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Trading card games consist of a lot of different cards, andMagic: The Gatheringis no exception, with decades worth of cards and mechanics to learn and dozens of formats to play in. This can be a lot, which is why Jumpstart boosters have recently been released, and are also available for the new March of the Machine set.
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Jumpstart boosters let you build a deck instantly, allowing new and returning players a fantastic opportunity to get a feel of the new set, and how the game works, before having to spend lots of money on cards that you don’t need.
What Are Jumpstart Boosters?
Jumpstart boosters arebooster packs containing 20 cards. All these cards will fitspecific themesthat correlate to their colour and the set.
There aretwo variants of decks for each of the five colours. Meaning that there are a total often unique jumpstart boosters.
Of the 20 cards in the pack, there will be; arare or mythic rare, arare designed for the deck,two foil basic lands, anuncommon chosen specifically for the deck, acommon chosen specifically for the deck, and amix of spells,creatures,and landsthat all work towards the theme of the deck.
20 cards is only enough for half a deck, and the idea is that you mix two packs together to create a deck that you’re able to pick up and play with.
You are able to mix and match with other Jumpstart booster sets to create even more unique decks.
Whilst jumpstart boosters are designed for players who want to experience the new set easily, the decks you’re able to make can be a lot of fun to use against a friend who has also made a deck using the boosters. This can be made even more fun bynot looking at the cards you get before starting a game, but simply opening two boosters each, shuffling them face down, and heading right into the match.
The Different Themes
As mentioned, there are two variants of each theme for the five colours, so whilst there are ten unique boosters, there are onlyfive themes for March of the Machine.
Each theme is made to show one of the features/mechanics of the new set, so there will be a lot of synergies when it comes to certain combinations of colours when building your 40-card deck.
Buff
For green, the central theme isbuffing your creatures with +1/+1 counters, with some slight rampto get to your big creatures faster.
The chosen rare for this deck isSurrak and Goreclaw, a powerful team-up of cards from the Tarkir set block. This rare allows you to go through your enemy’s creatures, giving your trample, and giving all non-token creatures a +1/+1 counter on them when they enter the battlefield.
The uncommon for this theme isRuins Recluse, a small deathtouch that can consistently grow by adding counters that combo well with other cards in this deck. Cards that have abilities that trigger when counters are put on a creature. Having a card that can put a +1/+1 counter at any time is incredibly strong in a deck like this.
Brood
For our white deck, we have thetheme of Incubate.
Incubatecreates a token with a set number of +1/+1 counters that you’re able to turn into a phyrexian creature for two colourless mana.
The rare for this deck isEssence of Orthodoxy, a powerful card for creating a lot of incubator tokens.
Being able to trigger incubate is especially powerful in a deck that works around the mechanic highlighted by one uncommon for the deck,Norn’s Inquisitor.
Norn’s Inquisitor rewards you even more whenever you transform the token into a phyrexian creature, granting it an additional counter, which will quickly add up with all the other cards also creating these tokens.
Expendable
For our black deck, we have the theme ofsacrificing our creatures to them bring them back from the graveyard.
These two decks will function aroundTerror of Towashi, which is a solid deathtouch creature, but has real value when it attacks and allows you to bring something back from the graveyard. However, for this to be useful to us we need toget cards in the graveyardto begin with.
Seer of Stolen Sightis our powerful uncommon, which gives us anadded bonus whenever our creatures die, and then we have the rest of the deck filled with creatures that grant benefits when they die.Injector CrocodileandEtched Familiarboth have useful abilities for when they are sacrificed.
The idea for this deck is that yousacrifice the cards with abilities that trigger on deathand then bring them back to the battlefield to then rinse and repeat over and over.
This is a deck that can work especially well when paired with the other jumpstart boosters as it gives you a wide variety of play potential with cards that might have been killed off as soon as you played them.
Overachiever
With our blue deck, we haveInterdisciplinary Mascotas the rare card. Thetheme for this deck is to utilise theconvokemechanic.
To be able to play Interdisciplinary Mascot effectively, we need to get a good number of creatures out onto the battlefield to make the convoke mechanic viable.
For this, there is a good selection of smaller creatures, likeReferee Squad, in the deck. These creatures will either be able to create a few tokens to add to the battlefield or will utilize the convoke mechanic themselves, allowing you toget some big creatures out quickly, with some control thrown in so as to keep your opponent from overwhelming you.
Whilst both variants of the deck don’t appear to have as much flair as some of the other decks, you will quickly find that it is very capable of maintaining a good tempo throughout the match.
Reinforcement
Lastly, we have the red decks. Thetheme in these jumpstart boosters is to utilize thebackupmechanic.
For the rare, in this colour, you haveOrthion, Hero of Lavabrink. This can be an incredibly fun creature to play, especially when mixing the cards from other jumpstart boosters, as you cancreate several copies of other creatures.
The idea for this one is that backup triggers when the creature enters the battlefield, so if you have a card likeCragsmasher Yeti, you’re able to create a copy of it to give another creature trample and two additional +1/+1 counters.
There are a lot of fun and interesting things that you will be able to do with this backup deck as a result of Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink. Don’t forget that each booster will also contain a random rare or mythic rare, which is bound to spice up whichever deck you play even more.
Overall, these jumpstart decks will give a great insight into the new mechanics of the set and will allow you to feel much more comfortable picking a deck to use in formats likestandardanddraft,which will be played at your local Magic: The Gathering communities.
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