DKA PreRelease

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope you were able to get out to a Dark Ascension PreRelease event this past weekend. If not, your second chance is coming with the official release this weekend (February 3rd / 4th) to get your paws and claws into this new Magic the Gathering set. We skipped the midnight prerelease at our local games store, OMG! Games here in Barrie to be all fresh faced ans bushy-tailed for their Saturday morning event. About 35 to 38 players attended the midnight one with several of them coming back the next morning for 10:00 AM to play again with little or no sleep. The Saturday morning event was well attended too but we suspect the latter events in the day were likely packed.

Anywhoos - enough yattering for the moment, here's a vid from the Dark Ascension PreRelease . . .

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First up, let's take a look at our rare pulls from the 3 packs Innistrad & 3 packs of Dark Ascension we had to work with to build our 40 card deck . . .

We love both these sets as there is an extra slot in your 15-card booster pack for a double-faced card. Have 9 rares from six booster packs is never a bad thing. The rares were : Huntmaster of the Fells, Snapcaster Mage, Instigator Gang, Nephalia Drownyard, Flayer of the Hatebound, Creeping Reneassainse (foil), Vault of the Archangel, Elder of Laurels, and Ghoultree.

There appeared to be some decent support for a werewolf build in the commons and uncommons so we tried out a red / green build that event included our Creeping Reneassainse. We were also able to pull that uncommon wolf 'lord', Immerwolf which cemented the build nicely. For our fourth and final game, we scrapped out the entire deck to create a blue white build. Hey we love making decks and even tried a few more after we got home with the card pool. At the end of the day, it was 2 wins, 2 loses, and a lot of fun.

WHAT did you pull ?
WHAT cards really stood out in your limited games ?
WHICH cards will make the grade for standard constructed ?

Use the comment thingy below - we want to hear from you.
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It is not too late to get in your pre-orders yet. Whether you are thinking about building a vampire, werewolf, zombie, spirit, agrro or control, you'll likely need to get some new cards - Give MTG Mint Card a look.

Stay tuned to MTG Realm,
We still have a lot of catching up to do for Dark Ascension - so many posts, so little time kinda thing.
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Deathfed Event Deck

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Altough we were not able to get out to the Innistrad Game Day this weekend, we did swing by OMG! Games, our local Game Store, here in Barrie on Friday, and picked up the Deathfed Innistrad Event Deck. We even had a few excellent games in the Friday Night Magic event. We found out that red seems to be a popular colour of choice (with almost every turn one witnessing players dropping a Stromkirk Noble). The Gavony Township token build we had performed not too badly but we'll yatter about the metagame next post perhaps.

Anywhoos - onto the subject of today's post - that Green / Blue / black Innistrad Event deck. Before we speak onto the merits and vulnerabilities of this product, let's watch the video first . . .


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First off, Event Decks differ greatly from Intro Packs. While the latter provides a first look into the flavour and world of the new set and are great for new players getting into Magic the Gathering, the former provides a fairly decent deck which, straight outta the box should allow the player to immediately participate in competitive games.

The Deathfed deck may seem a little less powerful than other Event Decks we've seen before but with some minor tweaking, it should perform rather well at any FNM event. We ran this event deck against a few popular current archetypes and we can say that we may have underestimated this deck. This geen / blue and black deck is slow to start but when you get your graveyard tech online, its downright dangerous.

Cards such as Armored Scab, Forbidden Alchemy, and Mulch start the self-milling process to fill up your graveyard. We must admit that we got a bit nervous with this process in addition to to not providing much for defence. Gnaw to the Bone did provide some solid life-gain which soothed our nerves. After the engine was started with the likes of Sppider Spawning, Bonehoard, Splinterfright and Boneyard Wurm, this deck was nearly unstoppable. We also think that the Sideboard offers quite a few very decent cards for whatever your local metagame dictates.

The one and only very dangerous flaw in this build, and which really cannot be easily avoided giving the focus and purpose of the deck is Nihil Spellbomb. The source of this deck's strength lies not on the battlefield but the graveyard. To exile all the cards from the graveyard with Nihil Spellbomb would be nothing short of devastating. Of course there are ways to deal with this threat but not without detracting from the focused strategy that this build provides.

Pipe in below - Did you pick up an Event Deck ? What did you think ?
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Finally,
Just one month after the release day of Innistrad, MTG Mint Card has sorted out the best selling Innistrad cards for the month of October, 2011 :

1. Grimoire of the Dead
2. Parallel Lives
3. Bloodline Keeper / Lord of Lineage
4. Daybreak Ranger / Nightfall Predator
5. Champion of the Parish
6. Past in Flames
7. Mayor of Avabruck / Howlpack Alpha
8. Curse of Stalked Prey
9. Clifftop Retreat
10. Ancient Grudge
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Rise Eldrazi Fat Pack

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Happy Friday to all.

While on lunch-break today, we bolted over the fence and made haste to our local Magic the Gathering gamery store which (almost) promptly opened at 12:00 noon. Why ? - To get our card-grubbing mitts on (somewhat limited first-order supply of) Rise of the Eldrazi before our more tardy brethren made it in. If you are off to an FNM tonight, go right now so you can have your pick of the singles (if your store carries 'em) or obtain your booster boxes, fat packs, or intro packs before they're all gone.











Anywhoos - we scrapped some money from the couch and got a Fat Pack so we could video-dissect for ya . . .

So - what did we pull ?

Not too much of excitement - could have been better but we're still happy : Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Near-Death Experience, Student of Warfare, Sphinx of Magosi, Guul Fraz Assassin, Bear Umbra, Tajuru Preserver, and Sphinx-Bone Wand.










Righto - for those not in the know, here's what you get with the fat pack : Sample chapter from the novel "Zendikar: In the Teeth of the Akoum"
Spindown die life counter, 8 Rise of the Eldrazi boosters, Storage box, Wraparound mural, Player's guide, and 40 Rise of the Eldrazi basic land.

We'll go over what we got and may decide to make deck sets of some. - Which by-the-way - if you collect FOILS - it looks like MTG Mint Card just put their inventory up ! Check it out HERE.

If you're heading out to FNM tonight - good luck, and if you are heading out to the official Rise of the Eldrazi Release event - Bring your best game and kick butt.

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Worldwake Fat Pack

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Good Day MTG Peeps,
As is our custom here on MTG Realm, when the next Magic the Gathering set is released, we capture a Fat Pack, bring the beast into our laboratory and dissect it for your enjoyment.

Here's the Video - check out our pulls below . . .

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Here is what one may expect in a Worldwake Fat Pack -

+ Worldwake Player's Guide,
+ Forty Zendikar basic (full art) lands
+ Storage box (of course) featuring Jace Art
+ A sample chapter from R.B. Wintermute's 'In the Teeth of Akoum'
+ EIGHT Worldwake booster packs


Anywhoos, head out to your local gamery shop and pick yours up today !

As for what we pulled, check it out !

RARES
Amulet of Vigor, Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar pit, Eye of Ugin, Joraga Warcaller, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Lavaclaw Reaches, Marshal's Anthem (FOIL), andStrength of the Tajuru


UNCOMMONS
Bloodhusk Ritualist, Canopy Cover, Caustic Crawler, Dread Statuary, Everflowing Chalice, 2 x Hada Freeblade, Hammer of Ruin, Horizon Drake, Lightkeeper of Emeria, Perimeter Captain, Permafrost Trap, 2 x Quest for Renewal, Refraction Trap, Riccochet Trap, Scrib Nibblers, Sejiri Merfolk, Shoreline Salvager, 2 x Spell Contortion, Summit Apes, Tideforce Elemental, Vastwood Animist

That's it for now - We will be heading out to OMG Games in Barrie to play in the Worldwake Launch Party tomorrow (Saturday)! We hope to have some coverage for this tournament for you in our next post. To find a Worldwake Release event near you, check out THIS Wizards of the Coast page.

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