Magic 2012 Announcement and Information

So if you all remember the magic 2012 announcement which was featured in monday's mothership arcana it had the following details for those curious folks 

Set Name: Magic 2012
Three-Letter Abbreviation: M12
Number of Cards: 249
Release Date: July 15, 2011
Prerelease Events: July 9-10, 2011
Launch Parties: July 15-17, 2011
Game Day: August 13, 2011

Design Team

Mark Globus (lead)
Doug Beyer
Aaron Forsythe
Ken Nagle


Development Team 

Tom LaPille (lead)
Kelly Digges
Peter Schaefer
Mike Turian
Steve Warner
Dave Humpherys


Now for those whom don't know what this means is the usual core set will be released in July of this year and has the following block information for you


Standard rotates once each year, with the release of the October large set. Magic 2012 will enter Standard on its release without knocking anything out, then Magic 2011 and Zendikar block will leave Standard with the release of "Shake." The Standard format between Magic 2012 and "Shake" will consist of Zendikar block, Scars of Mirrodin block, Magic 2011, and Magic 2012. After the release of "Shake," it will consist of Scars of Mirrodin Block, Magic 2012, and "Shake."

As you can see this is going to have something to do with Allies as the phrase "Gather Your Allies" or so one would speculate however the latest chandra art is interesting as well since the fact every year we usually end up seeing the 5 staple walkers of Lorwyn joining the fray and also the fact of the matter is each one of them may end up getting new art, so thoughts on this one folks let me know in the comments section below, the next regular large article will be later today as always.

Feburary FNM Promo Card - Spellstutter Sprite

So if you've not been paying full attention to the latest magic news and rumours, shame on you shame i say, the recent announcement of this addition to the FNM promo card lot is quite interesting to say the least as there have been a few good decent cards to come out from the past 12 months that list being as follows

Gatekeeper of Malakir, Everflowing Chalice and of course Wild Nacatl now with the addition of the sprite to the list fairies players are gonna need to find a all foil fairies deck like a certain frenchmen foiled his entire worlds deck from scratch lucky bastard, anyhoo it's time to reveal the FNM promo itself and here we go it's down below for those who want to know

Tada that's all she wrote for that one, it's pretty much the same abilites and brand new artwork done by Christopher Moeller, not too special but this could be really useful for a all foil fairies deck down the line provided the others are also made this way, what's next on the list Jund's Putrid Leech?, anyhoo i've not got much to say bout this but i'm sure it's nice to see a short article from me for a change, see you next post.

Mirrodin Besieged Discussion Part 4: Possible Legendaries and Unconfirmed Cards

So i figure instead of wasting two articles on both sides i should just attend to one article discussing as much as humanly possible including some very rumoured legendaries and even a few unconfirmed cards which i'm sure will turn a few heads when i am finished with em, so let us begin part 4 in proper style with a mirran legendary.

The first one on the list of many cards to discuss is, Ghalma, the Shaper this happens to be a legendary elephant artificer on the mirran side of things, since this is a elephant though you can expect a toughness level of about 4 or 5 depending on the type but this being a mirran toughness would probably be at about 5 at all respects with a power of about 3 depending of course if it has any special abilites to speak of, One ability i believe it will have though is lifelink since it's a artificer and it's white who can say, but i expect this to be a rare and not a mythic rare level card with a casting cost of about 4 to be more precise, if i had a photo to work with for this one i would do so but i do not.

Another particular white legendary happens to be Juryan, the Rebel Kha, for those who don't know what a kha is it's a form of a lion basically so this being said white creatures such as this are going to have a high power rating of about 4 and a toughness rating of about 3 roughly with a casting cost of perhaps 3 sounds pretty decent don't you agree, the abilites though could vary, it could have something we've not seen yet, or the fact it could have battle cry the first spoiled ability of this set, or it could a evergreen keyword ability such as Lifelink, or perhaps plainswalk who knows, all i know about this particular card is when it is spoiled i won't be too surprised to see this one, provided the name is correct and the rarity sounds a regular rare to me then again i could be wrong about that as always.

Now the only problem with this next card is it's phyrexian but we don't know the full name yet, all we know is the title in the name, the Many Legged one, Many legged one sounds to me like it's probably one of the phyrexian's generals in the flesh or metal in this case it's defintely a mythic i can tell by the title alone and the fact it's a phyrexian it's been known mythics have some general basis for things like Skittles or some other card, obviously this is probably gonna have infect or some form of proliferate to balance it out, the power and toughness ratings are unknown to me even at this point as i don't wish to speculate without the full name, but if it's a legendary you can expect this to be about a 5 casting cost card roughly to balance itself even further as wizards don't believe in overpowering specific cards or so one would think

The next possibility on my list a black legendary this time, Sheoldred, Whispering One now this sounds like a bad ass legendary, probably gonna have infect for sure since it's a phyrexian legendary, also probably gonna be a mythic rare and a high casting cost of about 4 to make it a tad more balanced, the power/toughness ratio is unknown to me even though it sounds tough but then again look at glissa, the traitor for the results she had to have first strike on her to make her tough so that is saying something in itself, if the phyrexians are stooping to this low it seems to me this has to have deathtouch seeing as how it is a black card and has some very corrupt motiviations and all, we will have to wait and see how this one turns out as i am anxiously awaiting the spoiler for this particular card.

Thrun, the last troll, are you seriously kidding me he's finally here after what 10 years of being spoken of in specific points during the storylines of the worlds, wow much trolls finally have a general for EDH yes i can now make the troll deck happen, as trolls go this has gotta be a mythic, 5/5 on the ratio of power and toughness and the fact it has to have a new ability we've not seen yet, it's nice to see this guy after so long but then again it's kinda underwhelming for the set in general, the casting cost though sounds to me like a 5 or 6 perhaps since it's a troll and looking back at all the other trolls made in magic they have roughly the same casting cost issue, sounds cool let's just hope he's done right.

The unconfirmed cards for the set range from various Auriok's to even a few sylvok's to even a few phyrexians i cannot speculate on any of these right now but when the time comes i will talk about them in the spoiler so keep your eyes on the spoilers for here when it is released before the prerelease date this time hopefully, anyhoo i think that will about cover it for this edition of the discussion i've gotta a lot to do in the next couple of weeks in terms of spoilers so enjoy the spoiler season and i'll be seeing you next time, this is vergil signing off.

Mirrodin Besieged Discussion Part 3: Perfection is Phyrexia

As the title obviously states this is the discussion on the phyrexian spoilers which have not been confirmed but are good to go pretty much, there are quite a few of these to speculate on and we will begin with the most confirmed of the phyrexian cards so it's either join us or perish and become a part of the great work, let us begin perfection at it's finest

Now this will probably be a long article since there is a bit of artwork and even some cards to speculate on however that being said let us begin with the card only known as Phyrexian Rebirth, this sounds like a spell that returns a infect card and the image of the card is below as per always

Now this seems to be a spell and not a creature, it probably does the following few things
Phyrexian Rebirth :symb::symb:
Instant - (U)
Return target infect card from your graveyard to the battlefield, target card has haste and must be sacrificed at the end of turn, this in turn sounds like something phyrexians would do in general for the fact they love to destroy and salvage things out of the mess they leave behind, in this case it's a creature with infect or so i would like to believe however my next card on the list has a entirely different persepctive on things of course and that is Phyrexian Hydra, recently spoiled on a intro pack of course and it is a rare i can tell since the hydra i use commonly, Protean Hydra is also a rare debunked from a mythic rare status in the latest core set, as always though speculation could prove to be false in the long run, however here's how i think this beast will end up turning out to be.

Phyrexian Hydra :2mana::symb::symg:
Creature - Mutant Hydra (R)
Infect (This permament deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters to creatures and poison counters to players)
Trample
3/5 speculation aside from this one there is no picture to talk about this one yet, though i imagine in about a week or two there will be one of these to discuss as per usual, now let's move onto a certain father of machines that isn't yawgmoth and i as always am talking about Karn, Father of Machines, no doubt about this one it's gonna be mythic rarity and a artifact since karn has always been imprisoned inside a steel shell for most of his existence in the storyline except for a few minor occasions, he is battling the obvious infection of the phyrexian oil and is sure to be one bad ass card when it is revealed, warning the follow speculation may offend some viewers of the blog.

Karn, Father of Machines :7mana:
Legendary Creature - Artifact Golem (MR)
Infect, Trample
Whenever Karn deals combat damage to a player he/she discards all cards in their hand
:2mana:: Return target infect card from the graveyard to your hand.
5/5 now i hope that's pretty basic for you since we could see karn with infect but then again we couldn't see infect as being put on him since another phyrexian mythic rare, Glissa, The Traitor doesn't have infect but instead deathtouch and first strike, but that's another card entirely and i've already discussed it in a previous article of this series. There are quite a few new cards in this set and believe me i cannot wait to see them, however there is one more card i wish to talk about and that is of course Bonehoard another one of phyrexia's creations of art which also a photo to be shown below

Now the speculation begins on this card is it a creature? you bet your ass it is, what does it do vergil well let me tell you ok simmer down here, bonehoard is another of phyrexia's creations that spreads the oil and that it's basically a machination to carry stuff here's how i think the card will go down.

Bonehoard :2mana::symb:
Creature - Machination (U)
Infect, Deathtouch
3/2

Now this is pretty much all i give speculation on as a photo only takes things so far, however the next article i will talk about somewhat possible cards and some legendaries, stay tuned and all will become one or so one would hope, this is vergil signing off.

Mirrodin Besieged Discussion Part 2: Speculation on Possible Mirran Cards

Now the source for these speculations all come from one place, mtgsalvation.com they know how to do rumours and that quite well for a magic the gathering site and they are perhaps the only people in the world besides wizards of the coast who know what the cards do before they are spoiled to the rest of the world so let's begin part 2 with my personal ideas on everything so far.

Now according to speculation there are 18 cards per color slot in this set and it would seem to be correct, while the remainder would of course be the multicolor and of course the artifacts and lands, artifact wise it would appear to be 52 for actual artifacts and 5 artifact lands according to the number and name crunch found there. Let's observe some of the cards found to be rumoured and nearly true shall we first thing is first let's take a look a blue card called Consecrated Sphinx, now right off the bat you can tell this is going to be a rare because it's a sphinx all sphinx in magic have always been the rare setting or higher, this case seems to prove that this is also going to be a mirran card because of the last sphinx in this block which was Argent Sphinx was also a mirran card and it had metalcraft thus speculation aside i believe this card will look something like this, also here is the photo of this but my speculation on this could be wrong as always.

Consecrated Sphinx 2mana mana blue, mana blue
Creature - Sphinx (R)
Metalcraft
Flying
4/3 but then again this is just my speculation on this particular card, let's move onto another card which has a lot of rumour surrounding it and that is Goblin Wardriver, one would think due to the picture shown to the world about this card you're expecting this to be a rare in itself, one might believe it to be true, is this the new standard goblin lord maybe, because elves saw their lord last set in the form of Ezuri, Renegade Leader and his overrun ability is just a dominant force in general one would possibly think this is a worthwhile card, lords normally have some kind of ability that gives other creatures of their type a boost in power/toughness so here are my card predictions for this one

Goblin Wardriver :1mana::symr::symr:
Creature - Goblin (R)
Haste, Mountainwalk
Other goblins you control get a +1/+1 boost for each other goblin on the field.
2/2

Now this third ability makes this broken but then again there may be very few goblins in this set of mirrodin besieged so this might balance the issue out so we will have to wait and see, the next card on the list has a sort of flair for the dramatic and that is Koth's Courier, the photo of this particular creature is seen below

Note the artwork on this particular creature shows it is a vulshok and is probably one of the hammer tribe, now speculation aside here's how i believe this creature will turn out.

Koth's Courier :1mana::symr:
Creature - Vulshok Berserker (U)
Battle Cry (Whenever this creature attacks, all other attacking creatures get a +1/+0 bonus till end of turn)
Haste
2/3 however this prediction could be wrong in itself we will have to wait and see when the card is spoiled to determine if i was wrong or right in this regard the final few cards i wanna talk about for this article are Titan forge and Contested War Zone, these are the only other ones worth talking about right now so let's see how it goes Titan Forge sounds like a token producer if i had to guess it would go something along the lines of the following, it also has a photo which is shown below as per usual.

Titan Forge :4mana:
Artifact - (R)
Metalcraft - Whenever another artifact enters the battlefield under your control put a 4/4 Darksteel Titan token into play and place all equipments onto it under your control

Now this is all just speculation but the card specifics may end up changing in the long run of this, now as for contested war zone, since this seems like it is going to be a artifact land i think it will go something like this with a photo of the card shown below

Contested War Zone
Artifact Land (R)
:Symtap: Add 2 to your mana pool, only use this mana to play artifact spells this turn.
:symtap: Add 1 to your mana pool, Use this to play creatures this turn.

It may turn out a little different in the long run but with spoilers one can never be too sure of course, thank you for reading part 2 of my speculation for mirrodin besieged i'll be attending to the phyrexian side or the dark side in the next article, till then enjoy the spoiler season thoughts from me, this is vergil signing off.

Mirrodin Besieged Discussion Part 1: Current Spoilers

Alright for those whom follow this on a daily basis you know how much i like to talk about possibilites of sets and the cards in those sets as always, this time it's time to talk about the second set of the fall block, Mirrodin Besieged and all it's glorious cards that have been spoiled, discussed and all that neat stuff, so let's get straight into the rumours, confirmed cards and much much more shall we?

Now as of this point there are 7 confirmed cards for Mirrodin Besieged and the 7 are as follows, Hero of Bladehold, Mirran Crusader, Phyrexian Crusader, Glissa the Traitor, Peace Strider, Pierce Strider and Thopter Assembly, these are merely 7 out of the 155 cards of this set but let's start with the first one of the list, Hero of Bladehold. Now hero of bladehold has a unique new mechanic for Mirrodin Besieged and that is Battle cry, this provides attacking monsters when this attacks a +1/+0 for all attacking monsters and this ability does stack by the way for those curious so you don't need to worry, also since this is not a legendary you don't need to fear the legendary rules for this card at all in fact, it's kinda of nice to have 4 of, did i mention this is a mythic card and not a regular rare?, so guess what that means it's gonna be a very decent price for this one card since it's already vauled at 10 dollars US at the time of this article thanks to starcitygames.com but i digress it's time to move into the pure light of mirrodin's five suns.

Mirran Crusader or the new Paladin En-Vec as i like to call it has some interesting qualities for a really regular rare and it's abilites are as similar as one would think from a early spoiled card, i mean a 2/2 that has double strike, protection from green and black and only costs 3 mana to summon can you say i just owned you son, of course you can you should be able to read this article when it is finished as always. I feel this is the added inclusion into the new white weenie deck for standard as we already have some decent knights and equipments for the deck as a whole, but a bunch of speculation aside this is a mere 3 dollars right now and this is supposed to be a promo card for when you buy a box of mirrodin besieged on release, seriously this is underwhelming and awesome in some respect but it's early in the spoiler season and there are still 148 cards to go to spoil.

Phyrexian Crusader seeing as how it was spoiled at the same exact time as Mirran Crusader is the champion knight of the phyrexian side, considering the fact it's a 2/2 with first strike and protection from white and red, however it may end up being a good thing since it does contain infect it's a infect beast since first strike occurs before anything else possible, so infect may become a viable strategy in standard one of these days, we just have to wait and see how set 3 of the fall block turns out to be. I think it's time to talk about our first legendary now in the form of Glissa, The Traitor this little beast of a card has deathtouch, first strike and has a recursion ability in for artifacts also it's a pure black green gold card, meaning both cards that effect black and green will work for this also giving it a chance to work a lot better, on the other hand she is a legendary meaning the legendary rule applies, did i mention she's a prerelease promo as well if you choose the phyrexian side of the fight at your local prerelease party held at a wizards play network store near you, of course i didn't that's why i mentioned it now.

Now it's onto the artifacts that were spoiled, there are 3 to discuss and all of them are different in their own respect let's begin with a game day promo that was handed for having 10 of the specific faction of cards in your game day deck, one of them was a card known as Peace Strider, a 3/3 artifact for 4 mana and it gives 3 life back to the player whom cast it when it enters the battlefield, there isn't much to say seeing as how it was a part of the first pair of spoiled cards and is the mirran's answer to the phyrexian menace, now let us move onto the menace's answer to dealing with the pure mirrans. Pierce Strider is a mean menace in itself as if you had ten cards from phyrexia in your game day deck you got this promo card at your game day, it is also a 3/3 for 4 mana and it deals 3 damage to a target player upon entering the battlefield, also not much to discuss about this since it's the last of the pair that was first brought out over 3 months ago as of this article.

Thopter assembly may be the single greatest bomb threat in MBS with the fact it generates tokens when no other thopters are on the field other then this card and it's a rare for 6 mana and it's a 5/5 flyer, talk about some peace of work huh, it basically makes 5 smaller versions of itself that are great for blocking in the late game and can obviously win anything it chooses, this may end up being the single greatest artifact of the set, provided there are no serious bombs to throw off your opponent, also did i mention this is the release promo when you play in release events worldwide come feburary. Anyhoo that about covers it for this edition of Mirrodin besieged discussion, in part 2 i'll cover rumours and alot more to come this week stay tuned and till next article this is vergil signing off

From the Vault: Dragons Review

Since today is seeming like a dragon day for me and such, where i get to talk about dragon stuff in magic the gathering i figure now is the perfect chance to discuss the from the vault dragons limited edition collector's set and what a edition of a set this is, 15 of the rarest dragons of all time each with foil goodness too and the fact these fifteen have seen play at one point or another is astounding let's take a look at each card individually so let's do this thing.

Bladewing the Risen - Dear god it's a nice foil and it's mana ability is not that bad at all, for a black/red dragon i was expecting something of this nature and that for this, even though as of this article this limited edition thing came out 2 years ago, though it is nice to have these 15 cards in your binder for traders of course.

Bogardan Hellkite - Remember the dragonstorm deck that came out later that year at worlds, well this is the keycard for the deck to focus on, but as a 8 drop dragon it's still a beat stick on steroids even for one of it's type, as a mono red dragon i hope to see this in a future duel deck or some form of deck for another format.

Draco - Are you mad, this had this broken ass card in this special edition as a nice tasty foil seriously let's run down draco shall we, he's not been seen since planeshift, he's a 16 cost artifact dragon that is 9/9 and he has flying and costs 10 to keep on the field each turn without basic lands, seriously domain was introduced thanks to this card nice to see this bad boy in flight.

Dragon Whelp - Seriously who doesn't know what this one does, 2/3 with flying and a firebreathing ability sheesh it is a uncommon too and this thing does a bit of wonders for it's cost too though the foil version of this isn't too bad in all honesty.

Dragonstorm - Who doesn't know what this does, it's a beast of a spell card to use for dragons and this shows why, 8 for basically bringing out any dragon you want even draco, this makes the dragons broken again espically with a certain land.

Ebon Dragon - Black dragons have arrived in this set review and this isn't that bad 5/4 for a 7 drop and it has a juicy discard effect when it arrives on the field, it's a good inclusion into this from the vault.

Form of the Dragon - You know you have a good from the vault when stuff like this arrives on the scene, the enchantment to end all enchantments for dragons not even crucible of worlds can compete with this beast, it literally has a 4 turn clock when it arrives and is just as deadly as it used to be back in the good old days of ninth edition and scourge.

Hellkite Overlord - Oh lookie a shards of alara dragon, with flying, trample and haste the three abilites you don't wanna see, believe me when i say this this card was a pain to get ahold of in draft or any form of it since it was one of the first 14 mythic rares to be introduced into the game and after that the rest was history.

Kokusho, the Evening Star - At least they put one of the 5 spirit dragons from kamigawa into this set and kokusho i felt was a decent pick for this from the vault, it's ability is still just as broken for multiplayer and is a good finisher for the final few turns, also the foil version looks rather nice.

Nicol Bolas - Oh bolas i love how you became a walker in conflux and you were still just a badass in the olden days of masters edition 3, Chronicles and of course reprinted as a time spiral timeshifted card back in the good old days of non broken cards, this card is still just as cool as it was back then and believe me for it's cost you'll get what you pay for, provided the upkeep cost is met of course.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind - Why oh why is there a sucky dragon in this i've never used this card before and i'm not about to, i am not a big fan of this card let's see why he's a 4/4 for 6 and has to tap to draw cards, his other ability triggers when you draw cards, dealing 1 damage to target player or creature slow burn is slow as hell he's just a stupid beatstick.

Rith, the Awakener - Here's a seriously good card folks, this particular dragon is one of my top 5 favorites in the game and is known to be a useful piece of work unlike some other people, ahem Niv-Mizzet i'm looking at you. A token generator for a mere 3 mana per time it deals combat damage it's very nice so this way you have a blocker and all of that neat stuff, trample would break this card i feel for good reason i don't need to explain.

Shivan Dragon - Here's a oldie but a goodie, all the way back from alpha on this bad boy has seen the rise and fall of core sets galore i mean it's been the most reprinted dragon in this set being featured a whopping 14 times throughout magic's history each time getting new art and that in the process, very nice to see this old fellow back from the retirement home.

Thunder Dragon - Remember how i said lightning bolt is the best common in standard right now, well this guy shows why it's a busted red card for good reason he is a lightning bolt on steroids, field clearing 3 damage to all non flyers on the field that your opponent controls it's a 5/5 for 7 need i say more?

Two-Headed Dragon - Last official dragon of the set and it's a doozy, it can double block, it can give itself a serious pump and can't be blocked by one creature, though it's only been printed 4 times as of this point you can kind of understand why it's only been reprinted that many times if you look at the card itself. A 4/4 with flying isn't bad enough, but when it pumps itself up and does some serious damage you'll be begging for it to end with this beast on the battlefield.

Well that about covers the entire set of from the vault: dragons, this set had a excellent run while it did and was limited in supply if you wanna find one of these things these days check ebay or something i'm sure there is one or two floating around, till next review this is vergil signing off.

Duel Deck Speculation: Knights vs Dragons

Now i normally do not do this sort of thing however i am a big dragon fan and i enjoy seeing a duel deck of this nature, however with it being about 3 months away from release no one knows what the heck is going on with this, that is why i feel it necessary to discuss this one since of course we don't have the decklists for this duel deck and the fact of the matter is each card in this deck either has something to do with knights so let's go over what we know so far.

This duel deck is scheduled for release on april fools day and has a price of 19,99 american, it is going to contain 2 60 card decks, one for knights and one for dragons as obvious as that is, according to the image below there may be a certain 8 converted mana cost dragon in the set, take a look at this image.

Now if that isn't a hellkite i don't know what is, the next few images also covered the symbol for this duel deck and the logo of the deck.

Both of these images are interesting and i'd like to examine the hellkite image a little more, shall we, let us first start with the obvious, firstly the amount of spikes on a dragon usually end up determining what breed it is and by the looks of it, it's truly a hellkite and even has the spiky tail to boot, the duel deck logo for this is also a representation of what appears to be knights clashing with dragons in the old fable tales. However no one truly knows what the deck will contain, speculation though the mythic for the knights could possibly be the recently spoiled white mythic known as Hero of Bladehold, found here ----> Hero of Bladehold speculation may end up changing this rumour, all that is known so far is the information provided for this duel deck, though i'd like to run through a few possibilites for the knights decklist and of course the dragons decklist starting with the knights

For the knights i expect there to be the following cards, Knight Exemplar, since it provides a boost to knights and has a awesome ability all around and it is pretty easy to get your hands on these days, Paladin En-Vec is another one of these knights that could possibly be seen since we have not seen him in any form of play since the good old tenth edition days when he was super popular, White Knight is also a decent choice for this duel deck since it's protection from black is a key element in keeping it alive and dragons are known for going into black and finally the most obvious choice off the top of my head Honor of the Pure since it provides a boost to all white creatures on the field and knights are known to be honorable, also let's not forget Knight of the Skyward Eye and Knight of Meadowgrain those two are solid knight cards for this set and should also be included, now let's move onto the obvious dragon side.

For the dragons side of things let's hope there ends up being a Flameblast Dragon thrown in there since dragons love to make things burn and flameblast is one hell of a card in the late and early game, you also have dragon whelp since it's a deadly little beast, but another one i hope that makes it is, Karthus, Tyrant of Jund it would be a bad ass card for this one and would make for one fine mythic, though they might demote Hellkite down to a regular old rare if that were to happen, some obvious spells for the dragons would be Crucible of Worlds and of course Firebreathing as well as the occasional lightning bolt, but we will see the lists when the dang thing is released this april fools day, for now that's all the speculation i can muster see you next article.

Magic the Gathering News: Vol 2, Player of the Year, Mirrodin Besieged and so much more

In this edition of MTG news vol 2 i'll be talking about the recent player of the year race that occured at worlds 2010 in chiba japan, the recent stuff for Mirrodin Besieged that has been spoiled and some new topics and ideas for magic for the coming months including that of the EDH precon decks which are slated for a June Release date, so let's go.

The player of the year race started off at worlds with Brad Nelson leading the charge with a dominating 63 points heading into worlds and everything was going so smoothly for that man, however fate intervened and caused his dreams of player of the year to be sidetracked and thrown off course, the only way someone would be able to beat him, mainly Paulo Vitor Dam Da Rosa for starters is if he made into the finals of the Top 8 in chiba, he didn't leaving the door seriously ajar during that time, Brad's unconvicing finish at worlds leaves a possible tie in the works and well thanks to a certain frenchman's victory at worlds, we are heading into the first ever playoff for the player of the year title in paris france this feburary, what does this mean for this year's player of the year race we will have to see with the recent suspension of Tomoharu Saito we won't see the usual top 5 list like we always do. However with this in tow for the next pro tour event it's a single elimnation match to determine the winner of the 2010 player of the year, could guillaume matignon win the title and take both worlds and the POY race in tow or could a american win the title for the first time in 5 years and bring it back to the continent of north america, we will have to find out the winner at the 2011's first pro tour stop of Paris, France this feburary.

Now for those whom've had been keeping tabs on the recent new small set of mirrodin besieged let me tell you one small thing, this is no child's play set that is for sure, some big heavy hitters have been thrown out there and let's go down the list of the candidates revealed so far for the 155 card set of feburary also known as mirrodin besieged. Hero of Bladehold and Glissa, The Traitor are the prerelease promos for the sides you pick of course however the hero i believe to be more valuable since of course it has a new mechanic known as Battle Cry. There are also a few juicy artifacts that have been spoiled including Thopter Assembly which is the release promo for the release events in early feburary and believe me each one of these promos are sorta underwhelming but at the same time they are unique in the fact the last release promo was also a artifact creature and not some broken mythic like Molten-Tail Masticore but i digress there are quite a few spoilers so if you are patient and can wait a couple of weeks i'll have the spoilers up and running a day or two before the prerelease events that happen at the end of this month.

Since EDH is getting a big overhaul and has a couple of rules changes i figure i should go over the rules changes themselves for those whom are just getting into EDH or known as commander now. The first rule change is as follows "When building a commander deck, the mana symbols in the text box are just as important as those in the cost of the card. The commander's color identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck" So what this means as follows if your commander has a bunch of red symbols in his casting cost like  Myojin of Infinte Rage and it also has a blue mana ability such as Memnarch then you are able to play a commander deck containing both blue and red casting colors and that means you may also play artifacts as well since memnarch is a artifact legend, making the format more enjoyable and more exciting for those whom play the game on a daily basis. There is another thing due to this rule generals that had that kind of thing in them such as Rhys the Exiled where it has a black mana cost, you may generate black mana along with green mana making a nasty elf deck in the process and meaning your deck can have 2 colors in it to make it all the more exciting, i actually do like this change quite a lot since i am going to get into commander very soon and make a habit of going out and having fun, once of course i get a deck together for it, but then again it shouldn't be difficult in itself.

Finally i wish to go over the fact that the third set of this fall block has not yet been spoiled as by now we usually are aware of the third set and the fact wizards is keeping this one hidden is proof we may have some excitement to come, although what it brings no one knows, it could end up being a new phyrexia or a pure mirrodin it's all up to WotC for that one, anyhoo till next time this is vergil signing off, more magic news next month including what hopes to be the culmination of the 2010 pro tour season and so much more, see you next time.

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.

Magic the Gathering Basics Part 5: Final Thoughts and Combat Step Procedures

For the Finality of this article we are going to go over the most complex step the attack/blocking step otherwise known as the combat step, during this step there are tons of decisions to be made and i will go over them all of course so let's go.

Attacking - Now for this step you can choose however many creatures you want that do not have the ability of defender to attack, let's say you have a Lumengrid Drake a trio of Myr Galvanizer and 3 islands and 1 swamp in play untapped of course, with two cards in hand for you, your opponent has a Kargan Dragonlord that has 4 levels on it, making it a 4/4 flyer, a Goblin Guide and 1 mountain left untapped with 1 card in hand on his side of the field, do you attack with everything or attack with the drake only, well that is up to you to decide, comments below i wanna see the response to this problem. Now this step you must declare all your attackers at once so you cannot choose one and then a second later choose another you have to make the decision before the attack step begins, once you attack however he is free to block.

Blocking - This is really simple to understand, let's use the same situation, but your in control of the goblin guide and kargan dragonlord, your opponent attacks how do you respond since you have 1 mana left open and a capable blocker in both the guide and dragonlord, i'd also like a response below for the situation answer if you would please. The attacker however can declare battle damage to creatures when it is blocked, the attacker also gets to choose the amount of damage assigned to creatures and if a creature has trample well you know the rest as i explained trample in a previous article, during this step though entire combat step spells can be played as long as they are instants and not sorceries, that is something also to consider.

Resolution - After the blocking step there comes the resolution step where as all creatures that have been dealt critical damage are sent to the graveyard and removed from play, if a creature ever reaches 0 points of toughness that creature is then sent to the graveyard, or if a creature is removed from play via a spell such as Doom Blade then the creature is sent to the graveyard automatically regardless of combat damage assigned in this case there are multiple instances of how people think the combat step works but this is the most direct and easiest way to explain the combat step in general terms for the new magic player on the block.

Final Thoughts - This concludes the how to guide for the beginning magic player, i've referred you to enough sources to get started and such at playing wizards of the coast's game of magic the gathering, i hope you have found this a useful tool for getting started and i will see you again in the next article.

Magic the Gathering Basics Part 4: Terms on Cards

Now throughout the course of the article i will be looking over what you will see on a typical card and how they work in game, since there are several different things to watch out, Mana Costs, Rarity, Types of Cards, Power/Toughness, Card Abilites., so let's go.

Mana Cost - For this article i'm gonna be taking a look at one card and breaking it down for you in steps to look out for, the first one is the summoning cost to play the card, or mana cost in this case, each mana cost is different and has different rules around it, some require various types of mana and others don't for this let's use for this case, Sphinx of Jwar Isle it has a mana cost of 4 of any type of mana, a blue mana and another blue mana meaning this card needs 2 blue mana to cast it plus four of any other type of mana, though it is not as bad as some of the costs on other cards in the following sets to come including Ancient Hellkite which costs 7 total 4 of anything and 3 red mana in this case, now how to get the mana, it's from playing lands and tapping the card to represent your adding 1 of that colour to your mana pool for the duration of your turn, the more lands you have the more powerful and more ridicliously casting cost cards you can play in game, meaning more high end cards including some very powerful planeswalkers, there are also several types of mana costs in one card at times for example Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker whom has 3 different types of mana in his casting cost in this case, 2 black mana, one red and one blue as well as 4 of anything else, so keep a eye on everything and look for the mana costs in cards before playing them in game, but also be sure to attune your deck to the cards you want to play.

Rarity - On each and every card there is 3 different types of symbols, usually located in the middle of a card on the right hand side, this is a rarity value and is used to determine how well or how expensive the card is most times for some better known cards, one is black meaning it is a common card and is found just about everywhere these days, one is silver and it is a uncommon rarity, so the amount of times you'll see this card decreases and one is gold meaning it is a rare card for this i'll look at the three rarities and of course the brand new rarity level mythic rare. For commons it is usually found once a pack in most cases and that, meaning you'll often see it in draft or in most cases the amount of times you'll see it per box is about 4 roughly so there is 4 in 36 packs a box that contain a full set of these commons and one of these commons i'll be looking at really. Let's take a look at one of my favorite commons in game Mana Leak which is a common and is found in the latest core set Magic 2011 at the time of this writing, most cases each box of magic 2011 will contain a full playset or 4 of this card in cases and sometimes not only containing 3 or 2 of the card in question the way wizards's breaks up the rarity value is just maddening.

Let's now take a look at the uncomon level of card, most boxes of product end up having at least 3 of a specific uncommon considering uncommons are only twice as rare as a common in most cases, for this one i want to take at one of my top 5 uncommons ever printed in the form of Hedron Crab also known as the boston crab in this case as it's annoyance level for mid range blue decks is just retarded and in zendikar you could easily get 3 of him in a single box, though price wise most uncommons end up going for about a dollar to 2.50 depending on the card and how it impacted the game, in this case let's look at another card for the uncommon level in the form of Mind Funeral which can go for about 2.50 these days in terms of price since it's effect is just broken and can cause some major headaches when mill decks are being played, i should know i bought two of these recently. This happens to be one of my top 5 favorite uncommons as well, also it can be rather effective in game, so keep a eye on the uncommons for this set and all that jazz. Now moving onto the rarity value of rare there are usually one of these in every booster pack you pick up these days and most of them are never the same, with some being so hard to find while others are a simple eye look away from obtaining and all that, rare cards are usually divided well into booster boxes with no box having a single set of 1 rare anymore since the sets are all so large. Let's look at one particular rare from the Alara Reborn set of cards in the form of Nemesis of Reason which is a rare from the Alara reborn block from 2 years ago and this card goes for about 3 dollars roughly these days, since it's not widely played anymore, a rare that is widely played however is, Marsh Flats which is a sacrifice land from the Zendikar set of things and was just introduced last year around this time into tournaments with these kinds of cards ranging from 8 to 14 dollars in most cases or even more now that they are a tournament staple.

Now moving onto the mythic rarity value of card and boy these ones impact the game more then ever, with most new mythic rares going for a expensive and insane price in this case let's look at a couple of recent mythics and such. The first one i wanna take a look at is Skittles he's actually known as Skithryix, The Blight Dragon and he is a mythic rare legendary card, now mythics however there are usually only 5 a box, no two same mythics are in each box unless your extremely lucky and all that jazz but i digress, each mythic is very powerful and it's money cost is different for Skithiryix however it is about 10 dollars these days, though there are another subtype of card that are way more overpowered and all that and they are planeswalkers with them going at sometimes over 40 dollars a piece in this case let's look at a new walker in the form of Venser, The Sojourner and the fact he is a 30 dollar card these days even if the set is brand new shows the fact how playable he is in most cases but i digress i've gone on long enough bout rarity and such, time to move onto more important matters in the form of other topics for this article.

Types of Cards - There are 5 different types of cards in game, planeswalkers, sorceries, instants, creatures and enchantments now most of these are self explanatory, planeswalkers are other caster type creatures you can summon such as Venser or even Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Sorceries can be played only during your turn, instants can be played at anytime, creatures can sometimes be cast if they have a unique ability called flash, though most cases only during your turn and enchantments can be only cast during your turn i won't go into detail as most of this stuff i've already covered for the most part in prior articles so next please.

Power/Toughness - This is a pretty self explanatory thing as these only show up on creatures each has a specific indicator showing how much power they do, which is their attack power and the toughness means their endurance which is how much damage they can take before they die off, again this is self explanatory and all that stuff just read the combat phase stuff when i can do it and it will be fine to understand this particular portion of a creature card.

Card Abilites - Lastly i wanna look at card abilites, each card has a specific ability and does something completely different, as there are no two cards that have the same unique ability, could range from haste to even destroying a permanent when a card comes into play, each card varies and it would take almost forever to describe each card ability in detail so go to wizards's youtube page to learn as much as you can bout the game i've provided the link in the last article.

Anyhoo that is all for this edition of the basics of Magic the Gathering, see you next time.

Magic the Gathering Basics Part 3: Card Abilites

Throughout the course of this series i've explained two things thus far how to get cards and the standard procedure on each player's turn now it's time to explain the card abilites and the more indepth look at the combat/blocking step of each player's turn. The article will focus on the card abilites and how they interact during the combat step and how some of them even affect the player itself.

There are a lot of keywords in magic that appear on cards and there are some terms in which most people have no clue what that specific term does, well it's time for the explanation there are 8 terms i wish to go over for this article that are the most common terms in the game and such appear in every single set to date including the first few sets of revised and the like, let's look at a few of these terms shall we?

Haste - As explained in my previous article haste gives the creature the ability to bypass summoning sickness which prevents a creature with summoning sickness to not attack on the first turn it is summoned regardless, this allows the creature to attack immediately when it is summoned to the field and is more apparent in red coloured cards then anything, though there are some other cards in other colours which have this ability, but it is more common in red then most.

Trample - Think of this ability as dealing direct combat damage even after a creature with this ability has been blocked, let's say you have a 5/5 beast token in play and you give it trample for the turn with Garruk Wildspeaker's Ability to give it a +3/+3 bonus and trample and a 0/6 creature blocks, you still deal 6 points of combat damage to the creature but the remaining 2 damage is dealt as direct to the opposing creature's controller and is subtracted from the life points of the controller, note all players will start at 20 life unless there are other forms of magic going on such as Elder Dragon Highlander and Two Headed Giant which i will explain the various forms next article.

Flying - This is a common ability among creatures that have wings, such as dragons, griffons and other mythical creatures, this allows a creature with this ability to go over non flying creatures and deal their damage directly unless another ability is used or a creature with flying is in play for the opposing player, let's say you have a 2/4 Darkslick Drake and your opponent controls a 3/3 Barrage Ogre that doesn't have flying, the darkslick drake can bypass the ogre and deal it's 2 points of damage as direct in this case and doesn't have to worry about being blocked in this case. Now let's take a look at the same creature the drake vs a actual flying creature in this case Kemba's Skyguard which also has flying and a enter the battlefield ability which i will explain later and in this case is a 2/2 which means it has 2 power and 2 toughness for those not able to follow along in common magic terms. If the drake was to declare a attack the Skyguard could block and prevent the damage the drake would deal, instead both creatures would clash, dealing 2 points of combat damage each and this would cause the skyguard to die since it deals only 2 points of damage to the drake which isn't enough to kill it but the drake would kill the skyguard sending it to the graveyard. This is just one of the examples of flying creatures and how they interact during the combat step.

Defender - Creatures with this ability on the card cannot attack at all and can only block other creatures this is a more common thing on the wall sub type of creature since walls are just well walls. Each particular wall though has a different toughness which is it's endurance and also has some different abilites let's look at the newest wall of magic Wall of Tanglecord this has defender and it's power is 0 and it's toughness is 6 in this case meaning it can block up to 6 points of combat damage before dying, it also has a mana ability where you can tap a green mana and block a creature with flying with this card. Though creatures with defender sometimes have abilites that cause them to lose defender and are able to attack this is not the case in most walls as there are only a select few walls that can actually declare a attack and have power such as Mirror Wall when you pay the 1 plains mana cost for it's ability to attack as it also has 3 power and 4 toughness, though this kind of ability is rare it's not always the case in magic and should be observed with patience and understanding, some walls even have first strike and flying such as one of my favorite walls of all time Illusionary Wall which also has defender, a power of 7 and a toughness of 4, though i will explain what first strike does soon.

First Strike - It's actually pretty common these days to see creatures with first strike on them and such, basically for those who don't know first strike damage is always applied first before regular combat damage so this is another combat step thing, let's look at a couple of examples of this prominent keyword with a first strike card called Baneslayer Angel which has a ton of keyword abilites in this case but we are only looking at first strike with this particular section of the article. When a creature with this ability clashes with a creature without first strike, creatures with first strike act first dealing their power in the form of damage to said creature so let's take a look at a combat example if say the Angel was to clash against a Cloud Elemental which doesn't have first strike in this case, when the angel attacks and the elemental blocks, the angel would get to deal enough damage to cripple or kill the elemental in this case since it's toughness is lower then the angel's power and the elemental wouldn't get to deal damage back to the angel instead it would get a one way trip to the graveyard. Now let's look at a prominent example of two first strikers in action, with the angel clashing against a Cloud Crusader which also has first strike and flying, so the angel declares a attack and the crusader blocks what happens you may wonder, well since both have first strike they would both deal damage simultaneously and would both have either been crippled or killed in battle, but since the angel has 5 toughness and the crusader only has 2 power the angel would survive and the angel deals 5 points of damage to the crusader's 3 toughness causing it to die, this is a useful example of this ability i would think and is sometimes questioned in game of course.

Lifelink - This keyword is more common these days then one would think with at least seven to 8 cards a set receiving this ability with various colours, costs and even types of creatures or spells in this case let's look at a few prominent lifelink cards in the game today. The first one we will be taking a look at is Child of Night which has 2 power and 1 toughness and it is a black card that costs 1 of any mana and one black mana to cast, each time this creature is either blocked or deals damage to anything in this case even a defender creature the lifelink keyword kicks in and causes you to gain as much life as the creature has power so if you were to be blocked by a 0/3 Wall of Vines while child of night was in play and declaring a attack you would gain 2 life and would still have a child of night in play, now let's look at combat damage and how it interacts with lifelink in this case with the child of night going against a Vulshok Berserker with the child of night on the defensive, both would essentally deal their respective points of damage to each other, but the child of night's lifelink ability kicks in and causes the controller of the vampire to gain 2 life while losing the creature and taking out the opposing creature since the Berserker deals 3 points of damage to the child of night and the child of night deals 2 damage which is just enough to kill the attacking creature.

Deathtouch - This actually is a ability which is one of my preferred favorites in the game of magic today and is common enough to earn a place on the list these days, since most new sets end up printing at least 3 to 4 things with this ability whether it would be creatures, artifacts or enchantments in this case with instants and sorceries sometimes being the lucky dog to get this keyword printed let's look at some of the more newly printed cards with this keyword. Wurmcoil Engine actually comes to the top of my mind when i think of this ability as it's brand new, it's a artifact creature at that and is just dangerous when it's in play as are all deathtouch creatures in the game but this is a exception, a creature with deathtouch only needs to deal a single point of combat damage to any other creature to kill it, in this case let's look at a few blocking examples. Let's say your opponent had a 2/2 Vulshok Heartstroker a 0/6 Wall of Tanglecord and a Trinket Mage with 2 power and 1 toughness and you controlled a wurmcoil engine with 6 power and 6 toughness and all three of these creatures were blocking, you would only need to deal a single point of combat damage to each of these creatures to kill them espically since you can divide combat damage among creatures that are blocking, so you would normally choose in this case to apply 1 point of combat damage to each creature blocking and you would take 4 points of combat damage on the engine but it would survive regardless, all three opposing creatures would get sent to the graveyard and you would have a 6/6 wurmcoil engine sitting on your side of the field, note though deathtouch only applies to creatures and not to players as you cannot instantly kill the opposing player with this ability otherwise it would be broken.

Double Strike - This is the last ability i am going to be looking at and this one is exactly as it says a creature with this ability deals twice the amount of damage it would normally deal, first strike damage and then regular combat damage would apply for a creature with this ability. Let's look at one here shall we in the form of True Conviction which is a enchantment that grants your creatures double strike and lifelink when it is on the field, now a creature with double strike if it is not blocked it deals twice the amount of damage in the form of it's power to the opposing player so let's say you have a 2/2 Snapsail Glider in play and it is attacking with this enchantment on the field, it would deal 2 times the damage in the form of it's power to the opposing player since first strike damage always goes first and then normal combat damage is applied in this case it would be 4 points of damage dealt and the player would lose 4 life points. This ability also interacts with creatures as well so let's take the glider again and pit it against a 5/5 Steel Hellkite which also has flying so when the glider attacks it would deal it's 2 points of first strike damage to the hellkite and then normal combat damage kicks in and both creatures would deal their respective damage in the form of power to the opposing creature meaning the hellkite would survive however the glider would die since it only has 2 toughness and the hellkite has 5 meaning it has more then enough to take a double strike from a 2/2 creature in this case, there are lots of examples with this ability which are explained a lot easier in some cases.

Well that concludes this part of the series, for more information on the other abilites in game i would suggest you refer to wizards of the coast youtube page at the following link Wizards of the Coast Youtube and check out the abilites and some of the video examples of how some abilites mentioned here interact including a how to guide on the newer sets including Scars of Mirrodin, till next article i'm vergil and this has been part 3 of the MTG basics ability how to guide.