Every Announcement at Magic Con Amsterdam

speaker-0: Ugh Sam, it's been a while since it's just been us. How the hell are you out in out in the the Virginia?
speaker-1: It had been. I'll tell you it's hot as hell here.
speaker-0: Fucking sane, dude. I'm I'm just happy that as of the recording of this, tomorrow I'm getting my AC fixed. Well that Yeah. And I got lucky that the high today is like seventy-eight, so I'm not like dying while doing this. The last several episodes I've recorded have been like a fucking sweating disaster.
speaker-1: That's exciting. Yeah.
speaker-0: It's it's vile, it's vile. So what it what what have you been up to? How how have you how have your your magicness been? You build any decks, you playing anything fun?
speaker-1: I've been so I've been going to the LGS here ⁓ for my magic for my magic evenings ⁓ on Wednesdays. And let me tell ya, ⁓ I don't win a lot. some of it is the fact that, you know, previously playing with our our pod and then the pod I had when I moved ⁓ back up to ⁓ my parents' area. You know, all friends, a lot more chill.
speaker-0: ⁓
speaker-1: Everybody was like, you know, we're all we're all on the same page here. Now it's like people actually, you know, play to win and like throw game changers in their decks and it's like, ⁓ And and then on top of that, my decks have just been like, no, we don't wanna you get land. ⁓ for your draw for turn, land. ⁓ and somebody gave you a card? Land.
speaker-0: Yeah. No, I get I get that. Like the the my my classic Narset deck was was a pain in the ass for you guys to play against. I became arch enemy quite easily. and then I started when I started going to the local LGS more frequently They didn't give a fuck. They did they didn't give a flying fuck about that deck. They were like, all right, yeah, remove, done. Yeah. And I'm like, Yep. ⁓ And I actually had it it like greatly changed how I like built Narset. And it's much more of a like turn two, three, four, just like get dudes that make dudes, get out value engines. And that and like I'm there's sometimes I'm not even casting Narset until like I've got a counter spell in hand or I've got a protection piece and just keeping her around to basically just as a win condition instead of like a generative value sort of thing.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think that's kind of been what I've ⁓ what I've started to grow towards more recently is get a lot more setup and if I'm not getting set up early enough then I'm like, well I guess I'm either on the back foot until somebody board wipes or I'm out of this game. 'Cause that's also a thing, is a lot more board wipes at the at the game store as opposed to other groups I've
speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. Well the the board wipe super common with the land rampers. All right. Those disgusting green players that just rampant growth into cultivate, into four mana ramp, into big board wipe, and now I play my big bombs and I win. Mm-hmm. It's a respectable strategy. I've been running more land interaction.
speaker-1: Yeah, I've ⁓ started throwing in some land interaction. ⁓ which actually does bring me to something very interesting. I don't know if you've noticed this in in your playings out in the world. I think the number one game changer I see at the store is crop rotation.
speaker-0: Crop rotation, yeah, that is a big one. Yeah.
speaker-1: And here's the thing, it's like I get it. Like especially in like I played against ⁓ what was the deck? The Necroblossom recently. That guy crop rotated into getting ⁓ you know his feel of the dead and to, you know, double essentially his value engine going on. But I've seen so many people be like, Alright, crop rotation into command tower, crop rotation into just I don't know, whatever I just d another ⁓ another landfall for my landfall deck. It's like Yeah. Interesting. Okay, I mean
speaker-0: It's it's the one mana ⁓ I've been finding just one mana grab a land. Like even even something like ⁓ analyze the pollen or like a bushwhack and just grabbing a basic to your hand is like way more valuable than you think.
speaker-1: Your yeah, surprisingly. Surprisingly.
speaker-0: That's that's kinda what I've been getting into on on the shorts recently is kinda exposing some of these like underplayed, super valuable cards that people should be running more. It's been fun. It's been a good time. And I I gotta say. The fucking TikTok comments, man. Holy shit. I don't know what happened to TikTok. Like back when you and I were doing TikToks, it was like, ⁓ this is cool. Everyone's nice. Ha ha. This is funny. This is great. Nowadays it's like you're the you're a fucking idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. All classic MTG content creator rage baiting. And it's like, I'm just saying you should run Thraben Charm.
speaker-1: I remember seeing one of your videos and I was like, ⁓ look, there's like quite a few comments on this and they're all ⁓ you're wrong on how this works, and it's like No, no, you're not wrong on how this works. Like First version of this card. You point out that it was a different version of that like card, or like it's it's fine, and also it works how you said it works.
speaker-0: This is just a Now do I do I get a little bit clickbaity when I'm like when I'm like you should be you should not be running you should you should not be running as much just like staple cards. Mm-hmm. It's like is this better is Slurry is Thraben Charm better than Swords to Plow Shares? Yes and no. Yeah. Do you want to get rid of an enchantment? It's way better than Swords to Plow Shares. Do you only have the ability to hold open one mana? Well, Swords to Plowshares is way better. Do you like it It's a give and a take. I've been leaning way more into just flexible pieces in my decks recently. Yeah. And I'm trying to I'm trying to tune I'm trying to tune like two or three decks right now so that they're good and solid and ready for Gen Con which will be next weekend. Waddles eyebrows. I'm very excited. Which by the way, this the duels and manadorks podcast, the Magic the Gathering podcast, follow the stuff you want to know in Magic the Gathering.
speaker-1: Why bro?
speaker-0: We moved it up a week. Exciting times. Surprise. Lamb drop. Ha got it. We move we moved everything up because the Magicon Amsterdam stuff. We can't really wait. Like there's there's a lot to get into. We can't and it just helps. It helps with the Gen Con as well being next week. We usually record these on Thursdays. I'm gonna be at the convention on Thursday. It just makes it way easier to move up. There you go, one week early. And then we'll get back we'll go right back to the one week on, one week off plan, as it were.
speaker-1: proven formula.
speaker-0: But today enough of the bullshit. We got we got we got too much w we wasted seven and a half minutes talking about what command No one cares about playing the game. Yeah. We wanna bit we wanna bitch about the reality fracture. We wanna we wanna talk about how the fucking Benedict Cumberbatch's face is on Shieldrid now, apparently. Apparently. God damn that I can't get I can't get drawn back into last episode. I need to I need to move forward.
speaker-1: Under the name Magic the Gathering?
speaker-0: ⁓ but we got all the MagicCon Amsterdam stuff you need to know. Reality fracture, huge drop, a lot of information, a lot of fun cards. ⁓ we got the In Universe Magic lineup for 2027. They did not reveal any of the universes beyond. I think they know their audience at these Magic Con commitments. So we'll get into a little bit of that. They also went into a lot of the Hobbit. But we're gonna gloss over that, save it for the next episode when we're into pre-release season and we've got much more of the set revealed. But we'll go over the mechanics real quick and give an overview of the Hobbit. ⁓ but before we do any of that, you shout out Patreon, patreon.com slash Manadorx. That's how it's done. Five dollars a month gets you early ad free access. You can see it one week early on Friday. We release them free for everybody on Monday. And fifteen dollars a month you can get your name read. At the end of the show or right now, like Brandon Vol, because he's the man. The man, the myth, the legend. Been around for a while. But we gotta get to the goods. We got reality fracture. We're gonna I'm gonna we're gonna go through in like relatively the order that they showed stuff in. They kind of they jumped around a whole lot with these preview panels and shit. So I just we brought all the reality fracture stuff together. Then we're gonna hit all the twenty twenty seven sets. So Reality Fracture and the future of the magic multiverse, a first look. I w I just want to lead off with the big thing that Reality Fracture is gonna do that's never been done in a magic set before. Every single pack will have at least two creature cards or two cards that feature the same character. One of them is the magic in universe version that you know, and one of them is Jace's Echo Verse, the fractured reality version of that character. We've seen a lot of examples of this. ⁓ obviously the Lorwin V, the original planeswalkers from Lorwin, Jace, Ajani, Chandra, Liliana, and Garrick. ⁓ we've seen in the arts that they're all going to have in Universe and Echoverse versions, but we got to see these cards. ⁓ Jace doesn't have an Echoverse version. He's just the theorist, Jace Bellerin, ⁓ as he's kind of creating this whole Echoverse reality. But we got Ajani Resolute and A Johnny Unrelenting as An amazing white life gain planeswalker and a red aggressive top end planeswalker. Chandra Torch of Defiance and Chandra Chill of Compliance. We've seen this previously. Liliana the Repentant and Liliana the Faultless. These are creature versions of Liliana after being de-sparked, which is interesting. Both are very good creatures. ⁓ The Faultless is a life gain banger. Repentant is an amazing reanimator engine. And then Garrick the Veiled Butcher and Gaelic and Garrick Garrett. Cursebreaker. The Veiled Butcher is a version where he got the chain veil and kept it. ⁓ both of them care about creatures and making four-fours. They're like mirrors of one another. It's very interesting. So this is going to be the big thing that we see in every single pack, Sam. And we got some other examples: tiny bones versus ⁓ big tiny bones. Are you trying to And then and some cards that are mirrored cards.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: But only the Echoverse version, something like the Enlightened Confidant, which is ⁓ a mirrored Echoverse version of Dark Confidant, which is not in this set. ⁓ and I would presume similarly ⁓ the red the red Snapcaster.
speaker-1: ⁓ is the ⁓ stingcaster.
speaker-0: Stingcaster and yes, Crater Claw, which is a red Crater Hoof behemoth, sort of. So every single pack is going to have one of these, Sam. What do you make of these card, this style of card of the in universe versus echo verse versions being in the same pack?
speaker-1: It's I mean I get it. I you know, when they furry first announced that they were doing this, it was to make sure that you felt this. 'Cause obviously a lot of people either coming to get magic or, you know, God forbid somebody hasn't been around since the ⁓ you know the Allure when five were originally introduced. Who could that be? or or people who don't care, you know, know or care about the lore. But seeing these two together I think is very flavorful. And very interesting when it comes to actually making people understand how these relate and making you feel the weight of the set itself. ⁓ as far as it goes with you know, how that's going to make you know card costs affect. Obviously, like mythic rares are still gonna be mythic rares at the end of the day. Even you know, sometimes they're crap and they're worth th three cents still, but it'll be very interesting to see if Any of the regular and Echoverse ones are both high tier or high dollar cards at the end of the day. Or if one's real low and one's real high, even though you're definitely getting them in the same.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well I'm I with some of these, I think obviously I would suspect like Chandra Chill of Compliance to be worth more than Tortured Defiance because Tortured Defiance is a reprint. Right. That's pretty easy. But especially like these Lilianas, the Ajani, like each p each half, each version has value to it. But I think this is a good time. We're just gonna jump right into the play booster. So we got a breakdown of all of the product releases. But I want to actually linger on the breakdown of what is in the Play Booster and how they collate the packs, because this is how we're getting into these like echoed pairs, as they're calling them. ⁓ play booster packs gonna have 14 cards, five to six commons, one uncommon, one common or uncommon, and then three echoed pair cards, including two cards that are of the same pair. So this is like you get the two tiny bones or you get the the two Chandras or the two Lilianas or whatever. But they also leave an extra slot in there for like your Crater Claw Behemoth, your ⁓ enlightened confidants, whether you only get the one half that's being printed in the set. What I what I'm curious of is obviously they're gonna have uncommons that are echoing pairs. ⁓ we haven't seen those cards yet. But Are to to your point, like how is it going to affect the price? Are you going to be able to pull Chandra Torch of Defiance without the other Chandra? If you're getting a a different pair of echoed cards? Or are they reserving that like solo echoed pair card for the ones that they're not getting their in-universe half in the set?
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: I th I think that's how that ends up playing out, I imagine we're not really even gonna know until people have packs in hands.
speaker-1: Right. So you know when the Hobbit releases.
speaker-0: Yeah, with Hobbit pre-release. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. God, could you imagine? They I will say the secrets of Strixhaven packs were just secrets of Strix Haven and the Marvel superhero packs are just Marvel superheroes. We're memeing a little bit. Rightfully so, because it's ridiculous that it happened in the first place. ⁓
speaker-1: but multiple times.
speaker-0: It it's weird it happened twice. ⁓ and then you get your standard fare, one rare or mythic rare in the slot, one traditional foil, one non foil double sided token. Similarly with the collector boosters, you're getting 15 cards, four traditional foil commons, two traditional foil uncommons, three traditional foil uncommon echoed pairs, and then traditional foil basic land, traditional foil, rare mythic, non foil rare or mythic from fractured reality or the commander's booster fun. ⁓ two non foil mythic r or rare booster fun, one foil mythic rare booster fun, and then one arc card or foiled out. I it running down these things, it just like it all it just becomes garbage coming out. Literally, literally. I think it is impressive that they manage to create the concept of the echoed pair, and if they can manage to pull it off where you literally always get one in the packs. I mean we
speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah.
speaker-0: We were just joking about how they fucked up what cards are in the packs recently. Right. If if you legitimately are opening up paired cards within each pack, that isn't their norm how they normally do dispersion among packs when they're printing and cutting cards at the factory. So the this has to create a whole new assembly line, basically.
speaker-1: Eight. So I do remember back to Lord of the Rings, ⁓ Tales of Middle Earth. We actually talked about this a little 'cause you opened just so much of it. And you're like, you know, I always feel like I'm getting Gimli and then a Friendly rivalry and then a Legolas. Mm-hmm. And like it turned like it came out several months, maybe even a year later, that they're like, ⁓ yeah, there was we did like kind of change the collating and tweak the tweak the percentages so that that does happen with certain sets of cards. Whereas obviously that was more of like a fun a fun little nugget where this is very intentional. And I feel like the fun nuggets are something they do well at, but the intentionality, they often, you know, swing and miss.
speaker-0: Yeah. I i it I I think a lot of the success of reality fracture obviously the limited environment is super important, but the pack opening experience, like it they have to nail it if they're gonna do this. ⁓ but they they've successfully done it with even Teenage Ninja Turtles recently, where they guaranteed a turtle in every pack. You got one of the turtles guaranteed in every pack, and I think part of that is just Percentage base, they rolled the dice on it 'cause they're so fucking many of ⁓ but
speaker-1: Really was, right?
speaker-0: It was it was ridiculous. But they in the Lord of the Rings packs, I think they did something similar with like Mary and Pippin cards, where you were much more likely to get a Pippin if you open a Mary or vice versa kind of thing. All right. Moving out of the packs of Reality Fracture, which by the way, are the more are the new standard for pack prices $5.49 for a play booster, $26.99 for a collector booster. ⁓ Multiverse Reforged the Commander Deck. We didn't see any of the cards in the Commander decks. ⁓ it's now almost a week since the Magikon weekend, and we have gotten like one of the abilities on the Jace Face Com Planeswalker, because they're like f freaking drip feeding all of that now. ⁓ but you will get the Traditional Foil Face Commander. There is a featured commander as well that you'll get in Traditional Foil, ⁓ the backup commander. We don't know what that is going to be. ⁓ and then you get the 98 non-foil with 16 new to magic designs. This is the only commander deck coming out with reality fracture. ⁓ unless you count the foundations commander decks, which are gonna be $30 MSRP. There are five monocolor decks: white angels, blue artifacts, black zombies, red dragons, and green dinosaurs. I wish all Commander decks for thirty dollars and not just the Foundations one.
speaker-1: Well that would be just so nice.
speaker-0: It really would. We got two bundles. Their standard bundle, 5799 MSRP, nine play boosters, a foil promo, 30 lands with half of them being foil. ⁓ and then the fun one though, the secret lair bundle, 89.99 MSRP. You get two collector boosters and six play boosters. So you get one less booster pack than the regular bundle, but two of them are collector. ⁓ normally these like fancy bundles have one collector booster. ⁓ you get the 20 Foil Borderless Lands and then the special promo pack where you get two out of ten mythics that are in the Secret Lair style. ⁓ we got we got to see the new ⁓ the theorist Jay Speller and Enlightened Confidant and Crater Claw Colossus. ⁓ the interesting thing about this is the bundle is going to be sold on the Secret Lair website as a secret lair drop, and then also available at Wizards Play Network stores, so your local game stores as well. ⁓ are you gonna try and pick up a a secret lair bundle? It's probably the secret lair website drop is probably the only time you're gonna be able to get the secret lair bundle at MSRP.
speaker-1: I'll ⁓ I'll have to sacrifice and just be okay with not having that in my life, you know.
speaker-0: That's fair. That is fair. I mean ninety dollars for six packs and and two collector boosters and a couple pro I mean it's kind of it's it's not terrible. Not great, but not terrible. ⁓ the draft night bundle. ⁓ twelve play packs. One collector booster pack is like a prize pack for those that are playing in a a pick two draft with four people, which is that many is just what twelve play packs can do.
speaker-1: Terrible.
speaker-0: Ninety non FOIL lands, ten double sided tokens, ninety dollar MSRP, which I believe in the past we've discussed the draft bundle that like eighty to ninety dollar range is the sweet spot for that number of packs. Good luck finding it at that MSRP. Right. And then the pre release kits, there are no listed MSRP, but it's a pre release kit. You get six packs, you get a foil promo. You know the deal. Pre-release September twenty fifth to October first. The arena releases September twenty ninth and then tabletop full release on October second. What do you make of the product lineup? Are you gonna are you gonna grab any of them?
speaker-1: I mean I would love to ⁓ you know obviously crack a few packs, maybe go to the pre-release. Love some love some limited. And I mean this you know, looking at the few cards we've seen already, ⁓ obviously there is a focus with the ⁓ Echoverse versions of the Strixhaven schools. And I mean the last Strixaven set was great. It was very fun. So to see those in there, that's gonna be very cool. I'll be excited to see ⁓ more of the full lineup of of cards as we get into f actual spoiler season for this ⁓ for this product. ⁓ but yeah, we'll hopefully hopefully grab some of that when it comes out. Love an end of universe set.
speaker-0: ⁓ along the lines of Hexhaven, I would absolutely love if as part of the story here, when the good guys obviously win. Of course, 'cause that that has that has to happen. Or Jace would w that'd be crazy if Jace kinda won, but that's a whole other thing. If they could manage to find a way where Hexhaven could stay as its own plane. So we can get we could in the future get a proper Hexhaven set. Because having an ally colored pair version of Strixhaven in the Strixhaven style where they're playing where they play with the archetypes like how Strixhaven did compared to the Raffnica guilds of those colors and kind of twist them in the same way. I think that'd be awesome. ⁓
speaker-1: Because we're Yeah.
speaker-0: For the booster fun of Reality Fracture, stuff you can find in play and collector boosters, the serialized headliner, bloodline re-collector, we've seen previously, it is collector booster only. The shattered mirror cards, there are 13 of them total. ⁓ we saw the first one with the Stingcaster Mage in the initial reveal of Reality Fracture. You can get them in both bo in both booster packs in non-foil, ⁓ with the facet foil only being available in collector boosters. The borderless echoed pairs. So these are cards that when put next to each other, the art aligns with each of them as if the two echoed pairs are fighting. There are 30 total cards here with ⁓ 15 pairs. ⁓ you can get them in non foil and traditional foil in both booster packs. Very good. ⁓ the brain twister series, there are twenty-three total cards, non foil and traditional foil, can be found in both booster packs. Very good. And then finally, for all the weaboos out there, the Japanese showcase cards, traditional and fracture foil available only in collector boosters. The Japanese language card versions can only be found in Japanese packs, and then English will be for all of the non-Japanese booster packs. And that is all she wrote for Reality Fracture. Do you have any any final thoughts?
speaker-1: Actually I wanna I wanna know, have you seen the thing about Liliana?
speaker-0: ⁓ what about her?
speaker-1: Where her ability is to bring back a planeswalker from your graveyard, and there's a statue of Gideon in the background of her art. People are theorizing that Gideon is going to be reintroduced.
speaker-0: Repentant? Yeah. ⁓ I see what you're doing. Exhaust five and a black, return target creature or planeswalker card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Put a plus one plus one counter on Liliana, and that is indeed I see what they're doing here. I see what they're doing here. I mean, th they killed off a lot of iconic characters in the Fire Xian Invasion. I would not be surprised if as part of the resolution of this reality fracture story a lot of these deceased characters end up coming.
speaker-1: Or at least they're echo ver ⁓ echo echo forms.
speaker-0: That that would be an interesting twist where the Echoverse versions are allowed to remain. Mm-hmm. Maybe the Echoverse versions of living characters end up getting killed off or they end up staying behind. You can get a lot of weird shit going on here. But it is not worth theorizing. Not quite yet.
speaker-1: Not yet.
speaker-0: In the middle of all of the information, they were just like, ⁓ we're doing a new mystery booster, by the way. Mystery booster commander edition. These are going to be commander draft packs. So 20 card packs, very similar to what we saw with the Battle for Baldur's Gate set. Commander Draftable. Feels kind of like Commander Legends 3 and Mystery Boosters 3, like jammed together. ⁓ We are going to be getting. Fifty-nine new mechanically unique designs for Commander. We got to see two of them. Mm-hmm. One of them's a meme, Joven and Chandler, a reference to the cards Joven and Chandler from Homelands. ⁓ they they if you've been in the magic community online, you're familiar with their faces. ⁓ they're they're yucking it up with ⁓ having a nice brew ski, and I'm sure that's going to be a very popular commander. ⁓ the more interesting one, in my opinion, at least from a mechanical sense, Tolabo Lock Rascal is a new blue otter. legendary creature, ⁓ with the rule bl rule breaker ⁓ my god. Blah blah blah. With the rule breaker ability. It says a deck with this commander can have any instant and sorcery cards of one additional color, not in this commander's color identity, and any basic land cards. Sirens start going off in the head. Okay. A lot of people have talked about the spirit of the format with regards to this card. I don't know if you've seen much of this discourse. Lot of people are upset that they're breaking the color identity rule with this card. It literally says rule breaker on the card. Okay. ⁓ you know, like the spirit of the format. You have one commander in the command zone, and in 99 all in the color identity, except for the commanders where you're allowed to have two of them. Yes. ⁓ or except for the commanders where you can get a background with them. And Other other than all of those exceptions, this is the first time this has ever happened. Like, I understand that it's scary, but this is literally just th this is mechanically identical to a choose a background monocolor commander, and then in your background is just you can run instance and sorceries of an extra color.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the the faceless one or ⁓ I can't remember the other the flip version of that. Because they did that in Bowsergate.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, so you could just literally it's here's an extra color for your color identity. But this is even more restrictive because you can't have creatures, you can't have artifacts, you can't have enchantments, planeswalkers, battles, you can't even have multicolored dual lands.
speaker-1: It's true, it's only allowed you to run basics.
speaker-0: It l it lets you run a basic of a different color. And then it also will let you you can still run lands that can tap for any color. Sure. ⁓ notably, things like Command Tower are still only going to be able to tap for blue. So it's not even in your commander's color identity. Arcane Signet doesn't get around this. Okay. You need specific things that can tap for any color of mana. So like a chromatic lantern would probably go pretty hard here. I I I think there's a lot of There's a lot of upset people about this and I frankly don't understand why.
speaker-1: Right, and it I mean, ⁓ ultimately it more feels like the designers of the set being lazy 'cause like you said, it's commander draftable, which I've watched plenty of commander drafts, and depending on if they don't do b you know, if they don't do a Baldur's Gate or if they do a cube or something, they oftentimes say, Hey, if you draft a monocolor commander, they automatically have you know add one color to the identity or whatnot. Yeah. ⁓ and and exactly like you said, whether it's the backgrounds or ⁓ I believe from the Doctor Who, ⁓ Clara Oswald. Yes. ⁓ there's Clara Oswald who says you can have this as your ⁓ you choose a color and she affects that the color identity. ⁓ so yeah, it's not like we haven't seen this before. ⁓
speaker-0: The companion.
speaker-1: I mean again, it's just like you said, the spirit. And I think coming off of the heels of the hybrid mana debate, 'cause that's only a few months old if we if we really think about it. You know, if if if wizards had not brought up the hybrid ⁓ mana debate, this might not even be as fresh in everybody's mind.
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ which for the record, I don't know what your opinion I don't remember what your opinion, 'cause we discussed this, I think. I'm all for it. If you want to run a hybrid mana card in your monocolor deck, whatever. It literally basically only helps monocolor decks.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think it's very niche the ones you would want to run. So I don't
speaker-0: And I I I understand the arguments of like, well, what if they're just gonna start making busted hybrid mana cards? And it's like, okay, well then they're gonna be busted cards for the commanders that can run them anyway. It it doesn't fix the fat like them designing a busted card is just them designing a busted card, whether or not it has hybrid mana and whether or not it's legal in commander in monocolor decks.
speaker-1: Right. Yeah. I mean at this point, yeah, it's like, ⁓ boy, I can run my pinnacle adversary in my mono red artifact deck. That's about where I'm at with it.
speaker-0: Exactly. Which would be awesome. I might I might add that would be pretty cool. the Mystery Booster Commander Edition is going to release sometime later this year. We don't know. I would like to point out that when they did this with Mystery Boosters 2, where they're like, hey, this is a thing we're doing, they released it like a month later, and you could randomly get be given a pack at ⁓ Gavin Verhee unknown events at Gen Con.
speaker-1: That'd be pretty cool.
speaker-0: You know, was this was announced two weeks before Gen Con. I'm glad I've got the Gavin Verhee unknown event on my on my list of ⁓ scheduled events. That's all I'm saying. Now, when I sit down when I sit down and I'm given three mystery boosters two packs and three Marvel superhero packs, am I gonna be a little bit upset? Maybe. But I'll still enjoy it. The Gavin Verhee unv unknown events are chef's kiss. So fun. ⁓ we're apparently we're also getting the return of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame. ⁓ it's returning in twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty-six. ⁓ it honors and celebrates the best players that have ever played the game, and we're gonna get more information. It's coming back. Cool. ⁓ if you're into that sort of thing, have fun. What I think more people are gonna be interested in we got an announcement of all the In Universe magic sets. And all the major Magic Con events for 2027. All right. Before we get into the specifics, though, notably there's only six sets, not seven. They went down one set. I think the Lorwin thing was just a fluke with them having to pivot Spider Man into a full standard set and pushing it out of that. I think this last year of seven sets is not going to be the norm. It seems like they're maxing out at six. The first thing, February 5th, a new plane of existence. Noctis, the Sunken Realm. It is a set that is fully underwater. ⁓ despite that, is going to represent all of the colors of mana. It will not be a mono blue set. ⁓ for example, like the kelp forest is where you're gonna get your green cards. The fishbone graveyard is where you're gonna get your black cards. ⁓ it merfolk will be heavily represented, but other aquatic creatures were shown, things like lobsters, crabs, sharks, fish, etc. ⁓ the story is there's a really dangerous threat deep in the ocean underneath the ocean. ⁓ humans are in the set, but they are a bit of outside outsiders. They are shown having like diving suits on, which is interesting. And for I think the first time, they said. This set will not have a single creature with flying in it, because they're all underwater. And they announced that there is going to be a brand new evasive mechanic that is going to replace flying. ⁓ so we're not getting a return of like island walk or anything like that. No horsemanship. No horsemanship, but we're gonna get a horsemanship like thing. See
speaker-1: Horsemanship.
speaker-0: Ride your little seahorsey. ⁓ what do you make of Noctis? I think personally, I think this is one of the most exciting ones for the year for me.
speaker-1: This you know, we got s we got several friends with ⁓ some thossophobia out there. But I think as long as they ⁓ as they do their ⁓ do their due diligence and don't make it too what's the word I'm looking for? ⁓ homogenous. ⁓ you know, I feel like a a lot of times when you focus on underwater themes ⁓ from across different media you get a v a v just a kind of like here's a creature and it's in water. Here's the main character in water and you're kind of missing like feeling and depth. No pun intended there with the ocean th theme. But I do like a diving suit aesthetic. So I'm hoping I'm hoping that there is a secret layer of Bioshock in here.
speaker-0: I I could see it. I could see it. Wizard thing could happen. That would be fun. I mean, they basically said they can get any IP they want for Secret Lair at this point. So ⁓ I could definitely understand the apprehension of just kind of generic we're underwater, especially given the recent history of like your Aether Drifts, your ⁓ that that sort of stuff. But
speaker-1: That's true. A drift. We're in a car. Here's a car. Here's a shark in a car. ⁓
speaker-0: Here's a ⁓ here's a murder. Here's a murder on Ravnica. Yeah. Everybody everybody
speaker-1: Everybody with a detective hat. Here's a goblin with a detective hat.
speaker-0: All right, ever everybody we're playing ⁓ we're playing what is it, Cowboys and Indians. Is that offensive?
speaker-1: Cowboys and first peoples.
speaker-0: Cowboys and natives.
speaker-1: Here's Fibbilthip in a cowboy hat. Here's Queen Marchesa in a cowboy hat.
speaker-0: You yeed your last haul there, bud.
speaker-1: Holy cow. It's up there, it's flying. It's a white creature.
speaker-0: That was that was a fun card. That was a fun card. There were a lot of banger cards in that set. ⁓ Yeah, there were. The the Noctis though, the I understand the the apprehension of just kind of like generic, ⁓ they're underwater. I'm I'm interested to see what the kind of the lore setup is, because the existence of humans implies that there is a surface world. ⁓ so I would imagine I imagine we would see some of that. ⁓
speaker-1: True.
speaker-0: And also we're gonna get a lot more like sea monster support since they kinda like created that like creature type grouping of like your octopus leviathan, that sort of thing. Yeah. I I we're we're gonna get some pretty dope monocolor big mana leviathins, I would imagine. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ Leviathan's kind of been one of those that has suffered over the years. Like if you look at old magic sets and I'm talking like Homeland's era, there are some really big, really bad Leviathans, and then we just kinda peter off. And like they're like, Here, here's Arithmexes. Yeah. And you're like, ⁓ cool.
speaker-0: Yeah. I I agree I agree. The the Leviathans have definitely fallen out of fashion, and hopefully this will bring them right back into the spotlight. But before we get to Spotlight series, ⁓ we have Magikon Detroit, February 26th to 28th. It's Magikon in Detroit. It's the first time they've been to Detroit. It's very exciting. ⁓ we have our first unannounced Universes Beyond set on April 9th following. Following that. May fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth. We get Magikon Tokyo for all the weebs. And naturally, this will lead into the next in universe set. On june fourth, the release of Kamigawa Titan Breach.
speaker-1: ⁓ yeah.
speaker-0: The story here, the plain of Ikoria is using the omen paths to launch an invasion onto the plain of Kamigawa. Large titans of Ikoria existing in the same space as the Kamigawa citizens. ⁓ we have some amazing art of people standing on rooftops and showing the scale of these massive behemoths ⁓ on the plane. ⁓ but we're gonna be getting big mechs of Kamigawa fighting big titans. This is your this is your Godzilla. This is the matchup you want. It's looking amazing. A lot of people are very into the theming here. it it the main story focus is going to be on, of course, the titans and the mechs, but also how the humans of Kamigawa are Going about their lives and dealing with the massive existential threat to them. Sam, why is Ikoria invading Kamigala?
speaker-1: ⁓ they're full of taste the the people there are extra tasty to them to the to the monsters, you know?
speaker-0: I think that the Icorians are all secretly weaboos.
speaker-1: ⁓ See I thought you were gonna go go with I think I think they're secretly Phyrexian. I was like, no no invasion did not go well on Ikoria. It did not. Turns out the Icorian behemoths can evolve very rapidly to fight the Phyrexians.
speaker-0: Okay. That's true. That is true. ⁓ but with Icoria. Y there there's going to be an opportunity here to reprint some really good cards. Like some really, really good cards. ⁓ I believe on Ikoria they imprisoned Was it oo was it one of the Eldrazi?
speaker-1: Perhaps.
speaker-0: I wanna say Ulabog was imprisoned in Icoria in the Hedron. I'm not up on I am I am not hip with the magic lore. I don't know.
speaker-1: Perhaps. ⁓ Yeah.
speaker-0: I know Emmercool's on the moon. I think Ulamog is imprisoned in Ikoria. Don't quote me on that.
speaker-1: And chat don't ⁓ correct us, we don't care.
speaker-0: Do not I don't care, quite frankly. Could could not care less. But what I what I do care about is ⁓ possible ⁓ large Ikorian ⁓ Eldrazi being unleashed on Kamigawa, which would be sick as fuck. ⁓ after Kamigawa Titan Breach, ⁓ we are getting the limited championship in Minneap Minneapolis, ⁓ June 18th to 20th. This will be the first like magic.
speaker-1: Being
speaker-0: spotlight series style event ⁓ based entirely around limited as the format instead of standard or modern. ⁓ after that we are getting the second unannounced universes beyond set on August 6th, followed by Magicon Las Vegas on August 27th to 29th. And then the last new in-universe magic set, Zalphir, on October 1st. ⁓ originally part of the plane of Dominaria, Zalphir was phased out by Teferi to save it from the original Phyrexian invasion. And due to some tiny whimy shenanigans, later, when the new Phyrexian invasion hit, the planes of new Phyrexia and Xalphir were swapped. ⁓ the original Phyrexian invasion was like thousands of years ago, apparently. ⁓ but Teferi and the Zalphhirians, it's like relatively recent history. There was some weird tiny whimy bullshit going on. But with the swapping of Xalphir and the plane of new Phyrexia, which was previously Myridon, the now five sons of the Myridin plane encircled the young new plane of Xalphir. ⁓ lot of fun lore, really cool. The we're getting kind of a two sided plane here, like we get like we got with Lorwin. ⁓ the mechanically speaking, there's the sunlit side of the plane with five suns where it never is dark. ⁓ and then the plane of Xalphir has an eternal night ⁓ in the form of the spirit realm of their ancestors. ⁓ Zalphir obviously Afro fantasy, very African inspired. ⁓ it's designed alongside African historians and cultural experts. if if you're familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it it's giving Wakanda. It it is giving wakanda. And ⁓ a lot of black game designers ⁓ at Wizards of the Coast were in charge of the design of this set. ⁓ we got to see a lot of ⁓ hairstyles and art design and aesthetics that are very faithful to African cultures. ⁓ I think this set is going to be a banger. I all three of these sets are thematically awesome. ⁓ and I think there's a lot of people at Wizards of the Coast that are very, very excited about this Xalphir set. And so I would I would expect very highly, particularly in the theming and aesthetic. What do you make of Zalphir?
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: Are we gonna Teferi?
speaker-1: I assume we're gonna see Teferi. We haven't not seen Teferi since in the past couple years, but yeah, this will be a very interesting one. ⁓ I think it will be a fun chance for them to explore a little more using older mechanics ⁓ from the original ⁓ Mirridon sets, as well as incorporating ⁓ new things that ⁓ come from the timey wiminess of it all. So yeah, this will probably be a pretty cool set. ⁓ I honestly like all three sets that they have announced are are more interesting than I think we've seen a lot, especially in twenty twenty five. Comparing twenty twenty five to twenty twenty seven, we're getting a lot more interesting things next year.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. But like this year w all the in universe stuff has been just kind of building to reality fracture for like a big story beat. Some people are saying it's not really earned. I'm inclined to agree a little bit, though we did get some cool through lines from Lore Wind to Strix Haven to reality fracture that helps tie it together a little bit. Yeah. ⁓ but not knowing the state of how reality fracture ends. ⁓ kind of leaves the situation going on in these planes kind of in limbo in isolation. Like why is Ikoria invading Kamigawa? Why are we going to Noctis now? Right after reality fracture? What's going on with Zalphir? Is there something is did the Echo Verse call like why is it important now? You know.
speaker-1: And I think that comes down to one of the things that I've been a big ⁓ proponent of for several years now, ⁓ when it comes to the universes beyond universes within argument, and that's that a lot of players don't care about the universes within or the the the the ⁓ the lore of the IP itself. Yeah. ⁓ and part of that is it's as talking to someone recently who ⁓ has like consumed the the lore of ⁓ a couple of past sets, it's like It's not that good. They they've been rushing things. They know thing the setups have not the have not ⁓ worked out for the payoffs. And it's like you know, maybe part of it is that Magic needs to branch out from just its its set release storylines and it's cards that you can kind of piece together what happened. You know, maybe maybe some other multimedia ⁓ things dropped now and then could help me be more ready to be like, ⁓ Zalphir. ⁓ you printed that's why Teferi has this this ⁓ this ability here. ⁓ I can go back and reference this webcomic you put out on, you know, j ⁓ july twenty third, twenty twenty six to tell me why. That's the kind of that's the kind of deep lore I want to be interested in and yet and and I'm just sitting here like yeah, I I don't I don't care to read the ⁓ whatever, you know. What ⁓ I don't care to matter. The write up. Right, exactly.
speaker-0: Imagine. They have the magic story podcast, which is fine. It's it's better it's better than the nothing you would expect them to be doing with how corporate the whole thing has become. ⁓ But in this but at the same time, if they just kind of got rid of the story, it just what's the point? Mm-hmm. At the end of the day. ⁓ after the release of Xalphir on October 1st, we get the last universes beyond set of 2027 on November nineteenth, with the final Magikon of the Year being a return to Magikon Amsterdam December third, fourth, and fifth. ⁓ quick theory craft session. What are these three universes beyond sets? I think I think th this is entirely because one person pointed this out to me. ⁓ The ⁓ my god. Neon Genesis Evangelian. Because they showed like a blurred picture before this came out, before they showed all the sets. And one of the blurred things looks kinda like a thing in Neon Genesis Evangelian, apparently. me personally, if we were to branch into the realm of anime, I think an attack on Titan set would be a fucking bad.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Interesting. ⁓ be pretty cool.
speaker-0: Like, especially with how they've been leaning into these legendary, like transforming modal double face cards. Getting the nine shifters as transforming double faced cards would be pretty fucking sick.
speaker-1: You just wanna play Bear Toll and be like and every time you cast him, I'll but tell you what I bar told him.
speaker-0: I'll b tell you what I bertold him. You just gotta get out there and do it.
speaker-1: Yeah. I assume one of these U and B's is gonna be X Men.
speaker-0: Yep. We're gonna w one of them is going to be a Marvel for sure. Yep. ⁓ X Men would be the easy one. ⁓ I imagine we'd get a space marvel at some point because we haven't got or like a ⁓ mystical map because we haven't gotten like Guardians of the Galaxy. It's true. We haven't gotten Celestials. ⁓ we also haven't gotten like the mystical arts. We haven't really gotten much Doctor Strange. We haven't gotten like Caysilius, any of that kind of stuff, the Darkhold. ⁓ I do want to this is a little bit of a ⁓ a little asterisk here. There is an announcement of a partnership between Hasbro and Nintendo.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: Specifically, they want Hasbro to create products on the popular Legend of Zelda franchise. ⁓ the collaboration is set to begin in twenty twenty seven and they showed some ⁓ figures at San Diego Comic Con. With with the partnership beginning in twenty twenty seven and the announcement just now happening in July, I don't think that's enough time to design a Legend of Zelda set for twenty twenty seven. ⁓ but I would not be surprised if we saw like a Legend of Zelda or another Nintendo property going to a magic set in twenty twenty eight.
speaker-1: Yeah. I feel like maybe ⁓ I c I could see more like secret layers, like how they've been doing the PlayStation secret layers recently. They do Nintendo's secret layers.
speaker-0: I could see that. Yeah. I I will say Hyrule as a setting would be pretty interesting for a magic set.
speaker-1: I've I've never really played any of the Legend of Zelda games. I played a little bit of Lind Waker and a little bit of I don't remember remember it's been so long, but yeah, no, I've never really played too much.
speaker-0: That's fascinating. As a as a kid, I played on my brother and sister's Super Nintendo and we had Legend of Zelda ⁓ my god. Link to the Past. There we go. and then I played it It is a fun time travel one. And then I also played a fair bit of Ocarina of Time as a as a youth as well. ⁓ no Nintendo games have never really been my thing, ul ultimately.
speaker-1: Mine either. Played a little bit of Mario here and there. Played some Kirby. Decent amount of Kirby.
speaker-0: Fair. But a a recent MTG Goldfish video that I watched, which was really, really enlightening as to why one of the reasons why people really like ⁓ things like the Lord of the Rings set and the Final Fantasy set as compared to the Marvel sets, where the explanation is in magic, nothing is really Character driven. It's plain and setting driven. And Final Fantasy is all about aesthetic and setting. Lord of the Rings is the aesthetic and the setting. ⁓ to a lesser extent, Avatar The Last Airbender, the whole universe and the world living in it is really, really cool. And I think in that way, a Legend of Zelda set could work pretty well. Sure. ⁓
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: And then the Marvel stuff being character first is just kind of why it feels awkward in some ways.
speaker-1: Well in that case I'm just looking forward to the the ⁓ the smash or brawl ⁓ set we get and we just get it's just like alright now I have every legend you know every named character in the entirety of Nintendo, including Pikachu. That's right, Pokemon, we're coming for you, Pokemon Company. Get in Hasbro's pocket.
speaker-0: That would be cool. Do it. Do it. ⁓ as far as other universes beyond ideas. Universe is beyond ⁓ Game of Thrones. I could totally see them doing Game of Thrones or something like that. ⁓
speaker-1: So interesting, like, to compare like Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones sits in this weird, like ninety percent of the time it's pretty low fantasy, and then occasionally it just hits pretty like mid high fantasy. And I don't think we've you know, usually, you know, most magic planes are pretty high fantasy and you can just ride that. ⁓ yeah. Lore of the rings, you know, I mean you can you know, Marvel, all of those are pretty high. So it'll be kind of interesting to see what they would do. with a lower like a ninety percent lower fantasy set, you know? Yeah. Dirty.
speaker-0: Like a like gritty. I could I could be into that. But like I mean the world like you could you could guess literally anything and it would be reasonable. You know? Selfishly I would love a persona crossover. Cool. That'd be cool. That'd be cool. ⁓ I'd I'd love King I'd love Kingdom Hearts, but that would never happen 'cause they're owned by Disney and Disney has Lurcana. ⁓
speaker-1: Because I I mean I would go for another D and D set.
speaker-0: ⁓ another D D set would be big and it would be timely. ⁓ D could probably use the lift, honestly. ⁓ No, I could totally see another D D set. I would be into that. I'd be very into that. Another Boulders Gate. A little late to ride the coattails of Boulder Gate Bouldersgate three, but it's got a cult following, so it does.
speaker-1: It does. All right.
speaker-0: Another property that has a cult following is the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. True. Specifically. ⁓ we're not going we're not gonna get it. I am part of the cult. I'm
speaker-1: Further.
speaker-0: That's the sword. That's underreal flame of the west, forged from the shards of Narcell. ⁓ that has frames from film reels on ⁓ the two towers, which is pretty cool. Anyway, we're not gonna get into they did the full set debut and reveal. ⁓ we're still getting a trickle of preview cards. But we're gonna save most of that for the next episode of the podcast to get the full set breakdown when we basically have the full set revealed. What I will go into now are the set mechanics. ⁓ we have five set mechanics for the Hobbit. Storied is the first one. It is a new mechanic. It is a static ability that looks to see if you have a permanent with storied, and then it checks that you control three or more artifacts, legendaries, and or sagas. ⁓ notably, this is the same group that makes up historic cards. And once you fulfill both conditions, you gain an enduring story for the rest of the game. Very similar to the City's Blessing, ⁓ where you have a certain number of permanents in play, and then you just have that as a status for the rest of the game. ⁓ and then when you do, it turns on certain abilities from permanents that have the storied mechanic on it. ⁓ much like an emblem, once you have an enduring story, it cannot be taken. ⁓ do you have any thoughts about the story mechanic? I think it's a little weird that they didn't just use the term historic cards and they specifically called out each type.
speaker-1: I you know I'm sure during a ⁓ a game of limited this will be pretty alright. ⁓ and then after that it'll be exactly like the City's Blessing where somebody'll be like, Alright, I'll play this card. I guess I get storied. That has no effect in my deck other than this card, so we'll move on.
speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. I agree. ⁓ what I think is the best mechanic in this set, and probably one of the best mechanics in a lot of recent sets, ⁓ recruit. Recruit is a new keyword word action. When told to recruit, you draw a card, then discard a card. If you discarded a non-land card, you create a one-one white human soldier creature token. ⁓ this is Almost identical to the all-star mechanic of Knive, where you draw, discard, and then if you discard an on-lan, you put a plus one plus one counter on a creature. ⁓ in this case, you are just growing a wider board and you're drawing cards, which is good, and you're discarding cards, which is which is good. And then you're creating one one tokens, which is good. It's three good things that ⁓ a lot of decks want to do, all wrapped up into one keyword. I feel like all of the cards that have recruit on them in some way are going to get a lift. And ⁓ we're not getting into specific cards, but the Queen of Dale, where when your opponents cast their first non-creature, you recruit is a fucking bang.
speaker-1: Banger card.
speaker-0: What do you make of recruit as a mechanic?
speaker-1: ⁓ it's a gr I I saw when I saw you know when I started looking at the spoilers and I saw recruit, I was like, that I we yes, we'll take that. Give, give. Just a side a side piece pin here is that recruit is so ⁓ generic of a of a keyword that we can expect to see this in future sets that are not
speaker-0: Yes.
speaker-1: Lord of the Rings decks and I think that's great. I love
speaker-0: That it absolutely agree. One of my biggest criticisms when we got the Star Trek reveal face a dilemma. Super cool idea. ⁓ something that triggers off of choosing a mode on a modal spell. It can be ubiquitous and awesome, but because you chose the term face a dilemma, much like commit a crime with Outlaws of Thunder Junction, the terminology is too narrow. Yeah. Then now you're going to have to design either a mechanically identical or a mechanically similar, more deciduous keyword to use that ability going forward in the future, which is unfortunate.
speaker-1: They have used commit a crime on a single card outside of that set. And it was a a white robot, I believe, ⁓ some sort of security robot in a ⁓ EOE.
speaker-0: Yeah. Which is cool, but it it just shows how hard it is. Yeah. It it just shows how hard it is to use. ⁓ the one of the most niche mechanics in the entire Hobbit set, hone counters. Various cards put hone counters onto equipment. ⁓ every hone counter on an equipment will give the equipped creature plus one plus ⁓ Notably It does not give the ability to the equipment. The rules associate the buff with the counter itself. So it is effectively a plus one plus ⁓ counter that goes on equipment that transfers it to the equip creature. ⁓ historically, equipment, equipment archetypes in limited environments have always been a bit clunky. ⁓ Even even where it's designed pretty well, I think of March no, not March the Machines. Phyrexia all will be one. For Miraden. For Mirdin. Where you you can cast the equipment and then you just get them attached to a body for free, I think is the best way to do it. ⁓ the The Final Fantasy set did this in a similar way. Where job selection you would get a creature to attach it to automatically. Hone counters living weapon. Same thing. Hone counters are just super clunky and the payoff is not nearly enough. I imagine avoiding this archetype will be the way to go.
speaker-1: Yeah, I like to see that they're not just doing a living weapon sty or ⁓ mechanic, you know. 'Cause again, we ha I think they're like something like f I there's almost a dozen different living weapon variants. And again, that's that's great. But a different flavor is nice. ⁓ but I I agree I could also see this hone counter thing being like day and night. Where you're like, ⁓ I'd love to play this card, but it has day and night, so I'll find a different card.
speaker-0: It's just a pain in the butt to track. It's not i if it was just plus one plus one, I think this would be a different thing entirely, but it only buffs power and the equipment we've seen with it doesn't offer any s like an equipment with this in first strike would be pretty cool. That could that could be an individual card that's good. But it's just it's just clunky.
speaker-1: It reminds me of Runes from Caldheim, where it says you can either enchant a creature or enchant an ⁓ an equipment. Except it's now an enchanted equipment but doesn't do anything really else.
speaker-0: Exactly. It's like, ⁓ you can keep the enchantment around a little bit longer because people are more likely to remove the creature instead of the equipment that the enchantment is enchanting, but it then you're then you're blending two archetypes of enchantress and equipment at the same time and having to juggle but it just it's too much.
speaker-1: It's too much. It's too much.
speaker-0: What is not too much is one of the two returning mechanics. We are getting adventures as a return. Effectively, it's a split card. The main bulk of the card is made up of a permanent that you can cast as normal, however you like. The other is an instant or sorcery with the subtype of adventure. Adventures have their own name, mana cost, typeline, and text that can be cast from your hand. If an adventure is cast, then the card is put into exile after resolving. At any point thereafter, you can cast the permanent side of the card from exile as if it were still in your hand. ⁓ once the permanent side is cast, the adventure cannot be cast ⁓ unless, of course, the permanent is bounced back to your hand. Adventures are a very popular mechanic. ⁓ it provides a lot of utility, ⁓ being able to have either mode of the card once it's in your hand. And if you choose to use the adventure mode, you can still have access to the permanent. ⁓ mode later as an extension of your hand in exile where people can't touch it and interact with it. ⁓ adventure is very popular, very good. What do you think?
speaker-1: I like and this is not I mean I adventure's ⁓ good like you said, a good mechanic, but I think what I really like is the timing of the usage of Adventure. ⁓ I mean we've seen it sprinkled out ⁓ throughout the last couple of sets. I know there was ⁓ a couple in Final Fantasy and stuff like that. But we haven't gotten a real dump of it ⁓ since I believe ⁓ Wilds of Eldrain. Yeah. And I think that is a good amount of time ⁓ For example, on the other hand, when we had last year's sets, we got like four different versions of face down creatures, basically all at once. So to be able to spread out the mechanic like this and give us time to re dive into this and see what's there is worth to see before giving us just more of it to plow through, I think is a great ⁓ timing s ⁓ strategy on their part. Yeah.
speaker-0: ⁓ we did get a similar mechanic last year with ⁓ Tarkir Dragonstorm with the omen cards. They function similarly, ⁓ but instead of getting the permanent where you can cast it ⁓ from exile, it instead shuffles it back into your deck, which can be an upside, can be a downside. It kind of depends. The last mechanic that is returning is a mass. ⁓ it's kind of returning. It's a mass goblins X. In Lord of the Rings, we got Amass Orcs X. ⁓ in what is it? ⁓ Amon Ket, we got amass zombies. ⁓ effectively, when you are instructed to amass X, if you do not have an army token of some kind, you create a 0-0 token of ⁓ the creature type that is being instructed. So in the case of a mass goblins, you create a 0-0 goblin token. You then add X plus one plus one counters to it. So if you amass ⁓ goblins two, you put two plus one plus one counters on a zero zero goblin army creature token. If you already control an army creature token, the counters just get added to it. You do not get an additional army token. With amass zombies and a mass orcs, ⁓ you do not create a new army token type despite the different Creature types, you simply add counters to the army and you keep the original token ⁓ for the color and typing. Amas is a fun mechanic. ⁓ a lot of people have PTSD ⁓ with amass orcs because of Orcash Bowmasters. Orky B. Orky B. ⁓ my favorite game changer, Orcash Bowmasters, I think. ⁓ I I I don't imagine we're going to get anything quite as busted as Orcash Bowmasters, ⁓ simply because the Hobbit's a standard legal set and if they did print that card, it would it would get fucked up. Orcish Bowmasters notably is in the bonus sheet for ⁓ box toppers in the Hobbit set as well. We have a breakdown of all the products and stuff. We're going to save that for the next episode of the podcast. All the booster fun, all that kind of stuff. We're going to wrap it up now, wrap-up time, with the secret lair reveal-a-thon they did, showing a whole bunch of upcoming secret layers with a dubious amount of information and ⁓ kind of unsure what goes with what and how many drops and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, classic secret layer confusion. Hatsune Miku commander deck. We had no idea this was happening.
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: I'm hearing about this for the first time. ⁓ Hatsune Miku was leaked. It was sent out instead of Goblin Storm Secret Lair Commander deck for at least one. It will be officially released on August 10th. If you want to know the full deck list, you can find it on Reddit if you're so interested. ⁓ when this podcast drops on Monday for free feeds. At the exact same time as it goes live, we will be getting the Stardew Valley Secret Lair Super Drop. There are at least three ⁓ individual secret lairs in this super drop. The first one is going to have one new designed card, the Stardew Valley Land. ⁓ it's kind of strong, but not really all that strong. ⁓ it is also going to include key. Kayanos and Tiro of Meletis as a reprint, ⁓ Dawn's truce, wedding ring, rites of flourishing, a food token, a soul ring, and swords to plow shares. With the number of cards that could that could be split up into two secret layers, I don't quite know. It could all be one. If it's all one, that's probably a pretty good deal. ⁓ the second Stardew Valley drop is going to include Fountainport, Yavi Maya Cradle of Growth, ding ding ding, homeward path, command tower, and our aforementioned crop rotation. The last one is going to include a sword of forge in frontial, mitotic slime, atsuki, the blaze Atsushi. ⁓ Lock in, Connor. Get your shit together. Atsushi, the blazing sky, treasure and ooze tokens, an arcane signet, and a treasure vault. ⁓ kind of guessing on bow about what what's in what based on the art style. It's kinda hard. They didn't they didn't explicitly lay it out for us. ⁓ also if you purchase a certain amount you get a Puka's mischief as a as a promo as well. ⁓ are you into the Stardew Valley?
speaker-1: I I've played a lot of Stardew Valley. It's a fun it's a fun game.
speaker-0: Are you gonna are you gonna try and pick up the new Stardew Valley Secret Lair Super Drop? Get the new land, get a Yavi Maya cradle of growth?
speaker-1: You know, I would love to, unfortunately, ⁓ I don't think ⁓ I don't think at this time I don't think that's possible. I'll just Yeah, a lot of doll has. And in this economy?
speaker-0: Not a lot of doll hairs. ⁓ Mm mm. Mm mm. Not in this economy, certainly not. The one I care about much more, August seventeenth. Secret Lair The Hobbit. Super drop. I think there might be four drops.
speaker-1: Thanks.
speaker-0: They haven't shown all the cards, so we don't kind of we don't really know. ⁓ we've seen an arcane heist in a silvery ink foil, whatever the hell that means. ⁓ Stony Silence and Soul Ring, it's hard to tell if they're in the same drop or not. A diabolic intent, which looks sick as.
speaker-1: Five Yeah, that's pretty cool.
speaker-0: And then one drop is going to be a fucking womp wom. It's seven ⁓ different arts for food tokens, featuring breakfast, second breakfast, elevens is luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper.
speaker-1: Hmm. I can't wait to proxy those food tokens.
speaker-0: Yeah, me too. Me too. Those will be fun. Those will be fun. ⁓ they also went over the Global Fund for Women again. you can it's out now. It's print to demand, it benefits charity. The drop looks good. And then the perfectly normal super drop also on Monday, August twenty six.
speaker-1: Phot.
speaker-0: Yes. Okay. Sorry, my brain fucking relapsed for a moment. My God. ⁓ we have Earth's Mightiest Pets from Marvel, Commune with Dinosaurs, Lightning Bolt, Searing Blaze, Shark Typhoon, Ephemerate, and Titanic Ultimatum, featuring adorable creatures from Marvel's universe, romance, ⁓ cover, art style, thrill possibilities, true love's kiss, save of the moment, run away together, happily ever after, and grave packed, featuring lovely couples from the Marvel. Universe. The Hulk Drop with unnatural growth, anger, gratuitous violence, Rishkar's expertise, and search for tomorrow. ⁓ and then we get into we'll get in we'll get into the other ones here. Yeah, we'll get into the other ones here shortly. Or no, featuring Dan Hip is the last one because that's a that's a comic book artist. Featuring Dan Hip, we're get bristly Bill Spine Sower, Endrek Sar, Master Breeder, Training Grounds, Mystical Dispute, and an offer you can't refuse. Those are all the Marvel ones in the perfectly normal su secret layer super drop. Marvel.
speaker-1: Hulk Drop has everything I like. Gratuitous violence
speaker-0: That's it. Just violence. That's a good one. That's a good one. I do I will say I think the romance one is very cute, getting like the like it waiting in line at at the at the supermarket where they got like the fucking random romance novel on the cover. It's very aesthetically pleasing.
speaker-1: March.
speaker-0: What is aesthetically pleasing is the rest of this super drop where it's not Marvel. Secret Lair Lo Fi Girl. Lo f we're getting a secret layer drop of the lo-fi beats to study to
speaker-1: Yeah. Thought it couldn't get any weirder. You were wrong.
speaker-0: It's weird as shit, man. careful study, because of course. ⁓ Paradise Mantle, Merchant Scroll, Feladar Guardian, and Starfield of Nyx are gonna be in this drop. I I think those are all very exceptionally playable cards. ⁓ But the Lo-Fi Girl, I just
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Sure. Why not? ⁓ and then we get some mar ⁓ some artist drops ⁓ along with the perfectly normal super drop. For Jean Luen Yang, ⁓ he is doing art of Kibo, Uktabi Prince, Ulharg the Razebore, Kazul, Tyrant of Cliths, De Sau the Falling Leaf, and Quest for Renewal. Kibo, very popular commander. And this is a very fancy version of him.
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: ⁓ Robin Eisenberg is going to be doing Sage of Hours, Orvar the All Form, Slip Through Sit Base, C Double, and Sway of the Stars, all very playable cards and my personal favorite aesthetically from the artist ones. And then Ian Miller, we get a Shivan Dragon, we get a Sabo, ⁓ Sabo Tavak, a core fake hurst king, Korvold Fakehurst King, and Animar Soul of the Elements, some classic. Classic commanders there. ⁓ and then the last one. That that's all from the perfectly normal super drop. And then the last one, we saw some art from Masters of the Universe, which is gonna be a super drop at some point. God bless us, everyone. ⁓ It's secret, Larry. I mean you know what the fuck's going on. I don't know.
speaker-1: one of those things like it's just always all over the place with ⁓ with the costs of the cards that they end up doing and again we're very I'm always very curious as to how ⁓ how they get to choose pick and choose what ⁓ cards they do specialty art for but like Jean Yang doing both Kibo and Ulhar that's actually some decent value in there yeah then the the Getting an Orvar in there. Orvar's got some some ⁓ some dollars behind his butt too, you know? So it's good to see that there are at least in all of these there's some decent ⁓ there is some value. Maybe not great value, but there is some value here and there.
speaker-0: I I I appreciate when they do these artist drops that they usually let the artist pick the cards for the most part. But like if you're paying thirty or forty dollars for a drop, can we at least get like thirty to forty dollars in average value? Mm-hmm.
speaker-1: Like
speaker-0: As cool as the romance cover art style is for that Marvel draw. Thrill possibilities, true love's kiss, savor the moment, run away together, happily ever after, grave pack. That's dog shit.
speaker-1: Yeah, grave pack's the only one that has maybe any value. The rest of them are Yeah, exactly.
speaker-0: Couple dollars. And even the Hulk drop, like I rish the the gratuitous val like where's the value? With all due respect.
speaker-1: Yeah. Anger used to have some value behind it. I mean Unnatural Growth has ⁓ has a couple of dollars. Gratuitous violence is couple Anger tanked when they they reprinted it into the ground in the past couple of sets. Which I mean good. It's a
speaker-0: Every commander deck, every commander deck that has red has anger for some reason. Which is fine. If you're an aggressive token strategy, go for it. ⁓ the only time I played anger to success was when I did the ⁓ the Writers of Rohan precon. ⁓ yeah. Where you made all the human tokens and you made all like the two two like cavalry guys, and then you have an anger in the graveyard. It's like I attack and I win.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: ⁓ the the big money cards, I feel like Bristly Bill, Spine Sower's pretty good for Dan Hip. He's pretty good. whatever drop that diabolic intent is with the Hobbit. Omnom nom nom nom omnom nom. I'm telling you what. I hope there's better value in the Hobbit super drop. I suspect they will put solid value in it simply because the Lord of the Rings, Secret Lair Drop, was dog shit.
speaker-1: It was pretty bad.
speaker-0: Like two dollars in collective value abund amongst like bulk nothings from the Lord of the Rings set. So yeah. Hopefully it's better. And with that, ladies and gentlemen of the internet, that's everything you need to know about Magic Con Amsterdam, minus some Hobbit details, but you don't need to know that right now. It's better to know that leading into your pre release, which will be the next episode of the podcast. But right now, gotta say goodbye. Sam, it's good to see you.
speaker-1: Good to see you.
speaker-0: It's one on one. It's been a while. Wyatt, a little bit indisposed at the moment. Not gonna get into why. He might have posted about it on his TikTok or something. You should check him out. Tickle Gemini N T G you can find out there. Maybe. Maybe he's not talking about it at all. I don't know. It's not my place to not my place to say. Nope. Man's a father. He's got he's got kids. He's got a res he's got a responsibility.
speaker-1: Yes. Us you don't. You have a cat. I got a cat. Yeah? I've got ⁓ nothing. I don't even have a plant in my apartment.
speaker-0: She's mostly self sufficient. Hehehehehe You know, on the last time we had a plant in an apartment, it did not go very well.
speaker-1: No, I think we forgot about for ⁓ for about ⁓ shit, we should probably throw this out.
speaker-0: Eight came out and went. Which is crazy because it was on a sh on a shelf right by the window in the kitchen. Yeah. Right in front of our face. God, what a day. What a time. I feel bad. I feel a little bit bad. We'd we definitely mistreated that plant, but that's you know.
speaker-1: We we stood. Like You know, I I just want to say I believe was there a friend Jacob that gave it to us?
speaker-0: That was Jacob that gave it to us, yes. ⁓
speaker-1: Apologize. All these years later. Killing things. Even more years ago.
speaker-0: I apologize. He's not watching this. And he came to our apartment like kinda regularly for a while and was like, Hey guys, that's dying We were like, ⁓
speaker-1: Then did nothing.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: He he doesn't play magic, he's not watching this, but that's all that's all we got for this the Lord's hundred and twenty s second version. I'm I'm blah blah blah blah blah blah. My God, speaking words and language is challenging. It's not like it's my first language. Damn. With all that being said, we love you very much. And as always, peace.