X-amination

"Magic: The Gathering"'s 10th or X Edition is the first core set to be printed with black borders since Beta and the only one to include legendary creatures. I think it's the best mix since Revised, with the highest standard of artwork.

So far, I've only purchased the five theme decks. Perhaps in response to the heroes of the trendy "World Of Warcraft" CCG, each is based around a legend, as is evident in their titles: Evincar's Tyranny (black), Arcanis's Guile (blue), Molimo's Might (green), Kamahl's Temper (red) and Cho-Manno's Resolve (white).

After nine hours of testing - five with SC and four solo* - I feel confident in ranking the decks. For the third edition running, white is No. 1, controlling the battlefield with first strike and critter removal. It's combo of Cho-Manno (all damage reduced to zero) and Pariah (damage directed at you is instead dealt to enchanted creature) is an auto-win versus green, and can be a lock against black or red depending on the spells left in their library. What were Wizards Of The Coast's R&D department smoking?

Here are the results of the round robin:

White - 4 match wins/9 game wins
Blue - 3/8
Green - 2/5
Black - 1/4
Red - 0/4

(Note that even when a best-of-three match had been won 2-0, the third game was still played.)

Overall, the decks are moderately balanced as there were only two 3-0 sweeps (blue over green, white over black). Last-placed red still managed to take a game off each other colour, though its only chance was to "steamroll" and pray the opposition faltered. White further asserted its dominance by winning a multiplayer melee (not counted in the nine hours) that I played with SC, TC and LPO.


*All while listening to Velvet Revolver's "Libertad" album, which in my opinion falls short of "Contraband". In martial arts terms, it demonstrates more techniques than the band's debut disc but doesn't hit as hard.