WotC Check out Magic: the Gathering's Tiamat

We've known for a while that WotC is releasing D&D-themed Magic: the Gathering cards, as a set called Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Artist Chis Rahn has shared his Tiamat.

"Been looking forward to sharing this one for what seems like forever! Tiamat, for Mtg's D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set. This was one of those assignments that I felt incredibly lucky to get. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed painting it!"

The MtG set comes out on July 23rd, 2021. The collector's sets have a beholder on the front. ICv2 has more information on the various set configurations. Bell of Lost Souls has some card images.

 

[Parmandur]

I was thinking of dipping my toe into Magic with this set (my experience with it is extremely limited), but man, this thread so far is very "Inside Baseball" and pretty intimidating. I hope WotC's marketing is prepared for a potential spike in novice players coming in from the D&D side.

Based on what they've rolled out so far, it seems they are.

 

[Vael]

Could be, though I think there are probably good reasons they tend to not do mono Commander precons (D variety, market research, etc.).

And I'm not wedded to the idea. The main thing is that with 4 decks, there's no reason for them to be all the same. The first time they did 4 decks was 2017, and they had a 2-color deck, two 3-Color decks and a 5-Color deck.

I was thinking of dipping my toe into Magic with this set (my experience with it is extremely limited), but man, this thread so far is very "Inside Baseball" and pretty intimidating. I hope WotC's marketing is prepared for a potential spike in novice players coming in from the D&D side.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Most of the talk in this thread is all about formats, which you don't really need to know about, and we are ignoring the most common format ever, "kitchen table play with whatever you own". Assuming gaming stores are open around the end of July when the set comes out, I'd recommend going to a prerelease. These tend to be very relaxed, and at prerelease, you buy 6 packs (in a kit with a bonus foil card), open them and then build the best 40 card deck out of what you open. I have gone to prereleases since I started playing magic, they've always been pretty inviting and fun. Also, if one of the 4 Commander decks we are speculating about strikes your fancy, they tend to be good value and worth getting if you like it. Commander is a multiplayer format and my favourite way to play Magic.

TBH, I only play Limited and Commander/EDH.

 

[Parmandur]

And I'm not wedded to the idea. The main thing is that with 4 decks, there's no reason for them to be all the same. The first time they did 4 decks was 2017, and they had a 2-color deck, two 3-Color decks and a 5-Color deck.



I wouldn't worry about it too much. Most of the talk in this thread is all about formats, which you don't really need to know about, and we are ignoring the most common format ever, "kitchen table play with whatever you own". Assuming gaming stores are open around the end of July when the set comes out, I'd recommend going to a prerelease. These tend to be very relaxed, and at prerelease, you buy 6 packs (in a kit with a bonus foil card), open them and then build the best 40 card deck out of what you open. I have gone to prereleases since I started playing magic, they've always been pretty inviting and fun. Also, if one of the 4 Commander decks we are speculating about strikes your fancy, they tend to be good value and worth getting if you like it. Commander is a multiplayer format and my favourite way to play Magic.

TBH, I only play Limited and Commander/EDH.

I've only ever played kitchen table and Arena, myself, I'll be checking out these Commander decks, though.

 

[Waterbizkit]

Looking forward to more commander precons. It's the only format I play anymore and the precons are great for playing a few times with friends before picking them apart to build my own or just giving them to friends as gifts.

The Strixhaven precons are nice, especially Lorehold (thank christ they finally did something interesting with boros). So if the precons in this set are supposed to be on par with Strixhaven I'll probably be grabbing them all.

 

[Ibrandul]

I've only ever played kitchen table MTG, haven't played the game in many years, currently own no MTG cards, and (ever since a brief stint working in a game store years ago, interacting on a daily basis with many different customers, the worst-behaved of whom were invariably there to play MTG) I have no desire whatsoever to play this game with strangers.

But to an FR junkie like me, damn, this set is just so, so tempting!

 

[Vael]

I bought the Blue/Green Token deck from Strixhaven and it is a lot of fun, and yeah, these are well built decks, so I have high hopes for these new decks too.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I was thinking of dipping my toe into Magic with this set (my experience with it is extremely limited), but man, this thread so far is very "Inside Baseball" and pretty intimidating. I hope WotC's marketing is prepared for a potential spike in novice players coming in from the D&D side.

Start with Arena on mobile to start learning, its made picking up the game so easy that WotC doesn't even sell physical starter decks any more, they just tell you to go do the tutorial on arena. Its free.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I've only ever played kitchen table MTG, haven't played the game in many years, currently own no MTG cards, and (ever since a brief stint working in a game store years ago, interacting on a daily basis with many different customers, the worst-behaved of whom were invariably there to play MTG) I have no desire whatsoever to play this game with strangers.

But to an FR junkie like me, damn, this set is just so, so tempting!

Have you tried Arena?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Based on what they've rolled out so far, it seems they are.

Sort, but sort of not. Like you've mentioned they went with major Commander Decks instead of the Beginner Friendly decks like Zendikar and Kaldheim got. From the sounds of it the AFR decks are round 2 for Commander 2021 (Strixhaven being round 1). Seriously pre Ikoria I believe Commander 2019 and earlier were 4 not 5 Decks.

So it seems more targeted to experienced players and whales then noobs from D&D.

 

[Ibrandul]

Have you tried Arena?

I find I don't enjoy online play of much of anything other than RPGs these days. I've heard the Arena implementation is great, though.

Right now I plan to buy some physical products for collecting and for kitchen table play with D&D-loving friends: the four Commander decks and . . . what? I dislike foil cards so it sounds like collector boosters are not for me (they also appear to be by far the worst value for money). What, then? A set booster box? A draft box? Some fat packs? I dunno. What, precisely, is even in these? While the preorders are already up in many places, not all of the specifics on what exactly is included in the products are available.

I haven't looked at MTG at all in a while and it's evident that at least in terms of the product range, it's more baffling than ever for a casually interested customer to figure out what to purchase. The products don't even have MSRPs anymore!

I suppose part of the problem is that this is more or less the first MTG set ever produced where a lot of people who don't really care about MTG are interested in buying it. Before now, they only had to figure out how to appeal to (and communicate with) the various kinds of MTG players. Now they need to communicate with prospective buyers who aren't primarily buying because they like MTG. So far they're not doing that (for this prospective buyer, anyway).

There is no one anywhere who said "I could take or leave MTG but I want to buy Ixalan products because I'm a huge fan of Ixalan." But that's basically where I am with this. I certainly don't care about alt-arts or foils at all, I don't want to participate in game-store play, and I also don't want any non-D&D-themed cards—zero—which I mention because apparently some product types usually include reprints of cards from previous sets. (Will they this time too? Who knows!) What I want is a nice playable-for-casual-play, not-obsessively-complete-but-mostly-complete-for-gameplay-purposes collection of this one set. It's hard to even figure out what and how much to purchase in order to fulfill that. How much should I buy, and of what, to get one copy of most of the rare cards in the set and have a good array of deckbuilding options at my disposal to create decks for casual play? When last I used to be into CCGs, this was still a relatively simple question to answer, no matter what game you were talking about. Looking at the product range for the FR MTG set, it would appear that there is no longer a straightforward answer at all, and that this is by design.