Core Set 2019 Open House

"Now remember, what do you do when you attack?"

I heard this while stepping into a game store I didn't know I was going to be at, this past Sunday, which was day two of the Core Set 2019 Open House event. I saw an adult and a child, presumably related, by the looks of it, playing a game of Magic against each other, with a store employee guiding them through the rules. It was the combat step, by the sound of it, and the father, having been reminded to do so, taps his attacking creatures.

"Is this the Open House?" I venture, approaching? "Any chance I could take a look at those welcome decks they're playing with?"

"Sure, once I finish with these guys, I'll walk you through it," the employee answered jovially. "You can learn to play and even buy some of the products two weeks before they're released!" (See below for some cards from one such product.)

New character Vivien Reid stars in her own Planeswalker Deck.

"Well, I already know how to play," I admitted. "As a matter of fact, I just tried to teach a bunch of kids, using custom-made welcome-type decks from Dominaria, and it was pretty hectic..."

But the employee had returned to the game on the table. "Now you have to tap five more mana for that... aaaand your angel's out."

The son had just dropped a bomb rare, Serra's Guardian, a six-drop creature that flies and gives all your dudes vigilance. It was the flagship card of the white welcome deck, which I was itching to get my hands on. My last experience with welcome decks left me itching for the older version of the product, but apparently the folks at Wizards have made a litany of changes, specifically to this set, to make it more beginner-friendly.

This was explained to me by another employee, who had dug up a box of these welcome decks. "You can pick one of these to do a battle with. We have white, blue, black, and red ones left, all the greens are gone."

Being a Vorthos gamer type, I recognized the four characters, or planeswalkers, on the fronts of the boxes. Red was Sarkhan, last seen in the dragon-themed plane of Tarkir, the setting of the current official Magic story. Black was Liliana, a necromancer who was key player in the last set, Dominaria. Blue was Tezzeret, an agent of Nicol Bolas (the dragon from the key art) and also obsessed with artifacts. And white was Ajani, a leonin (read: humanoid cat), both of these last two were last featured on Kaladesh.

Naturally, I picked red, because dragons. And partly because of the promo card, a foil red goblin called Guttersnipe, my new copy of which I was currently admiring.

"Oh, is this where we get to try out the new cards?"

Just then, another customer entered the store, another adult male, this one snappily dressed and holding binders of cards. "It is," he was told, "but now you just have white, blue, and black decks to choose from." I sheepishly waved the last remaining red deck in the air.

"Oh, so everyone knew what was in the packs and went for whatever the overpowered green card is," he remarked, with a knowing glance. "Alright, let's see here, the other customer began analyzing. White is probably knights... Black could have a graveyard theme... Blue is counterspells... I'll go with white."

"A white mage uses teamwork and protection to overwhelm their foes!" the first employee informed us, reading from the how-to-play portion of the product included from the manufacturer with the box of decks. It had a cool clipboard style cardboard display, outlining the colors and types of cards and parts of the turn, etc. He was now done using the display for his teaching game: the son's ground forces overwhelmed his opponent's defense while his dad was using all his resources against the angel.

"You know, each of those packs has two decks in it: the one with the color on the box, and then a random one. You're supposed to battle it out with the two decks in the pack. But, since you each get a pack, you could use these as two parts of a single deck, and shuffle them together."

UR fliers/spells

I was down to try, as I saw that my red welcome deck was accompanied by a blue one in my little deckbox, which also had a slick easy-open tab. I noted that was the same color pair as my very first Magic deck, the 40-card Zendikar intro pack.

"And furthermore..." the first employee offered, as he saw that my opponent's white deck would be paired with a red one. "Since I see you both have red in your pool, I wouldn't be opposed if you wanted to add the guttersnipe to your decks."

W e both agreed, since we were both accomplished Magic players who craved more than the simple beginner-level interactions from just the mono-colored welcome decks. We each took out a low drop creature to keep the ratio at the optimal 60 card mix (or so we thought). We also didn't have any dice (we borrowed a d20 from the store to roll for who would go first) and my opponent was kind enough to keep track of our life totals with a good old fashioned pen and paper.

While shuffling, I learned that my opponent was not only a player, but also a serious collector. He had already idenified the "six or so" cards in the set that he wants, in order to complete a certain constructed archetype. He also revealed that he likes to play the legacy format, since he has a lot of older cards in his collection.

He actually used a reprint of one the game's oldest cards to beat me in the first game. Not only did he have the angel that I had seen in the previous game, but also a Shivan Dragon to completely overrun me in the air.

"You should've double-blocked the dragon," my opponent offered. "Them both having vigilance means they can attack and still be good blockers."

"True," I explained, "but I had a couple of good combat tricks to set up a blowout if I attacked and forced you to block. You just happened to have another combat trick to equal one of mine." But I had seen some pretty strong burn- and tempo-based removal in my deck, so I was feeling alright as we commenced to shuffling for round two.

Apparently my opponent had started collecting Magic cards in 1994, one year after the original print run ended, and when I was the tender age of eight. He said he had a full playset of the dual lands - the ORIGINAL dual lands, although not with a black border I guess - and also a bunch of some kind of djinn? Maybe he was saying Juzam? Don't get me started on the issues of Magic pronunciation...

I took the second game with almost entirely a water-based path. My double Waterknots tied up the ground, while my Frilled (and unblockable) Sea Serpent slammed in for the kill.

"I don't have anything to deal with enchantments in here, so all your auras are just kill spells to me," my opponent lamented, as he perused the cards in his deck.

"Weird," I remarked. "Usually there's a Disenchant effect in there somewhere. "You know, Disenchant is one of the most new-art-reprinted cards, with nearly ten unique art printings..."

No, I actually didn't go into that in real life. Instead, I found out that my opponent had compiled quite an impressive collection of cards, but that it didn't come cheap: he told me there were some cards that he had paid upwards of a hundred dollars to acquire at the time, but now worth they were worth in the thousands. Quite a return on his investment! If only my elementary school self was a little more shrewd in his choice of hobbies...

I lost the tiebreaker pretty handily, as my creatures kept falling victim to good removal. The conclusion took a while to get to, though, because none of us was drawing anything but lands for a significant portion of the game.

"24, 25, 26 lands! That's why!" exclaimed my opponent, going through the deck. "Four more than I would have put in-- well..." he stopped himself. "I feel like I was missing at least three creatures."

"True, but remember, these were originally 30 card mono-color decks made for beginners," I reminded him. "If you're teaching someone how to play Magic, there's nothing less fun than to be mana screwed. In fact, the last people I tried to teach Magic weren't even old enough to SAY 'screwed.'"

I didn't go into that either, but instead purchased an M19 Planeswalker deck, since they were available early, and why not? I clearly picked green, because that was the color in highest demand. Reading the introductory material that came with the deck made me wish I had read it before my aforementioned Magic lesson. There are cards with the (very simplified) rules printed ON THEM. It's like Fluxx in a way, which I've always said was a great precursor to Magic in a lot of ways.

Even a mana dork can finish up a game quick-snap with Oakenform and double Titanic Growth .

Anyway, since bringing Vivien's deck home, I have played a couple skirmishes against a streamlined version of the UR aggro compilation welcome deck (supplemented with some cards from Viven's booster pack, most notably a Meteor Golem, a card I like a lot so far), and my Open House deck has not fared very well. Hopefully I open some mythics in the prerelease pack I have already preordered for next weekend, and I can build a comparable deck that could go up against Vivien. But only time (and which promo cards I open) will tell...