Wizards of the Coast presents Dungeons & Dragons: Battle for Baldur's Gate, a Magic: The Gathering expansion, a Deckmaster game by Richard Garfield

My favourite part of this set is that Karlach's price spiked when BG3 came out.

Aarakocra Sneak is quite playable, so much so that it is banned in pauper.

Unfortunately, there is not a full cycle of X Orb of Dragonkind. Dragons in Baldurs Gate were primarily in Temur colors so their is currently no orb for Black or White

So Prized Statue's Idol first showed up on the first cover of the Player's Handbook for 1st edition D&D. It was next shown in Hackmaster's first printed ruleset (labeled as 4th edition because continuity with Knights of the Dinner Table was a thing) on their PHB. Then WotC reprinted the 1st ed PHB again for the memorial printing to give Gygax an actual statue in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It has also shown up in various cameos and homaged multiple times over the decades, due to being actually iconic for most grognards.

It's really interesting how when I first opened these packs, I had no idea about the specific characters... fast forward to 2 years later, and my playgroup is working it's way through BG3... these cards are so much fun to draft... Commander draft! What a rush!

This set isn’t much in terms of card value outside of the Ancient dragon cycle, but if you want a fun draft this set is shockingly good and I do consider it pretty close to original Commander Legends in that regard. And thanks to that low value it’s usually not too hard to get a draft box of it either.

Aarakocra Sneak is an all star in one of my favorite formats, looking at every vintage legal card in alphabetical order on scryfall

That Copy token is ridiculously much cooler than the one they keep using.

I think previewing characters from BG3 in this was nifty. You still had older characters you knew, so if you didn't recognize someone it was this whole mystery of what they're gonna be like.

I love the Wizards of Thay/tham/thairs

The dragon orbs aren't a full cycle, there's only blue, green, and red ones. This doesn't bother me at all as a 5 color dragon commander deck owner :P. I also just recently added a noble's purse to my goblins deck, not because I think the treasures are worth it, but because it's basically 4 artifacts in 1 card and that deck loves sacrificing artifacts. So that's not "breaking" the card, but it is an alternate use of it.

I think you're underestimating the Noble's Purse. It's a 2 cost mana rock that taps for any color, with the downside of having limited use but upside of Treasure/artifact synergies

This set was absolutely goated. Drafting Commander Legends 2 was easily the most fun I ever had playing Magic.

I can only presume that both this set and Baldur’s Gate 3 had such a disproportionate development cycle that prevented them from being released within a close enough time window to promote each other. Especially since BG3 was in development for about six years.

Noble's Purse is a decent mana rock for affinity decks, Jaheira's a good commander if you want to get really busted with it, throw in a Displaced Dinosaurs and tap to make a dinosaur token before someone immediately kills your Displaced Dinosaurs

It's kind of funny that the card is called Wizards of Thay since they're usually called the Red Wizards of Thay but I guess they didn't want to put the word red on a blue card.

Not only do the common initiative creatures see some Highlander play, they also saw Pauper play until they were banned for being incredibly busted.

i do like "green flying creature that can't attack unless..." as a way to print essentially a giant spider, not only are you shutting tiny flyers down but you can also profit from your opponent playing them

9:30 Two words: Unwinding Clock

My brother pulled a G move last Christmas and bought me a box of this set. We opened it together and it was stacked! Hard not to love this set after that.

Aarakocra Sneak is honestly one of the best initiative creatures; it's better than than blue rare. The stats of 1/4 flier when you need to hold or retake the iniative are kinda incredible.

The way Graham says "Marut" it's like the record scratch that abruptly stops the music in the comedy movie trailer.

9:43 No, it's like a Pokémon. Vrock is the shriek it calls out, and people started calling it that. "What manner of monstrosity is that?!?" "Vrock!!" "Oh, understandable."

Nothic are basically what happens to Wizards who delve too deep into dark secrets when they aren't smart enough to become a Lich.

For a second there I thought this was going to be Graham Eats the Whole Thing

Imoen and Scion of Halaster don't combo well, because Scion triggers on the FIRST card you draw each turn, and Imoen's card draw happens in your end step. (Unless you have somehow managed to make yourself skip your draw step.)

I use Noble’s Purse in a deck that proliferates a lot. With the proliferation it becomes a tapped Arcane Signet that can bank its mana. Even in a treasure deck or one with Academy Manufactor, without keeping it stocked with counters it doesn’t look all that good as a three turn mana rock with synergies.

The cards in this set generally aren’t worth a ton but there’s SO many playable cards for commander, it’s one of my favorites ever

Kevin: Scion of MacHalaster

I was playing BG3 in 2022, well act 1 over and over.

Hot take: I would first pick marut and the purse. I think it's crucial to stay open in commander draft. And purse is actually really solid. Yes it's slow, but it actually works like a diamond with "upside(?)". Maybe Marut isn't the strongest, but it works fine with the purse and actually fits in quite a lot of archetypes. You could also consider the white dragon over it, because it's a 2 for 1 and that's always good (and it also kinda works with purse), but i think colorless is the way to go. If you wanna commit to blue and go with Imoen because it's a commander, I would take the sneak with it, because synergies and initiative is bonkers. Also the wizards aren't that good in limited, because there's no spellslinger archetype.

Ah ra ahrara ahrararara sneak 🤣

I'm engaging to get my daily source of vowels!

I absolutely LOVED that set!

Not that Noble's Purse is broken or anything, but a lot of the trouble my artifact tokens deck had when this set came out was consistently making treasures, so Noble's Purse was an OK way of doing that. Eventually got cut from the deck since wizards has gone ham with treasure producers, but I was never super upset at how slow it was since it made up for it with consistency.

nice to see that booster set I always liked

I loved the first D&D set. I made a cube out of it. I was looking forward to this one so much until I saw the price on the boosters...

The full name of the edition of dnd commonly known as "second edition" was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition. However, there was also an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first edition. There was also a Basic Dungeon and Dragons, which ran simultaneous with both AD&D 1e and a big chunk of AD&D 2e, eventually becoming the BECMI version (consisting of 5 main books, basic, expert, companion, master, immortal). In my personal experience AD&D 2e was the edition that is typically meant when people just say "Advanced Dungeon and Dragons" without specifying edition. The terms are therefore not quite synonymous, but somewhat gestures in the direction of each other.

6:15 Omeluum and Blurg OTP

this set is dirt cheat and very fun to draft i built a set cube out of it and have a blast every time i bust it out

Delightful aas aalways!

The algorithm rules us all

Well, at least you got some office supplies.

A Slaad once bit my sister... No realli!

Crack! A! Pack!

Not broken, but noble’s purse is useful on my Atraxa proliferate deck. Lets me bank mana when I don’t have something to cast.

Was that a Mentok the Mindtaker reference?

Rob the Hoard used to be called Rob the Wealthy, but Robert went a bit overboard.

I've always pronounced 'Aarakocra' as "air-ah-ko-krah" and 'Marut' is "mah-root" I think?

6:15 That art makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Sucks when the _PARTY_ ends early, doesn't it?

Who's rob and whats going on with his hoard?

So much faffery

*M A R u T*

Comment

Magic: the gathering: commander legends: universes beyond: dungeons and dragons: battle for baldur's gate

Not to be pedantic, but magic the gathering is inherently a multiplayer game you and 1 opponent, thus multiple players.