I’m going to be the guy using Initiative in my deck with the oversized dungeon card from the bundle to put in the middle of the pod, and will provide D&D figures for each player to use for tracking their place in Undercity.

I think that most people are misunderstanding the concept of "Venture into ". The templating seems strange, but it's a clever way of locking specific dungeons to specific sets. This allows them to print more powerful dungeons without breaking rotating formats. It is still dungeon delving, as initiative DOES say to venture into the dungeon. That means that it works with older dungeon cards, but also makes it more difficult to access the more powerful dungeons, as they are locked behind cards from a specific set. Once you enter, other dungeon cards absolutely work with the new dungeons as well. This is a sign that they plan to make more dungeons, and more powerful dungeons at that. I'd rather have a small set of base dungeons and a handful of cards that reference specific dungeons that I can choose to play, rather than have to carry around every single dungeon they ever choose to print, and then have to decide which of those dungeon I want to enter EVERY time I enter a dungeon.

Seems like a fusion of monarch and Venture into the dungeon

Why does this mechanic refer to the Undercity? Can any D&D nerd explain that to me? I thought the initiative was just who is acting when in combat.

If i'm already in the undercity, and another player takes the initiative from me, do they start their own venture into their own copy of the undercity, or do they venture into the next room of 'my' undercity.

I like it, it’s going to be confusing at first but the monarch is a really fun mechanic and I’ve been hoping to see something similar, just as long as there won’t be to many monarch/initiative tokens flying around

I really like this. It introduces a way to add new dungeons to sets without needlessly complicating and power-creeping older venture cards, all while still totally working with them! It's neat and allows for a lot of interesting design options in the future. Albeit, specifically introducing this attached to a Monarch-like mechanic is more complicated than it was probably worth. Everyone wants/expected new dungeon cards, but no one *really* wanted to retroactively add what value old cards can get you. That would have a lot of nasty implications. This is quite literally the best of both worlds. A surprisingly good move from a company with so little reputation for those these days.

Was hoping for more dungeon options for my Sefris deck.

Wizards of the Coast really messed up by not putting the dungeon mechanic on land cards to specifically showed those are legendary Lands, And locations for those dungeons, LIKE the Isle of dread ,just really confusing when they put it on different random creatures and the backside of artifacts and enchantments, the concept of the dungeons are very good they just missed the mark by not allowing them to be on legendary land.

My question is how does the” if you completed a dungeon” mechanic work? Do you only have to complete one and that status stays with you for the rest of the game or do you have to complete a dungeon on that turn every time in order to activate?

If i have initiative and I’m already in the dungeon and I play a card that says take initiative do I move to the next room

Why couldn't it just be a dungeon, did wizards think it would be too OP?

Complaining about new mechanics is like complaining about old mechanics. You’ll rarely see them. Old fogeys get banding/horsemanship while college kids come at you full force with double strike indestructible magecraft companions

So does the game start with a player having initiative or does a card need to be played that says you have it?

So.... the way I read this mechanic, I thought everyone was in the Undercity together and followed the same path. Like, the first to take initiative went to the first room, then whoever took it second chose which room to enter next, etc... It was very very fun when we did it that way, if anyone is curious.

Having specific cards related to specific dungeons is a cool balancing idea. But it’s a shame the initiative ability is limited to only one dungeon, otherwise I’d be more excited for it as a new monarch mini game to pass around

So if I attack someone when I have initiative, do they also get initiative? And if they do, do we share the Undercity Token?

If they take your initiative and you take it back, do you start it over again from start?

Why isn't the effect "when you take the initiative and at the beginning of your upkeep if you control the initiative, venture into the dungeon"? Why would I split my Sefris deck between Initiative and venture triggers? I already jump through enough hoops just to venture.

I wish this were a shared dungeon where a player would move into a room from the last spot the opponent was in and only when combat damage was dealt. It would lead to more interesting plays. maybe have some rooms that only lead into bad rooms, so the players wouldn't want to attack you. I understand that they wanted to do something to work with dungeons, but dungeons are just bad. I would rather they just ditch them.

So any player can venture through this dungeon? Not just the player of the deck?

If you complete undercity,and no one else is in it besides you, do you still get the initiative after its completed?

In French, Frist strike is translated as initiative, so the new use of this word is not so well found...

so in commander, you could be monarch, have initiative and adventure into dungeons all at the same time.

They really needed to have made Adventures as a supplement set with a dungeon for each commander deck.

The problem with this is that it adds a new level of complexity for the whole table to track. Now as a Sefris player I'm beside myself, but will also need to carry 3 extra copies of the undercity for the rest of the table.

Out of hand? The dungeon effects were lackluster AT BEST! WotC, WTF? I was hoping dungeons werent going to be a forgotten mechanic, but not like this...

If you regain the initiative after loosing it to another player, does the game remember where in The Undercity you were when you last had it? Or do you have to restart The Undercity again.

Lol, just hold onto this and monarch and it’s be pretty funny

Ugh...I was hoping to have new dungeons to work with old cards but the requirement to venture into Undercity *specifically sucks.

The physical monarch tokens have a typo on all of them

Honestly, I'm not too thrilled with this. I see it as repetitive, and more cumbersome, to have one dungeon, which works like every other one we currently have, except now it can't even benefit from preexisting dungeon delivers, to start. A lot of the problem with dice rolls, dungeons, and some other AitFR cards was the lack of variety catds to trigger them, and while it's nice that these effects are mutually assisting ONCE YOU ARE IN A DUNGEON, it just seems clunky to have this one that requires a special mechanism just to enter it. One thing that COULD make me less grumbly would be if some other cards REFERENCE Initiative. Say something says "if you have Initiative, this creature has First Strike", to reflect "going first in order", or something. A few Monarch cards gain perks while you are, or maybe even while you aren't, and since Venture Into the Dungeon didn't, if this mechanic really wants to be different, maybe there will be some things that reward you for it, apart from the benefits of the Undercity rooms. Here's hoping, anyway.

Under where?

These new sets are really getting out of hand with new mechanics that basically does the same as an existing mechanic. Why not stick with venture?

This is really disappointing I was hoping we would have more dungeon synergy it's like going back to kaladesh and instead of energy we have *solar power* and they don't interact with each other.

I'm confused why people are saying this doesn't work with current dungeons? Taking the initiative let's you finish your current dungeon... Plus the dungeon commander is sort of a reanimation deck isn't it..?

Not really seeing too much of the downside to this. Yeah you can argue it would be easier to have all the new cards perfectly interact with the old cards but I like this just fine. Literally dungeons came with its own infinite combo with Acererak and infinite mana or reduced casting cost along with others. I think people really sleep on the fact that dungeons effects are in ADDITION to whatever you're doing. If you venture off of a death trigger, discard trigger, ETB, LTB, or casting a spell, you're still going to get those benefits AND the dungeon benefits. Depending on what you're doing, it's almost always net gain, even if the dungeons by themselves are not busted. Plus there are cards that double dungeon triggers. Its quirky and it doesn't look impressive when its just the first dungeon and venturing once or twice a turn but imagine someone running the old dungeon cards, new initiative cards, and monarch in one deck. No matter what happens on each turn, something is probably going to trigger your effects and people are going to barely profit off of it while you quickly take over the game. Also buy singles 🤙🏽

This will be odd when all four players enter the undercity, cause they keep stealing initiative from you.

Apparently everyone else rolled high on their initiative. 😅 (See comments; 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)

The dungeon mechanic was deeply mediocre in my anecdotal experience. Of course WOtC doubled down... Is this D&D set too D&D? 🤔

Oh my god, magecraft might be back in the next two years!!! LETS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huge fan of the monarch mechanic, but really not a fan of this one. The fact that you have to have an external reminder as to what the Undercity is makes this feel clunky and parasitic (so reading the card *doesn't* explain the card--an issue I had with venturing into the dungeon in general, to be fair). I think I disagree with the notion being made at 4:30 in that, despite the clunkiness of venturing as a mechanic, the prospect of WotC adding more dungeons in the future made the mechanics seem less esoteric/parasitic, and left the door open for them to make some more interesting decisions in the design space in the future. I guess they can still add more, but the fact that this is their first revisiting of the mechanic seems to indicate they might not. The fact that it is almost identical to venturing into the dungeon, but not quite, is pretty baffling too. The reminder text on the little initiative token is clear enough I guess, but I would not be surprised at all if I had to explain to a newer player in my play group something like, "Well yes, Undercity is a dungeon but you aren't allowed to venture into it when you venture into a dungeon, BUT if you venture into the dungeon while you already in the Undercity then that works just fine". Feels clunky just typing it here. To top it all off this seems like such a flavor miss/fail when it comes to emulating the concept of Initiative in MTG. Why does arguably the most important, universal combat mechanic in DnD pertain to some specific dungeon in one specific setting? Its like if I was making an MTG-themed Skyrim mod and made it so the concept of tapping a creature meant teleporting them to Windhelm. Oddly specific and not even really a good encapsulation of what the mechanic does.

Sound very excessive to me lol We just introduce Dungeon mechanic for 1 set, now we were introduced 1 more Dungeon like mechanic to make things more weird and complicated lol It not improved nor do anything much about the Venture mechanic, it actually make things more complicated like if completing city will count as complete dungeon? and now we have to make separated cards for city and dungeon and can we venture both? or just one? why WotC keep making thing worst and worst lol

wizards i inadvertently screwed themselves with the wording of this mechanic. a lot of cards are limited to only this set and i see this as a huge disappointment to sefris players. yeah instead of just adding another dungeon they can use, will just make it so once they enter THIS dungeon, they can never leave. also I’m a collector and usually buy a set booster box with each new series, but i’m thinking i’ll just buy singles this time.

I am glad they did not return Venture in the Dungeon but rather did something new and interesting to keep the Venture into check. Because I seen what Sefris can do if properly built and it is basically like facing a Commander that is using a constant emblem against you. And the only dungeon a good venture player will use is Lost Mines of Phandelver because it is short, give you top deck manipulation, mana fix, life / damage and then drawing you cards. + with Sefris a means of abusing it further by returning what you lost. Adding more would be pointless because Tomb of Annihilation or the most fun dungeon, Dungeon of the Mad Mage is not being utilized by proper "Venture into the Dungeon Players" since they don't provide nearly enough value as Lost Mines. So this is a nice little spin on it, with a really powerful end effect that will make the whole table more swingy. Though personally, I am really tired of facing dungeons since you cannot really do much to fight against it.

I HATE the dungeon mechanic. Probably gonna sit this set out.

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waiting for you to just say “what the fuck is this” on something

MTG is just painful to follow anymore. There are constant new mechanics which make the game increasingly unapproachable for new and returning players. While that's happening they are constantly releasing super priced collectables and special release which price the game out of the reach of anyone without significant disposable income. It's all just sad.