M15 pt 2

Why? Because I haven't had a chance to play a single game of Magic since Sunday.

Sometimes, it's like that. Instead, I've been looking over the M15 spoiler and I have to admit: I think the hype is justified, at least as far as making constructed decks go. I have no idea what the draft environment will work like, although I have a suspicion it may resemble a bit of Onslaught from years ago, where you hope to get a giant creature and ride that to victory.

That doesn't mean M15 is absent removal or some really solid aggro spells and creatures. Just that the eye popping ones, especially the avatars, with their graveyard abilities, suggest that looking for the biggest beast is a good thing.

Or maybe I'm blinded by cool fatties, and don't know a thing about draft. That's the most likely thing, since it is true.

The Planeswalkers are especially juicy, interacting with other Planeswalkers....which has ups and downs.

Magic is a game that lacks enough ways to really deal with Planeswalkers, which can provide the player who was able to acquire a bunch of them a significant advantage over the player who could not, likely due to financial reasons. Which makes the game about money instead of skill. Again. Previously, it was about mana bases; now that those are cheap(er) we are seeing Planeswalkers as the next step of power.

I'm not discounting how cool it is for the new Garruk to destroy other Planeswalkers, nor Ajani to give them a boost! I think that's awesome. It's just that Hero's Downfall is listed as a $5 card and that's because of one little bit of text: 'destroy target...planeswalker'. The card type is seven years old and I still don't think we have enough appropriate ways to handle them.

Still, it's been a long, long time since I saw a Magic set, much less a core set, that seemed to be doing so many interesting things. This one is really giving the impression of a 'gathering' a place where the planes of Magic converge and you could see anything from any dimension they have visited. The big creatures are worth playing, the small creatures are reasonably valuable and the connections to Theros block (enchantments and auras) as well as the potential setup for the next block (enemy colors, creature type matters) is executed well.

So far, so good.