In a messy game of Magic: The Gathering-style Commander, with a table full of players pretending they aren’t plotting the other player’s doom, you’ll eventually have to make a big move. After spending the first turn to make yourself seem small and unthreatening, like a small mammal that just happened to be sitting at the same table as a pack of dinosaurs curled up into a ball, it eventually curled up into its teeth. must be shown. . They either play games that are too dangerous to touch, or they react to others’ aggression with a negative attitude that suggests they are too thick-skinned to penetrate.
As the name suggests, Commander Masters reprints a large number of Magic cards that are well-suited to play in Commander, especially those situations. Craterhoof Behemoth, an incredibly powerful green creature. It’s a 5/5 so not because of its own stats, but because it grants all other creatures you control a trample ability and a power and toughness boost equal to the number of creatures you control. By the time your green deck has 8 mana to cast Craterhoof Behemoth, you probably have enough creatures to win the bonus before the Behemoth gets hit.
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But it’s not just big beasts. Deflecting swatterA defensive instant, reprinted from the Commander 2020 set, that allows you to retarget incoming spells and abilities to a location of your choice. It’s not a game winner, but it’s a fun reversal of “you just activated my trap card” to surprise someone, and the new art features a dragon with a disdainful look as it enters. It depicts how to beat the magic to the side with enough force. Card title.
âMy favorite cards are those that create memorable moments,â says Max McCall, Commander Masters Architect and Head of Overall Design, Direction, and Vision. “Deflecting Swat is great for drama. If you control your commander, you can cast Deflecting Swat for free, so you can pull the rug out from under someone who’s about to claim the upper hand. And Deflecting Swat doesn’t.” This is the only card in Commander Masters that is free if you control a commander. “
As always with Masters, booster packs contain pure reprints. However, the preconstructed deck comes with 10 new cards of his, including a commander. Each deck seems designed around an already popular archetype, even if it’s harder to execute. One is colorless and one is all-color, while the other two are built around enchantments and the “Super Friends” archetype, with decks packed with powerful planeswalkers.
The goal is to make preconstructed decks not only fun to play, but also useful for breaking down and incorporating the same themes, previously not-so-loved in expansions, into your own decks. bottom. “Colorless Commander decks, for example, are cool, but they’re usually hard to build because they don’t get much support in new sets,” McCall says. âSo the Voidgogar, Zlodok deck is not only a fun and cool deck in its own right, but it also gives a lot of options to other colorless decks. Hands, Aniketea all have decks that do similar thingsâwhich are cool in their own right, but support other archetypes that you rarely get new options for in a regular Magic set.”
Preconstructed is my favorite way to play Commander. Because assembling an entire deck at night from random boosters is a surefire way to lose half of the time you can spend playing. McCall is happy to play either, depending on his mood. âSometimes I want to play Daretti, Scrap Savant decks, take down giant robots, or whatever deck I know and like,â he says. Both! Playing his second card is a fun little reward for accomplishing something. “
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Commander Masters certainly has, from a Magic perspective, psychogeographic profile, suitable for Timmy. Someone who wants to play big and exciting. Cards like Craterhoof Behemoth and Deflecting Swat are made for the Timmy in all of us’ hearts, but so are the legendary cards stacked in Commander Masters.
Many of them are presented in a new art style from the side and up close against bright backgrounds. Your average Magic card is as lively as video game box art, but these are stark and stand out across the table in the dimly lit pub where I usually play Commander. “We’re always looking for new fun things to do with alternative art,” says McCall. “And portraits came from the idea of, ‘What if a magazine profile had a legend’s headshot?'” So we mocked up some people and thought it looked cool. , entered the set. “
commander masters will be available from August 4th. image gallery Here are all the cards that have been released so far.
