Shadows Over Innistrad Sealed

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Countdown is on now to the Shadows Over Innistrad PreRelease this WEEKEND !!!  To find a gamery shoppe near you hosting a prerelease event, pop on over to the Wizards Locator page.

To get a bird's eye overview of all the fun 'n' excitement of what to expect at a Magic: the Gathering PreRelease, we suggest watching WotC staffer Michael Yichao in this finely produced video -

To get a sense of the flavour in this set, here is a short vid from MTG EU Danny B. - 

 

To get to the nitty gritty on playing with the new key word abilities and set features, you may be very well served with watching the following very nice instructional videos -

Double-Faced Cards
Investigate
Delirium
Madness
Investigate

The Shadows over Innistrad Prerelease Pack gives players their first opportunity to play with Shadows over Innistrad cards at your Prerelease events. Inside each Prerelease box, players will find

• six Shadows over Innistrad Booster packs,
• a spindown life counter, and
• a randomized, date-stamped, premium promo card, drawn from any rare or mythic rare in the set.

You can also get some get practice in using the very awesome Shadows Over Innistrad sealed deck generator over at our buddy Cam's site -

 http://mtgen.net/soi/

Good Luck and God Speed. 

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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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Mirran & Phyrexia Vids

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Here today on MTG Realm, we will have a look at the very cool videos Wizards of the Coast had recently put out early this week. We have to admit that these two videos showcasing the latest Magic the Gathering set is awesome marketing and the best we've seen since the Ravnica trailer. The Mirran video feels epic, kind of Peter Jackson / Lord of the Rings sort of epic. The Phyrexia video is choked full 'o' fearsome dread, kind of Borg meets Tim Burton kinda creepy. The alien voice and script was pure genius.

So, not only are we treated to some cool animations featuring new Scars of Mirrodin cards but also some previews of what can only be the upcoming Mirrodin Besieged set. 'Nuff rambling, pop some korn and let's have a look . . .


"We Will Endure" is the battle cry of the Mirrans as they defend their home against Phyrexian invasion in Magic: The Gathering - Scars of Mirrodin. Join the Mirrans at this Facebook page.

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"All Will Be One" sums up the Phyrexian philosophy of conquest as they bring purity to the plane of Mirrodin in Magic: The Gathering - Scars of Mirrodin. Support Phyrexia at this Facebook page.

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And here are some vid caps showing existing and unknown arts . . .

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Finally - some news from MTG Mint Card - A decent deal where one may purchase any Scars of Mirrodin Card Sets, and score 2 packs of UltraPro 50 Deck Protector Sleeve for FREE. Move fast as this is good only until November 6th. Details here.

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Alara Reborn Videos

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It's movie time and WoTC has some orientation / primer videos for the upcomming Alara Reborn expansion set which goes on sale April 30, 2009.

CASCADE

A look at Cascade, one of the key mechanics in the new Magic expansion Alara Reborn. Présentation de Cascade, une nouvelle mécanique introduite dans cette extension.

Vous jouez une carte avec la cascade l'effet de la carte et de la cascade vont sur la pile et deux cas se présentent : with two cases possible on the stack . . . ou alors pas de contre et là vous avez le champs libre avec votre "préparation du terrain"

Once the cascade effect resolves, vous prenez la first card from your library inférieur à celui de la carte qui a activé l'effet de cascade : cette carte, vous la jouez gratuitement . . . FREE spells ! !

Some CASCADE cards : Ardent Plea, Bituminous Blast, Bloodbraid Elf, Enlisted Wurm, Enigma Sphinx, Maelstrom Nexus,

Hybrid

Take an in-depth look at Hybrid, one of the key mechanics in the new Magic expansion Alara Reborn. Présentation de la mécanique Hybride & multicolore reprise dans cette extension.

Elles possèdent deux couleurs à la fois et leur coût peut-être payé soit avec un type de mana, soit avec un autre type de mana. Cards have mana costs which may be paid by either of the two colors listed.

Cartes Hybride : Bant Sureblade, Glassdust Hulk, Esper Stormblade, Naya Hushblade, Grixis Grimblade, Slave of Bolas, Giant Ambush Beetle, Jund Hackblade, Marisi's Twinclaws, Passed Prosperity, Crystallization ,

Cycling

Take an in-depth look at Cycling and Landcycling, two of the key mechanics in the new Magic expansion Alara Reborn. Présentation des mécaniques recyclage et recyclage de terrain reprises dans cette extension.

Cycling and Landcycling : Glassdust Hulk, Sanctum Plowbeast, Jhessian Zombies, Igneous Pouncer, Monstrous Carabid, Valley Rannet, Pale Recluse, Naya Sojourners.

Conflux Primer Videos

~ If you are heading out to Conflux Pre-Release or to a Launch Party, make sure you're up to speed on the new themes and rules and check out the new Planeswalker's Primer Videos posted yesterday on WoTC.

Planeswalkers

Sam gives us an in-depth look at Planeswalkers, including the debut of Nicol Bolas in the new Magic expansion Conflux. Ten exciting Planeswalkers including the new Nicol Bolas are now in circulation.

Domain

Sam gives us an in-depth look at Domain, one of the key mechanics in the new Magic expansion Conflux. This mechanic essentially counts the number of basic land types of the lands you control. The bigger the Mana diversity the bigger the bonus (and there is a variety of them).

Basic Landcycling

Sam yatters with us about Basic Landcycling, one of the key mechanics in the new Magic expansion Conflux.

Alara Planeswalker Videos

As I was totally booked, I did not get a chance to head out to the Pre-release this weekend. I hope that those who did go had a great time. For those of you who are planning to get yourself down to the release event, why not brush up on the new flavour, key word abilities / mechanics with these great videos put out by Wizards.

Evil WoTC minion Ken Nagle walk us through the first set in the Shards of Alara block with these videos -

A Planeswalker's Primer for Cycling


A Planeswalker's Primer for Bant


A Planeswalker's Primer for Esper


A Planeswalker's Primer for Grixis


A Planeswalker's Primer for Jund


A Planeswalker's Primer for Naya

Stay tuned for more Alara coverage . . .