Premium Deck Series: Graveborn

Call Forth the Dead.

Legions of corpses await your sinister commands. This 60-card, all-foil deck entombs, exhumes, and reanimates some of the most powerful Magic creatures from all five colors of mana. Harvest your graveyard for an assortment of these face-beaters as you walk over a field of bones to claim your victory.

Contents:

• 60-card premium foil deck, including 8 rare cards
• Exclusive Spindown life counter
• Foil deck box
• Strategy insert
• Magic “learn to play” guide
  

  Art by Raymond Swanland

  Deck Design and Development: David Humpherys
  Release Date: November 18, 2011
  MSRP: $34.99

Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stonforge Mystic get banned from Standard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you may or may not have recently heard Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic have been banned effective July 1, 2011 in paper magic and June 29, 2011 on MTGO (Magic Online) .  So what does this mean to the meta game?  I can assure you that it will be interesting.

To start with it means no Caw-Blade, no Boros, no Blue Black control and no BUG.  Doesn’t this mean a return to Valakut?

Do you remember Standard before Caw-Blade?  The only deck that was winning was Valakut.  Even Valakut vs. Vampires posts winnings of 59%+ and Valakut beats aggro decks at least 55% of the time.  The only deck that was in Valakuts way was Caw-Blade with a 29% win.  So, will the new burn/infect decks be enough? I doubt it.

As for the market, you can bet the prices are plummeting on Jace, The Mind Sculptors and Stoneforge Mystics, along with the price of the event deck “War of Attrition”, and last but not least a drop in the price of Batterskull.

So what has gone up while everything is going down?  Well, on Magic Online the price of  Primeval Titan went from 11 tix to 25 tix in the matter of hours after Wizards posted the banned cards.  Just imagine when more people start to hear the news or, better yet, when the banning goes into effect.

Link to the ban list: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/148a

*June 20, 2011:  11:51 AM Update: Primeval Titan goes from 25 to 31 on MTGO.

Ajani vs Nicol Bolas Duel Decks

Release Date: September 2, 2011
MSRP: $19.99

The leonin Ajani Goldmane scours the shards of Alara with a single thought in mind: revenge. Filled with rage at the murder of his brother, Jazal, Ajani searches for his killer. Leaving no stone unturned, his wrath grows along with his power as a Planeswalker, leading him to an ultimate showdown with the Multiverse’s master manipulator.

Nicol Bolas is beginning to feel effects of the eons of time and knows it will take the mana of an entire plane to rejuvenate his ancient power and set his new schemes in motion. As he expertly maneuvers the pieces of his interplanar game into place, he encounters an indomitable will bent on retribution.

The battle of Alara’s Maelstrom is in your hands. Determine the fate of an entire plane and the outcome of an epic conflict between two rival Planeswalkers.

Deck Design and Development: Chris Millar and Mark Gottlieb

From The Vault: Legends

Release Date: August 26, 2011
MSRP: $34.99

Assembled here are fifteen of the most powerful legends in Magic history, legends heralded for their devastating powers and fearsome abilities. As a Planeswalker, you have searched the Multiverse for such allies. That search is finally at an end.

This limited-edition set also contains an exclusive preview card, a mythic rare from the October Magic set code named “Shake.”

Contents and Details

• 15 Premium foil cards, including 7 with new art
• An exclusive spindown life counter
• A collector’s guide
• Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
• The 15 legendary creatures are all printed in the current card frame. For several, it is for the first time.
• From the Vault: Legends will be available world-wide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
• 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. For some cards, it is their first time with a black border.

Product Concept and Development Team: Mark Rosewater, Mark Gottlieb, Jeremy Jarvis

M12

Gather Your Allies

Set Name	Magic 2012
Three-Letter Abbreviation	M12
Number of Cards	249
Release Date Magic Online Release:	July 15, 2011 August 1, 2011
Prerelease Events	July 9-10, 2011
Launch Parties	July 15-18, 2011
Game Day	August 13-14, 2011
Design Team	Mark Globus (lead) Doug Beyer Aaron Forsythe Ken Nagle
Development Team	Tom LaPille (lead) Kelly Digges Peter Schaefer Mike Turian Steve Warner Dave Humpherys

Commander Decks

Release Date: June 17, 2011
MSRP: $29.99

Collector’s Highlights

Magic: The Gathering Commander will consist of five different 100-card singleton decks, each with a suggested retail price of $29.99. To continue the tradition of oversized cards associated with our multiplayer releases, each deck will also include three premium oversized legendary commander cards that can be used in lieu of the normal versions of the cards (which are also in the deck).

The 51 new cards will be legal in Eternal formats (that’s Vintage and Legacy), but they will not be legal in Standard, Extended, or Block Constructed.

The Magic: The Gathering Commander decks will each be three “wedge” colors with corresponding new commanders. “Wedge” is a term we use for three-color combinations consisting of an allied pair and their shared enemy. Examples of famous “wedge” cards are Lightning Angel () and Doran, the Siege Tower (). These combinations have been woefully short-supplied on legendary creatures, so each deck contains the corresponding Planar Chaos Dragon (such as Intet, the Dreamer) as well as two new legendary commanders in those colors, plus oversized foil versions of all three.

Magic: The Gathering Commander decks will be available on Magic Online.

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New Phyrexia Event Decks

Deck Names: War of Attrition, Rot from Within
Release Date: June 10, 2011
MSRP: $24.99

. . . . . . .War of Attrition:

Decklist:
Main Deck: 60 Cards

2 Dread Statuary
21 Plains
______________________
23 Land Cards

4 Elite Vanguard
1 Kemba, Kha Regent
2 Kor Duelist
4 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Leonin Skyhunter
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Puresteel Paladin
2 Stoneforge Mystic
______________________
23 Creature Cards

1 Apostle’s Blessing
1 Bonehoard
1 Darksteel Axe
4 Flayer Husk
4 Journey to Nowhere
1 Sickleslicer
1 Skinwing
1 Sword of Vengeance
______________________
14 other spell cards
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Sideboard

1 Apostle’s Blessing
2 Arrest
3 Celestial Purge
1 Kor Duelist
4 Kor Firewalker
4 Revoke Existence
______________________
15 sideboard cards
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. . . . . . . .Rot from Within:

Decklist:
Main Deck: 60 Cards

22 Forest
1 Inkmoth Nexus
______________________
23 Land Cards

1 Blight Mamba
4 Glistener Elf
2 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Overgrown Battlement
2 Putrefax
3 Rot Wolf
3 Viridian Corrupter
______________________
19 Creature Cards.

4 Carrion Call
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Groundswell
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Primal Bellow
______________________
18 Other Spell Cards

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Sideboard

3  Contagion Clasp
1  Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2  Obstinate Baloth
1  Pistus Strike
3  Trigon of Infestation
2  Unnatural Predation
2  Vines of Vastwood
1  Viridian Corrupter
______________________
15 sideboard cards

Innistrad

Set Name	Innistrad
Block	Set 1 of 3 in the Innistrad block
Number of Cards	264
Release Date	September 30, 2011
Prerelease Events	September 24-25, 2011
Launch Parties	September 30-October 3, 2011
Magic Online Release Date:	October 17, 2011
Game Day	October 29-30, 2011
Design Team	Mark Rosewater (lead) Richard Garfield Jenna Helland Graeme Hopkins Tom LaPille
Development Team	Erik Lauer (lead) Mark L. Gottlieb David Humpherys Tom LaPille Adam Lee Kenneth Nagle

Going Infinite (Winning Event Tickets)

At this point, you are feeling really good about your deck.  You’re beating most of your competition in the Tournament Practice (Match) ques, and winning some event tickets doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

As you look at the daily events and all of the other tournaments, one thing may come to mind: there sure are a lot.  Here is the order I would play tournaments in:

The format in the parenthesis is (Wins-Losses).

QP = Qualifier Points

Qualifier points are very important if you want to become the Magic Online Champion.  You will be qualified to enter the End-of-Season Championship once you earn 15 points.  One bye will be awarded once you earn more than 24 Qualifier points.  If you have a bye, you don’t play that round and are automatically awarded a win for that round.  When you have multiple byes, then you will win that many rounds in a row starting from the first round.

QPs	Benefit
15-24	Qualified for End-of-Season Championship
25-34	Qualified for End-of-Season Championship with one awarded bye
35-44	Qualified for End-of-Season Championship with two awarded byes
45+	Qualified for End-of-Season Championship with three awarded byes

Now, I did recommend pauper and it is a great place to start.  If you win a lot of Pauper tournaments, then you can use your winnings to make a deck for the standard format.

I would recommend Standard for one huge reason: popularity.  While that may not seem important, try joining a que for any format besides standard.  If you join a standard 2-Player que, it won’t take more then a minute before someone else joins and a match starts.  But try joining any other 2-Player que and it can take 5 minutes or more before someone else joins.  This becomes a big problem if you are eager to win event tickets and you are not even able to start games quickly.

Evolving (Where to start playing and How to get better).

The New Players room is a great place to practice and get a feel for how the Online version of Magic works.  After you start getting a feel for the game you can go to the Casual decks room to play just for fun.  Once you see that you’re getting better and want more of a challenge, go to the Tournament Practice room.

To put all of that simply, this is the order I would recommend playing Magic Online in:

Menu->Play->Casual

1. New Players
2. Casual Decks
3. Tournament Practice (Single Game)
4. Tournament Practice (Match)

As you get better, you will notice yourself win about 75% of the games.  If that happens, I would recommend going to the next level.  Just go back a level if you notice yourself losing a lot.

Going straight to “Tournament Practice” without some experience is like blocking a 11/11 Blightsteel Colossus with Trample and infect with your 1/1 Llanowar Elves … ouch!!

While you’re playing New Players, Casual Decks, or Tournament Practice (Single Game), you don’t have to worry about a sideboard.  But, once you move up to Tournament Practice (Match), the game becomes a lot like playing competitive tournaments.  Between games 1 & 2 and games 2 & 3, you will have the ability to exchange cards from your sideboard and your deck.  Also, when you play a match, you play best 2 out of 3.  If you win 2 games in a row, then you have won the match.

Now onto the exciting part!  When you want to win some tickets and start playing competitive tournaments, go to the next section and see if you have what it takes to become a Magic Online Champion!

Next: Going Infinite (Winning Event Tickets).