Magic’s Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty mechanics explained in new previews

The Gathering is Magic’s highly anticipated new set, Kamigawa: Neon DynastyAvailable online February 10, and on tabletop Feb. 18, Wizards of the Coast released new details on Thursday regarding the design of the set. Many of the new cards will be completely new to fans.

First appearance of the plane of Kamigawa in the lore MagicIn 2004 With the Kamigawa Block (Kamigawa’s Champions, Kamigawa betrayersAnd Kamigawa Saviors). This new version, which was inspired originally by Japanese legend and mythology, takes place 1,200 years later. Magic’s current timeline. The show will feature a mix of modern and ancient tropes with an extravagant cyberpunk flare.

Dave Humpherys was the set’s lead game design architect, and the goals handed over to him blend together a mix of artifacts and enchantments.

“In the past, we’ve only kind of focused on one [or the other] before,” Humpherys said during a press preview event. “Tradition is most represented from an enchantment side of things, and modernity is represented from an artifacts side of things. We do have traditional equipment that we still want to show up and have in this world, but there’s a spectrum that goes along with color pie — from green to white, to black, to red, to blue — from the more traditional to the more techy.”

Humpherys indicated that players will have a wide range of ways to alter creatures. Rather than piling loads of modifications on a single creature and trying to punch through their opponent’s defenses, players will instead be rewarded for widening the battlefield — that is, having many modified creatures in play at one time.

A popular ninjutsu technique is back, which lets players swap out unblocked attackers for a card that contains the Ninjutsu keyword. The original attacker is now in the player’s hand. A new creature springs into action and can be tapped to deal some damage. The channel will return, which allows you to discard cards for different effects but not on artifacts, enchantments, and so forth. This versatile mechanic will allow players to be creative with their decks.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Reconfigure mechanics will be found on many high-tech creatures as well as cards.

“I was really enamored with this idea,” said Humpherys. “You can have a creature that somehow is taking on almost a cyborg aspect to whoever it’s equipping, conferring its powers to the creature that it’s equipped to.” Since there’s so many of them in the set, they can also act as creatures capable of reconfiguring with each other.

Most sagas — introduced in the Dominaria set — have a twist this time around. When they’re done, they will be exiled and returned to the battlefield with creatures. A new glowing ink will be used for art treatment. The set also includes land cards and card designs based on Japanese wood block prints.