Doomed Traveler – My 1st Impressions of Magic: The Gathering’s new set, INNISTRAD

I played Magic: the Gathering quite a lot back in college (I started right after the release of The Dark set), but then I drifted away from the game (somewhere around Visions).  A few months ago one of my college buddies found his old cards buried in his trunk.  This started a wave of nostalgia and renewed interest and it wasn’t long before I too had rediscovered my stash of cards in the basement.

Last Friday, I went to a pre-release event for Magic‘s new set: Innistrad.  The set has a gothic horror theme with ghosts, zombies, vampires, werewolves, witch-hunters, and mad scientists in a “Sleepy Hollow”-like setting.  Innistrad reminded me a lot of D&D’s Ravenloft and Flying Frog’s A Touch of Evil.  Indeed, the later’s soundtrack would make a haunting backdrop to an Innistrad duel.

The set includes some new mechanics, including “curses”: (nasty) enchantments that are played directly on another player; and “morbid”: special creature powers triggered only when something dies.  The set also includes a lot of “flashback” and other abilities that make the graveyard a very important part of the game.  But the most interesting addition is “transform,” an ability that introduces double-faced creature cards.  These creatures start with their primary side face-up, then when certain conditions are met the card is flipped over and the creature “transforms”.  Most of these creatures are werewolves but there are also vampires and other some surprises.  I must admit,  I was dubious when I first heard of “transform” but having played with it I was converted.  The transform conditions are not always simple or completely determined by the creature’s control.  This leads to some very tricky strategies and some very interesting duels.

The timing of this set was very fortunate for me (and for Wizards of the Coast); had I rediscovered M:tG right before the release of the previous set, New Phyrexia, I think I would have dropped the game again fairly quickly.  Not only were there some mechanics in New Phyrexia that I didn’t care for, the setting was not my cup of tea (except the “myrs”, they were kinda neat).  As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I am primarily a role-player and so the story and setting of my games — even my board games and card games — are important to me.  New Phyrexia was just too grimdark for my tastes.  But Innistrad is much more to my liking.  I’m even thinking of using it as inspiration for my traditional Halloween RPG . . .