Board Game Review Part 2 - Sci-Fi and Horror

Yesterday I covered Eurogames, full of indirect competition and family-friendly subject matters. So today I tackle a trio of sci-fi and horror games, complete with rampant infighting and backstabbing!

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Betrayal was published by Avalon Hill (now owned by Wizards of the Coast) several years ago, and I consider myself lucky to have played it. This is because it's been out of print for a while and now routinely sells for $150-200 online. Fortunately, a second edition is planned to be released his October, which should be much more attainable.

The game begins with the players exploring the house, flipping over new room tiles each time they enter an unexplored area. They move around finding various eerie items, events, and omens until eventually the "Haunt" occurs, moving the game into its second phase. When the Haunt takes place, one of the characters turns traitor and any one of 50 scenarios occur, including horror classics like zombie attacks, werewolves, zombies, or even the house itself coming to life. Often the traitor and other players receive different information about the situation, and they rarely know eachother's victory conditions.

Betrayal is practically proof that if you have an awesome enough concept, you can throw everything else out the window. Many of the scenarios are wildly imbalanced or luck-dependent, the rules can be frustratingly ambiguous, and the finite number of options may limit playability, but the game is just too damn awesome for any of that to matter very much.

My other gripe about the game is the packaging - it came with literally hundreds of little cardboard tokens indicating various items, opponents, and hazards. It was ridiculously excessive and largely unnecessary - it could have just come with three colors of tokens and specified what each was for various scenarios. Hopefully the new edition will reduce extraneous cardboard and improve the wording of the rules.

Verdict: If' you're looking for an in-depth strategy game to test your mettle, look elsewhere. If you're looking for an absolutely awesome casual game to play with a bunch of friends late at night, check this out next October.

RoboRally

Also by Avalon Hill, RoboRally is a game Richard Garfield pitched to Wizards of the Coast back in 1993. They turned it down for being too expensive to produce, instead opting to try out some idea of his called Magic. It worked out pretty well for them, so years later they had more than enough cash to make RoboRally.

The game mechanics are fairly simple. The players are racing towards a series of flags, and the first person's robot to touch them all in order wins. Each round, you program your robot with a series of five actions they will take over the course of the next five turns. Then, you watch as they happen to get pushed a square to the left by another player's robot, and continue following your now-deadly orders as they drive over conveyor-belts, industrial lazers, and gaping pit traps. As you take damage, you have increasingly limited movement options to program your hapless robot.

The game doesn't have a lot of deep strategy, but it can be surprisingly difficult and convoluted to maneuver around simple obstacles with limited commands. The wacky dark humor and simple gameplay make RoboRally a very good game for parties, families, and other casual circles.

My biggest complaint about the basic game is that the robot upgrades (things like "Mini-Howitzer" and "Breaks") are one of the more fun and versatile aspects of the game, but are very difficult to acquire in-game. We were very happy playing with the house rule that each robot starts the game with one free upgrade chosen at random.

Verdict: If you're looking for a fun and easy strategy game to play with friends and family, RoboRally is a great option. It's more checkers than chess, though, and not a game for competitive players.

Battlestar Gallactica: The Board Game

I don't normally pay too much attention to tie-in games, but this one seemed thematically appropriate as involves both insane robots and betraying your so-called friends. The game is published by Fantasy Flight Games and is based on the 2003 Battlestar Gallactica tv series.

The game centers around the human side facing various challenges while trying to maintain four gauges - Fuel, Food, Morale, and Population. If any of these fall below zero, they lose the game. Meanwhile, the cylon players try to subvert and sabotage the humans.

The game's most impressive aspect is how well it captures the feel of the series. The humans have to deal with so many different ways to lose, and argue about strategies and acceptable losses even when they actually are on the same side. And then there's the brilliant mechanic where half the loyalty cards are dealt out initially, and then half are dealt out later in the game, meaning that you often don't know how many traitors (if any) are actually among you, and players can turn out to be cylons without initially realizing it.

The sacrifice for this is that the game seems like it would be pretty impenetrable to people unfamiliar with the tv show. The mechanics could be understood, but they wouldn't feel very resonant without the background to understand them. The game also suffers somewhat from overcomplication, with dozens of different mechanics competing for time and attention.

Verdict: A great game for fans of the series which really manages to capture the feel. Other people should probably stick to more other political games.

I'll take a break from reviews for now, but feel free to contact me with your angry rebuttals and fervent disagreements.

Board Game Review Part 1 - Eurogames!

Contemporary board games are not my area of expertise, but I've gotten a lot more familiar with them over the past year. I will share my opinions on several of the games I've played as a relative newcomer to the genre. Today I will be covering several "Eurogames,"

a genre defined by resource-management, indirect competition, and non-elimination gameplay.

Settlers of Catan

Settlers of Catan is a staple of modern board games. It has sold more than 15 million copies and has dozens of spin-offs including expansions, a dice game, and videogames. It has come to define the Eurogame genre in America.

The core game involves players placing cities at the corners of randomized hexes, each of which provides a specific resource with a fixed chance of production each turn. As the game progresses, players use these resources to purchase more roads, settlements, and cities in order to harvest more resources.

Catan's biggest strength is the game's strategic depth despite simple rules - there are a wide variety of valid routes to victory and many economic and tactical mechanics going on at any given time. It is a popular tournament game for competetive players, but is still very accessible for families and casual gamers.

My biggest problem with Catan is the luck factor. Not that it exists, as almost all strategy games involve a large component of luck, but the way it feels. For most games, part of the strategy is figuring out what to do when you're down on your luck. In Catan, you can't do anything when the dice don't go your way. The game is completely out of your control and becomes frustrating and disappointing. There are many games where you can lose to bad luck, but in few does is it feel as unfun as Catan. Added to this is the fact that making comebacks is extremely difficult in economy based games, meaning that a run of bad luck early can leave you boxed in and undeveloped. The game's supporters seem somewhat aware of this, as the Wikipedia page laughably touts, "players who are behind can strive towards goals that are within their reach."

Verdict: Settlers of Catan is a very well-designed game, and can be enjoyed by casual players who don't mind its harsh nature and tournament players who appreciate that harshness. However, if you're a gamer like me who enjoys casual competition with friends, Catan is not your best choice.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is the top-selling franchise for Rio Grande Games, an American company who were founded with the specific goal of developing European style board games. It is a very simple game with a large number of available expansions.

Each turn, a player flips over a landscape tile and uses it to expand the board, then play place a marker to indicate that they are collecting points from one aspect of that tile. For example, a tile might have a segment of road passing by the corner of a city, in which case the player could place a knight in the city, a bandit on the road, or a farmer on the grass. They would eventually receive points based on the number of tiles eventually comprising the completed road, city, or field.

Carcassonne is fun and easy to learn, but doesn't have a whole lot of depth. Most of the strategic decisions are fairly simple and the interaction with opponents is fairly minimal. It is also one of the few games I have played which I like better as a two-player game than with three or more players. Multiple players can often cooperate to "share" very large territories, leaving the other players who were unable to get in on the territory extremely far behind.

Verdict: I've enjoyed playing Carcassonne casually and occasionally, but there isn't a lot of meat on those bones. A good game for playing with acquaintances and parents, but probably not the right choice for playing with avid gamers.

Dominion

Also published by Rio Grande Games, Dominion is a much more complicated game than Carcassonne. There are a number of stand-alone versions available, which can be played on their own or mixed with the basic set.

As the game progresses, each player continually improves their deck by purchasing new cards, which in turn help them purchase even better cards the next time the go through the deck. Eventually, players begin purchasing "Victory" cards, which contribute to final score but do nothing when drawn. At the end of the game, the number and value of each player's Victory cards determine the winner.

Dominion is the best self-contained tabletop game I've played in a long time. I love deckbuilding for games like Magic, so I love the fact that Dominion has deckbuilding as a fundamental part of gameplay. The gameplay is both fast-paced and strategy intensive, with specific options changing each game.

My biggest complaint about the game is a seeming prevalence of "griefer" cards - effects that seem designed more to annoy or upset your opponents than provide actual strategic advantage. Most of the groups I've played with avoid certain cards that have proven particularly annoying.

Verdict: Dominion will almost certainly be the next game I purchase - I love pretty much everything about it. That said, the game is somewhat complicated and highly strategic, so I don't feel that it would be the best choice for playing with children or non-gamers.

Tomorrow in Part 2 - I review RoboRally, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and more!

Some Postgame Thoughts on M11 Limited

I wrote a preliminary review for M11 two weeks ago, stating that I would follow it up once I had actually played with the set. Since then I've won two 40+ person sealed events and drafted twice, so I feel like I can revise a few of my previous statements.

White

I stand by my assertion that white is the least interesting limited color in M11. I played against quite a few white decks, and none of them were trying to do anything more exciting than curve Stormfront Pegasus into Wild Griffin into Assault Griffin. That said, Squadron Hawk remains one of my favorite cards in the set, and is worth playing even if you only have two.

Most Surprising Card: War Priest of Thune - I already liked this guy, but here's what I didn't know: You almost never want to play him on turn two. M11 limited has a lot of powerful enchantments at common and uncommon - Pacifism, Armored Ascension, Shivan Embrace, and Mind Control to name a few. Unless you have a good reason otherwise, you're generally going to want to save this guy for a juicy target.

Blue

Blue has some very good things going on, and even its common creatures are very playable. The only problem is that there are so few of them - in sealed you almost always have to run blue as a secondary color. I like blue having a few good creatures a lot better than the previous method of a bunch of unplayable little blue dudes. Along with red, blue has gotten a much-needed power boost in limited since M10.

Most Surprising Card: Scroll Thief - I questioned whether this new ophidian would ever hit anyone in limited, and boy was I wrong. Three toughness is enough to let this guy survive a lot of blocks, and I almost always saw him net a card or two when he was played.

Black

Black remains a strong color, if not quite as strong as I thought. I don't feel like it has been weakened, it's just that some of the other colors have gotten stronger since M10. That's probably as it should be.

Most Surprising Card: Liliana's Specter - Another card where I knew it would be good, but I didn't realize quite how good. It's a relevant attacker that trades with most of the aggressive flyers. Liliana's Specter into Mind Rot is one of the best turn 3-4 plays I've seen in M11, netting you massive mid-game card advantage.

Red

I will admit that I wildly misjudged red for limited. Yes, it does have quite a few unplayables, but these are necessary because otherwise the color would completely bonkers. Chandra's Outrage is a second amazing removal spell at common that makes the color a lot better, and Manic Vandal is quite powerful in a set with as many great artifacts as M11. I played red as a major color every time I could.

Most Surprising Card: Shiv's Embrace - I figured this would be a pretty good buff as long as you don't get blown out by removal. Turns out, this card is absolutely nuts. It just wins games. At four mana it may well be better than Shivan Dragon itself, and it's an uncommon. Put on Child of Night for maximum swinginess or Sacred Wolf to make your opponent cry.

Green

Green is as solid as ever, providing us with a bunch of good groundpounders. Hornet Sting and Plummet give it a few more answers, and Cultivate can make 3-4 color decks much more viable. The color is as good as ever, but has changed less from M10 than most of the others.

Most Surprising Card: Sylvan Ranger - When I first looked at this card, I thought it was a bad Civic Wayfinder, putting the same ability on a less-relevant body. Instead, it has turned out to be one of my favorite limited cards in the set. It makes keeping two-land hands much more consistent than its predecessors. Moreover, turn 3 is much more important in limited than turn 2, making Sylvan Ranger do its job very well despite a small body.

RPG Design and D&D 4E

Dungeons and Dragon's 4th Edition has been somewhat controversial among gamers since its release two years ago. Of course, there were also hardcore gamers upset about 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, 3.5, and all the way back to the original D&D/AD&D split. So, are the complaints about 4th edition legitimate criticisms of a turn for the worse, or simply a stubborn resistance to change?

I'm not discussing the specifics like choices about which races/classes made the cut and which didn't, or whether classes and powers are balanced. I'm more interested in the design philosophy behind the changes. D&D has chosen to focus on its strengths. The thing is, as the most widely-played tabletop RPG out there, this focus has alienated a portion of its players who liked it for other reasons.

To explain all this, I'm going to have to backtrack a little. My first D&D books (purchased in middle school) were 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Having read through those books more recently, I can tell you that from a modern RPG design perspective they are laughable. Each basic attribute effects a half dozen traits, including various bonuses, percentages, and fixed caps. The chapter on equipment spends three pages discussing the subtle differences between 23 different types of polearms, which include the Glaive, Guisarme, Glaive-Guisarme, and Fauchard-Fork. Previous editions were even worse, with dozens of percentile tables for things like door-breaking attempts and 1-2 damage grappling attacks.

Third Edition was the first to be published by Wizards of the Coast after TSR went under, and it is the first edition that can really hold up as a contemporary tabletop RPG. Each basic attribute adds a single fixed bonus to applicable situations, and all checks and attempts are done with the same type of die. Classes level up at the same time, are theoretically balanced, and don't have random level caps for each race. Players can customize their characters with skills and feats, something that is now taken for granted as part of a standard role-playing experience. While there are still old-school gamers out there who will endlessly argue the superiority of previous editions, there is no question in my mind that 3rd edition was better than all before it and the first "modern" D&D system.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (or 4E) streamlines the game even further. Combat spells and special attacks are merged into a single "power" system that is used by all classes. The skill levels are simply "yes" and "no," rather than having new characters divide up to 50 skill points between 30 skills. Specialized high-level classes are now a basic part of advancement rather than an optional rule for specific campaigns. While this is largely a continuation of the advancements made in third edition, many people feel that 4E goes too far, blurring the classes together and making the whole thing feel "videogamey."

From a pure design perspective, I have to say that 4E feels a lot more elegant. The skill system dropped a lot of extraneous complexity while sacrificing very little gameplay. The classes all advance similarly and consistently, instead of the weird starts and stops of third edition. The presence of rituals and healing surges means that groups don't have to stick to fighter/caster/healer compositions to keep up. The rules for combat are much cleaner, which is good, because there aren't many rules for anything else.

D&D has always had a rules focus on combat. The important thing to realize is that this is not because they consider roleplaying unimportant, but because they consider rules for roleplaying unimportant. The philosophy seems to be that if you want to play an interesting and compelling character, you don't need a bunch of numbers and scores to define that - design fun rules for combat and advancement and let the players take care of the rest. To my eyes, 4E is the culmination of this design philosophy, and that is why so many people have problems with it.

Some players like to have their character's personality on paper. My love for systems like Savage Worlds and GURPS comes from the fact that I can look at a character sheet and go, "ah, this character is honorable but hindered by a rigid moral code," or "this character is a powerful warrior but struggles with social situations and alcoholism." Personally, I really like systems that encourage characterization by providing rules for traits and hindrances. But that means D&D isn't the system for me anyways, and they shouldn't be trying to cater to my preferences.

As the most popular and well-known tabletop RPG, Dungeons and Dragons has a lot of different types of players to keep happy. Even within a single roleplaying group, there will be people with a variety of different playstyles to appease. Many people who might prefer systems like World of Darkness of FUDGE will end up playing D&D because that's what their friends play.

4E is a better designed system than any previous version, and one that focuses best on the core strengths of Dungeons and Dragons. But as an RPG that must cater to more players than any other, it remains to be seen whether or not that was the right choice.

Magic 2011 Set Review

Last year, Magic completely changed the way they did core sets with Magic 2010. They moved to a yearly release, smaller set size, and named the sets by year rather than edition. More importantly, they changed the way they designed the sets themselves, printing new cards beside reprints and focusing on flavorful and evocative designs.

Magic 2010 was a huge critical and commercial success, and this year they're trying to recapture that success (or even improve upon it) with Magic 2011. So how does this set match up?

With the full set up on Gatherer, I can give a preliminary review and then describe any cards that surprise me at the prerelease. Onwards!

Overall Impressions

Magic 2011 (M11 for short) feels much more cohesive than its predecessor. The cycles are tighter, allowing new players to see connections between cards more easily. The Titans and Leylines are both beautiful examples that let new players see recurring elements while showing off each color's strengths and abilities. They double-cycle of spells named after planeswalkers are equally effective in creating the feel of a larger setting with recurring themes and characters. Even the cycle of color hate spells (Celestial Purge through Autumn's Veil) do a better job of reinforcing exactly what each color dislikes about its opponents.

There are quite a few returning cards from M10, many of which I am happy to see for another year but hope won't make it into M12. Lightning Bolt and Baneslayer Angel are both powerful cards that have helped to define standard, but I don't want them to define standard forever. Platinum Angel is cool, but after three printings in a row she is starting to feel less epic. There are other cards that I wouldn't mind seeing in the core set for years - Pacifism and Doom Blade are perfect common removal spells, Cancel is the solid baseline counterspell, and Gravedigger is the kind of card that really shines in the core set.

I'm going to cover each color as a whole and touch upon a few specific cards, then wrap things up with a few final thoughts.

White

White is probably the least interesting color in M11. The commons and uncommons aren't bad, they just don't really excite me. Snapping Drake gets printed in its third color this year, and we get a bunch of unexciting vanilla and french-vanilla beaters.

There are a few exceptions - War Priest of Thune is one of those great cards that seems like it should have been printed years ago. Squadron Hawk is probably my favorite common in the set - insane card advantage that takes some work to make useful, and a perfectly flavorful name. Roc Egg is a nice modern take on a weirdly-colored old concept. I can't even quite bring myself to dislike Goldenglow Moth - it's such a silly little card, and I've had some good times with it in Duals of the Planeswalkers.

I'm not too happy about seeing two rare slots eaten up by seven-mana flyers with defensive abilities, Angelic Arbiter and Vengeful Archon. I just think that in a core set, you want to use your rare slots as effectively as possible to show interesting variety, and instead we get two relatively generic big flying things.

Serra Ascendant is an interesting case - I'm pretty sure that it will be played almost exclusively in EDH, which leads me to wonder whether it was designed primarily for that purpose or not. It has been stated that several similar cards were designed with an awareness of EDH, but were not specifically intended for it. Serra Ascendant is such an extreme example, however, that I wonder if the growing popularity of EDH has led to more designs intended for the format.

Blue

If white is the least interesting color in M11, blue is the most. All the rarities do a great job of showing off all the things blue can do and I love all the new designs.

It's nice to see "fixed" versions of iconic creatures like Man 'O War and Ophidian - I hope they're good enough to see some constructed play. Harbor Serpent is a great take on the historic theme, and Diminish is a wonderfully simple conditional removal spell. Merfolk Spy is a classic body (1/1 islandwalk for U) with my favorite type of ability - the kind that makes the card 10% more powerful and five times as interesting. I also like seeing Jace's Erasure as something to enable a limited mill archetype, something I always appreciate for variety.

Scry was absolutely brilliant inclusion that gives blue a lot of identity. I love that there are three great blue commons with scry, giving people the opportunity to see the ability across several different types of cards.

Of course, blue's most discussed card is a powerful two-mana counterspell in the form of Mana Leak. I'm not sure what I can say about it that hasn't been said by many others already, but it's nice to see countermagic getting a balanced but powerful option for the coming year. In six months we'll see whether I want it in M12 or if I'm already sick to death of it.

I love all of blue's new rares - Conundrum Sphinx is a great beater-with-interesting-ability, Mass Polymorph is hilarious and potentially very powerful, and Stormtide Leviathan is bombtastically awesome and flavorful.

I'm slightly curious about implications of putting Redirect in blue and Reverberate in red. Red and blue have been sharing both spell copying and redirection for a while now, and I wonder if putting clean versions of both in M11 indicates a solid color-pie decision on which gets which.

Black

Black was by far my favorite color in M10 limited, and if anything it looks like they made it better. Unplayables like Acolyte of Xanthrid and Soul Bleed have been replaced with interesting conditional cards like Viscera Seer and Quag Sickness. Looming Shade and Kelinore Bat have been given stronger cards in the form of Nightwing Shade and Liliana's Specter. I foresee another summer of first pick Bog Wraiths.

I was pleased to see Megrim's strict improvement, Liliana's Caress. The three mana version was always a bit wrong for discard decks - that's the turn you want to start playing cards like Mind Rot, Blightning, or various specters.

Phylactery Lich may get my vote for the most cool and flavorful card in the set. I'm not sure if he'll see much tournament play, but he certainly might. Dark Tutelage is solid but its hard to avoid unfavorable comparisons to the perfectly-balanced Phyrexian Arena. Nantuko Shade is a pretty cool card, but I'm a little scared he'll be a disappointment given the current power of creatures. It always makes me a little sad when iconic older cards get reprinted and just can't quite make the cut.

Relentless Rats is the one card in the set that I feel may have overstayed its welcome. It's excitingly unique and everyone loves the idea of the 22-swamps 48-rats deck, but I rarely see people go through with building the deck and the card loses its excitement after you've seen it enough times. Four years of core set printings seems somewhat excessive to me - I don't think many people are excited about it anymore, and it doesn't add much to limited or constructed.

As far as standard goes, I'm a little sad to see that black is losing two of my favorite cards from M10 - Vampire Nocturnus and Tendrils of Corruption. Corrupt is a fine card, but a bit too slow for the current standard. Captivating Vampire is somewhat disappointing - his ability is too restrictive for either limited or constructed, and he's not as cool or flavorful as Nocturnus. I can see the value in making sure the vampire deck has to change over time, but I would have liked another year with Nocturnus. On the other hand, Duress is my single favorite sideboard card in standard, so I'm happy to see it's sticking around.

Red

Red's gotten some awesome rares this round. I love both dragons, Destructive Force as 125% of a Wildfire, and the new Fork. I like seeing some less-splashable beaters like Cyclops Gladiotor with interesting abilities. Even Wild Evocation seems like it will lead to some fun situations.

It looks like red may have gotten the shaft in limited, though. Bloodcrazed Goblin, Incite, Goblin Balloon Brigade, and Pyretic Ritual are all borderline-unplayable. As with M10, red's best cards at common and uncommon are very easily splashible, making them hard to pick up in draft and not providing much incentive to run red as a main color in sealed. Fling seems surprisingly good, though, having excellent synergy with fellow commons Act of Treason and Fiery Hellhound. I just wish Deadly Recluse had stuck around so that I could use the new deathtouch rules to kill things by throwing poisonous spiders at them.

Manic Vandal is a card I'm very happy to see - it's nice to have some artifact destruction you don't feel bad about maindecking, and will lead to some interesting decisions about whether to play it as a Grey Ogre early or wait around for a juicy target.

Green

M11 Green looks like a lot of fun in limited. Both the common Craw Wurm and uncommon Enormous Baloth have been replaced with similar cards that add the much-needed trample. Cudgel Troll returns as a powerful beater and Garruk's Packleader strikes me as an exceptional source of card advantage in the right deck.

Cultivate bears special mention as a functional reprint of Kodama's Reach. This unassuming common is one of the most exciting parts of the set for me. It will be amazing mana fixing in limited and will go straight into all of my EDH decks that contain forests. I'm not sure if it's in the right place to play in Standard, but I'm certainly hoping it is.

The rares include both a demoted Protean Hydra and a promoted Overrun-variant Overwhelming Stampede, both changes that I approve of. Obstinate Baloth is a solid midrange creature and Mitotic Slime is amusing and flavorful. Fauna Shaman is a wonderful fix of the old favorite Survival of the Fittest.

My one disappointment with green's rares is a lack of solid beef. We've got a few 4/4s and an X/X hydra, but nothing that screams "smash" like M10's Kalonian Behemoth or the uncommon Duskdale Wurm. This is especially irksome because white gets the aforemented 5/6 and 7/7 at rare.

Colorless

I like seeing some playable artifact creatures at uncommon to help smooth out limited decks. Gargoyle Sentinel, Stone Golem, and Juggernaut are all balanced creatures that can help fill out sealed pools and drafts.

The equipment is all passable and interesting in limited. Sword of Vengeance is definitely a better inclusion than Magebane Armor, and Warlord's Axe is the kind of good bad card which leads to fun decisions in limited. I'd like to see a little more "french vanilla" equipment in the future, though - simple cards like Gorgon Flail and Kitesail that grant interesting keyword abilities.

Voltaic Key is an interesting inclusion, and I was pleased to see the clever uses included for it in M11. In addition to the uncommon creatures and rares like Temple Bell and Steel Overseer, both Sorcerer's Strongbox and Elixir of Immortality are one-shot uncommons that Key can potentially get double duty out of. Triskelion is another fun reprint with a few silly combos - Primal Cocoon being the funniest.

My favorite artifact in the set, though, is easily Crystal Ball. It's a fun little card-selection engine that I will love playing in limited and EDH, and may even make a splash in standard. Moreover, the flavor is simple and absolutely perfect. What do you do with a crystal ball? You scry!

Mystifying Maze is an interesting and flavorful utility land. I like having enough useful lands in standard that tap for colorless that interesting deckbuilding decisions have to be made. Tectonic Edge, Dread Statuary, and the maze will all be competing for decks slots, and it will be interesting to see which ones make the cut. I also enjoy having a new version of Kor Haven/Maze of Ith, but the wording feels a bit clunky - I'm not sure why my defensive maze needs to reload Triskelions and be an act of absolute desperation against Titans.

Final Thoughts

M11 might not be perfect, but it's almost certainly the best core set so far. They made some very good changes with M10, and are still figuring out how to get the most out of them. M11 has made a lot of progress in capturing generic fantasy elements while starting to feel like a cohessive set, with mechanical and flavorful themes.

There are a few over- or under-represented concepts, but I feel like overall the set does a solid job of capturing the scope of Magic. The increased number of tighter cycles do a great job of showing of the various colors, and the card choices feel less arbitrary than M10.

I can only hope that M12 continues this pattern, feeling more like a unified "set" while still being Magic in a pure and simple form.