Fate Reforged and a Magic Day

In recent weeks I have had an explosion of deck building/brewing, with my count of Commander decks going from 3 to 18 (and counting). The more I think about what would be fun to build around, or fun ideas, the more of them I get and this means I end up brewing decks, which in turn adds more fuel to the fire. Having had a decent amount of success securing some interesting cards in trades or via eBay auctions, this means I have plenty left in the tank to keep on brewing. I am certainly not saying all (or in fact any...) of these decks are amazing but hopefully they are all fun to play.

Why did I open with that paragraph? Well, because this coming weekend I might actually get the chance to play some of these brews in some multiplayer games. I have managed to scrape together some members of my playgroup and a free day to dedicate to simply playing some games. I have found that as I get older and gather more responsibilities, the chance to dedicate large chunks of time gets less and less. However my ability to get hold of the games themselves, or new parts for said game (in the case of Magic: the Gathering). I find this all very frustrating, so I am really looking forward to being able to indulge my MtG addiction for a whole day, and have to give thanks to my wife for giving up the table for a day.

This coming weekend also sees the release of Fate Reforged, the second set in the Khans of Tarkir Block. The first set saw me buy a booster box for the first time ever, and I really enjoyed the experience of cracking it, and trading from it to get the cards I wanted from the set. I loved getting some of the cards I really wanted, and in the last 3 months it has given me plenty of good cards to build with or trade for stuff I really wanted (Fetchlands were pure gold for this, as I am not a Standard/Modern player really!). The box also gave me my first ever foil Mythic: Narset, Enlightened Master, which was a pretty cool card to open. If you have never opened a foil Mythic, it is a really fun feeling for a casual player I think.

Narset: my first ever foil Mythic

 With this in mind, I went right ahead and preordered myself a box of Fate Reforged from Manaleak, and its arrival coincides rather well with my gaming day. I might actually get to try my hand at some Limited Magic, as long as I don't just blow through them all beforehand (much as this would greatly upset Brian Wong and Marshall Sutcliffe on the Limited Resources podcast, sorry guys!). Hopefully I will have a whole heap of fun opening the box and seeing what I get. I think cracking this with my playgroup will add to the fun, and playing some Limited with it will be added fun: perhaps some DC10 might be a good way to play the packs out, as I won't have enough Khans of Tarkir to do a proper  FRF-KTK-KTK draft.

Thinking about the cards that are in Fate Reforged, there are definitely some target rares and mythics that I want to pull, especially when I put my Commander hat on (which is my usual MtG play style). One is Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, which I elaborated on in my last post: however there are two standout non-legendary cards I want to get my hands on, and I am sure they are no great surprise. The first is Monastery Mentor, which looks to be a fantastically fun card for any deck that uses Prowess, or in fact a deck that wants tokens, and plays non creature spells. I can think of a couple of my decks it would be great in (Selesnya Tokens for example), and I think it will be a really fun card. I do also think that it might be a really good card for Jeskai decks in Standard, but that isn't really my area of expertise. The second card I really hope that I open is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: this card is looking a lot like the chase mythic in prerelease. It is only the second colourless planeswalker that Wizards have created, and it looks like it may well fit into the current Standard in the Perilous Vault control decks. He also could fit in every single Commander deck, due to him being colourless. The other colourless planeswalker, Karn Liberated, is one hell of an expensive card and looks to be really fun to play. I am hoping I get an Ugin as I really think he will be right up there.

I will certainly be writing about what I pull, and see if I get my wishes come true (hey, I like Magic Christmas Land), and will write up the highlights of my Magic Sunday if I get some good stories from it. Good luck to everyone who is cracking Fate Reforged this coming weekend.