I’ve had a handful of great experiences with Joshua Toulouse’sDungeons & Dragons(D&D) adventure series Kobold Crazinesssince its debut, but my absolute favorite campaign is the one I ran with my two young sons, Clifford (5), and Ash (3).
I’ve played D&D with three of the people in this video, and it brings me joy just seeing their faces in the preview. I hope you like this video.
Kobold Crazinesstakes place in Icewind Dale’s Ten-Towns region and follows a number of small reptilian humanoids called kobolds who start acting strangely. What’s going on with the kobolds? This is the question at the heart of Toulouse’s series. The mystery unfolds over the course of four adventure modules, Ice to Mead You, More Than a Stealing, Two Kobolds in a Trench Coat, and The Enemy Mine.
I remember reading a section of Two Kobolds in a Trench Coat where Toulouse invites players to complete a series of skill challenges, and thinking to myself, wow, my kids would really love this. I could simplify some of the core rules, and just watch the boys take flight.
It was the perfect plan.
How could it have gone so terribly wrong?
Initially, the boys were excited to play “Kobolds,” and their “Uncle Josh” even set up official Roll20 sessions for them. It wasn’t until we got to the third session, the one with the skill challenges, that things went awry.
Ash insisted on playing two characters, a blue dragonborn named Sogia, and a red dragonborn named Dragon. Cliff chose a “cat person,” or tabaxi, ninja named Bosso.
Poor, poor Bosso! He didn’t deserve his fate.
The first skill challenge was a musical performance for a bar full of mercenaries.
The first and… also the last.
Bosso met the challenge courageously. Cliff even made-up lyrics and a melody on the spot:
Oh, my baby, She says to me, She says to me
But Cliff rolled poorly, and Bosso failed the test.
Toulouse’s instructions in Kobold Crazinesshelped me grow as a DM. For example, in Ice to Mead Youthere are a series of perception checks where the character with the highest roll notices something. I asked Toulouse about this later and he was vehement about the fact that forward progression in a game should not depend on a good roll. Yes, Toulouse’s adventure modules can make you a better DM, but no instructions could have stopped what happened next.
“You look like a powerful adventurer,” the bartender Scramsax, voiced by yours truly, said to Bosso. “Perhaps you should stick to your day job.”
“What does that mean?” Cliff asked me, out of character.
“Scramsax was making fun of Bosso,” I clarified. “He didn’t like the performance.”
Bosso was literally caterwauling in front of a crowd of villains. We should have had a good laugh about it, but my son drew the line at bullying, and we’ve never returned to Kobold Crazinesssince.
In a weird way, the fact that Cliff quit the game is actually a testament to its excellence. Cliff was so fully engrossed in Bosso’s lived experience that he felt the pain of someone teasing him, and he had the opportunity to exercise his moral beliefs. His preschool teacher Miss Tina taught him that making fun of people is not OK, and that was the hill where he made his stand. Some of us will never have such a visceral experience while playing a game, and, outside of the amazing mind of my son, the only person who can take credit for that is Toulouse.
I’m not surprised that Toulouse’s storytelling captivated the imaginations of my two young boys. After all, the Tiemeyer family has adventured with Toulouse for over a decade now. One of my best memories is when Toulouse’s min-centaur (half-minotaur, half-centaur, because, why not?) rolled well enough to “Kool Aid Man” through a wall during our original Living Greyhawk campaign. Playing D&D led to Toulouse running games as a DM himself, and before long he was helping run organized play for three separate game stores in the bustling college town of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Toulouse effortlessly brushes off his rise to power. “I had just moved to a new town,” he once told me. “How else was I supposed to meet people?”
Running games in Knoxville, Toulouse gained a deep familiarity with Adventurers League (AL), the official campaign for D&D organized play. The logical next step was to write AL adventures. If you’re unfamiliar, AL is divided into seasons, and each season has a wide variety of related content to choose from. Some adventures are official modules published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). Other adventures, like Toulouse’s series, are published according to third-party content guidelines on Dungeon Masters Guild (DMs Guild). Toulouse wrote Kobold Crazinessfor the tenth season of AL, A Plague of Ancients, which coincided with the release of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Each of Toulouse’s four modules grow out of adventure seeds found in the Dungeoncraft Adventures guide, but Kobold Crazinessstands apart from other AL adventures in that it was written intentionally as a prelude to Icewind Dale. Rather than playing through a loose series of prompts in Ten-Towns, as the first chapter of Icewind Dale encourages, Toulouse instead offers an opportunity to engage in an intricate mystery. I suspect that many DMs might see this as a deeply satisfying lead-in to a much longer campaign.
Having organized hundreds of AL adventures over the years, Toulouse had the opportunity to learn what works and doesn’t work. This plays out in Kobold Crazinesson three separate levels:
DM Level: It’s a really smooth adventure. As a relatively inexperienced DM, I ran this for two rambunctious children who can’t even read, and it worked just fine because Toulouse doesn’t get in his own way. I’ve read board books to these kids that are more convoluted than Kobold Craziness. That means more DMs can run it, and more players can use it as a springboard into DMing for the first time.
Content Creator Level: It’s a great template for your own published adventures. While writing Temps: A Clerical Nightmarefor publication on DMs Guild, I flipped back and forth between Kobold Crazinessand official adventures like Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat to make sure my adventure read like a D&D adventure.
Activist Level: It exemplifies what D&D ought to be. I can’t stand toxic fandom, but I’m a strong supporter of constructive criticism. D&D is healthier every time someone posts a good faith Twitter thread about a problematic mechanic, especially when the conversation that spins out of it is solution oriented. D&D is healthier still when people like Toulouse make the needed changes themselves through their own published material, and I want to linger on this thought for a bit.
There are three pillars of play in D&D, combat, exploration, and social, and yet the core rulebooks feature pages and pages devoted to combat alone, which can quickly funnel gameplay into three fights and a boss battle night after night. One thing I appreciate about Toulouse is that he works very hard to make social and exploration encounters vibrant and interesting. Kobold Craziness features sixteen hours of gameplay, and you’d be hard pressed to find five forced combat encounters during that time. That’s really something.
I nearly paraphrased a Gandhi quote in that last paragraph, but I decided against it because base game mechanics are maybe not the loftiest place to “be the change you want to see in the world.” When it comes to the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) community, the greatest change we could affect would be to remove barriers that keep players and groups from feeling welcome at our tables. I don’t really see inclusion as a topic that’s up for discussion anymore. I can watch “adults” do rhetorical gymnastics all day trying to defend their “plausibly non-racist” hatred for a black mermaid, but it remains the fact that representation helps people visualize their own future success.
Full stop. Period.
Toulouse approaches inclusion with the perennial writing adage of “show, don’t tell.” As you progress through Kobold Craziness, getting closer and closer to the source of the… kobold craziness, you meet a pair of non-binary wood elves delivering mead, a bar patron with a prosthetic foot and another with a rudimentary hearing aid, a same sex couple looking for their lost child, and a priest of a god who takes both male and female forms. It’s true that we need sledgehammers to tear down structures of oppression, and that’s something Toulouse actually has the opportunity to do at his other job, but we need different tools entirely to build a just future. Through immersion in this fantasy world, we can engage with a wider variety of people than we might see day to day. In this microcosm, we can write a new script. With Toulouse, the question will never be about the historical accuracy of a medieval warlock in a wheelchair; it will always be about a safe and open gaming space for all interested parties.
In his memoir A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway writes about living in Paris with an assortment of literary legends including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ford Madox Ford, who are collectively known as the lost generation. What does any of this have to do with my review for Kobold Craziness? Good question. There’s an idea housed between the covers of this book that hasn’t left me alone since I read it twenty years ago in college. You see, Ezra Pound wanted to set up a fund called Bel Esprit to liberate T.S. Eliot from his bank job so he could devote all his efforts to writing, and who wouldn’t want to do that for a friend?
A review like this is often going to read like a sales pitch. It has features and benefits. It has closing language to push you into making a decision. In a lot of ways, it’s no different from my day job in a sales call center. For some of you, that’s exactly what you need, information to differentiate Toulouse’s works from the works of all the other creators on DMs Guild, and a kick in the pants to make you log in and buy Kobold Craziness. For the rest of you, let’s think of this as Bel Esprit. I started my own journey as a creator by first supporting my friends and the things they’ve created. With every download, I hope I’ve assuaged someone’s imposter syndrome. With every penny spent, I vote for someone to keep creating. Toulouse is a decent person who’s been there for me when I needed him. Let’s take a page from Ezra Pound’s book (see what I did there?) and liberate our mutual friend.
I’m going to give you a few links, and I can’t stop you from thinking this is all about free market capitalism, but I want you to imagine that you’re doing something good when you support Toulouse. You can pick up the Kobold Crazinessbundle here. It includes all four episodes, and a discount is automatically applied for any modules you already own. If you’re feeling particularly sassy, you can buy each module separately:
If you want to bug Toulouse on Twitter, I recommend you follow him here. Maybe if we ask nicely, he’ll write us some more AL content. Finally, if you’ve already purchased, read, and played any of Toulouse’s modules, please make sure you leave a good review on DMs Guild. It’s one of the best ways for creators to get noticed, and Toulouse’s work deserves notice.
Behold, a wild Herbalist’s Primer in its natural habitat.
Anna Urbanek of Double Proficiency describes her new book Herbalist’s Primer as “a system-agnostic illustrated guide to real-world magical plants. Inspired by the 19th century herbalists and the millennia of folklore, myths, and legends, it brings a wealth of easily-accessible, organized information straight to your gaming table.” Personally, I think “force of nature” (pun intended) is more appropriate. The Kickstarter for Herbalist’s Primerwas funded in, what? Minutes? Seconds? Honestly, it went so fast. It was hard to keep track of. Here’s what I can say for certain: when the smoke cleared, Backerkit had some great statistics on the phenomenon.
(I hope you love graphs, because here they come!)
Kickstarter
Backerkit’s funding progress on Kickstarter graph for Herbalist’s Primer
Backerkit’s daily funding on Kickstarter graph for Herbalist’s Primer
Backerkit’s daily backers on Kickstarter graph for Herbalist’s Primer
Herbalist’s Primer had a modest funding goal of $10,000. Backers pledged $76,011 on the first day of the campaign alone. That’s $52.79 in pledges PER MINUTE! Now, that happened on August 25, 2021, the first and best day for funding. Let’s take a look at the worst day, September 6, when Urbanek only raised $10,329. Oh, wait! That’s not so bad, is it? It means that Herbalist’s Primer met its funding goal at least once every day for the entire 30 days of the campaign. The grand total was $814,807, nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS, for a fully funded (and then some) campaign.
Ahem. ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
Are you with me on the “force of nature” description yet?
In retrospect, we can all say that Herbalist’s Primer was such a great success story because the book is such a great product, but that’s not something I knew when I backed the Kickstarter on day one of the campaign. I had to rely on trust, which, I think, is a very important topic in the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) community. After all, what must one do to inspire 18,725 backers to trust someone with $814,807? I’m sure there are more than a handful of creators with current or future crowdfunding aspirations who would love to solve that riddle.
It was easy for me to trust Urbanek, because she came highly recommended to me. She was fresh off a gig with Fragging Unicorns Games (FUG) and her Twitter presence suggested that she shared their values of kindness, mutual support, and subverting structures of oppression. That went a long way for me, as did Tweets like this from FUG:
One of the most consistent praises we hear about the Gangs of the Undercity rulebook is how pretty and well laid out it is. That is due 100% to the talents of [Anna Urbanek]. She’s the best at what she does!
Fragging Unicorns Games
While tweets like this serve as proof of work ethic, Urbanek’s own tweets provide proof of concept. For weeks prior to the Herbalist’s Primer Kickstarter launch, Urbanek posted beautiful plant illustrations and musings from her research. Here are just a couple of the pictures that showed up on my feed:
The art was on point. The content was killer. Supporting Urbanek’s Kickstarter was a no-brainer for me.
The Book
A fine, upstanding book, the Herbalist’s Primer is.
Herbalist’s Primer is a reference book, not a novel, which means that you can read any of its myriad sections in any order you want. You could read the last page first if you wanted and it wouldn’t ruin anything. That’s not how I approached the book, though. I’m a completionist by nature, but I’m also someone for whom every element of this book applies. I studied biology in college. My mom studied biology in college. My dad sure didn’t, but I have it on good authority that the only thing he’s leaving me in his will is his dusty old collection of Mother Earth News magazines from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Every time I opened the dictionary as a child, I’d find dried flowers pressed between the pages. I had what you might call a botany-heavy childhood. Fast forward to now, and you’ll see that adult me doesn’t take nearly as many trips to the greenhouse as child me did, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on flora. In fact, the first time I ever reached out to Urbanek was to discuss my plans to expand upon existing herbalism rules in Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).
Content warning: griping about D&D.
In my opinion, the best reason for investing in Herbalist’s Primer, and the reason I backed it on day one, is for incorporating herbalism into D&D and other TTRPG campaigns. In its current state, I would describe herbalism in D&D as under-supported and tedious. The Player’s Handbook (PHB) doesn’t have specific rules for herbalism per se, but it definitely gives you enough information to cobble something together. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything revisits and expands on the generic crafting resources in PHB, but the first words on the topic point to the exact reason herbalism gets passed over in most campaigns:
A character who has the time, the money, and the needed tools can use downtime to craft armor, weapons, clothing, or other kinds of nonmagical gear.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
In other words, your peers have blocked off their Friday nights to fight monsters, and you’ve decided to use their precious time brewing potions. Not only that, but you may end up spending enough gold on tools and raw materials that you’re better off just buying the items from a merchant.
I am well aware that D&D doesn’t have to be all things to all players, and this is one of many ways the game is like a religion. Another way, and perhaps the more powerful of the two, is that D&D has cultural elements that bind players to the game. While an individual member of a play group may be willing to try other games, changing the minds of the other players may require a herculean effort. Often, it’s easier to just homebrew your own rules, and you can even turn a small profit from publishing them, which is exactly what I planned to do with Urbanek’s assistance. When Urbanek started posting teasers for Herbalist’s Primer, I was working on a supplement that would make herbalism and other crafts into vibrant D&D features. My plan was to emulate the professions system in World of Warcraft, and make it into a play-by-post minigame players could do throughout the week. Herbalist’s Primeris perfect for a project like this for the following reasons:
The Recipes section of Practical Herbalist lists ingredients for various potions
The Plant Location Guide provide plant biomes for random foraging tables
The Adventure Seeds appendix prompts you to build your encounters around botany
The Plant Generation Tables help you create your own magical plants
The Basics of Herbal Magic chapter and Magical Properties sections of each entry in the Plant Guide provide a lot of general herbalism flavor
Compatible with all TTRPG. Can you believe it?
Herbalist’s Primer is also great for readers with an interest in botany, who will love the Basics of Botany section from the lore Primer and the almanac-style descriptions in the Plant Guide. I found the discussion of taxonomy in Basics of Botany both refreshing and disturbing: refreshing because the modernist obsession with cataloguing everything strikes a chord with my type-A list maker and organizer tendencies, and disturbing because there’s a strong connection between taxonomy and European colonialism. Urbanek acknowledges the injustices of linguistic assimilation inherent in scientific taxonomy in the Botanical Latin Primer appendix:
Botanical Latin is not real Latin, and nobody really knows how to pronounce it. All purists trying to correct you are just doing it as a self-indulgent hobby. About 80% of the general names and 30% of specific epithets come from languages other than Latin; therefore, establishing a ‘correct’ way of pronouncing it is impossible.
If you want to take the next step and delve into herbal medicine, Herbalist’s Primer is a great resource for you as well. Now, this is a topic that I’m of two minds about. On the one hand, I just read Tara Westover’s memoir Educated, where her mother uses herbal remedies for serious injuries where the victims should have definitely been brought to the hospital instead. On the other hand, ancient herbalism, relying on observation, trial, and error, is an important predecessor to science, and it’s still quite useful, even life-saving, in Bear Grylls-style survival situations. Urbanek addresses some of the more problematic applications of this practice in Basics of Herbalism, where she distinguishes between herbalism and paraherbalism, describing the latter as “rooted in superstition and exploitation of the gullible.” There’s a wealth of knowledge in the Medicinal Properties section for each plant, but Urbanek disclaims that “this is not medical advice; the author is not a doctor or a certified herbalist, nor does she desire to be one.” Here’s how I read this book: a tincture of aconite may be great for reducing sinus pain when the weather takes a turn for the worse, but I wouldn’t risk using it when my three-year-old’s fever is at 103 degrees and climbing. That’s a good time for ibuprofen and maybe even a trip to an urgent care center.
I’m aware of one other use for Herbalist’s Primer, but I admit it’s not something I have a ton of experience with, and that’s as a guide for actual magical rituals. Wicca is a modern pagan religion, and while I know it scares a lot of folks, the damage done by practitioners of Wicca, if even measurable, is insignificant compared to every single religion I’ve ever studied, and I’ve taught classes in comparative religion. There’s never been a Wiccan Constantine. There’s never been a Wiccan Taiping Rebellion. There’s never been a Wiccan Inquisition. The malignment of this religion is greatly out of proportion with the deeds of its practitioners. I’m glad we’re all on the same page about that. Now, presumably, the same sections of Herbalist’s Primer that Urbanekdevotes to herbal magic in gaming can also be used in real magic. I know for a fact that these sections enrich the presentation of magic in literature. Though author Alix E. Harrow didn’t use Herbalist’s Primer to furnish the words, ways and will that made her novel The Once and Future Witches an instant classic, I have no doubt that aspiring authors could use it to achieve similar success. I also firmly believe that rituals can have real, psychological importance, so while tossing cloves into the wind at midnight may not literally ward against your enemies, doing so may help you let go of a perceived offense that’s kept you from sleeping for weeks. Sadly, I’m a bit too agnostic about actual magic to guarantee that Herbalist’s Primer will assist you in your own magical practices. For that, you would have to ask your local Wiccan, or buy the book and find out for yourself.
Look at that list. Definitely more uses for Herbalist’s Primer than I included in this review. Probably more than even Urbanek expected.
My best pitch for picking up Herbalist’s Primer is that it comes with unintended consequences. For example, I mentioned earlier that I bought this book to incorporate herbalism into my D&D games. Well, I haven’t done that yet, not even once, but I have used the floriography examples from the Language of Flowers appendix a surprising amount of times. Is my friend Sarah using almond flour for her vegan cookies because of her son’s food allergy, or is she secretly invoking floriography to send messages of hope to an overwhelmed world? You decide.
Boom. Unintended consequences.
You’re going to find things in Herbalist’s Primer you didn’t know you were looking for, and the more support Urbanek gets, the more books she will write. Already, she’s hard at work researching, writing, and illustrating a book called Geologist’s Primer, and you know I need that in my life! After all, my wife’s a geologist and I want more mining and blacksmithing in my D&D campaigns. As for the Herbalist’s Primer Kickstarter campaign, it’s currently in the fulfillment phase. For those of you who missed out, the book will be available soon in both physical and digital form via Exalted Funeral and a number of other retailers to be announced at a later date. If you wish to follow other projects, head over to the Double Proficiency website where you’ll find a ton of TTRPG products made by Urbanek and her partner Jakub Wisz like the Wayfarer’s Deck, the Globetrotter’s Guide to Greenery, and the Aphelion toolkit, which I’ve been hearing a lot about recently. It looks really cool. I also recommend following Urbanek and Wisz on Twitter. They’re super active members of the TTRPG community. Finally, I’m going to repeat, buy their stuff, because that means they will make more stuff, and I want them to make more stuff, because I want to buy it. It’s a glorious cycle, and easy to get caught up in!
This is the bootleg Gangs Jr logo, not to be confused with the official Gangs Jr logo, which is going to be super cool.
Gangs Jr is an all-ages mod for the cyberpunk fantasy skirmish game Gangs of the Undercity (GotU) by Fragging Unicorns Games (FUG). If you’re interested in learning more about the original game, hop over to the FUG website or check out my review.
Status
4/19/2022: Thanks to an amazing review by Steph at the TTRPGkids blog, Gangs Jr is already getting good press. As of right now, Gangs Jr is undergoing final edits and formatting. I’m not going to commit to a release date just yet for a couple of reasons:
This is my first game, and I don’t know what I don’t know
I don’t want to motivate myself to take shortcuts, especially as this game is connected to a brand I love and respect.
Opti of FUG, my game design mentor and good friend, once told me:
My advice is to cherish any and all feedback as if it came from Mt. Olympus itself. Make changes, even if it is hard, because these folks are the ones giving you the BEST benefit of the doubt and WANT you to succeed. If they think things need to change, they probably do, even if it is a darling.
– Opti
I’m doing exactly that. The playtesters liked the draft I gave them. You’re going to love the draft that incorporates their feedback.
Reviews
As I mentioned earlier, Gangs Jr received its first review from playtester Steph C. of TTRPGkids. Check out her review here:
I’m very close to the debut of my first game, but I couldn’t have gotten there alone. Here are a handful of people to whom I owe EVERYTHING:
Opti and the team at FUG, for making the groundbreaking skirmish game GotU, for giving me free rein to develop around it, and for endless support.
Steph at TTRPGkids, for playtesting my game and showcasing it before her huge audience.
All the other playtesters, for taking time out of their lives to play an untested game, provide encouragement to its creator, and brainstorm ways it can reach more people.
My family, for providing emotional support and being my first listeners, first editors, first playtesters, and all-around first in my heart.
Thank you for taking the time to check out Gangs Jr. I’ll get a great final product out to you just as soon as I can!
In the meantime, here are some other Koala Bear Swamp activities you can engage in:
The Halaster’s Compass box set by Druidic Prophecies. Coming soon!
The Druid’s Head is a real life pub in Kingston upon Thames, a borough of London, England. I don’t know what entertains me most about this tavern, the fact that it predates the existence of the United States by a century or so, that NathanaRE5PITE gave it five stars on TripAdvisor for their “Delectable Halloumi Platter and Sweet Potato Koftas, followed by a classic Sticky Toffee pudding” (in a review titled, “Mulled Cider btw”), or that both things could be said of the same place.
For me, a Yankee, this feels like an anachronism. If a restaurant in my hometown keeps its doors open for 40 years, I feel like it could survive the sudden heat death of the universe. The idea that a place might serve food from Elizabethan times through to the invention of the Internet is beyond me. If I were to dine at a historical monument like the Druid’s Head, I wouldn’t be able to think of anything but the Druid’s Head itself. As it turns out, the same might be said of Ed Laccohee.
Ed is a sharp-witted creative-type with an eye for process who’s been playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since the early ‘80s. Periodically, Ed meets up with another Ed, collaborator Ed Reeves, at the Druid’s Head. They grab a pint and talk about their forthcoming original D&D campaign. Together, Ed Laccohee and Ed Reeves are Druidic Prophecies.
“Cassone”
“Over the years, we watched D&D make a resurgence and come to prominence,” Ed reflected. “It was watching these shows, YouTube channels, and podcasts that got us thinking, ‘Why don’t we put out our own material?’”
What resulted was a D&D campaign titled Halaster’s Compass: The Mirrorland Prophecies, which prominently features a fictional location also called the Druid’s Head (with no relation to our Elizabethan hold-out).
One evening, while interviewing Ed, he sent me the following message: “I’m late on info for you. Funnily enough, I’m in the Druid’s Head tonight in Kingston, UK. Just minus the minotaurs.”
That’s right, the fictional Druid’s Head has minotaurs. Are you not intrigued?
Within the gaming community, the running joke is that every game starts with the same five words: “You meet in a tavern.” This meme has grown to epic proportions:
Ed has his own particular spin on the meme. Not only does each adventure in Halaster’s Compass begin in the Druid’s Head tavern, but each adventure in-corporates a severed body part from an ex-corporated (dead, deceased, or, to quote Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “joined the bleedin’ choir invisible”) patron encountered the previous evening at The Druid’s Head.
“The mini who-done-it creates a different conversation with the players that can be quite fun during their nights at tavern,” Ed said.
The original Halaster’s Compass was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) campaign Ed created as a teen, in which he borrowed both heavily and unapologetically from the 1981 Terry Gilliam film Time Bandits. Gilliam used holes in time and space, or portals, if you will, to tie together Monty Python-adjacent comedic sketches about Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood, and the Titanic. Ed used similar portals to maintain continuity between longer D&D campaigns and one-shots, and even between different game masters.
“Fear”
In the ‘80s, Ed’s campaign took on a life of its own. When I asked for the names of Ed’s old playgroup, he related to me just how difficult it would be to track them all down.
“As for who played,” Ed said, “that might as well be my whole year group at Chiltern Edge Secondary School, plus the year above and the year below.”
Instead of the Supreme Being from Time Bandits, Halaster’s Compass introduced a no less menacing anti-hero called The Employer.
“The group-think was that we wanted an escape,” Ed said. “Or, rather, that we were battling to hold off the day we had to get jobs. Hence, our antagonist, The Employer.”
Some villain concept art.
The Halaster of Halaster’s Compass is Halaster Brightstar, a Druidi wiseman. The compass in question, which has the power to find doors in creation, is a legendary magical item crafted by Halaster himself. Behind one of these doors is a key, and that key opens a chest. Many have tried to open this chest, but none have succeeded, for the chest is warded against even the most powerful magic. The Employer covets the contents of this chest, and he would have this key. This is what sets the gears in motion for Halaster’s Compass.
With years to reflect since the 1980s, Ed has modernized his game and added some interesting features:
Mirrorlands. When an important place is destroyed, a copy is made and stored in a micro-dimension called a Mirrorland. This is where Halaster’s Compass gets the subtitle The Mirrorland Prophecies. Each Mirrorland has environmental properties that apply either a bonus or a nerf to the stats of characters who venture inside. Ed has also designed tables for game masters interested in creating their own mini-games within a Mirrorland.
Monsters with a Twist. Monsters and other non-player characters who live inside of the Mirrorlands take on unique traits. These traits can range from unremarkable to awe-inspiring. For example, in the Monster Manual for D&D 5th Edition, a minotaur “can visualize every route it might take to close the distance to its prey,” but only while within its labyrinth. In a Mirrorland, this skill is amplified, granting minotaurs the ability to track down objects and creatures, even outside of mazes.
Factions. Ed has proposed a quick and easy method of tracking characters’ relationships within various factions, tribes, and organizations. If inhabitants of a Mirrorland have a group agenda, favor from one incurs favor from all. However, scratching the back of someone in one faction might put you at a disadvantage while dealing with a rival faction, so proceed with caution. Helping pixies might anger goblins, and helping minotaurs might anger pixies. You can’t please everyone. This creates a pathway-dependent experience, much like chess, where no two play groups have the same outcome.
Exclusive storyboards.
I really enjoyed interviewing Ed for this profile. Ed is operating on Greenwich Mean Time, and I’m on Michigan dad time (early to bed, early to rise). The interview itself, a series of Twitter direct messages and emails, took place over a period of a couple of months, as we adjusted to one another’s schedules. During this time, I looked forward to my messages from Ed. He always asked how my family and I were doing, and he always cared. From day one, our relationship was defined as interviewer/interviewee, but that didn’t stop Ed from asking me about Koala Bear Swamp, my goals, and how I was progressing. There were a couple of days where we discussed nothing other than the plot of a novel that a good friend of mine had just finished writing. I could speak at length about Ed’s creativity, his attention to detail, his wit, and a number of other things, but what really stood out to me was Ed’s ability to connect with other people. That’s why I think Halaster’s Compass will do well. When I asked my last question of Ed and started writing, I knew that the door was still open, that Ed intended to help me with my own projects should I need him. Whenever I commented on something I loved about the project, Ed would defer the compliments to his collaborators. In this spirit, I’d like to take some time to introduce the remainder of the team.
Derrick Cameron and Rozz Liddle are Ed’s editors. On the one hand, they’re professional, but on the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, they are fully bought into Ed’s dream for Halaster’s Compass. As Ed snatches down his inspiration from the muses, Derrick and Rozz make sure his words are worthy of gamers the world over.
“We needed, above all, great art,” Ed said. “Art is a window into our world that can really help players get lost in the immersion.”
Phil is in charge of what Ed calls “main page pieces,” the background art that gives the world of Halaster’s Compass depth. Ed was drawn to Phil because of his scenic works.
“The Goblin Factory,” by Phil Hosking.“The Rapture,” by Phil Hosking. “The Ruined City,” by Phil Hosking.
“D&D is not all about combat,” Ed said. “The world building and the landscape pieces are super important.”
Hannah does the images for individual monsters, spells, and effects. I couldn’t tell which detail excited Ed more, the fact that Hannah has done commissioned work for acclaimed web series Critical Role, or the fact that she plays D&D as well.
A glimpse into the Hannah Friedrichs Halaster’s Compass gallery.
David Glass is the cartographer for Halaster’s Compass, or, as Ed says, “our map guy.”
“I really rate David’s work,” Ed said. “I’m a bit of a grognard. I like my maps classic grid paper-style.”
“Druid’s Inn Map,” by David Glass.
The anchor of this crew, the individual who takes in all of the above and transforms it into a crisp and beautiful final product, is Wayne Hodkinson, who Ed describes as an “utter whizz.” Wayne wears many hats. Among them are designer, typesetter, and web builder.
It’s Derrick, Rozz, Phil, Hannah, David, Wayne, Ed, and Ed you buy into when you support Halaster’s Compass. These people do not disappoint.
For more on Halaster’s Compass, the project home page is a great place to start. You can also check out Ed Laccohee on Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, and Instagram. Phil Hosking is on Instagram, Hannah Friederichs has a website, and David Glass is on Twitter. The full Kickstarter package for Halaster’s Compass will include ten adventures, five supplements with cool titles like “The Employer,” “The Slow Portal Leyline Network,” “The Seekers Cabal,” “Soul Rangers & Psychamancers,” and “Artefacts and Relics, Monsters, and Maps,” and a GM-facing appendix with quick reference cards and sheets. There’s also loads of lore, mechanics, and pocket dimensions to unlock as stretch goals. It will be digital tabletop-friendly, with an intended initial launch on Shard.
In advance of the Kickstarter, Druidic Prophecies is releasing a sample package in early 2022, featuring an introduction to the campaign, a prequel adventure, titled, “House Wins, House Always Wins,” which walks you through starting a Halaster’s Compass campaign, the first of ten adventures, titled, “The Way of the Fox,” a side quest adventure, titled, “The Case of the Missing Patrons,” a map booklet, and an info chart overview of the campaign. The sample will be released to those who sign up on the Halaster’s Compass website.
“The Way of the Fox”
Also, fortune favors the bold. If you’re ever at the Druid’s Head, buy a pint for the stranger at the next table. You might just get invited to a sneak peek playtest of Halaster’s Compass.
Writer Keaton Patti once “forced a bot to watch over 1,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials and then asked it to write an Olive Garden commercial of its own.” This is what the bot came up with. His bot was rewarded with a Never Ending Pasta Pass from Olive Garden for its efforts.
Magic cards and AI-written literature are each entertaining on their own, but what if you could have both?
Enter RoboRosewater_Masters, a Twitter account run by CocoaMix which publishes three original Magic cards daily using a recurrent neural network beginning in March of 2021.
These cards range from ridiculous and overly complicated…
Castle Silver Knight presents a legitimate game strategy. In the early game, it makes for a not-so-great blocker / cycler. However, in the late game, when you have all the lands you need, you can exile all of the lands from your deck so every card you draw is a bomb.
I’m pretty enamored with RoboRosewater_Masters, so you can imagine how I felt when CocoaMix reached out to me with a spoiler card from the upcoming set Spiral Chaos.
CocoaMix assigned me a spoiler based on picking a number between 1 and 360. My first choice was already taken by the time I picked.
Luckily, my next favorite number, of Dark Tower fame, 19, was not taken, so, without further ado, here is the Koala Bear Swamp exclusive RoboRosewater_Masters Spiral Chaos spoiler card.
BLOOD KITHKIN
Blood Kithkin is a 3/3 human berserker for 3W. It’s basically a white Hill Giant with some impressive upside.
It functions as a free sacrifice outlet, which is neat, even if the best triggers are in black and red. You still get the benefit of self-removing creatures on demand to blank the effects of your opponent’s spells. Furthermore, every time you sack a creature to Blood Kithkin, you get to take a land card from your library and put it onto the battlefield. Normally, a feature like this would have a limiting clause. “Search your library for a basic land card,” or “put it on the battlefield tapped.” Not only does Blood Kithkin avoid these restrictions, but it also skirts around the one land per turn rule, which is really powerful. In a dedicated commander creature tokens deck, Blood Kithkin lets you play every land in your deck pretty quickly.
The best RoboRosewater_Masters cards are as silly as they are powerful, and Blood Kithkin is no exception. When Blood Kithkin enters the battlefield, it prompts you to choose a creature type, but did you notice that it doesn’t tell you what to do with that information?
Silliness.
Normally, when you see a clause like this, the following clause would have a corresponding clause, like “sacrifice a creature of the chosen type…” or “search your library for a creature of the chosen type…” Not so with Blood Kithkin, but I see this as a feature, not a bug. Treat it like you would Shahrazad from Arabian Nights, as a mini game. Here are some kitchen table Magic rules you might apply:
If you don’t tell anyone which creature type you chose, your wish will come true.
You and your opponent both say a creature type on the count of three. If you say the same creature type, you’re married.
Say the creature type out loud. If your opponent says the same creature type at the same time, they may then say, “Jinx, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, personal jinx,” and you don’t get to talk again until your opponent says your name.
Any time someone says the chosen creature type, SCREAM REAL LOUD!
Any time someone says the chosen creature type, drink.
As you can see, I tried to meet silliness with silliness. In all seriousness, though, I am honored to get a spoiler card from RoboRosewater_Masters. I feel like it really raises Koala Bear Swamp’s profile. I’m also excited to see what the forthcoming RoboRosewater_Masters set Spiral Chaos has in store. I like my RoboRosewater_Masters cards like I like my Nic Cage movies, campy and high quality. May the bot continue to provide.
Gangs of the Undercity (GotU) is a cyberpunk/fantasy skirmish game by Fragging Unicorn Games (FUG) set in the World of Neo Babylon. It envisions a city dominated by corporate interests, in which the underprivileged join gangs to battle for turf and protect their own. As such, it’s escapist to some, realistic to others, and subversive to all.
There’s a lot to say about GotU, so I’ve divided my review into four sections:
Opti, the owner of FUG and its lead developer, is one of my closest, most trusted friends.
Here’s a photo of Opti at my wedding. From left to right: good friend Ryan, me, wife Amy, Opti, and Josh from my writer’s group.
Recently, Koala Bear Swamp has become a collaborative partner with FUG.
If it’s objectivity you want, you’ll be hard pressed to find it at Koala Bear Swamp, where our currencies are passion and community.
Now, if you’re looking for integrity, that’s something I expect you’ll find in this review.
Kickstarter
On July 15, 2020, Opti launched the Kickstarter for GotU with a YouTube live stream. If you’re interested, you can watch the video, titled, “Gangs of the Undercity Kickstarter Launch,” here.
I’m sad to say that I missed out on the big event.
When the Kickstarter went live, my family had just moved into an Airbnb in Carrboro, NC. Earlier that day, we’d left our Raleigh home for the last time, as we prepared to return to Michigan. We signed the closing paperwork in a parking lot because we couldn’t exactly leave two dogs and two kids unattended in a car on a hot afternoon in the south. When Opti began his launch stream, I was either unloading the overnight essentials from two over-packed cars, changing the boys’ diapers and making them drink their sippies, or trying to find the nearest fast food restaurant on the way to our rural rental.
During the span of the GotU Kickstarter, I bought a new house in Michigan, sight unseen, mind you, paid off a ludicrous amount of student loan debt, moved cross country, and started a new job. It was important that I focused on this big life change, but the whole time I was genuinely worried that I would miss out on the GotU Kickstarter. Thankfully, I was still able to contribute. GotU closed on August 16. I straightened out my finances and pledged my support for GotU on August 6.
If you watched the launch video above, you already know that GotU wasfully funded in about an hour and fifteen minutes!!! By the time I’d pledged on August 6, Opti had already met over 400% of the funding goal. That’s a whole lot in terms of stretch goals and additional content.
Fragging Unicorns Games’ funding announcement from the Gangs of the Undercity Kickstarter page.
In writing this review, my biggest temptation is to stop short and declare the GotU Kickstarter a massive success. Alas, if we value the truth, a more nuanced view is needed. Think about the fact that Opti and crew watched their initial December 2020 target date come and go with no hope of fulfillment. On July 1, 2021, Opti wrote the following note to backers:
So much planning has been tossed out the window every few months due to labor shortages, prices of metal skyrocketing, conventions being moved or canceled, shipping and manufacturing supply chains being backed up, etc.
It wasn’t until July 20, 2021, nearly a full year after the conclusion of the GotU Kickstarter, that Opti sent out the first group of 2-Player Box Sets to backers.
It’s unfair to FUG, where half of the team is still dealing with fulfillment of GotU promises, to deem the Kickstarter a total success. It’s equally unfair to FUG, however, to criticize the rollout of GotU based on difficulties and delays that were ultimately out of their control. Not only has late Kickstarter fulfillment been a near-universal complaint from creators since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but, for many, it’s actually been the best-case scenario.
In a YouTube video by Red Beans & Dice, titled, “Gangs of the Undercity: Content & First Impression,” the reviewer does lament the late arrival of his GotU 2-player kit, but he also commends Opti for his responsiveness, comparing him favorably to another Kickstarter creator he’d backed who simply went silent. If you’re interested, you can watch Red Beans & Dice’s review below:
I’ve heard plenty of similar Kickstarter horror stories, some of them ending with creators refunding backers due to price and logistical problems. In fact, Kickstarter Vice President, Jon Leland shared the following chilling detail in his article, “One Year Later: How COVID Impacted the Kickstarter Community:
Most creators were delayed in all phases of bringing their projects to Kickstarter and sharing finished results with their communities.
All. Phases.
Wow.
I think it’s safe to conclude one thing from both the successes and difficulties of the GotU Kickstarter: FUG is here to stay.
On the last day of the campaign, Opti and friends did an eight-hour live stream on the FUG YouTube channel titled, “Gangs of the Undercity Kickstarter Finale.” Check out the video here (all eight hours, I dare you!).
At about the five-hour mark, the devs discuss the fact that the GotU Kickstarter received the vast majority of its pledges at the very beginning of the campaign, followed by a weeks-long plateau. The conversation has a palpable feeling of regret to it until the 4:58:34 mark when user TheAbstruseOne makes the following comment in the chat:
It’s a good sign for longevity. It means you had a bunch of people with fingers hovering over their mice, looking to support Fragging Unicorns.
Sarah from my writer’s group said this was an “arc moment” in the post, and the readers deserved a good photo, so I searched Unsplash for “victory” and here’s what I came up with. This photo by Nghia Le, titled “Morning on top of the mountain,” depicts a mountaintop view from Bạch Mộc Lương Tử, Lào Cai, Vietnam. Arc. Moment.
This argument holds up pretty well today. A brand new company that had hundreds of people ready to shell out thousands of dollars on day one of a Kickstarter has built some trust in the gaming community, especially during a time where a massive amount of people are relying on government support just to meet their basic needs. It probably doesn’t hurt that Opti and a few other FUG developers are influential figures in other gaming communities as well, Shadowrun, in particular, or that the figures FUG created for this game could also be used in those. For my part, I think the best indication of longevity happened several months later.
During the summer of 2021, when Opti was busy finalizing shipment for GotU 2-Player Box Sets, he also took the time to mentor me during the creation of Koala Bear Swamp. There was one piece of advice Opti gave me during these sessions that I found particularly moving, and I’d like to share it with Opti’s permission:
Here’s an insight: I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t made any money yet. In fact, I’m quite in the hole for FUG. I like doing it, and it may make me money someday, but everyone has a hobby that they spend money on. I’ve spent less on FUG than my dad spends fixing his boat annually.
Not everyone has the privilege to bail out a financially disgraced Kickstarter, and I think Opti would be the first to admit to this, but there are also many who could and don’t. I would imagine the average creator, when faced with the trials and tribulations that FUG has dealt with while rolling out GotU, would prefer to cut their losses and put their project behind them. The fact that Opti and friends chose a different route is why I feel confident calling the GotU Kickstarter a massive success. At the end of the day, it’s a rare victory for integrity.
This victory should come as no surprise. Integrity is intentionally built into FUG’s business plan. To help flesh out this point, I think it best to conclude this section with an excerpt from the Fragging Unicorns website:
We want to be decent people. We don’t want to step on people on our way up. We want to see things and do things differently. If that means we don’t get rich? That’s ok. Authenticity, fairness, equity, and diversity feed our soul more than we want food for our bellies. Not gonna lie, food for our bellies would be pretty great though. In addition to misbehaving, we aim to give you worlds without end, fun games to play in them, and game people who care.
The most common review is that pictures don’t do these minis justice. Red Beans and Dice, who you may remember from the Kickstarter section above, describes the models as “detailed out the wazoo.” In a video by Miniature Wargaming Labs, titled “Product Review: Fragging Unicorns Gang of the Undercity Two-Player Starter Box,” the reviewer expands upon this same sentiment. He describes the sculpting, modeling, molding, and all-around quality as high-end, especially considering this is the first release from a brand new company. Check out Miniature Wargaming Labs’ review here:
These miniatures are my personal favorites from the set:
I could talk to you for a couple of hours about my love for the elf mage Adelante, but I will save that for another time. For now, I want to gush over how absolutely stunning the Adelante miniature looks. When you buy your own and hold it in your hands, check out the delicate craftsmanship that went into the katana blade that’s strapped to her hip. It’s really something else.
Also from the Valkyrs gang, Mormeghul is an absolutely commanding figure. If you read about him in the rulebook, you will know that he’s a tough one, but this miniature really makes you feel it. The miniature comes with a jacket that you can attach, and it just ripples with action. So detailed.
I’m the Valkyrs-For-Life type of guy, so for me to post Flaming Skulls leader Vengeance as one of my personal favorites, you know that it’s one of the finest miniatures I’ve ever seen. When you look at this Vengeance mini, you don’t just see the character. You see his fighting style. The positioning of his arms and axes and the twisting of his body is absolutely breathtaking.
Miniature Wargaming Labs made another interesting point that I’d never even thought of. If you wanted, you could buy the GotU starter just for the minis, and never actually play the game. He described the boxed set as a must-have for anyone into cyberpunk skirmish or Shadowrun. Here’s his breakdown of why it’s a great option:
Bottom line, upfront, what’s the advantage? Twelve miniatures, because that’s the most important thing, is the twelve miniatures. That’ll come out to $6.25 per miniature before you factor everything else in, and, given the quality of these sculpts… that is a very good deal for $6.25. Their website pictures and all their promo pictures do not give justice to just how finely detailed and, in some cases, just delicate these models came out, and just beautifully rendered. So, $6.25, even throw away everything else, you’ll have twelve great miniatures there.
Personally, I would recommend actually playing the game. We’ll talk about it more in the next section, but I think GotU is really fun. That said, I almost missed out on it. I was so intimidated by how much work it would take to clean, trim, assemble, and paint the miniatures. Luckily, the members of the FUG Discord walked me through the process, and I uncovered a new passion along the way.
I’d like to stop for a moment and recommend that you click on the FUG Discord link above. The whole server is great, but I would join it for the hobby channel alone. The members of the Discord strive to be accommodating to people of all experience and skill levels, and there are talented individuals available at seemingly all hours to help you with crafting tips and tricks.
What I gleaned from the experts on the FUG Discord is that there are about three levels of commitment when it comes to crafting minis for a miniature game:
Expert – You assemble and paint all of your minis prior to gameplay. This is the level Opti committed to during his preparation for Gencon, and he left behind a tutorial of his process in the hobby channel with pictures and everything.
Hobbyist – You glue together multi-part models and put them on a base, but you don’t take the extra time to paint them, at least, not yet. This is the level Red Beans & Dice and Miniature Wargaming Labs committed to in preparation for their videos.
Gamer – You find some objects around the house that seem close enough to the right size and shape of your characters, and you don’t think too much about it. If you work long hours and just want to play something when you get home, I expect this is the level of commitment you prefer.
My hope had been to get the full miniature experience from the beginning, but I found the initial buy-in was prohibitive for my situation. It would make much more sense if I glued and mounted my minis right away, and slowly upgraded them as I accumulated paints and other gear. It was hard to find the time, but after a couple of afternoons in my basement office with the windows open, I was finally able to put together all of my minis.
My first session of assembly was disappointing, to say the least. I’d picked up two-part epoxy instead of super glue, which came out in huge globs and didn’t seem to mix correctly. I applied it to the joints with toothpicks, and held them snug for what felt like forever before anything would even pretend to adhere. When I came downstairs the next day to check on my finished product, I found Char’s upper body had fallen off, Singe had no arms, and my Lawjack had straight up lost his head.
I didn’t get a ton of pictures of my assembly foibles, mostly because I didn’t want my phone anywhere near the piles of glue in my office. I did, however, find this rare photo of my Lawjack while his head and shield are slowly falling off. It looks like someone practiced some French Revolution-style justice on that fella.
I spent the beginning of my second session scraping excess glue from my models, especially the ones that had fallen apart since the first session. For my Lawjack, this meant stripping every bit of glue from the model. Not only had its head fallen off, but its riot shield was looking droopier and droopier every day. After I carefully removed all of the excess epoxy from the models, I really felt like I’d leveled up my crafting skills. When I applied the superglue, it felt firmly attached after only a couple of moments of pressing. Anxious that this was too good to be true, I built casts around the minis using the sticky tack. While this approach was definitely overkill for most of the models, Singe’s unsupported arms definitely needed the extra support during the 24 hours it would take for the glue to cure.
Writing this now, it reads like I actually knew what I was doing. I didn’t. The members of the FUG Discord suggested every tool I used, and they walked me through every step of the process. When I got frustrated, they were there to commiserate with or offer a solution for my woes. When I was done with the minis, the hobby channel carried me through terrain construction as well.
I ran into three different approaches when it comes to terrain construction compared to the three I observed for miniature assembly:
Official – You use pre-constructed terrain that you purchase online or at a wargaming store, and official merchandise if possible. Funny you mentioned “official merchandise.” FUG has partnered with Death Ray Designs on some high-quality terrain that just snaps together. I know Opti used a lot of this terrain for the GotU tournament at Gencon.
Artisan – You piece together your own terrain using various materials and construction methods. This can vary in quality from low quality and mostly functional to high quality and realistic. See the pictures below for the difference.
Improvised – This tier is exactly the same as the gamer tier for miniature assembly. Throughout the hobby and general channels on the FUG Discord, you can see examples of people using Tupperware, food containers, and random toys found throughout the house for the terrain. If you want to just jump in, this is how you do it.
This is what I mean by low quality and mostly functional. That was the aim of my #DiaperBoxesAndDuctTape terrain. I didn’t take pictures to show off how beautiful the terrain looks. I took pictures to show that it could actually support the minis, which was all I needed from it.These are the high quality and realistic terrain pieces I was talking about. These were all done by Clifton Lambert, AKA Mr. Johnson, of Arcology Podcast fame. I downloaded these from the Hobby channel of the FUG Discord with his permission.
After reading through the “Neighborhood Profiles” section in the GotU rulebook, I felt inspired to construct a taxi depot near an elevated train stop. With three young children, we had no shortage of diaper boxes and cardboard from birthday and holiday gifts. I’d built a handful of things for my kids using nothing more than this, including a rocket ship and a castle with a functional drawbridge.
As you can see, I’m no stranger to cardboard, and neither are my younglings, Cliff and Ash.
Since the terrain needed to support the weight of metallic miniatures, I would have to be more precise than I’d been on my previous projects, but that amounted to little more than the adage, “Measure twice, cut once.”
Miniature assembly was a significant delay because I was insecure about my abilities and anxious about the time commitment to do it right. Terrain construction created yet another delay, but for a completely different reason. It was addicting.
Every time I made significant progress on the taxi depot and elevated train station, I would post my results on Twitter. I used the tongue-in-cheek title of Diaper Boxes & Duct Tape, or D&D for short (I hope that’s not already taken). Twitter user @TheLaughingMan5 even suggested that #DiaperBoxesAndDuctTape should be an official hashtag, to which I responded in Twitter-speak with a Captain Picard “Make It So” animated GIF. Thus began the rise and fall of Diaper Boxes and Duct Tape.
To make a long story short, I devoted a lot of my time before work in the mornings working on my cardboard terrain. I was really proud of both the novelty of the project and the engineering fixes I made whenever I ran into what seemed like an insurmountable project. Over time, I felt like I knew the ins and outs of the medium, and this revealed its shortcomings. For example, no matter how many layers of duct tape I used to reinforce my construction, it would detach or loosen over time. It didn’t cause any structural problems, but it just made my work look like crap. It wasn’t until I picked up some popsicle sticks to construct railing for the elevated train station that I abandoned #DiaperBoxesAndDuctTape altogether.
There is still a place in my heart for terrain construction. Maybe someday I’ll start posting pictures with the hashtag #PopsicleSticksAndPutty. Who knows?
When I finally ended up playing GotU, my preparation was comically short. The night before I intended to play, I gathered as much tupperware as I could carry in two trips and brought it downstairs to my office. The next morning, I set it up willy-nilly on the 3-foot-by-3-foot cardboard playing board I’d constructed for the taxi depot. From there, it was just a matter of following the instructions in the rulebook and I was playing. More on that in the next section.
Gameplay
Having completed all of my preparation prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, the additional time off from work promised an opportunity to actually play GotU.
But life happened.
In the blink of an eye, my time off was nearly over. On my last day off for a stretch, I woke up at 5am, took a quick shower, and started playing.
According to the GotU rulebook, solo play was designed as a tutorial for new players. I liken it to the Bruce Campbell-voiced player guide at the beginning Spider-Man: The Movie Game. Contrarian that I am, I chose this mode of play because I haven’t seen a ton of people in person since the pandemic began, and those I do see are as busy with their beautiful, energetic children as I am. All things considered, however, I don’t think I would have learned the system as quickly any other way.
Rulebook Chapter 9: Solo Play walks you through the basics of the game in a stripped-down form. The first thing you do is choose a scenario from Chapter 7: Scenarios. I chose Scenario 1: Gang War, which is described as “a straight up gang fight. No extra rules, no salvage points, only two cyberlinks, and when you defeat enemy gangers, Grit starts flying.” FUG team, you had me at “no extra rules.” Prior to playing GotU, I had zero skirmish gaming experience, so even the most basic concepts have been completely foreign to me. If all I learned was how to hit stuff, it would be a decisive victory.
Terrain setup came next. I was playing on a three-foot-by-three-foot cardboard map, the only thing from #DiaperBoxesAndDuctTape that made it all the way to gameplay. The only rules here were that terrain should cover about half of the map and it should be arranged in a fair and balanced way. Some months before playing, the veteran gamers of the FUG Discord had noted that the most important thing about terrain is to obscure line of sight. I’m assuming this became an important practice because gameplay is less fun if gunners can pick off entire units from across the map. I don’t know if my placement was fair and just, per se, but each party could find cover from gunfire, and my Tupperware buildings were far enough away from one another that you could walk between them.
This is what my Tupperware terrain looks like. It’s pretty fair, right?
I totally biffed on model deployment. The rulebook suggests dividing the map into six segments, and rolling for which segment the first enemy model, or, in this case, The Flaming Skulls gang members, will be placed into. From there, you place enemy minis in different segments rotating clockwise from the first segment. Instead of deploying in a clockwise manner, I let the dice decide where each of the enemy models landed. Once I’d caught my error, I was too enamored with the resultant formations to change it. The Skulls boss Vengeance and a large contingent of his gangers had congregated around one of the two Cyber-links (C-links) on the map, signaling the gang’s intention to control this particular C-link. However, I decided this maneuver would be a feint to flush out any opposition, distracting them from a secondary unit composed of a heavy gunner named Snapper and her buddy Singe, who would quickly take control of the second C-link.
I leaned into my mistake and just placed my Valkyrs wherever I wanted to on the map. Since Adelante is a war veteran and master strategist, she was hip to the Skulls’ diversion. She and a couple of her most powerful allies would overwhelm Snapper and Singe, leaving behind a couple of gangers to keep an eye on the rest of The Flaming Skulls and report any changes. Many of the Valkyrs were reconnaissance agents during the Faerie Wars, so, at the very least, this digression from the rules as published was on-flavor. Not only did I fumble with the model deployment rules, but I also screwed up my attack strategy. My surveillance team, funny enough, was within line of sight of the alert Flaming Skulls main contingent, and they took some unexpected aggro early on.
Turn order was easy to establish. I used the sample gangs list from the rulebook’s appendix, so I just alternated between the first Valkyr, the first Flaming Skull, the second Valkyr, the second Flaming Skull, and so on, until everyone could take a turn.
Playing GotU was a really unique experience for me. All I had were some pre-made minis and some pieces of Tupperware, but squatting down to actually eyeball whether I had line of sight gave the game a real three-dimensional feel that I haven’t encountered before. I suppose this is common for wargames. Over half of my first session felt more like work than play. I think I looked at the rulebook’s index more than I looked at the game board. As I started getting a hang of the game, I found a warmth arising in my chest and a smirk creeping across my face. The only other time I’d ever felt like that was playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with some of my best friends in the universe. The biggest difference was that, even under the tutelage of a very talented dungeon master (DM) who held my hand through the process, it took me much longer to learn D&D.
When I was done playing my first game of GotU, I didn’t feel like some inexperienced n00b. For comparison, I still feel like a beginner whenever I play D&D, and I’m an established DM who has helped multiple new players learn the game. I’d commanded my Valkyrs gang to victory, which had a lot to do with the fact that solo play favors the solo player. My rivals, The Flaming Skulls gang, were limited to simple commands and basic ranged and melee attacks, whereas I could set up an ambush, cast complex magical spells, breach c-links, and the works. It also had a lot to do with time limitations. When I heard my kids running around upstairs, I packed up my game and called it a victory. I had just defeated the rival enemy boss Vengeance. In my head, the rest of the gang was demoralized and disengaged. However, I can’t help but to feel like my victory was quicker and more decisive because I’d already leveled up from “basics of the game” to “introduction to strategy.”
The Valkyr gang profile from the appendix has access to a free action called Lead By Example, which allows a boss or enforcer to allow a unit of lower rank to take its turn simultaneously at a cost of one Grit. Now, I’m an absolute miser when it comes to game economy, especially while playing a new game, but Lead By Example offers an opportunity for a net Grit increase if both models are able to deal damage. My gang boss and caster Adelante has access to a spell called Singularity, which features the keyword concussive, which means that it will always do at least one damage. If all I did was cast this spell, I would already break even. Mordo’s ranged attacks feature the piercing keyword, which makes him more likely to deal damage. I would roll eight six-sided dice (8d6), and if even one of those was a four or higher, I would be guaranteed the additional grit. For reference, the most likely result of rolling 8d6 would be four dice that have a four or higher on them.
By leaning hard into Lead By Example, I’d stumbled upon the basic strategy for playing a Valkyrs build in GotU. Grit is the basic economy of the game. If you run out, you lose. If you have a bunch of it, you can buy some really powerful abilities. Perhaps most importantly, spending Grit can get you out of some really bad situations. Lead By Example is the way that the Valkyrs faction generates Grit, or, as it was explained to me, their “Grit Factory.” While I was recapping my game with some of the players on the FUG Discord, I also learned that Lead By Example can be chained together. My boss could use it on an enforcer, and the enforcer could then use it on a soldier or rookie. If my boss was the first model to take a turn, this means three of my models would get to act before any of my opponent’s models could do anything. In many situations, this will be enough to take one to three models off the board.
GotU is a low learning curve, super fun game to play. If you’re a seasoned wargamer, you should be able to jump right in. The players who joined the FUG Discord after Gencon 2021, for example, were able to give the game’s developers a run for their money after only a quick demo. If you’re completely new to wargaming like me, it’s going to take a little more time, but here are some tips to get you there quicker:
Read the GotU rulebook. Don’t worry if it doesn’t click with you right away. What you’re looking for is familiarity with the rulebook itself.
Play your first game ASAP. Use what’s readily available for terrain and miniatures. You can play with the pretty stuff once you’re more familiar with the rules.
Play a solo game using the sample gangs. Again, the goal is not to bite off too much on your first go.
Re-read the rulebook. The mechanics should be a lot easier to understand now that you’ve done some practical application. If you still have questions, that’s what the FUG Discord is there for.
While I enjoyed playing GotU alone, I’d really love to share this game with others. I have aspirations to simplify the rules so I can play with my two-year-old and my five-year-old. If you’re interested in further immersing yourself in the World of Neo Babylon, the FUG website is a great place to start. The FUG shop features physical and digital copies of the game, miniatures, tokens, and tons of swag. If you prefer to keep all of your indie games in one place, GotU is also available as a PDF on Drive Thru RPG. You can strike up a conversation with Opti and the FUG team on Twitter, if you’d like. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t miss the opportunity to join the FUG Discord as well. FUG has made significant progress on an original RPG called Subversion, and you’re definitely going to want to support this game. I’ve playtested it twice, and it connects with a lot of things I’ve always wanted from RPGs but haven’t been able to find. I recommend buying in now, because the folks at FUG are only just getting started.
Whenever I wonder whether Koala Bear Swamp is real or just one of my many pipe dreams, I remind myself of the Koala Bear Swamp blog. I’m happy to say that I’ve fulfilled all of my promises from the first post with the following articles:
I’ll put it this way: My dreams for Koala Bear Swamp far exceed my budget. I’m sure this is true of any creator anywhere. As a result, I started a Koala Bear Swamp Ko-Fi page.
To cut a long story short, if you love what I’m putting out into the world and want to send a couple of dollars my way, you can now, but there’s no obligation. You can check out the Koala Bear Swamp Ko-Fi here.
Works in Progress (WIPs)
The Dragon of Koala Bear Swamp
An original playtest token from the koala encounter of The Dragon of Koala Bear Swamp.
My four-year-old son Cliff and I have been playtesting the random encounter rules I developed for our young kids RPG tentatively titled The Dragon of Koala Bear Swamp (TDoKBS).
In its current state, the game has its ups and downs, but the benefits to my son have been many. The occupational issues he’s long struggled with, like following rules, taking turns, and staying calm, are significantly reduced during game play. He’s shown a preference for roleplaying instead of fighting, despite a record for rough housing at school. He also gets to practice his creativity, which he displays whenever he makes up a character’s name, be it Grogrock, Duddit, Psopsopsop, Kaka, Wookats, or Bleb-Blebs the Angel.
The next step is to expand playtesting beyond just me and my son, and I’m happy to report that I have a handful of parents itching to play TDoKBS with their kids.
Satyawe
My card game, tentatively titled Satyawe, after a pair of wars in the World of Neo Babylon setting from Fragging Unicorn Games titles Gangs of the Undercityand Subversion, is firmly in the middle of the card design phase. This after months spent on lore research to make sure I do justice to the fantastic source material.
I don’t have a whole lot to disclose yet, but I can show you a stack of playtest cards without context.
These are the first draft playtest cards for Satyawe.
Temps: A Clerical Nightmare
I’ve completed a full first draft of Temps: A Clerical Nightmare, my Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E) adventure that emphasizes the versatility of the cleric class. I’m currently gathering feedback on the adventure as written before working on a second draft, which I will use for playtesting.
A context-free snippet of a Roll20 map I designed for Temps: A Clerical Nightmare.
Crafting Supplement
I’m also writing a set of supplemental rules to expand the gathering and crafting rules from the D&D 5E core rulebooks that will make these activities more vibrant and accessible between sessions. I’m working through feedback on the first draft of the herbalism section, and after I’ve tidied this section up I will be moving on to alchemy, foraging, poisoning, and a number of other activities.
Upcoming Projects
It looks like I need to make some new promises for blog content now that I checked off all my original proposals from the list. Here’s what I have in store:
Throw in three kids under five and a full-time job, and you know I have plenty to keep myself busy. I hope you enjoyed getting some insight into the Koala Bear Swamp docket. Shoot me a message if any of these projects or posts energize you more than the others. Your interest will likely move it up higher on the priority tree.
Teferi, from the Core Set 2021 prerelease pack, art by Chase Stone.
With the release of the new Magic: the Gatheringset Innistrad: Midnight Hunton September 16, Core Set 2021rotated out of standard constructed format, and I’m sure going to miss it. In honor of Core Set 2021, I’m saying goodbye with a brief set review.
Core sets just aren’t what they used to be. In 1994, when I first got into Magic, everyone was buying, trading, and playing Revised Edition, which was the third core set to be printed, or, as I called it, the first core set where the cards didn’t hold onto their value thirty years later. In those days, core sets were all reprints, and you could get away with it because expansion sets didn’t have basic lands or balanced archetypes. Today, core sets have different expectations. We expect new cards, powerful reprints, and even new lore. Core Set 2021 is powerful, and, like Core Set 2020before it, which brought us Risen Reef, it has made an impact on a variety of formats.
Risen Reef, art by Johan Grenier.
I’m not going to talk about any bad cards in this set review. I’m going to say Farewell to the fantastic cards that I used most often in my favorite decks and will sorely miss, and I’m going to say Good Riddance to the extraordinary cards that were often played against me to the detriment of my win percentage.
I should also mention that I’m a Johnny, which means that I prefer gimmicky, synergy-rich cards over value, win-maximizing cards.
Farewell
1. Teferi’s Tutelage
Teferi’s Tutelage, art by Ilse Gort.
Teferi’s Tutelage makes your opponent mill two cards every time you draw a card, and if that weren’t enough it lets you draw and then discard when it enters the battlefield.
Cast engine cards like Teferi’s Tutelage and Ruin Crab
Draw cards with spells like Opt and Teferi, Master of Time
Cast whatever other mill cards I had in hand
Ruin Crab, art by Simon Dominic. Opt, art by Tyler Jacobson. Teferi, Master of Time, by Yongjae Choi.
Mono-blue mill decks fell out of style because players kept trying to keep up with other decks by countering and bouncing their opponents’ threats. The interactive mill deck was just too slow. I wasn’t able to get a single win until I committed 100% of my deck to getting rid of 100% of my opponent’s deck.
If you’d told me a year prior that one of my favorite decks would have been a Teferi deck, I would have laughed in your face. Back then, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria was the bane of my existence. I’m glad Teferi and I were able to put aside our differences, because Teferi, Master of Time was the last piece of my mill puzzle. The deck just wasn’t the same before I added him.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, art by Chris Rallis.
2. Chandra’s Pyreling
Chandra’s Pyreling, art by Josu Hernaiz.
Chandra’s Pyreling is a 1/3 elemental lizard that gains +1/+0 and double strike every time you do direct damage to an opponent.
Another of my favorite creatures from this deck, Heartfire Immolator, was printed in Core Set 2021 as well. Heartfire Immolator uses the prowess mechanic from my favorite set, Khans of Tarkir, and gets +1/+1 whenever you cast a noncreature spell.
Heartfire Immolator, art by Donato Giancola.
Chandra’s Pyreling was constantly underestimated. My opponents were prepared for the +1/+0, but they were rarely ever prepared for the double strike. Recently, I faced an opponent who had plenty of blockers and fifteen life left. With a Raid Bombardment on the board, I attacked with Chandra’s Pyreling and four other creatures, which did five points of direct damage and threatened twelve more from my Pyreling alone. My opponent blocked everything but Chandra’s Pyreling, died, and left me scratching my head.
I’ve fallen prey to this mistake as often as any opponent, so I’ll make it explicit: remember to read the whole card.
3. Thieves’ Guild Enforcer
Thieves’ Guild Enforcer, art by Evyn Fong.
Thieves’ Guild Enforcer is a 1/1 human rogue with flash that makes your opponent mill two cards every time a rogue (including Thieves’ Guild Enforcer!!!) enters the battlefield. It also gets a bonus to its stats as soon as your opponent has eight cards in their graveyard.
Thieves’ Guild Enforcer is one of the most fun cards in Dimir (Blue/Black) mill, which I will discuss further in next year’s Zendikar Risingpost.
I think my favorite thing about Thieves’ Guild Enforcer is playing Magic on my opponent’s turn. The other day I had one Thieves’ Guild Enforcer on the battlefield and one in hand. My opponent had a decent-sized creature on the battlefield, and if it attacked I was planning on using Heartless Act to destroy it. Before declaring attackers, my opponent used a removal card on my Thieves’ Guild Enforcer. While it was on the stack, I cast my second Thieves’ Guild Enforcer, so I could get twice the mill before my old Enforcer died, and it was just enough to give my new Enforcer +2/+1 and deathtouch. It changed my opponent’s plan completely.
Heartless Act, art by Ryan Pancoast.
It’s my hope that there will always be a relevant flash deck in standard. I’m interested to see what happens to Dimir mill now that so many of its pieces have rotated out. Hopefully, we haven’t seen the end of this archetype.
4. Terror of the Peaks
Terror of the Peaks, art by Andrey Kuzinskiy.
Terror of the Peaks is a 5/4 dragon with flying that deals damage to any target whenever you cast another creature.
I’m sad to say that I never played Terror of the Peaks in standard, but that didn’t stop me from having the time of life with it in brawl.
Magda, Brazen Outlaw is a great brawl commander that makes a treasure token every time you tap a dwarf, and lets you use those treasure tokens to tutor for a dragon or artifact and put it on the battlefield for free. That meant that I could cast Terror of the Peaks with enough untapped mana to start casting creature cards and burning up my opponent’s board on the same turn.
Magda, Brazen Outlaw, art by Slawomir Maniak.
Just because I didn’t play Terror of the Peaks in standard doesn’t mean that nobody did. If you had Terror of the Peaks in your standard deck, feel free to share your experience, and your decklist if you’re so inclined, in the comments.
5. Griffin Aerie
Griffin Aerie, art by Milivoj Ćeran.
Griffin Aerie is an enchantment that rewards you whenever you gain 3 or more life with a 2/2 flying griffin token.
Griffin Aerie made its way into my Mono-White Enchantments Deck. If you’re interested in the other pieces of this deck, feel free to read more about it in my Theros Beyond Death post.
Griffin Aerie is the kind of card that confirms I’m still a Johnny. I look at it and I hear the voices of Marshall Sutcliffe and Luis Scott-Vargas of the Limited Resources podcast, Spikes if ever there were any, saying that I’m not advancing my board state and I’m counting on the best case scenario for my deck when I play Griffin Aerie. But the voice within, the one that says, “It would be nuts if you got just a ton of flyer tokens from Archon of Sun’s Grace and Griffon Aerie,” that voice prevails. That’s the voice of my inner Johnny.
Archon of Sun’s Grace, art by Matt Stewart.
Good Riddance
1. The Sanctum Cycle
The Sanctums are a cycle of legendary enchantment shrines that feel more like lands or artifacts, but who am I to judge?
Sanctum of Tranquil Light taps creatures.
Sanctum of Tranquil Light, art by Johannes Voss.
Sanctum of Calm Waters draws a bunch of extra cards.
Sanctum of Calm Waters, art by Johannes Voss.
Sanctum of Stone Fangs drains a ton of life from your opponent.
Sanctum of Stone Fangs, art by Johannes Voss.
Sanctum of Shattered Heights burns any creature or planeswalker.
Sanctum of Shattered Heights, art by Johannes Voss.
Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest provides a whole lot of extra mana.
Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest, art by Johannes Voss.
Sanctum of All tutors any missing Sanctums.
Sanctum of All, art by Johannes Voss.
…and they all boost one another.
It’s easy to get distracted by the Tibalt’s Trickery deck, and forget all about the Sanctum control deck. It’s so unassuming. Your opponent basically does nothing for several turns and still beats you. Remember when you thought you were playing a game of Magic? Turns out you were just waiting for a punch line all along.
Tibalt’s Trickery, art by Anna Podedworna.
2. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, art by Raymond Swanland.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a planeswalker that deals three damage to any creature or player, wipes out a bunch of permanents, or gains seven life, draws seven cards, and cheats out up to seven permanents from your hand.
If you’ve read my previous posts about Throne of Eldraine, Theros Beyond Death, and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, you already know how I feel about Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. It’s almost as if the previous posts were all building up to this moment.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is going to be deadly any time it’s printed. It’s deadly in the Tibalt’s Trickery deck, but you already know that. It was deadly in a handful of decks prior to the advent of Tibalt’s Trickery. When it was originally printed in Fate Reformed, it was plenty deadly there as well.
It’s true that an eight mana planeswalker can be hard to cast in most decks, but if we’ve learned anything it’s that there are more than a few ways to get Ugin, the Spirit Dragon onto the battlefield for free.
There’s nothing fair about a free Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
3. Elder Gargaroth
Elder Gargaroth, art by Nicholas Gregory.
Elder Gargaroth gives you a whole lot for your money. It’s a 6/6 beast for five mana, it has vigilance, reach, and trample, and it gives you some fun options any time you attack or block. It’s like a good creature mixed with a good planeswalker.
At five mana, Elder Gargaroth may be a little slow for the aggressive mono green builds, but I played against it plenty and it was a one card army whenever my opponent cast it. I often saw it played in the same decks that run Koma, Cosmos Serpent, another card that does everything and does it well. I wouldn’t want to play against either, but I usually played against both.
Koma, Cosmos Serpent, art by Jesper Ejsing.
4. Archfiend’s Vessel
Archfiend’s Vessel, art by Jake Murray.
Archfiend’s Vessel is a 1/1 human cleric with lifelink if you cast it normally, or a 5/5 flying demon if you cast it from your graveyard.
Crokeyz’s Mono-Black Reanimator deck from Rainmaker’s MTG Arena Zone article.
I’m not sure that Archfiend’s Vessel in particular and the reanimator deck in general represented the most powerful thing you could do in standard, but it was certainly one of the most irritating decks to play against. Without a deck like Dimir Rogues, that can destroy a creature and exile the card from your opponent’s graveyard, every threat you face is going to be back again sooner than you know, and, in the case of Archfiend’s Vessel, it’s much more frightening the second time around.
I’m just going to quote Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary in saying, “Sometimes dead is better.” ‘Nuff said.
5. Stormwing Entity
Stormwing Entity, art by Caroline Gariba.
Stormwing Entity is a 3/3 flyer with tons of synergies based on having instants and sorceries in your deck.
My hatred for Stormwing Entity is entirely petty. Before my laptop crashed, Arclight Phoenix was still legal in standard, and I spent as much time playing Izzet Phoenix as I could. When I came back to Arena after its mobile launch, people were using Stormwing Entity to fill the Arclight Phoenix void post-rotation, and that didn’t sit well with me.
Arclight Phoenix, art by Slawomir Maniak.
Stormwing Entity is a great card, but it’s not my card. It wasn’t there for me like Arclight Phoenix was. I remember when the Izzet Phoenix builds started gaining traction over Izzet Drakes builds. I read and re-read Pascal Vieren’s article titled, “Blocking with Phoenix.” I changed it up as new cards like Finale of Promise came along. I was an Arclight Phoenix guy through and through, and Stormwing Entity was guilty of the ultimate sin: not being Arclight Phoenix.
Finale of Promise, art by Jaime Jones.
Come to think of it, Stormwing Entity is the right card to conclude a deeply subjective journey through the sets that just rotated out. It’s a perfectly good card that I irrationally despise. If I threw some shade at a card you love, whether it’s Stormwing Entity, Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, or some other powerhouse, I’m not saying that you love a bad card. I’m just saying that I lost to that card a lot, rarely or never played with it, or didn’t have the wildcards to use it.
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, art by Vincent Proce.
Magic has a complicated relationship with core sets. Wizards stopped printing them for a while, and it’s unclear what their future will look like. We got Adventures in the Forgotten Realmsinstead of Core Set 2022, and it looks like we’ll get Dominaria Unitedinstead of Core Set 2023. At this point, though, the dichotomy of core set and expansion is moot. They both print lands, they both feature balanced archetypes, and neither are more or less necessary for a healthy format.
As for me, just keep making Magic cards and I’ll be happy. It’s neat that I can say that nearly thirty years later!
That’s it for my post-rotation farewell set reviews. I’ll check in again in a year when we say goodbye to Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, Strixhaven: School of Mages, and Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I hope you had fun with these. I know that I did!
Snapdax, from Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths booster box, art by Viktor Titov.
Ikoria is a brand new plane for Magic, a realm of mythical beasts. True to the phrase, “Go Big, or Go Home,” Wizards of the Coast partnered with Toho Co to release Godzilla reskins of some of the most powerful cards in the set. It was quite a spectacle.
I’m not going to talk about any bad cards in this set review. I’m going to say Farewell to the fantastic cards that I used most often in my favorite decks and will sorely miss, and I’m going to say Good Riddanceto the extraordinary cards that were often played against me to the detriment of my win percentage.
I should also mention that I’m a Johnny, which means that I prefer gimmicky, synergy-rich cards over value, win-maximizing cards.
Farewell
1. Zenith Flare
Zenith Flare, by Jonas De Ro.
Zenith Flare deals damage equal to the number of cycling cards in your graveyard to any target, and you gain back the same amount of life.
In cycling decks, Zenith Flare was nothing short of bottled hope. I can’t think of a board state that this card couldn’t get me a win out of. Here’s the original Boros Cycling Deck I borrowed from HCOOK725 on Magic Online.
HCOOK725’s Boros Cycling deck from William “Huey” Jensen’s Channel Fireball article. I’ve removed the Sideboard since I only played Best of One on Arena.
Zenith Flare also exposed me to a flaw in the draft AI on Magic: the Gathering Arena where you could easily force an overpowered cycling deck during just about every draft. Personally, I’m just OK at drafting, deckbuilding, and playing. You don’t read my posts because I’m a world champion. With the best possible draft deck, I usually struggle to get more than two or three wins.
When I forced cycling in each of my drafts, it was a different story altogether. It felt like losing wasn’t even a choice. Over a span of six or seven drafts, I probably lost two games total. I’d pick up four or five Zenith Flares and end up with two or three in hand. If I could get up to four mana and get my opponent down to 14 life, that was often enough to kill my opponent over the next two turns without any fear of rebuttal.
It’s because of this insane cycling draft deck that I gained enough gems in Arena to purchase the Mastery Pass for each set without spending a penny of my own money.
2. Valiant Rescuer
Valiant Rescuer, art by Bram Sels.
Valiant Rescuer is a creature that makes 1/1 tokens whenever you cycle for the first time each turn. This is something that you can do both on your own turn and on your opponent’s turn.
I was originally drawn to the cycling deck by Drannith Stinger, which deals direct damage to your opponent every time you cycle, and Drannith Healer, which gains life every time you cycle, but the fact that Valiant Rescuer left something behind when it died convinced me that it was the better card. I even value it over Flourishing Fox, which gets a +1/+1 counter from each card cycled, but mostly because Flourishing Fox gets targeted more aggressively.
Drannith Stinger, art by Denman Rooke. Drannith Healer, art by Scott Murphy. Flourishing Fox, art by Ilse Gort.
We’ve covered the win condition of the cycling deck in Zenith Flare. We’ve covered the engines of the cycling deck in Valiant Rescuer, Drannith Stinger, Drannith Healer, and Flourishing Fox. Who’s ready to talk about the enablers of the cycling deck? I know I sure am.
3. Shredded Sails
Shredded Sails, with art by Titus Lunter.
Shredded Sails is a modular spell that you can cast at instant speed to either destroy an artifact or deal four damage to a creature with flying. You can also cycle it by paying two mana and discarding it to draw a card.
I actually have no problem spending three slots in this set review discussing cycling decks, because I played at least three different cycling decks, and I played them for months. Here’s the Jeskai Cycling Deck I borrowed from Greg Kowalski.
Greg Kowalski’s Jeskai Cycling deck from Martin Juza’s Channel Fireball article. I’ve removed the Sideboard since I only played Best of One on Arena.
With a cycling cost of two mana, Shredded Sails was outclassed by all of the one mana enablers:
Boon of the Wish-Giver,a sorcery with one mana cycling
Frostveil Ambush, an instant with one mana cycling
Footfall Crater, an enchantment with one mana cycling
Go For Blood, another sorcery with one mana cycling
Boon of the Wish-Giver, art by Chris Rahn. Frostveil Ambush, art by Johan Grenier. Footfall Crater, art by Jenn Ravenna. Go for Blood, art by Chris Rallis.
The difference is that I never cast the top side any of these cards, whereas I often needed Shredded Sails to take out flyers or the occasional worrisome artifact.
A veteran of Magic would know exactly when to cast a cycling card and when to cycle it, and if they didn’t, they would learn through pointed practice. I fancied that I would strap in and learn these cycling decks in much the same way I fancied that I would buy a treadmill and start working out every day. It just never happened. There was always something easier and more fun to do.
4. Dead Weight
Dead Weight, art by Kev Walker.
Dead Weight is an enchantment that gives the enchanted creature -2/-2.
It hangs out with its good buddies Mire’s Grasp and Mogis’s Favor in my Golgari (Black/Green) Hateful Eidolon deck. For more on this deck, check out my Theros Beyond Death post.
Mire’s Grasp, art by Chris Rallis. Mogis’s Favor, art by Uriah Voth. Hateful Eidolon, art by Daniel Ljunggren.
I fell in love with this card when it was printed for Guilds of Ravnica. Now, I’m just hoping it gets reprinted again this November in Innistrad: Crimson Vow.
5. Sea-Dasher Octopus
Sea-Dasher Octopus, art by Chris Seaman.
Sea-Dasher Octopus is a 2/2 octopus with flash for three mana, and when it deals combat damage to a player you get to draw a card. It also has mutate, which allows you to play it a turn earlier by putting it over or under a non-human creature card.
A while back, Sea-Dasher Octopus played the role of Curious Obsession in a really fun Mono-Blue Deck by Todd Anderson.
Todd Anderson’s Mono-Blue Flash deck from Star City Games. I’ve removed the Sideboard since I only played Best of One on Arena.
Curious Obsession, art by Daniel Ljunggren.
In retrospect, the Sea-Dasher Octopus deck’s early popularity in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths was probably a fluke. The meta hadn’t settled yet and there was still room for brewers to innovate. It was around this time that my laptop stopped working, so I don’t have a clear answer for why it fell off. I just know that when I returned to Magic after the release of Arena on Android phones, many of the weenie decks I used to love were gone.
It’s really too bad. Playing creatures like Sea-Dasher Octopus on an opponent’s turn, or in the middle of combat, was a whole lot of fun. I miss those days.
Good Riddance
1. Kogla, the Titan Ape
Kogla, the Titan Ape, art by Chris Rahn.
Kogla, the Titan Ape is a 7/6 legendary ape creature that can fight another creature when it enters the battlefield… and it usually wins.
A handful of Green/X decks started throwing in Kogla, the Titan Ape alongside Koma, Cosmos Serpent and/or Elder Gargaroth. I’m not sure there was a traditional build, but the ones I ran into were air tight. If you weren’t dead in the water after Kogla takes out your biggest creature, there was always a Ram Through or Blizzard Brawl waiting for you the next turn.
Koma, Cosmos Serpent, art by Jesper Ejsing. Elder Gargaroth, art by Nicholas Gregory. Ram Through, art by Zoltan Boros. Blizzard Brawl, art by Manuel Castañón.
I even ran into Kogla, the Titan Ape in a Bant (White/Blue/Green) deck that used Thassa, Deep-Dwelling to repeat Kogla’s fight clause ad nauseum.
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, art by Zack Stella.
I think it would have been really cool if Ikoria featured a King Kong reskin of Kogla, the Titan Ape, but, pun intended, it just wasn’t in the cards. Alas, King Kong isn’t even a Toho property. Kong was created by RKO, who licensed it to Toho for crossovers in much the same way that Sony licensed Spider-Man to Marvel Studios for the Avengers movies.
2. Extinction Event
Extinction Event, art by Filip Burburan.
Black decks traditionally don’t get access to wrath effects. Black already has the best spot removal spells, so board wipes would literally be overkill. Extinction Event gets around that taboo by employing a minor nerf. You have to choose whether you’re going to destroy all creatures with either odd or even numbered casting cost.
I spent some time discussing wraths in my Theros Beyond Death post. Long story short, the standard-that-was had access to a lot of them.
I can’t take a whole lot of solace from the sun setting on Extinction Event, because black decks still have access to Blood on the Snow. While the latter has a higher casting cost, it also has a ton of upside:
It targets all creatures, not half of them
It can target planeswalkers instead
It can bring a creature or planeswalker back from the graveyard
Blood on the Snow, art by Martina Fackova.
Maybe the next rotation in September of 2022 will give me a reprieve from just about any deck having access to board wipes. I’ve sure got my fingers crossed.
3. Gyruda, Doom of Depths
Gyruda, Doom of Depths, art by Tyler Jacobson.
Gyruda, Doom of Depths is a 6/6 legendary demon kraken, which by itself is pretty metal, but when it enters the battlefield it mills some cards and lets you play a creature from among those cards without paying its mana cost.
Gyruda, Doom of Depths is part of a cycle of cards called companions. Like a commander in EDH, your companion is a singleton that hangs out in a special zone until you’re ready to cast it. Whereas the casting cost of a commander filters what cards can be played in its deck, a companion has explicit deck limitations written on the card. For Gyruda, Doom of Depths, you can only have cards with even converted mana cost.
During the first week of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths standard, William “Huey” Jensen brewed an OP Simic Gyruda Deck that everyone, Luis Scott-Vargas included, was using. Immediately, I was convinced that Gyruda, Doom of Depths needed to be banned.
William “Huey” Jensen’s Simic Gyruda deck from Luis Scott-Vargas’s Channel Fireball article. I’ve removed the Sideboard since I only played Best of One on Arena.
Huey’s Gyruda, Doom of Depths deck was particularly ennervating because of how skilfully it repeated the enters the battlefield clause. For instance, the companion can grab one of three other copies of the card in the main deck or one of four Spark Doubles and repeat the process, or it can grab a Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and flicker Gyruda for another go.
Spark Double, art by Eric Deschamps.
I honestly don’t know what was worse, facing 20+ power before you can establish any kind of board state, or waiting for the combo to finish. It was ludicrous either way.
4. Emergent Ultimatum
Emergent Ultimatum, art by Zack Stella.
Emergent Ultimatum is a powerful card with an absurd casting cost. Basically, if you have all the mana in the world and you’re not dead yet, you can tutor the three most powerful cards from your deck and cast two of them for free.
I’ve spent altogether too much time talking about the Tibalt’s Trickery deck, but I’ve done my readers a disservice by only mentioning Ugin, the Spirit Dragon as the win condition. If your opponent can snag a free Emergent Ultimatum it’s like they’re wishing for more wishes. This can get especially out of hand in historic where Omniscience is legal.
Tibalt’s Trickery, art by Anna Podedworna. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, art by Raymond Swanland. Omniscience, art by Jason Chan.
Even if you’re not playing the most powerful cards ever off of Emergent Ultimatum, an Elder Gargaroth and a Kiora Bests the Sea God are enough to make your opponent weep.
Kiora Bests the Sea God, art by Victor Adame Minguez.
I’ve also seen Genesis Ultimatum, which allows you to look at the top five cards of your library and play any permanents you see, at about the same rate as Emergent Ultimatum. In this deck, they feel like they’re almost the same card. The difference is that Genesis Ultimatum has a smaller sample size, but its best case scenario is far better than that of Emergent Ultimatum.
Genesis Ultimatum, art by Jason Rainville.
I could do without either of them, and now I will.
5. Obosh, the Preypiercer
Obosh, the Preypiercer, art by Daarken.
Obosh, the Preypiercer is a powerful companion that doubles damage done by cards you control with odd casting cost. If you’re playing with Obosh as your companion, that means everything in your deck does double damage as soon as Obosh hits the battlefield.
There were a couple of Obosh, the Preypiercer decks in both black and red, but I don’t feel like the decks themselves ever really got anywhere. I’m not sure why, though. I died every single time my opponent cast Obosh. The double damage was never manageable. I’m just happy that Torbran, Thane of the Red Fell has an even numbered casting cost. If those two cards could reliably combo off one another, I might have quit playing before my laptop crashed.
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, art by Grzegorz Rutkowski.
I find it interesting that Gyruda, Doom of Depths, Obosh, the Preypiercer, and Extinction Event exist in the same set. It’s clearly not a coincidence that a couple of powerful cards usher players toward picking cards with either odd or even casting cost, and another card punishes you for not having a healthy mix. Don’t get me wrong. I hate all of these cards, but it doesn’t make it any less fascinating.
***
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths made waves for the fact that companions infected every format and dominated. I’m happy I had the opportunity to play companion decks while they were broken, but I’m also happy that Wizards course corrected by making companions harder to play.
I won’t lie to you. It has been A TON of work getting these post-rotation set reviews done in a timely fashion. Is it weird, though, that I’m kind of sad that my review of Core Set 2021 is the last for a year? It’s going to be a great post. I hope to see you all there.
Elspeth, from Theros Beyond Death booster packs, art by Chris Rallis.
With the release of the new Magic: the Gatheringset Innistrad: Midnight Hunton September 16, Theros Beyond Deathrotated out of standard constructed format, and I’m sure going to miss it. In honor of Theros Beyond Death, I’m saying goodbye with a brief set review.
Theros Beyond Death returns to the Greek mythology-inspired plane of Theros where earlier sets Theros, Born of the Gods, and Journey into Nyxtook place from 2013-2014. Things are different now. This is the first time we’ve seen the plane since the death of Theros’s favorite son, the planeswalker Gideon Jura of the Gatewatch, in War of the Spark.
I’m not going to talk about any bad cards in this set review. I’m going to say Farewell to the fantastic cards that I used most often in my favorite decks and will sorely miss, and I’m going to say Good Riddanceto the extraordinary cards that were often played against me to the detriment of my win percentage.
I should also mention that I’m a Johnny, which means that I prefer gimmicky, synergy-rich cards over value, win-maximizing cards.
Farewell
1. Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Gray Merchant of Asphodel, art by Scott Murphy.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a five mana zombie that takes advantage of the devotion mechanic from the original Theros set. Devotion gives you advantages according to the number of mana symbols of a particular color on permanents you control. In this instance, Gray Merchant of Asphodel deals one damage to your opponent for every black, or swamp, symbol, and you gain as many life.
I never really found a home for Gray Merchant of Asphodel in a workable standard deck, but that didn’t stop me from jamming it into a lot of terrible ones. I really wanted to “make fetch happen” with cards like Underworld Dreams and Lotleth Giant in support, but the Gray Merchant of Asphodel deck never quite got there.
Underworld Dreams, art by Pindurski. Lotleth Giant, art by Alex Konstad.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel might be my favorite card in all of Magic, so I was absolutely thrilled to see it reprinted in Theros Beyond Death. I’ve spent nearly a decade trying to find room for this card in every deck I play.
When I tried to make a Gray Merchant of Asphodel deck in commander, it was equal parts magical and tragic. I picked Erebos, God of the Dead as my commander. It was really just a placeholder, and possibly my only black legendary creature at the time. The rest of the deck involved putting swamp symbols on the battlefield, tutoring Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and pulling it back out of the graveyard once it gets killed.
Erebos, God of the Dead, art by Peter Mohrbacher.
The deck was unable to interact with most, if not all, decks in the history of commander, but if it got going, it was hard to stop. Lucky for me, my friends were playing the kind of commander decks that you can buy at Target. My deck was a full step above those decks, but I was way out of my league playing it at my local gaming shop.
Normally, if your deck is bad, I’ve found that other commander players will just give you cards that will level up your current build. My deck was so bad that they started handing me new commanders, like Nekusar, the Mindrazer, hoping I’d get the hint that it was time to go back to the drawing board.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer, art by Mark Winters.
2. Setessan Champion
Setessan Champion, art by Emrah Elmasli.
Setessan Champion is a 1/3 human with constellation, a mechanic introduced in Journey Into Nyx that gives you bonuses whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield. In the case of Setessan Champion, you get a +1/+1 counter and you get to draw a card whenever you cast an enchantment.
Nobody ever seemed prepared for this deck. There were enchantment synergies. There were land synergies. It just didn’t fit the meta. I lost twice as often as I won, but when I won it was extraordinary. I would draw every land card in my deck and run over my opponent using giant creatures with trample.
Here are some other Theros Beyond Death cards I played in this deck to complement Setessan Champion:
Destiny Spinner, an enchantment creature that makes your opponents unable to counter your creatures or enchantments
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, which lets you play more than one land per turn
Nessian Wanderer, which lets you search for a land card every time you cast an enchantment
Nyxbloom Ancient, a creature that makes your lands tap for more mana
Setessan Training, an enchantment that both buffs a creature and draws you an extra card
Warbriar Blessing, an enchantment card that lets you fight an opponent’s creature
Destiny Spinner, art by Livia Prima. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, art by Scott Murphy. Nessian Wanderer, art by Matt Stewart. Nyxbloom Ancient, art by Filip Burburan. Setessan Training, art by Scott Murphy. Warbriar Blessing, art by Michele Parisi.
When I first put this deck together, I included Skola Grovedancer as nothing more than another enchantment creature that could trigger my constellation engines.
Skola Grovedancer, art by Josh Hass.
However, during play testing it turned out to be the dark horse of the deck. Setessan Champion and Nessian Wanderer drew me way more lands than I would have expected, and, consequently, I discarded way more lands than I would have expected. The life I gained from Skola Grovedancer every time one of these lands hit my graveyard provided the resilience to outlast a lot of aggro decks and snag some extra wins here and there.
3. Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned, art by Lius Lasahido.
I thought Ajani’s Pridemate was the coolest thing short of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. It was a 2/2 cat soldier that gets +1/+1 every time you gain life. Then Heliod, Sun-Crowned came along and changed the whole story. Whenever you gain life, Heliod allows you to put a +1/+1 counter on any creature or enchantment.
Ajani’s Pridemate, art by Sidharth Chaturvedi.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned basically comes out like Oprah saying, “And you get a +1/+1 counter… And you get a +1/+1 counter… And you get a +1/+1 counter…”
Heliod, Sun-Crowned was the centerpiece of my Mono-White Lifegain Deck. Here are a few of the other heavy hitters in this deck:
Alseid of Life’s Bounty, a turn one enchantment creature with lifelink
Archon of Sun’s Grace, a 3/4 flyer with lifelink that makes other lifelink flyers whenever you cast an enchantment
Banishing Light, a decent removal card
The Birth of Meletis, an enchantment that helps you make all of your land drops so you can reliably cast Archon on turn four
Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, a great blocker that gives you more life whenever creatures enter or exit the battlefield
Transcendant Envoy, a cheap flyer that makes it easier to cast aura enchantments
Justin Tiemeyer’s Mono-White Lifegain Deck.
Alseid of Life’s Bounty, art by Magali Villeneuve. Archon of Sun’s Grace, art by Matt Stewart. Banishing Light, art by William Murai. The Birth of Meletis, art by Tyler Jacobson. Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, art by Lius Lasahido. Transcendant Envoy, art by Zezhou Chen.
In general, Theros Beyond Death brought back mechanics from the original Theros block, only a little less powerful. Constellation returned, but the word was never printed on an enchantment. The Boros (White/Red) hero cycle, which included Heroes of the Revel, Hero of the Games, Hero of the Nyxborn, Hero of the Pride, and Hero of the Winds, was reminiscent of the heroic mechanic, but none of the bonuses extended beyond the end of the turn.
Heroes of the Revel, art by Zoltan Boros. Hero of the Games, art by Josh Hass. Hero of the Nyxborn, art by Victor Adame Minguez. Hero of the Pride, art by Wisnu Tan. Hero of the Winds, art by Greg Staples.
This was a set where the designers didn’t want you to have access to everything, which is why Heliod, Sun-Crowned seemed so busted. Not only does it give creatures +1/+1 counters every time you gain life. It also lets you pay two mana to give any creature lifelink. In a world where you couldn’t have it both ways, Heliod, Sun-Crowned had it both ways.
4. Hateful Eidolon
Hateful Eidolon, art by Daniel Ljunggren.
Hateful Eidolon is a 1/2 creature with lifelink that lets you draw a card whenever a creature is destroyed for each aura you have attached to it.
Hateful Eidolon was the go-to creature in my Golgari (Black/Green) Enchantments Deck, which had no shortage of deadly enchantments. Here are a couple from Theros Beyond Death:
Mire’s Grasp, which gives a creature -3/-3
Mogis’s Favor, which gives a creature +2/-1
Justin Tiemeyer’s Golgari Enchantments Deck.
Mire’s Grasp, art by Chris Rallis. Mogis’s Favor, art by Uriah Voth.
My favorite trick with Hateful Eidolon on the battlefield was to hedge against my opponent’s removal spells by enchanting the most likely target with something like Setessan Training or Rune of Might. That way, if I lost the creature I’d get to draw a card as a consolation prize.
Rune of Might, art by Yeong-Hao Han.
5. Anax, Hardened in the Forge
Anax, Hardened in the Forge, art by Eric Deschamps.
Anax, Hardened in the Forge is a creature whose power increases according to your devotion to red, so if you have seven mountain symbols on permanents you control, it’s suddenly a 7/3 beater.
Anax, Hardened in the Forge was an important piece of my Mono-Red Raid Bombardment Deck, which we will discuss in my upcoming Core Set 2021 review.
Raid Bombardment, art by Matt Cavotta.
At first, I wanted nothing to do with Anax, Hardened in the Forge. I had no idea what a card with a minimum power of three (when Raid Bombardment hits the battlefield) was doing in a deck that needs attackers with power two or less.
When I started playing this deck, however, it was obvious. While its devotion clause makes Anax, Hardened in the Forge a great card for any mono-red creatures deck, it reaches a higher level in this deck because when it dies it leaves behind tokens that trigger Raid Bombardment.
My favorite interaction featuring Anax, Hardened in the Forge happened just the other day. Based on my attackers, my opponent’s blockers, and my Raid Bombardment, I had a better than average chance of defeating my opponent in two turns. In response to the bad odds, my opponent cast Shatter the Sky and wiped out my entire board. Normally, this momentum shift would have been devastating, but destroying Anax, Hardened in the Forge let me draw a card and put six 1/1 satyr tokens on the battlefield. Instead of probably beating my opponent in two turns, I was now in a position to definitely beat them in one.
Good Riddance
1. Dream Trawler
Dream Trawler, art by Jesper Ejsing.
Just try to deal with Dream Trawler. It’s got 5 toughness, so you’re not likely to burn it. If you use a kill spell and your opponent has cards in hand, they can discard one to give it hexproof. Basically, if you don’t have a counterspell in hand when your opponent gets to six mana, you might as well quit.
I’m not sure that I remember facing a specific Dream Trawler deck. I faced this card most often in Azorius (White/Blue) Control decks, but those lists changed week over week. This is actually a theme in all of my most hated cards from Theros Beyond Death:
They were all best used in control decks
None of them had a specific decklist that I can point to
They all stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do
At one point, I tried to use Staggering Insight on the bottom end and Dream Trawler on the top end of an evasion-heavy, card draw deck inspired by the previous season’s Curious Obsession builds. Whether I built it poorly, played it poorly, or the archetype was generally unsupported by the cards in the format, I rarely got momentum with this deck and I never won with it.
Staggering Insight, art by Dmitry Burmak. Curious Obsession, art by Daniel Ljunggren.
2. Shatter the Sky
Shatter the Sky, art by Bayard Wu.
Shatter the Sky is an on-theme white board wipe card which lets you draw a card if a creature with power four or greater was killed.
More often than not, Shatter the Sky was played in a creature-lite or creature-less Azorius (White/Blue) or Esper (White/Blue/Black) control build, but these builds varied greatly (see above).
Prior to the printing of Tibalt’s Trickery in Kaldheim, my most common game loss involved building up a powerful board state and getting my opponent down to three life, only to lose it all to Shatter the Sky. From there, my opponent would pick off anything I could cast, biding time until they could draw a win condition like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Tibalt’s Trickery, art by Anna Podedworna. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, art by Raymond Swanland.
What I failed to realize was that it wasn’t Ugin, the Spirit Dragon that killed me. It was the Shatter the Sky that my opponent cast four turns earlier. I just wasn’t smart enough to concede at the time.
3. Kiora Bests the Sea God
Kiora Bests the Sea God, art by Victor Adame Minguez.
Kiora Bests the Sea God is a saga that does three things well:
It creates an 8/8 kraken token with hexproof
It taps all of your nonland permanents
It lets your opponent take your best creature and use it against you
Ouch, just ouch.
When I first saw Kiora Bests the Sea God, I assumed that it would be part of some mono-blue creatures deck with sea creature synergies like Dominaria‘s Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep.
Slinn Voda, art by Grzegorz Rutkowski.
I was wrong.
When I saw Kiora Bests the Sea God in action it was usually as a win condition for a control deck.
There are definitely ways to get rid of an 8/8 creature with hexproof, but, if you’re lucky enough to do so, the second and third chapters of this saga can kill you on their own by leaving you open to attack from any other creatures your opponent might have, or turning your biggest threat against you.
Just concede.
4. Storm’s Wrath
Storm’s Wrath, art by Yeong-Hao Han.
Storm’s Wrath is a red-flavored board wipe that does four burn damage to each creature instead of just destroying them. In most circumstances, the difference is po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to. Everything’s dead.
Storm’s Wrath could be played in control builds, but you could also just as easily throw it in a Red/X midrange deck to restart the battle in the event that your opponent gets a better start than you do.
What baffled me about pre-rotation standard was the abundance of wraths in multiple colors. Here’s the list:
Blood on the Snow in black
Devastating Mastery in white
Doomskar in white
Extinction Event in black
Ondu Inversion in white
Realm-Cloaked Giant // Cast Off in white
Ruinous Ultimatum in white, black, and red
Sarulf, Realm Eater in black, and green
Shatter the Sky in white
Storm’s Wrath in red
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in colorless
Blood on the Snow, art by Martina Fackova. Devastating Mastery, art by Jake Murray. Doomskar, art by Piotr Dura. Extinction Event, art by Filip Burburan. Ondu Inversion, art by James Paick. Realm-Cloaked Giant, art by Adam Paquette. Ruinous Ultimatum, art by Chase Stone. Sarulf, Realm Eater, art by Chris Rahn.
I’m surprised Wizards hasn’t printed a backdoor blue wrath card that returns all creatures to their controller’s hand and makes each player discard that many cards. How about a green wrath that creates a 10/10 creature token with indestructible that fights each creature on the battlefield? You can’t attack or block with it and it’s sacrificed at the end of your turn.
It’s seriously nuts how easy it was to lose everything in this game.
5. Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, art by Vincent Proce.
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger would be a stubbed toe for many players if it were just a 6/6 beater that makes you discard a card or lose three life, but the fact that it can escape from the graveyard any time there are five more cards in there with it makes it a real threat.
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger seems like it should be a staple of a good sacrifice deck, but it’s a fine addition to a control build as well. Discarding one card for two mana is a bit overpriced, but a recurring discard effect on a 6/6 body a couple turns later is more than enough to make up for it.
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger was particularly vexing because of the frequency with which I would play either Dimir Rogues or Mono-Blue Mill against it. On the one hand, my goal was to put eight cards in my opponent’s graveyard so I could sacrifice Merfolk Windrobber to draw a card. On the other hand, my opponent’s goal was to put six cards (including Kroxa) in their graveyard to escape Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger and bulldoze over me on turn four. It was never a fair game at that point.
Merfolk Windrobber, art by Colin Boyer.
Theros Beyond Death was the first return to a familiar plane since the climactic action of War of the Spark. It was also mechanically impressive, providing just enough power to promote player engagement, but not so much that the have-nots feel left behind. I never tired of this set.
I’m excited for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, because who wouldn’t be excited for the Magic set that jumped the shark and released a bunch of Godzilla cards? Join me in bidding farewell to this monster of a set in my next post.
Koala Bear Swamp 