They always include a basic land, a card with set mechanic (Domain for DMU), some basic spells from the set, a commander’s sphere (to introduce new people to commander), a the WAR version of a planeswalker in the set (Ajani for DMU, Tamiyo for NEO, etc), a gold dollar rare that’s out of standard (to introduce new players to older formats, the most recent welcome booster had Siege Rhino), a cool legend you can build a commander deck with, and some sort of alt-art card.
It was interesting trying to reason why certain cards were in this booster, and a lot of these I kinda nailed down, like the WAR walkers and the set mechanic. Might have to ask for a few of these, seems like a neat way to get a handful of deece cards for Commander at the very least.
The Ajani card makes some sense from a story PoV, at least he's important to the set story and the card is a decent way to introduce him. The Phylath is just super random though.
yeah but he wasn't having a great time at this point in the story, new player might wonder why all their friends refer to Ajani in the past tense. He got better but at the time it looked like the Ajani we knew was gone forever.
It feels like a pretty reasonable spread if you think about it from the perspective of enticing and rewarding new players: You've got some core interaction with fun art and flavor, a few splashy but not overly-weird cards that have all their mechanics fully explained in text, a pretty land, a Commander card, an alt-art, etc. It's a teeny-tiny vertical slice of as many of Magic's appealing facets as could be squozen into one booster.
Reminds me back in highschool in like 2008 when I had a Speech class assignment to choose a skill to teach the class, and I chose the basics of Magic. I think the cards at the time I chose to demonstrate basic mechanics were Raging Goblin, Grizzly Bear, some kind of pump spell and a kill/counter spell. The only thing really missing from this is an enchantment to show all (at the time) of the card types.
ABSOLUTELY bizarre, not only are these cards random AF but they're also EXTREMELY complicated for what's called a welcome booster (presumably to welcome new people???)
Gavin's actually talked about this: They used to think that Commander was purely for enfranchised players for exactly that reason, before they realised lots of people who get into MTG play whatever format their friends play and most people play Commander, and people enjoy the complexity so they've been less afraid to put complexity into the entry level products.
I think the complexity is part of the point. You just instantly own cards of several types with cool abilities so now you have a reason to learn how it all works. If things are too hard to understand, that's just encouragement to ask the guy who handed you the Welcome pack, maybe talk to others in the store. It's also a bunch of cool art, and a free sample bit of cardboard crack, opening a booster pack etc.
Most of these aren't extremely complicated. Only a couple of the rares maybe, but the uncommons are pretty normal stuff. I've seen more complexity in Planeswalker decks.
Welcome packs are the equivalent of free samples at Costco. Someone hands you a thing, says "here, try this!" and you get to see what its like. After you start digesting it, you might ask a follow-up question or ask someone nearby for their opinion.
Welcome Boosters are free, they are sent to LGS to give out to new comers into magic. At mine they have A TON, so if you want some free cards you can ask your LGS for welcome booster and you can get one from each of the latest set. (I havent seen any from Wilds of Eldraine or Lost Cavers of Ixalan though)
Turns out they're just printing the MOM welcome boosters with every set release, only changing out the token. In fact, the token is the only card that is specific to the set it's printed with, the rest are all from non-standard sets, gearing more towards Commander, being the most popular format, especially among new players. I guess this makes sense, saves R&D time spent on a product most people don't even know exist.
These are basically what they give out as freebies to new players instead of those mono color half decks. Considering nobody really plays 60 card casual magic any more (sadly) pointing players in the direction of Commander and Draft and Standard makes a lot of sense, and i also really like the planeswalker lore card thing to draw people into that angle of the game. As far as the card choices, they always include one Planeswalker card of a character involved in the set's story (normally it's the same one as on the "Meet (person)" card but here it's Ajani) as well as a card new players would find exciting as a Commander, in this case Phylath. The pack I opened had Niv Mizzet the Firemind in that slot which I found very funny.
@@gaz-l621 There's only one list for a given set's pack, but packs for different sets have different card lists (I think the Niv Mizzet one I got was from Crimson Vow?)
Every card feels like you could build a deck around it (particularly Commander) or at least go "wow that's rad, I want to do that!" which could help friends (or the people at your LGS where you got said pack) build you a deck. I think it's also worth noting that the cards are mostly very cool and do "powerful" things while also not being Standard playable, so their worth is to new players.
I feel like Lightning Strike and the foil forest are staples, but they're reprinted into not worth shipping fees. But yeah, it seems like they're all picked for either cool art or flavor, or to be a weird thing in the game that they can ask someone about.
If everyone at the table was drafting one of these welcome packs I'd take the Lightening Strike and hope to pick up multiples and just see if I could burn them out. Knowing that I would lose to the person who went all in on Ajani.
I received one of these a while ago (can't remember which set) that had a siege rhino in it which was baffling. The fact old set cards don't have the list symbol is kind of interesting imo
My understanding is it presents strategies from every colour, the concepts of artifact, planeswalker, token and legendary, piques interest in Commander and shows alternate treatments to sell Collectors boosties
If I had to guess, the cards evoke different player psychographics and aesthetic profiles. I get Spike, Jonny & Tammy vibes from some of the choices. The land themes synergizes with Domain.
Hey, I have not heard Karn's actual story before. It's exactly the story I'd infer he had, but it's not like I thought to question that a golem was a planeswalker or anything.
Having an Ajani and referencing another character covers a greater variety of important characters. It's not a Karn theme pack, it's a sampling of lots of things. "I wonder what this Karn guy does" and "I wonder what kind of guy this Ajani is" are questions this pack raises which are meant to get them involved in the game.
@@Mordalon I get the idea but imo it'd be better to have them match but maybe reference another character in the lore card. Like "Meet Nissa" and talk about Chandra in the text or something
Or you could have just printed Karn proper in there. Either the card is enough, or you need a bio. If you need a bio, then having a card corresponding to the bio is nice. If the bio is unnecessary, why not give both characters? @@Mordalon
I feel like Meat Karn has to have happened at some point in the lore. Has there ever been a random story moment or something where we see Karn in the Flesh?
This is such a baffling thing to exist. The fact that it's pre-set makes it all the more confusing. I've got to agree here, "I don't understand". Thanks for making me aware that this existed for whatever reason...
I think it's just a free sample of cardboard crack. Probably just a selection of cool art and weird abilities & card types so they basically get a vertical slice of the game.
You aren't a new player entering a store without a person guiding you. This is for stores to give to those people, hopefully encouraging them to follow up and delve deeper into the game. Being a pre-set booster doesn't really matter if they are free and you are just barely beginning.
This feels like this is just part of the general mess of weird/bad decisions that WotC made this past year or two. Thousand dollar booster packs of random proxies, way too many different kinds of booster packs, so many different products being released one right after another so closely that people can't catch their breath, let alone be able to afford to buy all of them.... And yet they still made massive mounds of money, but it wasn't ENOUGH massive money.... hopefully the lost jobs were limited to those who thought that the thousand dollar proxy booster packs were in any way a good idea (but I doubt it).
These aren't failures, they are just free samples. And what Proxies? And the majority of players don't follow everything. If you aren't catching your breath, you're a hyper-enfranchised player and not representative of the majority of the playerbase.
@@Mordalon The proxies refer to the 30th anniversary edition packs that was made of all non-tournament legal cards that retailed for $999 USD. I would agree the welcome pack aren't really a failure (except sometimes they don't show up when a new main set does). It does it's very specific job very well, pique interest in Magic.
This seems like such a terrible introduction to magic. I can't for the life of me imagine why this doesn't have 15 cards, and be set up like a normal booster pack (Normal DRAFT booster), but with 10 preselected (C)s, 3 preselected (U)s, 1 preselected (R), and one foil (M) just to entice people. 100% constructed playable cards in a booster, since people will literally ONLY construct decks with them. WTF?
The idea being these cards are specifically picked to give the broadest interest. A mix of several cards showing mechanics tied to having multiple kinds of land, or multiple colours of commander identity....but then also having a card tied to sorcery and instant casting, implying a different kind of build, plus a blue counter spell to show that vibe....it isn't shying away from complexity, and the cards are strong, but not staples. Starting points.
Does it though? Is a Domain (C) really the best introduction to the game? Is there no better domain card to represent the mechanic? Gaea's Might and Nishoba Brawler are better versions of the same "power enhancing" domain mechanic. If we NEED a "draft chaff" (C), Meria's Outrider is certainly worth considering for your cubes. They included a foil Lightning Strike; that's a good choice. ONE good choice. But everything else here seems like bad choices. There are cleaner, more iconic, and even more useful planeswalkers. There are better domain cards. There are better creature cards. MAYBE Blackblade Reforged (it's colorless, fits in all decks, and is "splashy"), but it's still a terrible "first equipment." @@FFKonoko
Obviously a more formal introduction would be more involved. This is just a teaser of things you can get, and this wasn't meant to be players' ONLY introduction. And for a thing that is free, expecting more cards seems unusual.
I feel the mono coloured cards introduce what the colours do (green - creature that gets bigger through spending mana/ramp; Red burn spell; blue counter spell; black creature that cares about creatures dying HOWEVER there was NO mono white card... wtf? And yes, the other golden cards are random as they are WU, RG and GW.) @@williamsimkulet7832
@@williamsimkulet7832 Again, it's not meant to be a comprehensive introduction, it's a sample slice of rarities, characters, card types and some cool flavor and styles to pique interest. It's after this if they want to learn more than more detail gets given. It's like expecting movie trailers to give a complete plot breakdown, something people regularly complain about, when they should give an overall tone with some contextless highlights to draw attention.
This ability triggers only once each turn. Screw you WOTC: this is bad templating, bad design, and a terrible welcome to Magic. Here, have unlimited candy... but only once each turn.
Add a tap symbol. It's arguably THE most defining mechanic of the game. So they can't be bothered to balance cards AND they don't understand THE central mechanic of the game.@@viperion_nz
Well, here’s something. If the first event’s triggering gets nullified somehow (such as through an effect a card on the scale of Elesh Norn might have), then subsequent events can still trigger it if the not-Elesh Norn is removed, once. That can’t be the case if the templating is “The first time each turn that one or more other creatures die,” you see. Which is not to say I disagree with you on the other points.
Are they functionally different? SURE THING! The question is whether the positives are worth the negatives. The negative here is twofold; first it's worded as a bait and switch. "Whenever... and by whenever I mean only once per turn"; and second the difference you discuss is not good for the game; think about how long it took YOU to make this distinction. It's not that we're unaware of this important rules implication... it's that it's trivial, counter-intuitive, and rarely applicable.... and certainly not worth the wording as-is. More to the point; again; this is literally the design space of the tap symbol. Writing out confusing, explicitly linguistically contradictory games text is a bad design in any game, and it's worse given MTG invented the technology to obsolete this in it's very first incarnation.@@TorchesUponStars
They always include a basic land, a card with set mechanic (Domain for DMU), some basic spells from the set, a commander’s sphere (to introduce new people to commander), a the WAR version of a planeswalker in the set (Ajani for DMU, Tamiyo for NEO, etc), a gold dollar rare that’s out of standard (to introduce new players to older formats, the most recent welcome booster had Siege Rhino), a cool legend you can build a commander deck with, and some sort of alt-art card.
It was interesting trying to reason why certain cards were in this booster, and a lot of these I kinda nailed down, like the WAR walkers and the set mechanic. Might have to ask for a few of these, seems like a neat way to get a handful of deece cards for Commander at the very least.
You know, I don't know that I could have put words to it before today, but Graham being perplexed on camera is some of my favorite LRR content.
a foil land very useful after all foil lands make foil mana
I thought it was way funnier to understand "Meat Karn" before you showed it to us, but still, funny
OH MEET Karn. I thought it was just because he's oddly fleshy-looking in that lighting 😂
The Ajani card makes some sense from a story PoV, at least he's important to the set story and the card is a decent way to introduce him. The Phylath is just super random though.
yeah but he wasn't having a great time at this point in the story, new player might wonder why all their friends refer to Ajani in the past tense. He got better but at the time it looked like the Ajani we knew was gone forever.
It feels like a pretty reasonable spread if you think about it from the perspective of enticing and rewarding new players: You've got some core interaction with fun art and flavor, a few splashy but not overly-weird cards that have all their mechanics fully explained in text, a pretty land, a Commander card, an alt-art, etc. It's a teeny-tiny vertical slice of as many of Magic's appealing facets as could be squozen into one booster.
Reminds me back in highschool in like 2008 when I had a Speech class assignment to choose a skill to teach the class, and I chose the basics of Magic. I think the cards at the time I chose to demonstrate basic mechanics were Raging Goblin, Grizzly Bear, some kind of pump spell and a kill/counter spell. The only thing really missing from this is an enchantment to show all (at the time) of the card types.
ABSOLUTELY bizarre, not only are these cards random AF but they're also EXTREMELY complicated for what's called a welcome booster (presumably to welcome new people???)
Gavin's actually talked about this: They used to think that Commander was purely for enfranchised players for exactly that reason, before they realised lots of people who get into MTG play whatever format their friends play and most people play Commander, and people enjoy the complexity so they've been less afraid to put complexity into the entry level products.
I think the complexity is part of the point. You just instantly own cards of several types with cool abilities so now you have a reason to learn how it all works. If things are too hard to understand, that's just encouragement to ask the guy who handed you the Welcome pack, maybe talk to others in the store.
It's also a bunch of cool art, and a free sample bit of cardboard crack, opening a booster pack etc.
It also tells you about many mechanics of the game across the cards.
Most of these aren't extremely complicated. Only a couple of the rares maybe, but the uncommons are pretty normal stuff. I've seen more complexity in Planeswalker decks.
Welcome packs are the equivalent of free samples at Costco. Someone hands you a thing, says "here, try this!" and you get to see what its like. After you start digesting it, you might ask a follow-up question or ask someone nearby for their opinion.
The first words out of my mouth when I saw the video were "what's a Welcome Booster?" so good job title person.
Welcome Boosters are free, they are sent to LGS to give out to new comers into magic. At mine they have A TON, so if you want some free cards you can ask your LGS for welcome booster and you can get one from each of the latest set. (I havent seen any from Wilds of Eldraine or Lost Cavers of Ixalan though)
Turns out they're just printing the MOM welcome boosters with every set release, only changing out the token. In fact, the token is the only card that is specific to the set it's printed with, the rest are all from non-standard sets, gearing more towards Commander, being the most popular format, especially among new players. I guess this makes sense, saves R&D time spent on a product most people don't even know exist.
These are basically what they give out as freebies to new players instead of those mono color half decks. Considering nobody really plays 60 card casual magic any more (sadly) pointing players in the direction of Commander and Draft and Standard makes a lot of sense, and i also really like the planeswalker lore card thing to draw people into that angle of the game.
As far as the card choices, they always include one Planeswalker card of a character involved in the set's story (normally it's the same one as on the "Meet (person)" card but here it's Ajani) as well as a card new players would find exciting as a Commander, in this case Phylath. The pack I opened had Niv Mizzet the Firemind in that slot which I found very funny.
Ohh, is it more like Jumpstart in terms of collation where there's a few different lists for the starter packs?
@@gaz-l621 There's only one list for a given set's pack, but packs for different sets have different card lists (I think the Niv Mizzet one I got was from Crimson Vow?)
Niv-Mizzet, Parun was also in one (Core Set 2021) which makes me amusedly imagine whoever was picking the cards just really liked Niv-Mizzet.
Meet Karn.
That is all, he was shy and wanted to say hi.
Every card feels like you could build a deck around it (particularly Commander) or at least go "wow that's rad, I want to do that!" which could help friends (or the people at your LGS where you got said pack) build you a deck. I think it's also worth noting that the cards are mostly very cool and do "powerful" things while also not being Standard playable, so their worth is to new players.
I feel like Lightning Strike and the foil forest are staples, but they're reprinted into not worth shipping fees.
But yeah, it seems like they're all picked for either cool art or flavor, or to be a weird thing in the game that they can ask someone about.
On this episode of Crack-a-Pack, utter befuddlement!
I'm sad to report I cannot hear "Meet Karn" without assuming he's getting added to TF2.
A story card instead of the ad card would be frikking epic.
If everyone at the table was drafting one of these welcome packs I'd take the Lightening Strike and hope to pick up multiples and just see if I could burn them out. Knowing that I would lose to the person who went all in on Ajani.
LEZ GO MARK FOR HOOKING IT UP! (He's my friend and in my playgroup)
"I love this meat Karn" -I heard for moment there.
Meat Karn? Is that the fleshy brother of Silver Karn?
I received one of these a while ago (can't remember which set) that had a siege rhino in it which was baffling. The fact old set cards don't have the list symbol is kind of interesting imo
My understanding is it presents strategies from every colour, the concepts of artifact, planeswalker, token and legendary, piques interest in Commander and shows alternate treatments to sell Collectors boosties
The person who gave you that pack is super cool!
If I had to guess, the cards evoke different player psychographics and aesthetic profiles. I get Spike, Jonny & Tammy vibes from some of the choices. The land themes synergizes with Domain.
Delightful as always!
I opened a welcome booster once, it has a siege rhino in it
I feel started all over
When are we getting another one of the crack a pack chaos drafts?
The vod for the most recent one just went up, ICYMI ua-cam.com/video/mbadispIlh4/v-deo.htmlsi=-lTSO9_M1AAYNd07
Hey, I have not heard Karn's actual story before. It's exactly the story I'd infer he had, but it's not like I thought to question that a golem was a planeswalker or anything.
had one of those, they were giving them away for free at my LGS, really random, but nice
oh its not Meat Karn
I want Graham to be my Dad
I miss the welcome decks. They were so much better for teaching/ introducing people to the game
I dunno what's a welcome with you?
Hi, Graham!
Meat Karn?! D:
What even is a Welcome Booster? First time Ive heard of it.
Meat Karn 😔
Make the movie!
Crack! A! Pack!
Meat Karn 😁
I was expecting to see one of each card type, but there is no sorcery or enchantment? Really odd
A card creates tokens for each instant or sorcery cast, so that's the card to prompt interest and checking into those.
Meet Karn... we won't give you a card of Karn though.
Yeah, I could see if the War of the Spark one was the Karn from that set, but Ajani is just odd
@@gaz-l621 Ajani was also in that set, it's just a less rare version.
Having an Ajani and referencing another character covers a greater variety of important characters. It's not a Karn theme pack, it's a sampling of lots of things. "I wonder what this Karn guy does" and "I wonder what kind of guy this Ajani is" are questions this pack raises which are meant to get them involved in the game.
@@Mordalon I get the idea but imo it'd be better to have them match but maybe reference another character in the lore card. Like "Meet Nissa" and talk about Chandra in the text or something
Or you could have just printed Karn proper in there. Either the card is enough, or you need a bio. If you need a bio, then having a card corresponding to the bio is nice. If the bio is unnecessary, why not give both characters? @@Mordalon
Weird pack but ok
How do they STILL have a surplus of WAR Ajani
I feel like Meat Karn has to have happened at some point in the lore. Has there ever been a random story moment or something where we see Karn in the Flesh?
Why would that come up? I don't recall any particular desire to be organic from him.
This is such a baffling thing to exist. The fact that it's pre-set makes it all the more confusing. I've got to agree here, "I don't understand". Thanks for making me aware that this existed for whatever reason...
I think it's just a free sample of cardboard crack. Probably just a selection of cool art and weird abilities & card types so they basically get a vertical slice of the game.
You aren't a new player entering a store without a person guiding you. This is for stores to give to those people, hopefully encouraging them to follow up and delve deeper into the game. Being a pre-set booster doesn't really matter if they are free and you are just barely beginning.
I was honestly expecting 1 card of each color to show what they were about, but white didn't get anything... insane.
This feels like this is just part of the general mess of weird/bad decisions that WotC made this past year or two. Thousand dollar booster packs of random proxies, way too many different kinds of booster packs, so many different products being released one right after another so closely that people can't catch their breath, let alone be able to afford to buy all of them.... And yet they still made massive mounds of money, but it wasn't ENOUGH massive money.... hopefully the lost jobs were limited to those who thought that the thousand dollar proxy booster packs were in any way a good idea (but I doubt it).
These aren't failures, they are just free samples. And what Proxies? And the majority of players don't follow everything. If you aren't catching your breath, you're a hyper-enfranchised player and not representative of the majority of the playerbase.
@@Mordalon The proxies refer to the 30th anniversary edition packs that was made of all non-tournament legal cards that retailed for $999 USD. I would agree the welcome pack aren't really a failure (except sometimes they don't show up when a new main set does). It does it's very specific job very well, pique interest in Magic.
Deranged product
Can we get back to regular, everyday, plain old BOOSTER PACKS?
Damn.
You're really gonna whine about the existence of a freebie pack?
This seems like such a terrible introduction to magic. I can't for the life of me imagine why this doesn't have 15 cards, and be set up like a normal booster pack (Normal DRAFT booster), but with 10 preselected (C)s, 3 preselected (U)s, 1 preselected (R), and one foil (M) just to entice people. 100% constructed playable cards in a booster, since people will literally ONLY construct decks with them. WTF?
The idea being these cards are specifically picked to give the broadest interest. A mix of several cards showing mechanics tied to having multiple kinds of land, or multiple colours of commander identity....but then also having a card tied to sorcery and instant casting, implying a different kind of build, plus a blue counter spell to show that vibe....it isn't shying away from complexity, and the cards are strong, but not staples. Starting points.
Does it though? Is a Domain (C) really the best introduction to the game? Is there no better domain card to represent the mechanic? Gaea's Might and Nishoba Brawler are better versions of the same "power enhancing" domain mechanic. If we NEED a "draft chaff" (C), Meria's Outrider is certainly worth considering for your cubes.
They included a foil Lightning Strike; that's a good choice. ONE good choice. But everything else here seems like bad choices. There are cleaner, more iconic, and even more useful planeswalkers. There are better domain cards. There are better creature cards. MAYBE Blackblade Reforged (it's colorless, fits in all decks, and is "splashy"), but it's still a terrible "first equipment."
@@FFKonoko
Obviously a more formal introduction would be more involved. This is just a teaser of things you can get, and this wasn't meant to be players' ONLY introduction. And for a thing that is free, expecting more cards seems unusual.
I feel the mono coloured cards introduce what the colours do (green - creature that gets bigger through spending mana/ramp; Red burn spell; blue counter spell; black creature that cares about creatures dying HOWEVER there was NO mono white card... wtf? And yes, the other golden cards are random as they are WU, RG and GW.) @@williamsimkulet7832
@@williamsimkulet7832 Again, it's not meant to be a comprehensive introduction, it's a sample slice of rarities, characters, card types and some cool flavor and styles to pique interest. It's after this if they want to learn more than more detail gets given. It's like expecting movie trailers to give a complete plot breakdown, something people regularly complain about, when they should give an overall tone with some contextless highlights to draw attention.
This ability triggers only once each turn. Screw you WOTC: this is bad templating, bad design, and a terrible welcome to Magic.
Here, have unlimited candy... but only once each turn.
"this triggers only once each turn" has become their go to for "we can't balance cards any more"
Oh no, I scrolled too far and fell into the grognard pit.
Add a tap symbol. It's arguably THE most defining mechanic of the game.
So they can't be bothered to balance cards AND they don't understand THE central mechanic of the game.@@viperion_nz
Well, here’s something. If the first event’s triggering gets nullified somehow (such as through an effect a card on the scale of Elesh Norn might have), then subsequent events can still trigger it if the not-Elesh Norn is removed, once. That can’t be the case if the templating is “The first time each turn that one or more other creatures die,” you see.
Which is not to say I disagree with you on the other points.
Are they functionally different? SURE THING! The question is whether the positives are worth the negatives. The negative here is twofold; first it's worded as a bait and switch. "Whenever... and by whenever I mean only once per turn"; and second the difference you discuss is not good for the game; think about how long it took YOU to make this distinction. It's not that we're unaware of this important rules implication... it's that it's trivial, counter-intuitive, and rarely applicable.... and certainly not worth the wording as-is.
More to the point; again; this is literally the design space of the tap symbol. Writing out confusing, explicitly linguistically contradictory games text is a bad design in any game, and it's worse given MTG invented the technology to obsolete this in it's very first incarnation.@@TorchesUponStars