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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Promo Round-Up

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Although it was pretty dang cold, altogether it was a rather nice weekend here.  Kicking the weekend off on Friday, we went to Friday Night Magic at our local card shop, OMG! Games (near the College here in Barrie, Ontario) and went 3 wins / 2 losses with a funky Bant Hexproof build, taking us to 7th place which meant some packs and this month's FNM promo (see below).  Attendance was not the best at all (likely due to the horrible weather) with only 20 or so players.  We played agains Duncan, Curt, Brayden, Korie and Ben and in-between rounds brought along a 'fun' experimental deck to see just how well it would perform.  One observation we made - we most definitely need to pick up some additional non-basic lands from MTG Mint Card.  We did a bunch of yard / house work on Saturday / Sunday, got in a few games at the kitchen table and brewed up a few against the grain decks.  We also popped on online throughout the weekend to catch up with the big MTG Grand Prix tournament in Santiago.  Congratulations to player Luis Navas who gamed with a Rakdos Aggro (Exava / Mogis's Marauder / Xathrid Necromancer / etc.).

Righto - back onto topic - we have for you today a bunch of Magic: the Gathering promos from various programs 'n' products.  We may have posted some of these before on our sister site MTG Realm on Tumblr but want to roll it all into a big ball here.  Let's go . . .

Theros Holiday Gift BoxWe absolutely LOVED the Gift Box product from last year (Return to Ravnica) and will most definitely be picking up up again this year (to gift ourselves!).  The box itself can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards and is available worldwide in English on November 15, 2013. You do get more than just a beautiful box to store your cards in for the MSRP of $19.99, though! To wit:

• Four Theros booster packs
• Beautiful storage box that can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards
• Twenty Theros basic lands
• Six illustrated plastic dividers
• Sticker sheet for customizing the dividers
• An alternate-art Karametra's Acolyte from the Theros set

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Theros League
The League is a seasonal Magic: The Gathering tournament organized by the DCI. The ongoing, five-week tournament is played in local game and hobby stores around the world, a month after each a new card set is released. This sealed deck tournament follows up on Game Day events and uses the Standard format.  Check your local gaming store to see when your league starts - If it already has, chances are they may have another league starting up again.  The Theros League promo is a lovely Soldier token with art form Zoltan Boros which now brings us to 3 different white soldier tokens and 1 red soldier token.

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If you've missed it, here's the recent round-up Friday Night Magic promos -

November 2013 - Grisly Salvage
Original art illustrated by Dave Kendall
Alternate FNm art illustrated by Maciej Kuciara

December 2013 - Sin Collector
Original art illustrated by Mike Bierek
Alternate FNm art illustrated by Izzy
By far, the most creepy and unsettling art in recent memory!

January 2014 - Warleader's Helix
Original art illustrated by Greg Staples
Alternate FNm art illustrated by Wesley Burt

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Theros Events

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

For today's post, we wanted to provide a handy-dandy reference post you can refer back to to check out all the game play events for the very next Magic: the Gathering set, Theros.  As many of you know, your local gaming store is usually anything but dull / boring and certainly not while we are at our local gamery shoppe, OMG! Games in Barrie.  Check the links off to the mothersite for the 4.1.1. on each event.  OHH - and check out the new Theros art 'spoiler' in the League event graphic - yep - looks just like one of the wonders of the ancient world - the Colossus of Rhodes.  Wizards of the Coast, along with that card shop in your neck 'o' the woods has a host of upcoming events and programs where you can n3rd out and get your fill of the newest MTG set coming this fall - let's have a looky-loo . . . 
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PreRelease (September 21-22, 2013)
Prerelease tournaments (or prereleases) are events held one week before the release of an expansion set.  Theros features the first quest of the Hero's Path: Choose a Path. The Hero Prerelease Pack contains a spindown life counter, a Hero Card unique to a players' chosen path, one of five quiz activity cards, five Theros boosters, a special seeded booster featuring cards appropriate for that player's chosen path and one of the five playable Prerelease promo cards.
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Launch / Release (September 27, 2013)
Launch parties or Release events were events held after the release of an expansion set. These are held at a Friday Night Magic event.
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Game Day (October 19-20, 2013)Magic Game Day is a seasonal Magic: The Gathering tournament organized by the DCI. The tournament is played in local game and hobby stores around the world, a month after each a new card set is released. Game Day events are Standard format tournament.  On Game Day, you'll see Theros Hero Cards, which are a new special type of card for players to collect and use when facing Challenge Decks at Game Day.  Game Day will also include a chance to play with or against a 'Face the Hydra' challenge deck.
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Path of the Hero
This is a multiple Theros event game play experience where players become heroes of Theros and participate in nine in-store quests that include puzzles, battles, and rewards; all of which happen at your store.
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League
The League is a seasonal Magic: The Gathering tournament organized by the DCI. The ongoing, five-week tournament is played in local game and hobby stores around the world, a month after each a new card set is released. This sealed deck tournament follows up on Game Day events and uses the Standard format.
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Friday Night Magic
Friday Night Magic (FNM) is a weekly Magic: The Gathering tournament played in many different local communities. Friday Night Magic generally is a standard or sometimes modern format game.
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Ravnica League

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Some interesting news from forum member garebear who had recently attended an open house at a one of the game distributors Wizards of the Coast use to move Magic the Gathering product.  Specifically it was some news regarding Return to Ravnica League Kits.  If you aren't yet in the know, Leagues are organised play groups by your local gaming store (LGS) and the Wizards Play Network (WPN).  Just like Friday Night Magic, gamers can hit up their LGS on league night and get a chance to score some swag courtesy of support from Wizards.  Wizards had devleoped 'kits' to support both the store owner as well as encourage player attendance for some time and will direct solicitations to retailers to get their pre-orders in. 

 

Anywhoos, the contents of the Return to Ravnica League kits were provided last week but Mr. Garebear had this report to the gaming community which provided an additional item of interest to the kit content :

"I'm sitting at a distributors open house right now and watching wotc make a presentation. When the section on the return to ravnica league kits came on it had a line saying the kit contains 20 knight tokens. Hopefully we'll get something good that makes some dudes."

Existing cards which make Knight tokens include Errand of Duty, Hunted Dragon, Riftmarked Knight, and Waylay.  Oddly enough, Hunted Dragon first saw print in Ravnica: City of Guilds (we've provided the cool Knight token for reference here).  Mind you, these cards will likely not see a reprint in the upcoming Return to Ravnica set BUT it does supply us with a bit of fodder for speculation.  Our first observation - given the confirmation of Knight tokens and possibility of other token love (we're also thinking of the possible new 'populate' mechanic) by Wizards, we suggest you don't trade away your set of Intangible Virtue just yet.

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Let's have a looky-loo at whats in the League Kits . . .

Kit Contents League Kit
• 32 guild lanyards
• 32 guild badges
• 2 guild sticker sheets
• Score pad
• Poster
• Window cling
• 5 DCITM membership cards
• Instruction sheet

Marketing Kit
• 5 guild banners
• 25 guild deck boxes
• Wall clock with 5 swappable guild faces
• Return to Ravnica standee

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Personally, we've not participated in League play before but we're certainly pumped over a Return to Ravnica league and may have to screw with the calendar and move some things to schedule this in at our local store OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario.
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League Play foils

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The Gateway program was recently replaced by the Wizards Play Network, a new WoTC program designed to make it easier to organize small tournaments with friends, in order to entice more players to participate in DCI sanctioned tournaments . . . the 'Think Globally, Play Locally' sort of thing.

With the Gateway program came promo cards. Previous Gateway promotional cards included Mogg Fanatic, Faerie Conclave, and Oona’s Blackguard. With the old program gone, so have the Gateway promo cards, which were typically uncommon cards printed by the Wizards for the release of each new edition.

Stepping into the gap as well is the new Wizards Play League which will have promotional cards provided to organizers. The intention here was to establish a new way to reward the players and enhance loyalaty. The first two cards created for this are arternate art foil Shards of Alara Sprouting Thrinax and Wolly Thoctar.

By-the-way . . . I'm still laughing about the Wooly Thoctar / Soccer Mom thing.

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Now for a bit of mystery.

We'll call it the case of the missing card. Remember this beautiful piece of spoiled artwork ?


It was generally beleived that it would be seen on a Shards of Alara card. More specifically, a card from the Shard of Esper. Many thought that this art would slip onto the Esper Battlemage card. Apparently no.

Mr. silvercut from the forums provided a very nice bit of photoshoppery and possible considerations for a future Conflux card.

Mr. Valyon also suggested possible cards for which the art may fit (from the infamous spoiled Conflux card list) which included Elder Mastery, Ethersworn Adjudicator, Filigree Fracture or perhaps Hermitage Illusionist. This may also be a case of simple concept art or even scrapped art which never made it to the finish line.