A lot of it mixes with the mechanics of the set, though, so I’ll stop myself for now and move on to that. All the little flavor text additions, cool spells, references, characters and items, etc. I could probably do an entire piece just going over the “story” of this set and how they’ve incorporated some awesome D&D flavor within Magic’s existing mechanics and rules. You Meet in a Tavern is particular fun to me, flavor-wise at least. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to create a whole D&D-meets-Magic format for me and my friends. Black is the only color that isn’t graced with this fun Dungeon Master-esque addition, which I am incredibly disappointed by, but I’m excited enough about Forgotten Realms in its entirety to let it slide just this once. The next thing I want to call out is the “choose one” instants. Oh, and some creatures (like Baleful Beholder) even have a “choose one” effect where you get to basically cast a famous D&D spell. From the simplistic Fly to the “this is going to cause problems” Wish, I’m definitely going to be making more than one deck themed around my favorite spellcasting characters. One thing I particularly enjoy is the various D&D spells peppered throughout the set with some pretty cool and well-executed effects. Obviously we have the beautifully-illustrated Potion of Healing, the tricky Mimic, and the somewhat charming, over-the-top, swaggering likes of Volo, Guide to Monsters, among many others. I was excited to see references to Neverwinter Nights (I got irrationally giddy when I saw that one of the Swamps mentioned the Mere of Dead Men) and Baldur’s Gate (another Swamp card) along with the classic tabletop stuff. There’s plenty of iconic items, characters, and scenarios from D&D sprinkled throughout Forgotten Realms’ cards.

And I, for one, think they did a great job. I’ll get to how they incorporated some of D&D’s mechanics in a bit, but for now it’s all about the flavor. I know I already mentioned that Wizards nixed Forgotten Realms’ inclusion as part of Magic’s canon lore, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still marvel at how R&D has sprinkled the magic of D&D in this set. My favorite is the Far Realm, a plane of Lovecraftian horrors (called aberrations in D&D) that lies “outside” of the rest of the multiverse.įorgotten Realms has focused on Faerûn and the Prime as they’re the biggest part of D&D and probably the most well-known and commonly referenced, though there are some splashes from other planes as well. It’s where the fey are from and is a plane of really potent magic. There’s also the Feywild or the plane of Faerie, which exists as an echo of the Prime Material Plane. Just like Magic, the Forgotten Realms has more than one realm as the name implies (usually called “ planes”), which is also called the multiverse. Some other notable places in Faerûn are the Anauroch desert, Amn, and Thay. A lot of lore focuses on the Sword Coast and heroes of the area including the Spine of the World to the North and Baldur’s Gate further South. The main location for a lot of Forgotten Realms stories is Faerûn, a major continent on the planet of Toril. Let me just crack my knuckles and lore vomit all over you before we get into the set itself. Hired Hexblade | Illustration by Irina Nordsol And honestly comes off as a little bit lazy in terms of creative storytelling, but it is what it is. Well, we already know that this set isn’t going to be part of Magic’s Multiverse lore-wise. So what does this mean for Forgotten Realms? They simply print cards with mechanics and themes to bolster upcoming blocks or give answers for overpowered cards from recent sets. Cards in core sets also sometimes have reminder text for mechanics and abilities on the card itself.Ĭore sets also don’t contribute to Magic’s overall storyline and don’t usually have a unified story across their cards. Core sets are usually aimed towards new players, featuring cards and mechanics that can easily be added into various MTG products like welcome decks, planeswalker decks, and deck builder’s toolkits.

This means that it’s going to be Standard-legal, of course, but it’s also got some interesting implications. This year, however, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms has replaced a normal core set. If you’re familiar with Magic’s typical releases, you’ll know that the summer set is usually the year’s core set. This set is an interesting one, and not just because of the lore and flavor. Shessra, Death's Whisper | Illustration by Marie Magny

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