JumpSTARt: Battle Royale — Devlog #06: Zndrsplt
JumpSTARt: Battle Royale is a star-format Jumpstart product for Magic: The Gathering. This blog post is part of a series chronicling its development.
Previous devlogs:
Devlog #00: Kickoff
Devlog #01: Packet Skeleton
Devlog #02: Drafting
Devlog #03: Star-Format-Friendly Mechanics
Devlog #04: “Event” Cards
Devlog #05: Rhoda
Today’s packet is Zndrsplt! A challenging one, as there aren’t many monoblue ways to cause or care about winning coin flips. This led to a patchwork quilt of synergies to be put together!
See the reasonings after viewing the packet below.
First, we start with Zndrsplt (and Zndrsplt’s Judgment, for flavor). Zndrsplt needed coin flip cards, so we grabbed Wirefly Hive, Sorcerer’s Strongbox, & Boompile. (When you win with Boompile, Zndrsplt still has enough time to see the flip win and reward you with a card before Zndrsplt dies.)
These are all artifact cards! So, Urza’s Tome takes advantage of the historic nature of all of Zndrsplt and the artifact cards.
With Zndrsplt, Sorcerer’s Strongbox, and Urza’s Tome; we’re starting to see a pattern of drawing cards! So we include Jace, who draws cards, creates a creature (counts for a creature slot — balancing out how Zndrsplt’s Judgment can sometimes count as a creature due to the token copy creation), and is historic.
Also, Remand as our “single target removal,” but it’s cheap, draws a card, and feels flavorful to Zndrsplt’s previous career as a judge.
With enough draw power here, we have Faerie Vandal and Minn, Wily Illusionist. Both of these reward you for drawing your second card. Additionally, Minn creates Illusions and cares about Illusions, which synergizes further with Jace.
And then there’s the Warrior quota each packet must meet. Luckily, an Illusion Warrior synergizes with Minn and a two-drop Warrior synergizes with Jace.
Whew. The main theory behind this packet: why have just one mechanical theme when you can interweave many different synergies together? The combinatorics makes up for the lack of a singular identity.
And, yeah, we’re running a little spicy here with 8 lands instead of 9 (the packet skeleton specifies 9 lands, since some of these legendary partners can cost as high as six mana, and 18 lands is better than 16 lands at achieving casting those legendary partners). I’m hoping all this draw power can help smooth over any need to find extra lands. PLUS the mana curve tops out at 5 mana in this packet.
Time to ‘Splt
That’s all for now! See you next time with the next packet.