Random MTG Thursday

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

It also is Thirsty Thursday, so why not head on down to Modean's latter for an ice cold Puppers.  Anywhoos, today on MTG Realm, we have another variety show of mad non-sensical Magic: the Gathering ramblings, so strap yerself in for a bumpy ride.

First Up - Ultra PRO W.A.R. Gaming Cases
These things look amazing.  Our local gaming store, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario has these cases on the shelves and we think we'll treat ourselves to one of these rugged cases for when we head off to our regular summer vacation in the Canadian wilderness.  We know these re-purposed .30 calibre ammunition cases are air tight, but we may also discover whether these are bear proof as well.

Next up - Aether Revolt Game Day
Set some time aside this weekend to get in some standard constructed play at your local gaming store and get a chances to win fabulous prizes (game day playmat, promo cards).  If you have not yet tucked into standard, you can always pick up a Planeswalker Deck the day of the event and give that a spin.

As for the metagame, we've now had our four weeks and there has been some jostling for top decks.  If you are looking to buy into a decklist or develop your sideboard against the popular decks, look no further than this weeks Channel Fireball Power Rankings.  Always a good summary of 'movers and shakers' and what tech the latest weapon is employing.  Here is the text list -

• Scrapheap Scrounger
• Heart of Kiran
• Unlicensed Disintegration
• Fatal Push
• Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• Winding Constrictor
• Metallic Rebuke
• Walking Ballista

The top of the heap is Scrapheap Scrounger, which delivers a 3/2 for just 2 colourless.  The drawback is that is cannot block, but hey - a perfect level of power to crew Heart of Kiran.  Scrapheap enjoys a graveyard recursion clause and for these reasons is the perfect crew critter.  We pre-ordered a deckset of these for $1.75 and now they are going for about $6.

Finally, a word about Amonket, the next Egyptian-themed set coming out in April.  Like the spoiler / speculation nutters that we are we've been re-reading the same 3 sentances over and over for quite some time :

'The desert oasis of Amonkhet forges warriors. You have trained your entire life for a chance to face the Trials of the Five Gods and join the elite ranks of the Worthy. Using your strength, speed, and cunning, overcome deadly challenges and rise above the competition to claim an honored place in the Afterlife!'

In the blurb on 'The Art of Magic: the Gathering - Amonkhet', we receive another teaser with this line -

'The Second Sun creeps across the sky, growing ever closer to the horns of the God-Pharaoh.'

The more we think upon this, the less certain we are as to what to expect from the storyline and supporting themes / spell mechanics.  What we are imagining is the tale of 'Masaka and Korgano' ('Masks', ST/TNG), and the 1994 film Stargate, where the god Ra is actually an alien, or in this case, Nicol Bolas.  There seems to be some mysterious cycle at play here.


Dang.  We need Wizards of the Coast to throw us a small bone to tie us over for the next two months.
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Eternal Masters Supply & Demand

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

What likely catch captivated the attention of most Magic: the Gathering players over the weekend was the release of the special ('one-off') summer set of Eternal Masters.  Like Modern Masters, released in 2013 and in 2015, these sets have a higher expected average value of the cards contained in each booster and a more limited print run resulting in a higher (MSRP) sticker price.  

Where Modern Masters may have had a limited print run, Eternal Masters has a "very" limited print run.  There are quite a number of reports from a gamers to local gaming store owners indicating that there will not be any second print run or re-stock.  Some claim that retailers claiming no anticipated product restock work to the retailers benefit providing them license to charge more. The Eternal Booster box contains 24 packs (a perfect number to draft with) and here in our region (Central Ontario, Canada), the booster box costs about $360 and booster packs go for about $16.  

If you are drafting, then the cost could be likened to what you may spend on a trip to the movies (food 'n' all) or a drinks out at a pub.  We think you would be on the right path if you spent this money as being funds allocated for entertainment.

On YouTube, there are a number of unboxing vidoes of fans cracking packs hoping to lucky enough to pull one or more of the high value cards for re-sale to the secondary market.  Pulling a Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Karakas or a foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor at a worth around a $100 does go a long wat for you to 'recover' the value of your investment but there is real danger here.  The big question for those wanting to receive value is simply - 'Is it worth it to buy into Eternal Masters?'.

Consider this - out of the 69 Mythic Rares and Rares in the set, only about 19 of these cards (>$10) are valuable enough to equate to the value of a booster pack.  For each one of those videos showing a really amazing box, there are likely a dozen other individuals less than satisfied with their return.   We think you would be most happy having the mindset of gaming with the set rather than attempting to turn an economic profit.

Singles Prices - Expect great variance and volatility -

Mana Crypt (M) $98.31
Force of Will (M) $91.76
Karakas (M) $85.01
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (M) $69.00
Wasteland (R) $48.85
Sneak Attack (M) $27.00
Natural Order (M) $26.65
Vampiric Tutor (M) $25.86
Sensei's Divining Top (R) $22.00
Sylvan Library (R) $19.99
Dack Fayden (M) $19.99
Maze of Ith (R) $18.25
Entomb (R) $17.70
Sinkhole (R) $15.74
Gamble (R) $15.00
Chrome Mox (M) $14.95
Maelstrom Wanderer (M) $12.34
Enlightened Tutor (R) $11.79
Vindicate (R) $10.15
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Duel Decks' Anthology

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Wow, what a weekend for Magic: the Gathering players worldwide.  First off, we want to extend a huge thank-you to the very capable / amazing WotC staffer Alison Luhrs (MTG Community Manager) who provided a blur / barrage of real time tweets as live coverage of the MTG Panel at the San Diego Comic Con was not available due to 'technical difficulties'.  Fav quote on this absence of service from Evan Erwin (who cracks up every time).  Anywhoos, there was a massive volume of previews and teasers during the MTG Panel on Saturday during the San Diego Comic Con -

• Khans of Tarkir,
• From The Vault: Annihilation,
• Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning,
• Duel Decks, Anthology, and
• Commander 2014

We'll be rather busy for at least the next two weeks going over all the new material but for today's post on the MTG Realm blog, we want to yatter a bit about the announced Duel Decks' Anthology product.  This new product which is to be expected to be released on or about December 12, 2014.  Duel Decks' Anthology is to be a compilation set that combines the first four Duel Decks all provided with the new card frames. Now the big question is on many gamer's minds is exactly what is meant by 'combined'.  To many, this means all eight 60-card theme decks (or 480 cards) from each of the Duel Decks in one product :

• Elves vs. Goblins (2007)
• Jace vs. Chandra (2008)
• Divine vs. Demonic (2009)
• Garruk vs. Liliana (2009)

We would love to get a hold of this product when it comes out, or at the very least get a variety of card singles from MTG Mint Card.  Should this be the full monty of all eight decklists what would be a reasonable manufacturer suggested retail price - sixty bucks, eighty bucks, who knows?  As soon as we did read this tweet / announcement, we could imagine the big retailers groaning as their sealed product took a hit (maybe).  Here are the very rough values of the sealed Duel Deck products from just before the Duel Decks' Anthology announcement which we will revisit in another month or so :

Elves vs. Goblins ~ $200
Jace vs. Chandra ~ $150
Divine vs. Demonic ~ $175
Garruk vs. Liliana ~ $50

Stay tuned to latter posts on MTG Realm as we play catch-up on all the very exciting announcements including our postulations / speculations on the next Duel Deck - Speed vs. Cunning, due to be released on 5th September, 2014.  Until then, happy gaming everyone!
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Commander 2013 Purchases

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Over the course of the weekend, we had the opportunity to yatter to a few Magic: the Gathering players - more specifically, Commander (EDH) fans.  The topic on everyone's list is the pricing of of the soon-to-be released Commander 2013 product on Friday 1st November.  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.

Anywhoos - the manufacturer's suggested retail price for each deck was pegged at $29.99 with the price for getting the set of five decks at $149.95 - which, considering the contents delivers fairly decent.  Then something rather odd happened on 14th October - an on-line retailed produced a comment on their FaceBook page indicating that distribution of Commander 2013 would be 'allocated'.  Essentially, a commercial strategy used in distibution of a limited volume of product, which infers a limited printing run.  This concern was put to WotC staffer, Mark Rosewater on 18th October who had replied "Absolutely not. We will reprint Commander 2013 if the current supply does not meet demand" which of course is a bit of a relief.  Having said that, on-line retailers who may have adjusted initial pre-order prices from $35 / $40 to $55 / $60 have been sluggish to correct and may not likely re-adjust pricing until after the second print and distribution wave.

A few players we've talked to indicate that they may simply pick up Commander 2013 at a big box retailer like Walmart or Target which ultimately has an adverse effect on the local brick 'n' mortar gaming stores.  Here in Canada as is the case in most places around the globe are not able to order sealed product across borders.  To this end, we checked out Canadian on-line retailer Face to Face Games in Verdun, Québec who can ship sealed (French and English language) product across Canada.  Their page does list all the Commander 2013 product at MSRP for the moment but had completely sold out with pre-orders.  They indicate that when they re-stock, they will make all attempts to be as close to the MSRP as possible - very decent!

Personally we were planning on picking up at least two decks at OMG! Games here in Barrie and then grab a handful of Commander 2013 singles from MTG Mint Card.  We may now just pick up one deck and wait until the second wave to pick to get the other.
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For reference, here is a snap-shot of what prices are for some selected 'money cards' and sealed product as of Monday morning - this may very well change by this afternoon, so take note.

True-Name Nemesis ~ $30
Unexpectedly Absent ~ $15
Baleful Strix ~ $15
Toxic Deluge ~ $12
Goblin Sharpshooter ~ $10

Retailers
SCG - StarCity Games
CSI - Cool Stuff Inc.
CF - Channel Fireball
TnT - Troll and Toad

• Evasive Maneuvers (bant - white / blue / green)
SCG - $59.99
CSI - $41.99
CF - $49.99
TnT - $54.99

• Eternal Bargain (esper - white / blue / black)
SCG - $49.99
CSI - $49.99
CF - $49.99
TnT - $49.99

• Mind Seize (grixis - blue / black / red)
SCG - $69.99
CSI - $59.99
CF - $69.99
TnT - $54.99

• Power Hungry (jund - black / red / green)
SCG - $49.99
CSI - $41.99
CF - $49.99
TnT - $44.99

• Nature of the Beast (naya - white / red / green)
SCG - $59.99
CSI - $39.99
CF - $49.99
TnT - $49.99

All five decks
SCG - $199.99
CSI - $189.99
CF - $199.99
TnT - $199.99
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