First off, we want to thank everyone for the patience you’ve all exhibited. We know Ixalan has been highly anticipated, and we are excited to finally present to everyone the Ixalan blog posts!
In the first chapter, we dive into the deep lore of Ixalan, explore the complex nature of each Tribe, and expand on how the set’s unique mechanics interact with them.
In the third chapter, we take a look at the fascinating world of Ixalan and how it’s folded into the new and exciting Events coming to Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest
New Update
In the fourth and final chapter, we will be discussing the complex topic of balancing both cards and Planeswalkers, and taking a look at how we tackle Masterpiece cards in the future.
All of this looks pretty cool, I like the way they ported over the abilities (in theory, of course, in practice it may be different).
One huge omission (in my mind) is the lack of explanation as to how treasure works. It is referenced a lot, and mentioned in the Pirates section as something that gives mana to you or your opponent (interesting, or terrible, depending on how) however there is no actual explanation as to how it works. Hopefully this will be cleared up in the future.
Card balancing seems decent, I like the tribal idea (and hope there are more deckbuilding-specific cards and events to come), vampires seem to be the front runners in easily abusable abilities, with pirates falling toward the back.
I just wish that the Vanquisher’s Banner actually added creature types to your other creatures so I could actually make a zombie pirate vehicle appear.
Love the communication and many of the translations. Although I have some serious concerns around explore. It certainly depends on the size of the explore mechanic, but if it is even as high as 5 and with draw engines like Baral and Rashimi we will get a whole lot of looping.
Other than that it seems like they have descaled power creep. That’s fine.. but with KLD and cycling still in the meta it seems like more of the same decks/cards for a while. Hopefully, other adjustments in the game will make the cards more relevant without feeling forced (different formats, objectives, other set nerfs, etc).
Anyway, enjoying the willingness for Oktagon to really put out some solid information early. Look forward to cracking open some cards. And even more, hopefully playing some new content.
I was hoping to see loyalty-related stuff. And now having gem changers in (potentially) all colors. Im interested if theyll have a card ability add or take away loyalty from a player
You know its funny, its not so long ago people said the same things about KLD/AER and AMK/HOU. Its almost like we won’t know exactly how broken a card or set is until its released and out for a few months (looking at you Rashimi)
I’m sure in 2-3 months there are going to be polls about nerfing a couple mythics, or we’ll see decks posted involving 20 min loops. Trust me.
Now that you’ve pointed that out, I do notice looking at the revealed cards that I can see they may have abandoned the whole “mythic rare creatures need to have 8+ power” thing. (Yes there are creatures already at mythic status that have less than 8 power, but they’re the exception)
I have to say I really hope they’re moving toward the method of gating power behind cost rather than rarity.
First look seems that Greg will be even more at disadvantage with all different combo mechanics.
But I guess that he gets an upgrade along with the game also
I really like most of the mechanics, although, as always, we’ll have to play them to see how they turn out. But there seems to be a lot of thought put into converting the cards into MTGPQ and I appreciate that. I’m only worried that the Merfolk turn out to be too weak but we’ll have to see how real tribal turns out in this game.
There is something very small that bugs me to no end. It’s the inconsistency on card texts. Kinjalli’s Caller and Otepec Huntmaster have the same ability but it is worded entirely different. This is something we know from the past but it is disheartening to see this trend continued.
