Innistrad is the ‘spooky’ setting for the Magic the Gathering card game. It’s a plane of menace, where things go bump in the night. The setting has been around for about a decade and it adds a much needed horror theme to the game. Innistrad: Midnight Hunt returns the setting to basics; rather than impossible blobby things from the outer dark, we get good old-fashioned werewolves and similar horrors.
Of course, theme is all well and good, but are the new cards worth adding to your decks? Well sort of, they’re very much in-theme and with a bit of tinkering can be a lot of fun. This is a deck-building focused set, one that wants you to really fine-tune your approach. It’s very much about causing carnage, regardless of the colour of your deck.
Many summonable creatures can be flipped, so they go from human to werewolf. There’s a night/day mechanic added on top; essentially, you’re summoning weaker beasties (for a lower cost) and then as soon as night comes into play, you’ve got a horde of monsters to tear up your opponents. This is fun but requires a bit of set-up and nuance.
It wouldn’t be a horror themed set without something involving the ‘graveyard’ pile, and the new mechanic, Disturb, does just that. Essentially it means your creatures are coming back from the dead as monsters, so your pious warrior may come back as a vengeful spirit, or a humble fisherman return from the dead. Similarly, Decay lets you boost your zombies if you’ve got enough things dead.
Coven is an ability some cards have that means that if you have lots of different Coven cards in play, they get more powerful. These cards also tend to feature sacrifice mechanics heavily, which is very in theme. All of these features mean that this set if designed for players who like dealing damage as soon as they can; it’s all about the bloodshed and figuring out ways to cause carnage, rather than building power or draining the opponents resources.
Highlight cards in the set include the absurdly effective Candletrap, which lets you buff one of your monsters and exile another for relatively low cost, Fateful Absence is great for knocking out more powerful cards and Outland Liberator is a solid human/monster card for angry green decks. Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset is this sets stand-out Planeswalker, as it has a number of flexible powers and doesn’t seem to be too difficult to power up.
In summary, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is a solid expansion to the game, and if you’re a hammer horror fan, one you’ll want to pick up.
