On September 30th the next standalone set for Magic comes out; Innistrad,. Very little is known at this time, of course, since previews are always kept under wraps in order to generate as much hype as possible. The first big sightings of cards will probably be at PAX. Which I'm going to!
But I probably won't bother with much. Here's why: you have to play a game to get a ticket to the event where the new cards will be on display. That's cool, right? A fun way to generate some excitement, since everyone is at a gaming convention anyway and yeah, I tend to like this.
What I don't like is being packed into a tiny, labyrinthine club designed by the architects from Hell and Florence, with sweating, hyper excited people trying to vie for space to see cards and being told I have to play another game. Just give me my free drink, let me see the cards and talk to people and relax. If you want another game, have a lottery! Something where I don't have to pay attention to win, I can just look around and enjoy. There isn't space to play a game of the nature WotC wants to run and I wish they'd just stop it.
That tiny rant aside, what I do know about Innistrad are two things: First, that the set will have a lot of classic horror themes: vampires, werewolves, zombies and ghosts. Humans are included but humans are always horrible and boring to boot. Going to magical planes where fantastical creatures exist to find white guys is not what I'd call rating high on the excite-o-meter.
Second; the set will have a graveyard-based mechanics, including the return of a classic, Flashback. Which is just fine, since I have decks that use the graveyard as a resource. I can solidify decks that were shaky or modify concepts that were good but needed help.
It also means that suddenly, decks that I might want to talk about or have had inspirations on, have to be put into a holding pattern around my brain. In some cases, as with my Children of the Grave deck (coming soon to this blog!) I want to wait to see if any of the new cards help me with the strategy of that deck (in this case a reanimation deck) or if the mechanics help other decks, including one I have that uses Flashback specifically. At the same time, there are other decks, such as Frenzy-also soon to appear at this blog-where I'm waiting for a card to rotate out, to see if I can pick it up for cheaper. Though with the creation of the Modern format, that day may not come so I'll just have to suck it up. Maybe.
Through all that, of course, I wait. There's nothing for me to get excited or despair about so it's better to just focus on what matters; the now.
No post on Thursday though, as I'll be in Seattle preparing for the insanity that is PAX.
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