Magic the Gathering News Volume 23: Modern FNM's, December FNM Promo and Much, Much More

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the monthly news here at the emporium, covering all things related witb magic the gathering that were not talked about this month in seperate articles, this month we have a bit of a shocker, a new FNM promo card was revealed and of course, a little look back at what to expect for the upcoming set known as Gatecrash, so without further ado let's begin.

Early on in the month it seemed like wizards was letting the cat out of the bag for a specific format to be supported now at local Friday Night Magic events, but with this photo which will be posted below, the shocker is something bigger then expected.

Oh yes, starting in January of 2013, Modern will be fully supported by Friday Night Magic events everywhere around the world, meaning no more of these 1-2 modern events a week, we could see a influx of 3-4 modern events a week per store, making it just as popular as standard these days, impressive as always wizards with this announcement.

As always, with a new month, comes a brand new FNM promo card, this month's promo card may come as a bit of a shocker to you folks.

Oh look isn't that Gitaxian Probe, yes it is with brand new FNM art, but wait a minute what's a NPH card doing getting the final FNM promo of the month, well it's more so for modern then it is for anything else since probe does see play in storm combo decks there, overall, a very decent card to make the final promo card of the year.

As per usual, every month brings us new Grand Prix's as well as other unique events, this month we had the following GP's on the schedule.

#1) Grand Prix Chicago
#2) Grand Prix Bochum
#3) Grand Prix Charleston
#4) Grand Prix San Antonio
#5) Grand Prix Taipei
#6) Grand Prix Lyon
#7) Grand Prix Auckland

A whopping 7 GP's on the schedule for this month and 4 of them were standard events, 2 were modern and 1 was Sealed/Booster Draft, guess which ones, well Modern was in Chicago the windy city of choice, which in turn was dominated by Jacob Wilson and his Jund deck, taking the whole event by storm, while the other modern event was dominated by Jeremy Dezani and his version of Jund, boy the menace of Jund is ever dominant these days eh folks. Standard saw the rise of a brand new build called "Hoof, there it is" featuring the ever large and in charge Craterhoof Behemoth from Avacyn Restored, piloted by none other then Martin Juza in Bochum, taking home the top prize there. Charleston saw more of the same type of standard as we were used to, seeing home Jon Bolding and his Rakdos list to victory, which was a total fluke since there was a lot of misplays during the finals.

While Auckland had a totally different flavor to it, Walker MacMurdo and his 4 Color Reanimator list took him to victory there, off the back of a few Angel of Serenity's and a Griselbrand or 2 during the course of the finals throwing him into the loop for the next upcoming Pro Tour, PT Gatecrash in Montreal coming next year. In terms of sealed, we had one of the best sealed performances of all time take center stage in Taipei over the course of the last weekend of the month, showing why Return to Ravnica is perhaps a favorite draft format amongst many of the players present, only one could stand out and that person was Makahito Mihara and his Rakdos hordes, amazing work, San Antonio was won meanwhile by none other then Tyler Lytle whom showed that zombies was the deck of choice, going 9-0 on Day 1 to a solid win over such players as Conley Woods, Reid Duke and Patrick "The Innovator" Chapin

In other news, apparently a new IDW comic called "Path of Vengeance" is scheduled to come out onto the market in the near future, here's the cover for those curious souls.

Not bad, honestly, but don't expect this for a while since IDW doesn't keep their schedules on track at all, in the last piece of news for this month, Magic the Gathering Online is getting a cube update, in the form of the Power 9, yes, now cube drafters on there can draft the P9 now, great news, for full information see the link below.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/223b

And that's it for this month, next month as per end of the year, provided we don't get any astrological disasters in the near future, is the yearly wrap up, until then this is vergil signing off.

Craigslist Gatecrash Spoilers

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the emporium, where as today it seems that someone on MTGSalvation has found some mythics from Gatecrash or so they say, well let's see the potential mythics, I'd rather have someone confirm they are real, so let's see em.

EDIT: All have been confirmed as real, enjoy.

First up is the Boros legendary, Aurelia, the Warleader, whom seems legit, 3/4 flying, vigilance, haste, whenever she attacks for the first time in a turn, untap all creatures you control and take a 2nd combat phase essentially, the art shown consists of the preview art we were given, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is legitimate.

Another of the guild leaders were apparently spoiled as well, Borborygmos Enraged, whom is a 7/6 trampler, that's pretty consistent with his guild, whenever he deals combat damage you get to reveal the top 3 cards of your library and put all the lands revealed this way into your hand, the rest into the graveyard, great way not to get land screwed, also discarding a land while he's out he deals 3 damage to either a creature or a player.

We also have a planeswalker to talk about as well, Domri Rade, whom starts with 3 loyalty, he has 3 abilites +1) look at the top card of your library, if it is a creature card, put it into your hand after revealing it, -2) Target creature you control fights another target creature, -7) You get a emblem with "Creatures you control have double strike, trample, hexproof and haste", honestly that ultimate is stupidly broken and makes me think this batch of mythics isn't legit.

What is it with these big spells, here we have a card apparently called Enter the Infinite, it costs a whopping 8,Blue,Blue,Blue,Blue, wow 12 mana for this sorcery speed mythic apparently, it lets you draw cards equal to the number of cards in your library, then put a card from your hand on top of your library, so you don't deck yourself of course, you have no max hand size until your next turn, one format is gonna abuse the living hell out of this, EDH.

So for the final shown card, we have of course a red mythic, a dragon, as per expected, this one is called Hellkite Tyrant, he is a 6/5 flying, trample whenever he deals combat damage to a player, gain control of all artifacts that player controls, At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control 20 or more artifacts, you win the game, now this is one win condition for sure, all of these photos were apparently taken on craigslist and should not be taken seriously until further proof is revealed or wizards comes out of the bag and says these are legitimate mythics for the set, since this is all mythics spoiled, meaning 5 out of a possible 15-16 mythics are already known.

Overall i'm happy there are some potential spoilers, but the source of the spoilers is being called into question here, since craigslist has a knack for selling fakes, this post will updated when further proof is presented, until then this is vergil signing off.

Arcana Announcement: Sinker is Dragon's Maze

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the emporium, in fact this is the first edition of the month of november, so without further ado let's take a look see at what was announced by Wizards of the Coast earlier last night.

Ok, so it seems we've got a new set on our hands, sinker apparently is called Dragon's Maze and for those curious here's the preview piece we were given for the set.

Hmm, so this pretty much signals this mysterious Ral Zarek character as being in this set as a planeswalker perhaps, well all i know for one thing is all ten guilds are present in this set, plus here's the set statistics.

Set Size: 156
Release Date: May 3rd, 2013
Prerelease Events: April 27th and 28th, 2013

Yeah, i'm so looking forward to this set, for the full announcement please see the link which i will of course be posting here ----> http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1101 That's all for today of course, it's nice to know what the small set is for this block is going to be as well, this is vergil signing off.