My obsession for the last year has become Magic: The Gathering. Testing it out for Lord of the Rings, then diving headfirst into the Wilds of Eldraine, it has come to control the bulk of my Friday nights. My old obsession, video games, has started to crossover with the excellent Fallout Commander decks. Now Assassin’s Creed has come to MTG, and it’s kind of a weird way to check it out.
How can you buy the set?
Going into this, I was expecting to check out some dope Commander decks. I mean, with the breadth of Assassin’s Creed games and other media, the four decks write themselves, right? Unfortunately, this is a mini-set with some odd options.
You can grab a Starter Kit, which has two 60-card decks that are ready to play. You can check out the review for the awesome Starter Kit here. Then there are Beyond Booster packs, Collector Booster packs, and a bundle. The annoying thing with beyond boosters is that they are only contain seven cards, with the Collector Booster rocking 10 cards.
That, of course, means that the set isn’t draftable as the boosters are too small. You have no idea how much I wanted to draft this set, but them’s the breaks.
The Beyond Boosters, Collector Boosters, and Bundle
In short, the Beyond Boosters contain three standard uncommon cards: a guaranteed rare or mythic card, a foil card of any rarity, a memory corridor card of any rarity, and a land card. The Collector Boosters, with their 10 cards, ups it to four to five rare cards but also promises two foil-etched cards of any rarity.
The bundle is loaded with nine of the beyond boosters, 20 foil and 20 non-foil lands, and a standard-sized spindown die. Normally bundles have an oversized die, which I was looking forward to, so I was a little bit gutted that it only had the standard size.
Looking at the cards in value, the packs don’t pack the same punch as a normal set. I will get into why I still love it later, but it’s totally valid for people to not see the value here from a booster perspective.
The challenge with the slots for extra rares is that they aren’t a guarantee. I think over the space of 30 beyond booster packs (yes, I am smart with money), I only opened three packs that had two rares and a mythic. I got two rares quite a few times, but getting one rare was the most regular occurrence. This is fine; you just need to be aware of the gambling aspect of it.
The art
One area this mini-set excels in is the artwork. It is consistently stunning. Each pack contains a memory corridor card, which is a full-art card that has alternative art. They are absolutely gorgeous. Then in the Collector Boosters, there are foil-etched cards. These ones are foiled in specific areas and look so incredible.
But it’s not these fantastic memory corridor cards and fancy foils that look great. Everything from the characters we know and love to generic assassin cards has all been designed stunningly. I would straight up buy an art book with all the card designs spread out. They are that damn good.
Now the issue I have is that when I put them together in some decks, I will have to choose which ones I want to use. They all look that good.
Given the small set size, you will get duplicates, but the benefit to the alternative arts is that quite often, when I got duplicates, they were still kind of different.
So what’s the point of the boosters?
When it comes to the boosters, the way I’ve decided to look at them is that they’re like a more affordable version of a secret lair. For $15, you can open a pack and get a bunch of Assassin’s Creed cards. Or for $50, you can get 10 Assassin’s creed cards with extra special art and extra shininess. I have looked at buying Secret Lair’s a few times and bought a couple. Generally getting them shipped to New Zealand is far too expensive for five or so cards.
Here I can get a bunch of cards for a franchise I love at a fraction of the price. The question is whether that appeals to you or not. They are modern legal, but after trying out Modern at my LGS and getting smoked on turn three, I don’t see any cards here that will help that.
Should you check it out?
The starter kit is a no-brainer for Asscree fans. The decks are fun to play, well built, and super awesome. Given the price range as well, it’s damn good value, and I will be using them to convince more friends to play MTG. The rest of the options on offer are much harder propositions.
The other booster types, if you want to look at it like a Secret Lair, are awesome. The cards are great, and the alternative arts are stunning. For the price of getting a Secret Lair in New Zealand you can get a bundle with heaps of cards and take advantage of being able to crack packs. The issue is how to use them. I will probably try to make a couple of Commander Decks from my stacks of cards. I wish they made Precon Commander Decks. Seriously, it couldn’t have more options for four decks in the Assassin’s Creed universe. The more I look at the cards, the more I realise I would have gladly bought all four decks in a heartbeat.
So, as a set, it’s not the best due to the size of the packs, the duplicates on offer, etc. But if you want some dope Assassin’s Creed cards, these are bloody awesome. I mean, I am waiting for my latest order of boosters to arrive. If you’ll excuse me, I’m headed down to my LGS to buy more cards. Like I said, I am good with money.
