Magic’s Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty will blend enchantments and artifacts in new ways

polygon.com:

Magic: The Gathering’s highly anticipated new set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, arrives online Feb. 10 and in tabletop form on Feb. 18. Wizards of the Coast revealed new details Thursday on how the set will differ from its predecessors. Fans can expect loads of new cards across the spectrum, many of which will behave in entirely new ways.

The plane of Kamigawa first appeared in the lore of Magic in 2004with the Kamigawa block (Champions of Kamigawa, Betrayers of Kamigawa, and Saviors of Kamigawa). Originally inspired by ancient Japanese myth and legend, this new iteration takes place some 1,200 years later and coincides with Magic’s current timeline. Fans can expect a blend of ancient and modern tropes, with a lavish cyberpunk flair.

Dave Humpherys was the set’s lead game design architect, and the goals handed over to him blend together a mix of artifacts and enchantments.

“In the past, we’ve only kind of focused on one [or the other] before,” Humpherys said during a press preview event. “Tradition is most represented from an enchantment side of things, and modernity is represented from an artifacts side of things. We do have traditional equipment that we still want to show up and have in this world, but there’s a spectrum that goes along with color pie — from green to white, to black, to red, to blue — from the more traditional to the more techy.”

Humpherys said that the ways in which players are able to modify creatures on the battlefield will be extremely diverse. Rather than piling loads of modifications on a single creature and trying to punch through their opponent’s defenses, players will instead be rewarded for widening the battlefield — that is, having many modified creatures in play at one time.

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