Mechanics of Wayfarer: Scenes, Emblems, Items, Oh My!

Welcome to the first article explaining all the concepts in-depth that are in Wayfarer! We’ll be going over Scenes, Spark Emblems, and Items.

Scenes

You Guide the Beacons, a Scene card from Arcavios: School’s Out Forever. Illus. Clint Cearley.

Scenes, as you can see above, are cards that set the tone for the story in a scenario. They arrive from the Scene deck into the command zone, where they affect the game with its rules text. The Adjust Life box is where the scrivener will either change their Starting Life Total or Current Life Total depending on the Scene. Here, in Scene II, if the scrivener died due to life loss, they would start Scene II with 25 life. If they survived the last Scene, they add 10 life to their life total. Each Scene replaces the previous Scene after it’s commenced. There is only ever one Scene in the command zone for the scrivener at all times. Figuring out the puzzle to the Scene to advance the story is how you progress to the end of the scenario. (In addition to the story you can read that comes along with each one!)

Spark Emblems

Justice, a Tier 1 Spark Emblem from the Wayfarer Core Set.

Spark Emblems, chosen from the beginning of the entire campaign (when you select your Commander deck, even!), are mix-and-match cards that start out on the battlefield giving you abilities right off the bat to help you achieve your goals. Every one of your turns, a trigger will go off at various points. Some are end step, some are combat step, but start out simple. As you progress in Tier (what we call levels), Spark Emblems get stronger, do more things, and assist your allies to win sessions of Wayfarer! Here, you can see Justice incentivizes attacking to detain permanents, making them unable to attack, block, or activate abilities. Don’t like your emblem? Change it at Tier 2 or Tier 4! Experiment! Have fun!

Items

Fragment of Time, an Item from the Wayfarer Core Set.

Items are (with supertype Item) artifact cards that are earned over the course of the scenario. They stay in the Spoils deck, where they wait until you trigger the action to loot the spoils. This action will most likely be on Scene cards for satisfying a condition, or some scenario-only cards in the scrivener deck will let you do it. Once you loot the spoils, the top card of the Spoils deck is casted, then put on the battlefield under play of the wayfarer that triggered it. The supertype allows only one Item can be on the battlefield at any time, so much like the legendary rule, if you own two (or more) at any one point, you’ll have to choose one and shuffle the rest back into the Spoils deck. Items can be anything from shared healing potions, to a multi-target cannon, equipment, and more. Fragment of Time is an Item that allows wayfarers to pool their mana together to gain an extra turn on the scrivener, if they manage to have the mana open the turn they loot it. May you always have the mana open.

3, 2, 1, Infuse!

Ovalchase Dragster, from Kaladesh, illus. Victor Adame Minguez

I hope this has been some help to get you used to the ideas that we’re using in Wayfarer. These are the big card-related changes to the game that we’ve got, with the other developed bits mostly based around how you upgrade (draft-based progression) and things related to the scrivener themselves.

I’ll see you next article, all about INFUSE and what it means to the scrivener.

— Ashodin (Thirteen, RiptideProLab)