Magic the Gathering - Worldwake Intro Packs

[Taliasen]

Magic the Gathering - Worldwake Intro Packs

Wizards of the Coast Information Sheet:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/pro...ke/productinfo

I am writing this review under the assumption that readers have a basic understanding of and idea how to play the collectible card game Magic the Gathering (MTG). I am not going to go into detail on the basic and how to play the game. This review will be more strategy and playability of the intro packs. For beginners and people interested in learning more about MTG and how to play it each of these intro packs comes with a rules and introduction guide. Unlike my typical sports card reviews I am not going to list "what I pulled." These Worldwake intro packs are pre-constructed decks. When you click on the link above and read the info sheets you will see exactly what you will get in each deck. There are no surprises as you will know ahead of time what cards and what rarity they are.

Each intro pack is a ready-to-play 41 card deck out of the box, complete with land. The cards have the usual black-border and each pack features a premium foil rare card. The decks are a combination of both new Worldwake, Zendikar, and Magic 2010 (M10) cards. Although the minimum deck size for tournaments is 60 cards, the last few blocks of MTG cards have seemed to have sped up the game. There are more and more third, second and even first turn victories. These packs are no different with being able to play powerful cards earlier in the game and at the same time allow for customization by adding your own card to make it tournament size.

I received two Intro Packs and four booster packs from Wizards of the Coast. The Intro Packs I received were "Flyover" (blue and white) and "Rapid Fire" (red and white). Each intro pack also comes with one booster pack. I did not include any of the cards from the six booster packs into the Intro Packs. We played the Intro Packs just as they came out of the box at 41 cards.

New Mechanic: Landfall
Landfall abilities on your artifacts, creatures, and enchantments do something whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control. Effects that happen include, you gain life, target player loses life, you draw a card, target creature get + (or -) X/X, your enchantment gets a counter. These effects only trigger for your cards when a land enters the battlefield under your control. You can not get the effect when an opponent plays a land. The effects do stack however. If you are able to bring more than one land into a play a turn (through another spell, effect or ability) the landfall effect triggers for each land that you play onto the battlefield.

New card type: Instant Trap
All five colors have instant trap cards in them. They are instants so they can be played during any phase, but all have an event that if triggered will allow the trap card to be played cheaper. For example, if 3 or more creatures attack, or if a land or artifact enters the battlefield this turn, play the trap card for one (color) mana instead of its casting cost. The traps affects include, putting token creatures directly into the battlefield, attacking creatures deal no (or less combat damage), exile spells, destroy target creature, deal direct damage to creatures and other effects that can affect how combat is resolved.

New creature type: Allies
All five colors have ally cards in them and they all have amazing synergy and work well together. Creature types include elf scout ally, merfolk wizard ally, ogre shaman ally, human berserker ally etc. This of course means that cards not only count for other other abilities based on race (human, elf) but class (wizard, shaman) but also all other allies. Whenever another ally enters the battlefield under your control, something happens, put token creatures into the battlefield, draw cards for each ally you control, target player loses life equal to the number of allies you control, all allies gain first strike until end of turn, all allies gain vigilance until end of turn, this ally gains a =+1/+1 counter, all allies gain a +1/+1 counter. The synergy in between allies will want and need to drop an ally and attack every turn.

Expanded old mechanic: Multi-kicker
Just like the original "kicker" ability, something additional happens as the spell resolves when you pay the kicker cost. Multi-kicker has the additional affect happen for EVERY time you pay the kicker cost! You are only limited by the amount of mana you have available to pay the extra kicker(s) cost. Effects include, draw an extra card for every time the kicker was paid, gain 1 life..., multiple targets, target player looses life, X number of creatures may be played form target graveyard, target player discards X cards form the top of their library.

Rapid Fire (red and white)

I was a bit surprised that this Intro Pack did not start out as quickly as I had expected. This is not a fault of the intro pack though. The name "Rapid Fire" led me to believe that would play out fast. In all of the games played there was always plenty of mana in the initial hand and drawn form the library. The speed of both intro packs though was just about the same and most of the matches just turned into a slug fest with neither intro pack having a speed advantage over the other. "Rapid Fire" could be taken literally as quick burn. There are a few low casting cost sorcery and instant burn spells that will surprise your opponent. The direct damage output in this intro pack can very quickly remove your opponents creatures from the battlefield, especially with Mordant Dragon. There is a nice variety of flying creatures in this intro pack and several creatures and spells that benefit from the new landfall mechanic. There are also some creatures and spells that allow you to return your creatures and land to your hand allowing your to re-trigger the landfall mechanic multiple times each turn!



Flyover (blue and white)

As the name suggest there is a lot of flying creatures in this intro pack. As is flying creatures alone was not enough of an advantage, add to that the life gaining ability from Archon of Redemption and you will very quickly have the advantage. There are several cards that take advantage of the multi-kicker mechanic. It will be worth our while to wait a turn or two after you could summon the creature to make sure you have extra mana to kick it with! There is a fair amount of creature removal spells and and abilities from both white and blue in this intro pack. As with "Rapid Fire," mana was never a problem. The speed of "Flyover" actually kept up if it wanted to, but one could choose to play slower to take advantage of the multi-kicker mechanic!

Overall both intro packs were pretty evenly matched. In all of the games played there was never a lopsided victory. Several games actually saw both opponents down to less then five life points and were decided by mana management. Again though, there was never a shortage of mana for either intro pack, players just need to decide on how and when they want to use it! Even though both intro packs played pretty evenly matched, "Rapid Fire" beat "Flyover" only once in all of the games played. Both intro packs have good direction and themes going form them. Both could be very easily augmented and supported with just a few cards and be very tough, good working decks.

The six booster packs (four extra and one each form the intro packs) really provided some excitement and "wow" for us. The first three bonus booster packs yielded three of the playable and valuable dual lands in Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit, and Raging Ravine. The last card of the last bonus pack was the real treat though. We pulled a Foil version of the Mythic Rare Abyssal Persecutor, the second most valuable card in the Worldwake block! Being a foil version almost doubles the premium and makes it easy to flip or trade. All of the booster packs also have an expanded art land card.

Below are pics of some of the rare cards we received from both the intro and booster packs.


Thank you to Jessica Sheets form Wizards of the Coast for providing these intro and booster packs to make this review possible. Thanks to my friend Rich for his time and input in helping me write this review.

Tal