OGW PreRelease

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

As of Friday, last week, the entire Oath of the Gatewatch set has now been previewed and may be viewed over on the mothersite's Card Image Gallery (linked here).   We spent any free time we had over the weekend going through the new cards to evaluate just what we wanted to pick up for Standard and Commander, as well as what to look to build with in our PreRelease pool. 

To get the when / when / what of PreRelease, ask at your local gaming store or pop on over to this page over on the mothersite.  Our only advice for you on the PreRelease for this post is to realise that there are a number of really solid cards which may be very suitable to build around / incorporate in your decklist.  As most of your pool will be commons and uncommons, look for creatures with evasion such as Makindi Aeronaut (a 1/3 flyer for 1W) or perhaps Goblin Freerunner (3/2 creature with manace that has an alternate casting cost with the 'surge' mechanic).  Modal spells which give you a choice such as Warping Wall, or spot removal such as Spatial Contortion are solid choices as well.  Also make certain you do not trade away high value cards such as Thought-Knot Seet, Oath of Nissa, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar or Kozilek, the Great Distortion unless you are getting a fair deal out of it.

For today, here is a brief look at what to expect at next weekend's Oath of the Gatewatch PreRelease - 

Prerelease: January 16–January 17, 2016 
Prerelease  Pack Contents: 
• 4x Oath of the Gatewatch booster packs
• 2x Battle for Zendikar booster packs
• 1x randomized, date-stamped, premium promo card (this may from any rare or mythic rare in the set).
• 1s Spindown Life Counter
• 1x deckbuilding advice insert

Oath of the Gatewatch also features 20 more very rare Zendikar Expeditions cards.  Should you crack one of these open, we suggest you go crazy and act like you've just won the lottery.

Two-Headed Giant is central to the prerelease experience and has been pushed by Wizards of the Coast for this event.  Out very own local gaming store, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada has a Two-Headed Giant event on both Saturday and Sunday.  Here's the Schedule -
Saturday
– 12:00 am(Friday Midnight)
– 10:00 am
– 3:00 pm – Two-Headed Giant
– 7:30 pm
Sunday
– 11:00 am
– 4:00 pm – Two-Headed Giant

For just $35, there is also really great support for the prize pool -
4-0 record receive 16 packs OGW
3-0-1 record receive 12 packs OGW
3-1 record receive 8 packs OGW

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GTC Midnight PreRelease

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

Late last night, or rather very early this morning we headed out to the Gatecrash midnight prerelease event being held at our local card shop, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario.  When we arrived, just shortly after the regular Friday Night Magic event was wrapping up, the store had a good-sized crowd eager to start playing with the newest Magic: the Gathering set.

We went with Orzhov and will be heading back to take in another prerelease event on Sunday - we were just too dang tired to go to any of the ones today - plus we wanted to post this video for you -  

 
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For this PreRelease, just like with the last set, players get to choose a Guild Pack.  In the Guild Pack, you get a 'booster' specific to your chosen Gatecrash guild and five booster packs which you then build your 40-card deck.  Here's what we pulled : 

Orzhov Guild Pack : Treasury Thrull (R), Orzhov Guildgae, Alms Beast (R), Call of Orzhova, Thrull Parasite, Debtor's Pulpit, Assault Griffin, Prophetic Prism, Shadow Alley Denizen, Dutiful Thrull, Purge the Profane, Court Street Denizen, Devour Flesh, Beckon Apparition, Syndicate Enforcer, Zarichi Tiger.

Rares in Packs : Five Alarm Fire, Aurelia the Warleader, Consuming Aberration,  Merciless Eviction, Ooze Flux.

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The field was a fairly even split between the guilds with a slight favour to Orzhov and Simic.  We only stayed for two matches before dropping (from being just exhausted - we get up fairly early every day).  The matches we did have were against Orzhov with the 'Extort' mechanic and Simic with the 'Evolve' mechanic.  Fun times, great games.  Tomorrow we will certainly be staying for the full event and hope to have some thoughts as to how each of the five guilds performed in a sealed event.

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Malodorous MTG

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Fetid, foul-smelling or funky. These are some undesirable adjectives that one would not have any great desire to collect to describe one's self. DCI Judges and participating players any Magic the Gathering event do not want to be near a gamey gamer who smells south of cheese.


To this end, Wizards of the Coast now presents it's premier scent line . . . Magic: The Cologne.

Understanding time constraints that players experience during playtesting and traveling to / from events, WoTC fully understands that sometimes personal hygiene may take a backseat. Players who may not have time to shower in the sink or perhaps may have inadvertently collected tortilla chip dust in their shirt pockets or pizza cheese / toppings in their hair will welcome this wonderful product.

After employing liberal volumes of your favourite colour of Magic: The Cologne to yourself you may, with full confidence, take a seat at that crowded tournament table even with air-conditioning / ventilation off in the building. This Cologne even may be used to de-grease buger-juice stains on your track-pants.

Magic: The Cologne is an original idea / design of artist Christian Jessen. Check out his unique and beautiful work on DevianArt or at his webpage.

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Dross Crocodile
"As soon as it surfaced, we could all smell it. Its rancid breath reeked of half-digested carrion and its own rotting innards."
—Dafri, Auriok champion



Marsh Gas
"Comes right outta th' ground. If ya can smell it, it's too late."
—Keevy Bogsbury

ARB Prerelease / Release Cards

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We now have scans from an french advertising poster for the Alara Reborn Prerelease and release cards !

Broodmother Dragon 2RRRG

Creature - Dragon (Mythic Rare)
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a 1/1 red and green dragon token with flying and devour 2 into play
4/4
Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, *53/145

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Knight of New Alara 2GW

Creature - Human Knight
Each other multicolored creature you control gain +1/+1 for each of its colours.
2/2
David Palumbo, *70/145

Morningtide Release Party

I attended a Morningtide Release party at my local store, OMG Games, here in Barrie on Saturday. Some 18 players were in attendance for this event.

The tournament held was 'sealed deck' in which players received one sealed deck of 75 random cards consisting of 45 game cards and 30 basic lands. Also provided was three Morningtide Booster packs which include 15 random cards. From this 'mess' of 120 cards, participants attempt to build a deck with which to play against other opponents . . . easy right ?

One beneficial aspect of a sealed deck format is that one only is required to build a deck of 40 cards instead of the typical 60 common to most other formats.

The first step one should take is to sort the cards by their respective colour to determine the number and strength provided in each colour. As it is very rare for a player to be able to pull a sufficient number of cards for a mono-coloured deck, it is expected that at least two colours are to be used.

One of the most important skills to have in Magic is card evaluation. Experienced players will be able to quickly assess which cards would be suitable for inclusion as well as knowing which other cards may provide synergies or use in combinations. Participants at this event had 50 minutes in which to build their decks.

Here is a brief look of what I received.

RED - 26 Cards; 11 elemental creatures, 7 goblins, 1 changeling, and 7 instants / sorceries / enchantments. Included among other decent commons, was Nova Chaser (rare 10/2 with trample), Vengeful Firebrand (rare 5/2 with conditional haste), Brightearth Banneret, War-Spike Changling, Stingmoggie, Stomping Slabs, and Inner-Flame Igniter. A red goblin Sensation Gorger (rare 2/2 with kinship discard ability) was also in the mix.
Given the last goblin card, I then looked over my support in black which did not look that bad.

BLACK - 23 Cards; 11 goblins, 2 elementals, 2 treefolk, 3 Elves, 1 faery, 1 changeling, and 3 instants / sorceries / enchantments. Included in this lot was the very lovely Nettlevine Blight (rare milling enchantment), Stinkdrinker Bandit (uncommon 2/1 with prowl and conditional pump), a pair of Prickly Boggarts (common 1/1 with fear), and a Moonglove Changeling (common 2/2 with payable deathtouch).

WHITE - 20 Cards; 6 Kithkin, 3 Giants, 1 Changeling, 1 Elemental, 1 Merfolk and 8 instants / sorceries / enchantments. A fairly poor turn-out with only 3 cards of any note. Austere Command (rare sorcery with table-clearing ability), Cloudgoat Ranger (uncommon 3/3 a token generate with 'tapable' flying ability), and Cenn's Tactician (uncommon 1/1 with payable pump ability).

GREEN - 16 Cards; 6 Elves, 3 Treefolk, 1 Shapeshifter, and 6 instants / sorceries / enchantments. Cards of note within this colour included Eyes of the Wisent (rare elemental tribal enchantment), Wolf-Skull Shaman (uncommon 2/2 kinship wolf-token-generator), and the highly desirable Imperious Perfect (uncommon 2/2 tribal pump and payable elf-token-generator).

BLUE - 4 Cards - a very poor showing; 3 Merfolk and 1 Changeling. Received was a Waterspout Weaver (uncommon 3/3 with a pumped kinship), Sage of Fables (uncommon 2/2 static pump with payable draw), Inkfathom Divers (common 3/3 with islandwalk), and a Mothdust Changeling (common 1/1 with a tapable fly ability)

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Where I went terribly wrong . . .

One Word - Inexperience.
I have been playing Magic for approximately one month (just a week before starting this Magic Blog). In a flash, my 50 minutes of deck-building had expired and participants were ready to play. In somewhat of a panic, I decided to play the cards with with I had some limited familiarity with - blue and white. Quite possibly the worst choice here.

After having won the first match and lost the next three, I retreated back home, had a coffee and looked over my cards once more. Writing this blog post has also assisted me greatly in understanding where I went wrong and how to improve next time.

Having played in my very first tournament has left me a more experienced magic player. Next time, I fully expect to improve in my card selection and be able to stretch my match wins to at least two. :-)