End of the Year Finale: Overview of the year

So this is the first time i've done this and it won't be the last i admit that, this year we've seen all sorts of cool stuff in the form of new magic sets, new video games which blew away all my expectations and even some neat dvds that have recently made a appearance on store shelves including a certain little film from the middle of august which i'll talk about later on in this article, also my apologies for not writing as much as i would like to, personal crap got in my way and plus i've been working hard on the spoiler season for mirrodin besieged, so let us begin this entry with a tad bit of style hmm?.

First on the discussion block was the reformation of this blog, which i decided was necessary, the first thing though i felt i should do is make a bit of a personal experience review and that with recent stuff i've encountered and/or had some experience with in the past, this being said, i focused on one the things i enjoy doing a lot, which was magic the gathering, at the time which was around the beginning of may, there was this set known as Rise of the Eldrazi and i happened to get my hands on a box of this neat stuff when it came out, you can find the review for this set here ---> ROE Review in which i detail the new mechanics and abilites of the set as a whole, while focusing on the cards that are going to be seen with this set, after that i felt things took off swimmingly for me in terms of how i did things for here so i started to focus more on giving the incentive and advice of a experienced magic player to the new people whom were entering the game and didn't know how to play at all, beginning the idea with a M11 Spoiler fest and then moving along nicely into the usual FNM starter guide/beginner's guide to drafting. This was one of the ways i felt i was assisting people whom were unaware of how the game works and i believe it worked nicely into getting some fresh faces into the game and even helping them understanding the basic mechanics of it.

Next was the fact i've recently started to collect dvd's and believe it or not i found some real gems during the year, espically at a local DVD shop i happen to go to called HMV, i managed to find the complete series of a old cartoon i used to watch called Teknoman or Tekkaman Blade in english for just under 24 bucks while christmas shopping, also i've acquired as gifts the entire 8 seasons of red vs blue meaning a marathon of the awesome series no one can get enough of. However i expect next year my collection to grow a lot bigger and better with some awesome box sets and even some decent overall movies due out in the next 6-8 months as well, it's been a good year for movies i'll give it that much.

Video game wise it's also been a rather nice one with a lot of Nintendo DS purchases and even some wii game purchases most notably Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Nintendo Wii it's a good game but i've not got a chance to play it all that often at all. I started off the year with a measly 2 DS games and now my collection has tripled to 6 and my PS2 library has grown from a mere 6 to about 24 games, mostly all the old titles i used to have with the PS2 i sold a couple of years back but that's another story for another day, though i am hard at work with the Mirrodin Besieged Spoilers at this point it's gonna be a long year for me next year since i've got lots more stuff to do and so little time to do it in personally, I think though that about wraps up this edition of the year in review, i'll detail what i am going to do in the next post, since it is the end of the year in about 4 days as of this post.

Duel Deck Review: Chandra Nalaar vs Jace Beleren

So since the english version of this was released a year ago, the japanese version is the most recent form of this deck and it has pretty much the same contents, only  stylized in the japanese manga format and it has japanese text cards instead of the regular english cards, let's take a look at the decklists shall we?

1 Aethersnipe
1 Air Elemental
1 Bottle Gnomes
1 Brine Elemental
1 Errant Ephemeron
2 Fathom Seer
1 Fledgling Mawcor
1 Guile
2 Man-o
1 Martyr of Frost
2 Mulldrifter
1 Ophidian
1 Quicksilver Dragon
1 Riftwing Cloudskate
2 Spire Golem
1 Voidmage Apprentice
2 Wall of Deceit
1 Waterspout Djinn
1 Willbender
1 Ancestral Vision
2 Condescend
2 Counterspell
1 Daze
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gush
1 Jace Beleren
1 Mind Stone
2 Repulse
23 Island
1 Terrain Generator

This first list is jace's list which has nothing but blue cards in it, you'll find some cards useful for precon decks as precon decks go and the next list i will present is chandra's list.

1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Fireslinger
2 Flamekin Brawler
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Flamewave Invoker
2 Furnace Whelp
1 Hostility
1 Ingot Chewer
2 Inner-Flame Acolyte
2 Oxidda Golem
1 Pyre Charger
1 Rakdos Pit Dragon
2 Slith Firewalker
2 Soulbright Flamekin
1 Chandra Nalaar
1 Cone of Flame
1 Demonfire
2 Fireball
2 Fireblast
2 Firebolt
1 Flame Javelin
2 Incinerate
1 Magma Jet
2 Seal of Fire
1 Keldon Megaliths
24 Mountain

This is chandra's list and believe it or not, this is somewhat of a good one, though this precon duel deck will be running in limited supply personally, now let's talk about the deck itself. This duel deck was released about a year ago in grand fashion and was scooped up just as quickly note that these were in limited quanities so technically once they were gone you had to look them up on sites like Ebay and all that crap, but i digress, the actual deck is pretty dang decent there are some good 1's and 2's in here including Flame Javelin and Magma Jet which are perhaps two better burn spells in the game. There are some good and possibly some ultra broken cards on both sites of course as always, Rakdos Pit Dragon is a fine rare and all but nothing could compare to the awesomeness of the Seal of Fire, 1 drop and it pings for 2 when sac'ed bring it on folks. Jace's side of the board also has many tricks up it's sleeve personally i like how they brought this back after popular demand and such, though things could have turned out a little different and the decklists themselves could have been improved slightly for the japanese version, but however i believe it to be fine enough to warrant a reproduce in terms of distribution.


Jace's side of the board including cards we should be familar with in all respects as well, including the ever present Man-O-War and Aethersnipe, Mulldrifter as well as always is a welcome addition back to a duel deck and even counter magic which is my favorite kind in the form of Counterspell and even Daze, not to say this deck is kinda outmatched but the obvious thing is this has always been one for the reprint, the duel deck and not specific cards mind you, though i expect the japanese version of this deck to go just as quickly for the most part and start to sell online for it's english counterpart's price of about 80 or so dollars considering the amount of good cards for Legacy, EDH and even some Extended builds, overall another fine choice from wizards of the coast to make this a obvious reprint and i look forward to see a japanese elspeth vs tezzert duel deck soon as well thanks to this little incarnation brought back from the dead, i give this duel deck a official 4 seals of fire out of 5 or for those whom read this a 8 out of 10

Magic the Gathering News: Vol 1, Saito, Worlds and more

So i'm thinking about this as i'm sitting here wondering if can do a news based thing for magic the gathering and the related changes wizards has made over the past couple of months, the booster pack order change, the lack of multiplayer rewards and of course the suspension of Tomoharu Saito, including the worlds information for those whom read this, so let's go.

Firstly i wanna talk about the changes for the booster draft starting with Mirrodin Besieged and the fact wizards has decided to make you start to open the new set first instead of scars of mirrodin i am seriously considering stopping drafting period since this change is stupid and not needed in all honesty. However here are my thoughts on this from a drafter's point of view and not a magic pro's or anything else. This is a good change as it focuses on strategy more then anything really, sometimes of course you end up having a bad strategy of course, with drafting your first or second pick, screwing up your draft and going 0-4 or 1-3 depending of course how bad it is, i've had that happen to me more then enough times already in my drafting career. The bad thing though is mirrodin besieged won't have anything different to expect but this will make the field a little more crowded by bringing one or two more players per event and in the long run that adds up after a while, so wizards is only doing this to make money and nothing more since to them magic is a business to be run effectively while maintaining a pro level scene like the pro tour, Grand Prixs and of course Pro Tour Qualifiers, however other then that this little change is actually something i look forward to working with in the near future since Mirrodin Besieged is less then 2 months away at this point in time.

The second topic on par for today's little article is the multiplayer rewards cancelling that was made public a couple of weeks ago by wizards of the coast as they stopped sending out multiplayer rewards cards for competing in sanctioned magic events such as FNM's and of course regular booster drafts throughout that month or year for the matter, i do hope to see this program replaced with something more revelant though in the form of something for the Wizard's Play Network as it was established not too long ago, however the likelyhood of that happening anytime soon is not so much since there is a lot of things happening in the next couple of months, but i do look forward to a announcement from wizards in regards to alterations or a new program altogether. Now for those whom don't know what this program was, lemme explain in full detail, say you compete in a certain number of events a year like 5-15 depending of course on your schedule and you have a legit DCI number, your tournament organizer submits this to wizards's play network and based upon the number of tournaments you competed in you get a certain amount of cards, now these cards are rewards for competing in various wizard's of the coast events throughout the world, whether it would be FNM's or sealed drafts these are still ways of getting those things, well not anymore anyways, usually the cards that were sent out to the players whom had good tournament schedules were full art textless promos such as Cryptic Command or even Ponder but this all depended on what wizards had in stock of course, but these rewards were usually quarterly and given out to a lot of players, whom only usually got one copy but it's still good for EDH or the now known commander which i will talk about also.

Most people i know whom have heard of this man, Tomoharu Saito know him as a legendary japanese magic player whom has quite the talent for playing these days and his decision making skills are higher then most at best, making him perhaps the best japanese player of all time, not counting Shoota Yasukoa whom ranks still at no 1 in my list of the top 5 japanese players, but i digress the recent suspension of tomoharu saito caught me off guard and it was for something as small as slow play, seriously wizards's recent suspension of Pro Tour Champion Remi Fortier was reason to suspend him for match fraud and such which is a warranted automatic 24 month suspension or 2 years in this case as per on the DCI banned list. But saito's slow play doesn't really warrant such a massive suspension, this is a man whom was on the verge of going into the prestigous hall of fame, on the verge of winning player of the year and even was a member of Channel Fireball perhaps the best group magic has ever known to date. However his recent suspension has me thinking now, 18 months for slow play and the fact he was removed from the channel fireball squad isn't bad enough, but now he's not eligible for the hall of fame status, which i understand as it is that damned good to get into the hall of fame which i will discuss later in the article. But also the fact most of the time i've heard of this man whom has won quite a few Pro Tours and even some Grand Prix's in the face of adversity he's been very consistent so what went wrong, well he kinda got nervous and slowed his play to run out the clock it would seem, doing that got him a warning, but he did it again in his next match and got disqualified for it which is a damn shame, he ended off his year with a whopping 47 pro points and even was on his way to worlds which is going on as of this article. However small it was it would appear wizards does not take kindly to rules infractions and such, i hope though when saito comes back to playing magic professionally he'll remember that infraction and look back on it, so he won't make the same mistake twice or one would hope in all honesty as coming from a fan of his and a long time follower of magic news.

So worlds is finally upon us and the man known as Brad Nelson is looking to take the infamous player of the year title, however if you've kept up with the coverage of the event you will know that he has gone 6-6 as of this writing and his spot at making top 8 is pretty much gone, one can hope though he makes it to the top 64 or even top 100 to have a good shot at player of the year this year, but i digress it would be nice to see a american take player of the year and have the united states take home the team competition like they did a couple of years back personally. Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa or paulo for short is looking for his Player of the year title as well as he as of this writing sits 10-3 and in some serious contention to take both the worlds title and player of the year title since he sits like second on the list at a mere 48 points but then again worlds gives out 25 points for winning and this could be his year as far as i know, good luck to him though on his quest to get both titles this year. However though there are like 6 rounds left of the regular competition before the end of the worlds determining whom makes it to top 8, congrats go to brian kibler, gabriel nassif and bram snepvangers whom made it into this year's hall of fame class but it would seem brian kibler wants to win it this year just as badly as he went 6-0 with his brand new standard deck and did pretty dang well in today's draft, though that's enough worlds news, for those whom want to watch the worlds top 8 coverage be sure to stay tuned to the mothership aka wizards of the coast's main site on saturday december 11th at 8:45 pm eastern standard time, i'm sure you can figure out the time zones from there.

Finally i want to bring up the recent changes to the format known as Elder Dragon Highlander or the now known form of Commander which is essentially the same damned thing but they are using the magic online terms for it now, even though it is a fan created format it will still be run by the fans but it would seem wizards is finally giving it a chance, 51 new cards and a bunch of precon decks will be made for this sort of thing, believe it or not it's gonna be a interesting change as most people whom don't play EDH will now be able to pick up one of these and play instantly when they come out in June of course. Now for those whom usually play EDH means basically you don't have to waste hundreds of dollars getting all the cards from previous sets, basically you're given a deck for a specific price and off you go and these will even have a event for them, another excuse for wizards to basically make a buck off a format that was never really reconigzed till most recently, anyhoo that's it for this one, i hope you enjoyed the basic news of what's been going on in magic for the past month, i intend to try and make this a monthly thing if i can of course, see you next article

MTG Set Review #6 M10 Core Set

Throughout this review i will be discussing the 2010 core set of magic the gathering which had the first abbreviation of M10 and not 2010 like it was supposed to be called, this introduced to us some new fresh faces we would see in standard for a long time and the fact that there was also some returning walkers in this set from the Lorwyn age where they were first introduced so let's go.

Now the 2010 core set or as it is called the M10 core set had some balance issues i must admit when it first came out, following the release of the usual 3 block set which was Shards of Alara/Conflux and Alara Reborn this had a good deal of noteritety to live up to in terms of power and balance and this seemed to throw the scales a tad overboard, this reintroduced us to the 5 base walkers, Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar, Garruk Wildspeaker, Ajani Goldmane and of course Lilanna Vess from the fall set of 2007 aka lorwyn. It also brought forth the ridiclous costing creatures in the form of Baneslayer Angel and a few other cards including Time Warp and some others to name a few, but first the basics, this core set was designed and released in the middle of summer during the 2009 summer of magic, the core set had 249 cards and 20 of those were as always basic lands along with the stand rare lands, rare creatures and a walker for each and every colour in the set, along with the fact artifacts were present again in a core set since 10th edition which had quite a few but this set had a few new things to it in the form of instants, sorceries and of course creatures, with the creatures to survive the latest change being Birds of Paradise, Giant Growth, Giant Spider, Llanowar Elves and quite a few other green cards for a change, this set was comprised of 15-20 reprints and the rest being brand new cards but with abilites in which we have seen already in game.

Mythics - This introduced quite a few mythics into the mix including the base 5 walkers which i mentioned earlier and the most overpriced card of the time, Baneslayer Angel along with some newbies to the mix, let's look at them, Bogardan Hellkite is back in this set and is a mythic instead of a standard rare since the 2007 worlds featured this card as well as the fact it was a good reprint to bring back, but into mythic form. Darksteel Colossus was also a reprint in this set who doesn't love a 11/11 with invincibilty and the fact it has trample eh?, Master of the Wild Hunt is a basic newbie to the mix, green got the most mythics in this set with 3 believe it or not, but this mythic ended up being a token generator which turned out quite alright and not as overpowered as i was first lead to believe. Platinum Angel got a reprint, i'm sure everyone whom reads my articles knows what she does nowadays and all that jazz, plus the fact it became a mythic rare makes me believe she was overpowered in tenth edition as a rare. Protean Hydra was another newcomer to the mix, green's pretty much beatstick on steroids since burn can't touch this only removal can, and it can easily grow to a large level faster then most rares or in this case mythic rares. Sphinx Ambassador was blue's only other mythic for the set, i felt blue got the shaft once again and all that jazz, i thought blue managed well for what it did, though i could've been wrong at that time i thought this, though i think there is one more. Oh yes in the form of Time Warp, this beast of a sorcery was just bad to fight and basically gave you a extra turn, which was always nice to be honest, as it gave you the advantage which balanced out the set's overall power level. Oh one more in the form of Vampire Nocturnus, the new lord of vampires as long as the card on top of your library was never anything else but black and not a land, otherwise it was a 3/3 beatstick for 4 mana, even though it was never reprinted in the next core set, oh well personally i couldn't be happier. Xathrid Demon was the last mythic of the set and it's pretty much filler, with the least pleasing ability of life loss upon sacrificing a creature, which didn't get past no one really with this core set.

Rares - We had basics in the form of Birds, some newbies in Ant queen and such, as well as rare lands like Sunpetal grove and Rootbound Crag which would be reprinted as of next core set, but let's discuss some of the ones that were never reprinted or were altered for the next core set shall we? Ball Lightning was just plain nuts for this, as it was the first casualty of the reprint less cycle and believe me it was overpowered in mono red decks as it could come as early as turn 2 and make your life a living hell, graveyard and recursion had a good reason to fear this as well as the fact mono red was a good craze as netdecking was catching on back then since vampires had a good reason to be feared as well. some other reprints were also left out of the loop for M11's cycle including Nightmare and a few other rares and normal cards, this set was the last print of that particular rare and hasn't been seen since, with Crowd of Cinders being the closest thing to the same kind of card, but from a previous set. Capricious Efreet and Captain of the Watch were also casualties on the list, since they were only printed once to date and both were not played as much as they would have liked to have been, but still picking up one for a EDH deck is not a bad decision if i may say so. Cemetery Reaper and Coat of arms didn't see play much either besides the obvious zombie/control deck though it is nice to have a zombie deck for extended personally just this guy isn't the kind of thing for it, as for the coat of arms, it's a decent enough rare. I'll make a list of the cards that never really saw play after this set so far and well i'll leave the rest up to you on how to decide if they were good or not.

- Djinn of Wishes, Earthquake, Elvish Piper, Gargoyle Castle, Great Sable Stag, Guardian Seraph, Hive Mind, Howling Mine, Hypnotic Specter, Indestructibility, Kalonian Behemoth, Lightwielder Paladin, Lurking Predators, Magebane Armor, Manabarbs, Mesa Enchantress, Might of Oaks, Mind Shatter, Mirror of Fate, Open the Vaults, Pithing Needle, Planar Cleansing, Polymorph [This would become Mass polymorph in M11], Sanguine Bond, Shivan Dragon, Siege-Gang Commander, Twincast, Underworld Dreams, Warp World, this was the entire casualty list except for the few cards in which i spoke of previously, surprisingly enough the only survivors of the entire set were the dual lands, a couple of decent rares and not so decent rares like Royal Assassain. But i digress this set turned out to be the start of something interesting, most of the commons/uncommons though had a similar feel in overall power/toughness/overbalancing issues but that is just me of course when it comes to the first new type of core set from Wizards of the Coast, to see a full list of the cards i've mentioned go here to look at the list and make your assumptions on this set, you won't regret it the link will be at the end of the article as always.

Well that is it for this set, i've talked about the types of things to expect in this one and believe me for the year this set was legal this was a doozy, some of these cards even made net deck lists like Jund and even Mono Blue control, but i digress, thanks for reading and i give this set a confirmed 8 out of 10 for being a innvator into the new realm of standard for magic the gathering. Gatherer Link here you go and see you next article.