Murders at Karlov Manor is not only bringing a murder-mystery story to Magic: The Gathering, but Wizards of the Coast (WotC) is letting the players get into the roles of detectives with standalone product puzzles and one overarching puzzle that will shed new light on the future of the game. The sleuthing was announced to start on prerelease weekend, but it looks like the potential first hint has already been uncovered on Reddit.
After the Murders at Karlov Manor First Look stream on Weekly MTG yesterday, the product images were added to the set page with the Bundle spindown die ominously missing the number 16. The red spindown sporting the Murders at Karlov Manor set symbol was enlarged and posted to Reddit, leading to quite the speculation. Ben Bleiweiss brought this up to Blake Rasmussen of WotC on X, only to get an even more cryptic response.
The Wizards Play Network (WPN) site summarized the accompanying puzzles in its Retailer First Look article for Murders at Karlov Manor as such:
With Murders at Karlov Manor, your players can interact with the game in a way they never have before. Each product in the set contains a puzzle to be solved; some puzzle components are only found within the physical products, but others encourage players to continue the discovery online with web-based puzzles added regularly throughout the season.
There is one overarching puzzle—across all products and online—that gives players who crave a true challenge the opportunity to solve a greater mystery; however, there are still 12 individual puzzles that are self-contained and are just as satisfying cases to crack.”
Retailer First Look: Murders at Karlov Manor
So, it looks like the spindown missing the number 16 could be the hint or puzzle for the Murders at Karlov Manor Bundle. Notably, the spindown in the image for the prerelease kit is black and doesn’t appear to be missing any numbers. Rasmussen also said on the Weekly MTG stream that the set-long puzzle would unveil new knowledge on the future of Magic: The Gathering.
Other worthy detective work has started in other areas of the preview season for Murders at Karlov Manor. Keen-eyed fans noticed that the packaging for the Collector Booster display shows what is assumingly the body of Teysa, potentially clueing us in that she is the unlucky victim of the murder that kicks off the first story for the set. It was also pointed out that the image of Teysa that was used in the article also shows art from previous Magic cards in the background: the paintings of Liliana, Death’s Majesty and Scion of Opulence, both cards that were also illustrated by Chris Rallis.
But what does it mean? If you think you somehow have cracked the code already, let us know in the comments.
Murders at Karlov Manor is scheduled to be released on February 9.