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Masters 25

This review will be very short, because so much has been said about Masters 25 regarding its value and the fact that, as a Masters set, it's not much of a synergy-based set. I agree on the first count: It's sad to pay full price for a booster and pulling, you know, a tree. On the second count, though, I'm not so sure. The set looks like a blast. And when it comes to chaos drafting, Masters 25 is a true dreamboat. Not too tight and parasitic and full of wonderful commons, some decent uncommons and fun rares. With morph as one of the main mechanics, you are granted at a minimum off-color, barely playable cards at almost all points within the pack, but also add to that some decent removal and useful cards that can fit in all basic archetypes. In this sense, it feels a lot like a core set (which is something I've seen mentioned online), but the main difference lies in that the power level of common cards is much much higher. A25 packs feel like they can fit at any point within a chaos draft too, making the experience much more dynamic and fun while also raising the bar for card value in your deck. Imagine a Fourth Edition booster with some Onslaught in it, but exchange the rare for a modern playable card and you get the gist of it. This, I feel, makes it probably one of the most exciting additions to chaos drafting since Conspiracy 2.
Anyway, randomly generating a couple of boosters should give us an idea of what to expect during a chaos draft:

This is a lovely selection of cards. If this were my first booster during a chaos draft, I'd probably pick Diabolic Edict, but there's a ton of fun cards to play with. Depending on the pool, Elvish Piper could be a strong pick (if you have some BFZ or XLN, for instance), Boros Charm is a great card to splash for, and Ihsan's Shade is a personal favorite. Almost all of the cards in the booster are at the least playable, and that's a great sign.


I'm not sure I'd pick the rare during a draft, but this booster has a bunch of good cards I'd love to take. Kindle is a personal favorite, and if there's more than one A25 booster in the pool, I'd value the card highly. Honestly, it feels like all the cards, save for the rare, are super playable. This booster is sweet. And I think that's the main takeaway: This set has so many good commons that it probably chaos drafts really well.

The main thing I dislike, besides the value, is the fact that, even though this set was partly touted as a nostalgia-driven product, I hardly feel nostalgic: So many of the cards are just not that symbolic, even though I remember pulling many of them ages ago, and many of the ones that are indeed very symbolic have new art that simply does nothing for me. Shame.

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