San Diego Comic Con Spoilers

San Diego Comic Con was last week, and Wizards of the Coast has held a panel there for the past four years. During the panel they talk about the new products that will come out for the remainder of the year, and this year was no exception. So here's the rundown of what we will see in Magic in the rest of 2014.

The new expansion releasing for the fall on September 26th will be titled Khans of Tarkir. Prior to the Con, Magic's Head Designer Mark Rosewater had released a short video (linked here) that previewed the title and a small bit of back story which involves a world where dragons had gone extinct, and was the home plane of planeswalker Sarkhan Vol. He also teased that there would be something players had been asking for that had never been done before, and something that players wanted to return and would be.

Life Updates, and Duels of the Planeswalkers

With spoiler season over, and life back in full swing after vacation, I'm finding it difficult to sit down and write. Between work, my kids, the never-ending kitchen remodel and, to be completely honest, the Destiny beta, this week has just been packed. The only Magic I've played has been on my iPad, with Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015, and I have some very mixed feelings about this year's installment.

Way too much fun. I might finally have to get that PS4.
Too bad I can't play Magic on it...

Now I love Duels of the Planeswalkers, and I've been playing it since it released back in 2011. When a friend got hooked and told me to pick it up, I remembered how much I enjoyed the game and went and bought Magic cards for the first time in 17 years, and now here we are. So when Duels '15 was announced, and it was said it would have actual deck building, I got excited.

Then the bad news came. Unlike all the previous entries, Duels '15 is not available on the Playstation 3, or the 4. So if I wanted to try it, that meant my iPad or Steam, since I don't own an Xbox system. Last year I tried Duels '14 on the iPad and it was the buggiest thing ever. They've updated and improved it since launch, but it never could quite stop forgetting my achievements, so I just played on my Playstation 3. But the download is free, so I caved and tried it out.

Card Design Guide

In case you didn't know, there's more than one way to play Magic. Constructed tournament formats exist, such as Standard, Modern, Block Constructed, Legacy and Vintage. Casual constructed adds Commander, Singleton, Two-Headed Giant, Emperor, Planeschase, Archenemy and more. Limited formats include Draft, Sealed and Cube, among others. And, of course, you can always just build a deck with whatever you have and play against your friends, which is the best of all.

But when Wizards of the Coast designs new cards, they take all of these formats and playing options into account. And if you open a pack of cards, you are going to see cards designed for each of them. We're going to focus on two player dueling today, so watch and I'll demonstrate.

Do I like what this card does? Yes.
Do I like what it costs? Umm, sometimes.

Flesh to Dust is designed for Limited. Most of your commons are, especially the expensive ones. If you've only got 3 or 6 packs of cards to build a deck from, a non-conditional kill spell that costs 5 mana is worth much more than if you've got an entire format worth of cards to pick and choose to build from. Many better, cheaper and more efficient answers exist than Flesh to Dust, but if you're playing Sealed at a pre-release or drafting M15, this is a dependable card you'll likely slip into your black decks every time.

Pre-release Report

Alright, so I know I've had a week off, and I just want you all to know that for a hole in a ground, the Grand Canyon sure is pretty! I went camping with my family, and Magic was played, but I'll get to that in a later post. This one is to let you all know how my Pre-release went, and I hope yours was a s successful as mine was.

First things first, I ended up playing Red, as I suspected. Personally, the style of Red fits my own gameplay style very well, and as I discussed before the red cards in M15 had me more excited than any of the other colors. That said, Red did not have the strongest promo card. That honor definitely falls to Black, as I failed to win a single game where that card hit the table for my opponent.

Seriously bad news. This is not a
decision you want to be forced into making.

Even without my very own demon to play with, I still went 5-1 at my event, and came away with another eight packs in prizes. I opened my packs, and the only playable rares I opened were in Red. Four dual lands and a foil Sliver Hivelord are great cards, but not in Limited play. Especially sealed. So I ran my promo, Siege Dragon, and Hoarding Dragon. Plus I opened a Chandra, Pyromaster, and if you manage to pull a Planeswalker during a Sealed event, you're almost always making the right choice by putting her in your deck.

A Planeswalker, four pain lands and a mythic foil Sliver?
Maybe not the best deck set-up, but definitely some seriously valuable cards!

After looking at my other colors, I immediately ditched green. Green's creatures were awesome in this set, but I didn't open any. Most of my green cards were sorceries and instants, and my Red was short on creatures, so green got the boot. My Black took the same route, with only high curve creatures and way too expensive of removal available. So that left White and Blue. While the removal package was decent with both colors, in my opinion exiling is always better than bouncing (sending creatures back to their owner's hands), and my White's low cost creatures were fantastic, so that's the route I went. I was very happy with the way it turned out, too, and I definitely think I made the right call. Here's my final list:

M15 Pre-release Decklist

Chandra, Pyromaster

Hoarding Dragon

Siege Dragon (promo)

Devouring Light x2

Borderland Marauder

Midnight Guard

Pillar of Light

Oreskos Swiftclaw

Forge Devil x2

Inferno Fist

Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Sungrace Pegasus

Geist of the Moors

Ornithopter

Lava Axe

Foundry Street Denizen

Lightning Strike

Crowd's Favor

Act on Impulse

Meteorite

Will-Forged Golem

Convoke is my new best friend. Getting to cast this
with only one Plains on the board? Amazing!

Two of the cards that really impressed me were Devouring Light and Act on Impulse. Convoke is a returning mechanic, but it originally premiered in Ravnica, City of Guilds, which was more than a few years before I started playing again, so I had never experienced it. Being able to cast a double-white spell by tapping one Plains and my Sungrace Pegasus was the best deal ever, and my two Devouring Lights were awesome in each game I played. And as soon as it was spoiled, I was hoping Act on Impulse would be a good late-game card for Red, and I wasn't disappointed. More often than not I played it with 4 open mana left, and I usually had another land hit the table as well as a creature, due to my deck's low curve. It was awkward casting it and then having a combat trick like Crowd's Favor that my opponent could see open when I attacked, but it kept them out of my way most of the time, which was all I needed.

I really wanted it to be good, and it was pretty good.
More of this ability, please?

When the dust settled and I had my prize packs in hand, it was time to see if I had any more valuable cards in store for me. And boy, did I!

Rares, oh sweet rares!

Two more planeswalkers, another pain land, and a Legendary creature that looks like he'd be really fun in Commander? Awesome! Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will definitely see some play in a future deck, and Scuttling Doom Engine is way too funny to not throw in somewhere. Overall, I made a seriously good haul at my pre-release and am very glad I went, even if it didn't wrap until 6 am and I had to work that afternoon. Oh, the pains we go through just to play this game.

Regular updates will begin again next week! Expect talk about Commander, Standard, a certain Angel deck's performance and drafting tips! I'm excited, are you?

Vacation Time

Alright, I know I just got started, but now that spoiler season is over and the pre-release has happened, it's time for me to take a little vacation from posting. I will not be vacationing from Magic, though, as I am taking some cards with me, for I am going camping! I will be back with my full pre-release report and more articles once the camping fun has ended. In the meantime, here are some teasers of how my pre-release went:

And a good time was had by all. See you in a few days!

Pre-releasing in T minus 2 hours...and counting!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. I have chosen red as my weapon of choice this evening, (which should probably surprise none of you) and will be reporting on my battle tomorrow. And away!

Pre-releasing now!

Alright, here is the big question that I've been avoiding all week, so let's just get it out there: What color should I play at the prerelease? And the reason that I've been avoiding it was because... I don't know! All of the colors are good. Disturbingly good, to be honest. This core set is deeper and more powerful than core sets have been for quite some time. And that's a good thing, until you have to pick your color.

Now, for those that have been playing since Return to Ravnica or later, pre-release didn't always make you pick your color, or your guild, or your path to heroism, or any of that stuff. You just showed up, got handed some packs, and played what you opened. There was one promo card that everyone got a copy of, and no one got to play with it. But with Return to Ravnica, Wizards of the coast introduced the guild boxes, and everything changed.

No one wanted to play with this anyway.
Which was a shame, because it was pretty awesome!
(If you could afford it...)

The boxes were added to increase pre-release hype and attendance, and boy howdy, did they ever! You now got a spindown die for your life total, a promo card you could put into your deck, and at least one pack guaranteed to have a rare in your chosen colors! The face of pre-releases was changed for ever.

Now while I agree with the change, it does lead to some different choices to make. It's no longer just playing the best cards you open, it's choosing before you open your cards which color you want at least two rares in (your promo and your seeded pack's rare) from a set that you've never played with. SO to make this decision easier, let's look at the promo cards.

Engarde, you brutes!

White has the Resolute Archangel, and playing her on turn 7 and going back up to 20 life seems pretty darn appealing. As far as the promos go, this one is up top, but white as a color doesn't seem like the direction I want to go tomorrow night, though it is by no means weak. Soldier tokens, combat tricks and life gain shenanigans abound in M15's white cards. Choose this color if you want to play long games of Magic, and hate burn or direct damage decks.

Cloning. Again. And again, and again, and again...

Blue is getting tricky here. While this card can be used to copy your best creature, blue's strengths do not lie in big creatures. (Although two Master of Predicaments at once would be really funny.) Blue's strengths lie in card draw and counters here, and the promo could flop in a format like sealed. Not a fan, but if you want to play blue, I'm probably not going to convince you not to. The color would be good in support, though.

Just mean and dirty. So, basically, classic black.

Black is it's usual self here, lots of discard effects and making your opponent squirm. As a rule black is my least favorite color to play. Not because it's weak, because that's definitely not the case. It's not my personal play style. That said, this guy is pretty darn good. Card advantage or board advantage every turn is a sweet deal. Play black if you really like making your opponent discard or using your own life total as a tool.

Walls? What walls? Is that what those were?

Red is amazing in M15! Traditionally red is all about burning your opponent's creatures and face, and that's here in spades, but M15 is finally giving red more late game tools. Drawing cards to cast in your late game with Act on Impulse, exchanging lands for card draws with Aggressive Mining, and the Siege Dragon's wonderful anti-wall hate are exactly what Red's late game needed. Play red if you like killing things and more things and you don't care about about your own life total.

Two toughness? What toughness?
I don't need no stinking toughness!

Green is all about creatures. Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones, and ones that never die. Like seriously, dude. Phytotitan is gross, and makes for one heck of an awesome blocker. Ancient Silverback does too, and hornets are everywhere here! If you've played green and always wanted flyers, then M15 is your set. Play green if you like tapping your creatures and smashing your opponents with them.

Honestly, you could pick nearly any color here and probably do just fine. Blue's promo seems a little underwhelming to me, but the rest are pretty solid. Just look at the set spoilers here, and choose what looks fun to you. And let me know how it goes. As for me, I'll probably go red or white, and the more I think about it the more likely I am to go red. So when your opponent burns up your life total with Shrapnel Blast or Lightning Strike, think of me.

Magic 101: Building your Sealed deck

Alright pupils, welcome to class. Phones down, eyes up! Now, open your textbooks to page 394.

Today were looking the basics of the Sealed Deck format. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, its the most basic form of Limited Magic playing, and the format that you'll be playing if you attend a pre-release this weekend. For those of you who do know what I'm talking about, Yes I'm going to repeat a lot of stuff you already know, and you're probably going to disagree with me somewhere. Fine, but any lip and I'll see you after class.

Now keep in mind, all of this advice is based on my own experience, but I've been counting and this will be my tenth pre-release so hopefully I know something useful by now. Also, Sealed may be my favorite format ever, so pardon my excitement. THIS SET LOOKS AMAZING! (okay, that was it. I've got it under control now. I think.)

This guy....

into this guy! Cmon!

Basically Sealed Deck is this: You get six booster packs. You open them and build a deck. You play a lot of games of Magic in a short period of time with that deck, and you win stuff. Yay! If this sounds like fun, I'm right there with you. If this sounds intimidating, well, lets see if we can give you some guidelines to make it easier.

Pre-release Tips

I love pre-release tournaments! My first tournament ever was a pre-release, so a little bit of this is nostalgia but mostly it's just a format I love: Sealed deck! I have only missed one pre-release since I came back to the game, and I have no intention of missing another one. I'm not saying that you HAVE to attend this weekend, but I am highly recommending the experience if you can go.

If you've ever been concerned about going to a tournament because you think you're going to suck, (not that I'm saying you will, because you're awesome) then this is definitely the tournament to attend. The playing field is as equal as it could possibly be, because you are playing with a set of randomly determined cards from a set that no one other than the set designers and developers have ever played with. You can't buy a better deck than your opponents have, and no one has more experience with the set than anyone else. This lends to a much more relaxed and fun atmosphere than many other tournaments and is a great place to get started.

M15 Excitement and Prerelease

Hello, Universe!!! So the new set is fully spoiled! If you are interested , then feel free to click here and see the official spoiler. You'll have to scroll down a bit to get to the cards, but all of M15 in all of it's glory is there. I'm not going to talk every card, but I just wanted to go over a few of the really cool things they've done in this set that they've either never done before, or are highlights that you should keep your eyes on.

First, there are fifteen cards that were designed by people that are not employees of Wizards of the Coast. Fourteen of them are designed by game designers for other games, and one was designed by the community through an online voting system called "You Make the Card." These other game designers are responsible for games such as Plants vs. Zombies, Minecraft, Borderlands, and a few others. I think these cards are largely designed to be eye-catching and interesting, and not necessarily any good, but I've got my eye on a couple of them.

I will never play with this card,
but if you make me discard cards and get
stuff for it, I will do my best to burn your face off.

This card, however I will play with.
I'm not sure if it's any good yet, or if it will
even work, but I really want to find out!

Operation: Please Play Magic With Me, Dear

When I got back into Magic, my goal was to buy some cards, see if I still liked the game, and then find some people to play with. Buying cards was easy, and I fell right back in love with Magic far faster than I had thought I would. Duels of the Planeswalkers was released on Playstation 3, and I had a friend who'd been bitten by the bug and gotten me to play, but it didn't feel quite right to me and I wondered if that was due to the software or the underlying Magic game.

Turns out it was the software. Duels of the Planeswalkers was not a perfect product when it first released. Yes, it served as a fantastic "gateway drug" to anyone who wanted to learn the games mechanics and how to play, but it lacked any deck building options for those who wanted to customize their experience. Of course, this flaw has been slowly improved over each subsequent release of the game, and I am excited to see the new deck building options in the newest release in a couple of weeks. If only I could still play it ON MY PLAYSTATION!!! (Sorry, a little bitterness there.)

So I bought some cards, still loved the game, and my friend who had gotten my onto Duels was more than happy to join me in paper Magic. But I still haven't been able to get the hook set into my wife's brain that Magic is something more than just "that game" that takes up so much of my time. She's been willing enough to sit down and play a couple rounds with me every once in a while, but I haven't reached that point where it's something she actually wants to do without severe coaxing (see begging, pleading and groveling as well.) But I'm hoping to change that.

Ad tryout

Alright, so running a website is a brand new thing for me. I'm experimenting with an ad model here, as well as html coding, which I'm furiously trying to teach myself while i also try to come up with fun content. Hopefully I'll be able to generate relevant ads that might even be useful or relevant to Magic and the other things I'll talk about. SO basically what I'm saying is that blog, and maybe this post in particular is under going construction, and please, pardon my dust.

M15 Spoilers:The Chain Veil

Magic: The Gathering has always been telling us a story. How much of that story gets through to us in just the cards themselves has always been a struggle that Wizards of the Coast has had to deal with because, let's face it, a stack of cards that people can arrange anyway they choose isn't the ideal medium for a deep story. But the newly spoiled Legendary Artifact here is definitely looking to change all that, and possibly shift the game in a very new direction. Meet the MacGuffin of M15, The Chain Veil.

I know it's a lot of text, but trust me, you want to
know what this does, because it's nasty.

So let me break down these seven lines of text for you: You must use planeswalkers every turn, and in return for doing something you were going to be doing anyway if this card is anywhere near your deck, you get to activate two loyalty abilities per walker per turn. Two. Every turn. That turns the clock on most ultimate abilities from 3 or four turns to two. Two! Our new buddy Garruk, Apex Hunter for instance. Assuming you've gotten this on the table the turn before he hits, you can kill your opponent's walker and create a beast to block, (a beast that'll kill any attacker, by the way) and next turn you've got one more beast and have signed a death sentence for your opponent with a shiny new emblem.

Planeswalker Alert: Garruk, Apex Predator

M15 Spoiler season is on top of us, and Wizards of the Coast has finally let us see the new card that all their marketing has been focused on. Now I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it's worth all the hype.

Drink in that tall glass of water, ladies and gentleman.
Or don't. It might not agree with you.

Now, as a player myself, I don't have a lot of experience playing with most planeswalker cards. I have a distinct affinity to burn spells, and I've always found that planeswalkers make excellent targets for my Lightning Strikes and Magma Jets. Fated Conflagration in particular made me a very happy player. Plus most of the red planeswalkers have left me feeling a little burned. (Yeah, bad pun, I know.)

But this Garruk is just a bit too big for me to dismiss as "flammable". You're more than likely going to open up with one of his +1 abilities as soon as he hits the table, especially if you need to deal with a Jace, Architect of Thought or Elspeth, Sun's Champion. And that's going to land him on the table with 6 loyalty counters. Too big to burn out quickly, even with my new favorite burn spell.

Magic the Gathering: The Journey Begins

Magic is that game, the one you can't get away from. It's everywhere, or at least it is if you hang out the places that I do. I played it then, I play it now, and although I may walk away for a bit, I'm sure I'll play it in my future, too.

My first cards were from Revised Edition, released less than a year after Alpha, where it all began. I was 9, and I loved Serra Angel. My friend wanted me to trade it to him and I wouldn't. My only strategy was to get her on the table, because he couldn't stop her. I'm fairly sure my first deck contained one Serra Angel, 5 Plains (because that's all she cost, right?) and whatever other white cards I had to fill in the gaps. Needless to say I quickly learned that even though your best and most expensive card is a five-drop, you really need more than 5 lands in your deck most of the time.

This was my only win condition. Those were the days...

I wish I'd managed to hang onto those cards, but I stopped playing after my friend's older brother smashed me with a deck combo-ing Breeding Pit with Lord of the Pit, which I found be really unfair in my 9 year old mind. I've hated black ever since, and always felt kinda dirty whenever I played it. Like there's a certain way the game is supposed to work, and black doesn't care and breaks those rules just to win. Anyway, I never opened an Ice Age pack, and put down my cards for 17 years.