Monday, October 5, 2009

My Review of Zendikar

Well the new Zendikar spoiler is out and everyone and their grandma are writing reviews, so I thought I would through my opinion into mix. I don't usually review Magic sets since I think my Magic skills are merely average but if I'm an average player then my opinion is very important, since the biggest group of Magic players are "average".

The visual look of the cards don't seem that exciting and although I do like the few cards that feature "hedrons", floating land masses, 99% of the cards look very average. Usually every Magic set looks different and has its own distinct style, but this set seems very common and unexciting.

The 16 trap cards stand out in my opinion because they feel very new and fresh. The last time I felt this twinge of excitement is when I saw the new planeswalker cards in Lorwyn. The cards seem like a real "trap" because if your opponent fulfills the trap's condition, the card can be played for a cheaper cost. Most of the trap cards are uncommon and shouldn't be too hard to get. The trap cards are very useful and can definitely be added to any casual deck.

Inferno Trap regularly costs 3R but it only costs R if you are damaged by two of more creatures this turn. Some of the trap cards are designed to thwart specific type of decks, Needlebite Trap dislikes decks that gain life and Summoning Trap targets blue control. Needlebite Trap has a printed cost of 5BB but can be cast for just one black mana if you opponent gained life during this turn. Summoning Trap can be cast for 0 if your creature spell is countered.

Personally I have no idea how good Zendikar is to draft. Wizards of the Coast tries very hard to makes set draft friendly, so I presume that Zendikar drafts well. There are no multi-colored cards, so you can go back to drafting normal 2 or 3 color draft decks.

And I forgot to say it but the basic lands are my favorite cards. They look great and I think Wizards should do basic lands like this for ALL of their sets. I'm tired of basic lands looking crappy.

3 comments:

  1. I played Sealed on Friday's Release Party. I went 2-2 with a White/Green deck. I got trapped often, and only a couple times was able to use my couple traps on the other players. Landfall made for some very repetitive turns and games.

    UPS lost a couple cases for the shop, and they had to crack Fat Packs to make up enough sealed pools. So I couldn't pick up a box. I bought the white intro pack because my sealed deck was centered around the Kor, and I think I'll build up my Standard deck from there.

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  2. Sounds like you had fun. Landfall sounds interesting but only time will tell how good or bad it is.

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  3. I agree on the artwork. The color palette for some of these later sets are pretty boring and "samey". Maybe that is by design for a cohesive look, but it makes none of the cards really stand out in any way IMO.

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