Product Review - Booster Battle Packs

Sweet Cover Art of Garruk and
Liliana going at it.

Wizards of the Coast had a new release last week that hit a little under the radar: Booster Battle Packs.  Basically, this is designed to be a way to introduce newer players to the limited format, which is where you battle it out not with a preconstructed deck, but by making a fresh deck when you arrive at the event.  Also, there is a bit of randomness to it, since you'll be making that deck using unopened booster packs.  There are a variety of ways to do this, such as:

Sealed - This is where you will recieve 6 booster packs, and make at least a 40 card deck using only these freshly opened cards and basic land.

Draft - Drafts are probably the most popular limited format.  There is a huge randomness factor to it, but also it is something you can be very skilled at.  You recieve 3 booster packs, and you'll sit in a circle with 7 other guys, and crack one open.  You choose one card from that pack, and then pass the rest to your right (or left, depends on the venue).  Don't worry!   You didnt just give all your cards away for no reason!  The person to the left of you will do the same, and you'll recieve his cards minus the one he chose.  You'll pick one from that pile and pass it as well.  You'll repeat this process until the entire pack is gone.  Then crack your second pack, pick one, then pass in the opposite direction.  Etc.  Then, when you are done passing cards, you'll do the same thing as sealed.  At least a 40 card deck using only the cards you drafted and basic land. 

Pack Battle/Pack War - This is an unofficial play style that varies depending on who's playing.  One version I have played is where you and one opponent each buy a pack, then add 2 of each basic land to that pack and battle it out.  The winner gets the other player's deck.

There are other limited formats, but you get the picture.  They all deal with a 2 part process:

- Building a deck on the spot.
- Not having a choice in what cards you will recieve.

I played this game with my fiancee, April.  Since you
aren't supposed to share infomation, I'll only
be able to show my side of things.  This is what
 I recieved from the Booster Battle Pack.  April
recieved an identical number of these, but in different colors

Booster Battle Packs is an introduction to the limited format.  That said, part of the deck has already been built for you.  It is apparently semi random, and from what I have seen, that means you'll recieve 4 commons, 1 uncommon, and 5 lands per colored pack.  You'll get 1-2 non creature spells per colored pack and the rest will be creatures.  You'll get two colored packs and one sealed M12 booster pack per kit.  You also get two kits per Booster Battle Pack.  So, here's what you will recieve in each Booster Battle Pack you buy:

- 4 Colored packs for a total of 40 cards
- 2 M12 Booster Packs
- 2 Cardboard deck boxes

So once you get your stuff, it's time to crack open some stuff!  First I opened the colored packs of cards.

Theres 5 swamps all together.  These cards are all pretty solid,
but nothing too interesting.

This is more varied.  Not too impressed with Chasm Drake but
I can deal.  Cancel and Azure Mage are a breath of fresh air.

Okay, so once you have your packs open, set them aside.  These cards will be the base of your deck.  You cannot change anything about these cards, you got what you got!  So now we get to crack open the booster pack.  We will be able to pick up to 5 cards from the booster pack and add them directly to our "deck".  Let's see what we crack open:

Rootbound Crag?  Bummer.  Red/Green cards are pretty sweet
in this pack as well.  Oh well, let's sift through this and see
if we can find something worth putting in our deck.

These are the cards I ended up with.

There's a very good chance my opponent will have either green or red, so flashfreeze goes in.  Rusted Sentinel is pretty bad, but its one of the largest bodies my deck will have, plus it's easy to cast.  Wring flesh is sort of removal.  Another Bloodrage helps with the bloodthirst theme my black cards had.  Aether Adept is cheap, and helps me regain tempo as well as maintain board presence.

As far as my thoughts on the actual product, at a MSRP of $9.99, I think it's a great one or two time buy for a newer magic player.  Hell, even I enjoyed it.  But as far as building or adding to your collection, you are pretty much paying 10 bucks for two packs.  The game was fun but I wouldn't play it again.  But I do agree that it is a cool way to get some newer players hooked on the limited format.

Well, that's my take on it.  Let me know if you liked this review.  I might review other Magic products such as Duel Decks, From the Vault, Event Decks, and more if you like this style of review.  If not, look forward to my next articles coming soon(ish):

- Transforming the way we play, Part 2

- Innistrad Financial Guide

- Innistrad Sealed Primer

- Post-Rotation Meta-game (Decklists!)

M12 Sealed Primer - Making the best out of nothing

M12 sealed can often times be pretty straightforward.  You pull a titan, build around it, done.  In my case, my bomb was...

which is probably good enough to merit building a deck around it.  Sadly, my green pool was:

- 1 Autumn's Veil

- 1 Archanus Web

- 3 Bountful Harvest

- 2 Fog

- 1 Giant Spider

- 1 Lure

- 1 Runeclaw Bear

Nothing exciting here.  And double green is pretty hard to splash.  I decided in the end to go with a removal heavy fast deck with some stalling aspects:

2 Shock

1 Bloodrage Vampire

1 Stormblood Berserker

3 Doom Blade

1 Chandra's Outrage

1 Gravedigger

1 Onyx Mage

1 Crimson Mage

1 Child of Night

1 Goblin Tunneler

2 Tormented Soul

1 Volcanic Dragon

1 Devouring Swarm

1 Reassembling Skeleton

1 Tectonic Rift

1 Call to the Grave

2 Goblin Arsonist

1 Goblin Fireslinger

1 Kite Shield

9 Swamp

7 Mountain

At first glance, it looks like a rough deck, besides the heavy removal from doom blades and such.  Another look will show you some synergy between the cards:

- The two bloodthirst creatures I ran are both heavy hitters.  Luckily I have so many enablers in this deck.  Besides traditional methods such as normal combat and shocks, heres some star bloodthirst enablers:

- Goblin Fireslinger
- Tormented Soul
- Goblin Arsonist
- Goblin Tunneler
- Tectonic Rift

Call to the Grave was a huge stall game that let the game drag on and put my opponent in an awkward postion.  I had two ways to keep it up:

- Gravedigger
- Reassembling Skeleton

I also had a large amount of removal:
- 2 Shock
- 3 Doom Blade
- 1 Chandra's Outrage
- 2 Goblin Arsonist
- 1 Call to the Grave

- Nearly every bit of damage was evasive as well:
- 2 Tormented Soul
- 1 Goblin Fireslinger
- 2 Shock
- 2 Goblin arsonist
- 1 Goblin Tunneler
- 1 Volanic Dragon
- 1 Devouring Swarm
- 1 Stormblood Berserker

So a lot of things just come together and many play mulitple roles in this deck.  This is not by any means a great deck, and it did require luck.  I had to beat down my opponent before I ran out of steam or it was pretty much over (unless I got lucky with a Call to the Grave.)

My favorite play was playing a shock targeting my own Reassembling Skeleton in response to my opponents Timely Reinforcements.  My opponent still gained the 6 life but thankfully he didnt get the 3 1/1 tokens.  That play bought me enough time to win the game.

So my advice to my fellow sealed deck players:

- Bomb cards are game winners, but only play them if they are in your color or its easy to splash
- Manalith, Greatsword, Kite Shield, and Solemn Simulacrum should be auto includes in any deck.
- Read the cards.  Some might work differently than they first appear.
- Check for your strongest cards for each color, and see which ones have the most.  For example, you have the following:

White
1x Oblivion Ring
1x timely reinforcements
1x Serra Angel
1x Stormfront Pegasus
2x Gideon's Lawkeeper

Black
1x Smallpox
1x Distress
1x Grave Titan
1x Taste of Blood

Blue
2x Aven Fleetwing
1x Ponder
1x Levation
1x Frost Breath
1x Azure Mage

Green
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
2x Lure
1x Fog
2x Vastwood Gorger
1x Bountiful Harvest

Red
1x Stormblood Berserker
2x Goblin Fireslinger
1x Fireball
1x Incinerate
1x Lightning Elemental
1x Goblin War Paint

If you could pick any two colors, which would they be?  Put your choice below and let's see what everyone thinks!