Commander 2019 Previews

~
Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Yesterday at GenCon 2019, Wizards of the Coast held it's first of several panels / events.  Panelists Gavin Verhey, Scott Larabee, Mike Turian and Ethan Fleischer provided the first reveals of Commander 2019.

Each pre-constructed Commander deck has a returning keyword ability as it's main theme. The four featured abilities are populate, flashback, morph, and madness.

FACELESS MENACE - Morph (Black / Green / Blue) :
• Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer
• Kadena’s Silencer

MYSTIC INTELLIGENCE - Flashback (Blue / Red / White) :
• Sevinne, the Chronoclasm
• Sevinne’s Reclamation

MERCILESS RAGE - Madness (Red / Black) :
• Anje Falkenrath
• Anje’s Ravager

PRIMAL GENESIS - Populate (Red / Green / White) :
Ghired, Conclave Exile and signature spell Ghired’s Belligerence
 
The Card Image Gallery being posted and updated on Monday 5 August, 2019. The Commander series returns with four brand new ready-to-play decks for Magic’s most popular multiplayer format. 

This Magic: the Gathering fan blog does not get updated - please visit MTG Realm on Tumblr for the latest Magic: the Gathering news and previews.

Also of note - Ultra PRO is offering a full range of gaming accessories featuring all the very lovely looking Commander arts.

~

War of the Spark Spoilers

~ 
Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

Wizards of the Coast held the much anticipated War of the Spark Panel at PAX East today and delivered a set trailer as well as a number of previews.  Panelists included creative lead Doug Beyer, set design lead Dave Humpherys, and art director Taylor Ingvarsson, Magic: the Gathering Professional Player Brad Nelson.  The Panel was hosted by Jimmy Wong of Game Knights and the Command Zone.

For up-to-date previews, pop on over to http://mtg-realm.tumblr.com/

  
War of the Spark Mechanics

War of the Spark releases on May 3, 2019.  The main theme of the set is planeswalkers and cards that interact with them.  The set features 36 planeswalkers and ach booster pack contains a planeswalker card.  All planeswalkers are new cards never printed before cards.

Proliferate, originally from the Scars of Mirrodin block returns to Standard format. When a player proliferates, he or she chooses any number of players and / or permanents with a counter on them, then puts another of those counters on these players or permanents. However, it now has now been modified from choosing a type of counter already present and adding one counter of that type, to adding one counter of each type already present.

Affinity, last seen in the Mirrodin block, appears only on Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. It reduces the mana cost of a spell by the number of permanents of a certain type that player controls (typically artifacts).

New mechanic - Amass. "Amass N" means put N +1/+1 counters on an Army creature you control. If you don't control one, create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token first.  Army becomes a new addition to creature types. 

PREVIEWS

Here is the text list of reveals :

Ajani, the Greathearted
Ajani's Pridemate
Augur of Bolas
Basic Land - Forest
Basic Land - Island
Basic Land - Mountain
Basic Land - Plains
Basic Land - Swamp
Bolas's Citadel
Dreadhorde Invasion
Emergence Zone
Flux Channeler
Herald of the Dreadhorde
Ignite the Beacon
Interplanar Beacon
Invade the City
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
No Escape
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted
Ob Nixilis's Cruelty
Ravnica at War
Relentless Advance
Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge
Tibalt, Rakish instigator
Tibalt's Rager
Time Wipe
Vraska, Swarm's Eminence
Vraska's Finisher
Widespread Brutality 

Ravnica Allegiance Previews 1-03

~
Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

There is a whack (wallop?) of new Magic: the Gathering previews out today from Wizards of the Coast as well as a number of other sources.  Here is a quick round-up of all the Ravnica Allegiance previews so far ::

Jaharg, Beefy Ogre Warrior (Bolrac-Clan Crusher), Thop-Thop (Depose // Deploy) are some of the uncommons.

• Ravager Wurm, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov
Griffin - Boom.  Utility Land - Boom.  This Riot Wurm bellows 'Fight Me!'.  Those flipped Ixalan lands now have a target on them, but will there be enough mana acceleration to drop this earlier than turn six in standard ?

• Skarrgan Hellkite, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov
We like the new GloryPinger here, with the nice Riot option of haste or +1/+1 counter as the particular gameplay dictates.  A lot of mythics are flashy but not necessarily easily adapted to standard, this may make the cut.

• Spawn of Mayhem, illustrated by Victor Adame Minguez
A 4/4 flying trample which could potentially get dropped on turn three seems pretty strong.  We could even nuke the board with a Ritual of Soot (<3 1="" a="" as="" be="" bit="" clock="" cmc="" every="" font="" for="" may="" nbsp="" of="" pings="" player="" point.="" spawn="" the="" there="">

• Teysa Karlov, illustrated by Magali Magali Villeneuve
The Orzhov card that we have been waiting for has finally been delivered !  Most definitely picking this up for Commander and am very excited to brew something for standard.  Hopefully there will be an easy sacrifice outlet to get an Aristocrats build off the ground.  Starting with Elenda, Doomed Dissenter and friends.

• Mass Manipulation, Illustrated by Anthony Palumbo

• Seraph of the Scales, Illustrated by Magali Villeneuve


• Amplifire, Illustrated by Dan Scott
~

Ravnica Allegiance Spoilers Jan. 2

~
Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

A Happy New Year to you as well.  Official Ravnica Allegiance previews are now under full steam today.  Here is a handy link to the Wizards of the Coast Card Image Gallery which will be updated each day.  For the first day of previews, here is what we have rounded up for you today - 

Shocklands
Five rare dual lands in guild colors, originally printed in the Ravnica: City of Guilds block. Each has the respective basic land types, and enters the battlefield tapped unless its controller pays 2 life.

Guildgates
Five common dual lands in guild colors, originally printed in the Return to Ravnica block. Each has the Gate subtype and enters the battlefield tapped. Each is printed twice in the set, with two different sets of art and flavor text. The first shows the guild's "main gate" and has flavor referring to its leader, whereas the second shows a "back door" and has flavor referencing to its lieutenant.

Lockets
Five common mana stones for {3}. each of which tap for either color mana of its corresponding guild, and can be sacrificed by tapping and paying four hybrid mana of the same colors to draw two cards.

• Dovin, Grand Arbiter, illustrated by Kieran Yanner

Many had suspected with the preview of Assassin's Trophy (Guilds of Ravnica) that there would be a shake-up.  Specifically suggesting that Vraska petrifies Isperia (Supreme Judge), with the possible insertion of a character loyal to Bolas.  Given the particular moral flexibility of Dovin from the previous story on Kaladesh, Dovin was practically a shoe-in.  Essentially we need a bunch of evasive creatures for Dovin to do any heavy lifting for us.  Not certain that this will make a big splash in standard, but should it, it will most likely be with tokens.  Do very much like the life-gain and thopter tokens including the potential jetting to Dovin's ultimate.

• Sphinx of Foresight, illustrated by Titus Lunter
A 4/4 flyer for 4 mana in blue is a good deal, so everything else that follows is pretty much honey.  The 'Leyline' effect is good, and if there is a standard tempo decklist for standard, this card will demand some consideration for inclusion.

• Hydroid Krasis, illustrated by Jason Felix
So Simic - 'All the Creature Types!'.  We very much appreciate the 'when you cast' trigger to be able to still get the life gain and draw those cards, even should this be countered.  We do not think there is anything (yet) in standard which may kill this while on the stack.  This very much feels like a Mythic Card.

• Deputy of Detention, illustrated by G-host Lee
The Wizard creature type may be relevant here, and best served spicy with perhaps Naban, Dean of Iteration to have that the enters the battlefield effect fire twice.  Also, this is a serious threat against token-based strategy decklists.  It is nice to have a Detention Sphere on legs, but one bolt could end the fun rapidly.

• "Biomancer's Pet" (translation?), illustrated by Izzy
Creature — Mutant, Rare
Activated abilities of creatures you control cost up to {2} less to activate. This effect can’t reduce the amount of mana an ability costs to activate to less than one mana.
Tap : Until end of turn, the next time target creature adapts, it adapts as if it had no +1/+1 counters on it.
2/2


Did you like the Rise of the Eldrazi Card 'Training Grounds' ?  Within that set, not so much, but this new card is set to be pretty damn good when paired with the new 'Adapt' mechanic looks solid.  Although this cannot reduce the activated abilities less than 1, there may be a good chance that this will see popular play in standard.  There may be seveeral Merfolk (G/U - like Shapers of Nature) cards in Ixalan Block, or perhaps hooked in with a third colour - example - white with Dominaria's Shalai, Voice of Plenty.

~

Guilds of Ravnica Spoilers Monday

~
Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Official Magic: the Gathering previews for Guilds of Ravnica are under way today with contributions from Wizards of the Coast as well as a host of other exclusive previews from content creators around the world.  If your local gaming store is like ours, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, then you would well know the excited anticipation from fans for another return to the Plane of Ravnica.  One item of note is the return of 'split cards', which your neck may or may not be a fan of . . .

We will summarise and rattle off all of today's new cards here collected from Wizards and around the web.  Just click to embiggen the below images.

The legendary Izzet guild leader is returned as Niv-Mizzet, Parun which looks great for card draw and fun pings.  That casting cost though may be better suited to the 'Devotion' mechanic.  Assassin's Trophy is simply off-the-hook crazy good - we want a full deck-set.

Dream Eater has no particular interest for us but moving to Izzet, Goblin Electromancer should be a welcome reprint.  We love the name Hypothesizzle and suspect WotC had design input from Snoop Dogg.  Split cards previewed included one for Boros 'Response // Resurgence' and one for Golgari 'Find // Finality'.  Each are great with solid spell effects on split number one and a decent effect on split number two when mana should be more plentiful later game.
~

Masters 25 Previews 3-27

~
Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Welcome to Day Two of official Masters 25 previews and to be quite frank, Wizards of the Coast delivered another round of rather exciting cards.  We're certain that each Magic: the Gathering player has a particular favourite that they would be ecstatic to pull from a pack, and our personal fav would be Rishadan Port so far in today's batch.  

There are a number of notes we would want to cover later such as changes in rarity, new card artwork, and perhaps changes in rarity, but we will hold off for now until the full set is previewed.  For now, please do official card image gallery (updated daily) right over at this link.  For this post, we will summarise the cards previewed so far today - let's get to this now.

Akroma's Vengeance
Armageddon
Ball Lightning
Bident of Thassa
Doomsday
Eladamri's Call
Ensnaring Bridge
Fierce Empath
Flash

Giant Growth
Kor Firewalker
Living Death
Living Wish
Magus of the Wheel
Protean Hulk
Rishadan Port
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Savannah Lions
Undead Gladiator
Vendilion Clique
Vindicate

Zombify

~

Rivals of Ixalan Previews

~
Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Rest In Peace 2017

2017 - 2017

 Secrets of the Golden City, illustrated by Jason Felix.  Showing a Siren Pirate, with an interesting and illuminated book.  Most likely about how to properly cook and serve egg dishes.

A very Happy New Year to you as well - wishing the best for you in 2018.  If 2017 was a burning dumpster fire for you, we hope things will turn around.  As promised to all the Magic: the Gathering fans worldwide, Wizards of the Coast dropped the very first batch of Rivals of Ixalan previews this morning.  Pop on over to the mothersite now to soak it all in and do check out the Mechanics post 'Ascend' linked right over here.  Explore, transform cards, Raid, Treasure and Enrage are all back and is joined by the new Ascend mechanic.

Also be certain to pop on over to TCG for a very awesome video linked here - Rivals of Ixalan Preview on the TCGplayer Cooking Network.

Here is the summary of cards so far today. 

• Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - Flying, double strike, vigilance, trample, indestructible is a lot of things to pack onto a creature, but given the mana cost, this is acceptable.

• Form of the Dinosaur - someone wrote 15 on a boomerang.

• Journey to Eternity // Atzal, Cave of Eternity - rather nice legendary enchantment to assist in graveyard recursion.

• Ghalta, Primal Hunger - already previewed.

• Tendershoot Dryad - best served with the City's Blessing.

• Kumera, Tyrant of Orazca - uncertain why he is considered a tyrant - seems ok to us.

• Enter the Unknown - decent explore with an extra land drop to accelerate mana.

• Swaggering Corsair - best paired with raid.

• Gleaming Barrie - gleaming treasure.

• Frilled Deathspitter - spits death.

• Secrets of the Golden City - the secret is card draw.

• Dusk Charger - a 5/5 if you have the City's Blessing.

~

Rivals of Ixalan Spoiler 12-31

~
Happy Sunday MTG peeps

It is the very last day of 2017, and we do have some Magic: the Gathering news for you.  Specifically some Rivals of Ixalan Spoilers.  Earlier today, we did talke some art spoilers on our MTG Realm Tumblr page, from The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Ixalan, posted by redditor CaptainKharn, but we don't want to get into that at the moment, we suggest you pre-order that book now over on Amazon.  What we do want you to see are the Rivals of Ixalan spoilers posted by redditor Lapsy_143, who had a total of four cards including the Angry Minotaur Dad planeswalker - 

Angrath, the Flame-Chained, 3BR
Legendary Planeswalker - Angrath, Mythic Rare
+1: Each opponent discards a card and loses 2 life.
-3: Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap it. It gains haste until end of turn. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step if it has converted mana cost 3 or less.
-8: Each opponent loses life equal to the number of cards in his or her graveyard.
[4]

Angrath seems OK, but perhaps not quite over the moon, which is alright with us.  The +1 is Blightning's younger sibling, and we think fans may have been happier with the full Blightning here given the casting cost.  That -3 is a decent Slave of Bolas text, but then adds the condition of having that critter you just stole to have a cmc of three or less for the sac effect.  That's decent but dang - this is a minus 3 change to the loyalty.  We won't address the minus 8 as Angrath would have left the stage by then.  The other three spoiers are as follows -

Atzocan Seer
River Darter
Thrashing Brontodon

~

Rivals of Ixalan 12-13

~
Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

From MaRo's Tumblr we now have it that the liklihood of a Merfolk Lord in Rivals of Ixalan is pretty much a done deal.  A word of caution to those Magic: that Gathering players about the so-called 'Lords' - this does not simply mean the final card will give a pump of power / toughness, but may be interpreted to be any creature to provide any benefits to creatures of the same type, or even more loosely, the player.  Rather excited about this as we have a blue / green standard Merfolk decklist we want to rock our FNM events after the release.  

We are also pretty much garuanteed, from the Planeswalker Decks revealed that we are to expect a Vraska variant as well as a debut of Angrath (the angry Minotaur dad) as a Planeswalker card, updating the legendary card in the previous Ixalan set.

Chris Rahn rocking this piece here

Anywhoos, We should do a bit of summary of Rivals of Ixalan, more for us than you the reader, to summarise all the recent Rivals of Ixalan spoilers and previews.  Wizards of the Coast posted the other day Rivals of Ixalan packaging images and promo cards to expect over the next while including some interesting Friday Night Magic tokens.  

Rivals of Ixalan Promotional Cards

Magic Open House: Full-art foil Silvergill Adept
Prerelease: a stamped card that can be any rare or mythic rare from the set.
Draft Weekend Launch promo: Brass's Bounty
Standard Showdown: foil land with art by Rebecca Guay
Magic League: foil Evolving Wilds
Store Championship: full-art foil Ghalta, Primal Hunger
Buy-a-Box: Captain's Hook

FNM promos:
1/1 {U} Merfolk token with Hexproof / {C} Treasure (River Heralds flavored)

City's Blessing marker // 0/1 Red Elemental with "At the beginning of youur upkeep, sacrifice this creature and return target card named Rekindling Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste until end of turn"

Starting January 1st when official previews begin for Rivals of Ixalan, we hope to front 'n' center, buried deep in the lore / vorthos and awesome new cards.  For now, here is a tantalizing look at Orazca deep within the jungle interior of Ixalan.

Tokens for MTG

~

Rivals of Ixalan Promos

~
Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

It is not immediately clear where these Rivals of Ixalan spoilers originate from, but whether it was Reddit / Imgur or Instagram, we do now have a fairly complete list of the promotional cards.  Here is that summary now.

Edit - Now updated with the official Wizards of the Coast article posted at this link.

Magic Open House: January 6–7, 2018
PROMO - Silvergill Adept

Prerelease: January 13–14, 2018
PROMO - random within each pre-release pack

Buy-A-Box Promo - Captain's Hook

Draft Weekend: January 20–21, 2018
PROMO- Brass's Bounty

Store Championship: April 7–8, 2018
PROMO - Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Friday Night Magic (FNM Promo token) February, 2018 - City's Blessing
Flavour text here 'Once you have ascended to the highest temple of Orazca, the power of the Immortal sun is yours to wield forever.'

Magic League participation promo
Evolving Wilds

Here are the new cards from today's spoiler -

Captain's Hook, (??)
Artifact - Equipment, Rare
Equipped creature gets +2/+0, has menace, and is a Pirate in addition to its other creature types.
Whenever Captain's Hook becomes unattached from a permanent, destroy that permanent.
Equip 1

Brass's Bounty, 6R
Sorcery, Rare
For each land you control, create a colorless Treasure artifact token with "Tap, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."
"Why squabble for trinkets when we could be living large of all this gold?" —Admiral Beckett Brass

Evolving Wilds
Land, Common

T, Sacrifice Evolving Wilds: Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.

~

Ixalan Xocolātl

~
Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Happy indeed as today marks the second Ixalan story posted to the mothersite.  We suggest that before you look at today's Magic: the Gathering Ixalan previews, pop on over (linked right here) and read the story "A Question of Confidence' by the R&D Narrative Team.  This may have been initially titled 'The Third Aspect of the Sun' however.

The teaser for the story today - Huatli is a Warrior-Poet of the Sun Empire. Her talent in combat and creativity know no bounds, but when faced with a frightening encounter and an even more astounding vision, she must overcome discomfort to live up to expectation.

Nothing further on this, but we will share this image of the Sun Empire's Emperor Apatzec shown being rather cross with the quality of a cup of Xocolātl.  This Aztec Chocolate beverage is the ancestor of today's Hot Coco, but had a set of cajones (chilies) and the bitter tears of a Toronto Maple Leafs fan - 

Anywhoos - 

Blake offered up an anticipated post of Ixalan tokens - and yes we're impressed with the great art again, and the clever linking of specific 'Treasure' token art to each tribe.  

Also of interest, Dan Barrett (@danisx0) WotC's Euro community staffer posted a FaceBook live stream as to what to expect for this weekend's Magic Open House event.  Our local gaming store, OMG! Games here in Barrie, is planning a great event to introduce new players to Magic: the Gathering.

Here is is quick round-up of all the new Ixalan previews out so far today.  

Brazen Buccaneers

Desperate Castaways

Dire Fleet Hoarder

Field of Ruin

Kinjalli's Caller

Lightning-Rig Crew

Raiders' Wake

Rigging Runner

Ruthless Knave

Skulduggery

Tilonalli's Knight

~

Ixalan Spoilers Monday

~
Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Unfortunately, not so happy for some, either recovering from Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, or marking the 16th Anniversary of the tragic terror attack.  Enough of that for now though as you are here for Magic: the Gathering news, spoilers, etc.  Anywhoos, since brevity is the soul of wit, let me wear briefs.

There is still some much Magic: the Gathering material to go through from the recent HASCON 2017 event.  One big piece of news is that they were drafting Iconic Masters over the weekend, and OH MY, does this look fun.  For the full list of all Iconic Masters cards coming out in November, pop on over to this link for the Iconic Masters Card Image Gallery.

Also of note, at HASCON 2017, the folks at Ultra PRO Gaming previewed a very lovely looking 'Relic Tokens', soon to be perhaps our favourite MTG gaming accessory.  The product release date is yet unknownm, but here is some info on this -

• 15 Collectible tokens in the set
• Dual dials to track Token Power & Toughness or other game mechanics (Loyalty, Energy, Poison, etc.)
• Pack of 3 Relic Tokens for an MSRP ~ $ 5.00
• Premium-Foil versions randomly inserted
Relic Tokens available - Dragon, Angel, Soldier, Beast, Goblin, Drake, Zombie, Cat, Snake, Insect, Wurm, Spirit, Tarmogoyf, Nicol Bolas, Gideon.

Next up - 
Lets get into some exciting Ixalan spoilers / previews.  As double-faced cards are the best vessel for a set's flavour / storyline, here are two of them now - 

Legion's Landing, W
Legendary Enchantment, Rare
When Legion's Landing enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Vampire creature token with lifelink.
When you attack with three or more creatures, transform Legion's Landing.
"I claim this land in the name of the queen." —Adrian Adanto of Lujio
//
Adanto, the First Fort
Legendary Land
(Transforms from Legion's Landing.)
T: Add W to your mana pool.
2W, T: Create a 1/1 white Vampire creature token with lifelink.
Illustrated by Svetlin Velinov

Dowsing Dagger, 2
Artifact - Equipment, Rare
When Dowsing Dagger enters the battlefield, target opponent creates two 0/2 green Plant creature tokens with defender.
Equipped creature gets +2/+1.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, you may transform Dowsing Dagger.
Equip 2
//
Lost Vale
Land
(Transforms from Dowsing Dagger.)
Tap: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool.
The pirates had ventured into the interior for treasure. They found something far greater.
illus. Florian de Gesincourt

Other Ixalan previews out today include -
Snapping Sailback
Spell Swindle
Terror of the Skies

Trove of Temptation

~