MTG Salvation

The Phyrexian invasion continues, some legendary dragons reawaken, and the Weatherlight just might crash. Again.

For three thousand years, Urza Planeswalker has prepared for this day. You've only had to wait ten months. The conclusion of VestDan's popular Remember the Weatherlight series begins!

How does Jaya Ballard deal with protection from her favorite color? The answer in seven panels!

Greetings, friend. Pull up a seat, grab a rack of aurochs ribs, and shut up, because I was just about to tell my story.

So, I figured, Dim-Bulb was defeated—again—and all the ice was melting, and everyone was getting along in stuff, and I had just become a planeswalker like that snob Freyalise… it seemed like a good time to spend a few years tramping around the multiverse! Ya’ know, go a few places a girl could walk around, and not need a parka? Not that I wore a parka… I mean, a task mage can keep herself warm and cozy now matter how cold it is, and keep a nice tan too.

In the Wordplay format, each 40-card deck may consist of only 26 cards other than basic lands, one for each letter of the alphabet. Following the Legacy banned list, six MTGS writers created decks to pit against each other in a battle of wits. (No, not that Battle of Wits.)

We met the writers and their decks in the introduction article. And now, in their own words, the writers comment on the results of the first round.

Spell Snare is unplayable and Cackling Flames is nuts! That's right, it's time for Dissension's Limited review. We are going to shoot out our opinions about all of the commons and uncommons in the latest set, all for your benefit, entertainment, and most of all, so that you can disagree with us.

Magic premiered at GenCon in 1993, and was a smashing success. Alpha sold out immediately. Beta sold out immediately. There were only ten million magic cards in the world, only 302 distinct ones. People craved more. But, instead of simply reprinting the same core game (which they did as well, with Unlimited, also in December), they printed an expansion set to that same core game. Board games had had expansions for years, but those were always optional rules – but for Magic, players could not simply choose to ignore cards and rules from an expansion, if their opponents chose to use them. The worry of an ever-expanding cardpool eventually collapsing under its own weight wore on the game’s early developers – still headed by Richard Garfield himself – but the game’s success demanded new cards.

It was 1993, and the mathematics professor and game designer hit upon one of those rare, genuinely new ideas -- why not make a card game where the cards used are different each time? Where players can customize their decks, to work in diffent ways? It was a watershed idea, that gave birth to the entire TCG industry.

A while back, I had the idea to write an article on a fun little casual format (other than Mental Magic). But then, I thought, casual format articles are boring. So, I decided to make it fun. Instead of making a few decks myself, I thought, why not have several of the other writers here do it? And why not see who did it best? So, this series will not only introduce you to an odd format, but will also document a little tourney between six writers here, testing not only our deck building and play skills, but our ability to judge a novel format.

There has been plenty of complaining in the last month or so about how underpowered Guildpact is. Everyone complains about jank rares, like Earth Surge and all the Nephilim. I’ve been playing for ten years, and have long ago come to accept that jank happens. What still annoys me though, is that every new set brings cards that people not only initially overvalue, but overvalue DRASTICALLY. Ravnica gave us Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, and the current poster child for this phenomenon is the cute-but-worthless Quicken. Circu is a perfect example – he was a $10 card when the set first came out, and now he’s somewhere around $4, if even that. These are not terrible cards, but their initial hype far outweighs their playability – both are really casual table cards, and not worth the constructed-level prices they initially fetch. Yet hundreds of people trade away massive amounts to get playsets of cards like these at the prerelease.

The Guildpact prerelease and release events are nearly upon us, bringing change and turmoil to one of the most fun and interesting Limited environments we've seen in a while. Three new guilds come on the scene, with three new abilities and play styles. How well will they combine with Ravnica's four, or with each other?

The Weatherlight Saga finally returns to the Weatherlight crew, with the highest stakes imaginable. What happened to Gerrard and his crew after leaving Rath? What happened on the dread flowstone plane? And most importantly of all, can anything be done to stop the Phyrexian invasion?

The Weatherlight Saga pauses on a cliffhanger, flashing back to recount the story of the man who set it in motion -- Urza Planeswalker. Urza's Block -- the Artifacts Cycle -- shook the story and the game itself to its core.

VestDan further explores Mental Magic, explaining some rules quandries and amusing exploits.

The first full block of the Weatherlight Saga, the Rath Cycle, is still popular with players and story enthusiasts alike. Forbidding skies and foreboding portents stalk Gerrard and his crew on their quest to rescue their captain.