Planechase Previews: 5/21/2012

Hello and welcome to this victoria day edition of the emporium, in today's edition we got some previews for discussion as per usual, a few by wizards of the coast and 1 by Gathering magic, whom normally get preview cards, so without further ado let's go.

The first of the wizards of the coast previews, Selesnya Loft Gardens which is another planar card, with the planar subtitle Ravnica, how fitting since we are returning there for another set this coming fall, so the effect of this is simple, If a effect would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield, it puts twice that many of those tokens instead, if a effect would place one or more counters on a permanent, it places twice that many counters instead, whenever you roll the planar symbol, until end of turn, add one mana to your mana pool of any type that land produced, wait a second doubling, doubling, aha Doubling Season anyone, it now has it's own plane, very sweet wizards.

Well apparently i was wrong on that mana rock, it doesn't add 1 mana of any color, it adds one generic mana, but it does allow you to roll the planar die at sorcery speed, Fractured Powerstone is it's name eh and it only costs 2 mana instead of 3, interesting, i'll be sure to note this particular mana rock when i encounter it.

Well here's the Gathering Magic promo, Interplanar Tunnel, it's pretty simple for a Phenomenon, when it is encountered, reveal cards from the top of the planar deck until you reveal the plane cards, put a place card from among them on the top of your planar deck, then put the rest on the bottom in a random order, so essentially this allows you to choose the next place you'll go in game pretty much, which is pretty sweet, i'm sure we will see this a lot come the release.

The final preview of the day is Lair of the Ashen Idol, this has the planar sub title Azgol, when this is out at the beginning of your upkeep, sacricfice a creature if you can't planeswalk, when you roll the planar symbol any number of target players each put a 2/2 black zombie creature token onto the battlefield, a interesting plane i must admit, very interesting to say the least. Well that's it for today, tommorow let's hope there are more previews as well, till next time this is vergil signing off.

Planechase 2012 Spoilers: Revealed Cards and New Planes.

Hello everyone and welcome to this strange saturday edition of the emporium, in today's edition we of course will be looking at the revealed spoilers of Planechase 2012, which occured some time after the official spoilers from MTGCommander.net yesterday afternoon, of which i was very impressed about, so without further ado let's begin.

Remember how i said there was a Jund plane, well this is it, Jund, with the planar subtitle Alara, meaning for the first time we got one a old area we know, so for this one it's whenever a player casts a red, green or black creature spell that creature gains devour 5, plus whenever you roll a specific symbol, you get 2 1/1 goblin tokens from it, not a bad thing honestly, but there's another card besides it, check out Thromok the Insatiable whom is yet another legend of this particular new set, he's a 0/0 has devour X, where X is the number of creatures devoured this way and he costs 3, Green, Red, he's a mythic rare and he's a hellion, a interesting legendary here folks.

We also have a new Phenomenon called Spatial Merging, where whenever you encounter this particular card, reveal cards from the top of your planar deck, until you reveal 2 plane cards, Simultaneously planeswalk to both of them, Put all other cards revealed this way to the bottom of your planar deck in any order, another interesting card to be honest here, because let's face it going to 2 seperate planes is hilarity.

Sitting behind a old friend is a brand new card for the format called Illusory Angel, she costs 2, blue, flies, is a 4/4 which you cannot see due to lens glare, is a Angel Illusion, which is a first for magic i do believe, she can only be cast if you've planeswalked this turn, meaning she is only good for this particular format, which itself is not much of a surprise, she's uncommon as well so expect to see her in every Blue based deck, since i've got a feeling she'll be in at least 2 of the decks.

Another devour based mechanic creature is a dragon named Preyseizer Dragon, costs 4, red, red has devour 2, flies and whenever it attacks it deals damage to target creature or player equal to the number of counters on it, it's a 4/4 rare too so meaning it probably going to be seen as a 1 of in the Jund based deck.

Wait there is a lot more, sitting besides another old friend, is two brand new cards Dragonlair Spider and Brindle Shoat while the spider is a 5/6 that costs 2, red, red, green, green, ala Dragon Broodmother she also has reach and whenever a opponent casts a spell, put a 1/1 green insect creature token onto the battlefield, she is also a rare, while the Boar meanwhile has a 1/1 body, costs 1 and a green to cast, is a common and when it dies you get a 3/3 boar token to replace it, expect to see this abused a lot for devour.

We have a new plane called Truga something or other, can't tell due to lens flare, again this pictures suck but at least it's something, it's on a plane called Ergamon which looks really nice honestly, the card does All lands have tap, add one mana of any color to your mana pool, whenever you roll the planar symbol reveal the top three cards of your library, put all lands revealed this way into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order, so here is your land fixing plane, i'm guessing this is going to be included in almost all of the decks.

Last but not least sitting bewteen Exotic Orchard and Mass Mutiny which is returning by the way is a brand new artifact based card called Etherium-Horn Sorcerer which has Cascade and the ability Pay blue and red to return it to it's owner's hand, repeatable cascade anyone, seriously, it's mana cost is 4, blue, red and is a 3/6 rare, of course i'm over impressed due to this factor, since cascade is already a very broken mechanic, now it's just more broken then ever.

Anyways that's it for today, monday we begin official previews, if none of these cards have already been spoiled come monday, see you next time.

Planechase Previews: MTGCommander.net Previews

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another edition of the emporium, believe it or not it's friday and with fridays usually we have nothing to talk about of importance but today is a little different, the crew over at MTGCommander.net got a few shiny previews for the up and coming Planechase 2012, let's take a look at them.

Introducing first Krond the Dawn-Clad, wow much here i'm a little in shock by this particular card in question, 6/6 Flyer, Vigilance and whenever it attacks if it's enchanted, so meaning Krond has to be enchanted with a aura, exile target permanent, he's a Swords to fricking Plowshares on a stick when enchanted, just when we finished a whole new set, we get to see this guy, he's a mythic rare of course, costs Green, Green, Green, White, White, White and damn that art is cool.

Also with MTGCommander's previews is yet another legendary, Vela the Night-Clad, she costs a whopping 4, blue, black and has intimidate, gives other creatures you control intimidate and whenever she or another creature you control leaves the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life, she is also a 4/4 mythic rare, a interesting twist on a card such as this, i don't intentionally see myself running her at all, but it wouldn't hurt to see what was offered in terms of power/toughness and the whole 9 yards when it comes to new legendaries of a set, anyways that's all for today, till next time this is vergil signing off.

Arcana Announcement: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

Well it's another year, so this must mean what i think it means, Duels of the Planeswalkers is back for yet another year, the 2013 edition was announced just today in the following arcana link which i will post at the end of this article, but first check out this fresh new wall paper that is exclusive to this announcement.

Yes, whose horns are these again kiddies, it's Nicol Bolas's horns, you remember him, well he's back in Duels 2013 and he's badder then ever, let's check out some of the cool new features announced with it.

1, IPad Support - It's about damn time, portable duels of the planeswalkers yes please, it's also gonna be released on the PS3, Xbox 360 and of course the PC as per usual, now if they'd only release it for the Wii.

2. Planechase - Say what this has the new plane chase decks in it, sweet and you can play multiplayer games like in the real card version, i wonder though we don't know enough about this new Plane chase to even speculate yet, since well you know.

3. Optional Manual Tapping of Lands - About time i say, the previous 2 versions of the title lacked this support and finally being able to tap for the type of land we want to tap is a much needed addition i feel should have been added last year.

4. New Decks and New Challenges - How did we not see this one coming, of course they are putting out brand new builds for this game, like every year, i hope though they do it right.

5. Meet the New Boss - So that's why Nicol Bolas's horns are showing, he's the final boss, wow talk about your surprises there, we've not seen him since Shards block, but if he's coming back for this game could he be returning in physical card form next core set, the horns picture may hint at it.

DotP Announcement ---> Duels 2013 Announcement

Anyways that's it for this second edition of the emporium for this particular good friday, we will see you on monday for the first of many Avacyn Restored previews, this is vergil signing off.

Arcana Announcement: Planechase 2012

Hello everyone and welcome to this special edition of the emporium, today's edition covers the announcement of the newest multiplayer format which will hit store shelves in June of 2012, that is Planechase 2012 effectively. For the purpose of the article i will be talking a little about the previous edition of this multiplayer game and featuring all the new information we have on it, so let's get started.

Planechase is a multiplayer game where 1 deck of oversized cards is placed in the center, then the first player in the game flips over the top oversized card, which grants specific effects in game, along with various field bonuses towards all or one player depending on the card flipped over, each turn a player may roll a Planar Die which has two symbols, a chaos symbol which represents the card's chaos effect and a planeswalker symbol which sends you from one planar card to the next. When the game was introduced in the middle of 2009, i was just a young punk back then who didn't know what multiplayer was essentially, however with this new Planechase coming out, it's sure to be different.

In this edition of Planechase we are going to have 32 new planes to venture onto, 8 different Phenomenon effects and 21 new magic cards introduced with this format, like this guy for example

Maelstrom Wanderer is a legendary creature introduced with this format, wait what's that i see do i see haste for all creatures you control, but that's not all, a 7/5 double cascade dude, wait what not a single cascade as introduced on let's say a Bloodbraid Elf or Bituminous Blast but two cascades for the price of one, he's also listed a mythic rare with a casting cost of 5, a blue, a red and a green mana so essentially he's a enemy color legend introduced solely for this format, impressive wouldn't you agree. Now moving on from creatures we have ourselves the first new planar card to show off as well by the name of Time Distortion

This particular card is the first Phenomenon introduced to us via the latest arcana announcement, it basically makes the game go in reverse order any time this is flipped, so if you were playing clockwise, you'd go counter clockwise and so forth. This is a weird card but good nonetheless, now let's move onto the details of this particular multiplayer format and when it hits store shelves.

Release Date: June 1st, 2012

MSRP: 19.99 US

Initial Concept and Game Design: Mark Globus (lead), Kelly Digges, Dave Guskin, and Ryan Miller

Final Game Design and Deck Development: Mark L. Gottlieb (lead), Ryan Miller, Lee Sharpe, and Ken Troop, with contributions from Matt Tabak

That's about it for this edition of the emporium for more information see the link below for the arcana announcement, till next time this is vergil signing off.

Planechase 2012 Announcement