Dark Ascension Spoilers: Day 3, Week 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to yet another edition of the emporium, we are in the midst of the middle of week 1 of Dark Ascension spoiler season, but first let's take a look back at the missed cards that were previewed yesterday, with the first mythic of the set, Drogskol Reaver

Now just take it easy, this is so a timmy card if you ask me, a 3/5 flying, double striker with lifelink and whenever you gain life, draw a card, but the mana cost ugh, 5, white and a blue for this gold bordered card, i'd much prefer EDH thank you very much for this card, anyways let's see what else was spoiled yesterday shall we.

How bout a Jar of Eyeballs for lunch eh, nah i kid this one is a doozy, whenever a creature dies on your side of the field put 2 eyeball counters on it. Pay 3 and tap it to remove all eyeball counters from it, look at the top X cards of your library where X is the number of counters removed this way, put one of em into your hand and the rest on the bottom of the library in any order, gotta say that sucks honestly, also why are all the artifacts 3 mana cost, i wonder.

Seriously a 10/10 zombie treefolk named Ghoultree, yes much, it's a rare as expected and it has the ability ghoultree costs 1 less to cast for each creature in your graveyard, sweet very sweet in my EDH deck replacing probably Kozilek in my deck yes much, other then EDH this is really lack luster as expected, sorry wizards. Now let's move onto the actual previews for today.

Yes a brand new Sorin, but he's Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Mythic rare, has 3 abilites +1 put a 1/1 black vampire creature token onto the battlefield with lifelink. -2 you get a emblem with Creatures you control get +1/+0, -6 his ultimate destroy up to three target creatures and/or other planeswallkers, return each card put into a graveyard this way to the battlefield under your control, he also has 3 loyalty, god this is good.

Third gold card this article, introducing Falkenrath Aristocrat a 4/1 flying haste, Mythic rare, sacrifice a creature: Falkenrath aristocrat is indestrucible this turn, if the sacrificed creature was a human put a +1/+1 counter on it, wow, this is sick folks, this is sick for sure.

Third mythic rare spoiled today in the form of  Moonveil Dragon which has flying, is a 5/5 and gives each creature you control +1/+0 until end of turn, but the cost to summon his butt is 3, red, red, red whoa triple red ugh that's a turn off but at least it's only 6 mana eh.

Introducing Scorned Villager/Moonscarred Werewolf another DFC for the set, a common that costs 1 and a green and taps to add 1 green to your mana pool, if no spells were played transform it, it changes into Moonscarred werewolf which has vigilance, taps to add 2 green to your mana pool and is a 2/2, interesting.

Another enchantment in the form of Secret of the Dead whenever you cast a spell from the your graveyard, draw a card, so it's a card draw engine for flashback, interesting, costs 2 and a blue to play as a uncommon so this might have usefulness i think, anyways that's it for today, stay tuned tommorow for Day 4 this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Spoilers: Day 2, Week 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the emporium, in today's edition we will take a look at the 2 cards that were spoiled today via wizards of the coast, so without further ado let's begin.

Ok so there seems to be a pattern here with these Increasing cards, first the blue one, now this, but let's see for 3, white, white you get 5 1/1's and if it was cast from a graveyard you get 10 of those tokens instead and it has a flashback cost of whoa, 7, white, white and it's a rare, holy crap wizards way to impress the EDH crowd here, but this could also be used as a finisher for Green/White tokens this days, possibly as a 1 or 2 of in the deck, since the mana cost is a bit higher then that of a Hero of Bladehold let's move onto the second card today.

Oh my goodness, Altar of the Lost is such a unique card, it's going to for sure power a Burning Vengeance deck for sure, since flashback is a thing again and wow this thing makes it worth it, Snapcaster Mage, plus this balls good anyways that's it for today's previews, yes a very short edition compared to yesterday i guess wizards wanted to give us a break from the madness anyways this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Promotion Cards

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the emporium, in this edition it's Dark Ascension promos time.

We already know about Ravenous Demon/Archdemon of Greed being our prerelease promos, as well as this next card.

Mondronen Shaman/Tovolar's Magehunter being the release cards, but what about Game Day, let's take a look

Game Day for this set features Strangleroot Geist in full art form with new art as always as the particpation card for game day, with this next card as the top 8 card for the set.

Full art Zombie Apocalypse anyone, yes this is the top 8 card for the set for game days all round the world as per usual, onto our buy a box promo

Alternate art Gravecrawler anyone, ah yes this is the Buy-a-Box promo card for Dark Ascension and is perhaps one of  the better promo cards in this writer's humble opinion, anyways that's it for this short but sweet edition, till next time this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Spoilers: Day 1, Week 1

Hello everyone and it's spoiler season, so let's get cracking onto it.

Let's start with the new Double Faced Cards, so this is Chalice of Life and Chalice of Death which are new non creature DFC's of course, Chalice of Life gives 1 life and it's transform clause is if you have more then 10 life more then your starting life total, transform it, so you have to have 30 life to transform it, it changes into Chalice of Death which states Target player loses 5 life, not bad.

Next DFC is all about changing into a aura, introducing Soul Seizer and Ghastly Haunting, which are the second DFC of this set, Soul seizer is a creature that's 1/3, flys and whenever it deals combat damage to a player transform it, if you do attach it to target creature that player controls, costs 5 mana and is a uncommon. Ghastly haunting however is a aura that enchants target creature, you control that creature, so think of Mind Control in DFC form.

This here is the prerelease card for Dark Ascension, it's called Ravenous Demon/Archdemon of Greed and it is the 3rd DFC of this set, Ravenous Demon is a 5 cmc rare that you can sacrifice a human to transform it into Archdemon of Greed, is a 4/4 which isn't bad. Archdemon however is a 9/9 with flying, trample and at the beginning of your upkeep tap Archdemon of Green and it deals 9 damage to you, whoa serious reprecussions.

Last but certainly not least is the Release card for Dark Ascension, introducing Mondronen Shaman and Tovolar's Magehunter which are the final DFC revealed for today, it's a rare, the shaman is a 3/2 that has the basic transform if no spells were played clause, while the magehunter has whenever a opponent casts a spell, it deals 2 damage to that player, if two or more spells were cast last turn, transform it, it's a 5/5 not bad.

Introducing Zombie Apocalypse, it's the newest rare from wizards, costs 3, Black, Black, Black and it states Return all zombie creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped, then destroy all humans. wow seriously wow much.

Here we have another flashback card, Increasing Confusion, it's a X and Blue mana rare, sorcery that puts the top cards where X is the number, if it was cast from a graveyard, it puts twice that many cards in, has a flashback cost of X and Blue as well

Ray of Relevation basically is the new enchantment removal for Humans, it costs 1 and a white, has a flashback cost of Green mana and it states destroy target enchantment simple

Gravecrawler is a new zombie, 2/1 for 1 black, you can cast it from a graveyard as long as you control a zombie but it can't block it's pretty good.

Introducing the new ability Fateful Hour, which has a specific clause to it, it kicks in at 5 life or less and do the clause it, this is the first one of two with this, Gather the Townsfolk which is a sorcery that puts 2 1/1 white humans onto the battlefield, but fateful hour can put 5, is a common and is very very persistent.

Thraben Doomsayer is a Human cleric and a rare that generates a 1/1 white human token everytime you tap, it has Fateful Hour, as long as you have 5 life or less, other creatures you control get +2/+2 and is a 2/2 that costs 3 mana.

Of course Morbid's back why wouldn't it be, this new morbid starts with Hunger of the Howlpack, you put a +1/+1 counter on target creature but morbid puts 3 of those if a creature died, it costs 1 Green mana as well as a common and a instant.

Curses are back too with Curse of Thirst which deals damage during upkeep by the number of curses attached to that player, costs a hefty 4 and a Black though as a uncommon.

Introducing the second of the 2 new mechanics Undying which gives the creature when it dies a +1/+1 counter and brings it back, so this is Nearheath Stalker and it has Undying, it's a 4/1 common and when it dies it will become a 5/2 got it, let's look at another example.

This is Strangeroot Geist and it too has the new term Undying, it has haste is a 2/1 that costs 2 green mana, is a uncommon and when it dies it will become a 3/2 ok, anyways that's it for DKA previews for today, we will see you next time, which is tommorow for DKA previews this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Intro Packs

Hello everyone and welcome to this special sunday edition of the emporium, spoiler season starts tommorow for those curious souls of course, but today, thanks to the folks at Gathering Magic, we have learned of the 5 intro packs for Dark Ascension, so let's take a look see at them.

The first one is my second favorite color combination, Black and White, this rare is known as Fiend of the Shadows, costs 3, Black and Black, is a vampire wizard and that is all we know of it, well fiends often fly so expect to see flying on this one at least, other abilites are yet unkown.

Blue and Black's rare intro pack card of choice this time is Havengul Runebinder, it costs 2, Blue and Blue, is a human wizard, while this is my favorite color combination of all time, it really leaves speculation for these wide open till we learn what these do.

Blue and Green's Intro pack of choice features a treefolk, but it's a zombie treefolk, named Ghoultree costing 7 and a green mana, is a rare of course and would probably have some seriously high toughness since it's a tree and a zombie, leaving ideas of it's abilites of course always open to the imagination.

Ah White and Red, how do you do once more, this particuar intro pack rare is known as Requiem Angel costing what appears to be 5 and a white mana, unknown if there is more cost to her, we will have to wait and see, she's a angel and with angels they would fly of course giving the static ability of Flying to her, though that's all we know of her so far.

Meet Red and Green's intro pack rare, Flayer of the Hatebound, costing a lavish 5 and a red mana, is a devil of course and perhaps is the best intro pack color choice as always, though we will have to wait and see what this guy does since devils can be crafty little buggers, anyways that's it for this sunday edition of the emporium, spoilers start Monday, so until then this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Arts #2

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the emporium, in this edition the recent arts that wizards have spoiled are the main topic once again, but there is a difference, there are 11 different arts instead of 10 from the previous edition of this mini series, so with that in mind let's begin

So with this first art in question it's time to see what Dark Ascension offers, ok let's start this one so as per one can tell this is obviously a human fending off several cursed werewolves with plenty of silver at that, a silver sword, shield and the other necessary tools to do the job, it seems like he is a defender type card by doing this or something along those lines but one cannot be certain of this.

This seems oddly familar of course, Ludevic's Test Subject anyone because of the lab feel this picture offers, so i believe it's the continuation of that particular card or something but a spell form, probably blue for sure at this rate, we will see when the card arrives.

Now what does this particular art remind me of, oh yes Glissa's Scorn but it doesn't have that artifact killing feel, just a death feel to it, making it hard to determine if it's red or black, but putting it mildly i would have to say it is a black based art, since the whole dark and dreary vibe is present.

I really don't know what to classify this as, Blue or perhaps a Red spell, it has something to do with skeletons or something, one can never be too sure these days, i only know that whatever the card is for this art it's sure to be good honestly.

Werewolves, it had to be werewolves seriously i am sick of these things already, but this seems like a creature or a enchantment to me, not a spell since the wolf jumping signifys that there is something going on there, plus the full moon is out for starters, so if it's the after effects of Full Moon's Rise i'll be shocked.

Vampire with a bloody Trepanation Blade usually means bad times for everyone, this one is probably somehow related to Clan Markov in a way, i don't know to be honest since our favorite vampire walker is coming back in this set.

Human cards are going to be scarce in this set i would imagine, this shows why, since the people are scared out of their mind, with demons and that on the rise i'm calling this as a white creature card, no more, no less.

"Batten down the Hatches, secure the Gate" a epic scene of a specific favorite movie of mine, but done in card form, it's so similar to Hold the Line for sure, i'm going to be shocked if i am wrong.

Curses, why did it have to be curses honestly, i'm not a big fan of these cards, this art though is cool and i would for sure like to see a curse removal other then Witchbane Orb but another curse come on wizards.

Legendary Werewolf alert, this guy screams legendary creature to me, no doubt about it, much like how we had a Zombie legend, spirit legend, vampire legend, this guy has yet to give people a reason to fear the dark.

Anyways that's it for this edition of the emporium, on monday begins DKA previews, yay, anyways that is it and this is vergil signing off.

Dark Ascension Arts

So hello everyone and welcome to the first edition of the emporium for 2012, i'm vergil and it's great to be back for a new year, with a normal work day in the United States it means wizards of the coast is back in operation once more meaning we have Dark Ascension updates and stuff for you to view, so without further ado let's begin this edition, this first art is a familiar one we've seen before

Yes this particular dark and gloomy piece is also a playmat art, what it is for i do not know, but i can assure you fine folks at home that it's one of the 158 cards in Dark Ascension, probably black if i had to guess, this next piece is a bit different and little more humane

With Dark ascension there are always things that go bump in the night, my guess is this is either a DFC or a white card, based off the human shown here, holding what appears to be a lit torch, interesting but i'd rather not speculate on this particular piece any longer, let's look at the next piece shall we?

Blood is a significant theme in this set, with cards like Curse of the Bloody Tome already, but it seems to be more like a reflection card like Evil Twin, if i had to guess though i'm calling this is a blue or red card most likely based off the theme in the mirror, onto another piece of art.

Ah yes what would a horror set be without a half dead man, in a crypt no less which is not that much of a surprise, with the horror theme in this set i would have to place this as a black card art, with significant ties to specific undead cards already in the set, onto the next art.

Now pardon me for saying this but this art looks seriously cool in all retrospect, the ghost theme or spirit theme rather would grant me to say it's white, green or perhaps even blue based upon how the art of the dead spirits attacking are depicted personally, this is getting to be good in terms of a set, onto the next art piece.

So it seems the dead are indeed returning from being slain again and again, if i had to guess this is defintely black based off the zombie depicted here, we've got enough knowledge of how the horror tropes work in this set to know zombies don't die so easily either, onto the next piece of art.

So it's not just the usual horror fare destroying things, humans also do it too in this set since everything is going to hell in a hand basket so to speak, if i had to guess on the color this art represents it's possibly green in every respect but more likely it's red in the art category, based off the malice shown here, anyways onto another piece of art.

It had to be demons eh, if this is legendary i'll flip cause it doesn't seem so legendary but it's obviously Black or perhaps even Red based off the demon shown here since we did have a few of em in Red in Innistrad personally, i wouldn't be surprised at wizards for shutting my guess down compeletely.

Humans fighting the undead showing me it's white for sure, much like all that remains noble and good in this set as a whole, plus the fact it's a one eyed man gives me some purpose to think it's something of a champion in this set, who knows for sure these days, wizards does.

Wow wizards saved the best art for last as usual, this is a weird skeleton with horns or some stuff like that, very dark, ominous and all that neat stuff when it comes to Dark Ascension, it's defintely black and has some significance to Sorin Markov me thinks, anyways that's it for this edition of the emporium, stay tuned soon i'm sure wizards has some cool stuff to feature for the set, this is vergil signing off.

The Year in Magic the Gathering - 2011 Review

Hello everyone and welcome to the year of magic in review, this year has been quite a entertaining one with new products arising, tons of new tournaments as well as new faces to the game and heck even returning legends make a appearance back to magic every once in a while, so with that let's get started on the year in review in magic month by month.

January - With the beginning of a new season there is always tension when it comes to various things in magic, this new season began with a bang taking Extended for a ride in Atlanta, Georgia with the only set of Scars Block, Scars of Mirrodin legal at the time of the event, though it's not to say that Star City Games had it's share of excitement too with their 2011 invitational series underway a few weeks beforehand, Jason Ford took Atlanta by storm and won the whole event with a impressive record to beat Ben Stark 2-1 to take the finals with ease. We also learned a bit about Mirrodin Besieged during the spoiler season for the month with the respective factions of Mirran and Phyrexian having a different promo card for the first time in prerelease history, depending on whom you sided with the Mirrans got a sweet foil edition of Hero of Bladehold while Phyrexian players got a foil Glissa, the Traitor for taking root in the deep oil of the phyrexian menace, spoiler season was fun to say the least for this, we learned of the fact the set was split down the middle 50/50 for both sides with each side having different rares and such like Mirran Crusader and Phyrexian Crusader as well as the fact for the first time ever we had Faction Packs for the event of the prerelease for Mirrodin Besieged which was pretty cool to be honest, but back then there was still the menace of such cards like Lightning Bolt and such that delivered a lot of sweet decks in the game of magic..

February - During the month of february, we learned a lot of new things, for example we learned of the first introduction of Event Decks which were powerful preconstructed decks which could be used at a local FNM event since both decks were standard legal mind you, we also learned a old face from the Shards of Alara block came back in the form of Tezzert, Agent of Bolas which became the staple for Blue/Black short afterwards, as well as having tournaments out the wazoo, with Paris being first at the first ever Magic Weekend Paris, thanks to a rather uncouth year in the player of the year race, we had the first ever player of the year playoff bewteen the United States's Brad Nelson and France's Guillame Matingon for the title of player of the year as well as the typical stage of pro tour paris to go along with it, but thanks to a little cunning from brad nelson we had our 2010 player of the year wrapped up along with the usual winner of the event which was Ben Stark, along with a whole slew of other events during the month the first real competitive month of magic came to a head, ending the month of february in a neat fashion.

March - It was during this time magic had come to a turning point, we had just learned the third set of scars's block was going to be called Action with 2 cards officially spoiled for the set, however it was a slow month for magic as a tournament game, with only one grand prix to speak of during the month of March, which took place in Barcelona and was won by Martin Schenin late in the month of march, magic had also taken a turning point with the recent rise of a certain deck called Caw-Blade which was winning tournaments left right and center, Magic R&D however had announced a quarterly change during the month of march which affected the format of Two Headed Giant and how poison counters worked, it changed from being 10 counters to 15. We were also in the midst of Mirrodin Besieged War league's across the world which would determine the fate of the third and final set which saw the phyrexians winning at every turn to take the lead and would they dominate the world of mirrodin or fail in their quest.

April - This was one of the worst months in recent history for the game, since the leak incident happened during the last 2 weeks of the month, as well as the fact we learned that the 3rd set was going to be called New Phyrexia, worst of all the leaks were caused by a world champion and his friends causing them to get banned from the game for a while, we won't be seeing them for a while yet since the bannings for 2 of the culprits do not end for a year and the remaining two are banned for 3 years, you should not have done that, that's for sure. With the entire set of New Phyrexia basically spoiled it meant for the first time in spoiler history we knew the set inside and out 3 weeks in advance. March/April however brought us a new product in magic for it's Duel Deck series in the form of Knights vs Dragons which had a few good cards for it but not that many, i did however like the new alternate art Knight of the Reliquary that's for sure. Along with new products came new tournaments with Dallas/Fort Worth Texas seeing a standard tournament where it was perfectly legal to play Caw-Blade and Kobe, Japan seeing a extended round of events this time around, as well as Grand Prix London which leaked into the first day of May and that saw us a Scars of Mirrodin/Mirrodin Besieged Booster draft for the last event of the month of April.

May - With the month of may we saw the release of New Phyrexia which hit store shelves on the 13th of May, as well as the fact we had a few things rise and fall in terms of popularity, Infect was becoming more of a dominant threat in magic with the fact the scars block had been completed and the fact we had ourselves another Scars of Mirrodin/Mirrodin Besieged Sealed/Booster draft in Prague, then we moved from Prague to Providence, Rhode Island for the 1st of 2 Legacy events of the season, this really gave us a idea of what to expect from scars block to be popular this season and it showed why Dismember was really high valued even in Legacy of all places, however may didn't have much else in terms of interest for magic, for we moved into the first of 3 months of summer for magic in June.

June - Where to start, with Magic Weekend Nagoya arriving in the first 2 weeks of the month we were treated to a awesome Scars Block Constructed event and Scars draft which pretty much showed why Tempered Steel was still a beast of a deck which dominated scars block constructed the entire weekend, but that wasn't the only big thing happening in June, with June there was a new multiplayer product, or rather a endorsement of a already existing format called Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH, but now there was 5 pre constructed decks for the format with 51 new cards for the thing as well, i know i picked one or two of these up for kicks since EDH is now my favorite of all formats to talk about i dunno about you folks.

July - July gave us another usual core set shenigans again this time with the new arrival of 3 new walkers and 2 old returning friends, Sorin Markov and Gideon Jura whom were replacing Ajani and Lillana respectively for this particular edition, as always though the new walkers are pretty impressive since we got a few new cards for the set in terms of cards named after the walkers including the true fashion of each and every one of the colors, Game Day for this particular core set was decent since we have 2 event decks at this point in time for each set coming out, with the arrival of the core set however also brought another 2 event decks to the table, Illusions and Vampires which were both perfectly legal at the time they showed up, which isn't a surprise to me at all.

August - August is what i like to call spoilers month in magic, it usually brings a new from the vault, this time from the vault: legends arrived on store shelves in late august, we got a sneak peek at innistrad at PAX thanks to the magic conference there as per usual, along with Gen Con we got our fair share of magic during the month of august, but this also gave rise to the spoiler season for Innistrad believe it or not since we learned a few of the cards in the set at this point in time.

September - Not only do i love september as a whole, but i also love the fact it's always a spoiler season month, espically since the fall prerelease falls right around my birthday every year, sweet present to myself if you ask me. Innistrad arrived on store shelves and so did Ajani vs Nicol Bolas which was the latest duel deck in the series of awesome, but it did turn out it kinda tanked honestly, though Innistrad was a new thing with all those sweet horror tropes hitting the scene with vampires, werewolves, spirits and even humans being present in the set, along with sweet new mythic rares.

October - Usually when a fall set becomes legal for events i tend to cringe, but Innistrad was a decent set to draft honestly with cool stuff like Geist of Saint Traft and Olivia Voldaren in the set as a whole it turned out to be a nice change of pace since we all got mythics based around specific colors or tribes of creatures all except for werewolves whom got the shaft but got Garruk, the Veil Cursed/Garruk Relentless the first ever dual faced walker in magic's history which was neat. Game day for this was also kinda nice with two new event decks being present for the 4th time this year, a B/U/G style deck and a White Weenie beatdown deck being constructed for the events in question, as well as any shenigans a player can think of.

November - With november it was time for the final wizards held events of the year, a few GP's and Worlds later the japanese came out on top for the final pro tour worlds event in magic's history, congrats to them for winning it all when it counted, we got us some sweet new standard and modern style decks for the event, as well as a few other things, but with november means the holiday season is upon us and magic has a life of it's own with the holiday season.

December - The final month of magic came and went with a scandal or two, the infamous Star City Games Invitational scandal which saw the winner of the event Alex Bertocinni banned from the DCI and his prizes revoked as well with the titles going to Gerry T and Adam Prozak for player of the year and invitational winner, nice work SCG you earned a bit of respect in my eyes for doing this. The Quarterly bannings also happend with Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire getting the ban hammer from modern as well giving zoo one less option and the Fire/Grove combo is killed off thanks to the bannings, nothing else was banned either which is a surprise honestly. We also got a sneak peek at Dark Ascension and the new Multiplayer product Planechase 2012 which comes out in June, a super fun idea to bring back which is nice to see honestly, i cannot wait to see Planechase next year.

Anyways that's it for the yearly wrap up, if i missed anything important, lemme know in the comments below, other then that Happy New Year and see you all in 2012, this is vergil signing off.