Core Set by Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper was a British journalist who wrote a series of books satirising the upper middle class, and had a supreme fondness for tabby cats (which she called moggies). She also wrote books of non-fiction, and was the author of a guide to working life.

Jilly’s a very funny lady, and her writing often has the same dry, wry tone that characterises the best of the humour she celebrated in her fiction. She had a strong sense of social class, and her oeuvre explores issues of identity, marriage, work, and family.

In Core Set 2021, she is the central theme. The other two main themes are Nicol Bolas and Chandra Nalaar. The set narrates the story of the elder dragon’s rise to power, his fall, and his return to prominence through a series of spells featuring both the planeswalker versions of him in his youth, his teenage years, and adulthood. The other major theme is the other planeswalkers who have worked for or against him, and features a number of his henchmen and enemies.

As with previous editions, Core Set 2021 does not have a unified storyline, but there are hints of the narrative coresetbyjilly.com scattered throughout. In addition to the new planeswalkers, the set reprints a number of classic cards with new flavor text and art.

This core set is the first one to feature Collector Boosters as a replacement for the Welcome deck and the Deck Builder’s Toolkit. These ten-card samplers show off flashy aspects of the game like legendaries, planeswalkers and powerful rares.

A card’s art and iconography is an important element to consider, and Core Set 2021 contains some great examples of both. The art on the five enemy scry lands is beautiful, and the sculpting on Nicol Bolas is especially impressive.

Card analysis

While most of the Core Set cards aren’t particularly interesting, a few stand out. Fiery Emancipation is a fantastic card for Commander that will see a lot of play, and is likely to rise in price over the long term. It might drop below $10 at some point this summer as its peak supply and demand fades, but I expect it to return to $15-$20 in the longer term.

Other notable cards include the reprint of Sacred Cat, which will likely see some casual Modern play, and a new version of Unexpected Courage, which is an incredibly versatile card that can be used in any investigator deck. Finally, the core mystic Agnes is an excellent choice for a green deck, able to use a whole host of survivor cards thanks to her evasion ability, and with 3 agility she can take oversuccess tests much more easily than other investigators at the same skill value. The only shame is that she doesn’t have an upgraded Shrivelling to really cemented her capabilities as a mystic.