MAGIC: THE GATHERING's
EPIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CROSSOVER
By Jim Dandeneau
From spell names to art variants, we walk you through the ways Adventures in the Forgotten Realms makes a game of Magic feel like a D&D campaign.
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Magic: The Gathering’s new Dungeons & Dragons crossover card set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, is finally in the wild.
How do you recreate the fun of a D&D campaign in a card game? The new set captures the game’s spirit with D&D art, card names, and the variability introduced to each hand of Magic: The Gathering.
The game and its characters, such as Drizzt Do’Urden, everyone’s favorite elf, or evil dragon goddess Tiamat, manifest on big, impactful cards.
Taking the role of the dungeon mechanic, certain cards allow you to venture into one of three dungeons for bonus effects on the game board, serving as the point of crossover between the two games.
The new set offers various alternative art cards, including fan favorite Magic cards in the art style of D&D.
They’re visualized as black and white sketches of classic characters, with the background in a paper-brown that plays never see otherwise on Magic cards.
One of the greatest additions to the game is in the flavor text on the spells themselves. Gameplay-wise, the spell You See A Pair Of Goblins is a more flexible version of the spell Dragon Fodder.
Playing You See A Pair Of Goblins feels like going on a D&D adventure. It makes the game a bit more immersive. Dragon Fodder feels utilitarian and functional by comparison.
These command cards are flexible, with every card utilizing this naming convention, from YSAPOG to Choose Your Weapon or You Hear Something On Watch, among others.
These choices invoke the feeling of a game of D&D, as the modal cards make something as common as countering a spell feel like an encounter in a broad campaign.
Magic: The Gathering has always been full of flavor. Adventures in the Forgotten Realms adds more than its share, and the result is an exciting mash up with Dungeons & Dragons.