Snapcaster back to reality

I know that's not a great pic of the northern lights, but it was taken in the heart of Anchorage (where the northern lights are often hard to see due to light pollution) in September. So I like it and I'm keeping it.

Anyways...

There's a new Magic set coming out this weekend, Reality Fracture. A lot of people are super hyped for it. It's back in the Magic universe and it'll be a full size set. I'd say there's good reason to by hyped. Yet I am not. I was for a good while, but as previews for the set have been coming out, that hype has left me.

For starters, the story is OK at best, but I've already talked about that. The thing more taking the wind out of my sails for this set is that the set design itself seems uninspired to me. They're using a lot of call backs to old cards that were popular, almost to the point it feels like too much for me. 

They're also going to be doing this thing where they're pairing cards together (called "echoed pairs") in such a way that every pack you open will have an echoed pair in it. Considering most those echoed pairs, by a large number, are at uncommon rarity, I feel like people are going to be pulling a whole lot of the same echoed pairs over and over. It's honestly lazy and Wizards of the Coast's part and a pathetic marketing gimmick that a lot of people seem to think sounds great. (Probably because Magic fanboys are absolutely insufferable idiots, but that's a post for another time). 

Also, after watching some gameplay video, the set feels like it has some major power creep in it, particularly at lower rarity levels. I know power creep is inevitable, especially from a design team that is obviously running out of ideas and a company (Hasbro) that can't figure out how to turn a profit from any other product they make, so they keep pushing Magic in a way that would make Lee Iacocca proud. I will note, I often overestimate the power level of a lot of sets and it turns out not as bad as I thought it would be. But I'm going to be very surprised if we don't see a few of these cards become instant power houses in the pauper format.

It also looks like the limited environment is going to be removal heavy for red and black (again) with not much protection afforded or the other colors. We just went through a set (The Hobbit) where players figured out the limited environment in a matter of days and made draft an almost pointless endeavor for the set. Again, I may be wrong, this is definitely a time will tell kind of thing. But the little bit of gameplay I've already watched has me worried this will be another set I skip going to any draft nights for.

All that said, I'm still planning to go to at least one pre-release event this weekend, possibly even two depending on how much homework I can get done before the weekend. There's a certain excitement at pre-release events that's hard to beat, even when I'm not excited for the new set.

Song of the Day