#preconstructed deck

[beatsandskies]

Tome Brew: Otterly outraged by the Bloomburrow Starters?

I keep on putting off doing this write up, and as a consequence I have absolutely no memory of what changes I actually made to this. There was a lot, because the stock deck needed a lot of work. See my review of that here. Also the corresponding post about Rabbits, and “Double Decks” for both here. Links out of the way, let’s try and work out what I was thinking last month. In the sideboard…

[dravidious]

You're pretty neat

card games

[goqmir]

the four-color combinations in magic the gathering do not have names that are used in any official capacity. however, occasional nicknames similar to the ones used for the two- and three-color combinations have been used for the four-color combinations as well.

EDHRec, a popular Commander-oriented card popularity tracker website, is the most likely place you would see the nicknames used, as they categorize commanders into color combinations. There, they name the four-color combinations after the Nephilim, a group of four-color creatures created for 2006's Guildpact that are legendary in the lore of Ravnica and the first time four-color combinations were seen on cards before. EDHRec labels the four-color combinations as "Yore-Tiller", "Glint-Eye", "Dune-Brood", "Ink-Treader", and "Witch-Maw."

Scryfall, the preeminent search engine for MTG cards, allows you to search cards by color combination nicknames. There, they use the words that the designers of Commander 2016 used to describe the five preconstructed decks that released alongside the set. These were the first four-color legendary creatures ever printed. Scryfall labels the four-color combinations as "artifice", "chaos", "aggression", "altruism", and "growth."

After looking around a bit, ive created a table below listing the four most common ways ive seen people refer to the four-color combinations.

that brings me to the question this post has been building up to:

[markrosewater]

I just want to say 8 main products a year has been the normal number for Magic for ~15 years. The main difference is the size of the products. A decade ago preconstructed decks of reprints were the norm and now it's mostly all booster products. Even the standalone commander precons have as many new cards as small sets of the past. IMO it's less number of products and more cards we have to think about. We get over twice as many new cards a year vs just 4 years ago and that stress the system IMO.

Richard Garfield’s original vision for Magic was that players wouldn’t know all the cards. He liked the idea that it was through play that you would learn of cards’ existence.

To accomplish this, in the early days Wizards didn’t give any information about the cards. There weren’t published card lists, the cards didn’t have rarity symbols or collector numbering, and Wizards purposefully didn’t release deck lists from events.

The Internet, as we now know it today, showed up soon after Magic’s release, and there wasn’t really a way to hide information, so Wizards starting doing all the things it originally didn’t. We had a public database, and rarity symbols and collector information, and deck lists were shared.

As the years went by, we started making more cards per year, partially because there was a lot of demand for more cards, and partially because Wizards built up an infrastructure to be able to do so.

What this all means is current Magic is coming back around to Richard’s original vision. We make enough cards now that it’s hard, without a lot of effort, to know what all the cards are, so players do get to experience new cards from playing with other people.

Which brings up an interesting point. Is Magic a better game if the audience knows all the cards? Or is there something to the importance of discovery happening through play? How important was Richard’s original vision?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

[magicwithclass]

Value Boosters in Bloomburrow.

With the discontinuation of the draft booster, there was a void in the market for a cheaper booster product. Play boosters typically cost between 4 dollars and 6 dollars, depending on the set, and that is actually quite expensive for a casual experience. The audience has been demanding a cheaper booster product because people like the thrill and excitement of cracking packs. The adrenaline is quite addictive and that experience can not be matched by opening a preconstructed starter deck or commander deck. Even so, they did attempt to put a taste of opening packs into commander decks in the form of the collector booster sample pack. Wizards of the Coast's market research must show that adding the collector booster to commander decks leads to more people going out and buying more product. The sample pack is not meant to be a free include but is meant to mimic the, "first one is free," drug mentality that gets so many people hooked. The starter decks and commander decks do a great job, value value, of giving players a product that they can play right out of the box and upgrade over time. Yet, you need to know your market! Of course, you should buy the singles you need and not risk your money on what is essentially a mystery box. However, that is simply not the reality of our world. People want to open pack. Players want to experience the rush of tearing the pack open and smelling the new cards. The sense of excitement as you flip through the cards. Your anticipation builds as you get closer to the pack hit. The, either you hit big and want to relive the experience or you miss and you feel the urge to open more packs until your body feels the reward chemicals released into your body. The value boosters are merely a product meant to prey on our emotions and desires using research to maximize squeezing money out of groups of people. That can not be replicated by buying cards on the secondary market. Wizards is selling a feeling. Other companies like card kingdom or tcgplayer sell cards. It is possible to sell emotions for a reasonable price but these products typically target people with addictive personalities and are exploitative. Do I think this new value booster is any more exploitative than any other random booster product? Currently, there are are a lot of unkowns. First, the price of a pack, or even an approximate price, has not been stated. There is no more msrp but they sometimes include an approximate cost. In the very short article that introduces this product, there is no discussion of the price. It is only stated that this is a more budget-friendly option for players that just want to open cards. The price is going to matter. Sometimes I would see pokemon or yugioh cards in family dollar or dollar tree. These packs were only a dollar and less than two dollars. As a parent, shutting my kid up with a one dollar pack while I shop could prove worth it. How many times did you beg your parent for something in a store as a kid that you didn't even really want? Getting mtg cards into these dollar stores will widen the audience that is exposed to the game. Now, kids will start to recognize mtg from a younger age because they see the products alongside pokemon cards. If the price of a pack is less than 2 dollars, I will say that the value pack will be a success. It is a cheap way to get cards into the hands of a younger audience. Society is typically much more ok with spending a buck or two on something rather than 5 dollars. Wizards of the Coast is releasing this new product to widen the brand and not really to sell more cards. These value packs are meant to expose children to mtg when they are young as an on ramp to the game when they are a little older. if I have mtg cards as a kid and then I see a crossover with my favorite franchise, then these marketing strategies are meant to continuously draw people back into the game. Expose someone to something when they are young and you may have hooked them for the rest of their lives.

[aflo]

eternal legal only warhammer 40k crossover preconstructed decks eternal legal acorn cards shuffled into the majority nonsanctioned 1950s space themed un-set eternal legal only transformers cards shuffled into brother's war standard packs not-legal-for-play-anywhere reprint run of beta $250 a pack non magic back with full power 9 and duals final fantasy universes beyond assassin's creed universes beyond doctor who universes beyond secret lair walking dead secret lair stranger things secret lair league of legends secret lair street fighter secret lair fortnite mechanically unique modern legal cards in the lord of the rings theme set hobbits fucking hobbits there will be mechanically unique high demand low supply HOBBITS legal in MODERN the COMPETITIVE TOURNAMENT-ORIENTED FORMAT MODERN WILL HAVE FUCKING HOBBITS IN IT

[melancholia-ennui]

Ascend to Divinity with Universes Beyond: Divinity Original Sin 2!

Arise, Godwoken, and take divinity into your hands—or slay those who would claim it. Following the success of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, we are excited to announce a new Universes Beyond product created in collaboration with Larian Studios—Universes Beyond: Divinity Original Sin 2. Through four preconstructed Commander decks, players will explore the story of Larian Studio's critically acclaimed CCRPG, taking the role of one of four factions as they vie to control the powers of godhood and determine the fate of Rivellon.

The first article from my "little" custom MTG project - done, of course, in the style of an official MTG announcement/spoiler article! With an initial look at the story of DOS2 and the four factions that make up the four decks, plus two "spoiler" cards for each deck to give you a broad overview of what each deck cares about.

[jones-friend]

NEW CAPENNA BATTLE BOX

Its got everything you need for a 4 player game of EDH! Five unedited New Capenna preconstructed decks and their tokens sleeved, four Commander Anthology 2 spindown life counters, pip d6’s, and a set of dice for everything in between in a Quiver carrying case.

[fnrrfygmschnish]

The Wurm Collection got its first new addition in a while today!

I first started playing Magic waaaay back in 1997, with a bunch of cards from Ice Age and Mirage along with stray packs here and there from other sets that were available at the time (Visions, Weatherlight, 5th Edition, Chronicles, and occasionally 4th Edition, Alliances, Homelands, and Fallen Empires.)

Tempest was the first new set that came out after I started playing -- and I bought TONS of it! Booster packs, a starter deck (well, they called it a "deck," but it was more like 60 random cards that came with land -- using one as a deck right out of the box would be mayb semi functional at best), and at least some of the preconstructed decks they started to come out with around that time.

And though I ended up with a bunch of Rootbreaker Wurms, Segmented Wurms, and a Wild Wurm from the packs I'd bought... I never did get a single Dirtcowl Wurm.

Until now!

[talenlee]

Outlaws of Thunder Junction Draft In Retrospect

Outlaws of Thunder Junction is stepping out the door in a few days as the ‘newest’ standard set, and with it goes the default focus of premier drafting on Magic The Gathering Arena. As the newest and most current set, any time Magic: The Gathering Arena gives me a pack for showing up or having fun or being nice or having a cute smile (like it’d know), it gives me a Outlaws of Thunder Junction pack.

This has been a deliberate part of my focus playing on Arena. See, I really like playing constructed magic, and because of that, I’ve been drafting Outlaws of Thunder Junction regularly.

These things seem at odds, I know.

Here’s my thinking:

Building decks need cards.

The game gives you a bunch of preconstructed decks to start with, but they are explicitly weak and designed to get you started in the game. They’re not about the kinds of things I want to be doing with my cards.

If I want to acquire cards, I can either spend money on buying product or I can do things in the free game that get me more rewards

These rewards can be spent on buying packs in the store, which is how they encourage me to keep engaged with the store, or I can draft.

If I just buy boosters, at maximum payout, it’s 90k gold for 90 boosters, 45k for 45 boosters that give 8 cards, so 360 cards.

If I draft, assuming I do badly, I will spend 10k gold, and open 3 boosters (with no chance for wildcards) that total 45 cards, and get another booster (+8 cards). That’s a much lower rate of return, with 4 boosters being 4k gold.

But the draft sees 53 cards and 4 boosters would see 32.

If I do okay at a draft, I’m spending 10k gold for 3 15-card boosters (45 cards) + 2 boosters (16 cards) and 1,000 gems.

If I draft cards I already have 4 of (which will happen if I draft a lot), they contribute to the vault very quickly and if I draft rares I already have 4 of (which turns out also happens) I get wildcards for those.

Here’s the other thing: Saving up for 90k gold takes more than two months during which there are good days and bad days and sometimes nothing happening. Drafting every week or so is a lot of fun.

Not that I would have necessarily said that at particular points. I mean, there were points in the Thunder Junction season where I had the extremely firm opinion that actually, draft sucks, why am I doing it. One night, I did a draft, got a 1-3 loss, and was so mad about it I immediately spent my gems to queue up again, eating a 0-3 loss. In that moment, I did genuinely storm around the house and think ‘why do I bother, this sucks, why am I doing this.’

It’s very important to face that feeling, because I know full well I was fuming and upset about losing and not handling it well. I talked about it on kind.social, I fumed, I had a little tattle and a little vent about it, but also, it was very important to recognise, I was talking about my feelings. I was venting about feeling bad. I didn’t need to talk about the objective failings, or about the balance of the game, I was talking about the things I felt bad about, and it’s okay to feel bad and it’s okay to express that feeling bad.

Anyway, what did I learn in general?

You Don’t Have To Worry About Getting Enough Playables

Time was when I learned how to play draft, it was a genuinely challenging experience because boosters had cards in it you wouldn’t want to play. That’s because it was the set Scourge, and Onslaught-Scourge-Legions draft was a midnight hellscape. Do you know what commons were like back then? Half of them were non-creatures, and in Onslaught specifically, there were some absolute donkeys.

Have you ever seen Treespring Lorian? It’s a 5/4 for 6. What about Daru Lancer? Six mana, 3 power first striker, bam!

Removal was better, creatures were worse, and you would be shocked at what constituted good evasion. Screaming Seahawk was a ‘good card’, and Severed Legion was one of the most powerful cards in its class.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction has far fewer cards I wouldn’t run and when I cut them it’s because I have better cards, not because the cards are too bad to put in a deck. Even cards that are a bit awkward still have a place – particularly, sometimes you’ll have an uncommon or rare that transform how good another card is. Check out Boneyard Desecrator. I’ve won a few games with it as just a 3/4 menace for 4, which is unexciting but fine, but that’s a little desperate compared to when I got one alongside a Baron Bertram Graywater – which meant I started this creature getting bigger and bigger, slowly bleeding an opponent as I made treasures and vampires, and held off bigeger and bigger threats. Very fun engine, and it leads to the next point…

Sometimes an Uncommon Pulls Something Together

Treasure Dredger isn’t an amazing card, I don’t think. It’s a 2/2 for 2. It can block some things in combat but on its own it’s not really doing a lot. It doesn’t trigger crimes on its own, and you don’t usually need regular treasure production, unless you have something for it to work with. Like, again Baron Bertram Graywater.

Know what else works great with it? A huge expensive card like Cruel Ultimatum, or a huge expensive card like Overwhelming Forces or a card like Gold Rush. If I have one of those cards, suddenly, the Dredger is a lot more interesting. Quilled Charger isn’t a really exciting card, but menace is really good if you also have a Ferocification.

When I found I had a deck hanging around a card like that, I would play as if I was trying to get that card. Cyclers, searches, digging and rummaging all become differently valuable if you have a cool uncommon or rare that makes the whole deck work in a particular way, and that means that cards that keep the game going until you get them have a value for that point too. Gotta keep my head on a swivel and notice when my deck’s priorities are different.

Oh, know another good example? Spring Splasher. It’s not that good a card, but when I drafted two alongside a Lazav, Familiar Stranger, being able to drop Lazav and immediately crime on a creature that was safe and also promised to make the next crime on the next turn was really good. It didn’t matter if they weren’t a great card per se, because if Lazav is a 3/6 the first time they attack, they’re really hard to get rid of!

I remember these stories. I remember winning this way. I remember having fun with these interactions.

Sometimes You Get Dumpstered

In my first OTJ draft, my third game and loss was where my opponent cast, in order:

Thunder Salvo

Sandstorm Salvager

Hellspur Posse Boss

Gitrog Monster

Back For More

Savage Smash

That was kinda impossible to beat. And that happens. In best-of-one free-to-play drafting, there are going to be situations where an opponent gets a handful of heaters and I don’t have anything I can do about it but that’s not most games, it’s not all games, and even when a statistical outlier like this happens, the thing to do is take it, dust myself off, vent about the feelings and be okay with trying again.

I can’t remember when I won like that. I’m sure I have had wins where my opponent just – oh! Oh wait no! No I remember now. The last draft I did, I played a green-black deck where I had two treasure dredgers and a Kaervek, the Punisher. My opponents were convinced getting rid of Kaervak was a big deal, and left my Treasure Dredgers alone.

Then when I had five treasures, I untapped and cast the Goldvein Hydra in my hand, resulting in a 12/12 trampling vigilance haste. And I gotta say if you’re the opponent and you just spent time brawling through blockers and trying to box me into a position to get Kaervak off the table, because you could have no idea that my deck couldn’t do anything with him, only to have the Hydra that had been sitting in my hand vomit itself onto the battlefield and crash over 8 power of blockers for lethal –

That probably felt bad.

I mean, I take the W, but I gotta remember that I’m someone’s bad match too, sometimes. Point is, I’m playing a high variance card game for a reason and I’m not owed a victory, even if I think I am.

Don’t Spend All Your Removal At Once

The target is 20 of my opponent’s life total. Just because I can neatly kill a thing when my opponent plays out a creature and I have the mana up doesn’t mean it’s worth my time to do it. Creatures are going to bash into each other and live and die, and there’s nothing good about keeping the board clear in limited unless I’m already ahead, and ahead in a way that won’t be easily disrupted (so, like, 2-3 good sized creatures), then killing their creature with one of my small supply of removal spells might be a waste of that card. I don’t have a lot! I don’t have tons of removal! I need to hang onto it for the best targets. Killing something to get in for 2 is not a good use of a whole card.

Late Game Gas Is Really Important

I used to play limited in a world where you wanted to be able to engage on the battlefield on turn three, and just go for it. Creature combat was about mediocre creatures hitting one another and killing your opponents’ stuff and broadly speaking if you could draft a bunch of bears you were going to win just because you went 2 drop, 2 drop, two 2 drops against opponents who were still casting more expensive stuff.

That’s not the case any more. Evasion isn’t as available, it’s not as pure. People want to get around things and want to get through things. Menace has an amazing effect. Vigilance is incredible. But just having any big creature that I can draw to in the late game or hold onto in the mid game is important. Without that, even when the end game is stalled I’m drawing cards that aren’t good and don’t matter even if I am drawing a lot of them.

Conclusion

I am fond of  OTJ. I have memories of playing it and it has made me a little less scared of drafting going forwards and I’m really happy with how Magic Arena made drafting it part of my life.

Oh and Bonny Pall is a mess.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[beatsandskies]

Theme Deck Review Compendium: Scourge “Storm Surge”

Yes, I did purposely use the most jarringly un-thematic card illustration in the deck as the preview. That cleric bringing the “um… what is happening here?” vibes. As this is the final deck of the block and the premodern era, and it’s coming at the end of my participation in Blaugust 2024, it feels appropriate to fold that into my “Random stuff at the start of the post” section. I did think…

[niuttuc]

It's been a while since our last Budget Commander Sleeper, and this one isn't a recent release, though it ties in with one. In fact, it hails from all the way back in 2017, when Wizards released a set of tribal preconstructed decks for their yearly commander release. Those were infamous for the Eminence ability that adorned its face commanders, and shaping up tribal decks for years to come.

The card I'm gonna talk to you about today was made for that environment, and it's immediately obvious. Heirloom Blade is a tribal equipment, it says so right on there, it wants creatures in your deck to share a creature type!

The card is actually relatively popular in a variety of tribal decks, ones that need little excuse to run an equipment or have their tribal creatures die. We can see a similar mindset from Wizards of the Coast, that didn't miss occasions to reprint it in tribal precons across the years, in the Human deck of C20, the Rogue deck of Zendikar Rising and the Dragon deck of Forgotten Realms. This constant reprinting has, incidentally kept the card very affordable.

In the Brothers' War set, less than six months ago, WotC released Transmogrant's Crown. People were fast to identify it for what it is: a fixed Skullclamp. It's far from Skullclamp's power, but Skullclamp is a card banned in every competitive format that bans cards, so it might still be decent in decks that really want the effect. The extra downside in commander is that black mana symbol restricting the card to deck with black. That assessment is correct, Transmogrant's Crown is a very fine magic card.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Heirloom Blade is just a mostly better Transmogrant's Crown. It costs 1 more mana to cast, but the same to equip (one mana), but it can go in any deck, and give you an extra +1/+1. +3/+1 for equip 1 is actually a whole lot of power and toughness, one that's hard to match, and one that'll incentivize your opponent to kill the equipped creature... And draw you a card.

"But!" You'll tell me, "That only works for tribal decks!" Well, I don't believe so. While it is text on the card, if your deck has a reasonable number of creatures, there should be overlap with almost every single one of them, with the race/class system of creature types having common repeats. Humans by themselves represent almost a quarter of all creatures in magic. The majority of creatures are either a human, elf, zombie, vampire, goblin, merfolk, dragon, angel, wizard, shaman, soldier, warrior... And many of them are a couple of those. Even in a non-tribal deck, a Heirloom Blade trigger will have multiple hits for 90-95% of creatures and creature tokens, just incidentally.

And that restriction is actually an upside! Because of it, Heirloom Blade will always hit a nonland when it hits, guaranteeing you a draw into more action, that can also pick up the blade!

I've tried it out and always have been impressed by it. If you're a non-tribal deck that wants anything to do with equipments, death triggers, power or anything of the sort, I encourage you to try Heirloom Blade. Depending on the deck, maybe even over skullclamp! (Though probably alongside Skullclamp in most decks.) Probably over Transmogrant's Crown too!

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

So, I remember seeing the announcement for this crossover a while ago and I was not very happy about it because Hasbro and WOTC cancelled the Transformers TCG and NOW are doing a crossover with MTG.

Now, I have seen a YouTuber open a promo box and now I am even less happy with the crossover. They named the set “The Brothers War” and what it really is is a MTG set featuring characters from Transformers and that is the best way to explain it.

In the video, the person opens a preconstructed commander deck which had zero Transformers cards in it which is kind of disappointing to me. Then, the person opens up a booster box and when they start, it is noted that with the booster box, 1 pack out of every ten packs will contain one Transformers character card. Given that a booster box has 36 packs, you’re realistically only going to be able to get 3 Transformers character cards.

Now, it seems, from a small amount of research, that one The Brother’s War booster box goes for anywhere between $120 and $130 and honestly, spending that much money on a CHANCE to maybe get 3 Transformers character cards. I was really hoping that this was going to be a whole MTG set based on Transformers and might have been the thing to get me back into MTG (It’s been since like the Amonkhet set) but I am not giving them any of my money. 

[markrosewater]

My perception at the time and looking back now was that the Planeswalker Decks were a pretty lackluster product overall, but they kept getting released for very nearly four years. Did they do well in some criteria a player like me didn't care about, were the teams making them trying to work the kinks out, or was that just due to R&D working years ahead in time?

They were are entry-level preconstructed deck. They weren't designed for the more enfranchised crowd. They went away because the Commander decks took their place (and were more enfranchised player friendly).

[magicwithclass]

Value Boosters in Bloomburrow Part 2 (Continued). Are Value Booster Packs a Gateway Drug to more expensive boosters?

So, what is in these new value boosters? Are these boosters worth it or is a play booster or collector booster the better deal? Is this a decent budget option or are they selling you junk? I want to make it clear that if you are trying to get into the game, then I would always recommend you start with a preconstructed commander deck. The commander decks are, almost always, an amazing value with some commander staples that can be used in multiple competitive decks. In paper, almost everyone plays commander so even though the preconstructed decks are usually very complicated, I would still start any new players with a 40 dollar commander deck. They still get to open a sample pack so there is some amount of random chance associated with the product. I have opened some really interesting stuff out of those little packs. However, I know people who simply want the rush of ripping open 30 bucks. These new value packs are only 7 cards. Aftermath also had smaller boosters and that was considered an extreme failure but the assassin's creed boosters seem to be doing a lot better. 7 card packs are ok because the duplication should be low. Bloomburrow is a set with almost 300 cards while aftermath and creed had much less cards in the entire set. The one issue with this product is that you are not guaranteed a rare in each pack. They have no released the probability of getting a rare per pack but I hope that the pull rate of a rare is 50 percent or higher. I feel like you should get at least one rare in every two packs. The product packaging is purposefully misleading. The packs say you can get up to two rares per pack which is true but the probability of that is probably extremely rare. The packaging should say that rares are not guaranteed but they would not prominently showcase that truth to the public. I do like that you can get special guests in these packs and pulling two mythics in one cheap pack is going to make some exciting stories. Options are good but I feel like this is merely a marketing ploy to expose the youth to an addiction on the cheap. Are value boosters a gateway booster to more expensive boosters? Do the kids that get value packs grow up to buy their own collectors packs and set packs a an adult? Is this good for the game as it puts the game in the public eye starting from childhood? I am so curious to see how low the price is without a guaranteed rare. Could they guarantee a rare in a future value booster without raising the price? Will the audience accept these rareless packs? Do kids even know or want rares or do they just want to see cool art and characters on cards? Time will answer all of these questions. Is this something they will try for universes beyond? People would more likely impulse buy a pack of cards for a dollar if the cards had their favorite ip on them. I will be watching the market on value booster packs very carefully as this might be the introductory product that stands the test of time and brings Magic the Gathering into the zeitgeist.