Sets [ACR] Universes Beyond™: Assassin's Creed™ Previews

I played the renaissance Italy one and the pirate one. Quite fun to parkour around Venice and sail around the Caribbean. I liked the jumping and climbing puzzles, but agree that the fighting was a bit tedious. The main story was quite engaging, but the framing device was silly.
 
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This is new: Now they put flavor text on the promo versions and leave it out of the normal set version. It’s on several cards this set. Just wanted you to know.
 
Ballad of the Black Flag
Digs like crazy at a time where I've been trying to find more and more ways to support self-mill. Historic, like I said above, covers two supported archetypes in my Cube very well. Not sure if I want this all the same, as it's essentially a harder-to-cast and slower Divination that incidentally mills 7 in the ACS of the decks I'd put it in, and I'm not sure how much the chapter IV here is going to matter so late in the game.

Anyone remember this guy?

This set is unexpectedly on my radar. I do have an artifact cube (although I have not updated it for a while now) and I also started pushing Legends-matters a little bit in my primary cube. Neat-o.

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This one is really interesting...I could see replacing something with in my primary cube with this. What a fun draft/build-around.

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#Splashy Surprised this isn't a Mythic.

Gonna take me a minute to process all of this set--I wasn't really expecting to buy much of this but I guess they got me again. This game...
 
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landofMordor

Administrator
The first (and likely last) product to be released in 7-card "Beyond Boosters" (a worse approximation for a real booster than Beyond meat is for hamburger made from beef), Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed gets roughly 100 cards in an environment not intended either for draft or Commander precons
wait, peep the shade from Day One. brutal

(also, vegans don't love Beyond Beef either -- it's like the Nicorette gum of food. eventually you discover that sandwiches don't need to be designed around a half-pound of muscle tissue [real or simulated], leading to an immediate doubling of subjective happiness.)
 
I have played about one hour of the franchise and didn't give it another chance, so I'm clueless. What's so bad about Assassin's Creed?
I've only played some of the first one too, and apparently the series went in some unexpected directions. Do you end up assassinating gods in the viking one??
 
cards very very exciting. love the equipments love the UB ninja and am even seriously tempted by 'uw knights.dec' based on the sell here in the OP for Haytham Kenway. don't love beyond eat and think it's too fatty but think Impossible is a great beef substitute. the fake chicken coming out of taiwan is truly incredible btw if you guys don't have it yet it's coming soon i got to eat some last year it blew my mind. they finally nailed meatless fried chicken and it's the next big one Coming Soon. Senu very cool also, I think that's a really fun design.
 
This set's Modern legal, yeah? Some sort of Frogmyr Excalibur deck maybe? Hope of Ghirapur, Syr Ginger, and Zabaz are all cheap legendary artifacts that swing well.

Hell, not a bad cube deck.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Full spoiler’s up! There are a few cards in this set that I do like. Did we talk about Hunter's Bow yet? Because that was spoiled earlier, but it's a neat removal/protection spell. Surtr, Fiery Jötun is a fun alternative to Charging Monstrosaur, though the haste may simply be better than the Lightning Bolt potential. Very sweet if you can trigger it multiple times though! Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos seems like a beast of a clock. By the time you first get to attack with it, it's already a 6/6 trample, and every turn thereafter it attacks with two additional counters. Haumph! Assassin's Gauntlet, finally, looks interesting as well. It provides one free attack plus a loot for {2}{U}. I believe this is the cheapest and easiest to cast ever for tapping all your opponent's creatures (Naya Charm actually did it for 3 mana as well, but that's three colors), and they gave us quite a useful bonus effect on top of that.

 
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Well, the set isn't balanced at all for draft, from what I gather. There are no commons in the packs (apparently the picks I posted earlier are from introductory decks), so you'ld be missing a lot of role players.
No commons no problem. As long as there is removal at uncommon you are okay. There are many cubes that have quite a different rarity distribution. The uncommons become the commons and the rares the uncommons.
 
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If I reintroduce sagas to my cube, these two clunky graveyard value engines will be high on my list.

But for the most part I am skipping this UB product like the others. Not because it is UB, but because of the ugly metallic frame.
 
@Onderzeeboot, you may be on to something with this guy.


If I'm reading it right, Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos is a 6/6 trample minimum, but for 4 mana? Your opponent gets it every turn, but can't really do anything with it except put a +1/+1 counter on it. I thought it had haste for your first turn but I guess that'd be too good, it says upkeep not "beginning of combat" like I thought.

It's a bit unintuitive but also really sweet, and gets out of hand fast. I don't think I like this kind of not-as-intended gameplay here (in the same way I'm not a fan of Council's Judgment) but I think it's novel and something worth considering.
 
Shout out to Maddening Hex.

Aesir Escape is exactly the kind of card for me except that it's too cheap. 10 life and 10 counters or something is ridiculous for 3. Cool design, overall. Especially chapter 3.
 
You mean that the defiler is quite strong in 1v1 since there is no randomness?

I mean what I wrote :)

The defiler is strong because there is no random. But it also doesn’t do what it should do. No chaos because no random. Only defiling. And it targets without using the word target to bypass shroud, hexproof and ward. This is sometimes accepted on red cards when randomness is involved. But here it just guns down two targeted permanents without targeting.

In conclusion: In 1v1 games the card doesn’t function like it was intended. It works perfectly in multiplayer like intended.
 
Trip report from a few games on the Magic Online beta! Only cards that nobody's mentioned yet.
Desmond Miles would be so sweet if he looked at something broader like "all outlaws".

I have no idea what anyone will do with Leonardo da Vinci but that second ability is my kind of nonsense. Good flavor fit for him too, between the vague "mad genius" vibes and making a Thopter.

Adéwalé, Breaker of Chains was sweet in a format where there was sufficient density for him, but again, "outlaws" or something. That said, if you're already on the Vehicles thing, hell yeah. I love rebuying a value card with a meaningful body, and "having to hit with a Vehicle" is a sufficient hoop to jump through that he doesn't feel oppressive to me.

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh is really good if you're on a legendary theme and at a relatively high power level. The trigger is 1 card per counter on the creature but only a flat 2 life per death, so you can get a lot of value out of your various naturally countered friends. (Especially Skullbriar. That one's just filthy.) Cleo triggering on end step reminds me of Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Golgari four drop where you get some value right away and all that - and I remember when that card was too good for most conventional cubes.

Jackdaw isn't a thing I'd ever want to do personally but it very much seems like a thing that some people would get really excited about.

Smoke Bomb is just a flavor home run. It's even shroud, cause nobody can see! I do not care about this card even slightly for any purposes but I don't care because it's so good flavor-wise. The exact kind of filler I love.

And finally, a very special shout out to the art of Sokrates playing with his nipple, which they probably should have saved for a Diogenes card. Seems more his vibe.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci is a really cool card. I like the full art and I don't dislike the idea of having a cool historical figure in my cube, BUT I can't run it. The reasoning that I see it as the next level of a spreading disease. I'd call 40 life sickness. This disease infests every card that has been designed with commander as the primary format for it in mind – which feels like 90% of cards these days tbh. And since 40 life, or 120 lookig at all opponents, is a lot, everything has to be very well statted. Even creature like Leonardo here that you'd clearly include for their (tap) abilities, just so it is not nothing when they happen to be able to attack at some point. But here it is especially egregious. Blue is not the color where beefy beatsticks are at home, blue should NOT get centaur coursers with upside, that just NOT what blue is about.

It's not the first (or second or third) time of course, God-Eternal Kefnet has been out there for many years now. But here it is especially bad, because there is no flavor justification at all. Like wtf, Da Vinci was not exactly famous for being a great fighter that could kill bears and live.

There is NO reason this Da Vinci card should be a 2U 3/3, EXCEPT it plays slightly better in this weird format that barely resembles MtG.

Rant over.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci is a really cool card. I like the full art and I don't dislike the idea of having a cool historical figure in my cube, BUT I can't run it. The reasoning that I see it as the next level of a spreading disease. I'd call 40 life sickness. This disease infests every card that has been designed with commander as the primary format for it in mind – which feels like 90% of cards these days tbh. And since 40 life, or 120 lookig at all opponents, is a lot, everything has to be very well statted. Even creature like Leonardo here that you'd clearly include for their (tap) abilities, just so it is not nothing when they happen to be able to attack at some point. But here it is especially egregious. Blue is not the color where beefy beatsticks are at home, blue should NOT get centaur coursers with upside, that just NOT what blue is about.

It's not the first (or second or third) time of course, God-Eternal Kefnet has been out there for many years now. But here it is especially bad, because there is no flavor justification at all. Like wtf, Da Vinci was not exactly famous for being a great fighter that could kill bears and live.

There is NO reason this Da Vinci card should be a 2U 3/3, EXCEPT it plays slightly better in this weird format that barely resembles MtG.

Rant over.
I completely agree with you. Thing is, it is possible to play commander with weak cards. But cards geared for commander are too strong for original mtg.
 
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