M15 Release Notes

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We trust everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend (if you happen to reside in the States) or just a great weekend to those fellow Canadians.  With the entire Magic 2015 core set now revealed, most Magic: the Gathering players will now be evaluating the new cards and reading the various Magic 2015 set reviews out there.  MTG Realm will getting to reviews only after having an opportunity to physically game with them - so expect a bunch of articles in another two or three weeks after the M15 prerelease and launch events. 

For today's post, we wanted to touch upon the Magic 2015 Release notes from WotC.  This will not only benefit players heading into the upcoming tournament events but for us will also assist in finalising our M15 pre-orders with MTG Mint Card. Let's have a gander now -


GENERAL NOTES
Release Information
The Magic 2015 Core Set contains 269 cards (101 common, 80 uncommon, 53 rare, 15 mythic rare, and 20 basic land). There are 15 additional cards, numbered 270–284, that don't appear in Magic 2015 booster packs. These are reprints from earlier sets that are present in some supplemental products, including sample decks and the Deck Builder's Toolkit. These additional cards have a Magic 2015 expansion symbol and are legal in all formats in which Magic 2015 is legal.

The additional cards are Aegis Angel, Divine Verdict, Inspired Charge, Serra Angel, Cancel, Mahamoti Djinn, Nightmare, Sengir Vampire, Walking Corpse, Furnace Whelp, Seismic Strike, Shivan Dragon, Centaur Courser, Garruk's Packleader, and Terra Stomper.
Prerelease events: July 12–13, 2014
Launch Weekend: July 18–20, 2014
Game Day: August 9–10, 2014

The Magic 2015 Core Set becomes legal for sanctioned Constructed play on its official release date: Friday, July 18, 2014. At that time, the following card sets will be permitted in the Standard format: Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Magic 2014, Theros, Born of the Gods, Journey into Nyx, and Magic 2015.

Go to Wizards.com/MagicFormats for a complete list of formats and permitted card sets.
Go to Wizards.com/Locator to find an event or store near you - If you are just north of Toronto, consider going to OMG! Games in Barrie.
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Card Face Updates
The Magic 2015 Core Set introduces some improvements and updates to the appearance of cards and tokens.

Guest Designer Cards and Design Credits
Fourteen cards in the Magic 2015 Core Set were based on original designs from notable figures in the gaming industry. A fifteenth card, Waste Not, was the result of You Make the Card 4, a feature on DailyMTG.com that allowed members of the Magic community to design a card, one vote at a time. These fifteen cards include design credits at the bottom of their text boxes.

Returning Keyword: ConvokeThe Magic 2015 Core Set features the return of convoke, originally seen in the Ravnica: City of Guilds set. Convoke is a static ability that lets you tap creatures you control to help pay for spells.

702.50a Convoke is a static ability that functions while the spell with convoke is on the stack. "Convoke" means "For each colored mana in this spell's total cost, you may tap an untapped creature of that color you control rather than pay that mana. For each generic mana in this spell's total cost, you may tap an untapped creature you control rather than pay that mana." The convoke ability isn't an additional or alternative cost and applies only after the total cost of the spell with convoke is determined.
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Returning Theme: Slivers
The Magic 2015 Core Set includes several new Slivers, popular creatures that share abilities and power and toughness bonuses with other Slivers.

Cycle: Souls
Six creatures in the Magic 2015 Core Set represent protectors from different worlds throughout the Multiverse.

Returning Cycle: Magus Staffs
This set includes a cycle of artifacts, each aligned to a color, that allow you to gain life for casting spells of the appropriate color or having basic lands of the type associated with that color enter the battlefield.

Returning Card Type: Planeswalkers
A Planeswalker is a powerful ally that fights by your side. The rules for Planeswalkers have not changed with this release.

New Rules Term: "Base Power and Toughness"
Magic 2015 Core Set introduces a templating change to cards that set a creature's power and toughness to a specific value.
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CARD-SPECIFIC NOTES
There are card-specific notes with helpful rules / interpretations for over one hundred Magic 2015 cards.  Drop by the mothersite to review.  By way of example, here are the card-specific notes for Polymorphist's Jest.

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Commander 2013 Notes

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

In just over a week, we will be heading over to OMG! Games here in Barrie and picking up one or perhaps two Commander 2013 decks.  We'll also be dropping over to MTG Mint Card to grab a few singles from Commander 2013 to get into our other tall EDH stacks as we had recently found out we were short of a few common staples (like Command Tower - duh!) :(

 







Anywhoos -  Commander 2013 Edition is the next product in the Commander series to be released by Wizards of the Coast on November 1st, 2013.  The Commander 2013 product consists of five tri-color 'shard' decks reflecting the colors of the old Shards of Alara set, each with 100 cards that are ready-to-play right out of the box.  Each box has the option of choosing one of the three legendary tri-colored creatures each deck includes as the commander. The five new Commander decks each contain two brand new three-color legendary creatures and 13 other never-before-printed cards.  There are also 51 unique new cards spread across the five decks with some cards appearing in one or more of the decks.

Righto - On Tuesday the mothership posted a very handy 'Release Notes' page for Commander 2013 and we suggest you give it a read - the linky is here.  Here at MTG Realm, we have a soft spot for card cycles and here are just two different cycles you'll see in Commander 2013 -
 
Introduced in the Innistrad set, Curses are a kind of Aura that enchant a player and have a negative effect. This release includes a cycle of Curses that cause something to happen when the enchanted player is attacked.  A Curse spell targets the player it will enchant like any other Aura spell, and a Curse stays on the battlefield like any other Aura. Each Commander 2013 deck has access to three of the five curses. — Curse of the Forsake, Curse of Inertia, Curse of Shallow Graves, Curse of Chaos, and Curse of Predation.

Tempting Offer is an ability word that appears in italics on a cycle of sorceries. These cards have a beneficial effect, then give opponents the option to also enjoy that effect if they allow you to repeat it. (An ability word has no rules meaning.) Your opponents decide in turn order whether or not they accept the offer, starting with the opponent on your left. Each opponent will know the decisions of previous opponents in turn order when making his or her decision. Each Commander 2013 deck has a card with the new ability word tempting offer. — Tempt with Glory, Tempt with Reflections, Tempt with Discovery, Tempt with Vengeance, and Tempt with Immortality.

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M14 FAQ

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

This is our second post for the day.  If you missed our first post about the Magic 2014 PreRelease, click on over here.

In this post, we wanted to let Magic: the Gathering players including those heading off to the PreRelease event this weekend to pop on over to the Mothersite and get in a quick review of the Magic 2014 FAQ document. 

Here's a quick 'n' dirty summary without getting into the card specific notes -
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Magic 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
Wizards of the Coast, Tuesday, July 09, 2013

GENERAL NOTES

Release Information
The Magic 2014 core set contains 249 cards (101 common, 60 uncommon, 53 rare, 15 mythic rare, and 20 basic land).

Prerelease events: July 13–14, 2013
Launch Weekend: July 19–21, 2013
Game Day: August 10–11, 2013

The Magic 2014 core set becomes legal for sanctioned Constructed play on its official release date: Friday, July 19, 2013. At that time, the following card sets will be permitted in the Standard format: Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Magic 2013, Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, and Magic 2014.

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Returning Theme: Slivers
Magic 2014 features the return of creatures with the creature type Sliver. These popular creatures share abilities or power and toughness bonuses with other Slivers you control.

Cycle: Magus Staffs
This set also includes a cycle of artifacts, each aligned to a color, that allow you to gain life for casting spells of that color or having basic lands of the type associated with that color enter the battlefield.

Returning Card Type: Planeswalkers
A planeswalker is a powerful ally who fights by your side. With the exception of the "planeswalker uniqueness rule" (see the separate section below), the rules for planeswalkers have not changed with this release.

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Rule Change: The "Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule"
Previously, if there were two or more planeswalkers that share a subtype (such as "Jace") on the battlefield, they would all be put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. This rule is changing. The new rule is as follows:

704.5j If a player controls two or more planeswalkers that share a planeswalker type, that player chooses one of them and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards. This is called the "planeswalker uniqueness rule."

Rule Change: The "Legend Rule"
Although there are no legendary permanents in the Magic 2014 Core Set , the "legend rule" is changing along with this set. Under the previous rule, whenever two or more legendary permanents with the same name were on the battlefield, they were all put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. This rule is changing to the following:

704.5k If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards. This is called the "legend rule."

New Keyword: Indestructible
Indestructible is a new keyword for an existing ability.

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CARD-SPECIFIC NOTES
Just over 90 card specific notes from Academy Raider . . . Young Pyromancer.

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Mirrodin Besieged FAQ

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The Mirrodin Besieged Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) document has just been posted. We suggest you give it a review and set to have some fun playing in the pre-release this weekend and the release next weekend.

Some template information :
The set contains 155 cards (60 common, 40 uncommon, 35 rare, 10 mythic rare, and 10 basic land).
Prerelease events: January 29-30, 2011
Launch Parties: February 4-7, 2011
The Mirrodin Besieged set becomes legal for sanctioned Constructed play on its official release date: Friday, 4th 2011.

Mirran and Phyrexian Factions
The war rages on. Each Mirrodin Besieged card (except planeswalkers and basic lands) has an identifying insignia in its text box that shows which faction it belongs to. (The Mirran insignia looks like a segmented ring. The Phyrexian insignia looks like a circle with a slash through it.) Faction insignias have no effect on game play.

And onto the new keyword techs and other info . . .

New Keyword Ability: Battle Cry
Found on Mirran creatures, battle cry is an ability that grants a +1/+0 bonus to other attacking creatures.

New Keyword Ability: Living Weapon
Living weapon is an ability of Phyrexian Equipment that automatically provides a creature to wield the Equipment when it enters the battlefield.

Cycle: Zeniths
The Mirrodin Besieged set includes a cycle of five Zeniths, powerful spells that can be drawn multiple times over the course of a game.

Returning Scars of Mirrodin Mechanics
Many abilities and mechanics featured in the Scars of Mirrodin set return in the Mirrodin Besieged set. For more information about infect, -1/-1 counters, poison counters, imprint, metalcraft, and proliferate, check out the previous FAQ document.
Mirrodin Besieged FAQ
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If you're looking for a great on-line retailer whom you can put in your Mirrodin Besieged pre-orders, give MTG Mint Card a try.

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Scars of Mirrodin FAQ

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We recommend you have a look through the Scars of Mirrodin Frequently Asked Questions document before you head out to a pre-release or release / launch party event in order to appear like the smartest player there - it may even make your games more effective.

Release Information
The Scars of Mirrodin set contains 249 cards (101 common, 60 uncommon, 53 rare, 15 mythic rare, and 20 basic land).
Prerelease events: September 25-26, 2010
Launch Parties: October 1-3, 2010
The Scars of Mirrodin set becomes legal for sanctioned Constructed play on its official release date: Friday, October 1, 2010.

Scars of Mirrodin FAQ

Returning Theme: -1/-1 Counters
Many cards in the Scars of Mirrodin set put -1/-1 counters on creatures or care about -1/-1 counters in other ways. Infect appears only on cards from the Phyrexian faction.

Returning Theme: Poison Counters
A player who has ten or more poison counters loses the game. This is a state-based action. No Scars of Mirrodin cards enable a player to lose poison counters. (Only one card in the entire game -- the Homelands_(TM) card Leeches -- allows this to happen.) Unless you're playing a format in which Leeches is legal, once a player gets a poison counter, he or she will have it for the rest of the game.

New Keyword Ability: Infect
Infect is an ability that changes the nature of damage dealt to players and creatures. Only cards from the Phyrexian faction have infect. Infect (This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)

Returning Ability Word: Imprint
Though originally printed in the Mirrodin block as a keyword, imprint is now an ability word. It appears in italics at the beginning of abilities, calling attention to permanents that exile other cards and then use the exiled cards' characteristics to define their other abilities. (An ability word has no rules meaning.) Imprint appears only on cards from the Mirran faction.

New Ability Word: Metalcraft
Metalcraft is an ability word. It appears in italics at the beginning of abilities that improve if you control three or more artifacts. (An ability word has no rules meaning.) Metalcraft appears only on cards from the Mirran faction.

New Keyword Action: Proliferate
Proliferate is a keyword action that appears on Phyrexian cards. It allows you to add another counter to each player and/or permanent that already has one.

Emblems and the Command Zone
An emblem is a new type of object that exists in the command zone. The command zone is a game area reserved for certain specialized objects, such as nontraditional _Magic_ cards (vanguard, plane, and scheme cards). Like all objects in the command zone, emblems aren't permanents and can't be destroyed.

Cycle: Spellbombs
The Scars of Mirrodin set includes a cycle of five Spellbombs, a variation of a cycle originally seen in the _Mirrodin(R)_ set. The second ability triggers when the Spellbomb is put into a graveyard from the battlefield for any reason, not just as a result of sacrificing it to activate its first ability.

Cycle: Smiths
The Scars of Mirrodin set includes a cycle of five Smiths, each of which is a creature with an ability that triggers whenever you cast an artifact spell. Whenever you cast an artifact spell, the ability of each Smith you control triggers. You can put the abilities on the stack in any order, keeping in mind that the one you put on the stack last will resolve first. All of the abilities will resolve before the artifact spell does.

Cycle: Scars of Mirrodin Tap Lands
The Scars of Mirrodin set includes a cycle of five lands that produce two colors of mana and enter the battlefield tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands.
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Conflux FAQ

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The Conflux Frequently Asked Questions (word 'doc' format) just went up this afternoon. Out thanks to Mark Gottlieb and the MTG rules guru crew for putting this together. Make sure you give this 26 page tome a read before you head into your Pre-release event or Launch party.

Following is a quick summary of the new keyword mechanics / abilities. As well, there is some very interesting rules around a particular creature's ability which will make you chortle with evil mirth . . . buckle up and let's go.
Returning Mechanics
Some abilities and mechanics introduced in the Shards of Alara set appear in the Conflux set. For more information about the five shards and their mechanics (the Bant shard's keyword "exalted," the Esper shard's colored artifacts, the Grixis shard's keyword "unearth," the Jund shard's keyword "devour," and the Naya shard's "5 power matters" mechanic), see the Shards of Alara FAQ.

Ability Word: Domain

Domain is an ability word. It appears in italics at the beginning of an ability that counts the number of basic land types among lands you control. (An ability word has no rules meaning.) domain ability has a different effect. Read each card carefully.

Returning Keyword Ability: Cycling
New Keyword Variant: Basic Landcycling

If you have a card with "cycling" in your hand, you can pay its cycling cost and discard it to draw a new card. If you have a card with "basic landcycling" in your hand, you can pay its cycling cost and discard it to search your library for a basic land card. Cycling (and, thus, basic landcycling) is an activated ability. Effects that interact with activated abilities (such as Stifle or Rings of Brighthearth) will interact with cycling. Effects that interact with spells (such as Remove Soul or Faerie Tauntings) will not.

Theme: Color Matters

Many Conflux cards have abilities that check to see whether you control a permanent of a certain color. There are three different forms these abilities can take. Six of these cards (Bloodhall Ooze, Kederekt Parasite, Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Parasitic Strix, Rhox Meditant, and Sedraxis Alchemist) are creatures that have triggered abilities with "intervening 'if' clauses". If the permanent with this ability has itself become the color that its ability checks for, then it can count itself as the permanent it's looking for. These abilities continually check the colors of permanents you control. As long as at least one of them is the specified color, the ability will "work" and grant the permanent the bonus. Otherwise, the permanent won't have the bonus.

Check out these Card-specific notes . . .

Charnelhoard Wurm
{4}{B}{R}{G}
Creature -- Wurm
6/6
Trample
Whenever Charnelhoard Wurm deals damage to an opponent, you may return target card from your graveyard to your hand.

* If Charnelhoard Wurm is dealt lethal damage at the same time it deals damage to an opponent, Charnelhoard Worm will be in your graveyard by the time you put its ability on the stack. In that case, you can target it with its own ability. ( ! ! ! OMG ! ! ! )

Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, {5}{W}
Creature -- Rhino Soldier
4/4
Trample
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a blue permanent, you may put a token into play that's a copy of Mirror-Sigil Sergeant.

* Normally, when a token is created by this ability, it will simply be a Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, so it'll also have the token-creating ability. (See below for weird exceptions.) At the beginning of your next upkeep, if you still control the original Sergeant, the token copy, and a blue permanent, you'll get two more token copies; the turn after that you'll get four; then eight; and so on. ( ! ! ! Epic Win ! ! ! )

Exotic Orchard
Land
{T}: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color that a land an opponent controls could produce.

* The colors of mana are white, blue, black, red, and green. Exotic Orchard can't be tapped for colorless mana, even if a land an opponent controls could produce colorless mana.
* Exotic Orchard checks the effects of all mana-producing abilities of lands your opponents control, but it doesn't check their costs. For example, Vivid Crag has the ability "{T}, Remove a charge counter from Vivid Crag: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool." If an opponent controls Vivid Crag and you control Exotic Orchard, you can tap Exotic Orchard for any color of mana. It doesn't matter whether Vivid Crag has a charge counter on it, and it doesn't matter whether it's untapped.
* Lands that produce mana based only on what other lands "could produce" won't help each other unless some other land allows one of them to actually produce some type of mana. For example, if you control an Exotic Orchard and your opponent controls an Exotic Orchard and a Reflecting Pool, none of those lands would produce mana if their mana abilities were played. On the other hand, if you control a Forest and an Exotic Orchard, and your opponent controls an Exotic Orchard and a Reflecting Pool, then each of those lands can be tapped to produce {G}. Your opponent's Exotic Orchard can produce {G} because you control a Forest. Your Exotic Orchard and your opponent's Reflecting Pool can each produce {G} because your opponent's Exotic Orchard can produce {G}.

Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer, {1}{W}{U}
Legendary Creature -- Human Rogue
2/2
{W}{U}, {T}: Put a bribery counter on target creature you don't control. Its controller draws a card.
Creatures with bribery counters on them can't attack or block.

* If Gwafa Hazid leaves play, any bribery counters will remain where they are. However, without a Gwafa Hazid in play, creatures with bribery counters on them can attack and block as normal. If another Gwafa Hazid comes into play, its ability will affect all creatures with bribery counters on them, including the ones that received counters from a different Gwafa Hazid.
* Creatures with bribery counters on them can't be declared as attackers or blockers. However, if a bribery counter is put on a creature that's already been declared as an attacker or blocker, that creature will continue to attack or block that combat.

Magister Sphinx, {4}{W}{U}{B}
Artifact Creature -- Sphinx
5/5
Flying
When Magister Sphinx comes into play, target player's life total becomes 10.

* This ability is not optional.
* For a player's life total to become 10, what actually happens is that the player gains or loses the appropriate amount of life. For example, if the targeted player's life total is 4 when this ability resolves, it will cause that player to gain 6 life; alternately, if the targeted player's life total is 17 when this ability resolves, it will cause that player to lose 7 life. Other cards that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly.

Master Transmuter, {3}{U}
Artifact Creature -- Human Artificer
1/2
{U}, {T}, Return an artifact you control to its owner's hand: You may put an artifact card from your hand into play.

* Returning an artifact you control to its owner's hand is part of the cost of Master Transmuter's activated ability. Paying a cost can't be responded to (with Naturalize, for example).
* Since Master Transmuter is an artifact, you may return Master Transmuter itself to your hand. If you do, the rest of the ability will still work normally.

Shard Convergence, {3}{G}
Sorcery
Search your library for a Plains card, an Island card, a Swamp card, and a Mountain card. Reveal those cards and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

* You don't have to find all four cards.
* Shard Convergence checks for cards with the subtypes Plains, Island, Swamp, and Mountain, not for cards with those names. You may find nonbasic land cards this way, as long as they have appropriate subtypes.
* You may find "dual lands" with Shard Convergence. The Plains card you find, for example, can have a second subtype. What subtypes it has won't impact what other cards you can find. For example, you may find a Hallowed Fountain (which has subtypes Plains and Island) as the Plains card, and another Hallowed Fountain as the Island card.

Voracious Dragon, {3}{R}{R}
Creature -- Dragon
4/4
Flying
Devour 1 (As this comes into play, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This creature comes into play with that many +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Voracious Dragon comes into play, it deals damage to target creature or player equal to twice the number of Goblins it devoured.

* Voracious Dragon can devour any type of creatures, not just Goblins.
* "The number of Goblins it devoured" means "The number of Goblins sacrificed as a result of its devour ability as it came into play." For each creature that Voracious Dragon devoured, this ability checks its creature type as it last existed in play to see if it was a Goblin at that time.

Goodbye Time Spiral

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Having been playing only since early 2008, this will be the first time I will witness a block rotating out of Standard play. Specifically, we will see Coldsnap, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, and Future Sight are set to rotate out of Standard on October 3, 2008. For more information, read this POST at Wizards.

Friday Night Magic will never be quite the same. No longer will I see my matches go down the tube when one of the 'usual suspects' hits the table (Damnation, Greater Gargadon, Momentary Blink, and Tarmogoyf to name a few). I should very well expect to see myself winning more games than usual as the more experienced players leave their (older) killer decks at home to only come out for Extended play. As these players were winning prizes, I have been quietly creating lightening-fast deadly decks and combos with Shadowmoor and Eventide (insert evil maniacal laugh here).

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Anywho, lets get to some news . . .

WoTC now has Gatherer (the MTG card database) updated with all the Shards of Alara cards. I often use this useful tool to rapidly evaluate cards for deck inclusion and would suggest (if you have not already) give it a try.

For this weekend's release event, make sure you review the Shards of Alara FAQ HERE. If you are still somewhat unsure about Devour, Exalted, Unearth, Coloured Artifacts, 5 Power Matters, Panoramas, Cycling, Heralds, or Shard Charms, do yourself and your tournament Judge a favour by reviewing the FAQs.

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Alara Release : Theme Tournament

For details on when and where Release Events will take place this weekend, check the Wizards list HERE. For details on tournament format and structure check out THIS WoTC page.

The Shards of Alara Launch Parties on October 3–6, 2008 are Wizards Play Network events that feature a new format: the Theme Tournament. Designed to highlight the fun and flavorful aspects of the Shards of Alara set, the Theme Tournaments have the same structure as the Prerelease tournaments (Sealed Deck format in which each player receives one tournament pack and three boosters), with a few additional rules.

As players build their decks, they must choose one of the five shards (Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, or Naya). The mana cost of each card in a player's deck may contain only mana symbols that match the chosen shard's three colors. (Mana symbols in a card's text box are ignored.) Colorless cards may be played in any deck. In addition, a deck may not generate mana outside its shard's colors. Any card which would generate mana of a color that doesn't match the chosen shard generates colorless mana instead.

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Finally, Let's have another look at the absolutely brilliant work that artist Jason Chan did for the upcomming Conflux release promotion.
It looks like a very nasty Apocalypse Hydra got loose on the Shard realm of Bant. This critter is packed with big-time bad-a$$ery. We all knew that these five shard planes would leak together. Anywho, Mr. Hydra looks hungry. After it finishes eating the Leotau mount, it looks like it eat some Angel food cake. The rest of Bant's finest sigiled do their best not to be next course.
Good Luck this weekend and Stay tuned for more MTG goodness . . .