RTR PreRelease Promos

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

As it is Saturday, and not just any ordinary Saturday, we suggest you have a quick peep at our previous post on Magic Celebration 2012. Today, Magic the Gathering gamers and those who are just now thinking about getting into this game will be heading off to hundreds of game stores around the world to participate in a free event, score some cool cards, and have a blast.  If you happen to be in Barrie, Ontario and a new student at Georgian College, walk across the road to OMG! Games to unwind after your first week into the grind. 

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Anywhoos - 
Onto the subject of today's post - Return to Ravnica  pre-release promos!  This new Magic the Gathering set, to release 5th October (with prerelease events the weekend before), may very well be one of the most highly anticipated MTG releases in recent years.  To this end, Wizards of the Coast is providing local gaming stores with a slew of promotional material - as if they really had too.  Let's have a looky-loo . . .

 

Jace Return to Ravnica Floor Standee greets store customers

Return to Ravnica counter display and an interesting 2/2 green Centaur Creature token.

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. . . And of course, confirmation supplied by forum user ReAnimator of the Return to Ravnica PreRelease promos.  This slick alternate art cards are given to each player participating in the event based upon which Guild PreRelease pack you pick . .

 

• Azorious - Archon of the Triumvirate

• Golgari - Corpsejack Menace

• Selesnay - Grove of the Guardian

• Radkos - Carnival Hellsteed

• Izzet - Hypersonic Dragon.
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MTG Price

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Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

Recently, we were contemplating our Dark Ascension preorders as well as some other orders we had made ahead of the new standard environment. Previously, we had been sort of hit and miss but have been improving over the last few releases. One way we a had used to determine which hot new Magic the Gathering cards to pick up as well as cards from previous sets we needed to acquire was the use of on-line MTG sites providing price trending. One which we had found which was rather useful was MTG Price. Oddly enough, we had been put into contact with the brilliant fella who runs this site and he was very kind to provide an article here today for us - Thank-you very much to Mr Young :

Hello! My name is Alasdair Young and I run a free site called MTG Price that lets players quickly look up historical prices of magic cards from all the major vendors. I've been trading and playing magic since Unlimited, I've played on the Pro Tour and I have an MBA in Finance, all of which I've found to be pretty useful when running a finance-based MTG website.

Today I'm going to cover the changes in the Standard landscape for traders now that Dark Ascension is upon us. I'll also quickly cover the impact that GP Orlando had on prices.

Let's start with the elephant in the room - Sorin, Lord of Innistrad This is clearly a phenomenal card for standard and he will see a will see a lot of block play too. Since Innistrad Block is the next format, this is one to watch; more than that, Sorin's presence affects the prices of the cards that work well in the same deck as him. For example, check out this graph of Isolated Chapel prices:


A single card, if powerful enough, can cause ripple effects in other markets. I wouldn't be suprised if other black and white cards recently went up a bit on the Sorin news. Even Liliana of the Veil, a card whose price has stabilized since launch at around $24, went up $3 when Sorin was spoiled.

Does this mean that I think Sorin is a good investment? Absolutely not. Sorin isn't Jace and big plainswalkers always start high and then typically mellow out. For an extremely stark example of this effect look at Garruk, Primal Hunter. Garruck lost almost HALF of his value this week as the last stalwart of high prices (ABU Games) decided to drop him by $20, presumably in the hopes of selling him off before M13 rolls around. Because of this trend, ultimately I think Sorin will settle at $30-$35 unless someone breaks him as badly as Jace.

In terms of other cards, the biggest change has been from Gran Prix Orlando's odd choice to use Standard instead of Limited as a format. Conley Woods ultimately won the event with green/black ramp and his win has had some serious effects on the MTG trading landscape. Since his win, three big cards in his deck have jumped over 20% each - Primeval Titan, Grave Titan and Solumn Simulacrum. Indeed, Grave Titan went up over 40% from a $6 card to one that most stores have listed for over $10. Indeed, almost every card in the deck has seen at least a small rise in value.

Conley Woods' Green/ Black Ramp - Main Deck

25 lands : 1 Dragonskull Summit, 7 Forest, 1 Ghost Quarter, 4 Inkmoth Nexus, 2 Kessig Wolf Run, 1 Mountain, 5 Swamp, 4 Woodland Cemetery

16 creatures : 2 Acidic Slime, 1 Birds of Paradise, 1 Glissa, the Traitor, 4 Grave Titan, 4 Primeval Titan, 4 Solemn Simulacrum

19 other spells : 3 Black Sun's Zenith, 3 Doom Blade, 2 Geth's Verdict, 2 Green Sun's Zenith, 4 Rampant Growth, 1 Ratchet Bomb, 4 Sphere of the Suns

Sideboard : 1 Ancient Grudge, 2 Batterskull, 1 Black Sun's Zenith, 2 Curse of Death's Hold, 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter, 1 Go for the Throat, 1 Liliana of the Veil, 2 Nihil Spellbomb, 1 Ratchet Bomb, 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, 1 Tree of Redemption, 1 Viridian Corrupter

Clearly, big decks affect prices. The classic example from a couple of months ago is Grixis Control which made Olivia Voldaren spike from $5 to $15 in a single day when it was revealed at Worlds but, really, any large tournament win means copycats. (Note: Olivia has fallen back significantly in the past 2 months). What does this mean for the savvy trader? My advice is to follow the live streams of major standard tournaments and as soon as you see a new deck or interesting card likely to hit the top 8, consider buying a few of the cheapest copies on ebay or from local stores.

As for other Standard decks, next up is Delver which is by far the most common deck on MTGO at the moment. Most of the cards in this deck have already increased in value but there are still players out there who are under-pricing certain cards. My personal favourite sleeper play are foil versions of the common Delver of Secrets. As a common, the regular version is worth about fifteen or twenty cents but the foil is worth serious money - StarCity has them listed at $8 each meaning that a playset of them are worth more than a Liliana of the Veil! This is an excellent card that will stay very good for a long time to come, yet I have repeatedly found players valuing this foil in the $1-$2 range even now. Have no shame in adding these in at the end of a trade to "balance out" an otherwise almost equal exchange.

Here is a good example of a Delver list.

Speaking of Delver, if you find any Geist of Saint Traft floating around for $15 or less, snap them up. A mere two weeks ago many players haven't noticed the number of delver decks being played on MTG Online and were still valuing this card at around $12 - you could get a full playset on eBay for less than $50 on January 15th. Now, the same playset is liable to run you closer to $100. I can't see these falling much this year given the fact that the next constructed PTQ format will be Innistrad Block and Delver looks like the deck to beat in that format.

Finally, I'll touch on one other hot card that I plan on picking up many copies of: Gravecrawler. It's already up another 15% this week and I expect it to skyrocket if a viable Zombie deck can be built when the PTQ season rolls around. At $6.50 it's not a chase rare and so many players won't value it especially highly. This is a speculative play but, on paper, the cad is just wonderful and can only get better when yet more Zombies are printed in Avacyn Restored.

This rounds out what I consider to be the most important Standard trading changes over the last few weeks. If you have any comments, I'd love to hear them in the section below!

Again, thank-you to Alasdair for this brilliant assessment - we will continue to use the great resource over at MTG Price.
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Innistrad Fat Pack

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Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

As is our tradition here at MTG Realm after every Magic the Gathering set release, we headed on out to our local game store, OMG! Games (here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada-Land) and secured a Fat Pack to dissect for you, the viewer / reader. The latest MTG set, Innistrad, looks simply amazing and promises to supply a graveyard of fun for gamers. Be sure to check out our previous post where we rip into a new Intro Pack.


Let's stop yattering and get to the video of the Innistrad Fat Pack dissection . . .


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Here's our pulls from the Fat Pack :
(rares in bold - others are uncommons)

Pack 1 : Isolated Chapel, Morkrut Banshee, Geistcatcher's Rig, Curiosity, Reckless Waif

Pack 2 : Skirsdag High Priest, Wreath of Geists, Mausoleum Guard, Burning Vengeance, Cloistered Youth

Pack 3 : Ludevic's Test Subject, Evil Twin, Full Moon's Rise, Rage Thrower, Spectral Rider

Pack 4 : Creepy Doll (foil!), Curse of Stalked Prey, Invisible Stalker, Purify the Grave, Unburial Rites,

Pack 5 : Mindshrieker, Gallows Warden, Demonmail Hauberk, Midnight Haunting, Ulvenwald Mystics

Pack 6 : Runechanter's Pike, Morkut Banshkee, Rolling Temblor, Mask of Avacyn, Cloistered Youth

Pack 7 : Skirsdag High Priest, Rakish Heir, Disciple of Griselbrand, Runic Repitition

Pack 8 : Witchbane Orb, Murder of Crows, Butcher's Cleaver, Skaab Goliath

Pack 9 : Cackling Counterpart, Hollowhenge Scavenger, Scourge of Geier Reach, Rolling Temblor, Cloistered Youth
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This Fat Pack was PHAT. The foil Creepy Doll art looked amazing and we were rather pleased with Isolated Chapel as well as Mindshrieker which we likely find a place in a new or existing deck.

If you are looking to start collecting cards for the new set, the Fat Pack is a great place to start. An Innistrad Fat Packs contain : 9 boosters, 1 card box, 1 player’s guide, 1 80-card land pack, 1 learn-to-play insert, 1 Spindown™ life counter, and 2 deck boxes.

Happy Gaming and stay tuned as we start generating new deck ideas using the latest Innistrad cards.
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Alliances Booster Box

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Last evening, we dropped over to see our friends Richard and Josh Bates, the new owners of OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Apparently, we were in for a bit of a treat - they had recently created a time travelling apparatus, went about 5,287 days into the past, purchased a booster box of Alliances and then returned to the present for a show 'n' tell with us. The resulting singles disgorged from the box promise to take your casual game to a new level.


Alliances was the eighth Magic the Gathering expansion and was released in June, 1996 as the second set in the Ice Age block. Alliances, continued several themes introduced in its predecessor, Ice Age. With "cantrips," cumulative upkeep, and "pitch" cards, this popular 199-card expansion is widely considered the measuring stick for new releases. This set really gave good game.

Here's a brief video of the dissection - we left a bit early as we had a soufflé burning in the oven at home, but will have Richard or Josh provide a final tally. (Almost) all the cards will be available for purchase as singles in the store.

Some cards of note . . .
(thanks to the very excellent MTG Salvation Wiki for this as we were not playing back then)

Balduvian Horde
was initially heralded as the "new Juzam Djinn," then considered the best creature in Magic, as a 5/5 for Mana2.gifManar.gifManar.gif. It later proved to be only mediocre and has seen print in 6th Edition.

Diminishing Returns is the first attempt at creating a "fixed" version of Timetwister. Despite its decrease in power compared to Timetwister, Diminishing Returns sometimes still sees play in Vintage alongside Timetwister.

Force of Will
continues to be an important and potent card in every format it is legal in because it can counter any spell without the use of mana.
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Force of Will, 3uu
Instant, Uncommon - Alliances
You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay Force of Will's mana cost.
Counter target spell.

Ivory Gargoyle
was powerful because it was difficult to get rid of it permanently and was used in some control decks as a win condition.

Kjeldoran Outpost
was used as a win condition in Counterpost-style control decks.

Lake of the Dead
was used to speed up already-powerful Necropotence decks.

Thawing Glaciers
was used in many different decks, especially after the Sixth Edition Rules came into effect, allowing players to use cards like this one with delayed triggered abilities twice thanks to the reconstruction of the new End of turn step.

Elvish Spirit Guide
had a new unique feature: remove from the game from your hand to get mana. Elvish Spirit Guide sees play in the popular Legacy Belcher deck.

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In order for our dauntless store owners to make a profit to feed their family, they will have to pull and sell enough singles to offset the cost of the booster box (around $250 to $300 Canadian). Fortunately, they would be able to sell the highly sought Force of Will they pulled for around $45 to $50 and any remaining booster packs for around $8 to $10 locally. This really should not pose much of an issue to the very rabid local players here.

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Speaking of classic cards, MTG Mint Card has just restocked their collection for Morningtide, Eventide, Ravnica, Guildpact, and Dissension - so make tracks over there. Notice is here.
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Rise of the Eldrazi Top Cards

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Happy Tuesday folks,

You will have to excuse the title of today's post, 'Rise of the Eldrazi Top Cards' as it may be somewhat misleading - we will not attempt to provide a rating of the best cards in this new set for your game - well, just yet. We want to provide a bit of information the gaming community has generated in terms of buys and trades to see what cards have risen to the top. This should provide some insight as what one may expect in terms of your local meta-game or this set's anticipated impact on the standard environment.

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First off - Singles Prices

The Top 10 Rise of the Eldrazi cards in terms of singles pricing. Actually, we're lying - actually the top 13. These prices are a snap-shot only of the last 24 hours and are based on average pricing from select on-line retailers and expected to change by the time of this post.

1. Gideon Jura $ 31.30
2. Vengevine $ 21.50
3. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth $ 13.60
4. Sarkhan the Mad $ 12.00
5. All Is Dust $ 11.90
6. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn $ 10.20
7. Linvala, Keeper of Silence $ 8.75
8. Kargan Dragonlord $ 7.80
9. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre $ 7.50
10. Transcendent Master $ 6.75
11. Student of Warfare $ 6.00
12. Eldrazi Temple $ 5.90
13. Realms Uncharted $ 5.00

Next up - Purchase Volume

This is a list of the Top 10 Rise of the Eldrazi cards by volume purchased according to MTG Mint Card, which we will take as a reliable indicator as to which cards are currently popular for players looking to buy.

1. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
2. Awakening Zone
3. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
5. Sarkhan the Mad
6. All is Dust
7. Momentous Fall
8. Linvala, Keeper of Silence
9. Sphinx of Magosi
10. Eldrazi Conscription

And finally, Trade Volume

This is a list of the top Rise of the Eldrazi cards by volume traded on Magic the Gathering On-line. You open up a pack, start trading, and we get this list of popular cards to exchange hands.

1. Student of Warfare
2. Eldrazi Temple
3. Realms Uncharted
4. Deathless Angel
5. Guul Draz Assassin
6. Momentous Fall
7. Awakening Zone
8. Consume the Meek
9. Consuming Vapors
10. Bear Umbra

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You may read into these lists whatever you may but the standard game environment has still yet to absorb Rise of the Eldrazi. Having said that, we do have results from Star City Games for TWO Nationals Qualifiers held on 2010-04-25 in Koln, Germany and Angarsk, Russia.

It is interesting to note that Jund still favours quite strongly but have now been displaced in 1st place for 'Mythic' builds, one of which include the new Rise of the Eldrazi card, Eldrazi Conscription - - We're just glad to have gotten ours before crazy knee-jerk price adjustments take place.

Nationals Qualifier, 2010-04-25, Koln, Germany
Nationals Qualifier, 2010-04-25, Angarsk, Russia

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M10 Booster Box

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You may recall a few short weeks ago (this POST), I promised you a dissection of a Magic 2010 Booster Box . . . Well, my buddy came through and got one from TrollandToad.com and sent it way up north to me. I have to admit that tearing into MTG blister packs and sharing the sweet cardboard with friends and family is pretty much the best fun one can have (legally of course).

Anywhoos - sit back and watch this brief video and then we'll go through what we pulled.

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Here is what I pulled ! !

WHITE
Indestructibility
Silence
Open the Vaults
Guardian Seraph
Lightwielder Paladin
Captain of the Watch

BLUE
Mind Spring
Jace Beleren
Sphinx Ambassador
Djinn of Wishes
Hive Mind

RED
Manabarbs
Magma Phoenix
Goblin chieftain
Chandra Nalaar
Shivan Dragon
Warp World
Capricious Efreet

BLACK
Nightmare
2 X Royal Assassin
Haunting Echoes
Sanguine Bond

GREEN
Might of Oaks
Great Sable Stag
Garruk Wildspeaker
Elvish Piper
Kalonian Behemoth
Birds of Paradise

ARTIFACTS
Mirror of Fate
Howling Mine
2 x Pithing Needle

LANDS
Gargoyle Castle
Dragonskull Summit
Glacial Fortress
Sunpetal Grove

Also - At the time of this post, I have over 700 cards for trade over at CCG Tradepost, so if you see something I cracked opened, make tracks over there and sign up before I trade it all away.

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Zendikar Speculation 1

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Since Zendikar, was announced way back in March, speculation had been rather wild. This first set in the fall Magic the Gathering expansion really had more theories than answers until MaRo gave some nebulous hints in his article 'Tweet Talk' (see below for the quotes).

If you cracked open booster packs at a Magic 2010 PreRelease today, then you may have seen this advertisement . .


Now here is something to sink our teeth into - a Zendikar Art Spoiler !

The artist, Jung Park, is new to the MTG scene but is quite an accomplished artist from the look of his Blog and Website. This art does not really speak onto a theme but those proponents of a crazy Indiana Jones meets poison-jungle Mirage are now talking louder.

Jung's very beautiful 'Mycon Plateaus' shown below confirms he is quite adept at creating rich organic environments.


'Nuff said for now but more random and baseless speculations latter - so stay tuned.

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Mark Rosewater quotes from the 'Tweet Talk' Article . . .

"Zendikar does not have a multicolor theme. Lights, the large set from 2010, does not have a multicolor theme. The pendulum always swings, and yes, recently we hit multicolor pretty strongly. Now it's time for the pendulum to swing away for a while. Look forward to the possibility of playing monocolored decks. That said, this doesn't mean we won't make individual multicolored cards if they make sense in a particular environment; just that multicolor is going to be a theme we move away from for a while. (Have no fear, multicolor lovers—it will return one day.)"

"Here's my hint. There is a space in Magic design that we've explored on individual cards but have never explored thematically as a block theme. We started with that theme and then crafted a world that made it make sense. Once we had the world, we then made a bunch of other mechanics that made sense in that world. The design and creative did a lot of back and forth work to integrate the mechanical themes into the world. I do feel the world we've create is a resonant one, but not one with pirates or dinosaurs. Or robots. Or ninjas. Or monkeys. Let me wrap this answer up by saying that I'm quite excited with how Zendikar turned out, and once I'm allowed to freely talk about it, I anticipate I'll start getting letters to ask me to stop talking about it."

Planeswalkers ? "Three, one of which is a planewalker that's appeared previously."


Set Name - Zendikar
Three-Letter Abbreviation - ZEN (nice !)
Number of Cards - 249
Release Date - Friday, October 2, 2009
Prerelease Events - September 26-27, 2009
Launch Parties - October 2-4, 2009
Previews start - September 7, 2009

M10 Spoiler 1

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Looks like yet two more Magic 2010 core set arts have been placed on that MTG Facebook Fan Page - Thanks Wizards !

One image had been confirmed as the black staple 'Drudge Skeletons' and I have to say that the art from Daarken is nothing short of amazing.

Drudge Skeletons, 1B
Creature - Skeleton, Common
{B}: Regenerate Drudge Skeletons. (The next time this creature would be destroyed this turn, it isn't. Instead tap it, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat.)
1/1

Apparently, there was a second image which Daarken has posted to his webpage - You be the judge as to which image is better.


Another image posted to the MTG Facebook page is this art featuring a hungry Hydra creature with humans running around rather alarmed. My apologies to the artist, but I have to say that this does not really quite float my boat. In Magic, I love to play cards that have WIN not only written on the card text but also created within the art space.

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Just a quick look back as to what had been spoiled so far for those who had not been afforded the opportunity to follow closely . . .

Drudge Skeletons, Nightmare, Shivan Dragon, Golden Lotus, Queen of Ants, Vampire Nocturnus, Enrage, Unsummon, Liliana Vess, Serra Angel, Silence, Jace Beleren, Wall of Frost, Black Knight, Capricious Efreet, Chandra Nalaar, Enrage, Birds of Paradise, Garruk Wildspeaker.

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This week on the Wizards site ('Origins Week'?) had quite a retro feel to it. To this end, I now provide for images from WoTC's shady and obscure past.

Your challenge - leave a post comment describing where these images are from and what the product is - bonus points for purpose.








And the final clue . . . . ----->>


Thanks - stay tuned for more Zendikar and M10 spoilers.