Alara Reborn || Crack-A-Pack - March 31, 2022

[@MaskedTai]

The main reason I remember that Alara block was drafted Shards->Conflux->Reborn is that I did a reverse-Alara block draft in my LGS... 9 years ago? It was a hoot and a half I tell ya. Oh, and Identity Crisis isn't something I'd play in Limited, but I have a vivid memory of casting it in a game of EDH on someone who promptly got *very* upset and just picked up their cards and left the table. Exile target opponent too, I guess.

[@EricChoiniere]

What I like about the Borderposts is the naming scheme of combining two words that each signify a color, and in-order too: Fieldmist, Mistvein, Veinfire, Firewild, Wildfield

[@TheMaestroso]

I seem to remember that I did a triple draft of this once on MTGO. Taking borderposts is very important, because you can play them turn 1 provided you also had a basic land. It was possible to play fewer lands than normal since borderposts act like slow duals and let you replay your lands so you don't miss your drops too much. Also, set rules.

[@calebjacobson3139]

The Alara Reborn drafts were just a ton of fun... Granted I only did four of them, and two of those drafts were spent drafting a nasty red/black aggro deck that killed most around turn five or six, but still really fun.

[@tvanddy]

I always appreciate Graham's delivery on these. It's improvised and chaotic, but it's not rushed or loud or overdone. Just an excellent series.

[@sandmanlives3]

Agreed.

[@ShinjiSixteen]

Ooh, perfect description of Graham's delivery

[@Eidolon98]

Glassdust hulk might be my favorite common of all time. Just, so much synergy. Made a whole golem deck using the splicer cycle to just dump golems onto the field and give them a bunch of abilities as if they were slivers. It wasn't very good, but it felt so cool and unique

[@tomwitty465]

I’m just glad I was not alone in also going “…some crimes go slipping through the cracks.”

[@DergonBaals]

The edit on Leonin Armorguard was GODLIKE. I laughed for a solid thirty seconds.

[@KumaKaori]

oh that /got/ me. MATT.

[@bigwig8657]

God I love heavy multi color sets so much. This makes me excited for new capena tbh.

[@adancein]

I love the concept of "all gold cards" and I probably overestimate the strength level of this set a lot.

[@hurricanealpaca804]

Thanks to Heather, Matt, James, and Graham! I love seeing all the cards from sets I never played, and getting nostalgia from all the ones I have!

[@MrBenioPL]

I need to draft Alara someday. Some of those cards are weird. Love it.

[@ShadowChorus]

I feel like Identity Crisis has some use in that once it resolves you immediately kill any graveyard strats your opponent had and force them into top-decking. Whether that's worth the 6 mana is a value question (probably not, in my opinion) but still, it's got a certain control niche.

[@TubbyBubbleLove42]

"Sometimes, some crimes, go slipping through the cracks..." I was almost asleep and you starting the chip and dale rescue rangers theme set the whole opening going in my head.

[@BlameScott]

During the pause after you said "sometimes," that theme started playing in my head. And then you actually started singing it. Never change, Graham.

[@paulallison3974]

Alara draft was a complete blast (both with and without expansions) and also a great chaos pack to include

[@Hiddenkeymaster3]

I can't wait until we go back to Alara. I was not around for the first Alara block, but so many of these cards are unique and memorable.

[@kpoffaas]

The order to drafting (go from newest to oldest) occurred during Theros block. So for Alara block this would be the last pack you opened.

[@artemi7]

I've never been more disappointed to not be called a Putrid Leech before ;~; Also I really wish they'd finish the Borderpost cycle. They were really cool!

[@greatdinn8489]

I know this is a two year old comment, but I got a giggle out of completing the borderpost cycle as-is in my head. Fieldvein, Mistfire, Veinwild, Firefield, and Wildmist sound very silly to me.

[@artemi7]

@@greatdinn8489 And yet, still two years later, still no Borderposts! Maybe one day... lol

[@Matti_Mattsen]

Alara was one of my favourite blocks in magic EVER, i thought the idea of shards was so neat and well done in this block

[@Eramiserasmus]

Alara was the set that my friends used to teach me how to play. The nostalgia.

[@Flickstro]

I just wanna say, I love what Matt's been doing lately. Keep killin' it!

[@eonchao]

Triple Alara Reborn was a weird but fun draft format. Not designed to be played that way but turn 1 borderpost, turn 2 blade that gets buffed by the borderpost. Really enjoyed that format

[@Dovorans]

This hits all the nostalgia buttons for me, Alara Reborn was the set where I first bought my own cards with my allowance. I remember making a silly deck with Wall of Denial and Overgrown Battlements to ramp into nothing because I didn't have any big creatures, but it sure could ramp!

[@thecolortwelve3784]

The "hi graham" moment was great and reminded me of the green tree boa editing from the Live and Let Die episode.

[@ZombieDish]

I used to play Magic back in high school when it was still a new novelty. And I stopped after leaving high school. I picked it back up briefly when I moved to a city and wanted to meet other like minded gamers. Now I sit and watch a fellow Canadian who looks at Magic cards and it's very relaxing.

[@wehpudicabok6598]

"In this case, X equals sure" is a sentence I want to start using more often

[@robertfranklin8522]

Borderposts are amazing in my Niv-Mizzet Reborn EDH deck. He loves to see them as he is getting rebornt.

[@kingvire]

Can I say how much these videos perk me up I look forward to watching them on my break so much. Thanks for the awesome and consistent content.

[@kamikazehansu]

Giant Ambush Beetle is an awesome name for a magic card. Like Scuttling Doom Engine. 💖

[@sandmanlives3]

What an awesome set! I love it. Most of those cards are pretty great. I would also first pick the Terminate and not look back. Excellent, as always. Thank you!

[@jcblacksmith]

Matt this editing is hilarious, please never stop

[@Darwingreen5]

you said the name "Chippy" and the gremlins in your memory center immediately brought up "Chip and Dale's rescue rangers".

[@brendaneichler5244]

13:20 Because it slaps, dude. It's one of the better late 80's/early 90's cartoon themes.

[@kyleellis1825]

Honestly, Alara REborn was one of the most well recieved third sets because it was trying something so new. Usually the third set was barely sold, but with this block it was conflux we mostly ignored.

[@BurningOleander]

Seeing these videos in my subs always improves my mental health instantly, thanks Graham.

[@NeoBellmoore]

The moment I saw the art for Terminate, I thought 'that looks very Pathfinder' and Wayne Reynolds has indeed done a lot of art for Pathfinder.

[@Mother_boards]

I am here for the absolutely unbridled chaotic energy Graham brings to these videos.

[@GradeAMolvanian]

I love the slow progression into madness that is this show.

[@BenjaminKlahn]

@2:15 turns out replacing your land with an artifact is a good way to end up down on mana a few turns later to mass artifact destruction.

[@EyalBrown]

Leonin Ermahgahd totally GOT me, lmao. What an edit.

[@Rihnoswirl]

I'm going to hypothesize that "Giant Ambush Beetle" is supposed to be a reference to the "Giant Enemy Crab" from Sony's 2006 E3-show.

[@KirbytronicWouldLiketoBattle]

I don't have answers for you Graham, but I can say that I also started singing the Chip 'N Dale theme a fraction of a second before you did

[@SirStickBug]

The guy with vigilance and haste seemed really good in draft. Nice stats and very aggressive.

[@gruultrainer4533]

The Alara block is when I started paying magic. This was a great trip down memory lane!

[@deleteman900]

I have the vaguest of memories of the borderposts, and really adoring their design as well. They may not be *super* great, but fuck it, I'm here for it!

[@ReynardWrecce]

Well bugger you for making me laugh out loud at work at Leonin Ermagerd, Graham. Now I'm getting funny looks.

[@cruinard3710]

Fun with flurry of wings: it doesn’t just say attacking creatures you control, which was useful in a bird tribal deck I made a while back.

[@2000sDigitalBoy]

Flurry of Wings was the cornerstone of a standard token deck I used to play, back when standard was still called "Type 2." I would try and combo it with cards like Elvish Visionary and Khalni Garden to create a pile of tokens and then follow up with Beastmaster Ascension, which would become active in one or two attacks due to all the tokens. I was really proud of that deck, even if it wasn't very good. I have such fond memories of playing that deck that Flurry of Wings remains an iconic Magic card to me to this day.

[@gamerbear84]

The shroud makes sense there, you can't get two-for-oned with targeting land destruction. I think that card is totally fine.

[@PeterHaderlein]

I remember drafting Conflux at the time and it was very skill-testing. While hybrid mana and cycling gave you flexibility, mana fixing was essential. The borderposts were high picks.

[@2MeatyOwlLegs]

I never played Alara yet I have a huge amount of nostalgia for it because when I first layed eyes on the sets the cards were all so cool. And I still love them. The power level of that era feels just right. Also Mythics were still what they were supposed to be. Cool mana hungry stuff for commander.

[@sallomon2357]

Well, it was the first block they introduced mythic rares in, after all.

[@bossgoji]

As a frequent commander brewer, Alara uncommons and rares are absolutely some of my favorite goofy stuff to play with.

[@jacefairis1289]

borderposts are essentially somewhat worse bouncelands (only pick up basics, die to artifact removal) that can also be a 3 mana rock if you have enough lands. I think they're underrated!

[@ukaszbylica3261]

The draft order switch from oldest-to-newest to newest-to-oldest happened in Scars of Mirrodin block, so two blocks after this one.

[@jettblade]

Flurry of Wings is a really underrated card. It does have a weird cost but if someone is going wide you can have plenty of blockers. Additionally if you go wide you could swing out, cast this, and have blockers. If you could get at least 3 creatures, 2 at the very minimum, it is worth it.

[@UltimatTacoman]

Borderposts are not to be underestimated! You can get them out even if you don't have the right colors, because of their ability! Great for 5 color budget decks!

[@marvin42thg34]

I only started with MTG 2 years ago (but drafting like crazy since) and Alara stands very high on the bucket list of drafts I wanna do. All I see from this set is just so crazy cool.

[@lolmonkeyjizz]

Always love watching these :D

[@ChiralWolf]

When they do something out there like every card being gold I feel like a good litmus test to see if they've done it since. They have a good track record of doing successful things again. So yeah, probably not so hot

[@IRFine]

I think it went over pretty well for limited, but in general the set was rather underwhelming. I don’t think the multicolored-ness was really the cause of that though?

[@artemi7]

Part of the problem is it took two whole sets to set up. Alara wasn't concived as "the shard plane", it was built from the ground up to support the 'all gold set'.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

I think all gold was really cool, but you can't really go back to that well without kind of ruining the magic. I don't know that the fact they haven't done it again is so much unpopularity as it's just a really "out there" concept that only works in a specific context, and loses a lot of its cache if you repeat it. It's probably only a matter of time before they try a high concept like that again, but would it be all gold? I don't know.

[@PVDH_magic]

Ah, one of my favorite draft memories is when we played 3x Alara Reborn draft. The set surely wasn't designed for that, as it was the third small set of the block. So, so, so many Sureblades; which were always on. Cards that couldn't kill them or interact with them profitably were just unplayable :P

[@docterfantazmo]

*Graham:* Well maybe I don't wanna join your silly ranks. *Esperites:* Fine... bring in the brainbite snake, ghost thing.

[@arcengal]

Giant Ambush Beetle got named Ronseal Beetle at our LGS. It did exactly what it said on the tin.

[@Pengu92]

Alara-Zendikar was my tentative introduction to Magic. I dove deep into the lore because of the group I played with, don't play with them anymore but I still remember getting stomped by grixis

[@lostmarble540]

I feel like bird shamans don't mind getting mistaken for bird wizards, but bird wizards really don't like getting mistaken for bird shamans

[@ecyor0]

I see Flurry of Wings and as someone who loves going selesnya style "six dozen little guys getting various +1/+1 buffs", I am *salivating* .

[@alexpozniak4106]

I love this block so much.

[@raze667]

ah Alara block was such a fun series of sets.

[@hermatic1]

Lorescale would be my pick, mainly due to me loving simic since strixhaven. But my heart will always belong to dimir. Also thanks to you all in front and behind the cameras you are all killing it. Takecare.

[@lightfut]

ermahgerd it's an armorguard!

[@bigwig8657]

Hot take, Shroud is fixed Hexproof.

[@mikejunt]

At the time, you drafted in release order (Shards > Conflux > Reborn), though some people believe the set drafts better in the modern block arrangement (Reborn > Conflux > Shards), since the all-gold set lets you commit to your shard instead of wondering if you'll get shard cards after you're mostly committed to your colors.

[@vincentrutledge9445]

Graham doing math “X = Sure”

[@xBenjiSx]

At the beginning of my Magic adventure, I made a casual Azorius artifacts pauper deck with Glassdust Hulks in it. Love that card to this day :)

[@terriblenorwegiangaming547]

I don't know about most borderposts, but fieldmist borderpost goes straight in my Tameshi deck ;)

[@BlueTrebol]

Oh, the first pack I ever opened! Had no idea all cards were multicolored, me and my mono blue deck were really disappointed The rare was Soulquake, in case you're curious

[@tipulsar85]

Well the theme song at the end dates this to near when that film got revealed... As for picks outside the token, Flurry of wings would be very handy right now for a deck I'm building.

[@FanOfMostEverything]

Reborn was drafted last, so you generally had an idea of what you were doing, though occasionally someone was trying to run Five Color Good Stuff. Or Five Color Bad Stuff. Or Five Color Quality of Stuff to be Determined. This is also the only block where I've done a Rochester Draft, and there are some fascinating mind games to be had there.

[@ZaberFangAT]

Unearth is exiled at end of turn, not sacrificed, unfortunately. Without other graveyard shenanigans, Kathari Bomber only gets you 4 goblins at most.

[@connorhamilton5707]

I had an Alesha Tiny Leaders deck, and Kathari Bomber was awesome. Puts itself back in the graveyard for the next attack, and leaves you with some bodies to block with and sacrifice. My deck was pretty low power though, compared to everything else that was possible.

[@Victorinya_Valentine]

Dang, Alara is a block I’ve just not seen much from so this is gonna be a cool video!

[@PHXRenegade]

It was a complete nightmare to collect in paper. The ordering of the cards in the collections were all over the place. It "did" make sense, but only after several servings of the beverage of your choice 🙂

[@matthewcolyer6797]

Love how the token is the most expensive card in the pack and they almost missed it.

[@CityofLight11]

Flurry of wings + soulcatcher aerie in multiplayer games means you wait for a big swing, get a bunch of birds to feed into the woodchippers, and now all your birds have like +10/+10. I really miss janky 60 card casual multiplayer.

[@Luxatos]

It's weird I barely remember the Rescue Rangers theme song at all (just the Ch-ch-ch-ch-chip and Dale part), but the ones for Ducktales and Darkwing Duck are firmly lodged in my memory banks. I don't really remember Talespin's theme either, come to think of it. And all four were part of my daily routine.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

Borderposts are pretty high picks, as they not only act like tap-lands, they are also multicolored permanents for other cards that care about that, like your Bant Sureblade there. Terminate is a solid pick though. Alara Reborn is the set that brought us Cascade. If you could grab a Bloodbraid Elf or a Bituminous Blast, you were sitting pretty.

[@Zjivarra]

Wow 😮 This set looks so cool. Wish it was still around and affordable. ㅜㅜ Gonna have to see how many singles I can get and maybe build a set cube of these to draft.

[@andybrown5289]

Imagine this being your first magic set and thinking all cards were multi color

[@mkill572]

My daily dose of pack opening ASMR

[@hatchetman751]

My first block. The hybrid mana cards were so cool.

[@pleravens]

Since this was the third pack in your draft, first pick is highly dependent upon what you opened previously. However, in a vacuum, it would either be borderpost, terminate, trace or coatl. It depends on how much fixing you need versus how aggressive you are.

[@LilyTheOtter]

Opening that Flurry of Wings reminded me that I still need to make my Bant Bird Wizard tribal deck.

[@mikelegault9344]

Oooh! I run that Dragon Broodmother but don’t have the Devour token lol Nice pull!

[@chifii]

Okay, good, if you didn't look up the price of the token, I was gonna. The moment you opened it, I went, "That's one of those tokens that they didn't print enough of."

[@Ragnarok2kx]

I love that the Sureblade gives first strike. Too bad it's not red

[@kilo3989]

Three cheers for Graham's restraint!

[@kilo3989]

I'd take Glassdust Hulk because I like Esper artifacts. Need to build a Sen Triplets deck sometime.

[@Sugarman96]

The border posts were good in the Restore Balance deck in Modern, they were cheap mana sources that bounced lands, making it easier to armageddon your opponent.

[@dondo3384]

I really like the style of the token. I haven´t played magic while this was the norm so it kind of feels like a special print to me^^

[@CaptainVryce]

I have a Rakdos deck that every card gives the opponent a choice, they're all bad choices. It's full of dumb stuff like dwarven driller, book burning, painful quandry. The hardest part is finding cards with that opponents choice option since a lot of them are worded differently than each other.

[@Sientir]

I was playing at the time Alara came out, and I loved an all gold-set. I have heard it said that maybe it was too much of a good thing, though?

[@iristheboss]

Graham reading the flavor of the beetle just makes me think of drax from gotg