When you think of Magic the Gathering, what do you think of? Do you think of the movie’s depiction of the game (Nerdy/Geeky) or do you think of a card game similar to Pokemon or Yugioh? During the ’90s and early 2000s, Magic the Gathering and other trading card games were considered a nerdy and expensive hobby. In the 2010s, thanks to the popularity of Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, and other pop culture franchises, DND and Magic the Gathering gained popularity. During the pandemic, trading cards rose in popularity and became high-value items. With Magic becoming more popular, Wizards of the Coast looked for new ways to draw audience in.
Since the pandemic, Wizards of the Coast has released crossover Magic the Gathering sets with collaborations with Dr. Who, Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Fallout, Clue, Jurrasic Park, and even more. At Summer Game Fest 2024, we had the opportunity to check out the upcoming Magic the Gathering X Assassin’s Creed collaboration. For our preview, we got to play against the creative lead director of the set.
For the match, we used the Eivor structure deck. My opponent used the Ezio free-run structure deck. The Eivor structure deck revolves around the use of artifacts, Summoning Eivor, and destroying your opponent’s creatures. The Eivor deck uses the Red-White mana pool.
The Ezio structure deck revolves around the new Freerunning ability; the free-run ability is activated when an assassin deals damage to an opponent. During that turn, the player can use the Freerunning cost of the card in order to play it. The Ezio deck revolves around the Blue-Black mana pools.
Match.
The beginning of the match started out fairly normal with both of us playing a multi-color mana. Early on, my opponent had the advantage due to summoning an assassin. Luckily, due to limited mana, he was not able to use any freerunning abilities. On our next turn, we used Misthio’s Fury Instant card to destroy his assassin. With his assassin dead, we were able to lock him down for a few turns, however, due to a lack of white mana, we were not able to summon some of our monsters.
Despite being 15 rounds in, we were only able to summon fire monsters. On his next turn, our opponent was able to Summon Ezio, Blade of Vengeance. At that point, it was only a matter of time before our demise. Despite being up 18 to 6 health, we were stuck due to a lack of white mana. On his next turn, our opponent was able to attack with Ezio for 5 and use his freerunning ability to summon two more assassins.
At this point, our demise was inevitable. On the next draw, we got another fire-mana and were completely locked out. Rather than just surrendering, we gave our opponent the satisfaction of killing us.
Card Impressions
So although it was fun to see the Ezio and Eivor Assassin’s Creed Magic the Gathering decks in play, it is hard to fully grasp their potential. With both of us being limited, it only gave us a small taste of what each had to offer. The Eivor Set seemed like it could be strong if you could get the right artifacts and summon Eivor.
The Ezio deck seemed fully reliant on being able to deal damage to your opponent directly and use the free running ability; in a match-up made to show off the base level, the two decks seemed evenly powered. If you were to take the Ezio deck into a non-set match, it could be locked down easily if your opponent summons monsters or tokens easily. Both sets had great art and captured the essence of the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
Sadly, we were not able to see more of the set, but if Wizards of the Coast has captured the essence of the other assassins in the same way, it will be a great set. Hopefully, we will get to see more of the set soon. Will you be buying and playing the Assassin’s Creed set? Will you wait to buy it when it is on sale? Let us know what you think of the artwork and deck system.
