Exclusive – See 6 New Cards from Magic: The Gathering’s March of the Machine Set

WOTC hopes the battles will be playable soon, and Humpherys also said other design teams have already expressed interest in potentially using them as part of future sets. “If they play the way we expect them to, they should appear in worlds that make sense to the current story from time to time, but I doubt they’ll appear in every set.” , all March of the Machines battles have a “Siege” subtype, giving WOTC the flexibility to change or iterate on the design.

Two additional additions announced today are part of the March of the Machines card cycle, combining previous individual Legendary characters from specific planes onto a single card. in this case, Balal and Kari Zeff Kaladesh and Rankle and Torblan From Kaldheim. Humpherys said, “If we can find a way to fuse the abilities the character is good at and give it a twist, that’s great. Otherwise, a new creature cohesive enough to create his card.” It looks like it is.”

The previously revealed team-up was somewhat comical Yagle and Multani, which is a simple 18/6 creature with no abilities, but another reveal using a new backup mechanic recontextualizes that legendary team-up into lethal effects. Creatures with backup can give +1/+1 counters and temporary abilities to another creature when they enter the battlefield, resulting in Voldaren Thrillseeker’s ability being March of the – Enables 2 card 1 turn kill combos in the machine. It takes 10 mana of 3 different colors in one turn, but with Voldaren Thrillseeker he boosts Yargle and Multani, theoretically 20 power that can be sacrificed to kill an opponent outright creatures can be obtained immediately.

“Voldaren Thrillseeker with Yargle and Multani is a very intentional interaction, and given the mana costs of these cards and the way their combos can be disrupted with removal and life gain, I think it will be fun content. I believed in it,” Humphries affirms. He also explained that he led the set design for Ikoria, who had a way of giving other creatures new abilities with the mutate mechanic, and that they were confident in using similar ideas here. is showing.

The final two cards are the first Phyrexian “lords” (a colloquial term in Magic for creatures that buff other creatures of the same type) and also a Phyrexianized version of a fan-favorite enchantment. . shark typhoonThe latter in particular is one of the cards in March of the Machine that creates Magic’s first transformation token. This essentially creates an egg that you can pay mana to hatch into a real creature. Humpherys even says the idea for Chrome Host Seedshark came about because the incubator concept his token art looked like a shark egg.

Read my full interview with Dave Humpherys below for lots of interesting tidbits about these cards, but that’s not all Magic has in store right now.March of the Machines will be released early next month, but it also had its exclusive first reveal lord of the rings crossover The set will arrive later this year.

IGN: Battle is the first new permanent type since planeswalkers, and we’ve seen how big an impact they have had on Magic. Do you think battles will be equally influential and appear in every set going forward?

Dave Humpherys, Set Design Lead for March of the Machine: I intentionally assembled these as battles instead of planes so that they can be used in different settings in the future. Other design teams have shown interest in using them. If they play the way we expect them to, they should pop up in worlds that make sense for the current story once in a while, but I doubt they’ll show up in every set. For now, we want to know what players enjoy most about them, so we know how to deliver future designs.

Why create a new permanent type? Was this simply the best way to express the new design you had in mind, or was it a conscious attempt to shake up the game in a new way? ?

Conceptually, what we were aiming for didn’t make a lot of sense as an existing card type. As the mechanics evolved, we certainly debated whether they should be lands or enchantments. The danger with new card types is the lack of ways to work with them. Luckily, the game engine allows interaction by attacking and blocking, and the reward for winning a battle is to cast a card type that’s already in the game. We have to be sustainable when we do it.

Mark Rosewater talked on his podcast about how hard it is to balance new stuff like this, especially the first equipment cards. Are you looking to play it safe in the first run of battles so you don’t run into balance issues? Or are you hoping these will be played competitively right out of the gate?

We know that creating new card types like battles introduces risks, but we approach it from the perspective of determining how to systematically mitigate those risks rather than aiming to lower their power level. bottom. We hope these will be playable soon.

Is siege the only combat type currently? Was introducing subtypes so quickly part of your intention to leave more design space for the future?

Siege is currently the only subtype of Battle. As I mentioned earlier, there were other future teams looking at the design space for Battles, so I wanted it to be compatible with other features and keep the design space open for future iterations of Battles. I wanted to set it up in a way.

When it comes to character selection, how do you create the perfect legendary team-up?

I don’t think there is a perfect team-up formula. I think they have a lot of fun when two characters share not just overlapping identities, but stark contrasts. It would be great if we could find a way to fuse the abilities the characters know and give it a twist.

Are there any specific pairs you were thinking of giving cards that you’re sorry didn’t make the final cut?

I think all the pairs we were most excited about were printed. We continued to add more to the set and made even more for the Prerelease. There were a few pairs that didn’t come up with a satisfactory mechanical design, but there were none that I didn’t think didn’t come up with a significantly more satisfying design from that dimension in the end.

Was there ever a time when these team-ups were two cards that used the “with a partner” mechanic, or was there always the idea of ​​combining those abilities into one card?

The idea was always to combine two characters on one card. “Partner” is also mechanically something you’re likely to use in non-standards-compliant products.

Voldaren Thrillseeker’s backup mechanic seems to have the potential for some pretty unexpected combos depending on the ability it’s linked to. When designing the backup ability, did you have to come up with any rules given that there have been 30 years of creatures that can interact in eternal formats, and specifically about his two card combo? Any thoughts?

Voldaren Thrillseeker with Yargle and Multani is a very intentional interaction, and we believed it would be fun content given the mana costs of these cards and the way removal and lifegain can disrupt that combo. rice field. Other than testing the design, there were no rules that I felt needed to be created. I led the set design for Ikoria, and I also led the mutate design for that set. I mean, I especially enjoy this kind of combination of abilities, and I was confident I could do that again with this mechanic.

We’ve already seen the iconic characters completed and how that affects their mechanics, but it’s fun to see Chrome Host Seedshark, which is basically the finished version of the enchanted Shark Typhoon. Additionally, what were the challenges and joys of perfecting certain iconic Magic concepts and metaphors?

The joy of this process was mainly to look across the Multiverse and find what we wanted to see in Phyrexianized form. Very happy to see what our artists can create with it. Part of the idea for Chrome Host Seedshark came from the fact that some of the incubator tokens in the concept art push looked like shark eggs and suggested this concept. I also liked how they completed some of the creatures in ways that were callbacks to iconic Phyrexian creatures from the past. Other than running out of space in the set to make all the creatures we might have wanted to see, there weren’t many challenges.

Phyrexian butchers are the first official “lords” for Phyrexian creatures. Why did you decide to wait until March of the Machine instead of introducing it to the Phyrexian home plane with All Will Be One?

There are so many Phyrexian creatures in All Will Be One that it’s almost too easy to have a card that takes them into consideration, at least in the Sealed and Draft situation where over 90% of the creatures had that creature type. I felt that. We recognized the need for cards that accounted for them, and knew that March of the Machines would have them as a proportion of the set that would be better suited for Limited, and that they would be readily buildable.

Tom Marks is IGN’s Deputy Review Editor. He loves card his games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle platformers and more.you can follow him here.