimistic about where Magic the Gathering is right now and where it is going in the near future.

I have only Dominaria and the Return to Ravnica block to cover before I’m done with this retrospective. I wasn’t sure exactly how, or even if, I would pull this off and it’s a bit of a relief to be at the end. It’s been a fun look back at my time in the game. I hope that you’ve enjoyed it, too, and will come back in a couple of days for the final article.

On the Tabletop

Magic the Gathering Retrospective: Origins to Eldrich Moon

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Note: This is part 3 of a 5 part series.

Part 1 | Part 2

Introduction

This is the time in Magic the Gathering history when the game was supposed to change forever. They made an announcement that there would be no more core sets. Admittedly, I don’t always have my finger on the pulse of various communities, but I never heard a huge outcry during the announcement. Granted, as a collector, I mourned the loss of those sets, but I’m not sure that many others did.

Aside from that, they reduced the number of sets for each block from 3 sets to 2. In response to this announcement, I did hear quite a bit of murmuring from the crowd. Perhaps it was a bridge too far so soon after the abolition of core sets. As we’ve discussed several times, some portions of the nerd community have become resistant to change. Furthermore, they are quite vocal about it.

Actual quotes from Star Wars fans after every new movie.

Magic the Gathering Origins and Competitive Play

In the previous two articles, I’ve included the core set with the block. I change that here for two reasons. First, with the core sets being discontinued, WotC assured us that there wouldn’t necessarily be “blocks” of sets anymore, even though there were for the next six cycles. Second, since Origins was supposed to be the “last” core set, they promised something innovative for the set.

As with most of WotC’s promises, this wasn’t entirely true. While there were some new things in the set that I will talk about briefly, at it’s heart, Origins was a core set. I think in my article about it, I called Origins the “corest of core sets”. I don’t blame them. Core sets existed for a reason. If you’re going to have core sets, then it should fulfill that purpose. Just don’t promise that you’re going out with a bang and then offer a slightly exaggerated whimper.

Okay, enough of my own “Grumpy Cat” impression. As I said, there are things that I enjoyed about the set. Before I get to those, I will just write a quick note about competitive. I’m not a competitive player by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t aspire to be one either. I do enjoy watching Magic, though, and this set was very kind to competitive players.

Plus, as an added bonus, it gave us the earworm, “I ain’t no Hangerback girl”. Just me? I can live with that.

My Thoughts on MtG Origins

Finally, we get to my positives from the set. Not to give too much away, but they’re what you have come to expect from a filthy casual such as myself. I might be mistaken here, but it’s the first time that I noticed that WotC made the story front and center in the game. I know that there has always been lore. It’s one of the things that we love about Magic. But, this is the first time that I saw them pushing that story on their web page and through the cards. That story focused around five main Planeswalkers and their journey through Magic history.

Speaking of those Planeswalkers, they lived up to the promise of “something different”. None of them start off as Planeswalkers. Instead, they are cast as younger versions of themselves. Then, through a mechanic associated with their color identity, they “gain their spark” and flip to become a Planeswalker. There has been at least one other flip Planewalker since, but this was like nothing that I have ever seen in the game before this set. I don’t know if they have plans to do so, but I would love to see more cards like this in the future.

Of course, I have to stick to my roots and use our friend Jace as the example.

Battle for Zendikar/Oath of the Gatewatch

I have to admit that I was surprised when they announced this group of sets. While the first Zendikar block might have been popular at the time, the only thing that I ever heard from players was how much they hated the Annihilator mechanic. Wizards of the Coast even publicly admitted that Annihilator might have been a mistake. I think I wrote in my previous article that we haven’t been back to Mirrodin, mostly likely because of infect. But, now, we’re back in Zendikar with an even less interactive mechanic? Okay. Let’s do this.

Yes, the Eldrazi are back. No, they don’t have Annihilator. Most of them don’t have Annihilator. Okay, none of them have Annihilator, but Ulamog is hungry and he wants to eat your deck. In keeping with the colorless theme, this set has colorless colored cards. Yeah, I know. For a game that prides itself on its adherence to logic, that might be a tough circle to square. Hear me out on this one, though. I mentioned earlier that WotC was choosing to incorporate lore more into the game. The Eldrazi are colorless creatures that consume all in their path. Zendikar is a rich source of resources. It makes sense that as the Eldrazi consume Zendikar’s resources, there would be those that were in the process of being converted.

This card has two colors, but is still colorless! Madness!

Maybe I thought too much thought into that. I’m sure that I put too much thought into it. Okay, I’m positive that I thought about that way too much. But, it was a fun train of thought for me and who knows? Maybe I’m on to something.

Back to the sets themselves. You can’t just have colorless spaghetti monsters (Actually, she’s not even here. More on her in the next section. Spoiler Alert.) destroying all in their paths. Well, you could, but that’s not much of a narrative. In addition to the old mechanic of landfall to symbolize the land itself fighting back, there’s also a mechanic called converge that pumps the ability of cards based on the different types of mana used to cast them. Multicolored v. colorless. Great flavor win!

Shadows Over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon

If it was a surprise that we returned to Zendikar, it was a relief to go back to Innistrad. I said several times in my previous article that Innistrad was right in my wheelhouse. If you haven’t read that article, I will summarize here. Having grown up with fantasy and fantasy horror, Innistrad reminded me of times playing the D&D campaign Ravenloft with friends as a teenager. The addition of flip cards, the lore win of graveyard interaction, and a strong story overall cemented Innistrad as one of my favorite blocks. I’m glad to be back.

Okay, but what are those shadows over Innistrad? Who knows? Who cares? It’s probably just witches or giant bats or something like that. It’s certainly not a giant spaghetti monster that has come to consume this plane that we all love. To be honest, I had no idea during the first set that there would be Eldrazi on Innistrad. I mean, I did find it odd that Emrakul was missing from Zendikar, but I wasn’t paying full attention to the story at the time. I was just happy to be back on Innistrad.

It appears that there may have been clues if I had been paying attention.

You got Eldrazi in my zombies! You got zombies in my Eldrazi! Two disgusting things that go great together? I admit that it was a complete surprise when the reveal of Eldritch moon showed that much of the madness on the plane was courtesy of Emrakul’s influence. I wasn’t sure how the crossover might work and felt skeptical that it would be any good. I’m happy to have been proven wrong. While not as strong as the other Innistrad sets, in my opinion, Eldritch Moon delivered enough fun to be a solid filler set if nothing else.

The Verdict

The “new era of Magic the Gathering” as ushered in by the end of core sets and the switch from 3 set blocks to a less rigid construct for sets got off to a mostly successful start. While Origins was, at its heart, just another core set, it did introduce some cool new things into the game. My favorite from the set was the flip Planeswalkers. I hold out hope that we will see more, but to this day they are unique to Origins. Kudos to WotC for keeping things unique.

I never got to play the original Zendikar. I wasn’t even able to collect it as boxes were pushing 300 dollars at the time that I was trying to put together sets. It was nice to be able to see some of what I missed without having to deal with the annoying Annihilator mechanic. I’m not as much of a fan of the Eldrazi as maybe Chris is, but I’ve developed a soft spot since these sets for the big lugs.

Emrakul, in particular, has a goofy triggered ability that I enjoy.

The revisit to Innistrad wasn’t as much fun as the first. Guess you really can’t go home again. The Eldrazi only partly played a role in making the Innistrad not as fun. I actually enjoyed the story and some of the weird creatures that came as a result. It was just too much of a good thing perhaps. That’s what I fear from a Return to Return to Ravnica. This will be the third time on the plane in just over a decade of time. What could they possibly have that will make it worth it? I suppose time will tell.

3 down, 2 to go. Next time, we visit the 3 newer planes introduced recently; Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan. After that, it is Dominaria and Return to Ravnica to finish the series. I hope you all have been enjoying reading this as much as I’ve been writing it. See you in a couple of days.

On the Tabletop

Magic the Gathering Retrospective: Theros to Dragons of Tarkir

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Note: This is part 2 of a 5 part series.

Introduction

I’ve already explained the rationale behind this series of articles in the previous article, found here. Picking up that thread, Return to Ravnica got me back into the game and Scars of Mirrodin and ultimately Innistrad cemented my interest in the game. Theros and Tarkir made me fall in love with the game. Both of my recent prereleases were attended for these sets. Chris and I fed each other’s addictions. It’s always during those times that our interest in the game is the strongest and this was no different.

Theros Block

Core Set 2014 – 2011 was Titans. 2012 was Mages. 2014, well 2014 holds a special place in my heart. Sure, a big, dumb 6/6 that let’s you rez your little dummies is fun (Sun Titan) and a tiny dummy that can summon you an army of even tinier dummies (Jade Mage) are both fun, but what if all of your dummies could work together? 2014 introduced me to slivers and what has become a life long quest to make slivers work in a deck.

I never got it to work consistently, but I did bother Chris one game with this guy and a few of the plus one guys. And, we all know that bothering Chris is my favorite MtG mini game.

Theros: This is awesome. A couple of blocks ago, I got gothic horror for my MtG experience. This time, I’m getting ancient Greek and Roman lore. I studied math and philosophy in college. My wife studied classic as part of her education degree. We went to Greece for a vacation to celebrate her graduation. This set speaks to me on a primal level. As an added bonus, this is about the time that I actually started to think about Magic as a strategy game. With mechanics like heroic and monstrosity, I could no longer ignore the siren’s call of synergy.

Born of the Gods: Just like the previous two blocks, the middle set was the smallest of the three. Also, like my previous looks back in those blocks, I was smart and I saved some to talk about for the smallest set that might not have that much to discuss. In reality, I just forgot about them in the previous section, so I’ll talk about them here. First, I forgot to mention “Bestow”, a mechanic that allows you to cast a creature as an Aura, which then detaches and becomes a creature again when the creature it attached to dies. Makes perfect sense, right? Nope, I explained it poorly. See Nyxborn Eidolon for some cool art and an example. Finally, what is a Greek themed set without gods?

Mogis is probably my favorite from this set. Still trying to make a deck work around him.

Journey into Nyx: Cripes, I forgot another mechanic in the last set as I was trying to make up for missing the earlier two mechanics. Inspire triggers whenever the creature untaps. Satyr Nyx-Smith is a neat example and it leads me right into the mechanic of this set. Strive lets you cast multiple copies of a spell and choose different targets for each copy. Ajani’s Presence always teased me as a possibility for a heroic deck, but the Strive cost is a bit too steep for an aggro deck. Probably by design, I imagine. We are still a set off from creating game breaking cards. Spoiler Alert. This set also contains my favorite card from the block and scry engine for my empires deck that I talked about in the last article, Sigiled Starfish.

Tarkir Block

Core Set 2015: Through it all, trying to remember everything, and I still forgot Chris’s favorite mechanic from the set, Constellation. Well, I was trying to be true to my with the game and constellation never spoke to me. So, what cool stuff is in 2015? Not much, which is why I took up space mentioning constellation. I mean, it does have probably the best named card ever, Hot Soup, and Waste Not, which was designed by the MtG community. And sure, Sliver Hivelord is pretty cool, too. Other than that, it was a pretty standard set and right about when I started to tire of Core sets.

It seems like I wasn’t the only one who was tired of them, either, because Wizards announced that Origins would be the last core set and later reversed that decision. But that’s in the next part.

Khans of Tarkir: My other prerelease came during this set. I brought the boys along for this one because I always want to include them in the things that I enjoy. That proved to be a bit of a mistake because they were a bit too young for what ended up being a much longer day than expected. I also chose poorly for my prerelase kit and went against my nature with Mardu. Both the clan and the cards were telling me to go aggro and I tried control. It met with failure. I lost the first two games and then Aiden wanted to leave, so we dropped. It was so miserable that we haven’t been back. That’s not entirely true. The last part is true, but it’s not necessarily because of this experience. It’s just that life gets busy.

Fate Reforged: I don’t remember exactly what was happening during this set. It was right around the time that I had one of my breaks from the game. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in the set. I actually loved the story that was being told about time travel and bringing the Dragons back to the plane. I’m not usually a fan of time travel, but when dragons are involved, I will temper my skepticism with some healthy, “Awesome!”

And it paved the way for them to print one of my favorite cards ever.

Dragons of Tarkir: I was back in the game by the time this one rolled around. Maybe it was just the business of the new semester that kept me away for Fate Reforged? I know for a fact that I was back in for Dragons. I remember that I wrote an article about attending the prerelease with my kids and decided against it. The set, though, was so much fun.  When you put dragons in the name of a set, you had better come with the dragons. It is not a stretch to say, “Here there be dragons” in Tarkir anymore.

The Verdict

Theros was an undeniable flavor win. The ancient Greek lore spoke to the math, philosophy, and classics nerd in me. Besides that, we had fun playing the block. While looking through the set to write this article, I texted Chris, “Theros was just a solid block.” He agreed and we talked about how much fun it was. I then, as I often do, speculated how much fun it would have been to draft the set. Granted, I did a prerelease, but drafts are a completely different strategy. Who knows? Maybe one of these days I will put together a Theros block cube with all of my spare cards.

I had a different reaction to Tarkir. It focused on multicolor like Return to Ravnica. Unlike Ravnica, the clans were three color instead of two color. Having never played during Alara, the concept of three color decks intrigued me. I also learned a great bit about the MtG color wheel. The three colors of Alara were three allied colors while the three colors of Tarkir were two allied colors and one enemy color. That all changed when the dragons came back, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Up next is the end of core sets. Is it really, though? We also take a trip back to some recent planes before going to 3 new and exciting ones. The final part will talk about the set that took us all the way back to the beginning and set the stage for the Return to the Return to Ravnica. Be sure to keep reading and I hope these articles are bringing back as many great memories for you as they have for me.

On the Tabletop

Magic the Gathering Retrospective: Scars of Mirrodin to Avacyn Restored

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Note: This is part 1 of a 5 part series.

Introduction

Why Scars of Mirrodin? Chris and I are going to talk about Magic’s return to return to Ravnica on the podcast this week. After their most recent revisit to their old home, it’s clear that the R&D guys at WotC are feeling nostalgic. This nostalgia has inspired me to take a look back at my history with the game. While I have been playing the game since the beginning, it is only since Scars of Mirrodin that I’ve been actively engaged in the game.

Plus, Mirrodin introduced poison to the game and that’s everyone’s favorite mechanic. Am I right? Guys? Guys?

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Return to Ravnica was my actual reintroduction into the game. I then worked backwards to fill in my collection with older sets. It wasn’t until the Zendikar block that boxes became prohibitively expensive, so I stopped at Mirrodin. This article started as a Top 10 list since Mirrodin. Then I was going to rank all of the sets.

Why isn’t this a ranking? I decided not to do either because; (a) that’s a lot of sets and (b) more importantly, rankings are stupid. There’s plenty from all sets that I both enjoy and don’t. Besides, I started this web page to be a different voice from everything else out there. Instead, I’m just going to tell my Magic the Gathering story and how it has evolved over the last 5 years or so. Hopefully it succeeds and that you enjoy.

Scars of Mirrodin Block

Core Set 2011: We know them. We love them. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but Wizards did try to kill them after Origins and now they’re back. Someone somewhere has a soft spot for the dependable and comfortable core sets. This one was neat because it had the Titan cycle (Primeval Titan is my favorite) in it and all of those cards are awesome.

Even this guy who doesn’t see much play is pretty awesome in cube drafts.

Scars of Mirrodin: These sets are a very different style that I’m used to in a Magic the Gathering set. In addition to being more colorless focused because of the artifacts, poison and phyrexian mana are included. Most mechanics tweak the rules a bit, but they work fully within the confines of the game. Occasionally, a mechanic might add a new twist to the game. Both poison and phyrexian mana break the game in fundamental ways.

Mirrodin Beseiged: Being the smallest and middle of the three sets, there isn’t much memorable, as least for me. One card did jump out at me as I was looking through the binder, though. I pulled more than one of Phyrexian Rebirth and got obsessed with trying to build a token deck around that card. It never happened, but maybe I have a new project for the coming weeks.

The lore nerd in me alone is excited to write a story for that artwork.

New Phyrexia: This is it. All hope is gone. The fight is over. Mirrodin has lost and the Phyrexians have remade it in their image as New Phyrexia. This is reflected in the cycle of Praetors (here I’m true to my blue roots and want to build around Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur) in this set, incredibly powerful creatures that are the envy of all Commander players, yours truly included.

Innistrad Block

Core Set 2012: 2011 gave us Titans, appropriately named big dummies that could be used to make your opponent miserable. 2012 brought us Mages, 2/1 creatures with a mana activated abilities. I mean, I guess that’s just as cool as 6/6 creatures who can ramp 2 lands per turn. Not really, but they also gave us the Empires cards. I used them to make a deck that made Chris miserable for a game a few months ago.

Because I’m the happiest playing MtG when I can durdle my opponent into a stupor.

Innistrad: Okay, this is more like it. While Mirrodin was cool and it added some interesting things to the game, it was a bit too alien for me. As a fan of fantasy and horror who played several campaigns through the D&D setting Ravenloft, Innistrad speaks deeply to me. Vampires and Werewolves, and Ghosts, oh my!

Dark Ascension: I was so focused on sharing my excitement for the set that renewed my love for Gothic themes in fantasy settings that I forgot one of the best parts of the Innistrad block. Double sided cards! Sure, you have the Legacy meta defining Delver of Secrets. But, what about Loyal/Unhallowed Cathar that changes color identity when it flips?

Don’t forget about this thing, either! It’s a weapon that turns into a demon!

Avacyn Restored: Forget for a moment that I can’t pronounce Avacyn. Look, I’ve heard it pronounced Ah-va-sin many times by many different sources. My brain still wants to make it Ah-vah-kin for some reason. What’s that got to do with anything? Nothing, I just needed to get that off my chest. In addition to the titular angel, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, there are three others that play a pivotal role in the lore. Also, the Planeswalkers (Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage) are the first ones that I noticed that aren’t the usual five.

The Verdict

Mirrodin changed Magic the Gathering in several ways. I have heard the argument more than once that they were game breaking and not at all in the spirit of making the game more fun. While I won’t either agree nor disagree fully with that sentiment, I will leave you with this. We haven’t been back to Mirrodin in any way, shape, or form, so that might tell you something. Heck, they even took us back to Zendikar and people hated Eldrazi more than they hated the Phyrexians.

Innistrad restored some of the balance of the game, lore wise. Instead of weird and alien creatures trying to subjugate other weird and alien creatures, we had vampires, angels, werewolves, spirits, and demons. It was a much more familiar setting and one with which I was far more comfortable. I can’t say that I would have quit Magic if Innistrad hadn’t been more traditional, but I do know that my joy in the game would be greatly diminished.

Make sure that you don’t miss the next part when I will discuss the Theros and Tarkir blocks. You may have noticed that I skipped the Return to Ravnica block. That’s because I’m saving that one for last since it connects so well with the next sets coming out and they are the reason for this look back in order to move forward.

On the Tabletop

My 2 Cents on Penny Dreadful

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(Editor’s Note: It’s been a while since I’ve done a terrible pun for a title and one of these editor’s notes. Just a little bit of nostalgia on this Friday morning.)

Introduction

I am always on the lookout for new ways to play Magic the Gathering. I’m not much of a competitive player, though I will join the occasional draft online and have even considered going to one of our LGS for actual human interaction while doing so. The thing keeping me from doing so now is that I’ve taken on another job and work 16 hours a day in addition to writing for the page and now releasing videos and podcasts. Don’t worry about me, dear reader, I do it all out of love.

When I first heard about Commander, right around the time I was opening my Return to Ravnica product, I pulled a Vorel of the Hull Clade. While not much of a Spike, this confluence of events opened part of my brain that I don’t often visit. This card, so cheap, 99 other cards, the evolve mechanic, blue mana, green creatures…oh my. You could probably abuse this card terribly in that format. I did stick to my not so Spikey roots because I didn’t go in search of Legacy and Vintage legal cards that would break it completely, but I did put in every evolve creature and proliferate card that I could find. I considered a doubling season, but they were too expensive. Chris and I played a game and I blew him out pretty convincingly.

One of the few times I’ve played competitive Magic against actual people, I learned about Tiny Leaders. While Vorel would make quite the Tiny Leader as well, I instead focused on the new hotness at the time, Khans of Tarkir and M15. I made two decks, a warrior focused deck with Alesha as my commander and a green “sort of” ramp style deck with Yisan, the wandering bard. Both decks are fun to play and given more time, money, and opportunity to play them against people, I might tune them a bit better.

More recently, I heard about a format called Penny Dreadful. It was sold as “not really dreadful, actually a lot of fun”. Easily persuaded by such salesmanship, I went on a search for this particular format. Magic the Gathering? With cards that only cost a penny? Less than a dollar for each deck? This sounds like my kind of format.

Wait, what? Only a penny?

Technically, it is all cards that are listed on MTGO for 0.01 tix at the release of a new set. The format isn’t standard, but the price list is determined using the release of a new set. While that might seem limiting because, it is by definition limiting, there are still a ton of cards available in the format. By the count on the following list, there are almost 10000 available cards.

There are old cards. Yes, as far back as alpha! There are new cards. As mentioned above, the list gets updated with the release of a new set and Rivals of Ixalan is in there. There are cards of all rarities, even Mythics. There are legendary creatures. There are Atogs. There are slivers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there are any planeswalkers. But, there is such a wide variety of cards that you’d be hard pressed not to find a deck that you would enjoy playing. And, at less than a dollar (really, less than 50 cents probably), who cares if you don’t like the deck.

There’s even fake delver!

Ashiok is only a penny?

As I quickly learned, you have to be careful with the search terms at the Scryfall page. I clicked the link that took me to the Penny Dreadful list and then proceeded to just press buttons, thinking that it would keep the format while searching for cards of those colors and type. This led to a confused, though brief, conversation with Chris because I looked for UB initially and Ashiok showed up as one of the cards. I know that Ashiok isn’t played very much, but only a penny? No, turns out ol’ Ash is 4 dollars and, alas, not legal in our poor man’s pauper.

As an aside, if you are searching for anything and want to verify if it is legal in Penny Dreadful, you need to include the f:pd search term in your search. Maybe you are more internet savvy than this old man, but if you aren’t, that’s just a little PSA for you.

Okay, back to the cards that are legal. As I was doing the searches and listing all of the cool card types that were legal, my brain started doing it’s thing where it combines two things that may not be completely related. With Legendaries, we could have Penny Commander. Since there is such a wide variety of cards, why not Penny cube? I’m sure all of these things have already been done, but my mind boggled with the possibilities.

Zombies Reincarnated?

One of the first decks I ever built after getting back into the game was one to counter a deck that Chris pounded my face in with during our previous meeting. He had a life gain deck that outraced whatever I had played and I tried to think of a way to get to him without attacking his life total. As I researched ways to win the game, my devious plan began to take shape. Go ahead, Chris, gain all the life you want. I’m going to eat your library.

That deck is posted here. I won’t vouch for the competitiveness of the deck or even that it is any good at all. As I said, I built it several years ago. While my deck building prowess might not be that much more advanced now, it was almost nonexistent then. Still, for some reason, when faced with this new format, I searched blue/black first. Many of the cards that showed up in the search were those cards that I used way back when. This deck might not be viable in any actual format, but against other dollar store decks? Hmm, I wonder. Plus, as I mentioned before, it’s less than a dollar to build!

Stay Tuned…

I haven’t actually built or tested the deck yet. But, I have a vague idea and plenty of time over the weekend to search through cards, find potential combos, and attempt to make my fellow Magic the Gathering players miserable. Because, as we all know, Magic is terrible as a two player game, but solitaire, it can be a lot of fun. I should be back within a week or two to report whether the format, as promised, “isn’t dreadful at all”.

On the Tabletop

Feeling a Draft (RIX, RIX, IXN – 4/1/2018)

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Introduction

A couple of days ago, I got inspired to go online and do a Magic the Gathering draft. I wish that I had taken notes, because after I realized that it would have made a great article. I still think, even without notes, that I can make it into a decent article. Instead of getting into the weeds too much, I can just talk about some general “ideas” that came from the experience. Hopefully, in the future, I will keep better notes and I can refine my writing to more accurately reflect my thoughts during the draft.

One of the things I do remember is that early in the draft, I texted Chris and said, “I’m drafting and I’ve gotten all of the vampires and cleansing rays.” He asked if it was standard. I replied that it was and he said, “Well, you’ve already won.” I agreed and it turned out to be true. I won the first match, though it was closer than anticipated, took a bye match 2, and then had to drop because Easter plans with the in laws loomed. Therefore, we unfortunately don’t know the ultimate fate of this deck, but I’m just going to live in the fantasy that I went easy 3-0 and collected my “no prize”.

I’ve never actually won a no prize. By extension, does that mean that I’ve actually won?

P1P1 – Snap Pick Bishop of Rebirth

Oh man, how lucky am I? First pack, I opened a Bishop of Rebirth. When I did a two man draft against Chris, we opened this card. I hadn’t anticipated at the time that it could be a bomb. Having somehow drafted it and played it against him, I now see that it very much is and can change the tide of a game very quickly. Of course I’m going to pick that one first and then worry about the rest later.

3-0, here I come. This Bishop of Rebirth is going to…wait, what is this? As you can see from the picture above, that’s not Bishop of Rebirth. That’s Bishop of Binding. It’s not a terrible card, but is definitely isn’t Bishop of Rebirth. Oh, crap.

Remainder of Pack One

So, what do you do when the bomb you thought you drafted turns out to just be Mentos and Coke? Well, if you are me, apparently, you just draft vampires. Seriously. I started down that route and realized about halfway through the pack that vampires were wide open. Not only that, but I did a test to see if anyone else was paying attention. I saw a Cleansing Ray early int the pack and thought about picking it to protect my vamps, but there was another card that I wanted, so I went with that.

Much to my surprise, the Cleansing Ray came back around. I definitely took it that time because now it was the end of the pack. What is going on with this draft, I wondered? Vampires are wide open and Cleansing Rays are not being drafted. Clearly, my opponents are not paying attention or they are focused on other strategies. I guess we’ll see.

Come to me, Ugly. You will not show up later on in these matches to destroy me.

Packs Two and Three

I just continued to draft vampires. I was also at the point where I just hate drafted every single Cleansing Ray that I saw (there were a total of five that I drafted). I think it was after the third ray that I texted Chris and we had our conversation. I ended up with 3 Conquistadors, a Legion Lieutenant, a couple of Oathsworn dudes, one or two Queen’s Commissions and other ways to make tokens for lifelink and a way to bring back the Oathsworn dudes, a Skymarcher Aspirant, and those are just the cards that I can remember 4 days out. Plus, I was able to get some removal. It really was a beautiful deck and I wish that I had been able to get a screenshot of it.

The Match

As I already mentioned, I was only able to play one match because I got a bye Round 2 and had to drop Round 3. The match wasn’t as much of a runaway as I anticipated. Game 1, I got the Legion Lieutenant to stick late in the game and finally ran him over. He was able to remove my only fliers in game 2 and stick one or two of his own for the win there.

He also removed my lieutenant early in game 3, but I was able to neuter his fliers effectively and control his ground game enough to hold on until I could give another one of my vampires flying and get through his blockers for the win. It was intense and I almost timed out, but felt good to get back into drafting.

The Verdict

Guess who’s back? Back again?

While I had a miserable experience drafting the latest Masters set, which Chris and I talked about on the podcast this past week, this draft went much better. I may be playing the results a bit here, but I think that I’m going to continue to draft in Ixalan for the next few weeks until Dominaria starts and then I can’t wait to see what experience that set provides in terms of drafting. It’s probably my favorite (and most accessible for me) way of playing the game and I’m glad that Wizards continues to support it in a big way.

On the Tabletop

MtG Road Trip: Destination Dominaria

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Introduction

Chris and I got together this weekend via Skype to record the podcast. We discussed many things current Magic the Gathering. Our two main topics were our thoughts about the Masters 25 set and a preview of Dominaria, the set coming out next month. I already talked about my thoughts on Masters 25 and the dilemma I was facing regarding the set.Spoiler Alert: I didn’t buy a box of Masters 25. I bought an XBox One instead.

Without stepping too much on our discussion, I did want to do a companion preview piece for Dominaria. One of the things that we didn’t touch on too much in the podcast is that the reason we can discuss the set is that there was a huge leak that came out of Wizards of the Coast. Initially, we thought that it was all of the cards from the set. Now, though, we realize that it is about 150.

If you’re thinking that we aren’t usually ones to speculate knowing only a bit more than half of the cards from the set, you are correct! So, what did we talk about for over half an hour? Guess you’ll just have to tune into the show to hear it all.

That, folks, it what we call a teaser.

New Format! (Brawl)

One of the most popular formats in the game is Commander. If you don’t know what commander is, you choose a legendary creature that becomes your commander. You then must build a deck with 99 additional cards. The stipulations are that you can have only one copy of each card and all cards must be the same color identity as your commander.

The format is fan created and not officially sanctioned as a competitive format by Wizards. Additionally, at least one off shot called Tiny Leaders had grown out of the format. These two statements have come to a head with the recent announcement that Wizards is sanctioning a commander type format that was inspired by this set.

The format is called Brawl. Similar to commander, you may choose a legendary, your deck can only contain one copy of each card, and the cards must follow your planeswalker color identity. Unlike Commander, the cards must be standard legal. That adds an interesting new angle to the format that will hopefully bring new players into the game. One of the problems with eternal formats is that they are expensive and intimidating for new players. By limiting the cards, Wizards is giving players a chance to try something without having to make a huge time and money commitment.

Mechanics

So far, there haven’t been any new mechanics introduced in the set. As with most sets, there are recycled mechanics. Also, there have been modifications to other keywords and card types that may change the game in new and interesting ways. Let’s take a look at both of these in turn.

Kicker – This is an old keyword that allows for an extra effect for more mana. Some of my favorite cards in the cube drafts that I’ve done have had kicker and I really enjoy this keyword. It makes your opponent have to think more and plan around the additional possibility presented by the kicker. In some cases, it is almost like being able to cast two cards but only having to use one card slot in your deck.

For one more mana, you get a more powerful Ball Lightning. For two more mana, you get a permanent Ball Lighting. Still dies to lightning bolt, though.

Hexproof (from quality): Normally, hexproof just gives your creature protection from all spells or abilities controlled by your opponent. This new variation simply gives your creature hexproof from a something specific. The two cards that I first noticed with this on them had Hexproof from a color, which I found interesting because in the past, it has been protection from color, which also prevented you from casting those spells on your creature.

Haha, your opponent can’t dismember him. You can. I mean, if killing your own creatures is your thing.

Legendary Sorceries: Legendary has been a keyword in the game since the beginning. Traditionally, it has been there to give creatures a special quality, namely that only one of them was allowed to be on the battlefield at one time. That birthed the EDH, or Commander, format in which players build decks that are made up of only one copy each card in their deck. Now, if you have a legendary creature on the board, you can cast a legendary sorcery, which could potentially have a profound effect.

Or, it could be a weird perversion of an older (and IMO much better) card.

 

 

Saga Enchantments:Another introduction to the Magic universe with this set is Saga enchantments. Like the old cards that leveled up with mana, the card becomes more powerful as the game progresses. Unlike those cards, these enchantments level up automatically during your turn. I’ve always liked the idea of being able to change a card during the game while it’s on the battlefield or in your hand.

Morph, flip cards, split cards, and kicker are always mechanics that get me excited about the possibilities. Leveling cards take all of this to a new, uh, level (sorry about that). It brings one of the things that I enjoy about playing role playing games and brings it into Magic the Gathering. It also gives me something to do in my cube drafts when I’m flooding out. Nothing but a Joraga Treespeaker and forests in my hand? Use that mana to make more mana!

May be wrong, but this seems like it could become a modern or legacy sideboard possibility. (Is that enough qualifiers?)

As a result, I like the idea of Saga cards. Just like the legendary sorceries, I have no idea how many (if any) of them are going to be good. But, and this is more important to me personally, it looks like some of them will be fun. Being mythic, I doubt I’ll pull them from a pack. If I do, though, Chris better watch out because I’m going to try to build a deck around it.

The Planeswalkers

Each new set also brings with it new planeswalkers. In keeping with the theme of history with this set, we are getting some names that are familiar but that we maybe haven’t thought about for a few years. One of them, in particular, is well known and loved.

Jaya Ballard

It’s a red planeswalker that does red things. It’s almost as if Wizards wanted to do a Chandra card for this set, but didn’t want to do a Chandra card for this set. So, they made this card, named it Jaya instead of Chandra, and called it a day. Honestly, though, I’m not the best judge of red cards. I just can’t get into that mindset at all.

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Now, this is more like it. As a blue mage through and through, this card speaks to me. It draws cards and untaps lands. It messes with the opponent’s tempo by removing things but not making it easy to recast them. I really like this card and I’d love to build a commander or Brawl deck based around him.

Karn, Scion of Urza

This is the name that I was talking about earlier that was well known and well loved. Karn is a modern staple in Tron. Personally, this is the first card after having gotten back into the game that I was truly impressed by seeing it played and the powerful effects that it can have on a game. Poor, poor Karn. As I said to Chris, they couldn’t just reprint the old card, but it feels like they nerfed this poor guy into the ground similar to how Blizzard deals with problematic cards. I mean, it’s not terrible. Compared with the old card, though, I’m starting to see now how old MtG mages feel when they see updates to older cards.

See You In April!

When Chris first sent me the link to the spoilers for the set, I was a bit underwhelmed. Similar to my reaction to M25, I had put big expectations into this set. We were going back to the beginning of Magic the Gathering. What could that possibly mean? Apparently, it means that we are going to be disappointed. At least at first glance. Then, when I looked at the set again and got to see it through Chris’s eyes, I started to see more potential from the set. I’m sufficiently excited. I want to draft this set. I want to build several Brawl decks. And, I want to buy and open some product. Come on April!

On the Tabletop

Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time

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Introduction

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my brief subscription to Board Game Bento. They had some a discount code for the holidays and I always wanted to try the service. Unable to pass up a deal that gave me a chance to do just that, I signed up. I already wrote an article about the first month’s box. Due to a mix up with my Paypal account, I got subscribed for a second box even though I meant to cancel after only one.

As Bob Ross is fond of saying, that was a happy little accident. I wasn’t sure that I would continue with the subscription beyond that first month. I’m still not sure if I will and the subscription is currently on hiatus until I determine if it will be worth it. I think that I might have mentioned that the dollar value more or less checks out, but maybe not all of the games are ones that our family will play. In addition, Christine made the point that we already have a ton of games and not much room for storage right now.

As a result, the current answer is leaning not very heavily in the “no” column. Even if only one of the games is playable by the family (and so far, we have found at least one from the first two boxes that we’ve received. You may have deduced, therefore, that this article is about the game that we played from that second box. Brilliant deduction, Sherlock!

Yes, you are also correct in assuming that I only said that so that I could post a picture of my man crush.

The theme of the second box was time. There were two card games that looked interesting. One can even be played solitaire. However, we haven’t tried either of the card games yet. Christine noticed the board game, Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time, said that it looked interesting, and she, Aiden, Quinn, and I played through the game.

The Good

The game is a cooperative game, which is great for our family. None of us are really that competitive except for Aiden. I mean, we all have our competitive streaks as all people do, but we temper it with an overall attitude of just have fun with it. While it may not be effective for everyone, it has fostered a safe environment in which to play games. I’ve also been able to appeal to Chris’s charitable side and get him to adopt more friendly rules during our Magic games. I also think that he gets a lot of his competitive juices out during his games against Darren, so he’s often just looking for kitchen table fun when we sit down together.

My mother got us a game for Christmas a few years ago that was a cooperative game that we played a few times. It was a pretty good game, but I think that this game captures the spirit of games better than that one ever did. You work together as a team in an attempt to recover stolen artifacts from the mansion of Professor Evil. There are several obstacles in your way; traps, time and the professor himself.

But, if you are successful, you win one million dollars.

The Bad

This seems like a common theme for board games that we’ve played recently and here we go again. When Quinn and I played Flag Dash, the set up for the game took longer than our play through and the payoff was not worth the time invested. This game suffers from a similar issue. Christine took about 15-20 minutes to simply set up the game. I thought that was a bad sign and that we’d be in for another disappointing experience.

Luckily, unlike Flag Dash, once the game was set up, it was much more intuitive to play the game. We all picked up on the turn order very quickly, used strategy and teamwork when necessary to win the game. It looked a bit grim and that we might lose. Instead of giving up, though, we formulated a plan that worked and got us the victory just before the Professor escaped with his stolen goods!

The Ugly

I said earlier that I was slightly leaning “no” with regards to signing up for a longer subscription for Board Game Bento. I haven’t changed my mind completely yet, but there currently is a bit of an ugly internal battle going on inside of me. Logically, I know that I probably shouldn’t. Inside my gamer’s heart, though, I’m pretty positive that I’m going to make the illogical decision.

Nonsense is so much more fun.

I mean, really, we’ve gotten two boxes and have gotten at least two playable games from them. That’s all I’m looking for right now. As the boys get older and get involved in more things, as I work two jobs that keeps me out of the house for 12-16 hours a day, and as we all enter that time in our lives when we all are drifting apart for a few years, the time that we do get together is precious and I’m always thinking of ways to increase that time and make it more memorable. So, perhaps it isn’t such utter nonsense after all.

The Verdict

This was a fun game. Initially, we sold it to the boys and ourselves as a game similar to Clue. Since they all enjoy playing that game so much, it wasn’t hard to convince them to give this one a try. It wasn’t as much like Clue as we thought, but it was still a fun game. I especially liked both the cooperative nature of the game and that the game had a win condition. That was missing from the last cooperative game that we played. Though, to be fair, that game was mostly just for little kids to teach them about good sportsmanship and sharing, so probably not the best comparison. We haven’t played it again since that first time, but it should become a regular in our rotation for family game nights.

As far as the overall subscription, I’m no longer certain that I won’t sign up. I’m not even leaning in any significant way towards “No”. For the reasons discussed above, I might just give it another few months to disappoint me. Then again, Aiden is a fan of the Tinker Crates, those are much cheaper, and we can work together on those, too. Plus, I just bought a whole bunch of ebooks about designing video games, building robotic Lego structures, and making drones. I have a feeling we’ll be quite busy for the foreseeable future.

Yep…
Digital Playground, Hobbies, On the Tabletop, Snap *censored* Pop Culture, Uncategorized

Rapid Fire!..Random Thoughts 2/19

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-To buy a box of M25 or not? I wish the spoilers were flowing a little more freely since the boxes are below $200 at the moment and while the thought of possibly pulling a Jace, the Mind Sculptor out of a pack is dancing in my head, it”s not quite enough to make me jump and preorder. My prediction for the big ticket cards in the set: Enemy fetches, Tarmogoyf, Aether Vial, Liliana of the Veil, Wurmcoil Engine, Force of Will, Mana Drain and Crucible of the Worlds.

-The first DLC characters for Dragonball FighterZ have been announced; Borly and Bardoc. Bardoc is Goku”s pops so it”s essentially another Saiyan which is a little disappointing. While I have gushed uncontrollably about the game, I do wish they would bring in some more non-Saiyan characters. On the other hand Borly should be the largest character in the game so it”ll be interesting to see how powerful the character actually is.

-A Japanese bike company (Khodaa-Bloom) designed a really cool Megaman themed bike. It can be yours for the low, low price of $2700 USD. For that price, it better come with a friggin” Buster Shot on the front.

-Not sure where I”ve been, but somehow I missed the fact that Gamestop managed to swing a deal to have a Secret of Mana remake for the PS4 be a Gamestop exclusive. Interesting to see if this becomes a thing, (i.e. Target gets exclusive games, Walmart gets exclusive games,..).

-Only 59 more days until God of War 4 is released. But who”s counting?

-For all of my Star Wars fans out there, you can preorder the largest Star Wars toy that Hasbro has ever made, Jabba”s Sail Barge, for a mere $499.99! This monstrosity is 4 feet long, a little over a foot wide, and a 1 A? feet tall, and comes with either divorce papers or a letter from your child expressing their undying love and gratitude. There is a catch, Hasbro will only start production if they get 5,000 preorders by 4/3 (currently, as of this post, they have 1,259 orders). You can place your preorder at www.hasbrolab.com.

-Finally, I want to thank everyone who follows us on Twitter and/or Instagram!

On the Tabletop

Masters 25 Dilemma

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Introduction

It must be time for another release of Magic’s “Masters” set. Chris and I have started our prerelease ritual of texting one another box prices and our intentions to maybe perhaps think about possibly buying one. I started the conversation yesterday with the news that a local store is taking preorders at a decent price that they will honor until the week before release. I did some research and saw, again, that the box only includes 24 packs. That got me waffling a bit and perhaps thinking that my money was better spent elsewhere. After all, I still have to buy my Rivals of Ixalan sealed product.

We went back and forth, initially agreeing that it was a silly idea for either of us to buy a box. I suggested going in half and splitting one, though honestly neither of us was terribly receptive to that idea. Conversation turned to my van “Check Engine” light, which is a big deal in my life right now. I’m driving around with a rejected inspection sticker and looking over my shoulder like I was driving the getaway car in Baby Driver.

Wait, are we allowed to reference Kevin Spacey projects any more?

Then, as I was in my class, Chris texts me with a link to a place selling them for an even better price, but he was under the impression that it was only in bulk and that you’d have to buy a case of them. While that was true for the price he quoted, there was a slightly higher price for non bulk orders. He and I both agreed that we wouldn’t find a better price than that and stamped “SOLD” across the post in big, red letters. Even so, I’m still having second thoughts. Look, I get that this is one of most first world of all first world problems. But, I imagine that some of you out there might be having the same issue and it always helps to talk things out. Hopefully, by the end, I’ll arrive at some sort of conclusion.

The Good

Guess who’s back? Back again?

Jace, the Mind Sculptor – This is the best argument that can be made for the set, especially now that Wizards has decided to let loose the hounds of hell and give Jace another shot of showing just how repressive he can be in Modern. Similar to Black Lotus, I have been obsessed with this card ever since learning of its existence. I mean, come on. It’s blue and it’s Jace.

Early on in my entry back into the game, its name was only whispered in darkened corners and never openly discussed. As I became more familiar with the game and more people argued for the unbanning, I started to wonder why (more than it’s blue and it’s Jace) the card appealed to me so much. Other than the previously mentioned reasons, it’s also 3 of the best blue cards ever printed on one card for only 4 mana. That’s true, but it doesn’t quite capture the essence of why.

Then, a streamer responded to someone in his chat who mentioned the potential that maybe the card could be unbanned from Modern. I told you the conversation has been gaining momentum. He said that he agreed with the banning, which got people going before he even had a chance to explain. That’s what reminded we that we were in Twitch chat and not Socrates discussion circle. On the internet, nobody can hear you, well anything, because they are too busy shouting over you.

His point was that the card was too good. Of course it is. Otherwise, they wouldn’t ban it. But, it was too good in the way that other cards aren’t. See, people lost to Jace, but they would have no idea that they lost to Jace. They would blame this card or that card, all the while neglecting to realize that Jace set all of that into motion 10 turns ago. A light went on in my head and all was made clear. Jace is the ultimate blue card. They’ve tried before and since to distill the essence of what it means to be blue, but this card nailed it. Sneaky good, beats you before you realize it, and then strings you along for a good while after. Just an amazing card design.

Drafting!

I’ve mostly only experienced drafting the Master sets from the outside. I watched streams of the GPs for the Modern Masters set last year, astounded that people were giving the player crap for taking a foil ‘Goyf with his pick. I have drafted a few of the sets, mostly Modern Masters 2015 in xMage since I didn’t know about the sets and especially not their draftability. Since learning of them, the cost of the packs has kept me away. Who wants to pay 30 dollars for cards and then give half of them away?

During one of our conversations when I realized that both Chris and I might end up buying a box of the set, I said, “Plus I could put 6 packs aside for a future draft.” Having had my interest again kindled by the draft that Chris and I did a couple of weeks ago, I’m more than willing to donate a few packs to get a chance to see what we can do with this set and these cards. Since he is a Modern player and I am obsessed with Vintage and Legacy even though I’ve only ever played the formats on xMage, I wonder how that might affect our draft strategy. Stay tuned

Unboxing Video!

After Chris sent me the link of the better price of the boxes, I texted him back, “Maybe this will finally inspire me to do what I’ve always meant to do and just post an unboxing video.” He replied, “Yep, that would most likely get hits.” I agreed, especially if I can get it done on release weekend. As with many things, there are no promises on this front, but we have been good about updating articles and recording podcasts and uploading videos are part of Phase 2 and 3 of our eventual internet takeover.

The Bad

Not Many Spoilers

We are still relatively early in spoiler season for the set. Other than Jace, we have Azusa, which is a relic of a Modern meta long past and Phyrexian Obliterator, which is fun to draft in cube, but not as much fun as, say, Massacre Wurm or Big Daddy Gris. So, in other words, other than Jace, there is literally nothing else that has me excited about this set yet. Jace is the only thing. It keeps dancing in front of me like some ridiculous dream that will most likely never be realized and yet, I can’t say no.

Sure, there will be other spoilers and some of those cards might actually get me to say, “Wow!” Honestly, though, none of them will be Jace. He’s my man crush Monday. He’s my tweet about this dude I love Tuesday. He’s my Hump Day dream. He’s my…okay, you get the point. Am I just buying this 200 dollar boondoggle simply because of the (I don’t want to do math, so here comes a made up statistic) one out of a thousand chance that I am blessed with one of the boxes that contains Jace? Maybe….

The Ugly

Drafting?

Because these sets are designed to be drafted, Wizards can’t make every card a bomb rare or mythic. For every Jace, there are (another made up stat because it’s Friday) about 3 dozen Waxmane Bakus. While they are cool when you are trying to put together a sweet spirit deck in your draft pool, they are miserable to continue to pull from packs that cost twice as much as any other Magic the Gathering pack.

The Verdict

As I said before, in the pantheon of first world problems, this is one of the first worldest. Nevertheless, it is not one that I’ve gone through before. Since these sets generally come at a time when I’m either on break or having just gotten off break, I’ve never actually had the money before to spend. Now that I have the money to spend, I have to figure out if I’m really going to spend it.

If I was truly thinking with my head and going over the Pros and Cons list that I just made, I think that I’d come to the conclusion that is isn’t worth the extra money. However, when it comes to games and gaming, I rarely think with my head. Most of the time, I go with what my gut or heart tells me and that’s telling me to stop being such a weiner and just preorder the box.

There’s a tiny chance that I can pull a Jace or some other really cool card from the box, which will make for great video. Sure, there’s also the chance that I might end up with a whole bunch of garbage, but that can happen with any box of cards and has never stopped me before, even when I was spending 200 on old boxes of Phyrexia and such. Chris and I have been really into drafting lately and I want to see what this set would look like in one of our two man drafts. So, let’s listen to the old heart and stop being such a weiner.