Tag Archives: Wizards of the Coast

Digital Playground, On the Tabletop

MTG vs. Hearthstone Part 2: Story/Art

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Introduction

It’s that time of year when things get pushed to the background, especially here on the page. But, I remain committed to updating as often as possible. And, so, MTG vs. Hearthstone Part 2 and Part 3 becomes Part 2 only. Who knows? I actually think this works better.

Again, similar to my previous article in this series, a direct comparison between the two feels ridiculous. Wizards of the Coast takes their art and story very seriously. They also worked tirelessly recently to clean up some loose ends and make the story more consistent and coherent. Blizzard went the route of making their stories sillier and their art less realistic. Being someone who likes that style less, I side with Magic the gathering on both.

Showdown in the Badlands Art

As if proof of concept, I found no art in the new Hearthstone set that impressed me other than the new Reno. And, honestly, I think that’s just because I like the card style of the hero cards. The art itself leaves much to be desired. It’s simply a portrait of the hero. Some of the new Druid dragons look cool, too. Other than that, though, the set art is very plain.

Showdown in the Badlands Story

From the Blizzard Hearthstone site:

“The Bloodrock Mining Company found powerful Azerite in the Badlands. They’re digging deep and bleeding the land dry, disrupting the Badlands and awakening slumbering elementals! Now mysterious outlaws are riding into town to set things right. Tumbleweeds roll by and high noon looms. Grab your horse and your hat, it’s nearly time for a Showdown in the Badlands!”

I mean, that’s not a terrible set up for a decent story. But, after that, the pay off lacks some punch. Some of the cards and the mechanics mention the Azurite and other parts of the storyline. However, Blizzard doesn’t weave their story into the game as much as Wizards. So, while I like the story, I wish they gave fans like me a little more to work with.

Lost Caverns of Ixalan Art

I picked these three cards for a reason. The only one I genuinely like as art is Hurl into History. The art matches the card description perfectly. It also gives a great sense of motion. I picked the dragon to give a comparison in art styles between the two games. The Fabrication Foundry does the same. Even when they come up with some ridiculous idea of a being, they still make it seem like it exists in a real and living world. That adds to my enjoyment and appreciation of the art.

Lost Caverns of Ixalan Story

I can’t hope to include the entire story here like I did with the Hearthstone excerpt. The story on the official Wizards page scrolls for thousands of words and follows several different characters. But, what I remember from Ixalan before, it features dinosaurs and pirates. What more can you ask for?

As far as I’m concerned, nothing. But, as Billy Mays always said, “There’s more!” WotC also gives us gods in this set. Unlike some other planes, these gods aren’t explicitly immortal. Rather, when they die, they transform into temple lands with a mana ability that allows the god to reascend later in the game. I like that twist because you can remove the god from the board for a time without having to use an exile spell.

The Verdict

Again, without directly comparing the two, I need to wrap up this MTG vs. Hearthstone Part 2 article. The art for Showdown in the Badlands doesn’t impress me at all. The story, on the other hand, works well enough. I always love looking at old Magic the Gathering sets to revisit the art. I keep track of the story when it’s interesting. Other than the pirates and dinosaurs, I don’t find Ixalan particularly compelling.

On the Tabletop

2022 Card GOTY: Magic the Gathering

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Introduction

We continue our annual celebration at the end of the year with the 2022 Card GOTY. I wrote an article about a week ago trashing the game. That’s right, I spent a good 700 odd words talking crap about a game that I am about to give an end of the year award. Granted, the game is in the title of the post, so this reveal is a bit anticlimactic. Nevertheless, congratulations to Magic the Gathering for the win.

You might make the argument that this proclamation is obvious or by default. And, you’d probably be right. After all, how many card games are there out there. Probably more than I’d expect and certainly more than I ever have time to play. Nevertheless, allow me to make an argument that Magic wins in spite of these technicalities.

Magic the Gathering Digital

In spite of trying to talk him into it, I haven’t been able to get Chris to commit to playing Arena on a regular basis. I, on the other hand, sink money into every release by buying both combo packs to collect all of the packs and goodies. One of those goodies is the ever present reward track. That inspires me to play on a daily basis until I finish a quest and/or get 2 wins to the 15 week limit.

While I sometimes skip Hearthstone and recently deleted Eternal from my phone, I always log into Arena to both finish the quests and see what daily deals they offer in the shop. This keeps me connected to a game that I admitted in that previous article to losing some interest in the collecting aspect, at least.

Magic the Gathering Physical

Okay, so you play the game on your phone regularly. Notice that you said nothing about enjoying the game other than the cosmetics and other stuff they give away. Fair enough. I admit to spending much of my time complaining about land drops or my opponent’s luck. Plus, it remains to be seen if I ever buy product for binders ever again. There are just so many releases lately. Fatigue is a real thing.

But, I still found joy in the game again this year. I sat down and played Magic the Gathering against actual people more this year than the last three or so years combined. A student asked me to play some Commander and we ended up matching up for a couple of games. Chris and Jason inspired me to put some money into my precon decks to make them slightly more competitive and we played three or four games at the beginning of autumn. We planned to play again, but Chris and his wife got Covid again. So, the second meeting remains up in the air right now.

The Verdict

Magic the Gathering remains the frustratingly expensive and predictably unpredictable game that I love to hate. I also love to love the game. Opening packs brings me indescribable joy at the art, story, and possibilities of how to use those cards in decks. I goldfish my Commander decks at least once a week. I played around with the landfall one again a couple of weeks ago at Aiden’s soccer practice. Simply writing this post makes me want to go out into the car and grab them. All those reasons and more are what make Magic the Gathering our 2022 Card GOTY.

On the Tabletop

Adventures in Dice Masters

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Introduction

Welcome to Adventures in Dice Masters! Honestly, though, I can’t promise that it will be all that adventurous. But, we are talking about Dice Masters. So, you are getting genuine retro content during our promised retro content month to celebrate the anniversary of the page. The only reason I know about Dice Masters is that I picked up a set so that we could review it when the podcast was still active.

You, uh, you do plan on having retro content on your promised retro content month eventually, right?

So, why now for Dice Masters? Well, we went on our annual family vacation to Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago. That’s why we weren’t around for a week. You all noticed that and missed us, right? Right?! Well, in any case, Liam suggested that we play Dice Masters. I don’t know if he was serious or if he thought I might forget or blow him off.

I didn’t. As soon as we got home and settled in, I pulled out the cards and started sorting through them. Life as a collector is generally getting excited that you received a shipment of cards or comic books before the sobering realization that you now have to organize and find a place to store your new goodies. And that, my friends, begins our Adventures in Dice Masters. I told you that it might not be all that adventurous.

My Strategy

I have to admit that I’m not very well versed in the strategy of Dice Masters. We have played the game a few times, but certainly not enough for me to know all of the key words and most of the cards like I do Magic the Gathering. So, when putting together my team, I started with the Green Dragon from Dungeons and Dragons. Why did I choose this particularly powerful (maybe?) and potentially game ending (not so far) card of doom to start my team? I just wanted to use an card not from the Marvel Universe. For whatever reason, we have a twice as many Marvel cards as DC and only a handful of Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted to vary my team with the three universes.

While reading the Green Dragon card, I noticed that it had an ability that allowed you to spin down the dice of your opponent. I thought that was an interesting addition that the dice allow that cards don’t. With card games, you can remove them, but there’s not the same level up or down effect. Unless you’re playing some of the older MTG sets (and there might be some obscure game that takes advantage of it, but I can’t be expected to know all the games) where they have the level up cards. And, so, the theme of my team was set in place. Also, for some unknown reason, I decided to make my team rainbow with one card for each color and two miscellaneous. And now, I present the team for your scorn and ridicule.

Rainbow Spin (A Noob’s Dice Masters Team)

Captain Marvel – Human/Kree Hybrid (Red): So far, in the two games that I’ve played, this has been the key to making the team work. I got her out in the first game and was able to hold Aiden off until he made a mistake and got too aggro one turn. I wasn’t able to field her the second game and his aggro blew me out of the water.

Sabretooth – Survivor (Orange): This one combo’d very well with Captain Marvel in the first game. I’m not sure if I was applying the rule correctly, but the two of them just held down the board for so many turns until I was able to set up for lethal.

Marvel Girl – Telekinetic (Yellow): I thought this character would be an integral part of the team, but I don’t think I’ve played it once. It would have been helpful in the second game against Aiden to save me a turn or two.

Green Dragon – Master Dragon (Green): Again, this is where the team all started. But, like Marvel Girl, I haven’t even had a chance to play the die. I don’t think that I’ve even bought one of the dice yet. Best laid plans, I guess.

Beast – Kreature (Blue): Along with Sabretooth, Beast provides relatively cheap defense while I try to dig for my more expensive dice. Again, combo’d nicely with Captain Marvel in that first game even if I’m not entirely sure that I was applying the rules correctly.

Psylocke – Ninjutsu (Violet): She was an unexpected MVP in the first game. Spun down a few characters. She even got a knockout or two. I will have to buy her more aggressively in the third game.

Giant Man – Original Avenger (Miscellaneous): This character is cheap for a lot of stats. Also, with sidekicks, you can easily spin him up to max level. I like this character a lot.

Doomsday – Unstoppable Rampage (Miscellaneous): Like Marvel Girl, I haven’t played Doomsday at all in the two games we’ve played. But, he is a strong character and the Iron Will keyword is a nice touch.

Action Dice

Smash and Shockwave: Both of these hope to take advantage of all the spinning down I am going to be hopefully doing. They are a bit redundant, but smash is cheaper and so far I haven’t had a need for any AoE. Maybe I will reevaluate after the third game to see if I can replace one of them with another card.

The Verdict

And, so we conclude our adventures in Dice Masters. The team fits very well with my personality. It is a possibly terrible team, but I have a ton of fun playing it. Stay tuned for more Dice Masters content as our two games have inspired me to buy more dice and cards. They’ll be here next week some time. Until then…

Just keep rollin….I’m sorry

On the Tabletop

DunGeons and Dragons: Destination Ravnica?

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Introduction

Dungeons and Dragons: Destination Ravnica? The title says it all. I remember back when Wizards of the Coast purchased the Dungeons and Dragons property from TSR, Inc. Being one of those grumpy old man gamers (more so even than I am now as an actual grumpy old man) who railed against the conglomeration happening at the time. I mean, generally speaking, it is a bad thing.

And this is under unfettered and unregulated capitalism. Technically, it’s not a monopoly, right?

Then things more or less went as they had been. It was like the Activision acquisition of Blizzard. People were concerned about that, as well. I mean, sure, you can make an argument that it hasn’t worked out well. And, trust me, people have made that argument. However, I still play Hearthstone daily and the new trailer for Shadowlands has me thinking about picking up World of Warcraft again.

My main point is that the WotC acquisition of Dungeons and Dragons and then the acquisition of WotC by Hasbro has more or less gone off without much of a hitch. Sure, there have been some growing pains, but mostly unless you knew, you’d probably not even know the difference.

Does this qualify as a growing pain? I mean, I enjoy playing it and so does Quinn, but I’m sure there are people who stopped playing MtG because of this.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. In addition to putting the MTG license on board games, they have also released Dungeons and Dragons products with Magic the Gathering lore. The first I heard of this was a campaign based in Ravnica. This makes sense because Ravnica is quite possibly the most popular plane in Magic the Gathering. Well, I finally got around to picking up the sourcebook for the campaign. How is it? I’m glad you asked.

The Great

Well Integrated – You got Dungeons and Dragons in my Magic the Gathering! You got Magic the Gathering in my Dungeons and Dragons! Two great tastes that taste great together? Well, actually, yes. I spend some time in the Dungeons and Dragons Beyond character creation and simply from that I can see that they’ve been able to blend the two games almost flawlessly.

As Chris and I discussed, the art alone is nearly worth the price.

In Depth – Not that I expect any less from Dungeons and Dragons, but you never know. They could have easily just mailed it in. They didn’t. There is an absurd amount of information in this book about the plane of Ravnica and the denizens that reside there. I felt like I was being transported to the plane of Ravnica as I read through the book. Honestly, they’re probably just happy that they get to finally share all of this information with us.

The Good

Sample Adventure – Speaking of mailing it in, the sample adventure that they’ve included in the book feels like just a bit of generic Dungeons and Dragons with the Ravnica characters tossed in for some flavor. I get it. It’s just a sample adventure and D&D has a certain feel to is, so maybe all adventures/games feel like this. I know I had a similar reaction to Pool of Radiance.

I mean, it is cool to see Krenko in this context.

Character Creation – As mentioned earlier, I spent a good two hours in the Dungeons and Dragons Beyond character creation tool. So, why isn’t this in the great section? Well, I now have these two characters that I’ve invested time and emotion into and now I don’t have a campaign to play them. Poor guys.

The Decent

Tables to create adventures – I know that not everyone is creative. However, I was a bit taken aback by the tables that they put in the book to create an adventure. Basically, nearly all of the decision making and creativity is taken out of the task of being a Dungeon Master. Ultimately, it doesn’t affect me and I can ignore it.

And, truth be told, I’ll probably use it once or twice for giggles.

I want more! – Yes, this is a cop out. No, I don’t care. Honestly, the only “bad” thing I can find about this is, in spite of how in depth it is, I still want more. More lore, more characters, more story. The whole thing is just a testament to how much I love both of these games. I can’t wait for Theros to be released.

The Verdict

You never know how these crossovers are going to go. Especially in comic books lately, their super summer crossover events have been lackluster. However, Dungeons and Dragons: Destination Ravnica is an overwhelming success. I already have the adventure that I wrote for the family and I will be sure to expand on that, but there’s nothing that says we can’t have multiple campaigns. See you on Ravnica!