Valentine's Day on Amonkhet

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

A happy Valentine's Day as well to you.  For those of you not trapped under the accumulation of a massive winter's storm snow dumping, hopefully you can get out and spend some time with one or more other humans you may appreciate.  Wizards of the Coast had fired off this very appropriate short poem today, featuring a themed illustration of everyone's favourite mischievous Kaladesh critter, the Gremlin -

Speaking of Valentine's Day and Magic: the Gathering, we were wondering this morning (random shower thoughts) on whether a simliar day is observed on Amonkhet.  This, the very next MTG set, may be a Plane of existence created by Nicol Bolas and perhaps peopled by Lich Lords.  Having their life force downloaded into a phylactery, we're thinking that although their mortality is greatly extended, their capacity to love another zombie or lich is greatly diminished.  Kinda sad.  Anywhoos, end of shower thoughts, please disregard.

Righto, we'll wrap up today's post with some other randomness -

One thing we do love and are quite willing to send a flurry of Valentine's Day cards off to Wizards of the Coast, is the chance to get our paws on promotional Amonkhet full art lands.

Sign up for this event in Wizards Event Reporter and receive twenty Welcome Decks, plus twenty-five premium full-art basic lands (five of each) from Amonkhet to use as rewards for both new players and veteran players who bring a friend.

The below image accurately depicts how we fell about this news - 

Yeah - pretty awesome.

Lastly, we want to return to those booster pack mock-up images from this post to MTG Realm on Tumblr which was posted back in December.  The exercise here is to determine the probability of successfully exchanging Valentine's Day cards with each of these creatures.

Humanoid in a cat mask with what appears to be a bow - YES - could be similar to the cupid's arrow thingy.

Humanoid with a drum and edged weapon - YES - playing a tune on the goblet drum while cutting fresh flowers for Valentines.

Nicol Bolas - perhaps NO - does not strike a very romantic figure in the least.

Zombie dude - NO - being undead does imply the creature is without a beating heart, and although the critter may want to nom your brains, it will not show a genuine appreciation for this delicious gift.
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Metallic Mimic

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Last Monday, in this MTG article, we had yattered briefly about the rise in popularity of the Saheeli / Felidar Guardian combo decklist.  This past weekend's Richmond StarCityGames Open standard format results confirmed Saheeli and provided a second emerging list - Black Green Delirium / Black Green Aggro, which shared a number of key components.  It may be of interest to pop on over to this reddit thread for the Magic: the Gathering community's discourse on the results.  

We have a history here at MTG Realm of not playing the 'popular' decklists, but rather brewing up our own sometimes rogue lists.  We did take note of a single 'Humans' list being played by Benjamin Nikolich (linked over here) which inspires us.  In fact, our post last week on our take on post Aether Revolt Humans was not altogether different from that of Benjamin's list.  

The active ingredient in our opinion in this list and perhaps our favourite card in Aether Revolt is Metallic Mimic, which along with Thalia's Lieutenant pushes the tribal strength.

We certainly are not 'all in' on the humans strategy - we do love out be-goggled Monkey very much.

The R/W Humans decklist we took to our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario performed to our satisfaction to take 3rd Place at Friday Night Magic.  The field here does not contain just two popular decklists, although there were a few showings of B/G Delirium.  The Humans list did not so great against that list so we will return to the drawing board and reevaluate the sideboard choices.  For now, here is the full main decklist :

Land (20)
1x Hanweir Battlements
4x Inspiring Vantage
2x Mountain
3x Needle Spires

11x Plains

Creature (32)
4x Expedition Envoy
4x Thraben Inspector
2x Inventor's Apprentice
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Metallic Mimic
3x Hanweir Militia Captain
3x Lantern Scout
3x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

3x Hanweir Garrison

Enchantment (7)
3x Gryff's Boon

4x Declaration in Stone

Instant (3)

3x Blessed Alliance

Some brief notes about playing with this list -
• As expected, Metallic Mimic and Thalia's Lieutenant are must have bombs.
• Give the number of Monkey tokens from Kari Zev and Hanweir Garrison, Hanweir Militia flips / transforms rather easily in that larger board threat.
• Gryff's Boon is still a solid choice for evasion and to answer a flying Vehicle.

Summary - play what makes you happy and improve upon it as standard constructed evolves.  Our next move is likely with Metallic Mimic again and will involve a great number of Servo tokens being generated.  :)

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Aether Revolt Spoiler 12-19

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Wizards of the Coast staff are now on Christmas Holidays for the next two weeks, which means that the tech who pulled the short straw to man the station will be running a 'best of' series of articles until year's end.  Should you think that this may detract from official Aether Revolt previews from being published, then you will have to reevaluate.  There are another two more Aether Revolt spoilers from the last twenty-four hours to address now.

First up, the much anticipated Tezzeret Planeswalker card.  We have already been treated to the Tezzeret version for this set's Planeswalker Decks, called Tezzeret, Maset of Metal.  Here is formal Tezz - 

Tezzeret, the Schemer, 2UB
Planeswalker - Tezzeret, Mythic Rare

+1: Create a colorless artifact token named Etherium which has Tap, sacrifice Etherium token: 'Add one mana of any color into your mana pool'.

-2: Target creature gets +X/-X until end of turn which X is the number of artifacts you control.

-7: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your combat phase, target artifact you control becomes a 5/5 artifact creature."
[5]

Looks like we are getting an Etherium token.  Kinda salty about that, as we were hoping to get something that used or created Energy.  We're quite fond of the ultimate ability of creating a 5/5 beater each turn - which does NOT disappear at the end of combat.

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The second preview card today appears to confirm that there may be a rare 'Quicksmith' cycle to be delivered.  Joining the red 'Quicksmith Rebel', is a 'Spy' in blue -

Quicksmith Spy, 3U
Creature - Human Artificer, Rare
When Quicksmith Spy enters the battlefield, target artifact you control gains "Tap: Draw a card" for as long as you control Quicksmith Spy
"Let's just broaden its surveillance lens."

2/3

This card looks a bit narrow at the moment, but if the next standard season has a good selection of artifacts and some cards with efficient blink effects, this will shine.
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Aether Revolt Spoiler - Ajani

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EDIT - UPDATE on Monday 5th December - scroll to bottom

Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

Some Magic: the Gathering history just happened a few hours ago.  For the very first time, a major Magic: the Gathering preview was released . . . in Brasil.

Abram seus olhos !  O Consulado mudou !

At the ComicCon Convention (CCXP) in São Paulo Brazil, Wizards of the Coast released an Aether Revolt Spoiler.  Why in Brasil ?  Mark indicates in an interview that the timing was perfect at CCXP with the upcoming Aether Revolt release, and that Brazil is "becoming increasingly an important part of the Magic community in the world".


The preview was 'Ajani, o Inabalavel' or Ajani, the Unshakable - 

 

Ajani, the Unshakable,  4GW
Planeswalker - Ajani, Mythic Rare

+2: Reveal the top three cards of your library. Put each nonland permanent card revealed this way into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

-2: Exile target creature. Its controller gains life equal to its power.

-9: Put 5 +1/+1 counters on each creature you control and 5 loyalty counters on each other planeswalker you control.

[4]
illus. Kieran Yanmer # 127/184

Good Gravy !! Fans of those Superfriend Planeswalker decklists must be in a tizzy over this one.

Also of note, it looks like the MTG Community Team will be doing a little dossier summary of all the Kaladesh / Aether Revolt Planeswalkers.  Here's one from Carolina, the Brazil MTG liason - 

Confiramo primeiro spoiler de Planeswalker da coleção Revolta do Éter de Magic: the Gathering! 

MONDAY UPDATE

The Korean Facebook Group had posted another new Aether Revolt preview card early Monday morning (Eastern Standard Time).  It looks to be yet another Ajani Planeswalker - this one from the new Magic: the Gathering Planeswalker Decks associated with Aether Revolt. 

Ajani, Valorous Protector, 4GW
Planeswalker - Ajani, Mythic Rare

+2 : Put two +1/+1 counters on up to one target creature.

+1 : Reveal the top card of your library until a creature card is revealed. Put it into your hand and put all other cards revealed this way onto the bottom of your library in a random order.

-11 : Put X +1/+1 counters on target creature, where X is equal to your life total. That creature gains trample until end of turn.

[4]
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Aether Revolt - Yahenni

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We are still absorbing the very early Aether Revolt leak from yesterday which delivered three full and one partial Magic: the Gathering spoiler.  

In summary, these were :
• Quicksmith Rebel - Launch Promo
• Scrap Trawler - Buy-A-Box promo
• Trophy Mage - Game Day participation promo
• Yahenni's Expertise - Game day top 8 promo

The MTG community at large were most decidedly abuzz with the Yahenni card.  Akin to an ever so slightly diminished Languish, but delivering a free spell of three converted mana cost or less from your hand.  We fully expect to see this get popular play in standard constructed.  

Speaking of Yahenni, it is of great surprise that this Aetherborn is the subject of today's Magic Story Installment.  Do pop on over to the mothersite to read 'In the Dead of Night', wonderfully penned by Alison Lurhs.  Today we learn that the Atherborn creature known as Yahenni, is a notable citizen, socialite and philanthropist, but also has just become something more dangerous -  an Essence Drainer.  Not all Aetherborn can draw life essence from other beings into themselves to prolong their own existence, but Yahenni is able to.  Certainly not an evil being leeching life from another, but more like Louis (played by Brad Pitt) in 'Interview with a Vampire', who detests the thought of becoming a murderer.

With today's new Magic story (linky over here again), there are a number of lovely new arts, in all liklihood to see print in the upcoming Aether Revolts set:

• Yahenni's Expertise, by Jason A. Engle

• Ghirapur city scene, by Jonas De Ro

• Energy containment scene, Joseph Meehan

• Gonti's artificial hears, by Vincent Proce

• Statuary Garden scene, by Kirsten Zirngibl

• Essence drain scene, by Lius Lasahido

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Asgard Gear CONTEST

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A Tale of Three Cards

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Today on MTG Realm, we want to yatter about the rapid phylogenesis of the new standard constructed format.  Specifically, how three popular (or not so popular) Kaladesh cards were received by Magic: the Gathering fans, when previewed and how perception of players evolved over the course of a few short weeks.

We'll focus on the following :

• Aetherworks Marvel
A legendary artifact costing four allowing you to score an energy counter whenever a permanent you control is put into a graveyard with the second ability of paying 6 energy to look at the top 6 of your library and casting one of those spells for free.

• Smuggler's Copter
A 3/3 rare artifact vehicle costing two colourless with a crew requirement of one.  The ability to loot (draw one / discard one) provided whenever it attacks or blocks.

• Torrential Gearhulk
'Blue' Gearhulk of the mythic rare cycle costing 4UU and delivering a 5/6 flashing construct.  The ETB effect here is casting a instant in your yard on the free.

When Aetherworks Marvel was previewed, along with a mountain slide of other cards during PAX, not very much attention was paid.  Most players were simply overwhelmed with the number of other cards out at the same time.  When the dust cleared pre-order prices were set around 10 to 12 clams or so.  A rather guarded assessment, given that this was mythic rare and it was not immediately clear how well the energy mechanic given the limited number of cards previewed so far.  Fast forward to Pro Tour Kaladesh just last weekend - players have now tuned in how best to use this.  Essentially putting a lot of weight into generating as much energy early in the game to land a monster (Eldrazi are the 'go-to' creature spell) on turn four to win the game.

As for Smuggler's Copter, pretty much every MTG player knew it was either good or simply awesome.  The start of each new standard constructed season favours decklists with an aggressive profile, and this was the perfect vehicle.  When the SCG Indy tournament was in the books on the very weekend release, you were either playing Smuggler's Copter or you were wrong.  Those who pre-ordered around $10 or so saw the value pretty much triple in the course of a week.  Moving along to Pro Tour Kaladesh, new lists emerged to find a new path and although the Copter fell a bit from grace, it still appears to be a contender.

Lastly, the blue Torrential Gearhulk.  This gearhulk was certainly not received as well as the others in the cycle when it was first previewed.  At the this time, this was the odd mutant offspring if Snapcaster Mage mated with Goblin Dark-Dwellers and the pre-order pricing mirrored the general sentiment as well.   The Pro players evaluated this again and were quite satisfied to to dish out more mana for the ability to flash this in and hit more expensive (read - more powerful) spells.  Even Goblin Dark-Dwellers couldn't hit a Glimmer of Genius.

Anywhoos, in summary, the take-away message here really is that an individual card is often very difficult to evaluate in a vacuum, and even 'stand alone' cards which are powerful on their own will eventually loose some of its charm as players pack strategies for it in the sideboard.  This is an organic and ever-changing game, and we love it.
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Kaladesh Game Day Decision

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Here in Canada-Land, many Magic: the Gathering players living in the heart of the vast and empty hinterland have now, after four weeks of hunting down cards from the new Kaladesh set have finally, after much effort, a 60-card standard format deck.  

The challenge for most is not just finding the safest way past predatory polar bears to the nearest card shop (sometimes a few days' ride away on a moose), but the scarcity of those cards you may be looking for if and when you do finally limp into the village card shop.  Add in the rapidly changing metagame as the first few weeks of the standard evolves, then you may be looking at a strategy, which may have been slick a moon ago, but now is glum and sucking a thumb in the rear saddle.

So what to play on Kaladesh Game Day ?

You could look at what the Pro players were battling with this last weekend 'Pro Tour Kaladesh' - You can have a looky-loo at the top 24 decklists over here and below is the winning list played by Shota Yaskooka.  One thingy to note - the early red & white ('Canadian') vehicle lists featuring Smuggler's Copter are still there, but have made a lot of room for a variety of control lists pushing into the top slots.

'Safron Olive' over at MTG Goldfish (one of our fav sites) had done an exceptional job updating the world with the tournament last weekend.

For Kaladesh Game Day, you could also consider using a list similar to those which did well at the seven or so StarCity Game Regional Tournaments.  This may be somewhat more realistic as to what to expect at your local gaming store.

We think the most important thing you consider when bringing your 60-card stack of awesomeness to Kaladesh Game Day this weekend is something that you made, no matter how awkward it may be, as long as it delivers a healthy wallop of fun.

Before we sign off, be sure to visit Channel Fireball's 'This Week in Magic' series of interesting MTG content collected and indexed by the very awesome Andrew Cooperfauss.

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Vraska unSEEN

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Some more Magic: the Gathering musings and miscellany for you today.  

First up, we should point you in the direction of Todd Stevens article today over at StarCityGames, where he makes some Bold Predictions for Pro Tour Kaladesh.  The TL/DR essentially is that although Smuggler's Copter has been one helluva card which dominated the first few weeks of the new standard format, the likelihood that the early success of this may not carry through as players bring on more sideboard hate or adjust strategies.  The adjusted strategy may take the form of a Humans-based decklist.  Good read and here at MTG Realm, we've already tuned a list with Thalia's Lieutenant and friends to (hopefully) unseat the Copter as the most successful list.

 

Righto - on to the title of today's post - Vraska Unseen.

If you are not quite getting why we are writing about this, then we strongly suggest popping on over to WotC staffer's Magic Story post today on the Wizards article page here.

Again, another great read.  The big twist for us today was the brief sideline from the Kaldesh storyline into Ravnica where Jace meets Ral Zarek.  Ral has a rather interesting and perhaps important report for Jace regarding Project Lightning Bug, a device that Ral (and the Izzet build team) designed that would deliver a small energetic pulse whenever it experienced a discontinuity, such as a planeswalk.  Here is the interaction -

"The detectors still trigger when someone planeswalks. I glance over the results from time to time, but mostly I keep them hidden from Niv-Mizzet and most of my guild. I reached out when I saw Vraska's planeswalk."

Jace was deeply un-thrilled to hear the gorgon's name.

"She left Ravnica," Ral thought, "with no destination."

"No destination?"

"She didn't planeswalk to a plane. Only from one."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Exactly."

"A flaw in the detectors?"

Ral gave an impatient flick of his hand. "The experiment performed perfectly. The pattern of the departure was authentic, but the endpoint recorded as anomalous. Vraska hasn't been seen since. It's like she planeswalked into a void."

Dang.  Just where did the Gorgon go ?

She could be lost in the Blind Eternities, or perhaps landed on Amonkhet (the next very kewl set) where perhaps Nicol Bolas has cast some dark spell to obfuscate the destination.  Anywhoos, rather ironic that she is known as the 'unseen'.

Please feel free to speculate away with us or comment below.

 

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Wednesday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Hump-Day MTG peeps,

We suggest that if you, like us, are a fan of Magic: the Gathering story and love the world of Kaladesh, make digital tracks on over to the mothersite today.  Posted today is the continuation of the Kaladesh storyline 'Release', written by Chris L'Etoile, the Wizards of the Coast Narrative Design Coordinator.  We won't give very much away, but Chandra, Nissa, and Mrs. Pashiri were in a sticky situation when last we left off and things were looking decidedly grim.  To the rescue - our fav Planeswalking Kitteh.  Great story today!

Next up - Our new Scooter-Looter Overlords.
Pop over to the 'Tube and watch the Red-White Vehicles Standard Deck Tech for Magic: The Gathering—Kaladesh with Wedge of the Mana Source over at this linky.  We really love this build and were contemplating this being our first 60-card stack of the new standard format season, but with Smuggler's Copter going for around $25 locally (Ontario, Canada), we will decline.  

Instead, we've decided to buy necessities (like food), and update the Tier 2 U/W Spirits list we have.  We've got a ton of options in blue and white and feel that this is more than sufficient to get decent results at our regular Friday Night Magic events.  We already have the core of Rattlechains, Spell Queller, Selfless Spirit and friends.

The choices are a bit overwhelming, but we will eventually hatch a list out - 

All our new cards to be sorted

Some core options to consider

Some choices are easy, some not so much

Just how much control do we need?

We are emotionally attached to some mediocre cards while others are automatic shoe-ins.

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Kaladesh WR Vehicles

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

This past weekend marks the first large Magic: the Gathering Standard constructed tournament after the official release of the newest set, Kaladesh.  Heading into the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Indianapolis it was pretty safe to assume the following :
• After rotation, the new standard would lean towards a more aggresive build, and
• The new Kaladesh theme of 'vehicles' would make a splash.

General assumptions were correct.  Day two of the SCG Indy saw a good number of Aggro builds of various flavours and Smuggler’s Copter could be seen on most game tables.  It would be useful to pop on over to see the Day 2 Metagame Breakdown By Nick Miller linked over here.  Here are the more popular successful lists - 

R/B Aggro – 17 decks
W/R Aggro – 10
B/G Delirium – 10
W/R Vehicles – 8
Bant Aggro – 6
G/W Aggro – 5
B/U Zombies – 5
Mardu Aggro – 5
G/W Tokens – 4
U/W Spirits – 4
U/W Control – 4

Here are the Top 8 players from the weekend - 

1st W/R Vehicles Chris VanMeter
2nd Grixis Emerge Zach Voss
3rd G/B Delirium Abe Schnake
4th R/B Aggro Jacob Hagen
5th W/R Humans Donovan Lachney
6th W/R Aggro Mike Kenney
7th W/R Vehicles Devin Koepke
8th W/R Vehicles Jacob Baugh

Look for the W/R Vehicles Deck Tech with Kent Ketter posted by Nick Miller to get a good look at how this emerging archetype works.  Here is Chris VanMeter's W/R Vehicles list which took first place -

Creatures (21)
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Veteran Motorist
3 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
2 Pia Nalaar

Spells (15)
3 Fleetwheel Cruiser
4 Smuggler's Copter
2 Harnessed Lightning
2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
4 Declaration in Stone

Lands (24)
6 Mountain
10 Plains
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Needle Spires

Sideboard
3 Weaver of Lightning
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Skywhaler's Shot
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 Fragmentize

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Kaladesh Story Spoilers

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

In our spare time over the last few days we've been exploring the brave new world of Magic: the Gathering standard constructed.  As Kaladesh officially releases this very weekend and Magic Origins / Dragons of Tarkir rotate out, we fully expect to see many weird 'n' wonderful inventions at Friday Night Magic at our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario.  Leading in popularity it seems is Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Smuggler's Copter.

In fact, we think we'll be seeing many Copters -

To that end, may we suggest for your Side Board some copies of Fragmentize and/ or Natural State ?

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Anywhoos, onto today's spoilers - specifically Kaladesh Story spoilers.  SPOILER ALERT - Do not read on if you do not wish to discover the storyline of events unfolding on Kaladesh (and Aether Revolt).
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Still with us?  Alright then - to catch up on all the great stories to date, pop on over to the WotC page here.  At the time of this post, we have been treated to six episodes.

Posted to Reddit, Tumblr and elsewhere are storyline clips from the new Magic Duels game, updated with Kaladesh.  The new release adds 167 NEW unique earnable cards, NEW Story Quests, and NEW Skill Quests.  Here are the clips posted - 

We are definitely looking forward to the upcoming Kaladesh story episodes.  We've got questions that only the details of the stories will provide.  Kudos to the Wizards of the Coast team for yet again developing a great story background.

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