From the Vault: Lore

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Also, a very happy Birthday to any reader celebrating today - ensure you put yourself whole-heartedly into today's cake-day as you will not see another one for four years.

Anywhoos, there was an interesting teaser from MaRo on the 27th, with this just cryptic message.

As promised, WotC delivered the announcement to the next From the Vault set, to be hitting a gaming store shelf near you in August.  From the Vault is a series of box sets, released by Wizards of the Coast on an annual basis in late August. Each box set contains 15 tournament-legal, black-bordered, holographic foil cards with a common theme.  This year's theme is explained in the official announcement over here on the mothersite.

From the Vault: Lore

Delve deeper into the events that shaped the Multiverse - and show your opponents that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! This limited-edition set includes cards from throughout Magic's history that are renowned for both their power and the stories behind them. Surprise your foes with blasts from the past they'll have to see to believe.

Contents and Details:

• Fifteen premium foil cards and one token, including three with new art.
• An exclusive Spindown life counter.
• A collector's guide.
• Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
• From the Vault: Lore will be available worldwide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
• All cards are black-bordered and tournament-legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Use the hashtag #FTVLORE to discuss this product on Twitter!
Product Concept and Development: Sam Stoddard and Jeremy Jarvis, with contributions from Mark Purvis.
Release Date: August 19, 2016
Magic Online Release Date: October 10, 2016
MSRP: $34.99

Well that is rather exciting.  Let's get straight to dissecting and then some speculation !

First - the indication is that there is to be only three rather than six new arts as was the case in the most recent FTV sets.  Limited print run is the same story, so expect to purchase from retailers at a greatly increased price.

The preview art provided in most likely that of Momir Vig, Simic Visionary.  In face, we will say pretty much 100% certain - compare what the greenish fella is wearing -

As for speculation on the other cards, we do have this from the announcement - "renowned for both their power and the stories behind them".  We would expect a card with a solid showing in the Magic Fiction section of the mothersite - perhaps a card like Azusa, Lost but Seeking, for which there was an possibly leaked art some time ago -

The other bit is that there is one token card included in this From the Vault.  There are several prominent ones which come to mind such as Tuttuk the Returned, but here are our guesses - Dark Depths, Helm of Kaldra and Tolsimir Wolfbood.  What are your guesses on tokens and other cards for From the Vault: Lore ?

 

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FTV : Angels

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Here in Ontario, it's Family Day, which for us included a breakfast at Cora's, some movies, and a bunch of Magic: the Gathering games.  Lovely.

Aywhoos, Some exciting news over on the mothersite - this announcement -

From the Vault: Angels

Appearing in the skies above the fiercest battles, Angels are known throughout the Multiverse for their awesome power and terrible fury. This limited-edition box set contains fifteen Magic: The Gathering cards featuring a host of the most formidable winged warriors to ever grace the game.

Content and Details

• Fifteen premium foil cards, including five with new art.
 
•  An exclusive Spindown™ life counter.

•   A collector's guide.
 
•  Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
 
•  From the Vault: Angels will be available worldwide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
 
•  All cards are black bordered and tournament legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Product Concept and Development: Gavin Verhey and Jeremy Jarvis, with contributions from Mark Purvis

Release Date: August 21, 2015

MSRP: $34.99 

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Some pretty slick art previewed as well.  So, if you don't know, From the Vault is a series of box sets, released on an annual basis in late August. Each box set contains 15 tournament-legal, black-bordered, holographic foil cards with a common theme. Some of these cards feature novel alternate artwork.

Previous From the Vaults sets.

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FTV Annihilation Follow-Up

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We wanted to follow-up yesterday's post on the soon to be released From the Vault: Annihilation product from Wizards of the Coast which has stirred up some excitement from Magic: the Gathering players and collectors.  We want to take you back, waaay back about 3 months ago on 30th April when MTG Realm first posted about a rumour circulating about FTV: Annihilation.  It all started with a post on Reddit from 'thegreatpablo' who had indicated he had received from a friend two images of the back of the product box.  Here's the image (joined) now -

Essentially the back of the box provides an image of all the cards / contents along with a flavour text blurb.  Shortly after the post, the MTG fan community for a variety of reasons had decried that the image was disingenuous.  MTG Realm provided cautionary remarks on the original post and immediately updated the post after the general consensus of fake was passed . . . the humour of it was - it wasn't.

All the card images shown on the back of the original image proved true when WotC staffer previewed the product in yesterday's post on the mothersite -  

From the Vault: Annihilation CARDS
• Armageddon (new art)
• Burning of Xinye• Cataclysm (new art)
• Child of Alara
• Decree of Annihilation
• Firespout (new art)
• Fracturing Gust
• Living Death (new art)
• Martial Coup
• Rolling Earthquake
• Smokestack (new art)
• Terminus
• Upheavel
• Virtue's Ruin
• Wrath of God (new art)  

 

This FTV set looks good - MTG Mint Card has carried singles from previous From the Vault sets and hopefully may do with this one.
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FTV Annihilation Decklist

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Today over on the mothersite, WotC staffer Gavin Verhey provided the full decklist from From the Vault: Annihilation.  From the Vault is a series of box sets (a total of seven so far), released on an annual basis in late August. Each box set contains 15 tournament-legal, black-bordered, holographic foil cards with a common theme. A number of of these cards have alternate artwork and are often highly sought-after by Magic: the Gathering players and collectors. 

It is expected to have a suggested retail price of $35 but we have serious doubts that many players will be able to pick up this product at that price.  If you already have these singles from an online retailer like MTG Mint Card, then you're good to go, unless that is you are after the alternate art - we might pop over to our local games store, OMG! Games here in Barrie Ontario and hope they've not sold out.  Here's the full 4.1.1. from the official announcement back in February -

Contents and Details
• 15 Premium foil cards, including 6 with new art.
• An exclusive Spindown™ life counter.
• A collector's guide.
• Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
• From the Vault: Annihilation will be available world-wide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
• All cards are black bordered and tournament legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Flavour
Harness the savage power of fifteen of the most brutal Magic cards ever unleashed. These limited-edition, black-bordered superweapons are legal in many tournament formats. Sweep the battlefield clean with this powerful arsenal and blast the opposition into oblivion.

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From the Vault: Annihilation CARDS

• Armageddon (new art)
• Burning of Xinye
• Cataclysm (new art)
• Child of Alara
• Decree of Annihilation
• Firespout (new art)
• Fracturing Gust
• Living Death (new art)
• Martial Coup
• Rolling Earthquake
• Smokestack (new art)
• Terminus
• Upheavel
• Virtue's Ruin
• Wrath of God (new art)

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FTV Annihilation Rumor

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UPDATE 5.01.2014  - almost certainly Fake as we had cautioned.
Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Some rather interesting late-day Magic: the Gathering news.  Just as we were planning our Journey into Nyx purchases and brewing up new or modifying existing decklists for standard constructed, a rumor had popped up that the entire From the Vault: Annihilation decklist was spoiled.  FTV: Annihilation is not due to be released until the end of summer (22nd August) and we were not expecting any spoilers (or official previews) for quite some time.

Redditor 'thegreatpablo' had posted two images from a source who claims to have snapped the pic of what appears to be the back of the packaging where previously all 15 of the FTV cards are provided along with contents text and some flavor text for that product - as shown below in the FTV: Realms packaging.

Anywhoos - here are the two images that were posted which we've merged together to get a sense of how realistic the images were.  PLEASE REMEMBER - these are unofficial and could very well be fake.

UPDATE : 5.01.2014

The MTG community at large had provided a number of inconsistencies which all add up to the images being faked.  There is a special ring in hell reserved for fakers btw.

  

The list of the 15 cards -

Armageddon (new art)
Burning of Xinye
Cataclysm (new art)
Child of Alara
Decree of AnnihilationFirespout (new art)
Fracturing gust
Living death (new art)
Martial Coup
Rolling EarthquakeSmokestack ( new art)
Terminus
Upheaval
Virtue's Ruin
Wrath of God (new art)

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This indeed could be a clever fake but should the list be true, colour us impressed - we're liking what we're seeing. 
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Niconico Chōkaigi 3

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

What an amazing weekend for Magic: the Gathering fans.  The Journey into Nyx PreRelease events held worldwide figured quite prominently.  We attended the PreRelease event at OMG! Games here in Barrie where we went 2 win 2 loss and although we did not do well enough for prizes, not only did we had a blast but were also able to pull some rather decent cards in our PreRelease pack.  Speaking of prizes, we held a random prize for a very cool Dragon's Egg Tournament Bag from Power 9 Pro - one of the younger players in the room, 13-year old Daymion, scored this.

Anywhoos, let's have a look at some of the other Magic: the Gathering news from today and the weekend -
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マジック：ザ・ギャザリング
Niconico Chōkaigi 3
Niconico Douga is a popular video sharing website in Japan and each year helps organize the monstrous Niconico Chōkaigi (ニコニコ超会議３) fan event.  This year the event drew 124,966 fans as well as an estimated 7.6 million on-line participants over the weekend.  

Wizards of the Coast was there as well manning a booth, showcasing the Magic 2015 Duels of the Planeswalkers as well as organizing side-events.  The big news here was two Magic: the Gathering spoilers - one preview for Conspiracy and one from From the Vault : Annihilation - let's have a look.  We are most definitely wanting to pick these fine cards up from MTG Mint Card -
  

MTG Conspiracy
Brago, King Eternal, 2WU
Legendary Creature - Spirit, Rare
Flying
When Brago, King of Eternity deals combat damage to a player, exile any number of target nonland permanents you control, then return those cards to the battlefield under their owner's control.
"My rule persists beyond death itself."
illus. Karla Ortiz # 41/65 2/4
~From the Vault : Annihilation
Wrath of God, 2WW
Sorcery, Rare
Destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated.
Legend speaks of the lost coastal polis of Olantin, whose inhabitants' hubris enraged the sun god Heliod.
illus. Willian Murai #15/15

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Next up -
Today on the mothership, the DCI Banned & Restricted List Announcement was made.   The news here is that there are no changes for Standard, Modern, Extended, Legacy, and Vintage sanctioned formats.  Check out the details of each format here.
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FTV Annihilation

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope all had a great weekend.  Unfortunately, we were not able to get out to OMG! Games, our local gaming for Friday Night Magic but had heard through some friends that the newest Magic: the Gathering set, Born of the Gods did shake things up a bit and there was a ton of new brews on the game tables.  Whether you are finalizing a powerful new decklist in line with the evolving metagame or planning a strategy against it, it is a great time to pick up some card singles over at MTG Mint Card so you can be ready where the game will take you next.

Over on the mothership today, we received the official announcement for the next 'From the Vault' sealed product, due out at the end of summer.  If you unaware, From the Vault is a series of boxed sets, typically released each year before the fall set. Each box set contains 15 tournament-legal, holographic foil, black-bordered cards with a common theme. A number of these cards feature alternate artwork.  Historically, these have had a very reasonable suggested retail price but due to limited print runs (low availability) and a high player demand, one should expect to see these priced much higher.  The list of previous 'From the Vault' sets are -

2008 - From the Vault: Dragons
2009 - From the Vault: Exiled
2010 - From the Vault: Relics
2011 - From the Vault: Legends
2012 - From the Vault: Realms
2013 - From the Vault: Twenty 
2014 - From the Vault: Annihilation

(apologies - we could not help ourselves thinking about FTV Annihilation without thinking about Chaos Orb and it's Unglued partner Chaos Confetti)

Here's the official announcement -

Harness the savage power of fifteen of the most brutal Magic cards ever unleashed. These limited-edition, black-bordered superweapons are legal in many tournament formats. Sweep the battlefield clean with this powerful arsenal and blast the opposition into oblivion.

Contents and Details
• 15 Premium foil cards, including 6 with new art.
• An exclusive Spindown™ life counter.
• A collector's guide.
• Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
• From the Vault: Annihilation will be available world-wide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
• All cards are black bordered and tournament legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Please use the hashtag #MTGANH for discussing this product on Twitter!

Credits
Product Concept and Development: Gavin Verhey and Jeremy Jarvis
Release Date: August 22, 2014
Magic Online Release Date: August 22, 2014
MSRP: $34.99 

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Very cool -  love the expansion symbol !  We are loving that preview art and there is a lot of banter and speculation as to what card this may belong to in From the Vault: Annihilation.  Some guesses are - Maelstrom Pulse, Armageddon, Whirlwind, and Destructive Force but your guess is as valid as ours.  As to the remaining 14 cards in here please speculate away but have a mind as to the WotC reserved list.  For a complete list of Reserved Cards, click on over to the Wizards Reprint Policy page here. 

 

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