MTG Miscellany

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As it is Friday, get thee out to a gamery shoppe this eve.  To find a WPN gaming store holding a Friday Night Magic event, pop on over to the Wizards Locator here.  We'll be taking a standard decklist featuring a number of new Fate Reforged Cards to OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario where we hope to achieve fame and glory.  Anywhoos, here on the MTG Realm blog today, we want to drop a bunch of miscellaneous Magic: the Gathering news, so strap in and let's go -

First up - the new standard format metagame with Fate Reforged.  We suggest you pop on over to MTG Goldfish where SaffronOlive has posted this article 'Week One: Fate Reforged By the Numbers'.  We also very much enjoy reading the summaries provided by Nick Vigabool over on Gathering Magic - see his latest 'Standard Snapshot' over here.  In the most general terms, the game continues to look very healthy in the first week after the new set release with a diverse number of decklists.  You can check out the great coverage at the recent StarCityGames Open Series, Washington DC from last weekend over here.

Next - some sad news from Wizards of the Coast.  It appears that a number of staffers had been let go, most involved with Dungeons & Dragons.  Of particular note still unconfirmed are Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Chris Sims, and Torah Cottrill.  We want to pass along best wishes to all affected.

Lastly, a bit about the 'Tiny Leaders' format - an offshoot of Commander (Elder Dragon Highlander).  This is a singleton format with a legendary creature acting as the general / commander not unlike Commander but with some interesting twists - decklists are 50 cards with a 10-card sideboard, you start at 25 life and every card in your stack must have a converted-mana-cost (cmc) of not greater than three.  We will definitely want to try this out.  This format was created and developed by fellow Canadians Steven Hamonic and Bramwell Tackaberry out in Winnipeg, Manitoba where popularity quickly spread.  The creators have since filed trademark protection.  Read all about this very cool game over on the Facebook Page here.
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Monday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

If you are a Magic: the Gathering fan, chances are you likely made time to get to a local gaming store to take part in a Conspiracy draft.  Loads of great stories and epic pack pulls are sprinkled across the interwebs.  For today's post we wanted to a round-up of a few interesting tid-bits over the last few days so strap in and let's go -

First up - 'Planeswalkers' 
Wizards had filed for this trademark back last weekend.  We do not expect a stand-alone set to shake out of this filing.  This may very well be simply some housekeeping for the digital games line.

Next - another M15 DotP video walk-through.
This one is rather nicely put together and not only shows some of the game play but also shows quite nicely some of the background story themes with the tainted Garruk Planeswalker, the player and Liliana shown with the cursed 'chain veil', an ancient and powerful artifact she had retrieved from an ancient catacomb.  New cards 'Chasm Stalker' and 'Goblin Rabblemaster' are also shown - we're looking to pre-order these up at MTG Mint Card.

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Lastly, some nostalgia for some older and less popular casual multiplayer variant Magic: the Gathering formats.  Xenphire from the forums had provided these pics of a rules insert from 1999. 

 

The Emperor variant involves two teams of three players each. Each team sits together on one side of the table, with team members deciding the order in which they're seated. Each team has one "emperor," which is the player seated in the middle of the team. The remaining players on the team are "generals" whose job is to protect their emperor while attempting to take down the opposing emperor.

The Grand Melee format is normally used only in games begun with ten or more players.  Players sit around the table exactly as they would for a Free-for-All game, choosing their seats randomly. Unlike that variant, however, each player has a "range of influence" of 1. This means their spells and abilities can affect only themselves and players within one seat of their own: the player directly to the left and the player directly to the right.
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MTG Primordial Hunger

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Here in our particular region of Canada-Land, there is still no lasting snow cover although we are expected to get hit with some this weekend.  Christmas is next week, so ensure you get out to your local gaming store for presents / stocking stuffers and revel in a n3rdy holiday.  Last weekend, we swung by our fav gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie (just a titch north of Toronto), and picked up yet another Planechase 2012 product.  Our previous purchase was the green / white 'Savage Auras' build which we liked so much, we incorporated most of the cards into an EDH / Commander deck with Krond the Dawn-Clad as our General.  This time, we scored the Primordial Hunger pack which was designed around revisiting the keyword Devour. We rather enjoyed this particular tech when we first saw it in the Shards of Alara set and had many an epic Magic: the Gathering game with Mycoloth and friends.

Anywhoos - here's the video round-up of the red / green Primordial Hunger which in our mind is somewhat apropos as it shares two traditional Christmas colours as well as that holiday 'devour' theme.
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Here's that decklist -
Creatures (25): 2x Tukatongue Thallid, 2x Brindle Shoat*, Nest Invader, 2x Viridian Emissary, Wall of Blossoms, Hissing Iguanar, 2x Mudbutton Torchrunner, 2x Thunder-Thrash Elder, Gluttonous Slime, Nullmage Advocate, Thron-Thrash Viashino, 2x Beetleback Chief*, Penumbra Spider, Hellkite Hatchling, Mitotic Slime, Mycoloth, Thromok the Insatiable*, Preyseizer Dragon*, Dragonlair Spider*

Other Spells (11): 2x Flayer Husk, Fractured Powerstone*, Fiery Conclusion, Fling, Mark of Mutiny, Awakening Zone, Fire of Yavimaya, Overrun, Hellion Eruption, Warstorm Surge

Lands (24): 2x Gruul Turf, 2x Kazandu Refuge, Khalni Garden, Skarrg, the Rage Pits, Terramorphic Expanse, 11 Forest, 6 Mountain

Planes (8): Furnace Layer, Jund, Kilnspire District, Lair of the Ashen Idol, Orochi Colongy, Prahv, Selesnya Loft Gardens, Stensia

Phenomena (2): Reality Shaping, Spatial Merging
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With the "Primordial Hunger" deck, your early threats become delicious snacks for your giant creatures, making them even more fearsome. Just when opponents think you're trying to swarm them, you'll summon a game-ending predator instead.

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The Planechase decks have brand-new eternal-legal cards, including a cycle of multi-color legendary creatures which is pretty damn awesome if you are looking to construct an EDH / Commander stack. Overall there will be 21 new cards in the set, with 6 appearing in each deck in different quantities.  Each box contains 10 over-sized cards (8 plane, 2 phenomena), a 60 card Magic deck, and a planar die, with an MRSP of about $20.  If you are looking for singles in this build, check out MTG Mint Card.
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MTG Archenemy

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Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

For today's post we are stretching waaay waaay back into time.  More specifically, the summer of 2010 when Wizards of the Coast had released a rather unique twist on Magic: the Gathering - Archenemy.

Last weekend, we swung by our fav gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie (just a titch north of Toronto), and finally took the plunge and got an Archenemy game pack.  Archenemy is actually a set of four "game packs", each consisting of 20 oversized 'scheme' cards and a 60-card deck. It was released on June 18, 2010 with an MRSP of $20.  Even though its been two years, if you're lucky, you can still acquire Archenemy packs at your local gaming store.  You can customize the pre-constructed deck easily and we will likely grab a few cards from MTG Mint Card to tweak to flavor.

Anywhoos - here's a brief video . . . 
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You can check out the mothersite for game rules and the other games packs HERE.  Here's the full list of all the Archenemy game packs - 

• Assemble the Doomsday Machine (white / blue / black)
• Trample Civilization Underfoot (white / green)
• Scorch the World with Dragonfire (red / green)
• Bring About the Undead Apocalypse (black / red)

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Master and Commander

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Nope, this is not an article about Russell Crowe's latest cinematic excellence aboard some British naval frigate battling in the Napoleonic Wars. This article has to do with Sheldon Menery, the Master of Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH), or as some call it, Commander.

Recently, Sheldon (a Magic the Gathering Level 5 DCI judge and Pro-Tour veteran) had something of interest he wrote on his Facebook page; "if you love EDH, tune into magicthegathering.com on 2 December for an exciting announcement." Oddly enough, Wizards of the Coast, through their corporate lawyer filed trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the 18th October. The trademark was for "Magic: the Gathering - Commander".

Popular belief in many of the various MTG rumour mills indicate some product development by Wizards to deliver to market a multi-player singleton. This seems the most plausible conclusion - EDH / Commander has already been pulled into MTG Comprehensive Rules and certainly is one of the most popular non-sanctioned MTG varient. Perhaps we can expect some pre-constructed (pre-cons) hitting a brick 'n' mortar games store near you in the new year, perhaps sometime after Mirrodin Besieged is released. Having just said that, we do recognise that there may be quite a few hard-core EDH players out there not happy with the news that WoTC is paying attention to this game format - please pipe in so we can hear your opinion. Anywhoos, we think that if Sheldon is excited about this, then we should be too, not that we are Sheeple, but in Sheldon we trust.


Righto - in other news, another new Magic Trademarks had surfaced . . .

WoTC on the same date they filed MTG - Commander with U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, also filed "Duel Decks: Ajani vs Nicol Bolas". This sounds like a very interesting duel deck which we should expect sometime latter next year. Whatever the final decklist is to be, we do hope that not only will both decks be on equal power footing with eachother (Wizards usually does a rather decent job at this) but we also hope that the money cards (bombtastic rares) will be evenly distributed between both these decks. What do you folks foresee as possible inclusion in the (approximately 6) rare slots here ?














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Briefly, here is the low-down on EDH / Commander at-a-glance rules . . .

Commander, sometimes called “Elder Dragon Highlander,” starts with the rules for multiplayer Free-for-All games, in which any number of players compete against each other as individuals. It’s played with the Singleton format (in other words, except for basic lands, each card in your deck must have a different name), and each player starts with a life total of 40 rather than the usual 20.

Most importantly, the centerpiece of each deck is a legendary creature that serves as that deck’s commander. To build a deck, you first choose a legendary creature, called a “commander” or “general,” then construct a Singleton deck around it containing exactly 99 other cards.

Only cards of the commander’s color(s) and colorless cards may be included in the deck. (Note that split cards and hybrid cards count as all of their colors.) In fact, if a card contains a mana symbol anywhere on it that’s not one of your commander’s colors, you can’t include it in that deck! Within the game, if you would add mana to your mana pool that’s a color not shared by your commander, you get colorless mana instead.
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Building An EDH

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EDH ? You may have heard of it - this is an acronym for 'Elder Dragon Highlander', a fun singleton constructed format meant for multi-player games, but can also be played head to head. We became interested in this format (just a week or so ago) because we are all about casual magic play and we also happened to have a bunch of older cards on hand collecting dust. The beauty of this game is the vast range of choices one has - more specifically, thousands of choices. The other great thing about EDH is that one does not need to collect expensive deck sets - just 'one-offs' which may be easily done ever time you open up a booster pack or peruse the dollar-rare bin at your MTG store.

We had scraped together a very simple deck (which, with your assistance we will improve) and had our very first game just yesterday. We were, of course, slaughtered BUT, not only did we have fun, we deeply appreciated the other players were very helpful in teaching us how to play and provide some tips to us. Before we show you what EDH deck we pulled together for our very first game, here is a brief summary of how to play this game.


An EDH deck must have a legendary creature as it's "general," and can be built using only colorless cards or cards of the general's colors. Note that split and hybrid cards count as both colors for deck construction purposes, and spells with off-color activated abilities cannot be played unless the off-color activated abilities are the general's color. Any card which generates multiple colors of mana cannot generate mana outside the colors of it's general. If a card would generate mana outside it's general's colors, it generates colorless mana instead. Players may choose any legendary creature (there is over 300 choices for you) as their general. The general is placed face-up in the command zone before mulligans are declared.


An EDH deck must contain exactly 100 cards, general included, typically with no sideboards. The cards may consist of Vintage legal cards and with the exception of basic lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same English name. There is a suggested 'banned list' which may be found on www.dragonhighlander.net and your local club may have other cards which may be prohibited to play. Just use Wizards Gatherer card database to seek out the best cards for inclusion in your deck.


EDH gameplay is like normal Magic in most ways, but it varies in a few key aspects. For example, both players start with 40 life instead of the usual 20. This leds to longer games, but they are still quite fun and interactive for both players. Due to the large deck size, players are allowed one "free" mulligan to compensate for any draws your deck may have given you. Your general starts in the 'command zone' - a place legally removed from the game. Anytime you could normally play a creature, you may play your General from the Romved-from-game zone by paying its mana cost. If a general would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead. Every time your general is played again increases its cost by 2 colourless mana. A player dealt 21 combat damage by a single general loses the game.

Some references for you to read further -
http://forum.dragonhighlander.net/EDH_Forum
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=377

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Here is our premier deck which we hope, with your help, to improve. As mentioned before, there are a lot of choices to be had and we expect this deck will be forever changing as we tweak it or come across awesome cards to include . . .

As you can see, we went very simple with our first deck and developed an mono-white soldier build:

Darien, King of Kjeldor (General), Trusty Machete, Akrasan Squire, Goldmeadow Harrier, Soul Warden, Cenn's Tactician, Elite Vanguard, Coordinated Barrage, Piety Charm, Unified Strike, Brave the Elements, Harm's Way, Path to Exile, Dolmen Gate, Veteran's Armaments, Aven Squire, Ballyrush Banneret, Kazandu Blademaster, Kor Aeronaut, Honor of the Pure, Militia's Pride, Shared Triumph, Pacifism, Weight of Conscience, Temporal Isolation, Journey to Nowhere, Pollen Lullaby, Redeem the Lost, Whispersilk Cloak, Kithkin Zephyrnaut, Veteran Swordsmith, Field Marshal, Intrepid Hero, Premeninet Captain, Oblivion Ring, Mobilization, Prison Term, Oblation, Door of Destinies, Deathrender, Sword of the Paruns, Loxodon Gatekeeper, Benalish Commander, Daru Warchief, Rhox Pikemaster, Enlistment Officer, Kithkin Rabble, Taj-Nar Swordsmith, Armored Asension, Ajani Goldmane, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Resurrection, Catapult Master, Cloudgoat Ranger, Conqueror's Pledge, Captain of the Watch, Crovax, Ascendant Hero, Knight-Captain of Eos, WindbrisK Raptor, Mass Calcify, Martial Coup,
Lands : Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Daru Encampment, Forbidding Watchtower, 36 PLAINS.

Your turn now - if you play EDH or know the older Magic cards, help us out and drop some suggestions in the comments. We will develop a video sometime hopefully before the official Worldwake previews / spoilers get under way to showcase some of the potential improvements.

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