From Plastic to Cardboard - A full review of 40K's Magic the Gathering crossover set!

On this episode, Brad and Eric do a crossover episode with their other podcast Solely SIngleton! What’s the special occasion? Well, Games Workshop has been working with Wizards on the Coast on making Warhammer 40k themed Commander decks. I haven’t seen Brad and Eric so excited for a Magic product in a long time, so jump on in and see what all the excitement is about!
SHOW LINKS:
Website: poorhammer.libsyn.com/
Patreon: / solelysingleton
MTG Channel: / solelysingleton
Brad’s Twitter: / drruler
Eric’s Twitter: / onekuosora
MENTIONED THIS EPISODE:
SCRYFALL CARD GALLERY: scryfall.com/sets/40k?as=grid...
EDH REC: edhrec.com/sets/40k
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:44 MTG Basic Game Rules
00:06:28 Warhammer Lore Intro
00:08:38 Tyranids
00:20:09 Chaos Knights
00:30:17 Necrons
00:41:51 The Imperium
00:53:39 Cool Memes and Reprints
00:58:38 Final Thoughts
Licensed Music Used By This Program:
“Night Out” by LiQWYD, CC BY
“Thursday & Snow (Reprise)” by Blank & Kytt, CC BY
“First Class” by Peyruis, CC BY
“Funky Souls” by Amaria, CC BY
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[@DarksteelPenguin]

I'm gonna be that guy: a chaplain's weapon is called a crozius. The rosarius is a pendant, given to chaplain by the ecclesiarchy as a symbol of cooperation. It contains a forcefield generator. That's why in 40k it gives them a 4++ save, and here it makes them indestructible.

[@dukesubterra4683]

Thank you for being that guy so I dont have to

[@knightsljx]

another 'that guy' here. the rosarius more specifically contains a Conversion Field

[@ecyor0]

The "Swords into Plowshares" reprint is my favourite reflavoured MtG card by a country mile. We get so little lore about how Imperium worlds function in peacetime so it's great seeing how they can absolutely convert their military-industrial complex to pure economy if they want to.

[@Axquirix]

I'm guessing using Leman Russes as tractors or a Knight as a mobile crane or something? Edit: Looked it up and it's a Russ converted to a combine harvester, with the thresher setup fixed to the sponson guns mounts which is honestly genius and I kinda want to build one for Necromunda or something.

[@EverianKalim]

@@Axquirix Its makes sense. Knights during the Pre-Dark Age Was used for conolnizing new worlds and doing manual labor.

[@akumaking1]

So you think folks might use the cards as proxies for units in the tabletop? $60 for a themed deck is cheaper than buying a starter set from GW

[@Ariamaki]

One interesting thing that came to light after this episode: Articles and statements from the Wizards side of thing implied that a lot of the choices regarding color pie for the decks, including the mono-black Necrons and the big issue with Cawl, were determinations dictated mostly by GW as part of the licensing agreement, and then the mechanical abilities followed from there instead of vice versa.

[@Khorne-bd4tc]

Played mtg for a while and it’s surreal how this has become a thing.

[@lemonworm]

I love how real you guys are like to just straight up call secret lair a "fear of missing out system" savagely accurate no splitting hairs

[@Ozzblahing]

My beef is on the color identity of some of the factions. Agreed that Necrons should be Black+(White/Blue). I firmly thought the Imperium should be Mardu, since there's the whole religious zealotry angle they have, but by focusing more on the Indomitus/Primaris angle of things, I can see Esper (although agreed that Cawl is wrong - I think you could argue he's Izzet, but Dimir can also work - the big thing is that he's not Azorius). My biggest flavor fail is that Chaos should be 4 colors, not white - black-green is so Nurgle it hurts, and being everything except the color of Order (White) is also on-brand for Chaos. 'Nids though are perfect as Temur.

[@nathanl8622]

Blue's also the color of curiosity and self-improvement, something the Imperium's not too great with. I guess they need blue for all the psykers and AdMech, but it's still an odd choice. The cynical part of me wonders if the Imperium's most iconic faction wearing solid blue armor has anything to do with it.

[@insearchofprometheus]

I still think the 'nids are more Simic than Temur, but Temur works. I agree the Imperium should be Mardu, they should have broken off Mechanicus and made them Mono-Blue or Izzit. I agree with Chaos, everything but White. And I honestly think the best fit for Necrons is just straight Colorless. But the biggest blunder is not having one of the decks be Gruul Orks. I mean come on, it's perfect! I also think Esper Eldar could have worked by making it a mix of craftworld, drukhari, and harlequins.

[@chandlerpearce6213]

45:37 um actually, the rosarius is just a holy symbol with a power field that acts as a force field in it. The weapon is a crosius arcanum. This doesn’t actually matter, but anyway.

[@Darkuwa]

Trazyns immortality comes in with him as your commander

[@TylerSantinelli]

Wow, I just played with this set yesterday, crossing over my 40k friends and MTG friends. One of them *hates* Commander as a format but had a blast with the set. Crazy coincidence.

[@jamiejudd2481]

Loved this video (& v tempted to pick up the Tyranid deck now). One thing though: the Rosarius you mentioned on the Chaplain isn't actually his mace (called a Crozius), but a small pendant/necklace that has a force field generator inside it

[@NotAnEvilMastermind]

I suppose Cawl got white because of vigilance, as vigilance is a white ability rather than black. Then again, it's a bit of a crud excuse, since vigilance has recently moved into being a blue ability as well. So ultimately i think it could have been a thing to line up the number of legendaries in each of the 3 subsets of colours - with Eisenhorn already being the blue/black legend in the deck, that spot was taken. Edit; realised there's two white/black legends in the deck anyway. So maybe they just wanted a blue/white and nobody else they considered for it would have fit? I'd even argue he could have been a blue/red character, though that obviously wouldn't have fit within the deck.

[@anthraxcrab3238]

Maybe they wanted him to be blue white to explicitly stand apart from the other tech priests in the deck

[@hyperion]

Thanks Eric for the most accurate color pie description

[@cf3714]

Finally, a way to play 40k without having to remortgage my house!

[@ethanlieske9678]

Best description of the color pie possible , no notes.

[@cheesebucket142]

I feel like with Trazyn, the coming back to life thing is represented by being a Commander and you being able to recast him that way.

[@samlynn1652]

I would love to see a 40k card game. This shows it really can work.

[@drexmartell9803]

Blood for the Blood god! Skulls for the Skull Throne! Milk for the Khorne Flakes!

[@kosmonaut5]

This is the exact video I’ve been needing!!!

[@draco12999]

Trazyn works flavor wise if hes the commander due to how the commander rules work

[@JoshMC2000]

Honestly Id be down for more 40k decks if there as good as this one.

[@szylaj]

gime orks

[@JantDarvus]

Tyranids are a 'hegemonising swarm'? Going to bet that's a term learned from Excession. :D

[@Walpurgisnackt]

4/4 is the og dragon stat line though

[@chrisludwig4729]

I agree 100% with the take here. I have never liked Universes Beyond. I think I speak for a lot of the fandom when I say there's just way too much MTG these days and it's exhausting. I am glad that the cards here were well thought out and well executed. I'd still prefer it didnt exist, but if it was going to happen anyways... this was about as good as we could have hoped.

[@Axquirix]

Weirdly this feels like the way I'm most likely to start playing Tyranids. I just sold all my old MtG cards a month ago as well (though they were all red/white/black so Tyranids being green means not all of them would have been useful anyway).

[@cu_setantanobu804]

Well now I'm playing MTG

[@drachir7146]

We need more Warhammer decks! I'd say make it a Xenos edition, basically, like Tau, Eldar, Orks, and Vottan cause that would be very cool

[@morning_star4033]

19:20 *Laughs in colorless eldradzi tribel*

[@jessehoule1397]

Needed more dice roll cards and/or effects.

[@krampusthestoryteller1416]

31:19 Brainiac, yes.

[@razmeanie4519]

No idea what a land is or what a tap is or how many you can do each turn so I have no idea how many resources these cost. How many turns would it take to summon one of these?

[@insearchofprometheus]

I honestly think Necrons should have been colorless. Wastes as a basic land for Necrons makes far more sense than swamps, and the whole thing with Necrons in lore is they have no "souls" since they have no presence in the warp, which I think would translate well into Magic as colorless mana, similar to the eldrazi. And then there is the whole artifact thing.

[@ashdog9235]

Just as a counterpoint a trained therosian soldier range between 1-2 power and toughness a pig is a 2/2 some trained and armed Greek soldier get stomped by just some pig this example come from the first Theros set which came out in 2013

[@dukesubterra4683]

I do feel like white for cael fits because if regular mechnics is blue black and cawl and he goes against theie rules

[@flindude2681]

why are not tyrranids 100% nature? a better idea is to have it like this red- orks black -chaos, necrons, dark eldar green -tyranids (or things biological) white - imperium I was wondering what would be blue, then perfect, eldar, and could throw in dark eldar too and then various races or creatures which blur lines and or not big enough to be proper faction could be a mix, like squiggroth red green. Such as genestealer cultists definatly white green or even better, necrons artifact, race, becasue they are, and are pretty beyond compass.

[@Nicolas-yd2mw]

Remember that colors of the artstyles depends of mana colors of the card. Cheers :D

[@TiroDvD]

This set is why I don't mind the MtG crossovers so much b/c the world of MtG has universe hopping baked in. 40k is just another plane an (Old style) planeswalker got lost in. Now powercreep, mode legality, cost, blantant cash grabs, lazy design, etc. is another story.

[@joshy7759]

Ha, the knowledge gap is bridged for me by growing up with a crippling lack of friends!

[@john12644]

White is order and morality Blue is logic and technology Green is independence and instinct Black is ambition, amorality, and parasatism Red is basically the 9th edition daemon codex

[@phearamax4146]

That's pretty mean to Red

[@john12644]

@@phearamax4146 i mean red has it coming

[@doughnutboyo6922]

Green is INTERdepence. That is why all of the nature cards are green.

[@john12644]

@@doughnutboyo6922 not gonna lie i just wanted to trash red i had looked up what wizards said each color is for the rest of the colors lol

[@mikegameslayer8682]

They did say that the 40k cards will be reprinted in universe as something else "eventually" so theres hope we can get it elsewhere.

[@nathanl8622]

They actually haven't. They've stressed that it's possible to reprint them (no second Reserved List because their license to use Marneus Calgar expired), but the only ones actually confirmed to get in-universe reskins are the Secret Lair ones. Everything else is in the "we'll reprint if we need to" zone, which considering how many non-crossover cards desperately need reprinting does not bode well for any of these.

[@conner_4736]

Wtf is that noise at 18:32? 😂

[@ohmygodjoe2647]

Two amazing franchises, two horrible companies have joined forces to once more steal your money

[@t4rv0r60]

they are even extra scummy and also lie about the fomo system. because by end of the year, there will be 2 Secret Lair sets that they reprinted into regular MTG sets. Stranger Things Street Fighter the mtg color pie: White- do stuff but if you want real value, the opponent gets value to. also many "no fun allowed stuff" Blue- draw cards, counter stuff, EXTRA TURNS Black- over time, we do the stuff the other colors do too plus you use your life as a resource Red- Fast & Furious Green- Everything the above can but better! also put lands from your deck directly into play

[@Lenriak]

I think this might have been the start of WoTC/Hasbro's troubles. They didn't just make use of a GW franchise, they also decided to make use of some of GW's business practices too... 🤣

[@cactus_judy3929]

my biggest complaint about these is that they use unique creature types rather than fitting these within the flavor of magic. Tyranid = Dinosaur Insect, Astartes = Human Mutant, Necron = Artifact Creature - Zombie. I'd argue this makes the decks less in line with "what if my commander deck was warhammer?" in the same way that a superhero deck having a creature type line "kryptonian superhero" is just too obvious. took away the fun of fitting the UB designs into mtg imo

[@DarksteelPenguin]

I really don't see the issue with the types. There are plenty of things in Magic that have very specific/weird types, like jellyfish (which could have been grouped with fish) or monk (when cleric exists), or unique types like sliver or atog. Tyranids look like dinosaur insects, but they are neither. Necrons are their own race, like the Kor or the Vedalken. Astartes should be distinct from humans. If MtG ever had a superman card and it was human instead of kryptonian, it would be a massive flavor fail.

[@cactus_judy3929]

@@DarksteelPenguin I meant specifically within the realm of universes beyond, where the goal is to make things fit in with the existing flavor of the game. Demon/Devil/Imp make sense to be separate within the game, but adding a new type for universes beyond called Daemon wouldn't make sense, even though that's what they are called in 40k, and even though they are not biblical demons, flavor-wise. This would be a silly distinction to make within the game even though its technically lore accurate. All I'm saying is that the reverse is also true. The goal should be fitting new card designs from another property within the existing design space of magic. That includes creature types. Astartes are humans with mutations. So why aren't they Human Mutants? Necrontyr are their own race, for sure, but they exist in the lore as undying constructs, and are repeatedly referred to as soulless... they are artifacts and undead, so why aren't they artifact creature - zombies? Or artifact creature - spirit? I'm not clamoring for particular types from these guys. They could've done anything other than name them after their warhammer race. The space they occupy is now extremely narrow/parasitic, and in the same way we haven't seen Arcane return, we will never get support for "necrons" beyond generic artifact support, or the imperium deck beyond generic token/human support, etc. And that sucks imo. I think superman being kryptonian would work as long as kryptonian existed in magic outside of universes beyond. But it doesn't, so make it fit in with magic. Otherwise, what's the point?

[@pintlemounted]

I’d characterize the colors more like: White: “fair” Blue: controlling friend (we have fun the way I want to have fun Black: toxic asshole that will hurt themselves to not let you have anything Red: go hard or go home Green: go big or go home