FNM Round-Up

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Many local gaming stores will be holding midnight prerelease events for the newest Magic: the Gathering expansion set, Born of the Gods tonight as well throughout the weekend.  A few local players we know will not only be  attending Friday Night Magic this evening but also every prerelease event at OMG! Games to make a marathon of it.  As it is also the NFL Superbowl this Sunday, a few shops we know will be holding special MTG / NFL events so you can play the prerelease while watching the game.
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Anywhoos, talking about Friday Night Magic (FNM) - this really is what floats our boat here at MTG Realm.  If you don't know, this is a weekly Magic: The Gathering tournament played in just about every corner of the globe at local gaming stores. Friday Night Magic typically uses standard constructed format as well as occasionally Modern format.  Depending upon your store and the playerbase, you can simply receive or win booster packs and a foil FNM promo card.  Check the handy Wizards Locator here for the store nearest you.  Righto - back on track - WotC TJ had just posted the FNM promos for March / April 2014 on the mothership, so let's do a round-up of the FNM promos revealed for this year so far -
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January 2014 FNM Promo
Warleader's Helix
Original art by Greg Staples, alternate art by Wesley Burt.

February 2014 FNM Promo
Elvish Mystic
Original art by Wesley Burt, alternate art by Winona Nelson.

March 2014 FNM Promo
Banisher Priest
Original art by Willian Murai alternate art by James Zapata

April 2014 FNM Promo
Encroaching Wastes
Original art by alternate art by Richard Wright

Here's a closer look at some of these lovely new card arts -

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Superfriends

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

For today's post, we want to talk about an interesting deck archtype which has been around for a while but not really discussed yet here on MTG Realm. As the post title suggests, we'll look at the Superfriends build. After the main article (scroll waaay down to the bottom), there is some upcoming MTG news - specifically, the DCI Banned and Restricted List update expected out tomorrow.

Anywhoos, onto our look at Superfriends.
You may recall our previous post last month where we had taken a more detailed look at one of our Friday Night Magic events with a view to the ever-evolving metagame. Today we'll take a closer look at Superfriends - which, depending upon the specific build may also be known as Junk Walkers, Esper Walkers (or another tri-colour arrangement), or something similar but with a snappy / witty name such as Super Friends with Benefits.

In last month's post we had mentioned, we had played in our third match against Dan Langan, a well known player at OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario. As we had mentioned, we gaming with Dan as he is not one to build and play the popular 'flavour of the month' but has a preference for unique / interesting rogue builds which are also exploring and exploiting the potential weaknesses of the metagame.

The deck he ran was his take on Superfiends. This deck's main purpose is to utilize the efficiency and board presence of a variety of planeswalkers to gain, maintain a board presence and push for a win condition. Dan has a whopping 9 planeswalkers in White, Blue and Black (the 'Esper' colours), and an aggressive control profile. Here's Dan's decklist :

27 Lands : 6 Swamp, 5 Plain, 4 Island, 4 Evolving wilds, 3 Isolated Chapel, 2 Glacial Fortress, 2 Drowned Catacomb, 1 Darlslick shores

12 Instants : 4 Mana Leak, 2 Think Twice, 2 Go for the Throat, 2 Doomblade, 2 Forbidden Alchemy

7 Creatures: 2 Doomed Traveler, 2 Phantasmal Image, 2 Spellskite, 1 Consecrated Sphinx

9 Planeswalkers : 2 Liliana of the Veil, 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, 1 Elspeth Tirel, 2 Gideon Jura, 2 Venser, the Sojourner

3 Sorcery : 3 Day of Judgment

2 Enchantments : 2 Curse of Death's Hold

Side Baord : 2 Celestial Purge, 2 Negate, 2 Havengal Lich, 2 Rachet Bomb, 1 Black Sun Zenith, 1 Day of Judgment, 3 Flash Freeze

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This deck looks to pack a big 'fun' factor into play as well as presenting a number of choices and strategies to carefully consider giving the opponent's build and game state. In our opinion, we would say that Gideon Jura is one of the more important Planeswalkers in the mix here giving his ability to be able to protect the other Planeswalkers as well as his higher loyalty counter stats. Gideon also potentially presents a board where opponent's creatures are tapped down allowing you to swing in for an alpha strike. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad as well as Elspeth Tirel provides defensive tokens in which to chump block. Liliana of the Veil provides discard and spot removal, Venser is able to reset PW loyalty counters and an exile stick. We think that it would take some time to be able to weild this build effecitently and effectively - somewhat akin to being able to conduct a full orchestra, but once mastered, this deck should do an excellent job of kicking butts and taking names.

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Next up -
Tomorrow (Tuesday, 20th March 2012) we should expect the DCI Banned and Restricted List updates to be published on the mothership. Based on suggestive evidence, it is anticipated that Intangible Virtue (one of our fav cards at the moment) will get the ban-hammer in block-constructed format. This card has been dominating block constructed format recently and it seems that the only difference between a first and second place finish is who is able to field more Intangible Virtue enchantments quicker. As we don't really play block constructed, we really don't have an opinion but should this card get a ban or restriction for standard constructed (very unlikely) we think we will cry.
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Lastly,

If you thought that MTG Mint Card only sells Magic the the Gathering products, you should check again. They also have a host of other items of interest including World of Warcraft singles including the latest set 'Crown of the Heavens'.
Check 'em out.
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