Talk:Spellfire

Reception for booster packs

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Chris Baylis reviewed the Underdark booster pack for Arcane magazine, rating it a 7 out of 10 overall. He found that virtually half of the 100-card set was accounted for by its main deck-building features, namely the high-level clerics, the surplus of clerical spells, a heavy influence of powerful monsters, and the underground Realms. He felt that these cards "go a long way towards redressing the balance upset by Powers (set six), which made Psionicists almost insurmountable". He noted that the set's Realms "reach deep beneath the existing Realms, granting access to otherwise unreachable Regions, and, for once, Holdings are introduced into the game as more than deck-building makeweights, ensuring that attached Realms have better than token immunities and powers". He observed that the artists were not named on the cards, but that it was clear that each artist had been given a specific block to work on: "the contrasting styles complement each other in a way that no preceding set has managed. For the first time, there is new artwork for the majority of the cards, following complaints that previous cards had mainly featured artwork butchered from well-published paintings and magazine/scenario covers". Baylis concluded by saying: "The Underdark is, in my opinion, second only to Ravenloft boosters as the most important addition to Spellfire.

Baylis reviewed the Birthright booster pack for Arcane, rating it a 5 out of 10 overall. He noted that the expansion adds a new effect specific to the Birthright setting called "blood abilities", along with new champions with the power to use them in a similar manner to spellcasting or psionics: "Most Birthright champions also have either cleric, mage or both spellcasting abilities, which make them extremely powerful, and also unaffected by the spell-blocking powers of 'Midnight' or 'The Arch Druid'." He noted the Anwnshegh, evil champions of the setting, but that "the Spellfire designers seem to have glossed over this alignment simply to include Anwnshegh characters into the game. It appears to me that TSR's game designers' collective imagination is beginning to pale with the development of each new Spellfire expansion, because effects are beginning to repeat themselves too often. New name and different artwork with the same or similar abilities as already existing cards do nothing to encourage interest." Baylis concluded his review by saying: "Overall the Birthright expansion is of very little interest to anyone other than card collectors, with only one of the 100 cards immediately springing to mind for possible consideration as an addition to my personal gaming deck."

Baylis reviewed the Draconomicon booster pack for Arcane, rating it a 7 out of 10 overall. He noted that this expansion was mostly researched from the Draconomicon handbook from TSR: "As you would expect with spellcasting Wyrms, it is accented towards magic, though the set is also bolstered by events and allies that are associated with Dragons and dragonkind." He found that, again, "most of the artwork used is from various larger masterpieces, but in general extra care has been taken to prevent absurd dissections and to ensure the pictures and text have common connections." He notes that "the manner in which the cards are distributed means that you are likely to receive more than one card of a kind in a booster, and the chances of obtaining a rare card are slimmer than Kate Moss on a diet. It is quite noticeable that, as Spellfire expands, each new continuing set is being aimed at remedying the causes and effects of the previous boosters, thus several Draconomicon cards parry or block the blood abilities first made available in the previous Birthright expansion."

BOZ (talk) 04:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

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