MTG Miscellany

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

It is time to do some house-cleaning and get to you a number of Magic: the Gathering news items.  Here is the drop now -

The latest set 'Dominaria is now up on the official Wizards of the Coast Magic: the Gathering card database, linked right here.  A quick sort reveals sixty-four (64!) cards which have the Legendary sub-type - umm WOW.

On Tuesday, Tim O'Hara, Wizards of the senior vice president of finance and operations, posted a brief article to the WotC website titled 'A Commitment to Excellence', which is a pleasant introduction to some who may not know Tim.  Of interest is this particular line, "some players with highly tuned fingers may notice a different feel to your Dominaria cards at Prereleases this weekend".   This is a very important point to some in the fan community which have submitted grievances regarding card quality.  Looking very much forward to the PreRelease to get my (somewhat calloused fingers) on the improved cards.

Speaking of the Dominaria PreRelease this weekend, if you have not attended one of these very fun / cool events, you may wish to catch Gavin's recent article / primer linked here on what to expect as well as very helpful tips to make your time as enjoyable as possible.

Other news this week include no changes to the 'Banned and Restricted' List, as well as the Dominaria Update Bulletin from Eli Shiffrin which does not contain any surprises for the official Magic: the Gathering comprehensive rules.

Lastly, we thoroughly loved today's Return to Dominaria story - Episode 6 from Martha Wells.  Here is the blurb -

"Jhoira takes Liliana and Gideon for a timely re-connection with a very old - and very powerful—friend."

We are big fans of the whole lost treasure / Indiana Jones trope, so when the story turns to Teferi (and friends) in the ancient monument temple, with traps around every corner, we were as immersed and engaged as we have ever been.  The moral take-away here is that anything is possible with the very amiable Weatherlight crew.  We won't mention the big news at the end of the story, but we are now considering making a ledger for all those powerstones that were created by the Thran Mana Rig.  
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Heroes of Dominaria

Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Some very cool news for MTG fans coming out of the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) 2018 annual trade show being held at the Peppermill Resort, Reno, Nevada this week.  WizKids revealed yesterday a themed board game - Magic: The Gathering Heroes of Dominaria Board Game, to be released later this year.  Specifically, there are to be two separate releases, a standard game in August, 2018, followed by a premium version in September, 2018. 

In this game, designed for two to four players, ages 14 and up, will have participants take the roles of powerful heroes traveling the ancient lands of Dominaria such as Llanowar, Urborg, and Keld to o build sites, rediscover lost artifacts, and confront the sinister Cabal in order to gain the resources needed to save the multiverse before rival Heroes do.  Just like the iconic card game, players draw mana from the world to power abilities and recruit heroes to aid in quests. 

The Standard set is to include 28 miniature tokens spanning well known creature types from Magic’s 25-year history such as Angels, Soldiers, Goblins, Zombies, Bears, Dragons, Dinosaurs, and more.  The highly detailed miniature, standing approximately 55 millimeters tall will include translucent parts some some of the tokens.

The standard version will (tentatively) include a game board, 4 player mats, 16 hero tokens, 24 site tokens, 32 leyline tokens, 150 mana tokens, 1 turn tracker token, 20 cabal tokens, 15 artifact tokens, 20 site mana tokens, 50 card Dominaria deck, 45 card quest deck, 10 public quest tiles, 20 card artifact deck, rulebook, and two-part organizational tray.  

Anticipated MSRP is $59.99.  The Premium Edition of this game would (again tentativley) include 4 exclusive pre-painted miniatures with an anticipated MSRP of $79.99.

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MTG - Coming Soon

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

With yesterday's slew of announcements over at Wizards of the Coast's Magic: the Gathering website, we feel we have need to summarise a list of upcoming product releases.  This really is more for us to organise the very busy schedule ahead as well as planning some purchases.  Anywhoos, here it is presented in chronological order -

• Masters 25 - March 16, 2018
Masters 25 will contain 249 cards from across Magic 's entire 25 year history and designed to be drafted.

• Challenger Decks - April 6, 2018
Similar to the previous Event Deck products, these are 75-card pre-constructed decks are geared toward Standard play for the Friday Night Magic player.

• Duel Decks: Elves vs. Inventors - April 6, 2018
The last in a long-running series, will have two pre-constructed ready-to-play themed decks featuring Elves, preservers of nature, and Inventors, proponents of artifice

• Dominaria - April 27, 2018
Dominaria will contain 269 cards and is to is the first set to follow the re-introduced Three-and-One Model.  Set on the Plane of the same name and will ceautre the Gatewatch as well as a number of legendary characters.

• Commander Anthology Volume II - June 8, 2018
Similar to the previous Commander Anthology, the boxed set to contain four 100-card decks including thirteen foil commanders and 99-point sping life-counters.

• Battlebond - June 8, 2018
Battlebond will contain 254 cards (85 new cards) is the first-ever Two-Headed Giant-focused Magic booster set for limited play.  Storyline to take place in the Areana at Valor's Reach on the plane of Kylem.

• Signature Spellbook: Jace - June 15, 2018
Similar to From the Vault series, this is the first Signature Spellbook set containing nine previously printed themed cards.

• Global Series: Jiang Yanggu & Mu Yanling - June 22, 2018
Name for two new Planeswalkers, this set of two 60-card decks, is designed by a team of Chinese artists, writers, and folklorists to explore a new branch of Magic lore rooted in Chinese aesthetics and mythology.

• Core Set 2019 - July 13, 2018
Core 2019, containing 269 cards, this is to be the 18th core set and the first to be released under the re-introduced Three-and-One Model.  Core sets took a break since Magic Origins in 2015.

• Commander 2018 - August, 2018

The latest in the pre-constructed Commander series.  Will contain four 100-card decks and should this follow previous product design, a blend of new cards and reprints.

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Modern UnBan News

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Last weekend was rather busy with work, but we were still able to take an occasional break to catch up on coverage of Grand Prix Toronto, February 9-11, 2018.  A number of players from our local gaming store OMG Games here in Barrie took the 50 minute drive down to attend, but this was quite an international event.  Visitors to Canada were greeted by typical February weather in Toronto - cold and a lot of snow-covered lands.

If you have not yet, click on over to the coverage summary here at Wizards.  Results indicate that Modern format is in a really good place right now with ten players finishing Day 1 undefeated, with 10 different decks.  Compared to a few short years ago where Day 2 decks essentially were restricted to just a handful, it has improved rather well.  Check out the Top 8 Decklists linked right here.  Of note, we are rather happy to see GP Toronto winner Dan Ward and his Bogles - we are being biased of course as we run a Bogles decklist.

Since the mini-preview of Big-Daddy Jace (Jace the Mind Sculptor) with the packaging preview of the upcoming Masters 25 release (March 16th), many were anticipating the un-banning of Jace in Modern in today's announcement (linked here).  A number of Magic: the Gathering community members had been also calling for Bloodbraid Elf to be unbanned as well.  For a very good (and prophetic) article written ahead of today's announcement, read SafronOlive's article linked right here.


In short, we think these are rather acceptable given the state of Modern and although we do not have plans on playing these in the near future, we do personally know a few players who are likely very happy to see these cards back.

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Project 'M' MTG Mobile Game

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Some Magic: the Gathering news from Seoul, South Korea.  Yesterday at the Seoul Duke City Hotel, game publishing company Netmarble hosted the 4th Annual NTP (Netmarble Together with Press).  

A total of 18 new mobile games were announced as part of the Netmarble lineup for 2018 which included Seven Knights 2, Icarus M, First Born, Harry Potter 'Hogwarts Mystery' and Magic: the Gathering 'M' (a code name).

Netmarble Chairperson Bang Jun Hyuk, Kwon Young-Sik, and Baek Young-Hoon provided some Alpha gameplay media which showed 3D images of this multi-player real time game for the mobile game market.

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January BanHammer

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Today, January 15th, is supposedly 'Blue Monday', a name given to this day in January, which is claimed to be the most depressing day of the year.   Well we do have some good news to nudge you out of your mid-Winter malaise.  Or - perhaps not.

Many Magic: the Gathering players have been anticipating today's Banned and Restricted Announcement for some time.  The general consensus, from our own limited discussions with a number of players over the last few weeks, was that Wizards of the Coast may hobble the popularity of the ubiquitous Energy decks.  We did express this somewhat sarcastically last Monday (here on MTG Realm on Tumblr) when WotC had been pumping the Rivals of Ixalan PreRelease with the quip of 'Who will claim the golden City of Orazca?'.  Certainly not one of the four tribes in the new post-RIX standard but an (Temur) Energy decklist.  The smart money was on Attune with Aether or Rogue Refiner.

Today's official announcement (linked right here), was not surprising / was certainly surprising :

• Four cards have been banned in the Standard format - Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Rampaging Ferocidon, and Ramunap Ruins. 

Two additional cards hit the list in addition to the two we had prognosticated.  Whether you fully, partly of completely disagree with the announcement today, we believe that most will agree that the supporting article was well written with a satisfactory explanation as to the changes.  

Attune with Aether and Rogue Refiner were most decidedly, the most common inclusion in all the energy variants we had seen some time, and those decklists were dominating everywhere from Friday Night Magic to Pro-play.  Coming up behind this top shelf list was Ramunap Red with Ramunap Ruins being an 'auto-include' in essentially every aggressive red list.

As we had waited for Rivals of Ixalan to deliver a fun and functional tribal build, we were more than cognisant that consideration for any tribal list we could imagine relying too heavily upon the generation of 1/1 (Vampire or Merfolk) tokens would need a plan against Rampaging Ferocidon.  This red Dino was the go-to sideboard answer for token lists and of course lifegain strategies.

We loved our Energy decklists we had built - the first was Electrostatic Pummlerer which evolved into Temur Energy.  We will admit that our interest did wane after a time, as games did often come down to who was on the play or who had the better sideboard.  


Although we do not doubt that Energy and aggro Red will be around until rotation, we do feel as if a large weight had been lifted off the lists we wanted to build with Rivals of Ixalan.  We will get to dust off our Anointed Processions, collect a full deckset of Radiant Destiny and get totally tribal.  

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Explorers of Ixalan

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving long weekend with friends and family.  We had definitely filled out boots with turkey and fixings and spent some quality time catching up.  Enough of that though for now - we do need to catch up on some news however.

Wizards of the Coast yesterday (no long weekend for our American neighbours) had surpirsed many Magic: the Gathering fans with word of a new logo.  Originally announced during last weekend's coverage of World Championship (we missed it), this is to be the new Magic: the Gathering logo moving forward on all products with the release of the 'Dominaria' set in March, 2018.

The gaming community was also informed that the classic card back will remain unchanged, which is not much of a surprise.  WotC staffer Matt Cavotta had a very insightful post on the mothersite as well - 

A logo redesign rings hollow when it's made solely to stir up interest in a stale brand. A logo change is warranted and has substance when it's made to reflect what is evolving or what has already evolved about the truth of the brand. With each change in Magic's logo, the new design has been a response and a reflection of the evolution of the brand.

We feel that Matt is spot on with those comments and do in fact rather like the new logo, although we think (as with all things), there are those not so happy with that. Righto - on to today's article topic - Explorers of Ixalan !

Please do pop on over to the article and YouTube video here for the full announcement.

Explorers of Ixalan is an out-of-the-box multiplayer Magic experience that challenges you to defeat your opponents along the way as you search for the lost city of Orazca.

Explorers of Ixalan is expected to be released late November, 2017 for a suggested retail price of $65 (USD) in the United States, which likely means a bit north of eighty bucks here in Canada perhaps.  Here's what you get for the coin - 

• 4 x 60-card decks
• 20 double-sided tokens
• 50 game tiles
• 40 counter pieces
• 4 deck boxes

The four decks follow the tribes we now have in the Ixalan story, with some similar themes -

• Legion of Dusk - White / Black - Midrange - flying and lifegain
• Brazen Coaltion - Blue / Black / Red - Aggro goodness
• River Heralds - Blue / Green - Fishy Prowess flavour
• Sun Empire - White / Red / Green - Ramp 'n' Stomp

Game cards include -
• Quest - Reward upon completion
• Site - Ongoing effects
• Event - Immediate one-time benefit

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Big Change to FNM

Friday Night Magic WUT?
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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Congratulaiotns to Magic: the Gathering player Michael Hamilton who took first place this weekend at the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Cincinnati.  This was the first large tournament taking place after the release of the newest set Hour of Devastation.  The metagame breakdown of Day 2 was incredibly varied with 36 different archetypes represented, which is a strong indication of healthy standard format.  

Here are the Top 8 decklist archetypes :
1st Four-Color Control
2nd W/U Monument
3rd Four-Color Emerge
4th B/G Energy
5th W/U Monument
6th Mono-Red Aggro
7th Mono-Black Zombies
8th Temur Energy

Obviously not an accurate prognostication for this new 'season', but certainly very promising right out of the gates.  There will be a good measure of evolution going forward and it may be of interest to read the article today posted on the Wizards of the Coast site from Luis Scott-Vargas as to the direction of standards existing decklists with the new options presented in Hour of Devastation.
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Next - Almost every Magic: the Gathering player is talking about the news posted to the mothersite on upcoming changes to Friday Night Magic, linked right here.  There is a number of items of interest, but for sake of brevity for today's post, we will just address the item on FNM promos.  A short clip from Wizards - 

"FNM has been and continues to be the foundation our weekly in-store play. It is one of our longest-running and most successful play programs in our 25 years, so we're not looking to mess with the formula too much.
We are making two changes that are related—FNM "seasons" now align with set releases, and promos, which have previously been foil cards, will now be foil double-sided tokens."

The TL/DR summary of the Friday Night Magic essentially is -

• Wizards is shifting from FNM promo cards to double-sided foil tokens

• Less FNM promos per week for Core and Advanced level stores.

Double-sided tokens are cool !  But certainly not at the expense of the traditional FNM promos.  The more recent promos have certainly been improving - Aether Hub, Fatal Push - oh heck yes.  Wizards was tracking in the correct direction with these more 'playable' cards.  They would have been better served by having these promo tokens as an adjunct for other stand-alone products to entice purchase.

Other than this incredible loss of inventive to attend Friday Night Magic, we want to mention the change to Game Day.  This event has now been replaced with a 'Store Championship' event which is to take place later than the typical 4 weeks after a set's release.  It is now planned to be a "climax of the season's competitive Magic narrative"

With this event's inaugural run planned for December 30–31, to coincide with Rivals of Ixalan, the prize support here appears great - store champion playmat, exclusive deck boxes for the top 8, and foil full-art promo cards  from Rivals.  The issue really is, just how many players will be available to attend at the most packed week in most people's calendars - year end holidays have a multitude of social engagements which provides little to no time to take even a day out of their schedule. 

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Tuesday MTG Miscellany

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Here in Canada, we celebrated Victoria Day (named for Queen Victoria's birthday), also known as the May Long Weekend.  In some circles referred to as the May 2-4 weekend as it the holiday Monday was first celebrated on the 24th of May, and beer is conveniently packaged in a box of 24 bottles.  This of course means that staff at MTG Realm were nowhere near a computer but out the bakcyards / parks with BBQs and beverages.  To this end, we need today to catch up with some Magic: the Gathering news, so strap in and let's go.

There were a number of large tournaments over the weekend (including 'Game Day') for standard format players, which affords us a look at how the game is evolving after the release of the latest set, Amonkhet.

Closest to us was Gran Prix Montreal, where fellow Canadians and those further afield came together to decide the best player and best decklist.  out of 850 players on day one, 276 moved on to day two.  As expected, the most popular decks going forward into day two were (in order of popluarity) Temur Marvel, Mardu Vehicles, Mono-black Zobies, along with a showing of Black-Green aggro and Blue-Red control lists.

Grand Prix Saniago held concurrently with the one in Montreal over the weekend, had rather similar showings in popular decklists.  For the full details on each of the tournament results, pop on over the Wizards of the Coast Events Coverage Page linked here.

For Amonkhet Game Day, MTG Realm member 'CopySix' took a Red-White Humans decklist, featuring :
• Bloodlust Inciter
• Thraben Inspector
• Glory-Bound Initiate
• Honored Crop-Captain
• Thalia's Lieutenant
• Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• Hanweir Garrison

Unfortunately this list did not get to Top 8 at the Game Day event at our local gaming store OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario.  What caught our attention was the single decklist of Red-Green Energy at Grand Prix Santiago, played by Ignacio Saez, who took 6th Place.  This list has inspired us to dust off our old, and rather fun to play Red Green Energy deck and update it, for a spin at FNM.  

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Finally, We have an update to report for upcoming FNM promos, posted yesterday by WotC content manager for DailyMTG.com, Blake Rasmussen.  FNM promos (also Friday Night Magic promotional cards) are foil promotional cards provided by Wizards of the Coast as additional prizes at Friday Night Magic events.

2017

January - Noose Constrictor, illustrated by Kev Walker

February - Fortune's Favor, illustrated by Grzegorz Rutkowski

March - Incendiary Flow, illustrated by Slawomir Maniak

April - Servo Exhibition, illustrated by Vincent Proce

May - Unlicensed Disintegration, illustrated by Florian de Gesincourt

June - Aether Hub, illustrated by  Jonas De Ro

July - Reverse Engineer, illustrated by Jason Kang

August - Renegade Rallier, illustrated by David Palumbo

September - Fatal Push, illustrated by Alex Konstad 

The Fatal Push FNM promo has us very pleased and excited.

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Magic Story Wednesday

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Before we get into today's post on MTG Realm, we have a few notes of interest for you -

Amonkhet Game Day

Amonkhet Game Day is this weekend ! Battle at your local gaming store (MTG Realm will be at OMG Games, here in Barrie, Ontario), and you could score a great Ultra PRO playmat, top eight promo of Glorybringer, and the participation promo of Trueheart Duelist.  Pop on over to this link on the WotC mothersite for more info -

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Hélène Bergeot

We are rather sad to hear that Hélène Bergeot, Wizards of the Coast vetran of some 21 years is leaving Wotc.  She leaves her post as Director of Global Organized Play Wizards of the Coast.  The very best wishes to her in whatever ever she does next.  Perhaps she is escaping that inept President the Americans had elected in favour of Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron, whom we believe might just lead France (hopefully after Parliamentary elections) be ushering in a new golden age for France.

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Fans of Magic: the Gathering have found this little nugget in the US Trademark Electronic Search System -

The Fall set, 'Ixalan' releases on or about September 29, 2017.  This set name, along with 'Iconic Masters' was the last information received.  It now appears that the second set in Ixalan block is to be Rivals Of Ixalan.

Magic: The Gathering's 25th Anniversary is upcoming and is expected to have celebrations take place concurrently with HASCON, the first stand-alone Hasbro convention this September.  We suspect that there may be some promotional products and logos with this this MTG '25' on the Planeswalker symbol.

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MAGIC STORY

Today's story "JUDGMENT", by Doug Beyer and Alison Luhrs was a great read.  We are happy to say better than the story last week, which unfortunately did not get passed to an Editor prior to publish. 

This is the last story in the Amonkhet set and will pick up again on June 7th, 2017 before release of the Hour of Devastation on July 14th, 2017.  MTG Realm has heard that next Wednesday, there will be a Question and Answer podcast, with the week after featuring a Commander Anothology story - which we are completely hyped for.

Anywhoos, on to today's story - SPOILERS AHEAD !

Story focus is on Samut, who having escaped the Viziers, fails to convince her Djeru that all is not as it seems, and in fact, quite a lie.  Djeru is a dick and does not listen.  Samut pleads to the god Hazoret to intervene and save Djeru from the inevitability of the last Trial.  Hazoret, being hacked, along with the other four remaining gods has Samut imprisoned ('sarcophagus' time-out?).  

Those idiot Planeswalkers calling themselves the Gatewatch manage to free her, and promptly get caught.  They all come to in the arena where the final trial (Trial of Zeal) takes place and find themselves fitted with a cartouche which controls them and more importantly restricts their particular magic.  

Gideon 'Meat Slab', has a moment in the ensuing battle which has us contemplating a Hero's Downfall reprint.  The sky grows darker at the close of the story with the impending return of the God-Pharoah and 'The Hours' begin, which feels like more of a countdown to total devastation of the Plane - Thanks Obama !

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MTG Tumblr Thursday

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Today's post to the MTG Realm blog is an assortment of a whole lot of different things - but certainly still on topic - Magic: the Gathering.  Hold on to your teeth as we take off.

First up -  Magic: the Gathering - Minecraft Skins

Hey there - do you like Minecraft AND MTG ??  If so, then pop on over to today’s announcement on the Minecraft mothersite linked here.  Minecraft Skin Artisit Sarah Kisor has crafted-up some of the most popular Magic: the Gathering Planeswalkers and Legendary Creatures and has produced some pixelacious skins.  The Magic the Gathering skin pack is available for Pocket and Windows 10 Edition.

Next - Wizards of the Coast has finally updated that Planes of Existence page to include our new Plane - Amonkhet.  

Summaries provided for:
• Amonkhet Plane Overview
• Legendary Creatures
• Cities
• Creatures, and
• Planeswalker Visitors

Next - MTG Pro Luis Scott Vargas has completed the full Constructed Set Review for Amonkhet over on Channel Fireball.  Pop on over and get to brewing !  Please do read LSV's review in full, but for the TL/DR crowd, here are the Top 10 Constructed Cards from Amokhet are -
 

10. Nissa, Steward of Elements
9. Magma Spray
8. Censor
7. Commit // Memory
6. Gideon of the Trials
5. Cut // Ribbons
4. Liliana, Death’s Majesty
3. Never // Return
2. Cast Out
. . . . - and -
1. Glorybringer

Finally, we want to wish our good Friend, and fellow Magic: the Gathering Fan Matty a belated Birthday (celebrated just last week) .  He had a most wonderful MTG themed cake -

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Monday Miscellany 4-24

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

The big news out today everyone had been anticipated and now talking up a storm about is the Banned and Restricted Update.  You can have a looky-loo at it over here.  Not to spoil anything, but here is a relevant picture -

Legacy:  Sensei's Divining Top is banned.
and
Vintage:  Gitaxian Probe and Gush is restricted.

Anywhoos, as we do not play Legacy or Vintage, this subject is not our forté.  We do know enough that the Miracles decklist in Legacy just took a direct hit, but what we are curious about is why the reprint of Counterbalance (another integral piece of this list) in Amonkhet's Invocations ?

Righto - onto our fav format - standard constructed.  Firstly, bans in standard is a rather tricky piece of work, and would be generally discouraged.  Having said that, we should note that there have been essentially two top decks since the last banned and restricted update - that of Mardu Vehcles and the Saheeli combo.  There may be answers, existing and new (and perhaps somewhat poor) for the Vehicles list, but not very much for the Saheeli combo.  Playing against this is honestly quite 'un-fun'.  We've talked to quite a few Magic: the Gathering players (email, on-line, and in-person) and most have indicated that standard constructed is taking a hit for attendance at their local game stores.  Stores who are running a Modern or Commander event during Friday Night Magic are seeing these standard players now come back in to play that format.
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Moving on to last weekend's Amonkhet PreRelease, which we attended at OMG Games, in Barrie, Ontario.

We did not pull anything very special and attempted a Blue / White 'good stuff' thing which did not do very well at all.  Guess you can't win 'em all.

Rares Pulled :
• Regal Caracal
• Bounty of the Luxa
• Cruel Reality
• Oracle’s Vault
• Vizier of Many Faces
• Glyph Keeper 
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Iconic Masters and More

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

There is a number of news-worthy Magic: the Gathering items to cover off today here on MTG Realm, so without further ruction, let's get to it.

PRO TOUR AMONKHET

Wizards of the Coast staffer Mike Rosenberg has some news for you over here on Pro Tour Amonkhet, with the following event dates / venues to note -

May 5–7: Grand Prix Beijing, Bologna, and Richmond
May 19–21: Grand Prix Santiago and Montreal

Lovely event-exclusive playmats are up for grabs featuring the art from Glory-Bound Initiate, Bloodrage Brawler, and Hazoret the Fervent.

ICONIC MASTERS

Just announced today on the mothersite.

Iconic Masters offers players a tour through some of the most powerful cards in over 23 years of Magic history. 

Featuring new artwork on many cards, the set brings an array of massive Angels, Sphinxes, Demons, Dragons, and Hydras alongside some of our favorite and most memorable spells. Every box of Iconic Masters contains 24 booster packs—each with fifteen randomly inserted game cards, including one premium card in every pack. Get your friends together to embark on one of the most iconic and power-packed Draft experiences yet!

Set Name: Iconic Masters
Number of Cards: 249
Release Date: November 17, 2017
Magic Online On Sale Date: November 17, 2017
Official Three-Letter Code: IMA
Twitter Hashtag:#MTGIMA
Languages Available: English, Chinese Simplified, Japanese
MSRP: $9.99 *Applies to U.S. Only
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HASCON

Hasbro's first-ever convention 'HASCON' is scheduled for September 8–10 to Providence, Rhode Island and as Magic: the Gathering is celebrating its 25th Anniversary, there is to be a number of MTG events, panels, play experiences planned. Of note, there is to be a showcasing Magic's next fall set Ixalan, including a Prerelease event for Iconic Masters.

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MAGIC STORY

From yesterday's Magic Story post titled 'SERVANTS', by Kelly Digges.  If you had missed it, please pop over to the link provided here before reading further.

EPISODE 4 - Liliana knew that dragon-slaying was only part of the reason she came to Amonkhet… She has a demon to deal with first.

In yesterday's story, Liliana is the central character.  We learn further of Lily's real motivation to travel to Amonkhet.  Not so much to help fellow members of the Gatewate Planeswalkers in taking down Nicol Bolas (and minion #1 Tezzeret), but to find and eliminate the demon Razaketh, who is one of four of her creditors.

There is yet another interaction with Liliana and the mysterious 'Raven Man', whom we learn may have control over the cursed Chain Veil in this revelation -
"Didn't I take command of the Chain Veil to blast you out of that wurm's belly when you arrived here?"

A review of the MTG fan forums following the MTG story line here demonstrate that it is not just us that is starting to suspect that the enigmatic Raven Man may prove yet to be a manifestation of the evil scheming Elder Dragon himself who is manipulating events through Liliana.

Liliana, accompanied by Jace investigate the mummy factory vault where the 'Annointed' are prepared for their post-mortem eternal servitude.  We discover that Razaketh appears to be the gatekeeper to the afterlife.  Things go sideways real quick with a confrontation with Temmet, and a room-full of the recently embalmed dead initiates who appear to be control by the cartouches. 


Another great story !
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