Sorcery: Is Collection Hit or Miss?

Written by Sean (brutishboy99 on the Discord)

Erik’s Curiosa (EC) announcing the collection mechanic for Sorcery is extremely exciting. Dizzying are the possibilities the Collection presents for casual and competitive play. Upon seeing Gothic in its entirety, however, I’m thoroughly underwhelmed by Collection’s execution.

While opening Gothic packs at my local game store’s (LGS) release event, sifting through the evocative art, I noticed few cards interacted with the Collection. Of those that did, I hadn’t pulled the generic minions needed to maximize the Collection’s potential.

After getting thoroughly crushed in the first round, my opponent, who is a Sorcery judge, asked to see the cards I hadn’t played. I explained my dilemma — a lack of Collection minions. He informed me that, in Limited, I don’t need to have opened Ghouls to summon them from my Collection.

I was confused, but didn’t question a judge. I wondered why they were designed to use the Collection in the first place, spurring my exploration of Gothic’s Collection cards.

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Collection Cards

Of Gothic’s 440 new cards, 23 can summon a minion or interact in with the Collection:

• Bureau of Occult Control
• Consecrate
• Desecrate
• Elder Ruins
• Ersatz Platz
• Estranged Loner
• Forlorn Keep
• Forsaken Crypt
• Molten Maar
• Peculiar Port
• Gilman House
• Troubled Town
• Harvest Festival
• Legion of Gall
• Monstermorphosis
• Release the Hounds
• Those Who Linger
• Young Master Damion
• Trade Encampment
• Toolbox
• Silver Bullet
• The Malleus Maleficarum
• Imposter

Of the above,my favorite implementation of the Collection is Imposter — a genuinely inspired design, utilizing Avatars to adapt your game plan throughout a match. A+; no notes. I enjoy how Bureau of Occult Control and Legion of Gall interact in a mechanically interesting way, limiting opponents’ ability to fight back.

Five of the above cards generically interact with the Collection: The Malleus Malefactorum, Ersatz Platz, Trade Encampment, Silver Bullet, and Tool Box. For the Collection to act as advertised, these role-players allow for dynamic answers to threats. Though they have problems I’ll address, I like these.

The rest of the cards, which account for about half of the cards that interact with the Collection, are mechanically fine but I question why they don’t just make tokens instead. As far as I can tell, there’s little reason for the Collection cards they summon to be real cards with mana values. They seem to exist only to justify the Collection’s existence — the lone exception being Elder Ruins, but summoning an endless horde of Shoggoths, while funny, is potentially overpowered.

If I don’t want to pad my Collection with cards that could have been tokens, I’ll need to play the five cards mentioned earlier that summon Ghouls, Penitent Knight, Horrible Hybrids, or Hellhounds. That’s four Atlas and six Spellbook slots allocated to maximize access to the Collection. Everyone will likely play those sites, potentially making them expensive and/or difficult to trade for. They won’t appear in packs often enough, as most are Elite and one is Unique. While they are well-designed cards, I dislike feeling forced to play them.

Why Collection?

I’m at a loss as to the Collection’s purpose. The article announcing the Collection mechanic advertised it as a sideboard for a best-of-one game, but half the cards printed for Collection don’t support that intent, two cards hinder it, and five that do interact as intended are relatively limited in what they can do.

Only one card, the ever-impressive Imposter, supports the stated design goal. Collection, as a core mechanic, will be good for the game at large, but I feel we need the game move to a best-of-three format or a format where players can change decks before each match.

Either way, implementating a sideboard would likely allow more dark horse decks to flourish as they would have the ability to improve their plans against the meta’s top decks.

Going Gothic

It’s still early for Gothic. My takes could be way off the mark and the Collection could be way better than I think. I am excited to look back in six months to reevaluate. Until then, play games, enjoy Gothic, and experiment with the Collection. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

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Featured image: Toolbox by Drew Tucker