Wizards Forums

~

We have some WoTC news and some Zendikar spoiler tidbits that blog reader 'Marvel' gave me a heads up for you today - first off, let's see recent developments at the WoTC.

If you, the MTG fan, spends any time online (which we're certain you do), you will know of the Wizards of the Coast forums / boards previously known as 'Gleemax'. Furthermore, if you were a member, you would have felt a sense of loss, like a large black hole threatening to envelope your world when Wizards took the boards down for about a week or so.


Well, its back up and you can now log onto your account HERE. Now a few notes about some changes on the Wizards boards . . .

Boards are now fully equipped with headers such as Featured (content), People, Blogs, Photos, Videos, Groups, Forums, Chat and a Wiki. Wow - that is quite the expansion over the previous Gleemax setup. It is somewhat akin to FaceBook light and although we're certain some with be dissenting towards change, we here at MTG Realm choose to embrace it. Just expect some growing pains as any bugs gets worked out.

We are rather excited about the new blog / profile features. We created something of a test group 'Magic the Gathering in Ontario' to hook Magic players in Ontario (London, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, or anywhere in Ontario) to local Friday Night Magic, Tournaments, and Pre-Release / Release events.

The actual forums themselves had witnessed very little change and all your favourite Magic the Gathering banter is still here. Personally, we here at MTG Realm almost exclusively hang out in the Future Set Speculation sub-forum.

Now, if you are wondering just where the hell your WoTC forum signature picture / image went, do not jump off the bridge just yet. You will likely have to load it up again. Now finding exactly where to do this is not very intuitive at all. Here are the steps to getting up your cool forum sig pic again . . .

1. In any Forum thread, go to the top left corner and find 'Preferences',
2. Now Click on that and scroll down to the signature box, and
   
3. Drop in your awesome html sig pic here.

lF you suck at html like I do, let Google be your friend and find the code you need. You will need a banner image around 400 to 700 pixels wide and 100 to 3oo pixels tall. Upload this image under your profile gallery and then use appropriate html code (such as < src =" http:// www.blogger.com/url?">) to have your image / signature line appear at the bottom of your posts.

One last thingy about some rumours you may have heard about the forums not being under direct care and control of Wizards of the Coast. Essentially - yes, it's true. new forums are NOT controlled by WotC but instead a company in Oklahoma City, OK. The site in question is ONEsite Inc. (the folks who own ONEsite, Catalog.com and WebHero) and yes indeed, these folks are large and in charge when you head over to the Wizards Community page).

Just before you phreak out, here is what Michelle Brunes of WoTC has to say "this We do partner with ONEsite Inc. to build and host this platform. You can review our full privacy statement here. We at MTG Realm are happy that Wizards of the Coast is focusing on the gaming business and not spending time babysitting the social networking side of things.

~

Now onto some fun stuff . . .

MaRo just dropped some very nice juicy Zendikar tid-bits on WoTC today - here is the skinny . . .

* A card that is a two-card kill combo with a rare card in Magic 2010.
* A spell capable of making a 14/1 token.
* A creature that can sacrifice itself to make a planeswalker go to the graveyard.
* A legendary octopus
* A spell that can allow you for no mana to put a creature from your library into play.
* A card with the reminder text "The land continues to burn..."
* A card that allows you to pay eight mana for four 4/4 fliers
* A creature whose rules text includes the phrase "you win the game."
* A cycle of cards that players have been begging us to print for years.

In addition, here are a few card names from the set:

* Electropotence
* Grappling Hook
* Journey to Nowhere
* Lotus Cobra
* Sphinx of Lost Truths
* Vampire's Bite

Stay tuned for more Zendikar spoiler goodness . . .