I very recently got back into playing Magic the Gathering through MTG Arena because I apparently don’t have enough things commanding large portions of my time and energy. That said, I’ve been (mostly) enjoying my foray back into the game especially since with Arena I don’t have to sort and store a large amount of physical cards as I stumble my way into understanding how the game has changed since I was last heavily involved with it back in the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor blocks. (I should not have looked up the dates that those sets released…).
Anyway, the latest set, The Brothers’ War introduces (and in lots of cases reintroduces) a lot of artifacts that are just begging to be adapted for a 5th Edition D&D game. So in order to give me a break from countless articles trying to explain to me what the difference between a Boros and a Rakdos deck and how midrange tempo decks function differently from an aggro deck, let’s take a look at one shall we?
Sigil of Valor was first published in 2015 as part of the Magic Origins set and has been reprinted several times since then. This artifact equipment card grants the equipped creature +1/+1 until the end of turn for each other creature that you control provided that creature is the only one of your creatures attacking. This can be potentially potent if paired with a creature an opponent is incapable of blocking and a decently populated board and can potentially decide a game for you in round or two. Or it can be useful for helping to clear an opponent’s board as they will likely have to declare multiple blockers against your one attacker, forcing them into an uneven trade, paving the way for the rest of your creatures the next round. But how do we translate this card to an item for D&D? Like some other cards in the past, we’re going to have to create some mechanics that capture the spirit of this card instead of attempting to directly translate them, and it might look a little something like this:
The item itself is fairly straightforward, giving a warrior type the ability to be a more effective vanguard fighter, moving ahead of the rest of the party to engage a higher value target or more effectively harass a flank, punishing them with extra damage and stymying an effective response from them – provided no one else is supporting the warrior. No rogues flanking them to get a sneak attack and no control spells from the wizard to box the opponents in so they can’t run. This item is only for the bold (or well armored), but can have devastating effects in the right battlefield conditions and in the hands of a warrior capable of making their blows count.
That’s it for this installment. What other artifacts from The Brothers’ War (or any Magic set really) do you think would make a good magic item (or monster/NPC stat block) for your D&D games? Let me know below and you might just see it in a future installment. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of lore and changes to the meta to read up on.
Ben Erickson
