Nearly a week without me posting anything. Not a record, but still in these uncertain times finding stuff to write about without just writing drivel (ok you could describe my regular content as that) is hard. Mix in a little apathy and you get these gaps between posts.

Read this next sentence like the Rock in the square circle! It’s been a while but FINALLY the UK and Europe gets the Jumpstart set.

It was looking very uncertain for a long time. Delay after delay. It came out in limited supply in the US and other parts of the world. But it was not looking good for here.

Then about three, four weeks ago WotC made an announcement that Jumpstart would hit the the shelves and tables of UK and European FLGS.

If you have played Smash Up! where each player chooses two themed decks, shuffles them together, and then plays against each other. Then you have basically how Jumpstart works for MtG.

I like this format a lot because it is very new player friendly. They don’t need to know how to build decks, or own lots of cards. Buy some Jumpstart boosters, chose two, shuffle together, and play. All a player has to do is decide which themed boosters they like or want to mash together.

Just because you get say two minion decks does not mean you have the same two decks. For most of the deck types there are at least two versions of the deck.

Naturally there are some sweet reprints within this set, such as Rhystic Study (which sadly I didn’t get).

But I did get a card I wanted for my goblin deck, Muxus, Goblin Grandee.

I nearly bought it as a single. But it’s price put me off. I usually use Krenko as the decks commander. However I’ll definitely be giving the deck a run with Muxus as the commander. Although my gut is saying one of the ninety nine. So I’m chuffed to have pulled the card.

Because players are mostly, ok very, no definitely going to be playing duel colour decks, each booster gets the appropriate Thriving land.

These lands are great for Commander players. Ok they come in tapped, but being able to name a second colour that it can be tapped for is the cool part. It’s another dual land basically. That all important mana fixing. I expect Commander players will be picking these up fast especially while they are “cheap”. I’ll be using these definitely in my multicoloured decks such as Scarab God, Dragons Tribal, Dinosaur Tribal, etc.

I’m really happy that we finally get to play with Jumpstart. If WotC are intelligent they will keep this set in print and make them the basis of open house events (once we are back playing in our FLGS). They are that new player friendly.