Explore the Undercity in Magic: The Gathering: Battle for Baldur’s Gate

If you’re a Dungeons and Dragons fan, there’s no greater time to jump back into Magic: The Gathering. MTG’s new Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate is the second D&D crossover set, featuring legendary characters from D&D lore such as Minsc & Boo, Volo, Tasha, and others. This set has been designed for Limited Commander rules, draft or sealed, and brings  344 brand new cards to the table, including 85 legendary creatures and planeswalkers. It also comes with a new dungeon, The Undercity.

You can find plenty of classic monsters out of the D&D Monster Manual among the set’s Creature cards. We also saw many Sorceries featuring iconic spells from across the D&D spell list. Returning mechanics like rolling a D20 and Creatures that feature an Adventure add a lot of D&D flavour to the set. A new mechanic, called a Background, can be attached to your Commander to give them a power boost or special ability. This mimics the D&D gameplay mechanic of assigning your character a backstory, which in the TTRPG grants your character various gameplay advantages.

Dungeons, which was a mechanic introduced in MTG’s first D&D crossover set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, returns with a new dungeon card called Undercity. The Undercity is an ancient ruined city that lies underneath Baldur’s Gate, and is the location of the climax to the iconic 1998 game Baldur’s Gate.

To enter the Undercity, players need to use another of the set’s new mechanics, Initiative. Only one player can have Initiative at any one time, but it can be easily stolen through a card effect or dealing combat damage. If you hold the initiative, not only can venture into the Undercity, but some cards in the Baldur’s Gate set have abilities that use initiative in interesting ways.

Magic the Gathering: Battle for Baldur’s Gate is available now. As it’s a commander-focussed set, it won’t be available on Magic Online or MTG Arena – like the RPG it’s based on, it’ll be tabletop only. Meanwhile, the city of Baldur’s Gate is featured once more in the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 3, which is available in Early Access.