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Tag: Magic The Gathering

  • Pre-release Marvel Super Heroes – Magic: The Gathering

    Pre-release Marvel Super Heroes – Magic: The Gathering

    I recently found out that not far from my house Magic: The Gathering events are regularly organised. A couple of months ago I joined there for the pre-release of Secrets of StrixhavenPre-release Secrets of Strixhaven. This week I joined the Pre-release Marvel Super Heroes.

    I am not a Marvel fan

    Magic lately has a lot of Universes Beyond sets, adding content from strong IPs to the gameplay of the card game. I really enjoyed how the did it with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Godzilla. The famous monsters of the Japanese franchise just became alternatives facings with a new name and new art. And adding monster to MTG isn’t weird at all.

    Earlier this year I played a small sealed with 3 other friends of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I wasn’t sure what to expect with bringing MTG to New York. However, it worked out just fine. It wasn’t the best set ever, but having played with Turtles toys in the ’90s, we ended up having a great afternoon.

    As for Marvel, I did see a couple of movies like the older Wolverine movies, Iron Man 1 & 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 & 2 and the Deadpool movies. But I have no clue about the phases the movies are currently in. It is just too much and just not my cup of tea.

    But am I a Marvel MTG fan?

    Back to the card game. I am no a Marvel fan, why spend my money at Marvel cards? Well, I really like the concept of a MTG Prerelease Sealed Tournament. You get 6 packs and barely an hour to build a 40-card deck with all the cards you haven’t seen before. Yes, we all follow the announcements, but still you don’t know the cards.

    And every set has some new rules: Mechanics.

    • Power-up: Boost your critter for an additional cost, but get a discount if you do this in the same turn as summoning the critter.
    • Teamwork: Unlock extra features by tapping creatures while casting this spell
    • Plan: Put counters on these enchantments and unleash the big plan if you reach the required number.
    • Connive: Not release new, but a welcome return: draw and discard. If it’s not a land get a +1/+1 counter.
    • Transform Double-Faced Cards: regular citizen by day, but when shit hits the fan, these can creatures transform into the hero suit.

    And of course you have a lot of characters from the Marvel comic books, grouped by the two creature types Heroes and Villains. And yes, many of them appear on multiple cards.

    I did laugh out loud because of this vid:

    The pulls

    So, what did I pull? Well two epics, Kang the Conqueror and Black Widow, Super Spy. Blue and black, actually my favorite colors. Checked that other cards and turned out, I had some good cards, mainly Villains, in these colors, so decided to stick with them.

    two epics, Kang the Conqueror and Black Widow, Super Spy

    I did with all three games with 2-1. The fun part, I did not play these two epics until they 9th match and then had both in play.

    Why did I win the other games? Maybe due 1x Kid Loki and Aerial 2x Doombot. In all games I had a 1/1 critter in play on the first turn. Most decks were way slower.

    The set doesn’t have a lot of removal, but 5 cards helped me a lot. Dark Deed is simply removing medium sized stuff. Justice, Vance Astrovik and Trickster’s Stratagem slowed the opponent down. And flash-cards Giant-Sized Flying Ant and Super Suit were some nice surprises to create some blockers and kill stuff in combat.

    The real villain of my deck was Titania, Rugged Rumbler. A 5/5 in 3rd turn with Ward wasn’t something my opponents liked.

    View deck at Archidekt

    Artifact
    1x S.H.I.E.L.D. Flying Car
    1x Super Suit

    Creature
    2x Aerial Doombot
    1x Atlantean Cavalry
    1x Black Widow, Super Spy
    1x Ghost, Spectral Saboteur
    1x Giant-Sized Flying Ant
    2x HYDRA Troopers
    1x Justice, Vance Astrovik
    1x Kang the Conqueror
    1x Kid Loki
    1x Leader, Super-Genius
    1x S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone
    1x Swordsman, Sharp Scoundrel
    1x Titania, Rugged Rumbler
    1x Unliving Legionnaire
    1x Unliving Legionnaire
    1x Yellowjacket, Heartless Marauder

    Enchantment
    1x HYDRA Infiltration

    Instant
    1x Dark Deed
    1x Visions of Villainy

    Sorcery
    1x Trickster’s Stratagem

    Land
    8x Island
    8x Swamp

    Missed opportunity?

    Looking a day later at the cards and found Pym Particles, why didn’t I add this to the deck?

    Conclusion

    After playing 9 matches I did have fun with MTG Marvel Super Heroes. The set is seems balanced and fun. As for the theme, just go back to the planes of Magic.

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  • Pre-release Secrets of Strixhaven

    Pre-release Secrets of Strixhaven

    This Monday I entered a Magic: The Gathering – Secret of Strixhaven pre-release. It is the first organised sealed tournament I joined since Urza’s Saga (1998).

    My Magic History

    I have been playing Magic: The Gathering since my 13th, somewhere end of 1995. The 4th edition did release an introduction packages and Ice Age/Homeland were in stores. I played regularly with a group of until 2002, we all started studying in different city. In 2012 we started playing again, once or twice a year we organise a weekend and do a sealed with the latest set.

    Of course, I also play sometimes on MTG Arena, which I will be streaming soon on Twitch.tv/Freakenstein.

    Secrets of Strixhaven

    The first Strixhaven set, School of Mages, was released in 2021. I did not play the set, but understand it is a fan favorite and that’s why many people were looking forward to the return to the plane of Arcavios. The sealed event I joined was fully booked, the organiser mentioned that this hasn’t happened before.

    I’m not gonna explain all the mechanics, you can read the at Wizards.

    The Deck

    The sealed was with 6 boosters, in contrary with the pre-release package where one of the boosters is replace with a booster of one of the 5 houses. I didn’t draw any epics or extra rares, but was able to build a fun deck:

    1x Ambitious Augmenter
    1x Brush Off
    1x Chase Inspiration
    1x Cuboid Colony
    1x Divergent Equation
    1x Fractal Tender
    1x Geometer’s Arthropod
    1x Giant Growth
    1x Growth Curve
    1x Hungry Graffalon
    1x Hydro-Channeler
    1x Mindful Biomancer
    1x Pensive Professor
    1x Pterafractyl
    1x Quandrix Charm
    1x Sleight of Hand
    1x Spellbook Seeker // Careful Study
    1x Stock Up
    1x Strixhaven Skycoach
    1x Studious First-Year // Rampant Growth
    1x Tester of the Tangential
    1x Textbook Tabulator
    1x Wild Hypothesis
    9x Island
    8x Forest

    Some highlights

    The deck is blue/green, Quandrix. The ability related to this house is Increment, powering up existing critters when playing bigger critters. Imagine playing these four in a row.

    At that moment my opponent made me discard the rest of the cards in my hand, which had two cards that could pump up the volume a bit more:

    However, Tester of the Tangential works great with Pensive Professor and I could fill my hand again.

    On of the best openers I had was Ambitious Augmenter and Growth Curved, which means you are able to attack with a 5/5 in turn two, auch.

    Quandrix Charm turned out to be a great finisher. Since it changes the based power and toughness, the unblocked critter with several +1/+1 counters becomes an massive beast.

    The results

    The first game I won 2-0. The second I lost 2-1, in the final match I kept drawing land… The final game wasn’t played fully, because my opponent had to leave.

    The biggest result was, you guessed it, having fun!

    Did you play Strixhaven already?

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