Posted in: Card Games, Dungeons & Dragons, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, magic, MTG, MTGAFR, WotC

Magic: The Gathering "Adventures" Recap For June 29th-30th

Magic: The Gathering has started to roll out the contents of the preview season for its most ambitious expansion set yet: A fully integrated crossover with creator Wizards of the Coast's other big intellectual property, Dungeons & Dragons! Today we will be looking at some of the coolest cards from the past couple of days since spoilers began for the illustrious set. Are you ready? We sure are. Let's dive right in!

Behold These Beholders

The first pair of cards we would like to highlight are two Beholder creatures. An original monster from Dungeons & Dragons' classic lore, the Beholder has been a mainstay of the horror stylings of the game for quite some time, and now that they're entering Magic: The Gathering, they're even more of a sight to behold!

Mechanically speaking, we are surprised that the Beholder card type doesn't come with flying, as it is a floating mass of eyeballs and such, and thus not bound to the ground beneath it. In this card's specific instance, we expect it will be used primarily to remove enchantments, as this is an effect that black as a color in Magic typically lacks and therefore is still a novel thing for black to have access to.

Next, we have a very familiar face for those who have accessed the sourcebooks from Dungeons & Dragons. Xanathar, Guild Kingpin is a legendary Beholder with an effect that hearkens back to Sen Triplets, one of the most tricky legendary creatures to deal with in the Commander format and elsewhere. As we won't be able to see what Xanathar shows our opponent, this card will be just as frustrating and perhaps a bit more so, as it will allow its controller to use any mana to cast cards from the top of the library.

Circle of Dreams Druid

The next card in our recap is the Circle of Dreams Druid, a card that tries really hard to do a good impression of many different cards but ultimately is closest in comparison to Gaea's Cradle and its ilk, which is not a bad thing in and of itself!

There has been ongoing debate for the past couple of days as to what card this one is closest to. Some people say it is definitely Gaea's Cradle, but others are comparing it to Llanowar Tribe (which seems unfair), Priest of Titania (which is fairer but not quite there), and Karametra's Acolyte (which is just off-base). Are these people wrong? We can't say for sure without actually using this card, but it seems like a Gaea's Cradle analog through and through to us.

Zariel, Archduke of Avernus

The last card we'd like to discuss is the new planeswalker card, Zariel, Archduke of Avernus. This card seems a bit lower in power level compared to other red planeswalker cards we have seen, such as Daretti, Scrap Savant or Chandra, Torch of Defiance, but that's because it fills a simpler role as support for creatures that need to beat face, here and now.

What do you think of these new cards inspired by Dungeons & Dragons? Do they fit into the kind of mechanical moldings that Magic: The Gathering tends to be known for? Let us know in the comments below!

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