Venture is a mechanic created for Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Dungeons & Dragons crossover set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms – and it’s probably the one that makes the game feel most like a D&D adventure as well as a regular round of Magic. We spoke to one of the set’s designers to find out more about Venture, and how you’ll be using it to your advantage.
For the uninitiated, Venture was introduced last week, and directly ties into Adventures in the Forgotten Realms’ most interesting new cards, the Dungeons. Each of the set’s three Dungeon cards (below) act as a map, with every room on that map coming with an associated effect. You travel through those rooms by activating cards with a Venture ability – every time you Venture, you move one room through the map. And don’t worry, each Dungeon will be released in the token slots of new booster packs, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting hold of them
“It meshes incredibly well with the D&D feel and flavor,” says senior games designer Jules Robins in an interview with IGN, “and we think when players start playing with it, they’ll really enjoy it. In fact, even just showing off the dungeons has inspired players to start making 3D models, oversized versions to explore, and more, which is really cool to see.”
Robins tells us that there are 35 cards that either have the Venture ability, or an ability connected to completing a dungeon by using Venture. That means that it’s not going to appear in every Forgotten Realms deck, but it’s a viable option for many – particularly white-themed decks:
“There are a lot of ways to Venture,” Robins explains, “but it definitely shows up most in White and least in Red; White-Blue and White-Black are especially themed around Venturing. So, much like any set theme, you can certainly draft without it, but expect to play against it often enough to feel like someone is making their way through dungeons.”
Robins adds that decks can be built solely around Venturing, but don’t have to be: “We’ve provided enough support between the main set and the Commander decks that players can build decks around Venture or just play a few key cards that happen to have Venture.”
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As for the Dungeons themselves, seasoned players will see that each one appears to support a different style of play – Lost Mine of Phandelver is something of a jack-of-all-trades, Tomb of Annihilation supports aggro play, and Dungeon of the Mad Mage feels more suited for a control deck. But as well as their uses in Magic, Robins adds that they were chosen for their D&D flavor, too:
“We knew the three dungeons needed to feel really distinct, both in flavor in gameplay. We soon landed on a model, of ‘the default one,’ ‘the dangerous one,’ and ‘the long one’ and these dungeons fit the bill perfectly, as well being fan favorites.”
Dungeons themselves are something of a rarity for Magic – a card type that forces you to interact with the game in a whole new way, almost adding a board game element alongside the traditional card game. It’s clearly been the product of a long thought process for Robins and other Magic designers.
“We have experimented with things like this before,” he explains, “particularly ‘mini-games’ like fighting the Hydra, battling Garruk, or multiplayer experiences like Planechase, but this is new for Standard. Ultimately the exploration felt a lot more real with a space to explore, and permanents on the battlefield have a lot of issues standing in for physical space.
“These extra game elements have generally stayed away from Standard for two main reasons: complexity, and ensuring it’s not right for every deck to have to bring extra elements. Here, the complexity is worth it, and we addressed the second issue by generating the element from cards and allowing players to play using dungeons even if they didn’t bring their own copies to the table.”
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The question is, after all this work to make the mechanic work, will the D&D crossover be the only time we see Venture and Dungeons in Magic? After all, other sets have a similarly adventurous theme – Throne of Eldraine’s focus on fairy tales feels like a good fit, for example. Could we see the idea persist?
Robins is open to the idea, it seems: “It meshes really well with D&D feel and flavor, but if the right opportunity emerges, we might use it, or something similar, for another Magic set.” Personally, I hope so – Venture and Dungeons don’t just feel like a great fit for a D&D crossover, it feels like a brilliantly tricky new Magic mechanic in its own right.
If you want to see one of the new Venture options right now, check out our reveal of two new Adventures in the Forgotten Realms cards, Find the Path and Hunter’s Mark. And for a different kind of D&D crossover, we also showed off the iconic Gelatinous Cube in Magic card form.
Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms will release within MTG Arena on July 8 and physically on July 23.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
