M11 Game Day

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Happy Wednesday to all,

We are somewhat bedazed to come to the realisation that the core set Magic 2011 has already been out for a month and we are now looking at M11 Game Day this weekend. If you are not previously engaged, we suggest you make tracks to your fav local gaming store and participate - human contact would be a good thing for you.


Anywhoos - here's the details you need to know . .

Game Day takes place at participating Wizards Play Network locations worldwide one month after the Magic 2011 release. Game Days are the first opportunity to play Standard format on a global scale with the cards from Magic 2011!

Where Can I Play? - Check out the handy locater from Wizards here.

Game Days are happening worldwide on August 14-15! Check out our tournament locator to find an event near you. Contact the organizer of the event for details on event start times and entry fees.
What Happens There?

Game Days are Standard format. The tournament will be Swiss-style, with the top 8 players after the Swiss rounds advancing to the single-elimination finals. In the case of an event with 16 players or less, only the top 4 will advance. Where necessary, the standings after the Swiss rounds will be used to determine final order in the standings. In the case of an event with exactly 8 players, there will be three Swiss rounds with no single-elimination cut.

What Do I Get? - All participants receive an exclusive Liliana's Specter promo card (while supplies last). The top 8 players each receive an exclusive full-art Mitotic Slime promo card. The cards are awarded to the Top 8 players even if the tournament cuts only to the top 4. Two Mitotic Slime promo cards will also be awarded as door prizes at each location.

The winner receives the Magic 2011 Game Day winners certificate, as well as the Magic 2011 Champion title. Selected top 8 decks and all Game Day winners will also be featured on magicthegathering.com.

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Righty - Next up -
A totally unconfirmed Scars of Mirrodin Rumour !

This just in - from a totally unreliable source which we suggest you completely disregard. Why on earth are we even printing this, we don't know.

Anywhoos - We have heard that Leonin Abunas is getting reprinted for Scars of Mirrodin and will feature some sweet new art from that amazing artist Todd Lockwood. This is is piece in question here . . .

EDIT : The art has been confirmed as Leonin Elder.

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Standard Knights

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Good Day my MTG pickles,

In today's post, we wanted to yatter about just how awesome Knight Exemplar is. Like many of you, as soon as this M11 card was spoiled, we wanted to build a deck with it. Similarily, like many of you, as soon as we started thinking about it, we came to the conclusion that the standard-legal pool was somewhat shallow with only 3 knights in M11, 7 in Zendikar block, and 12 in Shards of Alara block, we would have to choose carefully what buddies Knight Exemplar should hang out with.

If we were playing extended, the auto-include in a Knight deck would be Kinsbaile Cavalier (giving all your knights double-strike) and the lifelinking Knight of Meadowgrain. Yeah - that would have been cool. Another hang-up is that we did not want to go back to Shards to buy cards that we did not already have (like Rafiq of the Many and Knight of the White Orchid unfortunately) which will rotating out of standard in just a few short months. So here is what is on the kitchen table for your consideration . . .

KNIGHTS available in standard : Caravan Escort, Cloud Crusader, Kabira Vindicator, Knight Exemplar, Knight of Cliffhaven, Knight of the Skyward Eye, Knight of the White Orchid, Knight-Captain of Eos, Lightwielder Paladin, Paragon of the Amesha, Sigiled Paladin, Student of Warfare, Talus Paladin, White Knight, Ethersworn Adjudicator, Outrider of Jhess, Arrogant Bloodlord, Black Knight, Dragonsoul Knight, Goblin Roughrider, Ethercaste Knight, Knight of New Alara, Knight of the Reliquary, Knotvine Paladin, Steward of Valeron and Rafiq of the Many.


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What we are presently thinking about is constructing a build with Knight of the Reliquary, Student of Warfare, and Steward of Valeron.


Knight of the Reliquary is able to fetch out lands such as Tectonic Edge, Sunpetal grove, Stirring Wildwood, and very importantly, Serjiri Steppe to provide protection against coloured threats.


Speaking of threats, our local meta-game as we are certain yours, is chocked full of red burn (usually of a Jund flavour) so we might consider using Mark of Asylum and Leyline of Sanctity.


After further thinking, we wished to pimp out knights with equipment meaning that Stoneforge Mystic would be needed and perhaps Behemoth Sledge, Sigil of Distinction, Basilisk Collar and perhaps Quietus Spike.


Anywhoos - we need your help to get a standard Knight deck to the games table, so please drop a comment in below - Friday Night Magic is tomorrow night so there's no pressure - THANKS!

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M11 Dev Chat

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Good Day MTG peeps,

We have for you today, what we would like to call a 'filler' post - this is a blog post which may be mildly interesting to some and rubbish to others. Today's post concerns the recent Dev Chat (or Magic 2011 Developer Chat) which took place on Tuesday, July 27th at 3pm PDT / 6pm EDT. In this forum, players and MTG fans of all variety are afforded an opportunity to ask a limited number of questions of Wizards of the Coast personalities regarding the last set release - this being the Magic 2011 Core Set - all in real time.

On Tuesday, a number of questions were put to the head of R&D Aaron Forsythe and designer/developer Tom LaPille. Many thanks to forum member PhoenixLAU, who posted the transcript. We suggest you read the full transcript here as we have provided only Question and responses related to the upcoming Scars of Mirrodin release . . .










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<%Mono789> What efforts were made to connect M11 to the blocks surrounding, i.e. Zendikar block and Scars of Mirrodin block?

<@TomLaPille> We used individual cards to do that, mainly

<@AaronF> Erik Lauer, the set's lead dev, is always looking to make those kind of cross-block connections, and the design team helped out.

<@AaronF> There are several "artifact-matters" cards, like Hoarding Dragon, Phylactery Lich, and Steel Overseer for Scars.

<@TomLaPille> For example, Primeval Titan connects well with both landfall and expensive spells

<@TomLaPille> We tried to go in both directions.

<@AaronF> Right, green Titan was definitely made to interact with ZEN.

<@AaronF> There we even cards made to interact with Shards block, although they were subtle and I don't recall them at the moment.

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<+andrew_holder> Voltaic Key has a history of being a strong card that leads to many powerful interactions and even sees eternal play. How much debate, if any, went into giving the Key a reprint, especially with Scars around the corner?

<@TomLaPille> Key breaks with other broken artifacts, like Mana Vault and Time Vault (heh)

<@AaronF> Key wasn't ever really the problem card, it was always the other insane cards like ... see above

<@AaronF> It's like blaming Hypnotic Specter when the real broken card is Dark Ritual.

<@AaronF> Key does stuff with Scars block, but I don't anticipate brokenness.

<@TomLaPille> Key does cool and fun and reasonable things with cool and fun and reasonable artifacts

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<+GlenDonald> Was there specific thought given to making M11 feel nostalgic so as to tie in with Scars?

<@TomLaPille> To me, M11 is built to be nostalgic for anyone who knows anything about baseline fantasy

<@TomLaPille> Everything there is sometihng you recognize

<@AaronF> Not particularly more than I'd want any Core Set to feel nostalgic. They should all contain familiar cards, as well as some new hotness. So no, no special treatment here.

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Well that's it. Make certain you keep your ear to the ground for the next Dev Chat. One can participate through the following methods . . .

via widget: tinyurl.com/mtgdevchat (Should take you directly to a login screen)

via mibbit: mibbit.com/chat (Takes you to a screen where you type in your desired username and your channel name (the channel will be #mtgdevchat )

via IRC: If you have an IRC client, you can access it by going to the mibbit IRC (irc.mibbit.net) and then the channel (/join #mtgdevchat).

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And lastly, we suggest you get over to MTG Mint Card - this is your LAST CHANCE to get the discounted M11 Card Sets from only $29.99 ! Check out this solid deal for Magic 2011 Core Set M11 Uncommon & Common Set X4.
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Post M11 Artifact Deck

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We are going to yatter about a post M11 artifact deck today. Quite a few cards in this build will not be around when they Shards of Alara block and M10 rotate out of standard this fall so we suggest, get in the best 3 months of gaming right now while you still are able.

Anywhoos - starting off, let's have a peak of that metallic angel found inserted in your M11 boosters. The art suggests a new Platinum Angel art, or a new Angel not seen before (most likely). Some rumours insists that we could see a return to coloured artifacts.

Text : Scars of Mirrodin

The corrosion begins October 2, 2010

Journey back to this harsh metallic Plane. This time, will you leave in one piece?

We many hints from all quarters that Scars of Mirrodin will be artifact heavy, we ensured we had our deck set of Steel Overseer now for $4 before it jumps to $14 this fall. Speaking of artifacts, and Steel Overseer, we had a great weekend testing a post-M11 artifact deck, starting at Friday Night Magic, and then a few times throughout the weekend at the kitchen table going up against a variety of different decks. We had a blast, not only was this deck fun to play but also performed not badly.


Here's the deck list - as usual, we ask you the readers to help us out and provide suggestions as to what you would do . . .


38 Spells
3 x Ornithopter
3 x Elixir of Vitality
3 x Voltaic Key
4 x Etherium Sculptor
3 x Metallurgeon
4 x Steel Overseer
3 x Oblivion Ring
3 x Fabricate
4 x Master of Etherium
3 x Lodestone Golem
3 x Scourglass
2 x Platinum Angel

22 Lands
11 x Plains
7 x Islands
2 x Gargoyle Castle
2 x Dread Statuary

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Right off the bat - Our original build had the Ornithopters sitting in the sideboard - that was a mistake. Since main-boarding, we count over half the games won by a pumped-up Ornithopter. The exilir of Immortality was good as well and saved our butt a few times by supplying a quick life boost.

Voltaic Key and Steel Overseer are at the heart of this deck and makes everything bad-a$$. We especially loved any game which had Etherium Sculptor and Lodestone Golem out - cheaper artifacts for us and more expensive spells for our opponents. Fabricate performed well by allowing us to look for an artifact in our deck and Master of Etherium was always a solid drop. The big kick to our opponents was Scourglass which wiped their side of the game table but left ours intact. We never really got a chance to play Platinum Angel which means we need more play-testing - we feel that having the Anel out along with the Exilir of Immortality could save us from otherwise stalled games.

The number of mana appeared to be good as well but we did not really get a chance to use Dread Statuary of Gargoyle Castle which means more play-testing again which we will not mind at all given the big fun factor of this deck.

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And lastly, we suggest you get over to MTG Mint Card - this is your LAST CHANCE to get the discounted M11 Card Sets from only $29.99 ! Check out this solid deal for Magic 2011 Core Set M11 Uncommon & Common Set X4.

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M11 Price Check 7/21

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Good Day and Happy Wednesday MTG Peeps,

We are taking a moment to have a quick look at Magic 2011 singles prices today to ensure that you are making fair trades with your so-called buddies you hang out with at your local game store. Without further adieu, here is the price guide - just remember - these prices are approximate and are subject to change even by the time this post goes live.

Primeval Titan	$42.00
Baneslayer Angel	$30.00
Grave Titan	$26.00
Fauna Shaman	$12.00
Time Reversal	$9.00
Sun Titan	$8.00
Gaea's Revenge	$6.25
Garruk Wildspeaker	$6.25
Knight Exemplar	$6.00
Obstinate Baloth	$6.00
Inferno Titan	$5.00
Jace Beleren	$5.00
Nantuko Shade	$5.00
Ajani Goldmane	$4.75
Leyline of Anticipation	$4.50
Day of Judgment	$4.00
Demon of Death's Gate	$4.00
Dragonskull Summit	$4.00
Glacial Fortress	$4.00
Leyline of Sanctity	$4.00
Liliana Vess	$4.00
Phylactery Lich	$4.00
Frost Titan	$3.75
Steel Overseer	$3.75
Sword of Vengeance	$3.75
Birds of Paradise	$3.50
Drowned Catacomb	$3.50
Dark Tutelage	$3.25
Captivating Vampire	$3.00
Chandra Nalaar	$3.00
Destructive Force	$3.00
Elvish Archdruid	$3.00
Leyline of the Void	$3.00
Rootbound Crag	$3.00
Serra Ascendant	$3.00
Sunpetal Grove	$3.00
Brittle Effigy	$2.75
Mystifying Maze	$2.75
Mitotic Slime	$2.50
Platinum Angel	$2.50
Reverberate	$2.50
Conundrum Sphinx	$2.25
Honor of the Pure	$2.25
Leyline of Punishment	$2.00
Mass Polymorph	$2.00
Redirect	$2.00
Temple Bell	$2.00

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Also of note today, we should mention what awesome promo cards to expect during M11 Game Day which will be taking place August 14-15, 2010 . . .

If ya don't know - Game Day takes place at participating Wizards Play Network locations worldwide one month after the Magic 2011 release. Game Days are the first opportunity to play Standard format on a global scale with the cards from Magic 2011!

All participants receive an exclusive Liliana's Specter promo card (while supplies last). The top 8 players each receive an exclusive full-art Mitotic Slime promo card. The cards are awarded to the Top 8 players even if the tournament cuts only to the top 4. Two Mitotic Slime promo cards will also be awarded as door prizes at each location.

Righto - so make sure you have all the M11 cards you need to construct that deck to make your game awesome - MTG Mint Card has a really decent deal on right now - Magic 2011 Core Set M11 Uncommon & Common Set X4 - check it out here.

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M11 Fat Pack

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As you know, Magic 2011 is now officially released and you should expect a whole slew of launch parties today. Yesterday, when my local games store opened, we dropped in to pick up an M11 Fat Pack as is our custom to dissect its contents for you.

Let's have a look,

Our fav pack opened of course was the one that had Garruk and the foil Brittle Effigy. Here's the list of the pulls we had.

RARES
Serra Ascendant, Silence, Angelic Arbiter, Stormtide Leviathan, Reverberate, Garruk Wildspeaker, Elvish Archdruid, Obstinate Baloth,
Brittle Effigy (foil).

Uncommons
Armored Ascension, Condemn, White Knight, Alluring Siren, Call to Mind, Sleep, Black Knight, Deathmark, Reassembling Skeleton, Liliana's Caress, Howling Banshee (foil), Chandra's Spitfire, Combust, Earth Servant, Fireball, Atumn's Veil, Duskdale Wurm, Garruk's Packleader, Nature's Spiral, Prized Unicorn, Dragon's Claw, Crystal Ball, Gargoyle Sentinel, Sorcerer's Strongbox (x2)


If you have not noticed, we love Fat Packs - why? Even with the crazy-a$$ Canadian price of $45, it is still worth it - you get EIGHT boosters and a nice box to store your awesome new cardboard.

Here is exactly what you get in the Pack : 8 Magic 2011 booster packs, the Magic 2011 Player's Guide, 1 learn-to-play insert, 1 pack of 40 Magic 2011 basic land, 1 Magic 2011 Spindown Life Counter, and an excerpt from Test of Metal, a Planeswalker novel.

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Rules Update 7-14

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We suggest you check out the mothership today (7/14/2010) for Mark L. Gottlieb's article titled simply as "July 2010 Update Bulletin". In this article, one will be able to check out Magic the Gathering Oracle and Comprehensive Rulebook changes to ensure you know the latest info for your favourite game.

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First up, we should yatter about the errata to the new M11 card, Elixir of Immortality.

Elixir of Immortality, 1
Artifact, Uncommon
Rules Text: 2 : You gain 5 life. Shuffle Elixir of Immortality and your graveyard into your library.

The correction involves who exactly owns this artifact at the time it's activated ability is used. The two questions posed by the previous card wording were posed by Cosi's Trickster - 1) Who does the shuffling, and 2) If you and your opponent both own and control Elixir of Immortality, and you activate its ability. How many shuffles are there?

Name: Elixir of Immortality, 1
Artifact, Uncommon
Rules Text: 2 : You gain 5 life. Shuffle Elixir of Immortality and your graveyard into their owner's library.

Essentially, the controller of Elixir of Immortality's ability, not the owner of Elixir of Immortality, does the shuffling, and there's just one shuffle in the case where the artifact is controlled by both players..

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Next rule change of interest involves emblems.

If you are unsure just what an emblem is, you are not alone. Currently there are no 'emblems' until the Oracle update goes live this Friday (7/16/2010). After this there will be only one card that can create an emblem: Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

The rule change involves the use of Elspeth's "ultimate" ability - "[-8]: For the rest of the game, artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands you control are indestructible." This affects any artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands you happen to control at any point for the rest of the game, and only while you control them. If you play a land later, it's indestructible. If your opponent gains control of one of your creatures, it stops being indestructible.

The questions posed were what if there was the same kind of ability that granted flying? Or +2/+2? Or shroud? These are things that affect the characteristics of permanents, so they'd affect only what you controlled at the time the ability resolved. Permanents that came in later would be unaffected. Permanents that were affected that your opponents gained control of would retain the bonus. It'd work very differently even though it was worded just like Elspeth. What Wizards wanted Elspeth to really do is to create a pseudo-enchantment with a static ability that works for the rest of the game. One that can't be destroyed, or stolen. An object with an effect that hovers over the rest of the game. We can do this. We can invent emblems.

The new wording would now go along the lines of this . . .

Elspeth, Knight-Errant wording
[+1]: Put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token onto the battlefield.
[+1]: Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains flying until end of turn.
[-8]: You get an emblem with "Artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands you control are indestructible."

An emblem is a new kind of object, different from a card or a token. It's basically a marker with an ability on it. In fact, the ability is the only characteristic it has. Emblems have no color, name, card type, or anything else—just that ability. They live in the command zone, which is the same place that Archenemy schemes, Planechase planes, Vanguard cards, and EDH generals hang out. They're not permanents, and absolutely nothing can touch them or get rid of them, simply because no cards say that they can.

This change is being implemented now because this is the last Comprehensive Rules update before Elspeth vs. Tezzeret comes out. It doesn't really functionally change Elspeth at all, so she might as well start doing her new thing right away. The big question now is - does this mean there will be more emblem-creating planeswalkers in the future (we're looking at Scars of Mirrodin)?

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Lastly, just an update that MTG Mint Card now has the following editions back in stock !
2010 Core Set, Zendikar, Shadowmoor, and Shards of Alara.
Make sure to check out MTG Mint Card for English and Chinese M11 singles which are available for pre-order.

Scars of Mirrodin Hint

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Good Day MTG peeps,

You are most likely busy organising all your new Magic 2011 cards from last weekend's M11 Pre-Release into binders and boxes now. We ask you take a break and check this out - an interesting hint as to what might be in this fall's next set, Scars of Mirrodin.

First off, you may recall the WoTC announcement (HERE) and our own post (HERE) about the release of Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret in September. Righto - well Wizards just recently released the sales solicitation (key selling points) document recently - have a read . . .

Key Selling Points:

• This is the sixth release in the popular “Duel Decks” series.

• Each Duel Deck comes with two 60-card decks featuring cards from throughout Magic’s history

• Includes 12 rare cards, including foil alternate art versions of two Mythic rare Planeswalker cards.

• Six total cards will feature brand new art, and two preview cards from the fall 2010 Magic set,
Scars of Mirrodin™ are included.

• The two featured Planeswalkers will play a role in the story of Scars of Mirrodin.

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Did you read the last line ?

We really, really wish both Planeswalkers could be reprinted in all their awesomeness but most likely (speculation time folks) that there may be a Planeswalker variant of Elspeth and Tezzeret in the next set. Given the name of Mirrodin, we suggest an artifact theme at work which would go nicely with a Tezzeret variant.

Anywhoos - speculate away - we want to hear from you.

Here's the solicitation document we referred to . . .

Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret Solicitation

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M11 Pre-Release

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At the last moment, we were able to slip out of a prior engagement and get out to the Magic 2011 Pre-Release tournament. We headed out to our local gaming store, OMG! Games and Collectibles to play the morning tournament. The Event format was four rounds of straight Swiss Sealed Deck where each participant received six packs of M11 to build a 40-card minimum deck. We dropped after the third round to head home to provide you this post and to be alone with our new awesome cards. Don't forget to check out our M11 Spoilers HERE (text) and HERE (visual).

Let's get to the video now ->

Here's what we pulled from our six packs . .

Rares:
Vengeful Archon, Honor of the Pure, Merfolk Sovereign, Mass Polymorph, Nantuko Shade, and Drowned Catacomb


Uncommons:
Armoured Ascension, Roc Egg, White Knight, Celestial Purge, Call to Mind, Flashfreeze, Reassembling Skeleton, Rise from the Grave, Howling Banshee, Earth Servant, Fire Servant, Shiv's Embrace, Ember Hauler, Cudgel Troll, Acidic Slime, Autumn's Veil, Prized Unicorn, Whispersilk Cloak


Build: White / Green
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23 Spells (16 creatures, 7 other spells), 17 Lands
2 x Wall of Vines, Infantry Veteran, Honor of the Pure, Celestial Purge, Armored Asecension, White Knight, Blinding Mage, Sylvan RAnger, Pacifism, Whispersilk Cloak, Roc Egg, Brindle Boar, Excommunicate, Wild Griffin, Safe Passage, Cudgel Troll, Cloud Crusader, 2 x Assault Griffin, Greater Basilisk, Acidic Slime, Vengeful Archon, Terramorphic Expanse, 10 Plains, 6 Forest


Results :

Match One - lost in three (very tight indeed - we were both down to 3 life)

Match Two - Steam rolled opponent in two games

Match Three - lost in two

dropped to be alone with my new cardboard.

Hope everyone who headed out to a Pre-Release event had a blast !
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