Exclusive Magic: The Gathering card reveal: Karlach, Fury of Avernus

Magic: the Gathering Battle for Baldur's Gate - Lae'zel
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)

In its latest planar journey, Magic: The Gathering has moved into the fantasy city of Baldur's Gate and is rubbing elbows with the who's who of the Dungeons and Dragons world.

Familiar faces are a given, but a surprising number of friends, enemies, and companions from the Baldur's Gate games are present in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. With the return of dungeons in the Take the Initiative mechanics and a new cycle of metallic dragon cards, Wizards of the Coast has taken its crossover quite literally.

But what are fun new cards without Commanders to lead them? We've been gifted one such sassy Tiefling—who has shown up in Baldur's Gate 3—to share.

Karlach, Fury of Avernus is an interesting option for an attack phase-based strategy. She combos well with all the usual suspects, like Etali, Primal Storm and Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin to add additional powerful effects on your multiple attacks. You can also look at other D&D crossover alumni like Delina, Wild Mage—just remember that she won't give you 'attack' triggers on the copied creature.

While doubtless there will be more 'Background' enchantments to pick from, the ones that intrigue me at the moment are Guild Artisan, which will give you piles of Treasure tokens to speed up your deck, and Criminal Past, which gives you access to black cards and makes your Karlach harder to deal with.

Since Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is focused on the Commander format, you won't find Battle for Baldur's Gate on MTG Arena right away. You will find it in paper on June 10, with prerelease events starting early on June 3. Coming later, in July, MTG Arena will be getting Alchemy Horizons Baldur's Gate, which will bring "hundreds of new cards" to MTG Arena, including all the usual cosmetics and accessories you'd expect. If you want to see more, check out our preview of Battle for Baldur's Gate.

Philip Palmer

Phil is a contributor for PC Gamer, formerly of TechRadar Gaming. With four years of experience writing freelance for several publications, he's covered every genre imaginable. For 15 years he's done technical writing and IT documentation, and more recently traditional gaming content. He has a passion for the appeal of diversity, and the way different genres can be sandboxes for creativity and emergent storytelling. With thousands of hours in League of Legends, Overwatch, Minecraft, and countless survival, strategy, and RPG entries, he still finds time for offline hobbies in tabletop RPGs, wargaming, miniatures painting, and hockey.