Room Escape Artist

This is one of those strange moments where two things that I love – Magic the Gathering and puzzles – are about to overlap in a hopefully significant way.

What is Murders at Karlov Manor?

Magic the Gathering’s next premier set, Murders at Karlov Manor will release on February 9th, 2024. This set is relevant to our community because Magic’s Head of Design, Mark Rosewater announced:

“We’ve done something really neat – which is – there are murders woven into the story. And there are mysteries woven into the game itself, where you the players, will get to solve puzzles and solve your own mystery.”

Mark Rosewater

The only other details that we currently have is that Murders at Karlov Manor will be set on the plane of Ravnica, one of Magic’s most iconic worlds, and that the greedy Karlov family will be at the heart of the story.

Additionally Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, will launch a special edition of Clue with its own unique ruleset to celebrate this release, Ravnica: Clue Edition. I’m going to assume that this will be less relevant to the escape room community, but who knows?

At the moment details are sparse, but as the set nears release, we should have a clear picture of how compelling this will be for the escape room community as preview season kicks off sometime in January.

Why I’m excited about this?

The very short version of the story is that I started playing Magic back in 1997 at summer camp. I was a tiny, nerdy kid at a camp that was for the athletically inclined. I did my best, but it was a lonely place until I learned to play Magic.

Some of my most formative friendships formed playing this game.

Over the years I have drifted in and out of the game, but I returned to it over the pandemic, when Magic’s online client Arena was released on Mac. I have played at least a little bit nearly every day since. I truly and deeply enjoy it and hope that they do the puzzle portion of Murders at Karlov Manor justice.

REA Coverage

Magic will never be the regular beat for Room Escape Artist, but I’m also not going to pass an opportunity to cover this crossover.

Additionally, I am not the only person on the Room Escape Artist team that is a Magic player, so you can look forward to multiple perspectives on Murders at Karlov Manor as we get to see what mysteries Wizards of the Coast has in store for us.