Khans of Tarkir Art

~
Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

You will likely recall that very cool Magic: the Gathering panel at San Diego Comic Con last weekend which we did blog about as it happened (post over here) as soon as the panel wrapped up.  A bit of a hindrance was the unavailability of a live stream during the panel which the Wizards of the Coast staffers provided a sneak preview of the next several months of exciting MTG products.

Yesterday, as promised by WotC, a 45-minute video was posted to the Wizards YouTube account.  We most definitely encourage MTG fans who were not there to check out Mark Rosewater, Mark Purvis, Doug Beyer, and Gavin Verhey as they discuss Magic's near future.  All the awesome sauce is in it including previews of Commander 2014, From the Vault: Annihilation, Duel Decks Anothology, and Khans of Tarkir!

For today's post to the MTG Realm blog, we wanted to do a wrap up of some of the very lovely illustrations commissioned by WotC for the set, some of which did not appear to be shown during the MTG Panel at SDCC.  Here is an art-dump which is indeed candy for the eye and imagination -
~

 

~

MTG Commander 2014

~
Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We here at MTG Realm are still processing all the revelations from last weekend's Magic: the Gathering Panel at San Diego Comic-Con.  For today's post, we want to cover off the previews for this November's upcoming Commander product release.

Here is a brief blurb from yesterday's announcement on the mothersite -

For the first time ever, you can lead your forces with a Planeswalker commander in this exciting multiplayer Magic format. Dominate the battlefield with new combinations of strength and skill. Swarm opponents with mighty creatures and arm yourself with powerful artifacts. But fight wisely, for only one commander will prevail.

Also for the first time ever, Planeswalker commanders will headline five monocolored 100-card Commander decks. There will be 61 new cards legal in eternal formats (Vintage and Legacy) but not legal in Standard, Block Constructed, or Modern, with 15 new cards in each deck.

Release Date: November 7, 2014
Magic Online Release Date: November 21, 2014
Three-Letter Abbreviation: C14
Twitter Hashtag: #MTGC14
MSRP: $34.99 (per deck)
Languages: English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Chinese Simplified
Initial Concept and Game Design: Ethan Fleischer (lead), Dan Emmons, Aaron Forsythe, James Hata, Charles Rapkin
Final Game Design & Development: Ian Duke (lead), Mark Globus, Peter Lee, Dan Emmons, Max McCall

The two cards previewed at the MTG Panel at SDCC are :
• Teferi, Temporal Archmage - (to be featured in the blue 'Peer through Time' decklist), from Dominara.
• Ghoulcaller Gisa - from the plane of Innistrad, the sister of Geralf, both necromancers.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage, 4UU
Planeswalker - Teferi, Mythic Rare
+1: Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library.
-1: Untap up to four target permanents.
-10: You get an emblem with "You may activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control on any player's turn any time you could cast an instant."
[5]

Ghoulcaller Gisa, 3BB
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard, Mythic Rare
B, T, Sacrifice another creature: Put X 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature's power.
"Geralf, must you always whine? I agreed to nothing. I'll raise ghouls anytime I wish."
3/4

Teferi looks to be crazy good and incredibly powerful.  The first two abilities are solid while the third is so conditional that we would not really want to plan on using it, like evar.  Gisa is set to puke out hordes of zombie tokens for an alpha strike or some sacrifice shenanigans.  We will likely pick up at least two of the five decks and will be ordering singles from the other ones from MTG Mint Card.
~