Mono-red mulls to 5, keeps a 1-lander. GG.
Craptastic. If Leviato (sp?) wins the whole thing, it’ll be a flood of Nexus Rampo in the Bo3 ladder until rotation. Ugh.
Like we’re not already plagued with endless mono-red :-)
At least mono Red puts you out of your misery quickly!
Plus my preferred Gruul deck has a great win percentage against RDW.
Nexus is fairly quick too, if you properly concede to it once it goes off. The 1% chance of it fizzling probably isn’t worth your time unless, you know, you’re in the Top 8 or whatever.
Nexus gives Brad Nelson a pretty comprehensive beatdown. Leveratto is a machine. Pretty sure his heart rate never goes much above 60.
You’re right. And Brad knew it this last match.
Alright, Esper takes control over Nexus. Not sad at all.
Also, damn, Brad Nelson can play.
But can he win a second match? At this level of skill, it really seems to be all about who’s on the play, and the luck of the initial draws. Go Brad!
Welp, too bad it had to be a Simic Nexus deck, but it was a fairly epic group of matches.
Wizards is finally pushing the Brawl format a bit more with the next set.
I don’t collect paper Magic any more, but I’ve played Brawl a few times with friends’ decks and it’s a fun format. Particularly 4 or more multiplayer. Be interesting to see how it translates to Arena, too.
They are doing some fun stuff with booster packs going forward, too. Normal boosters are staying the same - but will going forward have a small chance to pull a “lottery card” that will be like a full art planeswalker from the set or a “showcase frame” for whatever unique mechanic each set brings.
There will also be Theme Boosters that have 35 or so cards, one or two of which will be a rare, and they’ll all be from whatever color the booster theme is (Red, Blue, etc.) for new players trying to build up a new deck, for example.
And lastly, Collector Boosters will run $20-25 but will have two mythic/rare cards at full or extended art, plus a foil token and the rest of the back can potentially be foil, extended art, showcase frames, and etc. as well. These sound like a lot of fun to open, but you’re paying for the alternate card styles - the cards are all the same no matter how different or pretty it looks, so these are aimed at a very specific segment of the market (which I somewhat fall into, admittedly).
Example of Full Art Planeswalker:
Example of Extended Art Frames:
Example (without text, no spoiling the upcoming set for October just yet) Showcase Frame:
I think it’s hard to believe anyone would be upset about these changes - draft booster packs are unchanged, except now you might pull a crazy full art card in them, and collector’s boosters are going to be great for the Magic economy and give collector’s something to throw money at while potentially driving the price downward on non-fancy versions of the same cards.
And honestly, between opening a Mythic Edition (with 8 full art planeswalkers) with my son, and popping open a Box Topper (an extended art card from Ultimate Masters) I was hungry for more, and would love to pay for two or maybe three Collector’s Boosters, assuming one can buy them individually. I think my only issue with this system is the potential danger of trying to buy a Collector’s Booster or two for fun, and finding the price is driven up to $40 per booster or something. It’s new, so we’ll have to see how it all shakes out.
Source:
Lots of interesting upcoming changes here for Magic tournament structure, including a promotion/relegation system for how to get into the pro league, with a second division to be promoted out of/relegated in to. At least it’s a step away from “we’ll pick who gets to be a pro around, thank you”.
Just happened to be browsing Slate, and saw that there’s an episode with Mark Rosewater on their Working podcast.
Apparently they’re doing toys and games, because there’s an interview with a designer for Dungeons and Dragons and the director of Monopoly in recent episodes as well.
New trailer for the upcoming Throne of Eldraine expansion!
It’s in the style they started with the previous expansion, War of the Spark, in that we get a good look at the setting, characters, and theme and it’s really very well done, imo.
Some of the cards from this set, which is Fairy Tale meets Knights of the Round Table, have been shown now officially, and they seem really interesting so far. Here are a few of my favorites:
This one is an Adventure card, with the new frame these types of cards will have. Near as we’ve seen (thanks to the rules text on some of them), it looks like you can cast this spell as a creature (in this case a 5/5 for 2G) OR as a Sorcery (in this case make a 1/1 human for G). However, if you play it as a spell, it is exiled and you may play it as a creature from exile. So, with this one for instance, you could spend 2GG and end up with a 5/5 and a 1/1. Interesting.
This one is a leak, clearly, but I love it because I play with those two from the Battlebond set.
And this is my favorite revealed card so far, I have a deck built around sacrificing lands that he would be an amazing Commander for, and I’ve been looking for just such a Commander to convert it into a EDH deck.
Yeah, I’m pre-ordering on Arena. This set looks a-mazing…they’re really outdoing themselves on theme and art. I might even order a box just to get some on cardboard.
I really love the theme, and it’s so different from my experience with MTG (I started with Rivals of Ixalan) that I’m really excited about spoiler season this time around.
I, too, will be pre-ordering on Arena. And I think I’ll make it to the pre-release, too.
Oooo, daddy like.
This is going right in my Esper deck.
I picked up a box of the new set, though my son stole 6 boosters from me while I was opening them so I only opened 12 and am holding the other 18 back for a future draft. 12 boosters (plus the collector booster that came packaged in) gave me some great stuff. Here are the rares/mythics I pulled that I’ll happily be using in my normal decks!
