MTG Madness

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Good Day my peeps,

the spoiler action has been interrupted for some witty 'n' waggish humour, so strap in and enjoy. I just wanted to rebroadcast this old 4Chan post which I thought was oddly peculiar and amusing.

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Location: Sparta, the King's court

King Leonidas of Sparta and King Xerxes of Persia playing Magic: The Gathering . .

Leonidas : Playing a Plains. Passing the turn.

Xerxes : Tapping a Swamp, playing Dark Ritual, playing Delirium Skeins, each Player discards 3. I play 3 Basking Rootwallas for free. Your turn.
Leonidas : What in Hades ? ! ? ! Let me see that card !

MADNESS ! ! !

Stephen Hawking : And that Gentlemen was how the universe began . .

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ARB Spoiler 3

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Alara Reborn Spoiler 3

We have a total of 8 (!) Alara Reborn Spoilers for you today. On the weekend, of the community peeps received a Magic Player's Reward oversize card in the mail. To his (and our) surprise, it was a card from the yet-to-be-released Alara Reborn set. Duh - of course we are going to spoil this - thanks Wizards !

Perhaps because I am fairly new to the game that I do not really understand oversized cards. Why ? Can you actually build an over sized deck ? Can you even shuffle these puppies ? Would clowns like these ? Personally - they are just cardboard to me with as much significance as the box of Korn Flakes I'm looking at right now. Anywho - Less rant and more spoiler eh ?

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Spellbreaker Behemoth, 1RGGg
Creature - Beast, Rare
Spellbreaker Behemoth can't be countered.
Creature spells you control with power 5 or greater can't be countered.

Nice ! I don't think that this will be seeing much action however except in a Naya Stompy sideboard against a control blue but hey - every card has it's place - even Grizzly Bears.

The next few are taken from the most recent edition of Game Japan.

Aven Mimic, 1WU
Creature - Bird Wizard, Rare
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a Wing counter on target creature.
Each creature with a Wing counter on it is 3/1 and has flying.
3/1

Hey - this could be good in the right deck but I am not holding my breath for this card to take a strong position in casual constructed.


AEther-caste Knight, WU
Artifact Creature - Human Knight, Common
Exalted
1/3

Very nice - Esper now has Knights. This 2 drop swings as a 2/4 with the exalted abilities. I see Sigiled Paladin being picked over this one but I know that players will find a home for this Knight.

Tar Shards, 3BR
Instant, Uncommon
Tar Shards deals 4 damage to target creature.
Double Cast (When you play this spell, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card with lesser converted mana cost than this spell. You may play that card without paying its mana cost. Then put all revealed cards still in your library on the bottom of your library at random order.)

Umm - interesting. We can now chalk up our very first Shards of Alara mechanic here - 'Double Cast'. This instant will timmy for 4 damage AND bring out another spell (for 4 or less) onto the board for free. I am going to have to think about just how evil I can make this card.


Exsanguination, 2BR
Sorcery, Rare
Choose target player. Name a nonland card. That player reveals his or her hand. Exsanguination deals 3 damage for each card with that name in that player's hand to that player. Remove cards with that name from that player's graveyard, hand and library. That player then shuffles his/her library.

Some may start to compare this as a much more expensive Runed Halo but remember that this MAY pain your opponent for 3 (or more). I'm thinking that this will see some play.


Pale Priest-Spider, 4GW
Creature - Spider, Common
Reach
Forestcycling 2 (2, discard this card: Search your library for a forest card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
Plainscycling 2 (2, discard this card: Search your library for a plains card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)

Here we have another twist on the cycling mechanic - Forestcycling, and Plainscycling. I see some weird but deadly deck which features this card, Knight of the Reliquary and a bunch of Eventide 'Retrace' cards.


Sage of the Anima, 3gu
Creature - Elf Wizard, Rare
If you would draw a card, reveal the top three cards of your library instead. Put all creature cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
3/4

This may be a good card with a whole lot of unreasonable conditional terms. Waaay too many conditions must be in place for this card to work well.


Marici Twinclaw, 2{W/R}g
Creature - Cat Warrior, Uncommon
Double strike
2/4

Hello again HYBRID ! ! So, it's a 2/4 four drop critter with double strike. Not many will complain about this card. If you hear someone say 'what about Flame Javelin' - tell them they are just unreasonably greedy.

ARB Booster Packs

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Happy Saturday morning to all. Hope your FNM or other Friday night activities were fun and without incident. I tossed a coin and went with a Naya stompy / Realm Razor build over the Fae / Fish last night and went 2-1 to Top 8 where I was crushed - still, considering a good turnout of close to almost 30, I guess I cannot complain.

Anywho - We have for you yet another Alara Reborn spoiler treat today . . . Magic: The Gathering Alara Reborn Booster Packs ! Let's have a look -

Right - Are you thinking what I'm thinking ? Yep - Perhaps they should have installed full windows at the Boa Constrictor Zoo display. Other than that, it appears to be some odd union with a Naya serpent and a Grixis Zombie. The Zombie almost does look to have the appearence of a Vedelkan mage however . . . what's your guess here ?

Here is the next Booster Pack - in this image, we can clearly see a Bant Knight who shuned the conventional Leotau Mount for a larger Naya beast. This perhaps may be prudent given the conflux of shards and ensuing battles with hoards seeking out new mana sources.

We have seen this Angel before - check out the previous MTG Realm post on MTG iGoogle Themes. This image still has the community scratching their collective head. One popular speculation is that this is Asha freshly returned after many years of planeswalking / self-exile (?).

Enjoy - stay tuned for more hot spoiler action and wild speculations (hopefully some more news on Zendikar is forthcomming).

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MTG Locator Beta

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WoTC launched a new Retail Locator on January 26, 2009 which uses slick Google Map tech. Stores may be identified on the map by store types (such as Hobby, Premier or Mass market) and contact details are provided for each.


Users will be able to search by City, State/Province or Postal code, but now the new locator can accommodate International searches as well. One may refine the search to identify stores carrying the following product lines;

Magic: The Gathering Dungeons & Dragons Star Wars Miniatures & Roleplaying Games Axis & Allies Miniatures & Board Games

As important to users, the Locator will also provide searchable locations for the nearest Wizards Play Network locations offering:

Magic: The Gathering Events (such as Pre-Releases and Launch Parties, Friday Night Magic, Other Magic events ) as well as

Dungeons & Dragons Events (such as Delve Night, Worldwide D&D Game Day, and tther D&D events).

All this new tech is great but this site just painfully reminds me that I have to drive almost a full hour from Forks to Port Angeles (Washington) just to buy MTG cards at the Wal-Mart store OR drive / take the ferry to Seattle (a 3 hour trip) just to take in a Friday Night Magic event . . . wah.

MTG iGoogle Theme

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You may remember our recent post in January about the MTG iGoogle Themes to personal your own Google home page. Well - we just got a LOT more - including a few never seen before images.














If you are a gamer, you can get a HUGE variety of other iGoogle Game Themes to pimp your desktop. For a look at just the Magic the Gathering Theme, here is this LINK.


Have a look at these absolutely gorgeous graphics . . .

1. Unknown and Banefire art

2. Master Transmuter and Windwright Mage

3. Chandra Nalaar and Jace Beleren

4. Unknown and Nicol Bolas

5. Unknown and Elspeth, Knight-Errant

6. Unkown Sphinx and Tezzeret

7. Nissa Revane and Bloom Tender

8. Vein Drinker and Demonic Tutor

9. Sedris, the Traitor King and Uknown

10. Garruk Wildspeak and Apocalypse Hydra

11. Ajani Vengeant and Godsire

12. Akroma and Rafiq

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CNET article - for yer reference . .
SAN FRANCISCO--Google unveiled on Wednesday the latest addition to its iGoogle start page service: a collection of themes designed by video game publishers.

The search giant has partnered with nine publishers to come up about two dozen themes from recent games such as Electronic Arts' Spore to arcade classics such as Galaga.

Like other themes produced through the iGoogle themes API, each one will change throughout the day, including with Easter eggs that some developers tucked inside their designs. Unlike gaming designs created by individuals, these can be used by anyone without stepping on copyright and intellectual property.

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, announced the new set of themes at an event as part of this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Mayer then hosted a panel of gaming personalities, including Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, and Charles Huang, co-founder of RedOctane, maker of Guitar Hero.

MTG Easter Egg

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Easter is approximately 2.5 weeks away, and being a Christian (and a father of three), I am already making plans for this holiday. I've noted that details on the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll are already up on the White House webpage. As I am not an American, this annual event (happening since 1878 under President Rutherford Hayes) is somewhat interesting to an outsider. If you have to have extra tickets and air-fare to D.C. for my family of 5, drop me a line.

As I typically operate on several mental levels (especially after coffee), I cannot think of Easter Eggs as simply a holiday cofectionary or brightly painted egg. I will, of course, think of the other Easter Egg as well.

An Easter egg is a secret feature hidden in a piece of media by its author or designer. We most often find this in software applications and the like. In Magic the Gathering, it simply becomes a thing of beauty or sometimes if you see it, you will . . . (you know what). For a most excellent article from 12/11/2006 by Doug Beyer, check out this WoTC linky.

Anywho - this particular 'Easter Egg' takes place right in plain sight on the Time Spiral card Liege of the Pit . . . Let's have a look.

The Card

Closer . . .

Even Closer . . .

Yep - that's right - that is not a vital organ but a collection of screaming baby heads. Yeah - that sent shivers down my spine too - Absolutely great work by artist Jeremy Jarvis.

Not sure if Liege of the pit will be making another appearence in the upcomming special set 'Divine vs Demonic'.

Zendikar

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Some of you may have heard rumours about the new fall set, code-named "Live" due out in October, 2009. This set would be the first in the "Live" block ("Live, Long, Prosper").

'Deadly Perils, Priceless Treasures'

A new US Pattent Office trademark filing from Wizards was submitted on 3 March, 2009 and the MTG Realm spoiler department has been following this lead ever since early March. The trademark applied for was "Zendikar". This now has been confirmed as the name of the new fall set today on Magic Arcana.

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Here are the details . . .

Set Name - Zendikar
Three-Letter Abbreviation - ZEN (nice !)
Number of Cards - 249
Release Date - Friday, October 2, 2009
Prerelease Events - September 26-27, 2009
Launch Parties - October 2-4, 2009
Previews start - September 7, 2009

Design Team
Mark Rosewater (lead)
Doug Beyer
Graeme Hopkins
Kenneth Nagle
Matt Place

Development Team
Henry Stern (lead)
Aaron Forsythe
Mark Globus
Erik Lauer
Devin Low
Matt Place
Mike Turian
Steve Warner

Now, Let our imagination take to the air . . . PIRATES ! ! ! (I hope!)

The name, the logo, the slogan thingy has the feel of a far flung place. A place sort of like this . . .

Alara Reborn Art Spoiler

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Wizards of the Coast, in their trend to provide the best card-art ever, ensured that even the Alara Reborn pre-release / release posters show beautiful epic art. Let's check these out.

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The first image shows a creature which is undeniablly similar to that of Dragonsoul Knight. I strongly believe that this image is simply just art and nothing intended or destined for a card.



This image obiviously is showing a battle between Shard Bant and Shard Grixis. Angels and a knight (perhaps even our legendary Rafiq ?) are engaged in a nasty mellee. It appears that Malfegor is engaged this this battle as well. In the hazy background, there is a suggestion of Naya Elves riding a massive battle behemoth into the fray.

Could this Angel be Asha ?