Evasive Maneuvers

~
Happy Tuesday MTG peeps, 

We have for you today part one of five separate articles we are doing on the new Commander 2013 decks just recently released by WotC to a very welcoming Magic: the Gathering fan base.  Each of these new Commander pre-constructed decks provides a ready to play stack of 100 cards including a choice of three legendary creatures to act as your general which may be also represented by an oversized foil card.  The card list is a solid foundation which you can easily adjust to taste - we'll likely throw a few of our nostalgic favourites we've picked up from MTG Mint Card into the original mix. 

The is the overview / review for Commander 2013's 'Evasive Maneuvers' deck and we've prepared a video with our good friend Jon from 'Command Tower' on Tumblr.  

 

This Bant deck (green / white / blue) has the following Commanders to choose from:

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
A 2/3 flying bird wizard for three (bang) mana allows you to tap or untap a target permanent when either Derevi enters the battlefield or when a creature you control lands damage.  The most exciting ability on this card may be able to cast Derevi from the command zone onto the battlefield for only four mana (one and a 'bant') getting around the 'commander tax' requiring your pay an additional two accumulative mana for every time you cast the general.

Roon of the Hidden Realm
Here's a solid 4/4 Rhino Soldier costing five (two colourless and a 'bant').  Also equipped with vigilance and trample, this already seems like a decent inclusion but let's have a look at the final ability.  Feed this two colourless and tap it you can blink a target creature.  Exiling and returning one of your own critters with a sweet 'enters the battlefield' effect or perhaps removing an opponent's attacker or blocker is downright great.

Rubinia Soulsinger
This flightless 2/3 Faerie costs five (two and a 'bant').  This first ability allowing you to choose not to untap Rubinia won't make much sense until you read the second one.  Just tap her and you can now take control of a target creature for as long as she's tapped - not bad at all to remove a potential threat.

There are a lot of neat cards in this deck such as Azami, Lady of Scrolls for draw, Deceiver Exarch to play into the tap / untap theme, or the witty Borrowing 100,000 Arrows.  The list looks rather robust to address a variety of situations on the ever developing battlefield but we would rather take the chassis out and build upon it a singular theme.
~

Theros Holiday Gift Box

~
Happy Friday MTG peeps,

We'll be heading out to OMG! Games latter on tonight to play in the Friday Night Magic event but wanted to swing by today during lunch break to pick up the 2013 Theros Holiday Gift Box on the chance it may sell out latter today.  Apparently we did have nothing to fear as the store ordered a good number.  While at the store there happened to be a few other players there also on a lunch break to grab some singles ahead of the event tonight and not there to pick up the Holiday Gift Box.  After a discussion of what they would pay for four booster packs of Theros (it's about $5 here in Central Ontario), they realised that given the price tag on the Holiday Gift Box (priced at $19.99 at OMG! Games), it was essentially a no-brainer.

Anywhoos - let's have a looky-loo in the box now !

Contents:

• A storage box that can hold more than 2,000 cards

• Six illustrated plastic dividers

• A sticker sheet for customizing the dividers

• Four Theros booster packs

• An alternative-art Karametra's Acolyte from the Theros set

• 20-card Theros basic land pack

~
Release Date: November 15, 2013 for an MSRP: $19.99

Enchant the Magic™ player in your life with the Magic: The Gathering® Holiday Gift Box, containing four booster packs from the Theros™ expansion, 20 basic land cards, and a premium card featuring an illustration unique to this gift box.

~
Notes :

• Peel 'n' stick sticker are great.

• The box art is nice but not as epic as last year's Return to Ravnica box art.

• The Dan Scott art for alt-art foil Karametra's Acolyte is stunningly beautiful but we have wishes for a more popular standard-format card.  Last year's foiling on Dreg Mangler was a bit weird 'n' flat.

• The art for the six card dividers are simply gorgeous.  The divider thickness seems a bit thinner from last year.

• Card storage box appears robust and on the same quality as the previous year's box.

•  Our four booster packs did not net us anything epic : Temple of Silence / Nighthowler / Artisans of Forms / Labyrinth Champion.  We did finally get a token that we've been looking for which is cool.

•  All in all a very solid purchase and of great use to just about every Magic: the Gathering player we can think of.

~

Tumblr Thursday

~
Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We are rounding out the week rapidly so don't forget to not only make plans to get off to your local gaming store for Friday Night Magic, but to perhaps also get there a bit early to pick up the Theros Holiday 2013 Gift Box as they go on sale tomorrow.  

Righto - on to today's article - let's get to recent posts to our sister site MTG Realm on Tumblr -
~

Photoset

November 12, 2013

320 notes

 

 

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - New Phyrexia
New Phyrexia, Set 3 of 3 in the Scars of Mirrodin block. Here’s a sampling of some of the amazing / epic concept illustration from Richard Whitters (lead), Mark Tedin, Chippy, Dave Allsop, Wayne Reynolds, Franz Vohwinkel, and Jeremy Jarvis.

~

Photoset

November 13, 2013

54 notes

Magic: the Gathering - The Alara Work Environment
Little known fact - the Plane of Alara was quite frankly an OSHA and work insurance nightmare.  Labor laws were simply ignored and never enforced.
Enlisted Wurm art and sketch by the great Steve Prescott

~

Photoset

November 13, 2013

158 notes

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - Creativity
You quite obviously have not had enough images of CARDHALLA - Here ya go!

~

Photoset

November 11, 2013

38 notes

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - Dark Apostle
Do you know what blows chunks?  That there are only 7 demons in Standard currently, none of which unfortunately are stellar.  I guess if you Modern you could probably party with Griselbrand.  Anywhoos - there are potential shenanigans to be had though with Immortal Servitude.
Embarrassing admission - I had one or two Shadowborn Apostles in a casual kitchen table deck for lulz and just to funk with my opponent’s mind.  Opponent played Momoricide to look in my hand / deck for a demon that just wasn’t there.

~ 

Photoset

November 10, 2013

56 notes

 

 

 

Magic: the Gathering - good gawd …

The gods of Theros are ethereal beings who live among the stars. If mortals’ belief in them is strong enough, they can manifest themselves and wage war beside them.  There are five mythic rare legendary enchantment creatures that embody one of the gods of Theros. Each card has a low casting cost, but is not a creature until your Devotion to that colour is 5 or more. They all are indestructible, have one static ability and one activated ability — Heliod, God of the Sun, Thassa, God of the Sea, Erebos, God of the Dead, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Nylea, God of the Hunt.  Along with these gods, there are also five rare legendary enchantment artifacts that give all player’s creatures a ability and have a activated ability for it own — Spear of Heliod, Bident of Thassa, Whip of Erebos, Hammer of Purphoros, and Bow of Nylea

~

MTG Wallpaper Round-Up

~
Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Although we've had a few snowflakes here in Barrie, Ontario over the last week or so, it was a rather quick melt, often in a matter of just a few minutes.  Today, however it appears that the white stuff will finally stick and perhaps stay (picture from our backyard to the right).  The current meteorological conditions may even prompt us to leave a few minutes early to get to OMG! Games for Friday Night Magic tonight.  This minor inconvenience is nothing in comparison to the super Typhon which caused massive devastation across the Philippines.  Our thoughts are not only with the Magic: the Gathering players there but also their communities.  The Phillippine Red Cross now takes PayPal.
~

Anywhoos - on to today's article here at the MTG Realm blog - MTG Wallpaper.  Here are a few recent wallpapers posted to the mothersite.  We have most of these cards through MTG Mint Card but may not likely get a hold of Nekusar, the Mindrazer from Commander 2013's 'Mind Seize' pre-con which happens to sell out just as quickly as it gets re-stocked.  Righto - Here's the round up of recent wallpapers, available in your choice of size - 2560x1600 / 1920x1080 / 1280x960 / Mobile / Tablet / Facebook - just click the link to land on the page.

Nekusar, the Mindrazer from Commander 2013, illustrated by Mark Winters

Hythonia the Cruel from Theros, illustrated by Chris Rahn

Gift of Immortality from Theros, illustrated by Matt Stewart

Thassa, God of the Sea from Theros, illustrated by Jason Chan

Purphoros, God of the Forge from Theros, illustrated by Eric Deschamps

Nyleas, Gof of the Hunt from Theros, illustrated by Chris Rhan

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx from Theros, illustrated by Jung Park

Heliod, God of the Sun from Theros, illustrated by Jaime Jones

Vanquish the Foul from Theros, illustrated by Eric Deschamps

Errebos, God of the Dead  from Theros, illustrated by Peter Mohrbacher
~

Promo Round-Up

~
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

~
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.

~
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

~

Sirens

~
Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween event last evening.  Up here in Barrie, the weather was windy, cool, and intermittent rain.  We should have went to OMG! Games last night who were having a midnight release party for Commander 2013 - but - we handed out Halloween candy and watched scary movies instead.  We will however be heading out tonight for Friday Night Magic with a budget red deck to change things up a bit.

Anywhoos - let's yatter about today's post title - Sirens - which we will get to in a moment. We've seen quite a few game tables absolutely piled with tokens, whether they were cat tokens from Ajani, Caller of the Pride, soldier tokens from Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Elemental tokes whether from Young Pyromancer or Master of Waves.  Thank goodness we do not have anthems like Honor of the Pure or Intangible Virtue.  There are a good number of board wipers in standard (perhaps nothing as elegant and easy as Wrath of God) such as Planar Cleansing, Supreme Verdict and other conditional ones such as Anger of the Gods or Golgari Charm.

We here at MTG Realm love unpopular / marginally playable cards which can, with the right build, take advantage of the metagame.  To this end, we had a look at Shipwreck Singer to nerf the numerous tokens we've been seeing lately at our kitchen table and FNM event.  Before we go any further - fun fact time - there only two Sirens every printed by WotC.  First though - what's a siren ? 

Alluring Siren - She lures victims with promises of flesh, captures them in a net of deceit, and destroys them in the embrace of the sea.

Shipwreck Singer - Her melody melds death and beauty with such artistry that even the gods weep to hear it.

In Homer's Odyssey, Circe warns Odysseus about the dangers at sea, principal amongst them, the Sirens inhabiting the rocks isles of Sirenum scopuli. Similarly, Jason and the Argonauts faced the same dangers. Short of stuffing our ears with wax, there is not much to be done about the bewitching songs luring an honest seaman (hehehe) to their watery grave.  To this end, we are very interested in having Shipwreck Singer (with that most epic card art from Daarken) lure those soldier or elemental tokens in closer and crashing them with a semi-global -1/-1.  We just now have to flesh out an appropriate blue / black control shell and then take it for a spin for a few games.
~