Here's the official article explaining how they work. As far as new mechanics go, this one is pretty ambitious. Thoughts?

I like it! They've been trying some really novel stuff recently (dungeons, lessons, party, mutate, adventures), and I'm all for it. (Companions were a mistake, though.)

I love the way Sagas feel when you play them, and this is a neat twist on that. The complexity of choosing which dungeon to go into in the first place seems high, though. I wonder how easy these will be to get through in limited.

Also, the use of the standard D&D 5E map template is a nice touch.

Thinking about the role of each dungeon, it feels like we have...
Phandelver: Good if you want some consistent minor upsides.
Tomb: Good if you want mutual pain, or if you want to rush through a dungeon at the cost of losing resources.
Mad Mage: A much longer dungeon that starts with really small benefits, but gradually builds to much stronger abilities than the other dungeons. You really have to commit to this one.

My first impression is that this might be one of those mechanics that looks more fun than it actually plays. There's lots of choice involved, from which dungeon to run to the path to the final level, and yet the benefits seem so small for the first venture triggers you get. I'm guessing how fun it will be it depends on how many ventures they expect a player to do in a single game. If you can get to the end of Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage in a Limited game without warping your deck around it, it will probably be fun, though Phandelver is kinda... yay, you draw a card?

I really like how the dungeons are designed. There are a lot of complaints on Reddit about how there are only three dungeons but I think this is probably more right than any other suggestions so far, given that dungeons are all always available. I could see having to draft dungeons, but making them always available gives them a lot more space in the cards, versus such as having to make both learn and lesson cards.

I am predicting white is going to be dungeon-centric and there will be a white-something aggro dungeons archetype that leans into Tomb to generate reach and rush through for the "complete a dungeon" bonus and a white-something control dungeons archetype that leans into Dungeon of the Mad Mage* to slowly accrue more value. Mines is the balance between them of being quicker than Dungeon but still being able to affect the board some and not punishing you before completion like Tomb.

*I wish Dungeon of the Mad Mage had a different name because I expect to refer to each dungeon by the first word and it's confusing to refer to Dungeon of the Mad Mage as Dungeon. This could have easily been the Halls of the Mad Mage or the Undermountain or the Underhalls or something. That whole dungeon has other names.

Yeah, this seems fine, but might be better on paper than, well, in paper. I think I like the Mad Mage toolbox best but Tomb has a really interesting choice.

iirc there was something about dungeons being double-faced,so there are probably actually six dungeons?

unless the same face is on both sides, which is possible.

finishing a dungeon is itself a pretty big payoff potentially with cards that trigger off it. To that end they can't really make the rewards for a four space dungeon comparable to the rewards from a seven space one. Tomb has a bigger payoff on the final space than phandelver because the earlier effects are worse. 5 mutual face damage or sacrificing a bunch of permanents is pretty bad compared to actually doing stuff with the board.

The announcement article is pretty clear that there are three.

Seems like a lot of bookkeeping for such a token effect.

Yeah, the dungeon had other names, but that's the name of the module. Which means that's the only version of the name which is recognizable to people who only have a passing acquaintance with D&D. Plus, it would look really strange if two of the dungeons had the names of their D&D modules and the third didn't.

Conceptually I think this seems like it could be pretty fun, but the rate of venturing makes a lot of the effects very anemic, and I think they could have made me more excited about this if it was costed closer to drawing a card.

That said, I have two major issues with it. The first is the color pie aspect at play here, and while you could argue that these are colorless, being able to enter the tomb of annihilation as a white deck is very mechanically off-putting. Secondly, I don't like how restrictive it is in terms of further design space. I feel like it's a missed opportunity to not develop the mechanic in a way that would let you design more dungeons in the future. That said, I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about doing that, maybe by giving dungeons a typing, level range or color that restricts where you can enter depending on the card you played, but not where you can advance.

I like the mechanic but the execution is wonky on the meta level. What happens when they want to make more dungeons? Reminds me of Contraptions, where some are just better than others, but you can choose whichever you want in your deck without any drawback. Don't take up sideboard space? Really?

Is Phandelver really that iconic? I guess they're stuck with just Forgotten Realms locations though. Which was a mistake to begin with.

Phandelver is the default entry point for new players in 5E, so I'd call it iconic. I've been in multiple Phandelver campaigns, and it was featured on the podcast The Adventure Zone. It's very popular for new DM's in particular.

You don't even actually "Choose ones for your deck" you just have them and choose upon Venturing while not in a dungeon. Much like how tokens aren't stored anywhere and you just make them upon prompting. I believe.

I'm a bit confused when it comes to Mad Mage's Runestone Caverns, shouldn't it say cast? It says play, but I didn't think you could play lands off the timing window produced by the effect, and that it would need a duration like "this turn" added to it for that to work.

There doesn't appear to be a timing window involved. It seems to just indefinitely give you the option to play them.

I believe the cards must be played as the ability resolves. Shelldock Isle and the other hideaway have similar wording (and similarly had a lot of words to put in a small space). It looks like you can play a land off of it if it happens in your mainphase and you haven't played a land yet so it could matter a lot if you get the trigger from an etb or an attack. I'm also curious what happens if you exile a land and a 1-drop. I'm guessing you can play the land and then immediately tap it to put the spell on the stack but I'm not sure.

I wasn't aware the Hideaway lands actually let you play lands. From what I can gather it doesn't even seem like it has to happen during your mainphase, the only limitation is that it's during your turn, and you haven't used all your land-drops. I'm not actually sure where the rules regarding the timing of shelldock isle effects reside though.

That bit only applied to contraptions, but I'd say that there are some similar overarching design concerns. THe power level of any future venture cards is tied to the existing dungeons, unless they make new dungeons, in which case that changes the power level of the old venture cards.


I'm not really up on the newer adventure modules/ source books.
Is Phandelver fondly remembered? I've mostly heard negative things, so I would have preferred a card based on a tested classic.