D&D 5E/MtG Crossover: Plane Shift

I know noting about Magic: The Gathering but any kind of new D&D options get me excited. If nothing else, the art is gorgeous and really captures the imagination. WotC just released its latest Plane Shift document, Ixalan. Below are links to all the ones I'm aware of. Did I miss any?


Plane Shift: Ixalan

Plane Shift: Innistrad


Plane Shift: Zendikar


Plane Shift: Amonkhet


Plane Shift: Kaladesh

Eighteen years ago, and I would have been all over this. Now...meh. MtG is a think of my past, and that's where it will always be.

Looks like you got them all :) I can't say I trust the mechanics to be balanced, but like you say, the art and story ideas are interesting.

I am noticing a bridge between the release of D&D and Magic stuff. D&D released Tomb of Annihilation which takes place in a jungle with dinosaurs the same time MtG released Ixalan which takes place in a jungle with dinosaurs. When D&D released Curse of Strahd, MtG released Return to Innistrad, both gothic horror settings. I guess I'm not surprised since they are both owned by WotC.

I don't play too much MtG any more, but I do love the game. I just don't have the time or the money now that I have kids. I should probably sell off my cards while they still have value.

Len, I've looked into selling my cards when they came back into circulation for standard tournaments, but it wasn't worth it. Most stores or people on craigslist just want to pick your best cards and give you 50% of their value. What do you do with the other thousands of cards?

If you had, say, 6000 cards at .05 USD a piece that's still nearly $300 worth of cards that no one wanted to buy. So they have a value of 0 USD? If I offered them for free, people would bust down my door to get them. So clearly they have some value. In the end, MtG is filled too much with people worried about money or kids that want to get everything for free. Or worse, when I let people look through them to determine if they wanted to buy, they stole my Masticore and Morphling. Kid must have had very good "Sleight of Hand" skill because I was right there watching him look at them.

I remember in the L5R GM Survival Handbook, they had a way to make character creation using a booster deck of the L5R cardgame. It sort of inspired me, and back in 1999, I ran an improvised GURPS game using some of my roommate at the time's Magic cards. I find they can be great props for gaming and a source of inspiration at time.

These definitely aren't super finely balanced, but they have some cool content in them. Never gotten too far into the MtG lore, but it seems pretty cool from what I've read in these supplements!

Linus, sorry to hear you've had such bad experiences, especially the theft! I guess there are some pretty shitty people out there. In my experience too, MtG does bring out the greed in some people.

Otherwise, the 50% for the best cards is pretty much what I'm expecting. That is the standard rate. The game store I go to does 50% cash or 75% for store credit, so at least I could trade cards for RPG books.

As far as the 'what do you do with the thousands of other cards?' question: they are pretty much worth zero. I've tried to give them away and failed. I run a games club in my classroom where I have boxes upon boxes of cards just sitting there for people to take. Some of these were donated by other students, some were donated by game stores, most of them were donated by me. Beginning players use them to learn how to play the game, and the advanced players even use to make disposable decks. We even have a format where we 'draft' decks from the boxes - you reach into the scrambled box and pick up a handful of cards and make a deck and just go with it. Its a lot of fun! Cards like Serra Angel become game winners again.

So, I am literally giving these cards away and there is more coming in than going out! But I still have fun grabbing a bunch of cards and making some junky deck and teaching a kid how to play the game.

I guess Craiglist interactions were just different. I've had multiple people ask if they could have my commons and uncommon for free. To me, this meant that they had value. It was a different venue than you were using, and perhaps that's the difference. Game stores and people that come to view them definitely have no interest.

Yeah, it is probably true that people cruising craigslist are looking for a steal of a deal, literally in your case :(

Consider some art projects like this one! (pinterest link)

Also, if you do any grid-based combat IRL, I like to take a 1-inch punch and pop out character art from magic cards to use as tokens. I glue them to a 1-inch metal washer to give them some heft. There is some awesome art on bad cards - artists don't know the power level of the cards when they are illustrating them - and it's a lot cheaper and faster than minis.

I think it was DM's block podcast that used to have a segment where they would draw five MtG cards out of a deck and try to build a campaign setting or adventure based on them.

That's a really cool idea!

Let's try it! I have select 5 random magic cards using magiccards.info random card button:

The townships of the Vec people are being invaded by barbarians that burn everything in their wake. The players must find out why before their entire people have been wiped out. First, they travel to the Knowledge Pool hoping to meet the leaders and get answers on how to save their villages.

The attacks are because poachers killed their god, the Great Iron Tusk Elephant, and they seek revenge. From there, the players are tasked with finding the mythical giant tortoise because she has knowledge of how to reincarnate the Great Iron Tusk Elephant. Armed with the ritual, they must then get behind enemy lines to perform the ritual.

Unfortunately, one of the leaders of the Knowledge Pool has countered their ritual with his magic because he's the one behind killing the barbarian god. Ultimately, he wants to kill all of the old gods. The players must find a way to convince the barbarians that they should unite with the Vec people in order to thwart the rogue mage from the Knowledge Pool.

Well done!

Good one!

Woah, you're good at that Linus :) Here's one for somebody else!