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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