Battlebond Release Retrospective

Battlebond Sealed is BANANAS! After we made it out to Flipside (and ate a pretty great burrito) Glenn and I settled in for a long afternoon of Magic. If you haven’t heard much about Battlebond you can head over to my previous article to read my first taste of Battlebond from the initial spoilers but here is a quick run down: Battlebond is a multiplayer-focused-set built around the format Two-Headed Giant. You win or lose as a team as you and aa teammate take your turns at the same time. For Battlebond sealed you receive 8 booster packs, along with a random pair of legendary partners as promos, and then divy the cards between your team to make two 40-card decks. At Flipside we played 4 rounds of swiss that were best of 1 and prizes were given out based on total win-loss record.

With that overview out of the way let’s get into the day. We started of with pretty solid pulls. Rowan and Will Kenrith were our promos which is fantastic. Will Kenrith is an amazing planeswalker and while Rowan isn’t nearly as good she is still solid. We opened two other pairs of partners: Regna, the Redeemer and Krav, the Unredeemed along with Proud Mentor and Impetuous Protege. After playing through the event we came to the conclusion that it was generally correct to play the legendary partners in separate decks while non-legendary partners should be played in the same deck. The reason for this, as I will hit on below is that a lot of the legendary partners really need the other partner in play to matter and the best chance of that is if they are split. Outside of those pulls we also open Evil Twin, Dinrova Horror, Together Forever (even though it never showed up), and Bramble Sovereign (though we didn’t play Green). I ended up running R/W (Boros) with a good mix of Aggro and Removal and Glenn ran an U/B (Dimir) disruption deck with a lot of utility creatures.

Here is our record for the games:

Round 1: Loss vs R/G (Gruul) + U/W/B (Esper)

Round 2: Win vs B/R (Rakdos) + U/G (Simic)

Round 3: Win vs Gruul + Esper

Round 4: Win vs B/G (Golgari) + UR (Izzet)

I don’t want to talk through all of every game (especially since I wouldn’t be able to accurately remember them) but here are a couple things I wanted to call out about the games:

In Round 1 we got off to a decent lead but the Esper player wrecked us with Play of the Game exiling around 4 of our creatures. We never were able to develop a good board presence after this and when our Gruul opponent played Seedborn Muse into a giant Apocalypse Hydra she sealed our fate and darkness was our only friend. We had to use Game Plan hoping to draw removal for the hydra, and while that worked we refilled our opponents’ hands as well, and they were able to reanimate the hydra with Virtus’s Maneuver the next turn and kill us. This was the only game that we didn’t see the Kenriths and the only time we saw “Friend or Foe” cards played.

During Round 2 I was able to suit up Magma Hellion with Battle Mastery with Glenn’s help to make a trampling, double striking threat. Our opponents ended up removing it but not before taking 19 damage from the hellion. Glenn also used Evil Twined to clone the hellion for another big attack and he took out an opposing hellion in the process. Our opponents ended up played Okaun, Eye of Chaos and Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom but got unlucky on flips and we killed them the next turn with Regna + Dragon Breath combined with Will Kenrith’s +2 to remove flying from their blocker.

We probably had our worst win during this game. The Gruul player drew almost all the lands in his deck (including 4 when his teammate cast Opportunity targeting him) and while the Esper player seemed to be only splashing white he didn’t draw a plains until it didn’t matter. We were able to remove their Toothy, Imaginary Friend before it could get a counter and then we beat down with a Benthic Giant equipped with Battle Mastery. This was the only game where we used Rowan Kenrith to any real effect and were able to -2 to kill at least 3 opposing creatures including a Bramble Sovereign (in conjunction with Will’s +2).

Round 4 our opponents also had the Kenriths as their promos. They managed to control our board but we had a Swarm of Bloodflies that got out of hand before they could prevent its triggered ability magnified by the fact that we were able to sacrifice creatures to Krav during our opponents’ turn before they targeted it with Will. There was 1 turn were they would have been able to kill the swarm because it was forced to attack and they had a deathtouch creature but we gave it double strike. Over a handful of turns we were able to kill their Rowan Kenrith and then we finished of our opponent after they ulted Will with our 13/13 flying, double striking swarm.

Overall there were really close games and they went long, especially for only a best of one. Even when we were ahead of board turns felt stressful and we were constantly having to answer threats. Some all-star cards were: Battle Master (we won every game we played it), Evil Twin (which I am now sold on going into some of my commander decks), Will Kenrith’s +2 (which was the only ability we ever used and we kind of felt like it was wrong to use the other abilities unless we were really far ahead), Proud Mentor (who put in a lot more work than I expected), and Wrap in Flames (which was typically a 2 for 1 and let us attack with our creatures). I am by no means a limited expert but in all seriousness Wrap in Flames might be the best red common in the set. A lot of the Partners come down on turns 3 or 4, have 1 toughness, and are must answer threats because they get scary fast. We were able to typically remove 1 partner and then a utility creature with the card and then set up a good attack in the same turn.   

Let's talk impressions of the mechanics now that I have played with the set, you can read my initial thoughts in the article linked at the top.

• “Partner with”: This might be the greatest mechanic for limited ever made. The fact that you only have to draw one of the cards to get the other is really powerful and makes the decks a lot more consistent. The fact that if you split them with your teammate they can typically cast the other the same turn, especially in the late game, is really strong. The biggest downside is that some of the legendary partners (namely Pir, Regna, Virtus, and Gorm) feel really weak when their partner wasn’t also in play, though this could be different when decks are built with more synergy like during a draft when you can focus on taking all the cards with that archetype.
• Assist: Assist is a solid mechanic. If one player flooded or could take the turn off then these cards were great ways to spend mana. Play of the Game was especially powerful because if the player casting it had enough mana their teammate could deploy a threat afterwards or if they boardwipe was necessary ASAP then teammates could work together to cast it.
• Support: Welp… Support was there… in my initial article I said that Support was the worst mechanic in the set and dared Wizards to change my mind. Support cards didn’t see much play and when they did it was a decent effect but it didn’t feel that important. Now we never played against someone that used The Crowd Goes Wild, Jubilant Mascot, or Generous Patron and our Together Forever was never drawn so it is possible that there is a good support deck we just didn’t play against it.
• Friend and Foe: This mechanic seemed really cool the couple times we played against it but overall felt a little simplistic. The choices on the cards don’t really feel like choices because you really have no reason to pick foe for your own team or friends for your opponents. Things could be different in Commander or free-for-all games where politics matter but overall I feel it was boring in limited.  

Overall Battlebond Sealed is a ton of fun and I really enjoyed getting to play at Flipside in New York. Battlebond so far has proven to be a great limited environment and I am extremely excited to see how it will influence prices of some major staples. I hope this set will be a success for Wizards and I strongly encourage everyone to grab a friend and go have some fun playing Battlebond!