Did you know that the property holder of this have their own card game? Not necessarily one played horizontally where creatures can actually face off one another, but it does involves cards and more importantly, is played in electronic devices connected to the internet. That’s what Arena also is, so if this set were to come to Arena in this form, that might constitute competition over the same IP. So the capitalists decided no, we can’t have that. What a situation we’re in.
So here comes Through the Omenpaths, the Universe Within versions of all these cards you so desire. Well, you also desire a world where the UB versions are nothing but an optional skin most people don’t care to bring in a game.
Yeah, it’s totally true that my favorite aspect about that Final Fantasy set is how its packs has a rare chance for a reprint in a new artwork that got absolutely smeared by a bunch of poorly placed texts with hideously big outlines, and not even with a single line guarding them off into place. Therefore, if I were in the slots to decide these things, I would be fully willing to deploy them on mass on not just FF, but three different UB sets. Because we shouldn’t just respect Amano, we should respect these comic and anime artists as well. (that last point needs a recording of me with a voice tone to really comes through I feel, text can’t do that justice ngl.)
Actually this time, it’s even worse, than even the Stellar Sights back in EOE. Three times as worse, in fact, because this time the drop rate is 1 in 24 play boosters. Because all 40 cards, another way it’s worse because it’s less, are all deemed mythics (you probably wouldn’t know because the cards doesn’t have a set symbol). So the pull rate of any one specific card, no matter how mundane it is, is 1 in 960, oh wait that’s 50% more than the SPG cards, those ones with an actual card frame you can open in an in universe set.
So, how are the supposed rarities of these cards? Arena actually labeled all of these cards by the rarities they should be for wildcard purposes.
And it obviously turns out to favor rares and mythics, which honestly rubs even more salt to the rare case you do open one of the commons and uncommons. I mean, it is what the slot is if the bonus sheet card don’t replace, but remember the pull rate is 1 in 24 packs.
| Set | W | U | B | R | G | M | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OMB-M | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2* | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| OMB-R | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 18 | |
| OMB-U | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | |
| OMB-C | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | |||
| Total | 6 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 40 |
I mean it isn’t as bad as the FF list for cramming mostly commanders in with some other random things, there’re just 5 commanders of the whole thing but still, the creature types won’t match because limiting to Spiders just doesn’t sound fun.
Still, like that FF list, there’s a fair share of cards that already appeared in previous bonus sheets, whether with a better frame, with an artwork that fits your deck better, or just have a better drop rate. Overlapping with Mystical Archive, we see three cards, one of them is notably worse than Lightning Bolt and the other is a relatively boring rummage spell by nowadays’ standards. Brothers’ War see no overlap, but Multiverse Legends does with its black dragon. Enchanting Tales see a Naya trio of enchantments, Breaking News see four crimes within Esper. Most importantly, FF overlaps in two cards, one also with the Mystical Archive and another a mono red turned 5 colors commander.
This subset has a strange way of crediting artists. A few artworks (probably entire comic books) are drawn by many more artists than the two Magic is ready for in its artist credit zone. With that, the solution is to shorten everyone’s name down and cram them with dashes to separate instead of the typical spaced out ampersand. Which proved to be a struggle for Scryfall who wants to let you be able to chick on each individual artist separately, instead of just cramming them all to one combination like Gatherer does.
| John Romita Sr. | 8 |
|---|---|
| Todd McFarlane | 4 |
| Mark Bagley | 3 |
| Randy Emberlin | 3 |
| Brian Reber | 2 |
| Joe Rubinstein | 2 |
| Erik Larsen | 2 |
| Mike Zeck | 2 |
| Ron Frenz | 2 |
| Steve Ditko | 2 |
| <45 other artists> | 1 |
No, not a commander set, because well we aren’t doing any precons this time whatsoever. Imagine how nice it would have been to just cram all those cards into a few decks you know exactly what you’re getting. But well, that have to also comes with a bunch of reprints.
You’re probably very used to starter decks you have to buy having new designs. But how about the tiny 30 cards welcome decks also finally getting some new designs? Do we get the return of those “booster battle packs” where you get two packs in addition to the welcome decks so that a few more people can get access to these things? No, surely the collector’s boosters will be a good injection of these things.
Given that the commanders already got covered above for your annoyance, we’ll focus on the rare and common cycles for this section.
At rare, there are two enchantments in Azorius, two sorceries in Golgari and one instant in Red. You can have two devotions in Bant, one devotion in Rakdos, four manas in Sultai, less in White, more in Red. All the non-black cards are about buffing creatures, you can remove creatures with the sorceries, you can gain card advantage in Dimir when White just gives you life not even with lifelink.
At common, we get a cycle of normal creatures. Two humans in Selesnya, two villains in DImir, Red is funny. The non-green creatures all cost 3 mana 1 devotion, only the blue card have 2 power and be an artifact, only the white card have 3 toughness, and whatever I didn’t mention can be filled with 3/2. And then the green creature costs 1 more for a full 4/4. Abilities wise, the Gruul pair offers buffs, the Orzhov pair offers life gain in a place of the life and death cycle, and blue offers stun.
I didn’t even remember this thing got revealed eons ago. Frankly, looking at how glossy the art is, I see why. This box has more in common with most scenes you get in LTR packs than the scene boxes, as in you get cards across the whole color pie instead of just one commander with some rares to put in. And for that, this box doesn’t have a single mythic, nor it have any flavor text on any of the cards, especially the four or five liners.
The left side of the scene have two Dimir cards, one commander and one sorcery. The right side of the scene have one Rakdos commander and one mono red artifact, so not as good color blending as the left side. The middle of the scene have the villain on top being Golgari so the only green of the box, and the hero at the bottom being the wordiest card of them all and the only white one for obvious reasons. Tallying for color balance’s sake, Black (4) > Blue (3) > Red (2) > Green = White (1).