If you’ve always wanted a little crime fiction sprinkled in alongside your games of Magic: The Gathering, then Murders at Karlov Manor is going to be right up your alley. For years, Magic: The Gathering has been exploring various genres of fiction and themes to incorporate into their card game.
From pirates to dinosaurs, we’ve seen it all. Or so we thought. Now, Murders at Karlov Manor aims to appeal to lovers of Agatha Christie in a theme set around crime fiction and where Hercule Poirot is more of a wizard than a Belgian.
For those who care about the Story, Murders at Karlov Manor will be set in a post-war time where Kaya, a planeswalker, has just returned home after fighting the Phyrexians.
After arriving at her home of Ravnica, Kaya doesn’t receive the hero welcome she had anticipated. Instead, she is blamed for being the reason for the city’s suffering during her absence. And now, Ravnica’s guilds are at each other’s throats as their wartime truce ends.
Murders at Karlov Manor will also introduce a new mechanic to Magic: The Gathering with a new murder mystery mechanic represented in abilities like Disguise and Cloak.
Disguise and Cloak will let players cast cards face-down as mysterious creatures, which in turn causes opponents to pay two more mana to target the cloaked creature.
Cloaked cards can be flipped for their casting cost. In contrast, Disguised cards will have a different cost players can pay to reveal their identity dramatically.
There is also a new Suspect mechanic, which will let you designate a creature as a potential murderer, in which case they can no longer block but instead gain Menace. This means that when these cards attach, it takes a minimum of two creatures to block them.
Finally, there will also be Cases, cards that will gain an additional effect once you resolve their solve conditions, and Collect Evidence, which will trigger specific effects once you exile a particular value of discarded cards from your graveyard.
If all this sounds like it’s right up your alley, then you’ll be able to pick it up digitally on Magic: The Gathering Arena from the 6th of February, or you can grab the physical edition from the 9th of February at your favourite local board game store.