Tarkir Dragonfury

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Soon here at MTG Realm, we'll be diving into Magic: the Gathering spoiler season again with the upcoming Dragons of Tarkir set with our very first previews are expected 6th March during the PAX East MTG Panel in Boston.  Today on the mothersite, we are treated with an early look at the Dragons of Tarkir Prerelease Event Activity called 'Tarkir Dragonfury'.

One particular job we do not envy is creating these Prerelease activities.  Wizards has been doing a damn fine job and one of the biggest improvements we'll note is the use of the 'Prerelease Pack' which we, other players, and event organisers at your local gaming store just love.  Some of the Prerelease activities have been hit and miss however.  A hit according to many was the Avacyn Restored 'Helvault', while a miss may have been Dragon's Maze 'Implicit Maze'.

WotC staffer Gavin's article today touched on the Dragons of Tarkir Prerelease Activity - 'Tarkir Dragonfury'.  Quite briefly, twice during the Prerelease event, you may take the D20 'Spindown™' representing your 'breath weapon' to knock down a number of pieces on the board pictured below.  Scores are totaled and prizes awarded (while supplies last) which are alternate art cards.  Here is what each point total can win:

• 3 points—Basic land
• 9 points—Basic land and Common
• 12 points—Basic Land, Common, and uncommon
• 18 points—Basic Land, Common, Uncommon, and Rare 

We love us some alternate art cards, and are certainly head over heels seeing just how awesome these dice look.  Our 13-year old self is looking forward to knocking down those board pieces, but since we've moved a few decades beyond that age, the activity seems a bit lame / gimicky.  

Our opinion may change during the Prerelease Event and as with all things, we'll be going in unbiased and with an open mind.

. . . mmm - those dice . . . 
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Fate Reforged Spoiler 12-16

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Happy Tuesday evening MTG peeps,

We realised we just posted not that very long ago, but we have some pretty cool news - a right proper Fate Reforged spoiler for all the Magic: the Gathering spoiler nutters out there.  This particular spoiler was to be previewed in an article by Reid Duke on the 29th December but for some reason got promoted and found the attention of the Google cache monster.

This Holiday treat we were meant to enjoy over the Christmas holidays is a white Uncommon instant and dang! - its just beautiful.  We are most definitely looking forward to the Fate Reforged set release on 23rd January and this new spoiler is definitely going on a pre-order list to MTG Mint Card. 

Anywhoos - let's look at the amazing art from Willian Murai !  Looks like an Abzan warrior getting down to business with the business end of a Tarkir Dragon.

Now the card . . .

Valorous Stance, 1W
Instant, Uncommon
Choose one -
• Target creature gains indestructible until end of turn.
• Destroy target creature with toughness 4 or greater.
"Every choice alters the path of fate"
-Sarkhan Vol
28/185

A very cool modal spell offering your choice of protection or destruction - we're just dizzy with how lovely this is.  This is likely to be solid against what is expected to be a number of dragons in the new set and will also provide an option against those Siege Rhinos which seem to be rather popular and prevalent in the format right now.

Two thumbs up on this one !  Although we're overjoyed to see this early, we're still sorry for WotC and Reid Duke about their time-travel issues with this article.  This new card now joins two others and we love what we're seeing so far.

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Warlords Khans and Dragons

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We are happy to report that we experienced somewhat of a sudden and striking realisation last evening when we were attempting to fine tune our standard constructed Magic: the Gathering decklist for the upcoming Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games.  Strategies we previously employed successfully had not been delivering consistently recently on the game table, due in part to the shifting metagame.  While going through what was working and what was not, we noticed that we had gone through the same exercise last year during a shift in popular top tier decklists.  To this end, we simply borrowed a page from how we previously evolved against those winning lists last time with our against the grain rogue decklist.  All the answers we needed, we already had ordered from MTG Mint Card which we would like to credit to our foresight, but it's just probably dumb luck.  We don't know what the future will hold this Friday but we're feeling a lot better about it now - we'll report back to you after FNM with how we did.

Anywhoos, speaking about the future - there's been some interesting Magic: the Gathering news we have to yatter about.  You may recall our previous post about recent trademark registrations on behalf of Wizards of the Coast.  There's been two more to share with you now -

"Warlords of Khanar" - registered 9 September 2013
"Khans of Tarkir" - registered 14 February 2014
"Dragons Of Tarkir" - registered 21 February 2014
and
"Magic Origins" - registered yesterday - 4 March 2014

There is always a chance that Wizards may have these reserved for products other than Magic: the Gathering - like Dungeons & Dragons, but there is a level of connectivity between the Warlords, Khans and Dragons which suggests that this could be the set names of the next block.  This reminds us of the flavor presented in cards such as Benalish Calvary.  As for yesterday's 'Magic Origins' trademark, we can only speculate that this could possibly be the next 'From the Vault' product.  The domain for MagicOrigins.com has also been registered.  Both DragonsOfTarkir.com and KhansOfTarkir.com were also registered redirect to the Wizards of the Coast website.  Below is the anticipated future release dates of goodies from Wizards -

Conspiracy - 6 June 2014
Magic 2015 - 18 July 2014
From the Vault: Annihilation - 23 August 2014
'Huey' - October 2014
Commander ? - November 2014
'Dewey' - Frebruary 2015
'Louie' - May 2015
From the Vault: ? - August 2015 ?
'Blood' - October 2015
'Sweat' - February 2016
'Tears' - May 2016

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In other news, the mothersite today had announced a new product offering to be released along with the Magic 2015 core set - 'Clash Packs'.  A clarification was also provided -

Clash Packs are not replacing Event Decks; instead, Clash Packs will alternate with the Event Deck, meaning that you'll see a Clash Pack for Magic 2015 , and an Event Deck for "Huey." The Clash Pack will then return in "Dewey."

Here's the 4.1.1. -

A two-player product, the Clash Pack contains two sixty-card decks designed to be played against each other. It's a great way to introduce new players to Magic. And it also comes with six premium foil cards with alternative art.

So what happens when your friend is ready for the next level? Well, the Clash Pack comes with instructions that show you how to combine cards from each of its decks to create a new deck designed to be equal in power to what you would expect from an Event Deck. But this is only one combination. There are countless ways to make a deck your own.

Contents:
• Two ready-to-play sixty-card decks
• Six premium cards with alternative art
• Deck box
• Strategy insert
• Magic rules reference card

MSRP: $24.99
Languages: English, Japanese, French, German, and Chinese (Simplified)

Perhaps a replacement for those 'Booster Battle Packs' which may not have held much popularity with the gaming MTG community at large but for which we think still had an appeal for some.  We think this looks good to go not only for newer players but the premium cards will certainly hold interest for others wanting to collect.
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