Wednesday Miscellany

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Today we are all over the place (hence the article) and quite akin to a dog chasing a car (Joker quote there).  Let's get to it now - 

First up - Here at MTG Realm, we love a great Magic: the Gathering Story.  We also were very fond of the 'Planeswalker's Guide'  which used to get posted to the mothersite preceding a set's previews.  Better late than never we guess.  Today you should click on over to the Wizards of the Coast Magic site (linked right over here) to read 'Planeswalker's Guide to Ixalan, Part 1'.  posted by R&D Narrative Team.  We do very much appreciate this as there is physically only so much one may squeeze into the Magic Story series.

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Next - we are most definitely excited about this
The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Ixalan releases 2 January, 2018.  We release that there was a lot of restrictions in play as to when to release this.  Obviously not to early as to conflict with previews, but why two or so weeks before Christmas.  Do you know what makes a great Christmas prezzie?  This book.  I guess we will be dropping hints for Gift Certificates instead.

Anywhoos, here is the full blurb -

The Art of Magic: The Gathering – Ixalan. is the fifth release in VIZ Media’s ongoing series of impressive hardcover art books presents the incredible illustrations of Magic: The Gathering.

The substantial 240-page tome will feature dozens of full-color works by an impressive array of talented artists, including Christine Choi, Daarken and Titus Lunter, and will be complemented with additional in-depth lore by bestselling author and Magic: The Gathering Senior Game Designer James Wyatt.

The Art of Magic: The Gathering – Ixalan invites fans to set sail for the uncharted jungles of Ixalan, where dangerous beasts, magnificent ruins, and lost treasures lie waiting to be discovered. Saddle up your dinosaur mount and brave the unknown as you search the plane for a prize forgotten by history… until now!

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Finally, 

We want to yatter a little bit about a standard-legal card which is not seeing a lot of popular play - Solemnity.

Currently this very lovely card is seeing some sideboard action in some fringe decklists like Red / White (Boros) Approach or Red / White / Green (Naya) Dinosaurs.  We have seen a few White / Black / Green (Abzan) Token lists also have one or two in the sideboard as well.  

The question here is why is this not seeing more play considering all the top decks such as Temur Energy, Jund Energy - and even Ramunap Red uses Soul-Scar Mage - having the lion's share at the top tables.  Given the heavy reliance on Energy Counters (Bristling Hydra, Aether Hub, etc.) and even +1/+1 counters (Walking Balista, B/G 'Snek'), this should be a shoe-in as a weapon to turn their deck into a "mishmash of Limited-level vanilla creatures".  The answer we guess is that there is not a very decent existing shell for this to be inserted into. Solemnity has a lot of competition for slots and there does exist a level of control or enchantment hate to dissuade one from making this a serious consideration.

We are going to wrap up with some excerpts from a great 'Card of the Month' article written by Marina Castaño Garrido on the Magic Judge Blog on this card - 

While Solemnity is on the battlefield, no spells or effects will be able to put new counters on the aforementioned permanents (artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands). Furthermore, already existing counters on those permanents will not be affected so they will get to stick around.

What are counters?The Comprehensive Rules tell us that a counter is a marker put on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect.

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