Inside Avatar: The Last Airbender's Beginner Box for Magic: The Gathering

Let’s beryllium real, Magic: The Gathering is complicated. I've been playing it for decades, but knowing however oregon wherever to commencement is intimidating if you haven't – until past year, erstwhile a merchandise called the Foundations Beginner Box yet provided the fantabulous starting constituent insubstantial Magic has needed. Now, with a marque caller Beginner Box themed astir the game’s upcoming crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender conscionable a fewer months away, that inviting beforehand doorway is being opened up to an adjacent wider audience.

Ahead of the Avatar set’s archetypal look earlier this week, Wizards of the Coast sent maine the Avatar Beginner Box to unfastened up and effort retired for myself. It’s been each spot the flavorful instauration I hoped it would be, afloat of amusive references to the cartoon amusement and elemental but inactive mechanically absorbing cards to easiness newcomers in. And with implicit 100 marque caller cards, immoderate of which are unsocial to this merchandise portion others are from the main set, we person a monolithic magnitude of spoilers to amusement disconnected here.

You tin flip done the slideshow beneath oregon ticker the video supra to spot each paper successful the Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box:

If you’ve already tried the Foundations Beginner Box, this is beauteous overmuch the nonstop aforesaid happening with caller cards and an Avatar-themed overgarment of overgarment – and if you haven’t, oregon are simply an Avatar instrumentality who is dipping a toed into Magic for the archetypal time, this is genuinely a large spot to get started. It comes with 10 otherwise themed Jumpstart decks, each of which is fundamentally fractional of a 40-card platform truthful that you and a person tin each drawback two, shuffle them together, and play against each different connected adjacent footing. It besides comes with a simplified regularisation publication (trust me, you don’t request to commencement disconnected with the broad rules), 2 fold-out playmats to springiness you a consciousness of however the crippled is laid out, and immoderate dice and tokens to support way of different things.

There are 120 full nonland cards successful the Beginner Box, 50 of which person the TLE acceptable code, which is represented by the acceptable awesome that looks similar Aang’s Glider (47 are marque new, portion 3 are existing cards reprinted with caller Avatar art). These cards are not portion of the main set, alternatively lone ineligible successful places similar Commander oregon different formats wherever they were already playable. The remainder of the cards are from the main Avatar set, which has the acceptable codification TLA and a acceptable awesome that looks similar Aang’s head. Those are ineligible successful Standard, with lone 4 reprints and a fistful of duplicates crossed the 10 taxable options.

The existent brilliance of the Beginner Box is however 2 of those Jumpstart decks are really designed arsenic a guided tutorial of sorts to amusement you and different subordinate the ropes. They travel stacked successful a circumstantial bid and aren’t meant to beryllium shuffled up of your archetypal game, with each subordinate getting their ain usher publication afloat of instructions to follow. These locomotion you done a mostly scripted game, implicit with cute small connection bubbles from Avatar characters discussing it connected immoderate of the pages.

It’s not similar playing that on-rails lucifer is peculiarly exciting, but by taking a enactment retired of a batch of committee crippled regularisation books that bash thing similar, the Beginner Box is capable to supply a instauration of knowing that is simply a genuinely effectual learning tool. Magic has a batch of moving parts that are mostly invisible, relying connected the players to way things similar the phases of a crook oregon who has an accidental to enactment astatine immoderate fixed clip – it’s a large crushed wherefore my go-to proposal for learning the crippled has agelong been to download the MTG Arena integer lawsuit and play done that tutorial online since it handles those things for you. (And, to beryllium fair, that is inactive rather a bully mode to learn.) But there’s conscionable thing satisfying astir learning to play this insubstantial crippled with insubstantial cards, and that tutorial lucifer sets you up for occurrence successful a mode Magic has mostly lacked offline.

It’s besides important that the Beginner Box isn’t just a tutorial arsenic those introductory decks past go a portion of the 10 half-deck pool, letting you premix and lucifer themes, similar pairing a greenish platform afloat of large creatures with a achromatic platform each astir going connected the offensive. The thought of acceptable packets similar this isn’t thing caller to Magic (Avatar is adjacent getting its ain due Jumpstart merchandise arsenic well), but erstwhile the platform gathering of constructed formats similar Standard oregon Commander tin person a higher obstruction of introduction and the cognition required for constricted formats similar Draft tin beryllium intimidating, it continues to beryllium 1 of the astir intuitive and approachable ways to bask Magic aboriginal on.

Of course, astir of the praise I’ve slung truthful acold is existent of the archetypal Beginner Box, too. What sets this 1 isolated is evidently its Avatar flavor. As a immense instrumentality of the show, it was a delight to admit truthful galore loving references crossed these decks – from antithetic takes connected characters similar Aang oregon Sokka, to goofy moments similar the 1 connected the paper How To Start a Riot from the show's Boiling Rock episodes. There are much of Avatar’s iconic hybrid animals than I tin count, clever callbacks to immoderate of my favourite moments, and affable (or menacing) faces successful each manus you draw.

Notably, I don’t deliberation immoderate of these cards are going to airy the competitory satellite connected occurrence oregon anything, but they aren’t expected to. They’re comparatively elemental takes connected these radical and places, meant to span the spread betwixt Avatar fans and its Magic set. A paper similar Path to Redemption, which fundamentally imprisons an opposing carnal until you wage to fundamentally crook into an Ally, isn’t the strongest mentation of this benignant of effect we’ve ever seen, but it is an incredibly neat mode to archer portion of Uncle Iroh’s story. It’s the benignant of happening that helps marque what Magic is trying to bash flavor-wise marque sense.

Other cards marque much nonstop references with their tie-ins, peculiar erstwhile it comes to bending. Water, earth, fire, and airbending are each represented successful some the main acceptable and the Beginner Box, each offering a antithetic instrumentality connected what they mechanically look similar successful Magic. Waterbending, earthbending, and firebending adjacent person Jumpstart decks present specifically named aft them that are blue, green, and red, respectively. Those colors marque sense, with airbending besides intuitively making an quality successful 1 of the achromatic half-decks, but they don’t look to beryllium restricted to them either, with immoderate Earthbending showing up successful achromatic successful this merchandise and immoderate different colour blending happening successful the main set.

All successful all, utilizing 1 of Magic’s Universes Beyond crossovers arsenic the taxable for a caller mentation of the Beginner Box seems similar a large idea. Wizards of the Coast has talked a batch astir however galore caller people these tie-ins bring to the game, with the caller Final Fantasy acceptable blowing distant adjacent the loftiest of expectations. So, if you’re an Avatar instrumentality who is funny astir what this crossover entails but is intimidated by the three-decade aged estimation Magic carries astir with it, it’s hard to deliberation of a amended spot to commencement than this.

Tom Marks is IGN's Executive Reviews Editor. He loves paper games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and tons more.