MTGO Vintage Masters

~
Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Way, way back in October of last year, WotC had announced on the mothersite, a new product for Magic Online gamers.  Magic: the Gathering players who have a hankering to get into Vintage format with a Magic Online account now have an opportunity with Vintage Masters.  This is a Magic Online-only reprint set that will be released on June 16, 2014 to help support the Vintage format.

Vintage Masters is to include the famous Power Nine cards (Black Lotus, the five Moxen, Timetwister, Time Walk and Ancestral Recall) as well as a number of new cards from the Conspiracy set.  In total there will be 325 cards with the following rarity:

• 9 specials
• 30 mythic rares
• 105 rares
• 80 uncommons
• 101 commons

Similar to regular 'paper' booster packs, each Vintage Masters booster pack will contain 15 randomly selected cards of 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or mythic rare and 1 card that is either one of the Power Nine or a premium foil version of any card in the set (including the Power Nine).  In today's Magic Arcana, TrickMTG noted that the rarity of a Power Nine card is to be about once in 53 packs. A specific Power Nine card is about twice as rare as a specific mythic rare.  To allay concerns, WotC indicates there is no plans at this time to introduce another card rarity in to regular cardboard print.

To view the new cards, check out the online gallery here which is to be updated as more Vintage Master cards are spoiled / previewed.  For online players, check out Cardhoarder’s MTGO Store which has you covered for all your MTGO needs including singles, sets, boosters, tickets, foils and more. Their Bots are Yesbot, Fastbot, Hotbot,  CardHoarder.bot, cardhoarder.bot2 and CardShop - and - if this set has you yearning to revisit Magic history, drop by MTG Mint Card.
~

Alternate Moxen

~

So - it was interesting that only on Monday this week we saw the Arcana post at Wizards on the very beautiful looking alternate art mox that was done by Volkan Baga AND then we hear (not confirmed just yet) rumours that Ultra-Pro is planning to run a contest to promote a limited print run of deck boxes / card sleeves featuring afore-mentioned alternate art.

Here is the skinny from ManaNation :

This promotion is similar to the Magic 15th Anniversary/Power 9 promotion which was very successful worldwide!
NOTE: This will be a LIMITED production run. If you do not order, you might not get any.
Expect Allocations.
At this time we are only allowed to show 4 out of the 6 images.
The Mox Diamond will be the Deck Protector (not shown).

* 4-color printed with Gold hotstamp foil Deckbox featuring specially commissioned art of the Original 5 moxes!

* Includes 80 ct. Exclusive Regular Sized Horizontal Deck Protectors of the Mox Diamond art

* Details of the promotion inside each deckbox with up to 250 chances to win!

* LIMITED EDITION
* WORLDWIDE PROMOTION

* Prizes include the Grand Prize of the Black Lotus White Border card in NM/M condition + UltraPRO products + Limited Edition Numbered Mox Play Mat and other prizes such as the Mox Sapphire White Border (NM/M) card and Mox Jet White Border (NM/M) card, and more!

* Winners will be drawn on or around 2/1/11

No images of the Ultra-Pro products yet, so here are the alternate arts for the Moxes . . .

~

Well, we estimate the value of the Black Lotus to be around $600 or more, the Mox Jet around $400, and the Mox Sapphire to be around $500 or so. This makes the contest pretty much kick-butt in our opinion and we will feed ya more details as they become available.

~

Righto - so - if you are unaware as to what the mox are and why they are sooo expensive - here's some background . . .

In Magic: The Gathering, the Power Nine are nine rare cards found in the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets, and are widely considered to be the most powerful cards ever printed. In games where they are legal, they play an important role in the competitive tournament atmosphere.[1] However, they are only legal in Vintage in which they are restricted, meaning a deck may not contain more than one copy of the cards. Due to their power, these nine cards are considered "broken" (overwhelmingly powerful).
The Power Nine are:
Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Timetwister, and Time Walk .

~