MTG Monday Miscellany

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Another post from MTG Realm on a wide variety of Magic: the Gathering news, so strap in and lets take a meandering walk through all of it.  Over the weekend, Milwaukee played host to the Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar tournament.  Everything I know about Milwaukee, I learned from Alice Cooper.  

One interesting piece of news during the weekend's coverage was the announcement of the Regional Pro Tour Qualifier promo card.  A Snapcaster Mage reprint ! ! Players are certainly very happy to see a reprinting of this powerful iconic blue spell but it seems that the majority of gamers are unhappy with the card illustration from artist Joseph Meehan.  In Meehan's decfence, the art is good, but it seems that WotC had some left-over art from Theros showing what appears to be a red mage they had simply re-purposed resulting in a card where there is a disconnect between the art and the spell's effect.

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Speaking of art, this is what 150 artist proofs of Expeditions looks like.  The image posted showing Steam Vents, Overgrown Tomb, Breeding Pool, Godless Shrine and Sacred Foundry, the truly beautiful card arts showcase the talent of by Noah Bradley.  The estimated retail value of this entire collection is more than we can assess using all of our fingers and toes.

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You may recall an earlier post here on MTG Realm for the very first Commander 2015 spoiler.  It appears that there may now be another one.  According to a post by Malev0, someone had opened up a small set of Battle for Zendikar booster packs containing English, German, Spanish and Japanese language versions of Eternal Witness.  Great reprint, and if true, hints that this may be included in a Black / Green enemy colour pair decklist.

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Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar in Milwaukee gave us this list of Top 8 contenders in standard constructed with Japanese players Takimura (first place) and Tamada duking it out in the final match -

Owen Turtenwald (Jeskai Black)
Ricky Chin (GW Megamorph)
Paulo Vita Damo Da Rosa (Atarka Red)
Martin Muller (Jeskai Tokens)
Takimura Kazuyuki (Abzan)
Jon Finkel (Jeskai Black)
Ryoichi Tamada (Jeskai)
Paul Dean (Abzan)

Christian Calcano attracted attention for his Blue-Black Aristocrats deck built around Nantuko Husk and Zulaport Cutthroat which was relatively unique going in to day two.  You can check out the Deck Tech over here on the mothersite.  Here is the list compiled from MTG Goldfish -

Creature (32)
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Sidisi's Faithful
4 Sultai Emissary
4 Whirler Rogue
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Liliana, Heretical Healer

Instant (4)
4 Murderous Cut

Enchantment (1)
1 Vampiric Rites

Land (23)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Foundry of the Consuls
3 Sunken Hollow
8 Swamp
1 Island
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