JumpSTARt: Battle Royale — Devlog #14: Sylvia
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
Devlog #06: Zndrsplt
Devlog #07: Nikara
Devlog #08: Khorvath
Devlog #09: Pir
Devlog #10: Trynn
Devlog #11: Ukkima
Devlog #12: Laurine
Devlog #13: Gorm
Shine brightly, Sylvia! It’s time for monowhite Dragons.
Here are the card picks for the packet, and below is the reasoning for the choices.
RAWR! There are seven Dragons in this packet, so there’s a high likelihood that Sylvia will get to grant double strike to a draconic ally. There was a little bit of a challenge to balance capping the number of rares in this packet, since there are few white Dragons, and most Dragons are rares or mythic rares.
Impostor of the Sixth Pride and Irregular Cohort take care of the “2 Warriors per packet” requirement. They also do extra work to provide lower-cost Dragons to fill out your mana curve.
Another benefit of the changelings: Sylvia granting your teammate’s Dragons double strike is a double-edged sword (hah!), since you don’t want to help them win TOO much, so at least changeling here lets you benefit from your teammates’ Khorvath’s granting of flying and haste, in return.
Ancestor Dragon’s (shoutout to Global Series cards) 6 toughness helps beat out any other 5/5 flying Dragons that may appear in JumpSTARt: Battle Royale (Rhoda has a 5/5 Yosei, for example — and there’s going to be a Death by Dragons included in a future red packet), so that your Dragons can rule the skies best.
Icingdeath is super great at its spot in the mana curve, but if it ever gets outclassed or otherwise dies, the Equipment it leaves behind can be super devastating in combination with Sylvia’s double strike granting.
Henge Guardian completes the artifact requirement. Trample also synergizes with getting double strike from Sylvia.
Council’s Judgment gives you noncreature removal, if you need it to be that.
While Promise of Loyalty gives you a board wipe and can maybe destroy a Sylvia in the process, your likelihood to end up with a better-than-average creature compared to the others’ creatures is higher. Besides, your Cave of the Frost Dragon can dodge the effect!
The mana curve is a bit higher here. So this packet has an extra land in it than normal (10 lands instead of 9).
We want to have more than just one two-drop, so Dragon’s Disciple gives you a bit of defense in the early game as well as adding an extra scale to your dragons against removal — your Dragons are probably a more prime target for your opponents’ single-target removal!
Won’t Drag on Any Further
That’s all for now! See ya next packet.
