Most Magic: The Gathering players will be very familiar with the formats of standard and extended play. But at times it gets old if you play the same decks against your friends day after day, and week after week. Wizards of the Coast, in their Planar wisdom, seem to have finally figured out that players wanted more ways of casual play and forms of multiplayer games to be played and found a way to help us out a little. Having since recognized Commander as a play style and, in doing so, made a standard rule set that everyone can play together (as opposed to the different rules for gameplay in different places, with many regional variations in the rule set that plagued EDH gameplay for years), they have added new life to casual multiplayer Magic. However, this isn’t the play style I’m excited about today. In September 2009, Wizard of the Coast made a completely new play style and card type called Planechase. This brought a new dimension to our games (quite literally) with the ability to planeswalk to different parts of Multiverse. Places like the Goldmeadow of Lorwyn; Llanowar of Dominaria; or Naya, Bant, and the Maelstrom of Alara were now new battlefields in which to play. All of these places have the powers that run through that land, effecting your gameplay with additional rules.

It no longer is a matter of the elemental mana you choose to pull from the world, but the mana flowing through the world you are in, changing the tide of battle. Just as the PlanesWalkers of Magic: the Gathering fans have read about , we now also have the power to pull creatures from the different planes and hold the power to travel there in hopes of changing the tide of a fight. There are different effects in different planes that give you more mana, do damage to players because of harsh environments, give creatures different abilities, and countless other effects.

Originally, in 2009, there were 40 planes picked to be turned into cards. After that, new sets had promo planes handed out during the pre-releases following their own sets. From what I can remember, this lasted a couple sets before it then seemed to fade as interest faded about the play style. That meant we were left with the planes that had come out, but it was still fun and enjoyable for those who wished to Planechase. Well there seems to have been a new spark of interest, or Wizards doesn’t want the set they spent such time on being forgotten about (like their Vangaurd set, which I wish I could get my hands on just for fun). Today Wizards is releasing four new decks, each with ten brand new over-sized Planechase cards. That’s right, there aren’t only new planes, which they made 32 of, there are also 8 Phenomenons of which are new to the play style.

Phenomenons put a twist on the regular Planechase game by adding another effect to the next plane you travel to. If you hit one of these cards, you will read what the card does, and then continue until you find a plane (or planes! Check out Spatial Merging) and return to play with a possible lingering effect on the new plane. I know the group I play Magic: the Gathering with will be trying these new cards this weekend since they are being released today and then we will eventually have to play out of one huge stack of planes, now reaching a whopping 77 or more since I haven’t managed to grab all of the promo-planes quite yet.

It looks like the new box sets, with 60 card Main Decks and 10 Planechase cards, will MSRP for $19.99 and should be available at your local game shop today if they plan on stocking them. If not, complain to them until they do!