In case you didn't know, Magic: The Gathering (known to most as just "Magic" or "MTG") is a collectable card game from Wizards of the Coast that can be played physically as a tabletop game, or digitally online.
If you've played any collectable card game before (like Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Gwent), then you know the drill - use your wits and strategy to build a deck, and then battle against others for the win against their deck.
Magic has been around for almost three decades and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon, with the latest expansion, Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, due to release on June 10th 2022.
The set returns to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop roleplaying game also brought to us by Wizards of the Coast, and brings us a whole grimoire of familiar characters, spells, and artifacts. What's more, we have the pleasure of exclusively revealing one of the cards: Elminster's Simulacrum
For context, Elminster, also referred to as "Sage of Shadowdale" and "Old Mage", is a much-loved character most recently appearing in the 4th Edition of D&D. He is a wisened and powerful mage with a penchant for shapeshifting, and his appearance in the set is sure to delight fans across the board.
In the world of D&D, Simulacrum is a spell that allows the caster to create an illusionary duplicate of a beast or humanoid, which is friendly to you and obeys your spoken commands.
All of this ties together to create the card above, which has fantastic artwork to go along with its effect and aesthetic. What follows is a quick analysis of the card, and I'm going to assume if you've come this far you're at least vaguely aware of Magic: The Gathering. If not, it might sail over your head a bit.
Elminster's Simulacrum is a 6 mana blue card that lets you create a token copying creatures your opponent controls. There are already a handful of cards that do something similar, and the mana cost feels high initially until you take note of the fact that the card is instant speed, and has some potentially great synergies.
Straight off the bat, I can see a fun pairing with Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, which would allow you to double the number of tokens you get from Elminster's Simulacrum, as well as Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Kalamax, the Stormsire.
Will this card smash through into the meta and find itself a staple of every deck? Probably not. Is it a fun card with an exciting theme, and great artwork? For sure. Will it find a home in an above average decklist that's a lot of fun to play? I think so.
Whatever your thoughts on the card itself, or Magic as a whole, it's hard not to be excited by a Dungeons & Dragons character revival of this scale - especially one with "Baldur's Gate" in the title.
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate releases on June 10th 2022, and can be pre-ordered locally or online now.
