It’s time to celebrate innovation and spirit of creativity in the latest Magic: The Gathering expansion Kaladesh! It’s the start of a new block and fans of the popular collectible card game will surely welcome the return of more artifacts, even more artifacts and a whole lot more artifacts in the amazing world of Kaladesh, home of Planeswalker Chandra! We got Legendary Artifacts, creature constructs, equipment and the new vehicle cards.
This past weekend saw Kaladesh pre-release events at local game shops in Singapore and Malaysia. So look out for them when they all officially go on sale 30th September 2016 across the region.
This new expansion introduces 264 cards as well as several new card types and mechanics. Two that I found interesting are vehicle cards and the new energy counters. For its power, vehicles are good and cheap but they need creatures to pilot it. Without creatures in play to tap, your vehicles are pretty much useless as they can’t even block attacks. So in a proper constructed deck, they might be devastating but in draft or sealed, it’s going to be tough to pull it off.
Refined aether is the primary power source for most of Kaladesh. On cards, this magic energy is represented by energy counters; a new type of counter that players can use to trigger exciting abilities. There are simply so many cards that allow players to create energy counters that I think there ought to be some good decks utilizing them.
Other things to look forward to in Kaladesh. Blue control might finally make a significant return to standard format with these new counterspell cards. They may not be as good as previous blue counterspells but beggars can’t be choosers, right? I see Ceremonious Rejection as a stable in any blue control deck as it’ll take down a ton of cards for just one little blue mana.
Introducing the big, bad Gearhulks. ‘Nuff said.
Six new Planeswalkers in Kaladesh! Four to be found in random booster packs and two only available in the new Planeswalker pre-constructed decks. Yup, Kaladesh will see two new Planeswalker pre-constructed decks instead of the previous regular pre-constructed decks. Suitable for new players, each pack includes a ready-made 60-card deck with a foil mythic rare Planeswalker card, two 15-card Kaladesh booster packs, a strategy insert, a deck box and Magic learn-to-play guide. The new deck box is also of better quality and is a whole lot bigger too so you can now put sleeved cards in it!
Perhaps the most talked-about feature of the Kaladesh expansion set are the Kaladesh Inventions. Called “The Masterpiece Series”, these are 30 premium foil reprints of highly sought after artifact cards from previous Magic sets and randomly inserted in the Kaladesh booster packs. Consider yourself very lucky if you find one in your booster pack as they are extremely rare. According to Wizard$ of the Coast, it’s one in about 144 pack$!
To find your nearest Magic: The Gathering venue or shop, visit http://locator.wizards.com
