Dominaria Promos

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Happy Wednesday (again) peeps,

This is our second post for today, and likely not our last.  We do expect Wizards of the Coast to post the first of several Official Magic Story installments, penned by Martha Wells in under an hour from the time of this post.

For now we have to post about the upcoming Dominaria set - specifically the promo cards associated with it.  We have yet another spoiler and it is getting kind of tiresome.  As everyone is now talking about it, we might as well get to it.  It appears that a Spanish gaming store may have posted eight Dominaria promo cards.  Please note that these are unofficial and some things may be lost in translation to English - 

• Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, FNM Promo, illus. Magali Villeneuve
"I'm the heir of many treasures, but none as prized as the knowledge of how my ancestor lived."

• Firesong and Sunspeaker, Buy-a-Box Promo, Illus. Zoltan Boros
Hurloon's summits are never silent.

• Champion of Steel Leaf (?), Store Championship Promo, illus. Simon Dominic

• Llanowar Elves, Open House Promo, illus. Vitor Adame Minguez

• Opt, FNM Promo, illus. Tyler Jacobson
The crystal pulsated with the power of Teferi's planeswalker spark. Was what Jhoira had given them a blessing or a curse?

• Zhalfirin Void, League Promo, illus. John Avon
"The wind whispers 'Come back home', but I can't."  - Teferi

• Fade into Oblivion, PNM Promo, Illus. Bastien L. Deharme
"Your life is over, your name lost and your deeds forgotten. It is as if Mazeura had never existed." - Chainer's Torment

• Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp, Draft Weekend Promo, illus. Tyler Jacobson

"I do as I wish, insignificant mortal. However, do tell me of your wishes; I find them exceedingly entertaining."

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FNM Non-Token Promos

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Some big news out today, at least for those like us love our Friday Night Magic routine to kick the weekend off.

FNM promos (aka - Friday Night Magic promotional cards) are foil promotional cards provided by Wizards of the Coast as additional prizes at Friday Night Magic events.  FNM promos have been around since 2000, with a very much appreciated change in 2008, when the foil FNM promos started featured alternated art.

In October 2017, Wizards of the Coast started replaced the regular FNM promo cards with foil doulbe-sided tokens.  Although these were appreciated, we think, from discussions, that a large number of players really preferred cards over tokens.  Today on the mother-site (linked right here), staffer Blake Rasmussen announced that there is to be a return to non-token Friday Night Magic promo cards timed with the release of Dominaria on April 27, 2018.

We are certainly looking very much forward to this change and do hope that Wizards still provides those foil double-sided tokens, perhaps as part of a product offering or special participation program at local gaming stores (League, Showdown, etc.).  

Before the change in October last year, the FNM promos printed generally were sought-after cards and perhaps the best selections in some time.  We do hope Wizards continues that trend and in addition to the very good standard cards, provides a few non-standard cards per year as well to entice Modern and Commander players.
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Big Change to FNM

Friday Night Magic WUT?
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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Congratulaiotns to Magic: the Gathering player Michael Hamilton who took first place this weekend at the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Cincinnati.  This was the first large tournament taking place after the release of the newest set Hour of Devastation.  The metagame breakdown of Day 2 was incredibly varied with 36 different archetypes represented, which is a strong indication of healthy standard format.  

Here are the Top 8 decklist archetypes :
1st Four-Color Control
2nd W/U Monument
3rd Four-Color Emerge
4th B/G Energy
5th W/U Monument
6th Mono-Red Aggro
7th Mono-Black Zombies
8th Temur Energy

Obviously not an accurate prognostication for this new 'season', but certainly very promising right out of the gates.  There will be a good measure of evolution going forward and it may be of interest to read the article today posted on the Wizards of the Coast site from Luis Scott-Vargas as to the direction of standards existing decklists with the new options presented in Hour of Devastation.
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Next - Almost every Magic: the Gathering player is talking about the news posted to the mothersite on upcoming changes to Friday Night Magic, linked right here.  There is a number of items of interest, but for sake of brevity for today's post, we will just address the item on FNM promos.  A short clip from Wizards - 

"FNM has been and continues to be the foundation our weekly in-store play. It is one of our longest-running and most successful play programs in our 25 years, so we're not looking to mess with the formula too much.
We are making two changes that are related—FNM "seasons" now align with set releases, and promos, which have previously been foil cards, will now be foil double-sided tokens."

The TL/DR summary of the Friday Night Magic essentially is -

• Wizards is shifting from FNM promo cards to double-sided foil tokens

• Less FNM promos per week for Core and Advanced level stores.

Double-sided tokens are cool !  But certainly not at the expense of the traditional FNM promos.  The more recent promos have certainly been improving - Aether Hub, Fatal Push - oh heck yes.  Wizards was tracking in the correct direction with these more 'playable' cards.  They would have been better served by having these promo tokens as an adjunct for other stand-alone products to entice purchase.

Other than this incredible loss of inventive to attend Friday Night Magic, we want to mention the change to Game Day.  This event has now been replaced with a 'Store Championship' event which is to take place later than the typical 4 weeks after a set's release.  It is now planned to be a "climax of the season's competitive Magic narrative"

With this event's inaugural run planned for December 30–31, to coincide with Rivals of Ixalan, the prize support here appears great - store champion playmat, exclusive deck boxes for the top 8, and foil full-art promo cards  from Rivals.  The issue really is, just how many players will be available to attend at the most packed week in most people's calendars - year end holidays have a multitude of social engagements which provides little to no time to take even a day out of their schedule. 

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MTG Tumblr Friday

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As it is Friday, many Magic: the Gathering players will be making tracks to their local gaming store to participate in a Friday Night Magic event.  We'll be heading out to our local shop, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario where both Standard and Commander are on tap.  

With the latest MTG set, Shadows Over Innistrad, now on tap, one can expect a lot of fresh new ideas for decklists in play.  A reminder as well as this month's FNM promo is the very lovely looking Blighted Fen with alternate artwork from Jason Felix.  We still have not yet put together a new list yet for Standard and expect to do some crazy building right after school today.  

Anywhoos, here is a round-up of MTG gaming miscellany borrowed from our sister site, MTG Realm on Tumblr -
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Photoset April 14, 2016 41 notes

Magic: the Gathering - Ultra PRO for SOI

Have you seen just how awesome the Ultra PRO goodies look for Shadows Over Innistrad ?  Here’s some gamer eye-candy.  :)
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Photoset April 14, 2016 65 notes

Magic: the Gathering - Power Rankings
I’m a fan of the nice summary that the Channel Fireball produces in their Power Rankings - you can catch these over here - http://www.channelfireball.com/power-rankings/
Anywhoos - Week One after Shadows Over Innistrad and the the standard constructed power rankings are quite decidedly in the suit of White.  :)
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Photoset April 13, 2016 126 notes

Magic: the Gathering - MTG Jewelry
Zsolt Székely, goldsmith and fellow Canadian (in fact, right here in my Province of Ontario), runs Precizió - Jewellery and Studio in Thorold and has some amazing pieces.

Drop by to check out some lovely works from just about any Fandom you can imagine including something themed from your fav digital game (think Deadpool to Zelda) -

http://www.facebook.com/precizio

http://www.zsoltszekely.com
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Photoset April 13, 2016 57 notes

Magic: the Gathering - Open that Armory
Artist Steve Prescot knocks this illustration right outta the park.

In other news, dude’s armory looks to be chock’d full ‘o’ badassery.


This Shadows Over Innistrad card did catch my attention as soon as it was previewed - sooo many possibilities - a red/white equip build, or a lovely tutor for Invocation of Saint Traft in a blue/white humans or spirits list - just tasty.
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FNM Promo Round-Up

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

We don't care how snowy, cold, or otherwise nasty it is outside right now, we are definitely planning to get across to the other side of Barrie tonight to OMG! Games to get some Friday Night Magic gaming in.  There is not to many chances left to win one of those juicy / icky Brain Maggot FNM promos and we hope to get a Top 8 under our belt tonight.

Speaking of Friday Night Magic promo cards, the mothersite revealed the February 2015 card - 

Regular Khans of Tarkir Common, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov

Friday Night Magic Promo, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov

We are liking the promo card art that Velinov had provided over his earlier.  As we are wrapping up the remainder of the year rather soon, we should do a re-cap of this year's FNM promo cards.

FNM Promos for

November / December / January

2014 Friday Night Magic Promo Cards

January: Warleader's Helix
February: Elvish Mystic
March: Banisher Priest
April: Encroaching Wastes
May: Tormented Hero
June: Dissolve
July: Magma Spray
August: Bile Blight
September: Banishing Light
October: Fanatic of Xenagos
November: Brain Maggot
December: Stoke the Flames 

These were all very decent choices and we're more than pleased with WotC and their picks - all decent standard legal cards that see play (some more than others - Encroaching Wastes and Fanatic of Xenagos were weird but still OK).

In other news, it looks like a card image of the colourless Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is circulating the interwebs.  This card is expected to see print in Fate Reforged but we are of the opinion that the card is fake until additional proof is provided.  Anywhoos - have a great weekend y'awll !
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Khans of Tarkir Game Day

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Last weekend was most likely a rather busy affair for Magic: the Gathering players.  Not only was it Khans of Tarkir Game Day but also the saw the tournament Grand Prix Los Angeles where approximately 1,700 players battled for fame 'n' fortune.  Congratulations to Daniel Scheid who took the top spot with a Red-Green Monsters decklist.  There appeared to be quite a bit of variety in decklists making it to Day Two with the popular ones being Mardu Midrange, Abzan Midrange, Jesai Wins, Abzan Aggro and Green Devotion.  One particular build was a Mardu Midrange strategy played by Brad Nelson who made it to the Top 8 playoff.

Our weekend consisted of Friday Night Magic at our local card shop OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario followed by Khans of Tarkir Game Day on Sunday.  We had all the cards from MTG Mint Card required for a decent Abzan Aggro weapon and did not that badly at all during Friday Night Magic landing in 7th place.  We took the same decklist to Game Day Sunday and did not even make Top 8 which either says something about the rapidly evolving nature of standard constructed or perhaps something about our mental state on Game Day - who knows.

On Game Day we were faced with a number of control builds featuring Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver which exiled our answers rapidly and beat us with our best threats.  The fast ramping mono-green lists for which our sideboard was unfortunately unprepared also had us scrambling for spot removal to no avail.  

We will go back to our Abzan Midrange list to ensure its robust for next Friday but we are already entertaining the idea of developing something along the lines of Brad's Madu Midrange or perhaps Eric Pei's mono-red Boss Sligh.  Since it first was previewed, we wanted to get together a list featuring Butcher of the Horde which provides a lot of very lovely options when you sac a critter - haste, vigilance or lifelink - all on an evasive flyer with a decent mana cost / power / toughness stats.  We're thinking that Eric's Boss Sligh (named after Paul Sligh) can drop a lot of early threats before an opponent can begin to control the board and then follow-up with final points of burn damage.

Anywhoos - an exciting time in standard at the moment and we've got to say that we are rather happy with the diversity that it has.
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Organised Play Announcements

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

What a great Thanksgiving long weekend its been up here in Canada-Land - loads of food, fun with the 'fam 'n' friends, and following the Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir tournament held in Honolulu in Hawaii, where Magic: the Gathering fans were closely watching how the Pros tackled the new standard format.  We'll yatter about this tournament in a follow-up post but for now, we'll congratulate Ari Lax take an Abzan (white / black / green) midrange decklist to the finish line.  We rather excited about this as we've been contemplating a similar list and have most of the cards from MTG Mint Card to complete it.

For today's article, we definitely want to talk about some exciting and important announcements made yesterday during the Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir tournament coverage.  Director of Global Organised Play, Hélène Bergeot sat down with MTG tournaament coverage host / commentator to discuss changes to Friday Night Magic and Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers taking place next year.

The big news is that you local gaming store will now be able to sanction any game format from now on, instead of just Standard and Modern.  This means the doors are now wide open for FNM organisers to better respond to the local player community and run one or more formats as shown below -

The other FNM related announcement from Hélène is that Friday Night Promo cards which were typically provided to just the top finishers during the Friday Night Magic event may now be distributed as the organisers deems appropriate.  Local stores will from now receive the following number of promo cards based on the store level for each FNM event - 

• Core stores get 5.
• Advanced stores get 10.
• Advanced Plus stores get 15.

The other news provided was a full list of all locations for Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers taking place on 24th April 2015 as well as the foil promo card for those players participating in the events - Liliana of the Veil.

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MTG Black Tie

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

A few convergent events kept us this weekend away from any sort of Magic: the Gathering gameplay.  Certainly there was meteorological interference in the form of yet another early spring blizzard Friday evening here in Central Ontario which only played a small part in our final decision not to head over to OMG! Games for the Friday Night Magic event.  First and foremost however is that we had to get into a suit and off to London (Ontario) for a relative's wedding and needed an early start Saturday morning.  Friday evening was spent instead looking at some new singles we wanted to pick up from the latest Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska from MTG Mint Card.

Somewhat à propos, we do have a story about a suit, an FNM event and London, though not the University city in South-western Ontario, but London, UK.  Here's a very cool story about a formal black tie affair held at Dark Sphere in London this last Friday, 21st March.  Following, a brief description and some photographs taken by Thomas Ralph of for the Formal FNM event -
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As a response to the well-publicised incident by the photographer and blogger at GP Richmond (the MTG Realm article here for reference), London store Dark Sphere invited any interested players to wear black tie or other formal clothes to the FNM on Friday March 21st. I was pleased to be able to volunteer to photograph the occasion.

What a very great idea.  We have to admit we have not had the pleasure receiving draft packs on a silver platter but would love to try this.  Thanks to Dark Sphere staff for organising this and Thomas Ralph for the photographs. 
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Naya Hexproof

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

We are freshly returned from the Friday Night Magic event last evening at OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario.  As spring break is wrapping up this week, attendance was only slightly deminished with a field of 36 players.  As with most gaming stores around the world, popular decks are approximately reflected to that of the winning decklists from Magic: the Gathering Online.  Mono-Black (and mon-blue devotion to a lesser extent), Esper Control, Jund Monsters, and a variety of others.  

We took along a Naya (green / white / red) Hexproof or 'auras' decklist, whose strategy employs as the name suggests, slapping strong auras on hexproof creatures.  Although we did not make Top 8 with 3 wins and 2 losses, we do feel that with a few fine adjustments (perhaps a card or two from MTG Mint Card), we can break through.

Here's the list as it stood yesterday.  Starting off with the auras you want to enchant your creatures with, there are full booksets of four each for -
• Chained to the Rocks (removal)
• Ethereal Armor (buffs)
• Madcap Skills (buff and conditional evasion)
• Unflinching Courage (lifelink 'n' trample)

Creatures can be a little less straight forward with regards to choices - 
• Gladecover Scout and Witchstalker are definitely essential and a four-of by default.
• There is a two / two split with Voice of Resurgence and Fleecemane Lion which may be adjusted via sideboard.
• The local meta-game requires additional punch through and a deckset of Ghor-Clan Rampager fits this role and is used mostly for it's Bloodrush ability

Other spells included -
• A deckset of Boros Charm, whose flexibility provides additional pump, protection from board sweepers and a nice ping for 4 damage which won two matches last night.
• Just two (other two in sideboard) of Selesnya Charm which can exile the new 'god' cards, provide pump / trample or a surprise blocker.  This card was sided-out most games for Mizzium Mortars.

Lastly, the mana-base to make it all run - 
4 forest, 1 plains, 4 Temple Garden, 4 Stomping Ground, 4 Sacred Foundry, 3 Temple of Triumph, and 2 Temple of Abandon.  We thought the scry-lands were decent and helped reduce bad draws.

Not altogether bad and we think there is room for improvement - your constructive criticism is most welcome!

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Post BNG Gruul

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We are most definitely excited about getting our new Born of the Gods pre-orders from MTG Mint Card and getting down to brewing up some new standard format lists.  We really don't expect standard to get very much of a shake-up but we do anticipate quite a few new rogue lists to show up at our local gaming store OMG! Games, here is Barrie, Ontario.  Out of the gates we expect a lot of updates to existing popular builds such as mono-black and mono-blue devotion but perhaps with additional control options.  Before things settle down we think we might see some lists for white / blue-white heroics featuring 'Glimpse of the Sun God' and perhaps even another attempt of G/x Hexproof featuring 'Hero of Iroas' to push forward.

Our first foray at this Friday's FNM event may likely be our somewhat casual approach to Red / Green monsters which we hope to build upon that very sweet synergy between Courser of Kruphix and Domri Rade.  

 

Providing use with fuel to get the list off the ground will likely be Elvish Mystic, Burning-Tree Emissary and perhaps even Zhur-Taa Druid if there's room.

Where we really want to get to is perhaps swinging in with an 'tribute-unpaid' hasty Fanatic of Xenagos, targeted with a blood-rushed Ghor-Clan Rampager while Xenagos, God of Revels are out, giving us  . . . we think -

A fine looking (edit) 12/12 Centaur with trample and haste !

That in our books ain't that bad and we most definitely enjoy living in Magical Christmasland. 

Anywhoos - now we just have to cook this thing up and serve it hot 'n' fresh for the upcoming Friday Night Magic event when Born of the Gods will finally be legal to play.

What will you be bringing along ? Drop us a line below!
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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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FNM Report 10-04-2013

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

We wanted to do a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the new Magic: the Gathering standard constructed environment and which direction we are taking our 60-card stack at FNM to deliver a polished product for Theros Game Day.

As misfortune would have it, the green / white Selesnya aggro strategy we had hatched out earlier was placed in jeopardy when it was time to head off to the store and we realised we were short a few cards (traded / lost / mischievous gnomes?).  With only about an hour before OMG! Games started the first match, we scrambled and put together this list :

4x Elvish Mystic, 3x Soldier of the Pantheon, 3x Fleecemane Lion, 2x Voice of Resurgence, 4x Selesnya Charm, 4x Witchstalker, 3x Fiendslayer Paladin, 3x Ajani, Caller of the Pride, 3x Loxodon Smiter, 4x Unflinching Courage, 4x Advent of the Wurm, 3x Temple GArden, 3x Selesnya Guildgate, 9x Forest, 8x Plains.
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At OMG! Games, the crowd was lighter than usual with about 27 players.  First match was lost rather quickly to Chris who had played a blue / black strategy.  The next four matches (to Rob, TJ, Hunter, and Simon) did go rather well, usually going to game three with wins all going to our Selesnya build.  There seemed to be quite a few control decks  (like that delicious hand shown above with Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere, Swan Song, and Azorious Charm) in the field but that certainly does not mean the same kind of showing next week.  For now, we're going to pick up a few extra missing singles from MTG Mint Card and stick with aggro for the next several weeks.

Coming in 4th place, we scored five Theros packs and the Friday Night Magic foil promo card Ghor-Clan Rampager.  

What was rather awesome was that we were actually looking to acquire (trade / buy) 3 of the 5 cards we were able to pull - Xenagos, Thoughtseize, and Temple of Abandon.  Not too shabby.

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