NPH Spoiler Leak

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Happy in all likelihood for most of our readers as they are looking very much forward to slinging Magic the Gathering cards on kitchen tables or perhaps taking in a Friday Night Magic event at a local store (if one is near you) BUT perhaps not so happy for several parties involved in one of the largest leaks we can remember - the entire New Phyrexia set.

Before we get to that, we need to share two possible cards from the upcoming set Magic 2012. M12 is due to be released on July 15th, 2012. As for MTG standard rotation, Magic 2012 will enter Standard on its release without knocking anything out, then Magic 2011 and Zendikar block will leave Standard with the release of Innistrade, code-named "Shake", on 30th September, 2011.

At first glance, these cards from forum user mrM12 looks like they may have been a mis-print scooped out of a garbage bin behind the printer's facility. These cards are what we believe rather clever FAKES but we leave that assessment up to you :

Gideon's Avenger, 1ww
Creature - Human Soldier, Rare
Whenever a Creature an Opponent controls becomes tapped, put a +1/+1 counter on Gideon's Avenger.
2/2
17/249 ills. Randy Gallegos

Furyborn Hellkite, 4rrr
Creature - Dragon, Mythic Rare
Bloodthirst 6 (If an opponent was dealt damage this turn, this creature enters the battlefield with six +1/+1 counters on it.)
Flying
6/6
135/249 ills. Brad Rigney
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Anywhoos - back on target / topic . . . We refer you to three websites of note for you to follow-up - first Wizards of the Coast who had this statement released . . .

We regret to report that the New Phyrexia spoilers posted prior to April 25 were done so without authorization of Wizards of the Coast, and that the sources of the leak have been discovered. We have received confessions from both Guillaume Matignon and Guillaume Wafo-Tapa describing what happened and apologizing for their actions. Two other players—Martial Moreau and David Gauthier—have also been identified as being involved.

As you all know, the "God Book" contains every card from an upcoming set, and this confidential material is trusted to very few people in order to keep the contents concealed until the proper time. As a writer for Lotus Noir Magazine, Matignon had access to the book in order to write about the upcoming release. He broke the trust of Lotus Noir and Wizards by sharing this information with his friends, and ultimately spoiling the set well in advance of its release.

Apology from Guillaume Matignon edited out.

Unfortunately when we learn of things that harm the integrity of the game and of the Magic community, Wizards cannot stand by without action. Guillaume Matignon has been suspended from the DCI for three years. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Martial Moreau, and David Gauthier have been suspended from the DCI until October 2012.

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The Apology from Guillaume Matignon was very heart-felt and we are rather certain he means every word very much. Anywhoos, the end result is Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Martial Moreau, and David Gautherhave been suspended until October of 2012, and Guillaume Matignon has been suspended for three years. The DCI suspended list is expected to be updated shortly and may be seen here.

That said, the DCI ban prevents participation in sanctioned events of which the involved parties are indeed very much a part of, it does not however prevent legal action and we're not certain how that will play out given international law and any non-disclosure agreement which may have been signed. It may not really be in the interest of Wizards to sue for monetary damages (which may be proven) from a 19-year old who is still scrapping together change for a college education but again, this is something which we will have to wait and see.

There is a very good investigative report from Channel Fireball writer Caleb Durward which you may find of interest here. This article appears to be good journalism and covers the time line and mechanics of the leak. Furthermore, there is also another interesting article by Matt Speling providing views and opinions from a serious player on the professional events side of the game.

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Lastly, just a bit of a blurb from us here at MTG Realm.

We do not believe that the leak had seriously harmed Wizards of the Coast sales or the community at large. That said, there is certainly effects of this event which will have adverse and beneficial effects for each individual or organisation. As for us, MTG Realm will suffer traffic loss which will likely result in less revenue (which is not very much) to purchase a booster box / fat pack / etc. during the next release. We like the slow rolling spoils and not an uncontrolled flood and we're sure that pro-players like the earlier release so that they may be better prepared when they head into the next tournament. Feel free to pipe in with your opinions in the comment thingy below . .

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New Phyrexia Videos

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

It's time again in the spoiler season (albeit severely truncated) for Magic the Gathering fans to gather 'round the tube and take in the tradional and customary videos put together by Wizards of the Coast ahead of the release of their newest set, New Phyrexia. So, if you can tear yourself away from the media frenzy covering William and Kates royal wedding or (to a lesser extent) the Canadian Federal election, kick off yer boots, put yer dawgs up and take in these New Phyrexia Planeswalker primer videos . . .

Stick around after the vids - we've got vid-caps of all of the upcoming New Phyexia promo cards.

New Phyrexia Overview



New Phyrexia - Phyrexian Mana



New Phyrexia Chancellors



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Take a look inside New Phyrexia, the new Magic: The Gathering expansion that goes on sale May 13. You can get a sneak peek at the cards May 7-8 at Prereleases around the world. Go to www.wizards.com/locator to find a Prerelease near you. The Phyrexians may have conquered the plane of Mirrodin, but that's not the end of the story.
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PROMOS !

Prerelease Events (Sheoldred) - May 7-8, 2011, and

Launch Parties (Phyrexian Metamorph) - May 13-16, 2011

Game Day June 11-12, 2011

All Participants score the mana-crazd Priest of Urabrask while Top 8 players win a very cool Myr-Zilla. Odd how these cards kinda go together.











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Finally, just a word about keeping your finger on the pulse of new tech which always comes out with a new set.

We had been attempting to maintain a diligent watch over all new cards spoiled and previewed, altough this was a bit more difficult this season. One thing we did notice was just how nicely the Rise of the Eldrazi rare, Splinter Twin plays nicely with the freshly arrived Deceiver Exarch (as well as others) from New Phyrexia. To this end, we ensured we picked up a deckset from the folks over at MTG Mint Card when they were at $1.39 - have you checked out the price lately - yep - it's about $8.49 now.
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NPH Gateway Promos

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We're certain you are busily reviewing and evaluating all the awesome New Phryexia cards and we will also get to that as well eventually but today we wanted to yatter about some very cool Gateway promos hitting your local gamery store soon. Make sure your store is part of the Wizards Play Network so you can score these.

First up :

Vault Skirge
Artifact Creature - Imp, Common
Flying, Lifelink
1/1














This is a very DECENT common - A 1/1 flying life-linker for two mana is solid - and a good choice in a sealed pool we think.
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Next up -

Maul Splicer
Creature - Human Artificer, Common
When Maul Splicer enters the battlefield, put two 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature tokens onto the battlefield.
Golem creatures you control have trample.
1/1













We are not entirely sold on the Splicer cycle yet in New Phyrexia. Blade Splicer really rocks, and the other splicers provide some good abilities for your Golem army but the green one just seems overpriced - but then again, this is a common and seven power over three creatures is OK - and certainly better when you provide your Golems with trample.

Anywhoos - as we yattered about above, stick around and we promise to get to some reviews of this excellent new set.

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Karn Liberated FAQ

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We hope you all had a great Easter Weekend; hunted down eggs, ate Easter beast, endured distant relatives, etc. As for ourselves, when we were not socially engaged in the above mentioned activities or getting Sheen-faced to make said activities a bit more tolerable, we were were going over all the New Phyrexia cards - we can say that Wizards of the Coast really delivered another amazing set.

As the entire set had been spoiled (sad face) via the leaked GodBook, and we have faithfully completed our conventional New Phyrexia spoiler list, we have little else to do in the short few weeks ahead of the formal release. Today we just want to draw your attention to the important links on the mothership you need to know as well as the Karn FAQ which Doug Beyer had covered yesterday . . .

Your links . . .
You will note that Wizards has now provided the entire visual spoiler at this time which makes sense as it was unfortunately leaked in its entirety.


PreRelease Info, Mechanics, Card Image Gallery, and Product Information.

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Next up -
An in-depth review of New Phyrexia's sole Planeswalker, Karn Liberated.

Karn Liberated, 7
Planeswalker - Karn, Mythic Rare

+4: Target player exiles a card from his or her hand.

-3: Exile target permanent.

-14: Restart the game, leaving in exile all non-Aura permanent cards exiled with Karn Liberated. Then put those cards onto the battlefield under your control.

Loyalty 6

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The Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) excerpt for Karn as covered in Doug Beyer's article on the mothership.

* Karn's first and third abilities are linked. Similarly, Karn's second and third abilities are linked. Only cards exiled by either of Karn's first two abilities will remain in exile when the game restarts.

* A game that restarts immediately ends. The players in that game then immediately begin a new game. No player wins, loses, or draws the original game as a result of Karn's ability.

* In a multiplayer game (a game that started with three or more players in it), any player that left the game before it was restarted with Karn's ability won't be involved in the new game.

* The player who controlled the ability that restarted the game is the starting player in the new game. The new game starts like a game normally does:
-- Each player shuffles his or her deck (except the cards left in exile by Karn's ability).
-- Each player's life total becomes 20 (or the starting life total for whatever format you're playing).
-- Players draw a hand of seven cards. Players may take mulligans.
-- Players may take actions based on cards in their opening hands, such as Chancellors and Leylines.

* After the pre-game procedure is complete, but before the new game's first turn, Karn's ability finishes resolving and the cards left in exile are put onto the battlefield. If this causes any triggered abilities to trigger, those abilities are put onto the stack at the beginning of the first upkeep step.

* Creatures put onto the battlefield due to Karn's ability will have been under their controller's control continuously since the beginning of the first turn. They can attack and their activated abilities with {T} in the cost can be activated.

* Any permanents put onto the battlefield with Karn's ability that entered the battlefield tapped will untap during their controller's first untap step.

* No actions taken in the game that was restarted apply to the new game. For example, if you were dealt damage by Stigma Lasher in the original game, the effect that states you can't gain life doesn't carry over to the new game.

* Players won't have any poison counters or emblems they had in the original game.

* In a Commander game, players put their commanders into the command zone before shuffling their deck.

* The number of times a player has cast his or her commander from the command zone resets to zero. Also, the amount of combat damage dealt to players by each commander is reset to 0.

* If a player's commander was exiled with Karn as the game restarted, that commander won't be put into the command zone at the beginning of the game. It will be put onto the battlefield when Karn's ability finishes resolving.

* In a multiplayer game using the limited range of influence option, all players are affected and will restart the game, not just those within the range of influence of the ability's controller.

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Lastly, some news from our friends at MTG Mint Card - New Phyrexia assorted card lots are now available for pre-order. We have for some time been ordering the card lots as it is an fast, efficient and inexpensive way to get your collection together and start playing with all the new awesomeness.

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New Phyrexia Tokens

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We are still reeling from the massive Magic the Gathering full New Phyrexia spoiler whose point of origin was a leaked 'Godbook'. With so many cards to process from our completed New Phyrexia Spoiler List, we were not sure where to start so we are looking at token generator cards in New Phyrexia - BUT - first a short word about this very unusual spoiler season.

We're huge fans of spoiled cards - they increase traffic to MTG Realm and helps us defray the cost of getting our small group a Booster Box for each set which comes out. Having two or three spoiled cards are great - having an entire set spoiled is NOT GOOD. We firmly believe in a blend of rumours, spoilers and a controlled stream of previews coming from Wizards of the Coast. This gives us a chance to look forward to tomorrow and then post an evaluation of how the new hotness may fit in our casual kitchen table games or at FNM. We (and our sponsors) love chugging along at 3,000 pageloads per day but when we 15,000 in one day, things get FedEx'd to hell in a hand basket. Traffic after this weekend will in all likelihood to slim to none and Slim left town as players cloister themselves off line or perhaps hit the forums to discuss the new metagame.

We firmly believe that this leak won't affect sales of New Phyrexia for Wizards of the Coast. We are just as pumped as any previous set to get our paws on these great new cards. There is also some interesting discussion on MTG Salvation with a very thoughtful poll which supports this general opinion as well.


In summary, this blog loves the odd spoiler along with official previews - it provides material for our daily posts and benefits Wizards by helping pump the product (as if it ever needed it) but having everything out all at once really is not beneficial for anyone.

Anywhoos - on to the topic of the post - New Phyrexia Tokens !

1/1 Colourless Myr Creature Token
Generators : Parasitic Implant, Shrine of Loyal Legions.

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1/1 Green Insect Creature Token with infect
Generators : Phyrexian Swarmlord

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1/1 Red Goblin Creature Token
Generators : Chancellor of the Forge

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3/3 Colourless Golem Creature Token
Generators : Blade Splicer, Master Splicer, Sensor Splicer, Wing Splicer, Maul Splicer, Vital Splicer, Conversion Chamber. (click to enlarge)

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3/3 Green Beast Creature Token
Generators : Beast Within, Fresh Meat

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Lastly, some news from our friends at MTG Mint Card - New Phyrexia assorted card lots are now available for pre-order. We have for some time been ordering the card lots as it is an fast, efficient and inexpensive way to get your collection together and start playing with all the new awesomeness.

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NPH God Book

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Happy Tuesday evening MTG peeps,

We know . . . we already had our daily post and if are posting again, you know it's BIG. Yes it is. We have for you a massive Magic the Gathering New Phyrexia spoiler via 'S3BaS' from Mexico City who was able to get some screen-caps of the New Phyrexia 'Godbook'. UPDATE - Wizards of the Coast is investigating this serious breach which may have originated on an Internet Relay Chat server (IRC). See further discussion in this post. Copies of this 'Godbook' in pdf format have already spread to file hosting sites but we won't touch these with a 10-foot pole. Rest assured, heads will role as a result of the theft of this intellectual property.

What's a Godbook ?? From Wizards of the Coast - here :

For example, we conduct a particular kind of market research called a "godbook study." A "godbook" is just a printout of all the cards. We ask a statistical sampling of hundreds of players to pick their favorite and least favorite cards in several categories (card mechanics, art, names, and flavor text) from memory. Then we show them a random portion of a set's godbook and ask the same questions. We take the data from the first part (what we call an open-ended survey) and combine the data with the second part.

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Let's rip on through as the cards are now literally everywhere but on MTG Realm ! - CAUTION - these are completely unconfirmed and may very well be fakes (very, very good fakes) and suggest you wait until you see the official preview at Wizards.














































There are a ton of other images to add which we will get to latter but for now we will direct your attention to our New Phyrexia Spoiler page (text) where we have the entire set now spoiled - so be sure to check it out.

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Also - a plug for our sponsors MTG Mint Card, CCG House, ABU Games, BidWicket, Magic on a Budget and OMG! Games (where we play in Barrie, Ontario Canada). Without them, we would not be able to bring you the content we do.

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NPH Promo Round-Up

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Wizards previewed the New Phyrexia promo cards forthe Pre-Release and Release Events today on Magic Arcana (Thanks Monty!) and we've noticed that perhaps our readership would be better served by rounding up all the Magic the Gathering promotional cards for the New Phyrexia set in one place / one post. To this end, we've taken a shovel and flashlight and headed out to the MTG Realm blog archive and dug up previous posts and arranged the grisly finds in one convenient post.

Alternate art foil promos are shown to the left and the normal card to the right.

Suture Priest / Pristine Talisman
Mirrodin Besieged Game Day
March 5 / 6, 2011

Alternate art foil promos are shown to the left and the normal card to the right. Note that some of the cards have yet to be previewed in English.

Surgical Extraction
New Phyrexia "buy-a-box" promo card
May 13, 011

Sheoldred, Whispering One
New Phyrexia Prerelease
May 7-8, 2011

Phyrexian Metamorph
New Phyrexia Launch Party
May 13-16, 2011

The 'normal' version of this card has not yet been spoiled / prevewed.

As Phyrexian Metamorph has been the only card not yet previewed / spoiled until today, let's yatter about it now. Personally, we are not big fans of Clone cards but perhaps that was due mainly in part to restricting most clone like cards to blue. That has changed of course with the new Phyrexian mana or 'Phybrid' mana as some players are calling it. For three of any colour and two life, any player with any colour deck can drop it into their game. Instead of copying another player's artifact or creature and then trade paint, we are thinking about using this alongside with Grand Architect or perhaps another blue build with fatties.

That's it for now, remember to visit our text spoiler page which we will endeavour to keep up to date. Happy Gaming!
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New Phyrexia Mechanics

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We have just posted the New Phyrexia text spoiler page HERE which we will endeavour to continually update as spoilers and previews become available. Speaking of which, there were 8 new cards previewed today on the mothership and we suggest you make clicks over there to review the new cards as well as a run down of new mechanics and themes to be found in this, the latest Magic the Gathering set.

The WoTC article today provided a high level view (sneak peak) of what one would expect in the New Phyrexia FAQ document without going into specific card descriptions. You may read up on Colored Artifacts, the Golem mini-tribal theme, Infect and "Poisoned", Living Weapon, Metalcraft, Phyrexian Mana, and Proliferate.

The following new cards were previewed to provide examples . . .














Dispatch (an instant which taps down a creature or exiles with metalcraft), and a 5/5 Creature Horror (with infect and a 'poisoned' condition).














Grim Affliciton (a black instant with proliferate and negative counters), and a 4/2 red-coloured Artifact creature.














Mutagenic Growth, a fairly traditional green pump spell with phyrexian mana, and Maul Splicer - a green creature spell providing tokens thought to be part of a 'splicer' cycle.














Cyclesclicer, another living weapon artifact equipment and Trespassing Souteater, a 2/2 artifact creature with an activated unblockable ability.

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Lastly, some news from our friends at MTG Mint Card - New Phyrexia assorted card lots are now available for pre-order. We have for some time been ordering the card lots as it is an fast, efficient and inexpensive way to get your collection together and start playing with all the new awesomeness.

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