Wow this thread has been quite a while. Considering the course the game has taken lately I can understand a lot not being hot with the state of the game in recent days. That said I still love the game overall enough despite all the crap WotC is throwing out.
A bright light in this though is the latest Foundations set. Pretty much a core set in the vein of past ones. Unlike the more recent core sets this one is sticking around for some time. Foundations is said to be Standard legal for 5 years. And with the mix of old and new, it feels like one of the best core experiences we’ve had in a long time. Had a fun time in the latest prerelease tournament. That might be thanks to my crazy lucky pulls though.
But here’s where the screw kinda comes in. The Main set is like I said standard legal, but Foundations also includes a separate Jumpstart set and other products that print cards from outside the main set that won’t be legal in Standard. That said there is still a lot of fun in these if you don’t care about tournament legality.
So standard and Foundations aside, year in review overall M:tG has been really messed up in more ways than one. I really have disliked the theme of most of the sets this year. Murders in Karlov Manor I skipped out on since it just didn’t feel like heading back to Ravnica to play Clue, which they didn’t hide with a separate Clue card set to buy.
Kind of the same feeling with Outlaws of Thunder Junction. The western train heist set feels out of place to me and they brought Jace back from the dead so lore wise I was dead to this set. I at least picked up a couple boosters of Karlov Manor. I don’t think I touched Outlaws.
Not a Fallout fan myself so I didn’t go after any of the commander decks. They look cool though.
Bloombarrow was my favorite flavor of the year with the Redwall like anthropomorphic animal theme. It was all adorable art and loved the idea of it. Gameplay though was a bit mid though.
Duskmorn,…… absolutely despise the modern horror slasher movie theming of the set and would have skipped the set completely had it not for seeing off my nephew to college at the local prerelease tournament. And as much as I hate the lore and theme, the gameplay was fun as heck. The Room Enchantment mechanics were a good value per card with being able to play one half the card first and unlocking the other side at sorcery speed anytime later.
Secret Lair releases though have been the usual mix of interesting reprints in alt art, new cards in other franchises and more. For the most part I‘ve been lucky enough to get the ones I’ve wanted, but it’s been a pain since they switched back to limited runs over print to order. You have to get in as soon as it opens and grab what you want. And even then it’s no guarantee that you will get everything with their stupid queue system. I got in 30 seconds in after the latest Marvel cards went live and still didn’t get the Avengers skinned Arcane Signet after waiting 2 and a half hours to even pay for the sets. Both Marvel and the Monty Python cards were horrible customer experiences. But WotC sees the positive that they sold it all in record times so whether we see a change back is probably not happening.
And the future of the game is looking a bit bleak for lore people like me. The next set is a Magic version of Wacky Races/Cannonball Run or other crazy battle race themes. I’m cautious to jump into the vehicle heavy set. We do get a return to Tarkir with the Dragonstorm set. I can see that as a lore positive. Our only other Magic lore set is going to be Edge of Eternities which is set up as their Space Opera set…. a Star Wars like set since they probably can’t do SW since it has it’s own card game going again.
But then we get the Universes Beyond sets of other Franchises getting full Magic expansions. The two of the three named are the Final Fantasy set, taking inspiration from the entire FF franchise, and a Spider-Man set we don’t know too much about how far it will reach into his lore and characters yet. The big thing now though is unlike the Assassin’s Creed or LotR sets, these will be Standard legal sets. And that’s a big tipping point in some circles. I’m mixed since it’s not like I never took a card creation program to make other franchises into Magic Cards and I’m hyped to see the FF and S-M sets as a fully developed reality, but it’s diluted the lore of the games own canon within the game once we make these tournament legal.
Anyway long post aside if you got through my long winded thoughts on the game, here’s a link to get a “free” Welcome Deck. Don’t know if it’s something you got to find a store for, or if there’s shipping involved or not. You get a deck worth of cards with one 30 card half the color of choice of the box with another random color comprising the other half of 30 cards.
