A MAGICAL CHANGE…AGAIN

Words got out from head designer mark rosewater on august 25, 2014 that wizard made an announcement about some big deal changes to the game and it’s standard rotation. Seems like there was a lot of positive feedback about the changes than there were negative feedbacks, which is usually the other way around.

Most people know about the change already but I’d like to put my opinion into it, just as everyone else did. Now the new rotatation of stand is going to work like this:
• Instead of two three blocks they will be doing three two blocks set a year, which means the core set will be no more.
• The rotation of standard will be rotated out in 18 months instead of 24 months, so the rotation is going to happen much quicker than ever.

       So the RTR block will (obviously) be rotated out when khans of tarkir will come out. Than in the spring of 2015 the next set of khans will be out, which nothing rotates out from that. But in the fall theros will be rotated out leaving the three sets from the khans block out there. then they will be doing rotations to the point where it would be the two block set instead of the three block sets. Seems like a lot to dwell on but hey we have a year and a half before this starts happening.

      Like most players I seem to be fine with the core sets not coming out anymore. They are just all reprints and never really that exciting to be picking up at the store. Either way I may still buy them just to have them. I like the three block sets but down grading to having only two block sets is a huge difference. It makes me wonder if they are going to be printing more cards for the blocks. We will find out once they start doing it this way.

How do you feel about the change?

Comment with your thoughts!

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ANNIHALATION IS COMING

Another from the vault set is coming out on the 22nd of august 2014. This time it’s called “Annihilation”.  This yearly set seems like it going to be the best from the vault set they would come out with. All because you can destroy each other to oblivion with the type of cards they have selected for the set. With board wipes, destroying creatures, and burning things up. All the fun there is in the world in one set, but for a limited run and pretty much when they are gone, they’re gone.

They have cards like Armageddon, where it destroys all lands and child of alara where the card will destroy all nonland permanents and they can’t be regenerated if child of alara dies. So either way you turn there’s some kind of board sweep going on destroying everything in sight. I’m pretty sure there are some crazy combos that can happen with the set. The only way to do that is to buy one and open them up and see what you get. I’m not certain that all the box set you get will have the same cards in it, but it would be pretty fun either way finding out what you would get when they’re opened. You can pre-order now so that way you will have it when it comes out the day of, like I said there will be a very limited run of the set. Any leftover will be priced way higher than anyone would want it to be and getting it at pre-order price and prie it would be the day it comes out is a bargain price.

The set will include:
• 15 Premium foil cards (including 6 with new art).
• A Spindown life counter.
• Also a collector's guide.

All cards are black bordered and tournament legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Would you consider getting the new from the vault set?

Leave me comments of your thoughts!

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GAME DAY RESULTS

As most of you players and friends know I went to game day Saturday august 9th 2014. Most of you know that I did pretty well and also use my sliver deck. It was kind of a last minute decision to use the deck, so I am glad I went with the deck because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve done as well, but yet again we would never know until I give it a try.

As first of the rounds gets started I played against a super nice girl (mind you everyone I played against and talked to were pretty darn awesome) with a black/white deck. As I put out my mana onto the battle field she noticed I’m playing tri colored deck and as soon as I put out belligerent sliver onto the battlefield, she gave me this look and said “a nylea sliver deck?” I respond nicely with a “yup” and a smile. She proceeds to letting me know how much she hates playing against slivers for the rest of the round we played. It was quite fun to play her, especially with the first win I made was with all my slivers I control can’t be blocked except by two or more creature’s, double strike, produce mana, and having +1/+1 counters added to them. She had attacked me last turn with one of two creatures she had out so with all my creatures swinging (for 18 points of damage by the way) she couldn’t even block one of them giving me the win. now with the second hand we played she had more creatures out trying to keep up with the belligerent sliver’s ability and swinging at me for small damage points but I end up blocking her creatures killing them before they do anything to my creatures. The second hand gave me the win by swinging for 24 points of damage, even when she was able to block one of my creatures she was still being hit with 20 points of damage hitting her 16 life total down to below zero. Round 1 win goes to me.

At this point I’m catching my breath, only because that’s a first win right out of the bat. Moving onto round two playing against a red/blue deck which was obvious just from the first land card he put out (a pain land). The player is fairly new to the game with only starting two weeks before m-15 came out. But he did put up a pretty good fight with his deck. First round pretty much destroyed him rather quickly, I killed him with a sorcery card Lava axe which deal 5 points of damage to him. The second round he did really well (me being mana screwed helped too) he put out three enchantments where it would deal one damage to my creatures when they attack (I can’t remember what the name of the card is to save my life) so with me forgetting about the enchantment card being there I kept killing my creatures, stupid move really but I couldn’t get anywhere with what I have coming out. So the second hand went to him. Now the third hand he was mana screwed and couldn’t get his guttersnipe out the quickly enough to do some excessive damage to me. So I have won round two with my slivers swinging for 13 getting his life total down below zero. Second round won by me.

Now the third round lasted like 10 minutes it seems because I was playing against and black and red aggro deck. Annihilated me in what seems like 2 moves. I couldn’t get my creature out quickly enough to do anything. Obviously the second round I lost. This is ok with me only because I’m now 2 wins and 1 loss. I knew I’m going against other people who done pretty well in the other rounds. But I was happy because that’s really the most wins I’ve ever done at an event at my LGS, or any other place I’ve attended events at.

Now it’s the fourth round. I’m playing against a guy I’ve seen at the shop a few time before and usually do pretty well when it comes to his deck. First hand ended rather quickly with him putting an artifact and then enchanting it with ensoul artifact making it a 5/5 indestructible creature swinging with it each turn until my life total ran out. The second and third hand took a little bit longer to finish. But I did win the second hand but I barely held on, it wouldn’t have lasted as long if I didn’t get my belligerent sliver and bonescythe sliver out there. The third round he had 2 dragons out and kept swinging with them. But I had enough creatures out to be able to take majority of his life total down but I t wasn’t enough to beat him.

That last lost gave me a 2 win 2 loss record and placed 5th place out of 12. I couldn’t be happier with the result of the day. I didn’t win any packs but I did get a top eight promo card and also a participation card. The top eight promo is a foil chief engineer, and the participation promo card is reclamation sage (with an awesome alternate art). If you want to see what my sliver deck looks like click here for the link to take you to the tapped-out page.

What deck did you end up using for your game day and how well or bad did you do?

Leave comments of your thoughts.

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M-15 GAME DAY

     

         This weekend (8-9-14 to 8-10-2014) the m-15 game day weekend, which also marks when the new core set has been out for about a month.  LGS usually do an event to celebrate its one month, some would only do it for one day and some would do it for 2 days. The one I’m going to is on a Saturday just because there are more prizes to win (by any given chance I actually get enough wins to get anything). I’ve never really had much luck at winning anything but I’ll take it as a learning experience and also see what other people have to play with.

The hardest part about going into game day is what deck do I want to use, and what are the pros and cons of using that type of deck. For me I am torn between my sliver deck and my human heroic soldier deck. It seems like my sliver deck might be the way to go considering how nutty it can get and how quickly it can do so. My heroic human soldier deck has it’s up and down with it. The deck seems to been having problems with mana lately and it was never like that before. But I think I’ll try various decks and see which one seems to fit better for playing at game day.


I will wish everyone good luck with their game day event if they are going, in my next blog I will say what my results was as far as not losing (or not winning).

What deck will you go with for game day?

Comment with your thoughts!

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REPRINT IN QUESTION

Question comes to a lot of player’s mind of why cards get reprinted and why cards don’t get reprinted. I think it’s often asked but I never really hear anyone asked. My it’s my own personal question I seek out to have answered, so I researched on it and it didn’t take long for me to find my answer, apparently it has been asked a lot by other players.

The game of magic the gathering has a tremendous appeal to both collectors and gamers. With the game being both enjoyable and skillful, it kind of feels like the cards deserves to be reprinted for more enjoyable game play. Not to mention newer players can get a chance to play with cards they never have the chance to play with yet.

There are a lot of cards I’d love to have reprinted but they probably won’t be. There’s actually a reserve list of cards that won’t get reprinted, and most of the cards that is not on the list may (using that word loosely) be reprinted. I’m sure there are players out there that to have “cards to (need) be reprinted” list. But wizard will only reprint cards if there’s functionality to them, like if they printed a new card that works similar to older cards, then there’s no need to be reprinted.

What cards would you like to see be reprinted?

Leave comments of your thoughts?

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KHANS OF TARKIR CLANS

Khans of tarkir is a newest set to be released in the fall, September 26, 2014. With prerelease on the 20th – the 21st of September. This new set seems to follow the WUBRG color order with one ally and one enemy. Each card has their own mechanics and morph on top of that. Yes, morph is back.

There are 5 different clans with their own wedge colors and theme for that clan. The five clans are:

Abzan Houses – WBG, Theme: Control

Jeskai Way – URW, Theme: Tricks

Mardu Horde – RWB, Theme: Aggro

Sultai Brood – BGB, Theme: Resource manipulation

Temur Frontier – GBR, Theme: Midrange fatties

I probably would pick mardu horde just because it has my favorite colors of cards I like to play. But then again I might change my mind once I start seeing the spoilers for the new set in September. The color combination of the new cards is going to probably eliminate everyone from having a devotion deck in the pro tour or whenever a top 8 is announced and then everyone wants those cards because of it. So far there has been only one card for the new set spoiled, that may just be a tease to us magic players because we probably won’t see another spoiler card until September or the end of august, which is a month away.


What do you hope to see in  the new set of khans of tarkir?

Leave a comment of your thoughts!

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COUNTERFEIT MAGIC IS A THING?

Words are floating around about a Chinese company counterfeiting magic cards. Words are also floating around that there’s a few places in the United States are under investigation for making counterfeit cards. Whatever is going on with the counterfeiters, they need to stop. Because if people buy these counterfeit cards and try to play at an event host by wizards, they could be banned and or just have the cards taken away (not 100% on that part but from what I’ve read, it’s a possibility).

Here are just a few ways you can test out the cards for it being fake or not. One of the cool ways you can find out is using a black light. The real card would appear luminescent as part of the property of the card-stock they are printed on, where the fake one would not luminate. This probably doesn’t work every time because the counterfeiters have gotten better with making it look like the real thing even under a black light.

Another neat way of checking for fakes is the light test. It’s where you take the card and hold it near a strong bright light bulb. If the card is easily readable from the back then it’s a fake, where the real one has a blue filament in the middle of the card that would only allow so much light through the card. So this could go either way.

There are a number of other ways to tall if its fake but in order to do those test, you got to have a lot of guts to do it. Such as the bend test to see if it will crease easily, and tear the card in half to see if there’s the blue filament in the middle of the card. Me for one will not do the tear test because if it’s the real thing, then I screwed myself out of having or owing that card.

One more thing to find out if the card is a fake is he artwork on the card. Because if it looks like cartoon characters or video game characters, its definitely a fake, Especially if it has ridiculous abilities in the flavor box.

What would you do with counterfeit cards if you ever come across one?

Leave comments of your thoughts.

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WHAT A PAIN IN MY LAND

With the new release of the core set m-15 for magic the gathering from wizard of the coast they reprinted a lot of old cards. Within those reprints they reprinted the “pain lands” as they are called.  For some people, they really like these kinds of cards, but for me? I’m not a big fan of them.

        My personal opinion? I like shock lands better, only because you get hit for 2 if you want to untap the land card right away, and that’s the only time you will get hit with the damage. The pain lands you get hit with one damage each time you use the land cards for one of the colors that are listed on the card. If you don’t use one of the colors listed on the card you won’t be hit with 1 damage each time, you can get a colorless mana. That can be helpful at times, but not really.

How do you feel about the pain lands?

Leave me a comment of your thoughts.

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THE SLIVERS ARE BACK IN TOWN

     

       With the newest core set of magic the gathering M-15 coming out officially July 18th 2014, the slivers are back. I’m sure everyone loves the new artwork for the new slivers, considering they look just about human in the last core set; now they look more like regular slivers in the new core set.

Let’s look at the biggest fattie of slivers, the sliver hivelord. It’s a 5/5 creature with the ability of giving other slivers indestructible. Sure it’s all the color of mana to drop out on the battlefield which is in some case pretty hard to do. But with the other slivers you can have in the deck with mana weft sliver and such shouldn’t be too much of a problem to bring out. The new slivers still have the slivers you control ability instead of the all slivers get the same kind of ability. Which me personally I like better because why would I want to help my opponent make their creatures better?

Some of the other slivers are pretty good to have. They seem to have one sliver for every color of the mana this time around instead of having two or three different ones for the same color. What’s also different is they have a sliver land card called sliver hive, which helps put sliver tokens out onto the battlefield by tapping 5 colorless and the sliver hive card to get the 1/1 colorless sliver onto the battlefield, but you can only do it if you control a sliver. It also has tap sliver hive to add 1 colorless to your mana pool and it also have tap sliver hive to add any one colorless to add to your mana pool only to cast a sliver. This card is very specific to what it can do only for sliver decks, then again who wouldn’t make a sliver deck with  the land card in it?

Then we have the venom sliver, a 1 and a forest to drop out onto the battlefield with a 1/1 power and toughness to give all slivers you control deathtouch. This is a great card to have in a slivers deck, you can use the venom sliver as a chump block to get rid of the other player’s creatures. If you have sliver hivelord out there with the venom sliver, your sliver will live and the other player’s creature won’t.

Belligerent sliver is 2 and a mountain to drop this bad boy out onto the battlefield with a 2/2 power and toughness and give all slivers you control “can’t be block except by two or more creatures”. This isn’t so bad for the mana cost. Although the sliver looks more like a lion sliver but that’s ok with me, the artwork doesn’t help my gameplay any.

There’s also a sliver that can provide control in your deck as well. Constricting sliver is a five and a plains to cast out. It’s a bit of an expensive sliver to cast but it’s sort of worth it to exile an opponent’s creature as long as the constricting sliver stays in the battlefield. When I say sort of, I really meant not really considering it’d be way late in the game to cast it, unless you have a bunch of spells and mana weft sliver that can give you more mana to produce to get it out quicker.

Diffusion sliver is a one and a island to cast for a 1/1 power and toughness to give all slivers the ability to counter spells or unless it’s controller pays two when they become targets of spells. This would go well against a burn, counter spells type of deck. But I’m not sure of how the counter would work, I think the sliver gets to stay put while the counter or spells that targets it goes straight into the grave yard. This can force the other player to keep mana open to do such spell and prevents them from putting anything else out onto the battlefield.

Then the last sliver I’m going to talk about is the leaching sliver which just like the diffusion mana cost but only with the swamp in the mana cost to drop a 1/1 power and toughness with the ability to give all slivers to give the defending player 1 damage whenever a sliver attacks. This card can be a good ending game win kind of card because even if the defending player blocks and they have very little life left to hold on to the 1 damage still goes to them and lose the game.

That’s all I have to talk about slivers today.

What is your favorite new sliver?

How do you like the new art work for them?

Leave your comments of your thoughts.

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M-15 PRERELEASE

Here we are again with another prerelease weekend for the newest core set M-15 which starts tonight Friday at midnight (which technically is Saturday) July 12, 2014. When you join the prerelease you will chose a color. You'll receive a Prerelease kit with five (5) M15 booster packs, one (1) special "seeded" booster pack loaded with cards in the color you chose, a spindown die, an exclusive foil promo that can be used in your sealed deck, and a Garruk the Slayer Challenge card for players to get involved with the "Hunt Bigger Game" contest.

As for the hunt bigger games contest, it looks to me that you can win a nerf Garruk axe and the duel of the Planeswalker online game, although I’m not 100% sure since searching for this info just leads me to enter the contest pages, and if you snap a photo of yourself being the victim or the victor with the cardboard cut out of Garruk to facebook using the hashtag #huntbiggergame in the image caption and then complete and submit an entry form for your chance to win, and both victors and victims can win.

I think if I were going to my LGS prerelease I think I would pic green for my color of choice. But since I am very broke (sucks to be a grown up) I won’t be able to go one of the prerelease event. But I have chosen red, and white at the previous prereleases and I wonder if green would do me any better.

What color would you choose for your prerelease?

Leave comments of your thought.

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