This is not a child’s story, or some game. This is for real. Neither you nor your puny friends can stop me. I am the most vile, indestructible villain that you have ever seen, and there is nothing any of you can do to stop me. I am more powerful than all of you combined. If you think you can stand against me, brace yourself… for I am coming…

I am your Archenemy. You shall be destroyed.

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I recently had the pleasure of getting my hands on a review set of the new Magic multiplayer game Archenemy. I call it a game (and by that I mean a whole separate game), because it really is a tremendous twist from the way a traditional game of Magic is played, so calling it a variant doesn't really do it justice. In some of the other normal Magic variants, players can play as a team (such as Two-Headed Giant), however those are nothing like Archenemy. In Archenemy, you are either the ultra powerful Archenemy or one of the guys trying to kill him.

If you are trying to kill him, you will play your standard Magic deck and do your best to put the big man on the mat. I would highly advise that you bring a few friends and a lunch, as the Archenemy gets very powerful, very fast, and things can get out of hand equally as fast.


Fight for your Life

The Archenemy begins the game with 40 life (rather than the normal default of 20 life) and does not skip his draw on his first turn. In addition to his normal deck of cards, he also gets a rather large deck of Scheme cards. When I say large, I mean large, as these cards are twice the size of standard Magic cards.

Each turn, at the beginning of the Archenemy's first main phase, the top card of the Scheme deck is revealed and added to the stack. All players can respond to the Scheme as if it were a normal spell on the stack. Once it resolves, the card is placed on the bottom of the Scheme deck. Then the Archenemy progresses through his turn as normal.

All other rules of Magic apply, and those are the basics. So let me see if I get that straight. He gets double life, gets to play first and draw first, and gets a free spell each turn? Nice.

As you can see from the picture to your left... these Schemes are no joke. They are very powerful and are intended to make it completely unfair to play against an Archenemy one on one. You are supposed to have a couple friends to duel him. The fun part of some of the Scheme cards is that tehy also put a player in a funny situation. 'Do I jump on a grenade here or dive for cover and let the other guys get frag splash damage?'

There is a slight drawback present here in the design however. If you happen to be the last player alive against the Archenemy and any Scheme with "pick self or others" flips over, you can say others and it just blows overhead without harm. I think I should have tried to figure a way for that not to happen. Think about it; the Archenemy should be able to bowl over one player pretty easily.






That Burning Sensation

To your right you will see a really nasty Scheme. You don't pay the X cost until the Scheme is resolving, so while you know its coming, you don't know how much it is going to hurt, which saves the Archenemy from spending mana on it if its going to be countered. On the other hand, you probably should counter it, considering that its going to not only roast you but your fleshy men too (assuming you have fleshy men...).

This Scheme type is very interesting because if you do counter the effect, the Archenemy did not spend any mana to play the effect, so he is still fully loaded, and you spent an actual card to stop an effect that will occur again in 20 turns. The Archenemy's opponents will be asking the question, "Who wants that one?" a lot in this game.

The fact that the Archenemy gets the free spell per turn can not be emphasized enough. Not only is it good, but its free. The barrage of potential attacks if simply amazing! Between the Sorceries that you will fling and the ensuing Attack Phase, there is a lot that an opponent has to prepare for. Dare I say that a good strategy would be to have a player designated to only countering his spells, another to kill his creatures, and yet another to actually attack him?

It sounds like overkill, but if you all just try to bash his head in, he will get too powerful, too fast.



All Good Things Must Come to an End

Finally we come across this gem that I hope flips over on the first turn every game. I would love to Time Walk someone on the first turn. As a matter of fact, that makes me salivate just thinking about it.

So I get to draw on my first turn, I will get two lands into play and see another draw before you even sniff a turn. Send me two of those please! They did see me coming, however, in putting a limitation on the card. I mean, are we trying to make a super-powerful fiend here or not? Limiting how many turns in a row I can take does not lend to that goal.

It should be pointed out here that there is no color affiliation with these Schemes. Yes, this feels very Blue, but very bad at the same time. If I could somehow 'combo off' and kill someone on the second turn, that person would never have a turn, and the team would be left to deal with me minus a wing man and plus one bad taste in their mouth.

When talking about constructed play, there is a limit of two copies of anyone Scheme card per deck as well as a minimum of 20 Schemes per deck. That limits a player to only two copies of super-powered, free spells. I know, I know... "How can I possibly go on playing this game with that limitation in place?" I thought the same thing. "How dare they limit me? Don't they know that I am invincible?! Don't they know that I am indestructible?! (Don't they know there there are four guys trying to kill me??)"
All in all, I really hope this product gets a lot of attention and that fans adopt it as a favorite. I'd love to force Wizards hand and make them expand the oversized Archenemy card pool and develop even more breath-taking, back-breaking, puppy-kicking Schemes.

So what do you think? Are you going to pay the $19.99 for a pack? You get 20 Schemes in the pack, but if you want all of them, your going to have to buy multiples. Join me in the forums and lets talk about it. I am curious to know what you think about the oversized cards.

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