Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning Review (Part 1 of 2)
A year ago, Wizards of the Coast released to some fanfare a new product line, the Premium Deck Series. Consisting of an all-foil theme deck, it was aimed at a very interesting segment of the market: casual players with an interest in pimp cards. Its Slivers tribal theme had zero Standard appeal however attractive the cards, but there was a welcome audience amongst the cube set who frequently enjoy using foils, foreign cards and alternate printings (promo, textless, etc) to make their creations stand out.
If Slivers fell far short of being an overwhelming success (you can still find them quite easily today for around $20), it was perhaps a failure in scope than it was in concept. Like most tribes, the Slivers have their adherents within the Magic community, but they are far fewer than say the Goblins or Elves. Having found that the right premium cards can command a large markup (see: From the Vaults), they returned to the drawing board and came up with an answer: don’t go deep, go broad.
News: More on the Event Decks
For those looking for more information on the forthcoming Event Decks early next year, additional information has been released on the mothership. It seems there will be two of them: one mono-Red, the other Blue/Black. Could this be the start of a return to the powerful precon?
Wizards Releases Fire & Lightning Deck List
Today on the mothership, Monty Ashley has offered us up a teaser for the forthcoming second product in the Premium Deck Series line: Fire & Lightning. It releases on 19 November… have a look!
Product Review: Archenemy Deck Box
Back in August, Ertai’s Lament broke an exclusive that Ultra Pro was releasing a line of deck obxes in conjunction with Magic’s Archenemy, designed to hold two decks and the over-size Scheme cards that came with the set. Ultra Pro had a similar release for last year’s Planechase, and we were excited to have a better way to organise these decks. We’ve been big fans of what Ultra Pro has done with the Duel Decks containers in the past, and of their sleeves in general, so we had high hopes that these would be a great addition to the precon library.
Unfortunately, they proved to be quite the disappointment. It seems that perhaps to cut down on production costs, rather than create a new box model to accomodate the needs of the decks, they instead used their standard size box and ‘make it work’ through jamming a removable folded plastic fitting from inside of it.
It’s hard to imagine that a company would issue a product that actually dissuades you from using their other products, but perhaps the most disappointing aspect of these boxes is that they will only fit the Archenemy decks if you don’t have them sleeved. If you’re as meticulous about the condition of your decks as we are and sleeve everything, you’ll have to be content with buying four of these boxes- two for the decks, and two for the Schemes. Unsurprisingly, any two top-loading Ultra Pro deck boxes will fit snugly inside the Archenemy box (as they do with the Duel Decks deck boxes).
Through our dealings with Ultra Pro customer service, we’ve been won over and continue to be huge fans of their products. But unless you’re willing to plunk down for four of these boxes, or settle for storing your decks unsleeved, you may want to give them a miss.
Hits: Very attractive presentation
Misses: This product needs a complete redesign. This product should be able to store two 60-card decks in sleeves as well as their respective sleeved Schemes. The flimsy insert design is an unusual misstep for Ultra Pro, trying to jockey off of an existing mold to avoid the expense of creating a proper one
FINAL GRADE: 2.5/5.0
UPDATE: We also ordered some Planechase deck boxes, and upon their arrival found them to contain 60 regular sleeves and 10 larger, Plane-sized ones. This indicated a flaw in our understanding of the product- they’re not designed to hold two decks, merely one each. Thus, 60 sleeved cards will fit in a box, but you have to break them into two piles.
Just to be fair, we took a 60-card sleeved deck and sleeved oversize companion cards, and put them in one of the boxes. Here’s what we found:
> The “folded insert” option is inelegant, and holds the 60 cards of the deck quite sloppily
> The room for the oversize cards is also over-spacous, so they will rattle around quite a bit in the back
This supports our initial observation that Ultra Pro seemed to take an existing box mold (for their Duel Decks products), and jury-rigged it to “feature” the Archenemy/Planechase decks. Out conclusion (and grade) stands- unless you’re an absolute purist for storage, or a collector at heart, you’ll have better options than these. Heretofore we’ve stored our oversize cards in an empty Intro Pack box, which workes perfectly well. In some ways, better actually…
Still, it would not have been fair to let our misconception stand. One deck box, one deck. We do love that Ultra Pro is trying, but there is room for improvement. The single biggest change we’d recommend? Lose that dreadful folded insert, and make them like they were designed to hold the cards.
As always, your mileage may vary…
Duel Decks- Divine vs Demonic: Demonic Review (Part 2 of 2)
After a less-than-satisfactory performance in our last playtest, the Demonic hordes would take to the field one last time in a clash against their hated foes, the Angels of Divine. Under new leadership, would they at last assume their rightful place of dominance in the multiverse, or would the heavenly host flush them like so much offal back to the hells they spawned from? We played the customary three matches to find out.
Duel Decks- Divine vs Demonic: Divine Deck Review (Part 2 of 2)
And so the earth cracked and was torn asunder as the forces of Hell boiled up from the abyss to meet the legions of Heaven descending from the sky. Alternately… Sam and I sat down at the table to pit the Divine against the Demonic for a series of three games, to see how each deck would perform. The former may sound more full of Sturm und Drang, but on a lazy Sunday afternoon the latter was just what was called for. Here are our notes from the three games.
Duel Decks- Divine vs Demonic: Demonic Deck Review (Part 1 of 2)
Far from the hallowed heights of heaven, today we descend into the brimstone pits of hell to take measure of the infernal forces arrayed against the Divine deck. When it comes to the Duel Decks, the second analysis is often the more interesting one, as the grand vision of the decks’ designers comes into focus. For Divine, we had a trade-the-early-game-for-the-late-game strategy, with gobs of absurdly expensive bombs, little removal and even less ramping. The idea there was to stall out for the early and mid-game with some light creature presence, then take over the skies as early as turn 4 and beat down your opponent.
There are, naturally, a number of different responses to this strategy. Obviously, there’s always the option of the ‘mirror’- do the exact same thing, but in Black (this was the Anthologies method). Alternately, you could go the other direction entirely and show a contrast in strategy, meeting a slower opponent with a faster Black creature rush (as seen in Phyrexia vs the Coalition). In the end, however, it looks as if Demonic charts something of a maiddle path here. Faster than Divine but not blisteringly fast by any means, it comfortably moves into the ground abdicated by Divine and demands control of the mid-game.
To see how it accomplishes this, we’ll turn now to the creatures of Demonic.
Duel Decks- Divine vs Demonic: Divine Deck Review (Part 1 of 2)
Flush off the success of 2008’s Duel Decks: Jace vs Chandra, Wizards alternated back to the “tribe vs tribe” theme that had kicked off the series (Evles vs Goblins) with the April 2009 release of Divine vs Demonic. Featuring some of the all-stars of the Angels and Demons factions, the set pits a mono-White deck versus its mono-Black counterpart. In both cases, the designers have followed a strategy of “large creatures, light ramping.” This balance tends to yield a relatively uneventful early game with things picking up in the mid- to late-game- heavily lopsided games are always possible (this is, after all, Magic: the Gathering), but in general there should be some dynamic interactions between the two decks.
Today we’ll be taking a look at the mono-White Divine. Packing in an impressive fourteen Angels, the question then becomes whether or not the deck sacrificed some playability for flavour. That said, Duel Decks aren’t like your normal preconstructed products, as they’re generally only intended to be balanced against each other. A deck can be nearly unplayable, but if its opposite number is equally so then voila! Balance!
Obviously it is not in Wizards’ interest to develop an unplayable product. Instead, what this means is that in reviewing the Duel Decks, we shouldn’t judge too harshly when we note that there are a higher-than-comfortable number of very expensive spells in the deck if it is a component of the play experience the Duel Deck is trying to foster.
With that said, let’s now turn to Divine and see how the deck has been constructed, starting of course with the creatures.
Wizards Announces Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons
Today Wizards announced the next in the series of Duel Decks, Knights vs Dragons! You can read the article here, but aficionados of heraldry take note- any similarities to the Rebel Alliance are strictly coincidental!
Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons will be released on 01 April, 2011.
Anthologies: Red/Black Deck Review (Part 2 of 2)
Delighted at putting the prospect playing Anthologies behind us, Sam and I cracked open the deck boxes for the last time and brought the decks to battle. The disappointments of the Green/White deck were not far outclassed by those in the Red/Black, but I was mollified, at least, at the prospect of playing burn. Jimi had had little luck in drawing it when she helmed the deck, and I had hopes that my luck would be the better.
Ertai's Lament 