Magic: The Gathering is the kind of game you can play forever, which is one of the most special things about it. Having players all over the globe – and nowadays on digital platforms – mean you can always find a time and place to play. If the games start to feel stale, don’t worry: there’s a huge variety of …
Do you ever see a new mechanic get spoiled and start rubbing your hands gleefully, or even remark aloud something like “they made this just for me!” I’ve been thrilled by almost everything Wizards have revealed from Edge of Eternities so far, as it all seems to lean into my pre-existing playstyle preferences. But the station mechanic I find particularly …
I’m not sure whether this counts as a hot take, but I think prereleases are by far the best event on the Magic calendar. They’re not just hype incubators for new sets like Edge of Eternities: I could go on and on with this kind of praise. But I assume that most of you like prereleases – or at least …
Magic is diverting power to its main thrusters, and preparing to boldly go into a new frontier of genre fiction… space opera! While we’ve had glimpses of advanced tech like robots and rocket launchers since 1994’s Antiquities, and Unfinity added some explicitly interstellar aesthetics to the game, Edge of Eternities is the first time we’ll be exploring the design space …
The level of rules jargon and community slang which permeates Magic discourse is a serious hurdle for new players to surmount. Nobody using these terms is deliberately trying to gate-keep the hobby, of course. But it’s tricky to know which terms a casual listener might need explained in the middle of such a discussion. So I’m writing out the explanations …
The way Magic unites a huge global community of like-minded gamers is one of its strongest selling points – it’s so important they put The Gathering right there in the name! But like any focused and literate community that has discussed the same niche topic for 30 years, Magic players have generated a huge lexicon of slang, technical jargon, in-jokes …
Final Fantasy has finally debuted in Magic, undoubtedly the event of the year for this game and one of the biggest products ever in terms of hype! While draft may not be the first thing most people are looking forward to with this release, I’ve come to expect the Limited design team at WotC will deliver every set. Fortunately, I …
The hype for the ever-closer-to-release Final Fantasy set is just on another level. Wizards has pulled out all the stops to publicize the set, knowing that the tie-in to a massive gaming franchise will draw the eyes of thousands of new players to Magic when the set does come out. It’s all building the perfect conditions for an all-time-massive prerelease …
The spoiler season for Final Fantasy has been an absolute tour de force, setting a new high bar for hype around Universes Beyond. To me, it’s another reminder how cool it is to see familiar references from another franchise transmuted into Magic mechanics; it’s like game design alchemy. In the past, this kind of “top-down” design has featured in sets …
Magic: The Gathering —FINAL FANTASY is such an awesome opportunity for both fans of the classic RPGs and Magic’s designers (some of whom are the same people). The sprawling Final Fantasy franchise is one of the deepest wells of inspiration you could ask for in a Universes Beyond set, with so many beloved games and characters to draw from. But …
