- Jul 24, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: Jan 9
Magic: The Gathering takes a Leap of Faith
Written by Simon
In just over a week, on July 5th 2024, people all across the world will finally get their hands on the much-anticipated crossover of Magic: The Gathering: Universes Beyond - Assassin’s Creed (or MTGxAC for short) and in the past week or so we’ve had an amazing reveal event which gave us a great insight from both the team at Wizards of The Coast and Ubisoft into the development process of a good selection of cards with the whole set to be revealed in the days following.
Now, I could write an entire article about how the rules and how to play Magic: The Gathering, but for this, I will refer you to one of my personal favourite content creators for the game; The Professor from Tolarian Community College with his video ‘How To Play Magic: The Gathering (MTG) Learn To Play In About 15 Minutes!’.
Instead, I want to just point out a handful of cards that I find very interesting, fun or just thematically great from this set from the perspective of someone who has had a lifelong love (*cough*, obsession) with Assassin’s Creed and someone who greatly enjoys Magic: The Gathering.
While there are many formats (or game modes) to play the wonderful trading card game, one of the most popular, and the format I predominantly play is one called Commander. This format sees you build a deck of 100 cards, with no duplicates (except basic land cards or if a card specifically states the opposite) and 1 Legendary Creature card known as your Commander card. This is the card you base the mechanics, win conditions and overall theme of your deck around. (Sometimes, this can be 2 cards if they are Partner cards.) To win, you need to either reduce your opponent's life total to 0 or deal 21 damage with your commander.I say this only to emphasise the fact that my views of a card’s abilities are from the perspective of someone who mostly plays Commander. I will also preface and say that I am not an expert deck-building guru; this title goes to my friends Lex, Liam and Callum, who lovingly kick my ass every time we play. They genuinely amaze me and even when I do lose a game, it is with awe at their ability to create evil and frankly disgusting decks. So I never truly lose. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. Anyway, enough jabbering. Let’s get into some cards!
One of the first things that came to mind during the reveal showcase was what an incredible job Wizards of The Coast have done with taking the themes and game mechanics of various Assassin’s Creed games and characters and translating them into mechanics for the card game. There hasn’t been a single new card or reprint that has felt off and it’s very clear a lot of love and care has gone into this set.
Personal favourites, both in theme and playability, are the 3 “Human Assassin Pirate'' cards; Edward Kenway, Adéwalé, Breaker of Chains and Mary Read and Anne Bonny.
These cards care a lot about Assassins and Pirates crewing vehicles to become tapped and dealing damage with said vehicles to an opponent. In doing this, Edward can essentially loot the opposing player by exiling their top card once damaged and taking it for his own by allowing the player to play said card while it remains exiled. On top of that, Edward also creates more loot in ways of Treasure (a token artifact that can be tapped and sacrificed for a mana of any colour) for each tapped Pirate, Assassin or Vehicle. This means you can gain a great advantage by playing aggressively, just like a pirate! Adéwalé, Breaker of Chains and Mary Read and Anne Bonny aid in this by allowing access to more treasure and either more crew or vehicles through their respective abilities which means the Jackdaw Four (I will be trademarking this) are a great fit together if you want to go down the Pirate/vehicle deck route!
With this set also comes a smorgasbord of amazing equipment cards which hold a special place in my heart with one of my favourite and most played decks being Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale in a Voltron style deck, which essentially means “have main creature, make big and strong”. In this deck, I use a plethora of Artifact Equipment cards to give Syr Gwyn and, if need be, the Knight cards surrounding her, more strength, toughness or abilities (e.g. flying, double strike etc).
Of all of the equipment cards, however, my eyes were immediately lit up by Excalibur, Sword of Eden and The Spear of Leonidas. Excalibur is phenomenal because, at first glance, it is a very costly card that gives the equipped creature a whopping +10 attack power and Vigilance, which means it doesn’t tap when attacking, leaving it available to defend against incoming attacks after your turn. However, Excalibur’s cost is decreased by 1 mana value for each Historic permanent card you control, which can be Legendary cards (including your commander), sagas and, you guessed it, Artifacts.
This is phenomenal in a deck like a Syr Gwyn deck as there is a likelihood you have a good amount of these cards already on the battlefield which makes the casting cost a lot less stinging and, with Syr Gwyn’s ability of Equip Knight 0, you can attach it to a Knight card for absolutely nothing. Tie that together with The Spear of Leonidas, a cost of 1 red mana and 2 mana of any colour and choose Bull Rush when attacking to give it double strike, you can deal the lethal 21 points of Commander damage needed to defeat an opponent in one fell swoop.
Naturally, with the Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed set comes a set of Secret Lair drops. These drops are limited-edition, special sets of cards with gorgeous new art and the 2 drops we are getting with Assassin’s Creed do not disappoint!
The two sets are Da Vinci’s Designs, a set of Artifact Equipment cards with amazing art based on the schematics of Leonardo Da Vinci and Lethal Legends, a set of beloved Legendary Creature cards reprinted with new names and fantastic art based on some beloved protagonists from previous Assassin’s Creed titles. A personal favourite among these is Basim, Master Assassin which is a reprint of Ramses, Assassin Lord, a card I previously purchased before this collaboration was announced to attempt to make an Assassin-themed deck.
While Secret Lairs are fantastic optional ways to bling your deck, Wizards of The Coast have recently, and bizarrely, changed it from a made-to-order product to a limited-drop product, which has been met with a lot of disappointment in the MTG community as now it means if you can’t immediately purchase these close to the sale date, chances are you may miss out, which is incredibly unfortunate. That said, please note that the dates on the promotional images below are incorrect, and these are both on sale from 24/06/2024 until 16/07/2024. I will be hoping to get my hands on both sets, and I hope that if you are too, you also manage to grab them!
Finally, some honourable mentions in this set for me are Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, who has the ability to, when attacking, exile Assassin cards from your graveyard with a memory counter attached and then for each creature you have in exile with a memory counter, make a copy of the Assassin you just exiled, tapped and attacking. This is a fun way to get aggressive that builds up over time and can quickly become overwhelming to your opponents!. Mostly, though, I’m just happy to see my favourite character brought to life in this set in such a beautiful way.
Ezio, Brash Novice has got to be one of my favourite cards thematically in this set. The idea that he doesn’t start off as an Assassin creature type, but for each time he attacks, he gets stronger in the form of a +1/+1 counter and so long as he has 2 or more of these counters, he is an Assassin in addition to his other creature types; I love the idea that for each action, he grows and as he grows he eventually becomes the Assassin we know and love. It’s a great way to have the beginning of his story reimagined in card mechanics. I think they did a great job with this!
Lydia Frye is a name I truly did not expect to see in this set, and I am incredibly glad they included her! With the idea that she cannot be blocked by creatures with power or greater and the theme of being a spy-like assassin getting intel in ways of Surveil X (meaning to look at the top X cards of your library and put any number of them in your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order) where X is the number of tapped Assassin creature cards you control is just great theming to me. She seems like a great addition to any Assassin-themed deck!
And last, but by no means least, we have the Brotherhood Patriarch. It’s a decent enough card, but I just love the flavour text at the bottom. I’m a simple man!
Now, I know there are so many cards I should probably point out and I could go into a hundred more, explaining why I love them or why they’re great, but I feel like that article could end up far too long. I just wanted to focus on a few cards and aspects of this set that I am excited for. I am overjoyed at how this set is looking and even the fact that it is happening at all, and I am incredibly excited to see what kind of decks people come up with! Please, if you follow me or Scholars on any social media, let us know what you are excited about or what you plan on/end up building with this set!
If you are looking to buy some products from this set, here is a list of the different products you can purchase and what they contain!
Starting off, we have the new Beyond Boosters, which have been introduced for this set, which can be purchased individually or as a booster box of 24 packs. These are the standard booster packs you can expect from a card game, containing 7 random cards with a mix of rarity from the set that you can use to create decks.
Next is the step up from those, the Collector’s Booster. These are 10 card packs full of foil cards with a mix of rarities, alternate arts and alternate borders. These are more expensive and are mostly to bling your deck out, collect, or if you’re chasing that special art that captivated you. If you’re lucky, you could also put a super-rare serialised card!
There is also the option to purchase a Bundle. This Bundle contains 9 Beyond Boosters, a special themed spin-down die for counting your life total, a box for storage and a good amount of land cards to help you build the mana base of your decks. These are great to get you started in your journey!
Finally, the Starter Kit contains 2 pre-constructed decks of 60 cards (not Commander decks, I should add) and contains some unique cards only found in this kit. Starter kits are a fantastic way to get into playing the game as they allow you and a friend to easily pick up a deck and learn as you play for a really affordable price. If you are new to MTG, I would absolutely recommend this product!
Magic is such an accessible game to play now, with things like Spelltable making online play via a webcam super easy and things like the starter kit so you and a friend can give the game a go for cheap. If you do find yourself looking to purchase these, please make sure you check for your Local Game Store and purchase through them when possible as supporting these stores that sell the product and run events is so important as they do an incredible amount to give the community a safe, fun environment in which to enjoy the hobby.
The Anatomy of a Card
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read this article! It has been great fun writing this, and I hope it was an enjoyable read for you! I am looking forward to seeing people enjoy this set just as much as I will when it releases on July 5th 2024.
(P.S. Shoutout to my friend Lex, my mentor for Magic: The Gathering, for coming up with the great title and for proof reading this for me to ensure I wasn’t giving any misinformation. A brain far larger than mine, that’s for sure!)
If you enjoyed this article be sure to follow Scholars of the Creed on BlueSky for more content on the art, history and science of the Assassin's Creed Universe. Safety and peace be upon you.