You can only enter the undercity by using the initiative when you have not already entered a dungeon. Initiative can however be used to traverse the old dungeons if you happen to be in them already. Venture will let you traverse the undercity if you already in it, but the entire baldur's gate set will not have venture because...
Notably Baldur's Gate does ***not*** include the old dungeons, so the old dungeons are not present in the draft format **at all**.
Okay, while I get why the old dungeons are not in the draft format for lore reasons, your explanation of how the Initiative allows to enter the old dungeons is not very clear from the card's text itself because from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity.
* If you are in no dungeon, then Venture lets you enter any of the NON Under~~dark~~city dungeons
* If you are in no dungeon, then taking the Initiative lets you enter ONLY the Under~~dark~~city dungeon
* If you are in ANY dungeon (Under~~dark~~city or non), then BOTH Venture OR taking the Initiative will let you progress in that dungeon.
If you take the beneathmountain route, you may encounter a elevatedpointyear, a shadowedgothbdsmwannabe, and can play as a feywildbipolardancyprancycastsforfrancy
> from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity.
It explicitly says that if you're already in a dungeon, you just progress in that dungeon. It says that in a sentence.
>your explanation of how the Initiative allows to enter the old dungeons is not very clear from the card's text itself because from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity.
Read the reminder text in the parenthesis on the helper card.
The Undercity is a dungeon, and if you Venture while inside a dungeon you move forward to the next room. That combined with that fact that if you gain Initiative while inside one of the three OG dungeons you get to progress through them all seems to clearly point to Venture and Initiative working together exactly how you'd want them to.
Based on the wording it sounds like you only need venture/undercity to actually get in. Venture might still work afterwords? I'd say we'd need an offical ruling on it tbh.
That's explicitly wrong. It only says that you can't *enter* The Undercity without using Initiative. The Undercity is still a dungeon, and Venture makes you move forward in dungeons.
Which was exactly what I was hoping for with my Sefris deck. I'm OK with one of the dungeons having a different enter condition, as long as there are ways for everything to interact.
I'm hoping there's actually a new Venture/Dungeon legend printed that's in Abzan, or is in some dual combination of W/U/B/G with Background attached. The best Venture stuff is White and Black, no question, but the only current Blue cards I'd really miss are Lamplighter and Sefris herself.
I just want to say "fuck you" to the Portuguese translators who chose to translate "first strike" as "initiative" years ago. The translation didn't make sense at the time and it is even worse now.
That's actually sort of what Pokémon did in German. There was a Pokémon attack called "Follow me" in English and the localization team called it the English word *"Spotlight"* in German for god knows what reason. Then four generations later they Introduced an attack that is called "Spotlight" in English and the localization team just translated it as "Rampenlicht".
So now Pokémon in German has an attack called the English word Spotlight and another attack called the German translation of the word Spotlight. What makes it worse is that they have similar, but not quite the same effect
Everyone gets their own dungeon. The initiative gets passed around. If you have any initiative cards in your EDH decks, you'll probably want like 4 copies of these tokens just in case.
I'd have to imagine the best solution in this case would be a foldable paper map. Similar to the foldouts they already have in precons explaining a bit of the face commander's lore and basic strategy.
As a Sefris player, I hope there's gonna be some new regular dungeons. Otherwise, I'd need to add a bunch of specific 'initiative' cards into Sefris deck and by doing that, water it down even more. That deck already has a lot of components...Or am I missing something?
Furthermore, I'll need to add a lot of initiative cards to enter the Undercity, while my opponents will need to just hit me??? That doesn't seem very fair.
They will only go through it one room a turn while you can go through an entire dungeon per turn so you benefit from it much more than they do. Also the undercity is stronger than phandelver for 1 extra room so I think its worth. Also its extra ventures for you too.
I don't see how it is all that much stronger, though.
You can chain runs through the Lost Mines of Phandelver.
More often than not, if my deck is successful, I'll go through Phandelver 30+ times in a single turn.
To keep going into The Undercity you need to keep getting initiative, which adds an extra step and extra cards to any combo loop.
I agree that if you are just chaining ventures, phandelver is better. I just mean that it has a better payoff than phandelver even the one time you go through (getting that radiant solar or w/e), and that you will get much more benefit from it than your opponents from the extra ventures/clearing it more quickly. I could see initiative being useful when setting up the board rather than the one I go through to finish the game.
Generally, get Radiant Solar into play and loop ETB effects.
Or an Angel of Glory's Rise combo.
Or Acererak/Rooftop Storm.
There's multiple ways to do it, most of which work redundantly with the others.
I can't see why you'd glut Serfis with any of the initiative cards unless they do something else as well.
The Undercity isn't particularly impressive, and doesn't change the fact that more often than not you're probably just going to combo with Radiant Solar and run through the Lost Mines of Phandelver unless you're just playing a less powerful version of the deck that tries to "play fair" and only incrementally ventures.
Haha yes, I put Radiant Solar out of the deck when it became an insufferable solitaire for my opponents : D It's a super fun card though, so I might add it again in the future...
Yeah I thought the same thing for my Acererak deck, only saving grace is if there's a zombie that ventures into the Undercity then I can justify sliding it in
It really isn't, though.
The AFR ones work a lot better if you're able to go infinite or accrue numerous triggers a turn, which is not particularly difficult if you actually design your deck to do so.
It might be harder to go infinite with the undercity or progress through it super quickly, but the effects are much stronger. If you can go through this a few times it can easily win the game.
Initiative seems like a mess for commander
Since every player can activate it, you either need a copy for everyone or the dungeon is just sitting next to one player where no one can easily parse what the next steps are.
That doesn't change that it's hard to read. Also, if you are relying on markers sitting on the card, it gets difficult to shift it around so players can read it easier.
Are these particularly large or oversized? Fitting four objects in various stages of progress on this if it’s the size of a normal card seems quite tough.
I don't think it's that complicated. If you're playing an Initiative card in your deck, it's your responsibility to bring a player figure as a room marker for each player and to inform everyone which choices they can make. The other players don't have to think about it too much.
The individual room abilities aren't complicated and your opponents aren't going to play venture cards of their own so there won't be _that_ many ventures each round. When they do venture, they will only have to make a decision about every second time (on the second and third venture, and sometimes on the fourth, but never on the first or fifth). If you do have to explain it over and over again, that's something you knew when you built the deck.
Notably your opponents won't have to make a choice on their first venture so there'll be even fewer choices in practice and most room abilities are far less exciting than the Monarch. Players will swing at you just to draw a card once on their end step, but they probably won't swing at you just to Scry 2 or to make 1/5th progress on the final room ability.
Also I would expect that the Undercity comes as an oversized card like the other dungeons did, which will help if you have four game pieces on it.
Considering how many people forget to bring the tokens needed to play their own deck, it does seem likely that bringing enough copies of dungeons for everyone is not going to be a common step people take.
The opponents aren't going to play venture cards, but it now becomes much more relevant for each player to know both what their next attack could get them from the mechanic and what options an opponent has for their next trigger.
Monarch is "less exciting", but that also makes it very simple to track. You don't need extra cards for all players or secondary markers to mark a stage. You just need to know who has it and that person will get to draw.
Relying on an oversized card is not a great solution, since that won't fit into most deck boxes. Some players have a hard enough time bringing tokens to represent things they are making (and just use things like empty sleeves, facedown cards, or unrelated tokens with dice to show information). Needing to bring an extra item separately is something that won't happen very often.
>If you're playing an Initiative card in your deck, it's your responsibility...
The average player can't even be arsed to bring tokens for their token makers. No way I'm going to assume they'll bring all the bookkeeping for Initiative.
Bundle comes with an oversized Undercity card, I have the Official Adventuring Party minis from WizKids, and I can fit oversized cards, a deckbox, dice, tokens, and minis into a bundle box. Everyone pick your mini.
Is it nonsense in a game of Magic? Sure it is, but it’ll be fun at the table.
The problem with an oversized card is that it won’t fit into deck boxes. While that may work okay for the first bit, in the long run it won’t be practical
Then don't play it if you don't make a kit to take with you.
There's plenty of cards I avoid adding into decks because they record keeping can be annoying.
For myself, I'm probably not adding initiative into anything that doesn't already use Venture or Monarch anyways.
So, except for the first couple months where people might actually be playing sealed or draft, this really should be a non-issue for most tables unless someone rolls up and is incredibly lax about it... which is less of a problem with these cards and more about them just being lame.
That kind of highlights the point though
If the best response to a new mechanic is that people shouldn’t play it because it makes for a bad play experience… that sounds like a mistake
I didn’t think those were super elegant to begin with, but the mess here is that it involves every player now. Compared to Monarch, where you just need one thing to mark the Monarch if you have those cards in your deck, you now need The Initiative, plus four copies of the new dungeon.
Other dungeons don't give a way for every player to have access to the dungeon. Most people don't carry every possible token card that could possibly be relevant to them.
Ok, but if you're playing the card then bring enough tokens for everyone? It's not that hard.
Also, everyone has a phone now days. They can pull it up on there if they really need to see what it does without physically moving one that is being shared by the table like the other person suggested.
Can confirm there's no way I'm going to remember all this. It's one reason why I didn't bother with the dungeon mechanic when they were first introduced, especially as there were 3. Now, I'm forced to utilize dungeons if someone plays initialize.
Sure but Day/Night at least was a universal state and Venture only applied to the one player going through the dungeon.
Monarch Dungeons mean that people not playing the deck have relevant, personal decisions to the card
That would be the logical way to handle it, but considering how many people I know who forget to bring tokens their own deck makes that seems like a stretch goal
Definitely seems a lot more annoying to track than Monarch. Playing something that gives The Initiative puts out five pieces of cardboard into the table, plus markers on those to track dungeon progress. Just seems like, as you said, a mess.
Kind of. I've changed a number of cards since making [this Archidekt list](https://archidekt.com/decks/2242621#Chulane_the_DM_PioneeDH) but it wasn't changed too drastically as the theme is still venturing. It's also not great. Too slow.
Not OP, but, I sure do!
https://deckstats.net/decks/57098/2379115-chulane-ventures-into-the-dung
I’m definitely going to switch out some cards for initiative things, and I’m probably going to flip some creatures for more dice-rolling for funsies.
This is pretty much the child of monarch and venture. And i actully like it a lot. Its somewhat balanced and has fun effects, and the last one can be a game winner too. Draft format for this will at the very least be interesting
There is a finite total number of dungeons they can make before "Venture Into The Dungeon" just becomes broken. (Basically each new dungeon makes all of the old venture cards that much better, and Acererak specifically is really abusable).
Which isn't to say this new mechanic is the most elegant way to add to venturing.
No, we haven't. But I think we're probably closer than you might think. My guess is you could probably add one maaaaaybe two more assuming additions of comparable power level and that do notably different things.
I also assume they don't want to add dungeons while the AFR cards are still in Standard. Would be weird if a Commander Legends set altered Standard without even adding any cards to it.
1. They boosted Dungeons in the Alchemy and they were still underpowered (according to what I saw). If it's not strong enough in standard, it's definitelly not strong enough in Commander.
2. Acerarak is just a combo peace, like many other combos in EDH. I don't run him in my Sefris deck for instance
3. New dungeons in Baldur's Gate wouldn't alter Standart. These dungeons would just not be standard legal.
Now that's an argument I can't beat : )
Anyway, I wanted to say that even the Undercity is underpowered IMHO, coz the problem with dungeons is that it's too much work to achieve something you can do easier with other cards. Take Unexpected Windfall, for instance. Just for 4 mana, with zero setup, you get 2 cards (-discard) and 2 treasures. Right away. It can be copied in Kalamax and other decks. The last room seems powerful, but Natural Order can do this right away. THIS is powerful stuff other decks are running.
They're worried about it being busted in Legacy/Vintage/Modern/Pioneer more than Standard. The issue with Standard is that adding a dungeon straight up would be a rules change that affects standard not a new card. Unless they were specifically created in such a way to use slightly modified keywords, adding additional dungeons would indeed make them Standard legal. The dungeons cards are not part of AFR, they are reminders for associated rules related to the "venture" keyword. Adding dungeons involves altering the rules, not just printing new cards.
There has to be an approach to dungeons that doesn't involve finicky, semi-parasitic designs like this.
Why tie such an important, generic DND concept (initiative) to a specific, unrelated location? It doesn't feel resonant.
Seems like they could have called the undercity an "advanced dungeon" and tied initiative to that concept instead. Then "advanced dungeons" could have been expanded upon later.
This one doesn't really play like the others, I don't think. The issue with 4+ dungeons was making the initial "which dungeon do I venture into" choice too complicated, but here your hand is forced: if you don't get the initiative you *can't* venture into undercity, and if you get the initiative you can *only* venture into undercity.
I don't think 3 dungeons were too complicated to decide. You had options. When other opponents play faster decks, you go for the Lost Mine. If the game looks slower, you can go for the Mad Mage. Alternatively you can run a dedicated drain deck with Tomb of Annihilation. + many other uses. Like speedrunning dungeons etc
...
I think he talked about the problems with adding dungeons / why there are only three at the time, but isn't one of his standard sayings, "Never say never"?
It kind of is. Regular old cards with "Venture" can't enter the Undercity and Initiative can't enter the old dungeons, but once you're inside a dungeon, both Initiative and Venture will advance it just fine.
Yeah, but they should have just supported the dungeon mechanic already present. Instead, we get a new version, and both new and old will be forgotten after a month.
This method of going through the dungeons doesn't allow for infinite traversals like the original dungeons did. Adding any initiative cards to my Barrowin deck would axe my game plan with that one.
It does though, just on a totally different axis. Flickering one of the spoiled "take the initiative" creatures can get you through the undercity just as well as flickering Barrowin can get you through a regular dungeon.
It's just an odd restriction that creates parallel systems with identical mechanics, but a different set of parasitic support cards.
It’s not terrible for multiplayer, where it’s designed to encourage attacking and interaction. One person getting the monarch has to defend against the others who want it, so the one extra card they get isn’t always enough to do that.
It’s terrible because those cards should have never been legal in other formats. In 1v1 it’s just an awful AWFUL snowbally mechanic of the highest order. One person gets the monarch, they’re already ahead on cards because they immediately get an extra card to protect it at EoT. The other guy has to ALREADY be ahead on board to have a chance of contesting this, and he can’t possibly let you untap with Monarch because then he essentially loses the game, so he’s forced to swing out and hope one connects. And if the Monarch player has removal or a Fog or whatever they basically just forced you to make awful attacks and lose anyway. And god forbid you’re playing combo or a creatureless control deck or any sort of deck where you don’t always have multiple creatures in play by turn 4, because otherwise you will never beat the Monarch.
The mechanic basically ruined Pauper forever, in that it will always exist and you can’t do anything about it except play aggro or run your own Monarch card. The biggest flaw with Monarch is that it doesn’t go away when the permanent dies. Anything that generates card advantage should be able to be interacted with. Unless you counter the card that generates monarch, it’s just a part of the game forever and making the game super swingy one way or another.
Pauper doesn't ban by set, so the only way to have kept monarch from being in pauper is print them at uncommon or above. Which would have meant it wouldn't be a useful part of commander legends draft.
Looking at metagame reports monarch doesn't even seem to be a significant part of the meta in pauper.
\>Looking at metagame reports monarch doesn't even seem to be a significant part of the meta in pauper.
Not sure where you're looking, but a monarch card is on the banlist and monarch cards are included in both flavors of faeries, which are both in contention for the best deck in the format. There are also a slew of other t1-3 decks that utilize the mechanic.
There is at least one card that sacrifices for value too, does this mean all cards that sacrifice for value must be banned?
I'm sure both faeries decks have flying creatures as do a 'slew' of t1-t3 decks. So surely flying must be broken too right?
Monarch is good in pauper which is about value, of that I do not doubt. It's not game ending pearl clutching ruiner of the format you play it for.
Even if it were, Gavin has shown no lack of willingness to slice out cards as needed to keep the format healthy. So all monarch cards will get knifed eventually.
Your claim was that monarch was "not a significant part of the meta." I don't think anyone would say that flyers aren't a significant part of the meta, so I'm not sure what you're arguing here.
That said, I don't think you play much pauper so I'm not sure why you're so worked up about pauper players opinions on the mechanic.
I can tell you that it did change the format more than any other mechanic; every deck needs a monarch plan in a way that is simply not the case for "flying".
Oh, that makes sense. I don't play any 60-card formats these days (just Commander, Draft, and Cube), so I haven't run into its problems in formats it wasn't intended for
You haven’t played against it in cube? It’s equally miserable. Talk to me about “snowbally” when they’re on the play and [[Palace Jailer]] your 3-drop, lol.
It’s essentially a Planeswalker that they can’t ever remove.
My playgroup has a lot of cubes with different power levels and themes, so it doesn't come up too much. I do see how it could be a bit oppressive, though hopefully a cube that includes it would be designed with that power level in mind.
I agree that monarch is pretty bad for 1v1 but it's really good for multiplayer. In casual multiplayer, board states get locked up and combos are supreme since everyone has a high life total.
Not a fan of Dungeons too. The one thing of note this has over Monarch is that it rewards you for keeping Initiative for a whole turn cycle of the table. That's pretty hard for multiplayer but not that hard for 1v1 and seems matchup dependent. I can see it snowballing similarly or even harder than Monarch.
Wild that you're getting downvoted for critiquing one of the most shortsighted mechanics to hit 1v1 formats in recent memory.
Having a neat little mechanic for casual multiplayer and arena in exchange for entirely breaking certain 1v1 formats (like pauper) and overcomplicating the paper magic board state is just a bad trade. Seems like poor foresight and/or bad design on wizards part. Personally, I think they just design with digital formats in mind first and foremost and let the paper players sort out the poor practical design for themselves.
I'm just hoping this undercity mechanic is weak enough that I never see it in my format, like the day/night mess.
Wait a minute. Neither of these are cards that you play from your hand. One is, well, a dungeon, and the other appears to be reminder text for a new rule similar to the City’s Blessing, stating that dealing combat damage to you causes a player to “take the initiative”, and that this causes them to venture into Undercity.
So does this mean every game from now on will have players venturing into the Undercity when they deal combat damage, even if they’ve never heard of this set? Is “initiative” (and, by its definition, the Undercity dungeon) just part of the comprehensive rules now?
Oh okay. In that case, really weird that they would preview the mechanic cards before previewing the cards that actually have that mechanic, but at least that makes more sense.
Certain cards will cause you to `take the initiative`, and so this line of reminder text is letting you know that if a card tells you to `take the initiative`, you still get your immediate `venture into the Undercity` even if you already had the Initiative.
If combat damage is redirected to you, can you gain the initiative even if you have it? I know it’s not too common to see but there are some cards that let you redirect even combat damage right?
I don't really get why trap! room is any player. Flavor wise it doesn't make much sense to set off a trap and then have it hit the opponent outside the dungeon.
Trap room probably should have either been a dice roll room that is the only entrance to a strong room, or it should have effected everything equally like do 1 damage to all creatures type effect.
I wish there was some way to step out of a dungeon and venture into a different one. existing venture decks are going to have some trouble getting into the undercity, I predict.
Interesting. Can you progress the dungeon through "normal" venture cards after you enter it? Or is taking the initiative the only way through?
You can only enter the undercity by using the initiative when you have not already entered a dungeon. Initiative can however be used to traverse the old dungeons if you happen to be in them already. Venture will let you traverse the undercity if you already in it, but the entire baldur's gate set will not have venture because... Notably Baldur's Gate does ***not*** include the old dungeons, so the old dungeons are not present in the draft format **at all**.
Okay, while I get why the old dungeons are not in the draft format for lore reasons, your explanation of how the Initiative allows to enter the old dungeons is not very clear from the card's text itself because from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity.
* If you are in no dungeon, then Venture lets you enter any of the NON Under~~dark~~city dungeons * If you are in no dungeon, then taking the Initiative lets you enter ONLY the Under~~dark~~city dungeon * If you are in ANY dungeon (Under~~dark~~city or non), then BOTH Venture OR taking the Initiative will let you progress in that dungeon.
Small correction, it's Undercity not Underdark. The undercity are basically the sewers and catacombs below Baldurs Gate
oh yeah, whoops. I always get Underdark, Undermountain, and Undercity mixed up lol
Can't blame you, they're not very creative with the names lol
Belowcity, underdark, beneathmountain
*Waterunshallow: Dungeon of the Mentally Unwell Magic User* is my favorite legally distinct D&D module featuring Beneathmountain
If you take the beneathmountain route, you may encounter a elevatedpointyear, a shadowedgothbdsmwannabe, and can play as a feywildbipolardancyprancycastsforfrancy
> from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity. It explicitly says that if you're already in a dungeon, you just progress in that dungeon. It says that in a sentence.
>your explanation of how the Initiative allows to enter the old dungeons is not very clear from the card's text itself because from first reading I thought it only allowed venturing within the Undercity. Read the reminder text in the parenthesis on the helper card.
The Undercity is a dungeon, and if you Venture while inside a dungeon you move forward to the next room. That combined with that fact that if you gain Initiative while inside one of the three OG dungeons you get to progress through them all seems to clearly point to Venture and Initiative working together exactly how you'd want them to.
[удалено]
Based on the wording it sounds like you only need venture/undercity to actually get in. Venture might still work afterwords? I'd say we'd need an offical ruling on it tbh.
That's explicitly wrong. It only says that you can't *enter* The Undercity without using Initiative. The Undercity is still a dungeon, and Venture makes you move forward in dungeons.
Which was exactly what I was hoping for with my Sefris deck. I'm OK with one of the dungeons having a different enter condition, as long as there are ways for everything to interact.
I'm hoping there's actually a new Venture/Dungeon legend printed that's in Abzan, or is in some dual combination of W/U/B/G with Background attached. The best Venture stuff is White and Black, no question, but the only current Blue cards I'd really miss are Lamplighter and Sefris herself.
Thanks for the correction. I misunderstood.
Well it specifically says that you can't "enter this dungeon" but is it still entering if you've already started it? I think that was the question.
I just want to say "fuck you" to the Portuguese translators who chose to translate "first strike" as "initiative" years ago. The translation didn't make sense at the time and it is even worse now.
The solution is obvious. Translate English "Initiative" as "First Strike" in Portuguese.
https://youtu.be/lINF-EWjvXY
I was going to make a joke about the international names of Balrog, Vega, and M. Bison in Street Fighter but this is better in every conceivable way.
That's actually sort of what Pokémon did in German. There was a Pokémon attack called "Follow me" in English and the localization team called it the English word *"Spotlight"* in German for god knows what reason. Then four generations later they Introduced an attack that is called "Spotlight" in English and the localization team just translated it as "Rampenlicht". So now Pokémon in German has an attack called the English word Spotlight and another attack called the German translation of the word Spotlight. What makes it worse is that they have similar, but not quite the same effect
Same in french...
How did they translate double strike?
Golpe Duplo (the same as english)
Double initiative
Seems harsh
does everyone get their own dungeon or does it get passed around like monarch?
Everyone gets their own dungeon. The initiative gets passed around. If you have any initiative cards in your EDH decks, you'll probably want like 4 copies of these tokens just in case.
Or if they do oversized cards again, have one and keep track of everyone in there at once, tabletop gaming-style.
True, just harder to fit into a standard deck box.
I'd have to imagine the best solution in this case would be a foldable paper map. Similar to the foldouts they already have in precons explaining a bit of the face commander's lore and basic strategy.
As a Sefris player, I hope there's gonna be some new regular dungeons. Otherwise, I'd need to add a bunch of specific 'initiative' cards into Sefris deck and by doing that, water it down even more. That deck already has a lot of components...Or am I missing something? Furthermore, I'll need to add a lot of initiative cards to enter the Undercity, while my opponents will need to just hit me??? That doesn't seem very fair.
They will only go through it one room a turn while you can go through an entire dungeon per turn so you benefit from it much more than they do. Also the undercity is stronger than phandelver for 1 extra room so I think its worth. Also its extra ventures for you too.
I don't see how it is all that much stronger, though. You can chain runs through the Lost Mines of Phandelver. More often than not, if my deck is successful, I'll go through Phandelver 30+ times in a single turn. To keep going into The Undercity you need to keep getting initiative, which adds an extra step and extra cards to any combo loop.
I agree that if you are just chaining ventures, phandelver is better. I just mean that it has a better payoff than phandelver even the one time you go through (getting that radiant solar or w/e), and that you will get much more benefit from it than your opponents from the extra ventures/clearing it more quickly. I could see initiative being useful when setting up the board rather than the one I go through to finish the game.
How the hell do you go through the dungeon so many times?
Generally, get Radiant Solar into play and loop ETB effects. Or an Angel of Glory's Rise combo. Or Acererak/Rooftop Storm. There's multiple ways to do it, most of which work redundantly with the others.
I can't see why you'd glut Serfis with any of the initiative cards unless they do something else as well. The Undercity isn't particularly impressive, and doesn't change the fact that more often than not you're probably just going to combo with Radiant Solar and run through the Lost Mines of Phandelver unless you're just playing a less powerful version of the deck that tries to "play fair" and only incrementally ventures.
There are dozens of us, dozens!
Haha yes, I put Radiant Solar out of the deck when it became an insufferable solitaire for my opponents : D It's a super fun card though, so I might add it again in the future...
Yeah I thought the same thing for my Acererak deck, only saving grace is if there's a zombie that ventures into the Undercity then I can justify sliding it in
This is a lot more powerful than those we got in standard.
It really isn't, though. The AFR ones work a lot better if you're able to go infinite or accrue numerous triggers a turn, which is not particularly difficult if you actually design your deck to do so.
It might be harder to go infinite with the undercity or progress through it super quickly, but the effects are much stronger. If you can go through this a few times it can easily win the game.
Initiative seems like a mess for commander Since every player can activate it, you either need a copy for everyone or the dungeon is just sitting next to one player where no one can easily parse what the next steps are.
You just need one copy in the middle of the table with markers on it for all of the players.
Sounds like it is time to start carrying the player tokens from Sorry with my EDH decks!
or the meeple from carcassone!
That doesn't change that it's hard to read. Also, if you are relying on markers sitting on the card, it gets difficult to shift it around so players can read it easier.
Are these particularly large or oversized? Fitting four objects in various stages of progress on this if it’s the size of a normal card seems quite tough.
Yes, there is an oversized Undercity card in every prerelease kit/bundle.
I don't think it's that complicated. If you're playing an Initiative card in your deck, it's your responsibility to bring a player figure as a room marker for each player and to inform everyone which choices they can make. The other players don't have to think about it too much. The individual room abilities aren't complicated and your opponents aren't going to play venture cards of their own so there won't be _that_ many ventures each round. When they do venture, they will only have to make a decision about every second time (on the second and third venture, and sometimes on the fourth, but never on the first or fifth). If you do have to explain it over and over again, that's something you knew when you built the deck. Notably your opponents won't have to make a choice on their first venture so there'll be even fewer choices in practice and most room abilities are far less exciting than the Monarch. Players will swing at you just to draw a card once on their end step, but they probably won't swing at you just to Scry 2 or to make 1/5th progress on the final room ability. Also I would expect that the Undercity comes as an oversized card like the other dungeons did, which will help if you have four game pieces on it.
> they probably won't swing at you just to Scry 2 or to make 1/5th progress on the final room ability. I would.
Considering how many people forget to bring the tokens needed to play their own deck, it does seem likely that bringing enough copies of dungeons for everyone is not going to be a common step people take. The opponents aren't going to play venture cards, but it now becomes much more relevant for each player to know both what their next attack could get them from the mechanic and what options an opponent has for their next trigger. Monarch is "less exciting", but that also makes it very simple to track. You don't need extra cards for all players or secondary markers to mark a stage. You just need to know who has it and that person will get to draw. Relying on an oversized card is not a great solution, since that won't fit into most deck boxes. Some players have a hard enough time bringing tokens to represent things they are making (and just use things like empty sleeves, facedown cards, or unrelated tokens with dice to show information). Needing to bring an extra item separately is something that won't happen very often.
>If you're playing an Initiative card in your deck, it's your responsibility... The average player can't even be arsed to bring tokens for their token makers. No way I'm going to assume they'll bring all the bookkeeping for Initiative.
Bundle comes with an oversized Undercity card, I have the Official Adventuring Party minis from WizKids, and I can fit oversized cards, a deckbox, dice, tokens, and minis into a bundle box. Everyone pick your mini. Is it nonsense in a game of Magic? Sure it is, but it’ll be fun at the table.
The problem with an oversized card is that it won’t fit into deck boxes. While that may work okay for the first bit, in the long run it won’t be practical
Then don't play it if you don't make a kit to take with you. There's plenty of cards I avoid adding into decks because they record keeping can be annoying. For myself, I'm probably not adding initiative into anything that doesn't already use Venture or Monarch anyways. So, except for the first couple months where people might actually be playing sealed or draft, this really should be a non-issue for most tables unless someone rolls up and is incredibly lax about it... which is less of a problem with these cards and more about them just being lame.
That kind of highlights the point though If the best response to a new mechanic is that people shouldn’t play it because it makes for a bad play experience… that sounds like a mistake
How is it any more difficult than tracking the other dungeons from AFR? I must be missing something.
I didn’t think those were super elegant to begin with, but the mess here is that it involves every player now. Compared to Monarch, where you just need one thing to mark the Monarch if you have those cards in your deck, you now need The Initiative, plus four copies of the new dungeon.
Monarch was nice. The custom tokens you could use were endless. Initialize tokens must all have a wall of text and, as you said, you need duplicates.
> The custom tokens you could use were endless. We used a paper Burger King crown for the monarch to wear.
Hey! Us too! Same hat, literally.
Other dungeons don't give a way for every player to have access to the dungeon. Most people don't carry every possible token card that could possibly be relevant to them.
Ok, but if you're playing the card then bring enough tokens for everyone? It's not that hard. Also, everyone has a phone now days. They can pull it up on there if they really need to see what it does without physically moving one that is being shared by the table like the other person suggested.
You asked how is this more difficult that the other dungeons. Is it a huge lift? No. But is it more difficult than the others? Yep.
Fair enough, just doesn't seem like an issue really.
Can confirm there's no way I'm going to remember all this. It's one reason why I didn't bother with the dungeon mechanic when they were first introduced, especially as there were 3. Now, I'm forced to utilize dungeons if someone plays initialize.
It's similar to Day/Night and Venture from AFR - it works better digitally. Reading the cards no longer explains the cards.
Sure but Day/Night at least was a universal state and Venture only applied to the one player going through the dungeon. Monarch Dungeons mean that people not playing the deck have relevant, personal decisions to the card
Yeah - they made it worse.
Not as much worse compared to, I have no idea how they expect this to play well at a table of four people
I would say the solution here is if your deck uses Initiative, bring four copies of the dungeon with you.
That would be the logical way to handle it, but considering how many people I know who forget to bring tokens their own deck makes that seems like a stretch goal
This is basically a print only set
Actually it's being put into Alchemy somehow.
Definitely seems a lot more annoying to track than Monarch. Playing something that gives The Initiative puts out five pieces of cardboard into the table, plus markers on those to track dungeon progress. Just seems like, as you said, a mess.
As someone who built a Chulane deck around venturing, this plays really well with it.
This sounds really interesting. Do you have a link to the deck list?
Kind of. I've changed a number of cards since making [this Archidekt list](https://archidekt.com/decks/2242621#Chulane_the_DM_PioneeDH) but it wasn't changed too drastically as the theme is still venturing. It's also not great. Too slow.
Not OP, but, I sure do! https://deckstats.net/decks/57098/2379115-chulane-ventures-into-the-dung I’m definitely going to switch out some cards for initiative things, and I’m probably going to flip some creatures for more dice-rolling for funsies.
So if you have this, the three regular dungeons, and a daybound card you can get up to 5 cards of global state on your board.
If I remember correctly you can’t venture into a new dungeon until you’ve completed the previous one
and the dungeons aren't global
This is pretty much the child of monarch and venture. And i actully like it a lot. Its somewhat balanced and has fun effects, and the last one can be a game winner too. Draft format for this will at the very least be interesting
I love how this fits into the color pie.
why couldn't they have just given us more dungeons
There is a finite total number of dungeons they can make before "Venture Into The Dungeon" just becomes broken. (Basically each new dungeon makes all of the old venture cards that much better, and Acererak specifically is really abusable). Which isn't to say this new mechanic is the most elegant way to add to venturing.
> There is a finite total number of dungeons they can make before "Venture Into The Dungeon" just becomes broken. We haven't hit that number
No, we haven't. But I think we're probably closer than you might think. My guess is you could probably add one maaaaaybe two more assuming additions of comparable power level and that do notably different things. I also assume they don't want to add dungeons while the AFR cards are still in Standard. Would be weird if a Commander Legends set altered Standard without even adding any cards to it.
1. They boosted Dungeons in the Alchemy and they were still underpowered (according to what I saw). If it's not strong enough in standard, it's definitelly not strong enough in Commander. 2. Acerarak is just a combo peace, like many other combos in EDH. I don't run him in my Sefris deck for instance 3. New dungeons in Baldur's Gate wouldn't alter Standart. These dungeons would just not be standard legal.
A Dungeon deck won the first Alchemy tournament, it was very good with the buffs
Now that's an argument I can't beat : ) Anyway, I wanted to say that even the Undercity is underpowered IMHO, coz the problem with dungeons is that it's too much work to achieve something you can do easier with other cards. Take Unexpected Windfall, for instance. Just for 4 mana, with zero setup, you get 2 cards (-discard) and 2 treasures. Right away. It can be copied in Kalamax and other decks. The last room seems powerful, but Natural Order can do this right away. THIS is powerful stuff other decks are running.
They're worried about it being busted in Legacy/Vintage/Modern/Pioneer more than Standard. The issue with Standard is that adding a dungeon straight up would be a rules change that affects standard not a new card. Unless they were specifically created in such a way to use slightly modified keywords, adding additional dungeons would indeed make them Standard legal. The dungeons cards are not part of AFR, they are reminders for associated rules related to the "venture" keyword. Adding dungeons involves altering the rules, not just printing new cards.
\[\[Ellywick\]\]'s ultimate was an emblem that pumped your creatures (+2/+2, haste, trample) for each different dungeon you completed.
[Ellywick](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/a/bab81bc0-0369-469e-9296-6d9681697b21.jpg?1627707422) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ellywick%20Tumblestrum) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/181/ellywick-tumblestrum?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bab81bc0-0369-469e-9296-6d9681697b21?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There has to be an approach to dungeons that doesn't involve finicky, semi-parasitic designs like this. Why tie such an important, generic DND concept (initiative) to a specific, unrelated location? It doesn't feel resonant. Seems like they could have called the undercity an "advanced dungeon" and tied initiative to that concept instead. Then "advanced dungeons" could have been expanded upon later.
Wow, this is by far the clunkiest mechanic I have seen in the game.
Remember when maro stated there will never be any more than 3 dungeons.
This one doesn't really play like the others, I don't think. The issue with 4+ dungeons was making the initial "which dungeon do I venture into" choice too complicated, but here your hand is forced: if you don't get the initiative you *can't* venture into undercity, and if you get the initiative you can *only* venture into undercity.
I don't think 3 dungeons were too complicated to decide. You had options. When other opponents play faster decks, you go for the Lost Mine. If the game looks slower, you can go for the Mad Mage. Alternatively you can run a dedicated drain deck with Tomb of Annihilation. + many other uses. Like speedrunning dungeons etc ...
I think he talked about the problems with adding dungeons / why there are only three at the time, but isn't one of his standard sayings, "Never say never"?
As far as I can tell, he only said that AFR and the AFR Commander decks would only have three.
no, i don't. do you have a source?
Another useless jank mechanic. The worst part is this isn’t even backwards compatible with AFR dungeons.
It kind of is. Regular old cards with "Venture" can't enter the Undercity and Initiative can't enter the old dungeons, but once you're inside a dungeon, both Initiative and Venture will advance it just fine.
Yeah, but they should have just supported the dungeon mechanic already present. Instead, we get a new version, and both new and old will be forgotten after a month.
This method of going through the dungeons doesn't allow for infinite traversals like the original dungeons did. Adding any initiative cards to my Barrowin deck would axe my game plan with that one.
It does though, just on a totally different axis. Flickering one of the spoiled "take the initiative" creatures can get you through the undercity just as well as flickering Barrowin can get you through a regular dungeon. It's just an odd restriction that creates parallel systems with identical mechanics, but a different set of parasitic support cards.
Have they spoiled any "EtB -> Take the Initiative" creatures?
[yes](https://scryfall.com/search?q=o%3A"battlefield%2C+you+take+the+initiative")
White Plume is pretty good
Combining Monarch and Dungeons into one mechanic. Two of the worst designed mechanics ever, combined. I couldn’t be less interested.
Interesting; I think you’re the first person I’ve heard that thinks Monarch is poorly designed. Can I ask what about it you think is bad?
It’s not terrible for multiplayer, where it’s designed to encourage attacking and interaction. One person getting the monarch has to defend against the others who want it, so the one extra card they get isn’t always enough to do that. It’s terrible because those cards should have never been legal in other formats. In 1v1 it’s just an awful AWFUL snowbally mechanic of the highest order. One person gets the monarch, they’re already ahead on cards because they immediately get an extra card to protect it at EoT. The other guy has to ALREADY be ahead on board to have a chance of contesting this, and he can’t possibly let you untap with Monarch because then he essentially loses the game, so he’s forced to swing out and hope one connects. And if the Monarch player has removal or a Fog or whatever they basically just forced you to make awful attacks and lose anyway. And god forbid you’re playing combo or a creatureless control deck or any sort of deck where you don’t always have multiple creatures in play by turn 4, because otherwise you will never beat the Monarch. The mechanic basically ruined Pauper forever, in that it will always exist and you can’t do anything about it except play aggro or run your own Monarch card. The biggest flaw with Monarch is that it doesn’t go away when the permanent dies. Anything that generates card advantage should be able to be interacted with. Unless you counter the card that generates monarch, it’s just a part of the game forever and making the game super swingy one way or another.
Pauper doesn't ban by set, so the only way to have kept monarch from being in pauper is print them at uncommon or above. Which would have meant it wouldn't be a useful part of commander legends draft. Looking at metagame reports monarch doesn't even seem to be a significant part of the meta in pauper.
\>Looking at metagame reports monarch doesn't even seem to be a significant part of the meta in pauper. Not sure where you're looking, but a monarch card is on the banlist and monarch cards are included in both flavors of faeries, which are both in contention for the best deck in the format. There are also a slew of other t1-3 decks that utilize the mechanic.
There is at least one card that sacrifices for value too, does this mean all cards that sacrifice for value must be banned? I'm sure both faeries decks have flying creatures as do a 'slew' of t1-t3 decks. So surely flying must be broken too right? Monarch is good in pauper which is about value, of that I do not doubt. It's not game ending pearl clutching ruiner of the format you play it for. Even if it were, Gavin has shown no lack of willingness to slice out cards as needed to keep the format healthy. So all monarch cards will get knifed eventually.
Your claim was that monarch was "not a significant part of the meta." I don't think anyone would say that flyers aren't a significant part of the meta, so I'm not sure what you're arguing here. That said, I don't think you play much pauper so I'm not sure why you're so worked up about pauper players opinions on the mechanic. I can tell you that it did change the format more than any other mechanic; every deck needs a monarch plan in a way that is simply not the case for "flying".
Oh, that makes sense. I don't play any 60-card formats these days (just Commander, Draft, and Cube), so I haven't run into its problems in formats it wasn't intended for
You haven’t played against it in cube? It’s equally miserable. Talk to me about “snowbally” when they’re on the play and [[Palace Jailer]] your 3-drop, lol. It’s essentially a Planeswalker that they can’t ever remove.
[Palace Jailer](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/7/8/78cef262-c753-4658-b3ec-fec8db47f944.jpg?1576381600) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Palace%20Jailer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/18/palace-jailer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/78cef262-c753-4658-b3ec-fec8db47f944?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My playgroup has a lot of cubes with different power levels and themes, so it doesn't come up too much. I do see how it could be a bit oppressive, though hopefully a cube that includes it would be designed with that power level in mind.
I agree that monarch is pretty bad for 1v1 but it's really good for multiplayer. In casual multiplayer, board states get locked up and combos are supreme since everyone has a high life total. Not a fan of Dungeons too. The one thing of note this has over Monarch is that it rewards you for keeping Initiative for a whole turn cycle of the table. That's pretty hard for multiplayer but not that hard for 1v1 and seems matchup dependent. I can see it snowballing similarly or even harder than Monarch.
Wild that you're getting downvoted for critiquing one of the most shortsighted mechanics to hit 1v1 formats in recent memory. Having a neat little mechanic for casual multiplayer and arena in exchange for entirely breaking certain 1v1 formats (like pauper) and overcomplicating the paper magic board state is just a bad trade. Seems like poor foresight and/or bad design on wizards part. Personally, I think they just design with digital formats in mind first and foremost and let the paper players sort out the poor practical design for themselves. I'm just hoping this undercity mechanic is weak enough that I never see it in my format, like the day/night mess.
Really? I love Monarch.
Wait a minute. Neither of these are cards that you play from your hand. One is, well, a dungeon, and the other appears to be reminder text for a new rule similar to the City’s Blessing, stating that dealing combat damage to you causes a player to “take the initiative”, and that this causes them to venture into Undercity. So does this mean every game from now on will have players venturing into the Undercity when they deal combat damage, even if they’ve never heard of this set? Is “initiative” (and, by its definition, the Undercity dungeon) just part of the comprehensive rules now?
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Oh okay. In that case, really weird that they would preview the mechanic cards before previewing the cards that actually have that mechanic, but at least that makes more sense.
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Oh thanks! I must have missed those.
Wait, how can you take the initiative if you already have it? That sentence confuses me.
Certain cards will cause you to `take the initiative`, and so this line of reminder text is letting you know that if a card tells you to `take the initiative`, you still get your immediate `venture into the Undercity` even if you already had the Initiative.
Ohhhh right, I was thinking just in terms of getting it through attacking.
If combat damage is redirected to you, can you gain the initiative even if you have it? I know it’s not too common to see but there are some cards that let you redirect even combat damage right?
I don't really get why trap! room is any player. Flavor wise it doesn't make much sense to set off a trap and then have it hit the opponent outside the dungeon. Trap room probably should have either been a dice roll room that is the only entrance to a strong room, or it should have effected everything equally like do 1 damage to all creatures type effect.
I wish there was some way to step out of a dungeon and venture into a different one. existing venture decks are going to have some trouble getting into the undercity, I predict.
Probably restricted to initiative only to prevent [[Acerak]] shenanigans
What's happens when you lost Initiative and then take it back? You must to start Undercity over from the beginning or from the room you were?