MTG Wallpaper Round-Up

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Our apologies for being away from the interwebs for the last three days but it was bears and rattlesnakes for us up in Northern Ontario, Canada-Land and no WiFi connection.  To get back into the swing of things here at MTG Realm, we wanted to get a post off with some of the recent Magic: the Gathering wallpapers for your desktop or mobile device.  

Featured below are six recent Magic 2015 core set arts - not only gorgeous card illustrations by talented artists but also solid cards to game with.  If you've not already picked up these cards, pop on over to MTG Mint Card -  anywhoos, let's have a looky-loo at the recent offerings over on the mothersite (<-use get="" goods="" i="" linky="" the="" this="" to=""> - 

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled - illustrated by Karl Kopinski
 

Soul of Theros - illustrated by Zack Stella
 

Ajani Steadfast - illustrated by Chris Rahn
 

Soul of Innistrad - illustrated by Adam Paquette

Sliver Hivelord - illustrated by Aleksi Briclot

Garruk, Apex Predator - illustrated by Tyler Jacobson 

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Infernal Intervetnion Intro Pack

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Clear your schedule this evening and kick your weekend off right by getting to your local gaming store for this evening's Friday Night Magic Event.  We'll be popping on over to OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario (just a titch north of Toronto) where we will be running our first attempt of Standard Format Slivers.  We went with a predominantly green / red / blue build with the ability to side in other Slivers as required with the punchline being the new bomb - Sliver Hivelord.  We'll yatter about how our games went and what we plan to improve the list against the local meta-game.  Anywhoos, let's take a pause and yatter about the new Magic 2015 core set Intro Pack we got -

Everything you need in one ready-made deck. Includes
• A 60 cards pre-constructed deck,
• a foil premium rare card,
• two sealed Magic 2015 15-card booster packs,
• a strategy insert, and
• a Magic learn-to-play guide.  
Check out the brief video dissection -

This is great for new players wanting to to learn constructed and getting them into the game - more specifically, Friday Night Magic at their local game store.  Wizards of the Coast had done their best to design these to be played against each other and to be a springboard into the game for novice gamers.  Alternatively, this also delivers a measure of fun for seasoned players who may use the Intro Packs to battle against a friend, also equipped with an Intro Pack.  This arrangement would provide some relatively strength-matched decklists to go up against each other and preclude 'that guy' who seems to have rather deep pockets to fill a list with completely OP cards leading to rapid blow-outs and a failure to deliver fun.  Having said that, this decklist can serve as a good chasis upon which to build upgrades.  Drop by MTG Mint Card and start your mix 'n' match to increase the power level of this starter.

Decklist for the Red / Black 'Infernal Intervention' Intro Pack.  The foil rare Indulgent Tormentor was also the Magic 2015 PreRelease promo.

Here's that decklist :
26 Lands
13x Mountain
13x Swamp

18 Creatures
2x Carrion Crow
2x Gargoyle Sentinel
2x Goblin Roughrider
1x Gravedigger1x Indulgent Tormentor (Foil Rare)
2x Nightfire Giant
1x Thundering Giant
2x Torch Fiend
3x Typhoid Rats
1x Wall of Fire
1x Zof Shade

16 Other Spells
2x Blastfire Bolt
1x Burning Anger (Second Rare)
1x Caustic Tar
1x Clear a Path
1x Cone of Flame
1x Festergloom
2x Flesh to Dust
2x Heat Ray
2x Lightning Strike
2x Profane Memento
1x Stab Wound
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The two Magic 2015 booster packs in the M15 Intro Pack produced the following :
Rares : Genesis Hydra, Agrressive Minning
Uncommons : Ancient Silverback, Leeching Sliver, Military Intelligence, First Response, Altac Bloodseeker, Cicle of Flame.

We also got four other booster packs and have to say we were throughly impressed with the haul -
Garruk, Apex Predator, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, and Stormtide Leviathan.

That's it for now, drop by (tomorrow) Saturday as we will have the latest 'knock yer socks off' news from the Magic: the Gathering Panel at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) where we may expect previews from a number of soon-to-be-released card sets / products from WotC.
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Standard Slivers M14/15

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

With a large Magic 2015 core set pre-order from MTG Mint Card now in hand, we, like many other Magic: the Gathering players are set to brew up new decklists for standard constructed.
 

One of the very first lists we've created is for standard Slivers and the most important reason for this is improved mana via Sliver Hive which will allow you to tap for one mana of any color when casting a Sliver spell.  This, along with Manaweft Sliver essentially provides a solid base to cast every colour or multi-coloured Sliver card out.  Which is a good thing as M15 has the five colour Sliver Hivelord which will give all your Sliver critters indestructible.

But where to go with all our lovely Sliver choices ?

ONE CMC - Galerider Sliver, u / Stiking Sliver, r

TWO CMC - Diffusion Sliver, 1u / Leeching  Sliver, 1b / Manaweft  Sliver, 1g / Predatory  Sliver, 1g / Venom  Sliver, 1g

THREE CMC - Belligerent  Sliver, 2r / Blur Sliver, 2r / Sliver Construct, 3 / Steelform  Sliver, 2w / Syphon  Sliver, 2b

FOUR CMC - Bonescythe  Sliver, 3w 

FIVE CMC - Battle  Sliver, 4r / Sliver Hivelord, wubrg / Thorncaster  Sliver, 4r

SIX CMC - Constricting  Sliver, 5w / Megantic  Sliver, 5g

SEVEN CMC - Groundshaker  Sliver, 6g
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One player - Roy Reese - took along a Sliver decklist to the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Baltimore last weekend, the first large tournament directly after the release of the new core set.  You can check out the Deck Tech over here.  Roy placed 88th in Tournament which ain't that bad and one thing he mentioned in the video was the need for Negate to counter non-creature spells, which we will completely agree with for the current metagame.  We would also extrapolate this further by suggesting you may be well served in a full deckset of Diffusion Sliver, the blue two-drop fella forcing your opponent to pay two more mana to cast any spell targeting one of your Slivers.

There are several rather nice cards that provide assistance to creature-heavy decklists such as Domri Rade, Garruk, Caller of Beasts, and Yisan, the Wanderer Bard which will allow you to extract or float off additional Slivers.  We still don't think that a 'tool-box' approach is correct just yet for Slivers.

For the moment, we will have a first attempt ready for Friday Night Magic at OMG! Games and as it stands for today, may feature the following -

 

The tough part is deciding the non-Sliver supporting cards such as Simic Charm, Negate, Cyclonic Rift, Ghor-Clan Rampager and others.
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Tuesday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Not much of a post today for you - but be sure to check back tomorrow as we evaluate a few options on standard decklists featuring M14 / M15 Slivers.  For today, we'll just yatter about a number of miscellaneous Magic: the Gathering related items.

First up - 

The first large MTG tournament directly after the newest core set, Magic 2015 was released.  Not much to say really than this tournament put on by StarCityGames Open Series Baltimore was perhaps too close to the official release for many players to get a hold of the new cards.  Dan Jessup won the standard event with a mono-black devotion and the rest of the top decks did not feature much inclusion of new M15.
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Next -

Over on the mothership today, Elaine Chase, Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy & Marketing for Magic: The Gathering had an important update as to what actions Wizards of the Coast had been taking with regards to the increase of counterfeit MTG cards - we suggest you give this a read.  We suggest giving this article from Chas Andrrs on SCG a review to bring yourself up to speed.

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Next -

We had already talked last week about on our Tumblr Blog about the return of Wizards of the Coast to San Diego Comic-Con but were not clear as to the WotC panelist.  Pop on over to the mothersite here for the 4.1.1.   We can expect Mark Rosewater (Magic head designer) to moderate a panel featuring Mark Purvis (Magic director of global brand marketing), Doug Beyer (Magic senior creative designer), and Gavin Verhey (Magic designer).
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Finally -

We now have our Magic 2015 pre-orders (a bunch of singles and an assorted card lot) in hand from MTG Mint Card.  This was shipped super fast by UPS and we can now start brewing some decklists in time for this Friday's Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games in Barrie, Ontario.  

Our first-world problem - our shelf is now too full to accommodate our Magic: the Gathering collection.  :)

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Magic 2015 Fat Pack

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Magic: the Gathering players are likely all a rather happy bunch at the moment - the latest core set, Magic 2015 officially released on Friday with the special launch event taking place during Friday Night Magic.  Those in attendance at their local gaming store may have scored a lovely alternate art 'In Garruk's Wake', which although may not see a lot of constructed play, does perfectly present the theme / storyline of this core set.  

We played on Friday Night at OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada-Land to get our launch promo and try out a new Magic 2015 card in an existing Naya Hexproof Auras decklist we already had.  Specifically, we had added a full deckset of Heliod's Pilgrim which, all things considered, is a rather powerful card - being able to search your library for any aura card to get it in your hand is great.  We modified the conventional list to run it a bit akin to a 'toolbox' where we floated out the right auras at the right time.  Unfortunately we did not do too well at OMG! Games and think we need to modify our mana a titch.  Speaking of our local gaming store, they ran a Charity Event on Sunday for a former regular who had been battling cancer.  Although the event is over, you can still contribute to good guy William Howe's recovery here.

Righto - back on track!
As is our custom here on MTG Realm, we've grabbed a M15 Fat Pack from OMG! Games and brought it back to our lair for a video dissection - let's have a look 

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For an MRSP of just $40 USD, here's what you score in a Magic 2015 Fat Pack -
• Card Storage Box
• Nine M15 Boosters
• 2 deck boxes
• Player's Guide
• A learn-to-play insert
• A pack of 80 basic lands
• Spindown life counter

We were more than happy with our Fat Pack Pulls - a total of 3 Mythic Rares, one of which is most definitely a 'money card' at the moment.  The Sliver Hivelord is also very welcome as we had pre-ordered from MTG Mint a bunch of M14 / M15 Slivers and Sliver Hive as we want to play a fun Sliver build at FNM before this fall's rotation.

• Garruk, Apex Predator

• Jace, the Living Guildpack

• Sliver Hivelord

• Cruel Sadist

• Chasm Skulker

• Kurlesh, Onakke Ancient

• Battlefield Forge

• Preeminent Captain

• Phyrexian Revoker

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M15 Artifacts

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

For today's post on the MTG Realm blog, we wanted to start covering off some of the new Magic 2015 core set card offerings that may make a splash into standard constructed.  We're certain that within a few weeks after the M15 official release this weekend, Magic: the Gathering players will be fine tuning standard constructed decklists during tournaments and casual events like Friday Night Magic - and what we make note of here may be phophetic as metagame absorbs and adjusts to the new cards - or simply be just wrong.  If you still need to get equipped with the latest cards, pop on over to MTG Mint Card.

Anywhoos, a few cards we took an interest to as the spoilers and previews rolled out over the last few weeks involve a potential of articfact-centric decklists thanks in part to a few new key cards.

Chief EngineerWhen we first saw this card with a sweet convoke ability for artifacts, our imagination went wild - powering out a bunch of small creatures to convoke artifact fattys like Soul of New Phyrexia or even a Scuttling Doom Engine.  We thought we might just be looking at another resurgence of affinity - or at the very least, another great inclusion into some Modern lists.  Dropping two zero-costing Ornithopter turn one, a Phyrxian Revoker turn two, the Chief turn three and then you'd be on you way to get Soul of New Phyrexia out earlier.

Ensoul Artifact 
Another M15 card which jumped out at us was Esnoul Artifact.  We realise that to maximize playtime for this aura may require the use of Heliod's Pilgrim to dig the aura out of your library and get it into your hand - this might just be reasonable.  In this case our imagination had us playing this right on turn two on either the indestructible land 'Darksteel Citadel' or even better, on the zero-costing 0/2 Ornithopter morphing into a 5/5 flyer.  Another lovely target for this aura could even be the 2/1 Armored Transport costing three mana - the cool thing here is that you can make it a 5/5 that doesn't take any combat damage from blockers.

 










Another interesting aura to consider may be Aqueous Form that will give you an unblockable creature - with the bonus of scrying when you attack which will smooth out your draws.  Obviously we are looking at decklist featuring blue as a primary colour - but do we need a second colour and if so, which one?  The new M15 card Shrapnel Blast.  For one colourless and one red, this instant will allow you to blast five damage to target player or creature for the additional cost of sacrificing an artifact - not too shabby we think.  Madcap Skills is another aura - and a rather popular red one which may now give this decklist a With the likes of Springleaf Drum, yet another artifact, you could get some decent access to any colour.

Wherever you may take this, we think it will deliver a lot of fun and engaging games.  Feel free to shoot us an eMail or drop a comment below.
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MTG Monday Miscellaney

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope everyone had a great Magic 2015 PreRelease weekend.  Our local card shop, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario had a great turnout and we had a chance to get out to play on Sunday where we picked up a Green PreRelease Pack to battle with.  The green prerelease pack had the Phytotitan prerelease promo if you recall and the seeded pack had the second rare as Kalonian Twingrove.  Oddly enough, another pack produced yet another Phytotitan.  

As many of you suspected - we anticipated this from the many polls we saw in the forums - Black was a favourite prerelease pack to choose, most likely due to the prerelease promo 'Indulgent Tormentor' which is not only a very decent card in limited, it may also make some standard decklists.  You just might want to pick a few up over at MTG Mint Card if you were not able to pull one this last weekend.  The below picture shows just how 'picked over' black was over the other colours.

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Anywhoos - the other Magic: the Gathering news out today is not much news at all really - the anticipated Banned and Restricted list update.  As expected, there were no changes - much to the disappointment of some Modern format players who were rooting for the un-banning of Bloodbraid Elf -

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MTG Tumblr Thursday

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

If you happen to in Barrie, Ontario (just north of Toronto), drop by OMG! Games in the north end of the city near Georgian College where Thursday always means epic Commander (EDH) games are afoot.  The store is also getting prepared for an awesome all weekend long Magic 2015 core set PreRelease.  For today, we wanted to take a break and turn our attention to our sister site, MTG Realm on Tumblr, where we just exceeded 6,000 followers.  Anywhoos, let's dig in -
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Photoset

July 10, 2014

51 notes

Magic: the Gathering - M15 Intro Packs
I had posted the Magic 2015 Core Set Intro Pack decklists over on the MTG Realm blog last month - http://mtg-realm.blogspot.ca/2014/06/magic-2015-intro-and-clash-packs.html  Below- the contents -

 

 

 

• 1 premium card,
• 1 60-card deck,
• 2 boosters,
• 1 learn-to-play insert,
•1 strategy insert
MRSP $15

Price of Glory - w/b
Hit the Ground Running - u/b
Infernal Intervention - b/r
Flames of the Dragon - r/u
Will of the Masses - g/w

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Photoset

July 09, 2014

321 notes

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - The Two Steps
Some silly two-card synergies I hope to explore further.
There are loads more out there for the new Magic 2015 core set cards.

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Photoset

July 09, 2014

77 notes

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - Collections
Essentially, there may be two very basic types of MTG Collectors -
• Sealed (un-opened) product collections - like that of the top image from Thertock, and
• Un-sealed (opened) card collections - like that similar to the image from Razzerblade.
Which collector are you ?

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Photo

July 06, 2014

391 notes

xathrid-necromancer:

Magic card vending machine

This may be dangerous to wallet.  :)

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