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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2018 Challenger Decks

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As announced last month, and greatly anticipated by Magic: the Gathering players, Wizards of the Coast previewed the decklists for the standard legal Challenger decks.  Landing on a shelf at your local gaming store on April 6, 2018, Challenger Decks are the quick window into Standard and are intended for players who want to skip deckbuilding and jump into Standard at their local Friday Night Magic.  There are four decks built from some of the best strategies in Standard :

• Counter Surge - 2-color black and green 
• Hazoret Aggro - 1-colored red 
• Second Sun Control - 2-color white and blue 
• Vehicle Rush - 3-color red, white and black 

For an MSRP of $30, each Challenger Deck comes with a complete sixty-card main deck and a fifteen-card sideboard and is intended to be playable and competitive at a local level right out of the box. All cards will have been previously printed in Standard and are Standard-legal.  These decks are a great purchase for newer players looking to get into Standard but can also appeal to veteran players thanks to the powerful cards in each deck.

Each deck contains:
• 60-card main deck
• 15-card sideboard
• A box capable of holding 75 sleeved cards
• Spindown life counter
• Quick reference guide

Reviewing the decklists - 

We did anticipate that Wizards would be delivering a strong first showing with the Challenger Decks - in a two word summary - 'expectations exceeded'!  We are still looking for our socks which were knocked right off.  We assumed that the number and quality of rares (and there are a LOT), would be throttled back a bit in deference to the secondary / singles market environment, and we were completely wrong.  

There may be a few rumblings from some quarters regarding this, but the general consensus is that any dip in singles prices at this time would recover in time.  Having just said this, anticipating an ever-changing marketplace, there may not be a full recovery of (yesterday's) price before those cards do rotate out of standard.  


The big take-away here we think is that those players who may have been hesitant about playing standard due to entry price (for a competitive decklist), may now join in the fun, provided the retail prices remain stable and close to the suggest price.

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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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FNM B/W Vampires - 1st Place

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We have some news we are happy about from the Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games Barrie.  Before we get to that, a quick look at the week two metagame evolution with results from this weekend's SCG Classic in Philadelphia.  Here are the Top 16 Standard Classic Decklists :

1st Mono-Red Aggro Aiden Brier
2nd Mardu Vehicles Robert Stanley
3rd UW Eternalize Austin Herrick
4th Grixis Energy Tomas Hoffman
5th Grixis Improvise John Hughes
6th G/R Monsters Kevin Michael
7th Grixis Control Nicholas Ailes
8th U/B Midrange Benjamin Ragan
9th Jund Midrange Craig Rocco
10th Grixis Control Andrew Lopez
11th Grixis Energy Kevin Jones
12th B/R Aggro Aaron Schwarcz
13th R/B Aggro Ryan Carey
14th U/B Control Jacob LeJeune
15th Mono-Black Aggro AJ Kerrigan
16th Mardu Vehicles Joshua Schaffer

Still nicely diverse with no monoculture and we love where the game is at right now.  At my local gaming store, it appears that Grixis Energy as well as G/B Constrictor were representing fairly well, with the rest of the field quite diverse as expected with innovative and exciting decklists such as Abzan Tokens, Grixis Control and tribal strategies with Dinosaurs and Vampires.

With 4 Wins and 1 Loss, we think although we did well, we realise that there were a number of critical 'top decks' which helped push Black White Vampires through the field.  Instead of going through the decklist we used (it has already had a few minor amendments for next weekend), we should cover the core basics of the list as well as notes of some cards which had performed very well during the games.

The Buff
Legion Lieutant, Metallic Mimic and Radiant Desitiny all had a full four copies to buff the vampire team.  The Radiant Destiny anthem effect worked well and did produce the extra bonus of delivering vigilance (Ascend / City's Blessing).

The Ping
Both Vicious Conquistador and Sanctum Seeker's ability to deal non-combat damage to a player should not be underestimated.  We had anticipated Seeker's double-black casting cost to be awkward in a list which is around 60% white spells, but Unclaimed Territory (naming vampires) went a long way to smooth this out.

Honourable Mentions
What we had thought worked quite favourably.  Dusk Legion Zealot was great for card advantage which is critical when most of your creatures are low to the ground.  Legion's Landing is necessary later game to create a vampire token which typically hit the game table buffed.  Duskborne Skymarcher provided a solid creature, often buffed to get in some evasive damage.  Gifted Aetherborn also did some leg-work which forced opponents to think twice about attacking.  Dusk // Dawn reset the board, often with our own pumped creatures hitting the graveyard, but the Aftermath ability rapidly replaced board presence.

Should you be thinking about a post Rivals of Ixalan vampire tribal list, we will suggest you may be well served in reading ChannelFireball's article, Vampires with Rivals of Ixalan By Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, which supplied us with motivation in starting with this tribe.

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Token Friday

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Here in Canada, we are celebrating the Thanksgiving long weekend, rather than in late November when our American cousins incorrectly celebrate this holiday.  More on that over here if you are interested.  Anywhoos, to say the least, do try to get in to your local gaming store who should all be open this evening.  Our local store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario will have all the cooking burners on. As it is the first FNM in October - FYI - This month's Friday Night Promo is NOT a card but a 'token' - join in with other MTG fans over here on Reddit to express your excitement.

A safe trip to you If you are travelling to visit friends and family this weekend.  Speaking of travelling, there is a rather good thread on Magic and the TSA over here.  Here is essentially a discourse of stories of Magic: the Gathering players being screened by the Transportation Security Administration.  Personally, we've never crossed into the States with MTG cards and although could not contribute, did found the thread interesting.

Righto - next up - Standard B/W Tokens

We had been contemplating another decklist for FNM (we already have a lovely U/G Mefolk list), and wanted something with a heavy token theme.  We had developed a list very similar to the one Wedge, from the Mana Source had published recently and love it !

W/B Tokens, A deck by TheManaSource

Creature 8
4 Anointer Priest
2 Master Trinketeer
2 Oketra the True

Spell 25
4 Anointed Procession
4 Fatal Push
1 Fumigate
4 Hidden Stockpile
3 Servo Exhibition
2 Settle the Wreckage
3 Sram's Expertise
2 Start // Finish
2 Vraska's Contempt

Land 27
4 Aether Hub
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Evolving Wilds
2 Ifnir Deadlands
3 Legion's Landing
6 Plains
4 Shefet Dunes

3 Swamp

Servos, warriors, vampires - all the tokens !  Looks like fun.
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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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Felidar Guardian Banned

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

WOW !

Stop the presses and (if you had not already) read the 'Addendum to April 24, 2017 Banned and Restricted Announcement' posted today on the MAGIC: THE GATHERING website linked here.  

The Cat is in the bag.

Felidar Guardian is banned.

We do not think it a bit of a stretch of statement to say that the Copy Cat (Saheeli Combo) was driving people away from playing Standard.  This appears to be generally true for some professional players, but most decidedly true for Friday Night Magic regulars like us at MTG Realm.  Sadly, we've had spotty attendance over the last two months.  Some missed events were personal, but in a large part, it was due to the dominance of threats, in the form of the Sahelli / Felidar Guardian card combo over potential answers to this.

Wizards had applied a rapid solution to this impending crisis today.  

• As a direct result, we personally are re-invigorated to play standard constructed again.  

• As a direct result, we now fully expect that the problem of flagging Friday Night Magic attendance that we have personally seen in three local gaming stores would be solved.

• As a direct result, we are now purchasing additional Amonkhet cards, and returning to our favourite past time - brewing rogue decks and taking these for a spin at our local gaming store.

Those gamers who had fled the standard format to play other formats like Commander and Modern, may be further enticed to get back into standard with sought-after cards as Friday Night Magic promos, or perhaps ad-hoc participation promo cards so those younger or newer players who cannot crack the Top 8 spot may have some good incentive.

Great move Wizards of the Coast ! Our thanks.
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Friday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Although it may have been a slower week here on the MTG Realm blog, we still had a flurry of Magic: the Gathering related posts to our sister site, MTG Realm on Tumblr, so today's post will be a regurgitation of select content over there.  

If you are off work tonight or do not have to cram for an exam, take a breather and head on out to a Friday Night Magic event tonight.  We'll be off to our favourite local gaming store, OMG Games, here in Barrie, Ontario where we hope to exploit the current standard constructed metagame (and not play one of the two ubiquitous popular decklists).

Anywhoos, let's get caught up with some posts -
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Photoset March 24, 2017
Magic: the Gathering - FNM Promo Arts

Today on the WotC site, Nicholas Wolfram expanded upon Blake Rasmussen’s previous post with some of the upcoming card illustrations to expect to see at Friday Night Magic Events.  Again, superb work by all the artists, and am very happy with the card choices.

APRIL - Servo Exhibition 
• FNM Promo Art by Vincent Proce
• Kaladesh Art bySara Winters

MAY - Unlicensed Disintegration
• FNM Promo Art Florian De Gesincourt
• Kaladesh Art by Izzy

JUNE - Aether Hub
• FNM Promo Art by Jonas De Ro

• Kaladesh Art by Sam Burley

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Photoset March 24, 2017
Magic: the Gathering - Magic Mural 2


Another amazing gaming store wall mural to follow up our previous post.  Here, we see a beautiful piece inspired by the iconic art of Jace, the Mind Sculptor from the Worldwake set, illustrated by Jason Chan.  Posted by  Luciana ‘Lu’ Couto of City Class Games in Osasco, São Paulo, Brazil.

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Photoset March 24, 2017
Magic: the Gathering - Magic Mural

A very lovely wall mural (acrylic) commissioned and be worked on by artist Susanna Covelli (@susannacovelli_art).  


Inspiration from Ajani’s Presence and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, both illustrated by Raymond Swanland.

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FUNNY TO MOST PEOPLE, BUT PERHAPS NOT 'DINNER-TABLE' APPROPRIATE

Photoset March 21, 2017
Magic: the Gathering - Bodily Function


Interesting solicitation from the Facebook Page ‘Magic the Gathering Rocks My World’.

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Standard Mono-White Servos

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of Magic: the Gathering against our old adversary - The standard constructed metagame.  We will be heading to our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario with a new weapon sleeved up for tomorrow's Friday NIght Magic event.

If you've been reading MTG Realm for any length of time, then you may know that we do love the primal strategy of creatures turning sideways in the red zone.  Whether it is the achetype of white-weenies, or cheap tokens with a pump spells.  Today's post is the latter.  There is an opportunity here for the budget MTG gamer to get a 'foot in the door' as the expression goes for an opportunity to win some games at FNM with a decklist costing well under $100.

The Game Plan
Play a number of spells to create 1/1 colourless artifact Servos creatures and pump their base power / toughness.

21 Lands:
16 Plains
2 Westvale Abbey
3 Ruins of Oran-Rief

The mana-base is pretty straight forward - 16 Plains and 3 copies of Ruins of Oran-Rief to sneak an extra +1/+1 counter on (one) colourless creature which entered the battlefield that turn.  Two copies of Westvale Abbey is placed in the mix as we do expect to create a healthy number of token creatures which may be sacrificed to create the flip sided Ormendahl, Profane Prince.  A 9/7 demon with flying, lifelink, indestructible and haste seems like a solid plan 'B'.  Always pack a parachute. 

19 Creatures: 
4 Master Trinketeer
4 Chief of the Foundry
4 Metallic Mimic
4 Ornithopter
3 Hope of Ghirapur

Ornithopter is a shoe-in - a 0/2 artifact creature for zero (0!) mana which will get pumped up with other spells we'll yatter about soon.  As for Hope of Ghirapur, we already had these and for similar reasons for Ornithopter, not a bad choice.  The ability to sac this thopter to stymie your opponent's hopes to cast non-creature spells until your next turn seems good.

Metallic Mimic will, in almost all cases get cast while naming Servos so that you can then start piling on those +1/+1 counters on your Servo army.  Chief of the Foundry lends it self naturally as an 'Artifact Lord' to pump up those Servos and Thopters alike. The same holds true for Master Trinketeer, which also provieds a handy 'mana sink', later game to generate more Servo tokens. 

14 Spells: 
4 Sram’s Expertise
4 Servo Exhibition
3 Collective Effort
3 Built to Last

Built to Last may seem to most players not the best choice but we think it is well suited in our local game.  A one-drop for a +2/+2 instant pump and make the creature (if it is an artifact) indestructible is good, but may be side-boarded out for Stasis Snare likely for the second game.  Servo Exhibition is great value generting two 1/1 Servos for two mana.  Collective Effort gives a multi-tool to pump creatures, kill an enchantment or an opponent's creature with power 4 or more.  

Sram's Expertise just shines in this build - 4 mana for 3 Servos is sweet, especially so as this sorcery will also in most cases allow you to play a free card from your hand (with converted mana cost 3 or less).

6 Artifacts: 
4 Cogworker’s Puzzleknot
2 Animation Module

Cogworker's Puzzleknot is really essentially in this build.  We were not sold on this at first given that it basically costs 4 mana to produce only 2 Servos - but- after a good deal of playing, we really need those exra Servos.  Being able to hold back two mana to produce a surprise chump blocker at instant speed is also very good tech.  

At one point we did have a full deckset of Animation Module in an attempt to 'push' the combo of Animation Module and Metallic Mimic (produces a cycle of Servos as long as you have the mana for it).  After a number of games, the shiny just kinda wore off as the Module was a dead card on the Battlefield waiting for the Mimic to come down.

We hope this post encourages you to try this decklist or something similar.  There are two other very good posts online if you should be interested in perusing this :

• Budget Magic: $76 (15 tix) Mono-White Servos (Standard) by SaffronOlive on MTG Goldfish
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-76-15-tix-mono-white-servos-standard

• Mtg Budget Deck Tech: Mono-White Servo Combo in Aether Revolt by Strictly Better MtG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paf9zAv6AQs 
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Thursday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

More specifically, Happy Groundhog Day.  The American Sciuridae, Punxsatawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter weather but our very own Wiraton Willie (right here in Ontario, Canzda) is predicting an early spring.  Whatever you may think of rodents prognosticating meterological events, you should still be watching the eternal classic, Groundhog Day (1993) starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.

You may also wish to expand upon the repeatable effect the Groundhog Day movie (or other time-loop movies like Edge of Tomorrow), we suggest you hit the drawing board tonight to construct a decklist with Aether Revolt's 'Gonti's Aether Heart' to take to tomorrow's Friday Night Magic event to take an extra turn during a Magic: the Gathering game and mimicing the Groundhog Day movie.  Our  standard constructed weapon of choice won't be this but we will be rocking our updated R/W Humans list.  

Anywhoos, let's get on to some content for our MTG Realm readers -

Yesterday's Magic Story, titled 'Renewal' wraps up the Aether Revolt story.  Tezzeret has been defeated and fled, the denizens of Ghirapur and Kaladesh at at large are returned to a more peaceful and collabrative state.  The Planeswalkers of the 'Gatewatch', now plan their next move against Tezzeret and his master, the Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas.  It appears that the next confrontation is to be on the Plane of Amonkhet, the very next set.  In fact the name Amonket is mentioned about eight times during the Renewal story.

We learn from Wizards of the Coast that the Amonkhet Magic Story will be kicking off around March 29th, with the regular Magic story offering being supplanted by podcast interviews with members from the Wizard's Magic Worldbuilding Team.  Definitely looking forward to that.

Next up, you suggest you check out Gathering Magic's Aether Revolt Art Review by Mike Linnemann.  His keen and discerning eye catches all the beautiful minutae in the Aether Revolt illustrations.

Lastly, we want to yatter about our Red / Green Energy decklist we've run previously.  This deck generates a solid volume of energy to power out a swing for lethal damage by Electrostatic Pummeler.  The foundation of this build is mostly within Kaladesh, but Aether Revolt had also offered up a few interesting pieces to consider for inclusion.

Specifically, a green coloured one-drop creature in the form of Greenbelt Rampager as well as a versatile two-drop red instant Invigorated Rampage.  We consider our latest build rather powerful but not quite predictable as we should like it, so it has stayed away from Friday Night Magic and is played at our Kitchen table.  

The new post Aether Revolt standard environment also contains a number of popular decklists running Fatal Push, Shock, and Walking Ballista all threatening to shut down Electrostatic Pummler before it gets off the beachhead.  This build may still be viable however given the very decent result in last weekend's StarCityGames classic.  Andrew Jessup placed Top 16 with this G/R Energy list.

Creatures (20)
4x Longtusk Cub
4x Servant of the Conduit
4x Voltaic Brawler
4x Electrostatic Pummeler
4x Bristling Hydra

Spells (20)
4x Attune with Aether
4x Blossoming Defense
4x Harnessed Lightning
4x Invigorated Rampage
4x Larger Than Life

Lands (20)
4x Aether Hub
1x Botanical Sanctum
8x Forest
4x Game Trail
3x Mountain

Sideboard (15)
1x Island
2x Natural State
4x Shock
1x Heroic Intervention
2x Negate
4x Lathnu Hellion
1x Arlinn Kord

If this standard decklist seems to you a refreshing break from the top two dominant lists of G/B Aggro / Delirium (to see who gets the Snek out first) and the Saheeli-Cat combo, then we suggest you pop on over to this Reddit thread and join in the discussion.
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Metallic Mimic

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Last Monday, in this MTG article, we had yattered briefly about the rise in popularity of the Saheeli / Felidar Guardian combo decklist.  This past weekend's Richmond StarCityGames Open standard format results confirmed Saheeli and provided a second emerging list - Black Green Delirium / Black Green Aggro, which shared a number of key components.  It may be of interest to pop on over to this reddit thread for the Magic: the Gathering community's discourse on the results.  

We have a history here at MTG Realm of not playing the 'popular' decklists, but rather brewing up our own sometimes rogue lists.  We did take note of a single 'Humans' list being played by Benjamin Nikolich (linked over here) which inspires us.  In fact, our post last week on our take on post Aether Revolt Humans was not altogether different from that of Benjamin's list.  

The active ingredient in our opinion in this list and perhaps our favourite card in Aether Revolt is Metallic Mimic, which along with Thalia's Lieutenant pushes the tribal strength.

We certainly are not 'all in' on the humans strategy - we do love out be-goggled Monkey very much.

The R/W Humans decklist we took to our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario performed to our satisfaction to take 3rd Place at Friday Night Magic.  The field here does not contain just two popular decklists, although there were a few showings of B/G Delirium.  The Humans list did not so great against that list so we will return to the drawing board and reevaluate the sideboard choices.  For now, here is the full main decklist :

Land (20)
1x Hanweir Battlements
4x Inspiring Vantage
2x Mountain
3x Needle Spires

11x Plains

Creature (32)
4x Expedition Envoy
4x Thraben Inspector
2x Inventor's Apprentice
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Metallic Mimic
3x Hanweir Militia Captain
3x Lantern Scout
3x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

3x Hanweir Garrison

Enchantment (7)
3x Gryff's Boon

4x Declaration in Stone

Instant (3)

3x Blessed Alliance

Some brief notes about playing with this list -
• As expected, Metallic Mimic and Thalia's Lieutenant are must have bombs.
• Give the number of Monkey tokens from Kari Zev and Hanweir Garrison, Hanweir Militia flips / transforms rather easily in that larger board threat.
• Gryff's Boon is still a solid choice for evasion and to answer a flying Vehicle.

Summary - play what makes you happy and improve upon it as standard constructed evolves.  Our next move is likely with Metallic Mimic again and will involve a great number of Servo tokens being generated.  :)

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Wednesday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We hope to cover a few odds 'n' ends with today's post, so buckle in and lean in when we negotiate the road curves.

First up -
Today on the Magic: the Gathering Mothersite, the ubiquitous Blake Rasmussen delivered upcoming Friday Night Magic promo cards to take gaming fans to June 2017. 

Friday Night Magic (or FNM) is a format of Magic: The Gathering tournaments, held on Friday nights in gaming stores and associations all across the world. These are designed to be a beginner-friendly introduction to organized play.  The promotional cards, provided by Wizards of the Coast as prize support for the FNM Events are foil and feature an alternate art.

2017 Friday Night Promo Cards
1/2017: Noose Constrictor
2/2017: Fortune's Favor
3/2017: Incendiary Flow
4/2017: Servo Exhibtion
5/2017: Unlicensed Disintegration
6/2017: Aether Hub 

We are rather happy with the choice of Aether Hub - here's a card that will likely see proper standard constructed play and not be relegated to a dusty trade binder.

Next up - 
If you have not already done so, please do take in today's Magic Story installment ‘Puppets’, penned by James Wyatt (we're always very pleased to read his offerings).  This continues the Kaladesh story of Aether Revolt and features Liliana, who has a bone of contention to pick with the Planeswalker Tezzeret.  In this article we hear the first mention of the Plane of Amonkhet (the next MTG Block).  

We also now learn the names of all four demons whom Liliana had become indebted to.  To this end, here is the really short backstory for those readers interested -
Liliana Vess made a pact with four of the Multiverse’s most powerful demons with the assistance of the tyrannical Elder Dragon Nicol Golas. The words of this demon pact remain written on her skin. Liliana efforts now focus on th goal to obtain her freedom by defeating the four who bound her :
• Kothophed (origin uknown)
• Griselbrand, Plane of Innistrad
• Razaketh (origin uknown)  

• Belzenlok (origin uknown)

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