Ooo...Kay...So NOT Wednesday Night Cube Draft Videos

Sorry again guys. No videos yet. I'll try during the day Thursday but no promises. I'll get them up Friday even if it kills me! (...okay, not so literally, but you get it. :p  )

*Sigh* Cube Videos TOMORROW.

Hello!
  The Cube videos are gonna have to wait. My video editing software decided it didn't want to do what I wanted so I missed the opportunity to get them up today. I'll work on it tonight, but I'd say tomorrow afternoon's the best I can do, maybe tomorrow night.

Sorry for the long delays.

Scars of Mirrodin Spoiler Released! Plus Reprint Roundup

It's here! It's here!

The official Visual Spoiler is now updated with all the cards in Scars of Mirrodin! Check it out here: Official Scars of Mirrodin Visual Spoiler

As promised, though, I said I'd give you a reprint roundup to see what you don't have to spend money on here if you've already got the cards. And I may even be nice and give you some Scars of Mirrodin/M11/Zendikar-block Standard applications for them.

I count a total of XX reprints, so let's go ahead and get started...after the jump!

Coming Soon: Full SOM Spoiler, Tournament Schedule, Cube Videos

How's everyone doing today?

I thought I'd better get some business out of the way while it was still fresh on my mind (and I had the energy to post it. :p  ).

A)  SCARS OF MIRRODIN SPOILER

The full spoiler for Scars of Mirrodin comes out tonight at midnight. If you're going to a Pre-Release this weekend (where you can get that nice Wurmcoil Engine. ;)  ;)  ), you might want to scope out the spoiler and see what you think will be good, great, and not so hot. A little preparation may go a long way in the Sealed Deck format.

In the next few days, I'll post a re-cap of the reprints (and one "pre-print" from Future Sight finally seeing the light of legitimate day) before the Pre-Release.

B) SCHEDULE UPDATE
I'm updating the schedule here to include a few off-weekends and to schedule new tournaments. (The full updated schedule is just below the list of changes.)

Changes include:
1) OFF WEEKEND this weekend. Some of us are going up to Dicehead in Cleveland for their Pre-Release (yeah, we're cardboard crack addicts. At least we admit it!).

2) Our next tournament is our Scars of Mirrodin Post-Release on October 9th. $8 entry fee gets you 3 packs of Scars of Mirrodin from which we'll draft. Prizes are as usual, and if Organized Play in Knoxville comes through like they have the last few sets we'll have Steel Hellkites and Wurmcoil Engines to give away! I'll probably buy at least 1 of each though if I can't confirm how many of each we may get, so we'll have at least one of each promo ready to hand out.

3) October 23rd is now a Casual Day. The next tournament will be October 30th.


SMM SCHEDULE

SEPTEMBER
9/25: Scars of Mirrodin Pre-Release Event at Dicehead Games & Comics. $25 Entry Fee, which should include 6 packs of Scars of Mirrodin (for Sealed Play) and the Pre-Release foil Wurmcoil Engine. Tournament starts at 6:00, so be prepared for a long day.

OCTOBER
10/2: Casual Day
10/9: Scars of Mirrodin "Release" Draft, details TBD
10/16: Casual Day
10/23: Casual Day
10/30: Tournament Format TBD, may do some kind of Halloween special but I'm not sure yet.




C) CUBE DRAFT VIDEOS
I recorded gameplay videos from the Cube Draft we did this past weekend. I'll post those sometime before the Pre-Release. 


Enjoy the remainder of Scars of Mirrodin Spoiler Season! And be sure to check out the full SOM spoiler starting at midnight. It's sure to be a great rest of the set!

SOM Preview 3! How far can a 0-mana creature go? And more!

Welcome back all!

I haven't had much time to update during spoiler season (stupid classes...), but I've cut into the day a bit and found some stuff to give you that you might enjoy!

First off, though, I've gotta give you hints.

1) Counterspell may yet see the light of day in Standard...thanks to a new mechanic.
2) See the title of this post.

3) Could Sleeping be dangerous for your opponent? They may wake up to find nothing left.
4) Masticore reincarnated? Hmm...it looks like we found a way around the Reserved List, then...





The previews and impressions...after the jump!

The Un-Wound (Delayed) Tournament Report

Hey there guys! Sorry for the lack of tournament reports. School's started back up and, honestly, I just haven't had the energy to get reports up.


But I figured I better get this up since, well, that was part of the reason for this blog: to get interest built up from those who don't know about us.

So after a week of waiting...here's the Un-Wound Tournament Report!


(Duh-duh-Duuuuuhhhh!)

Tiff set this up as a Sealed Deck tournament: She split her Un- set stuff (along with a few oddball regular cards) into 5 piles, one for each color (plus some random artifacts for each deck). We determined our colors by random die roll. After we got built up and shuffled up, it was off to Crazy Town!

Of course, a visit to Crazy Town wouldn't complete without a soundtrack. Included for Tiff's Crazy Town? Well, when "Bananaphone" makes the soundtrack, expect some crazy song choices!

You know what else was crazy? Butt-Head  from the cult classic Beavis and Butt-Head decided to play!

Heh..Heheheeeh!!

Oops! Sorry folks, it's just Mick. It's so easy to get the two confused. :p

So we start, and you'd think in a format where we're forced into one color it'd be apparent after the first turn what everyone's playing.

Julian: Plains
Tiff: Mountain
Preston: Swamp
Mick: Forest
Wayne: ... Swamp?

Ha! Trickery is among us. If only Tiff hadn't put a Hooded Kavu in my Red pile...

We're also doing a mix of Planechase and Archenemy (everyone starting at 40 life). Everyone remembers the Archenemy scheme flip, no problem! It's the Planechase we're having issues with. It took a full turn around the table until someone remembered to roll the Planar Die...and Planeswalks off the bat! (Except we don't really use the Planes that much, so they don't pop up unless it was game-breaking for one of us).

So we're all getting set up. Mick starts his creature horde with Vile Bile thanks to his Marionetting skills. Still in the early stages, we even saw a nearly 100 Life total! Wayne flipped My Wish is Your Command and looked at Mick's hand...and Mick happened to have Granny's Payback ready and waiting. All of a sudden Wayne shoots from around 40 to over 90! Already we're worried; we've said we'd base tiebreakers on kill count first and life points second, so if the game goes to time Wayne just won it.

All of a sudden, we've all got a new target.

I start the assault by taking out one of his Swamps with Touch and Go, trying to delay his land setup. Of course, I'm a serious player. I don't expect to get the weird and wacky stuff off. I mean, usually everyone's pretty guarded with "Gotcha!" cards.

Not today...

Gotcha!

So of course, I go after another land trying to stall him again. As we're going around the table, I've got a 5/5 Dragon token, 5 1/1 Saprolings, a couple other creatures, all ready to take to the red zone against Wayne.

Then I have to Behold the Power of Mick's Destruction.

As I'm starting over, Julian's building up Cardpeckers and a Bosom Buddy to help gain life, Wayne's got a few creatures out, and Tiff's not doing so hot with just a Carniverous Death-Parrot and/or a Bursting Beebles. It looks like we can put a pretty good hurting on Wayne...

Then Mick Masterstrokes everyone but still tosses what he can toward Wayne. Still, with time starting to run out, he's still got too much life for us to do much to him.

I try building up again, getting a couple Dumb Asses on the board, Julian has a Cardpecker and a couple other creatures out, Tiff's still hurting for creatures. We're ready to go at it with Wayne, but nature shields its enemy instead of its own. Julian also gets this scheme going, giving the Eanes clan a near-permanent protection from most attacks.

But that set-up was just in time for Mick to Masterstroke again. This time, though, all our life totals are fairly low and Mick decides if he's going to lose based on life totals he'd just do whatever damage he could and take out whoever he can.

Which is a great way to accept defeat...if it wasn't defeat at all. By this time, we've Planeswalked all the way to the Kamigawa plane and landed in Sokenzan. The attack power's definitely in Mick's favor.

Mick attacks and takes out no one. Which would be fine by him, as he's just doing whatever damage he can do.

Mick takes his free Planechase die roll...

(drum roll...)

CHAOS!

Mick untaps and gets ready to attack. I'm around 5 life, maybe a bit more, so I do something unorthodox.

I touch Vile Bile.

That takes me to within 5 life, enough for the Dumb Asses alone to kill me.

Why do that?

Guess what happened at the end of Mick's turn?

TIME!

Mick took out Tiff and Julian before time was called, but 1 kill was all he needed.

Final score, 3-0-0-0-0, Mick's favor.

Mick wins Un-Wound!


For his effort, Mick got a Jace Beleren out of an M11 pack split. That's one of the few Planeswalkers he has, so I was happy he got a card he could use.


I hope you enjoyed the first tournament report in a while! If you've got any comments, complaints, questions, oddball mumbo-jumbo, anything, feel free to E-mail me: CardGameNut@gmail.com . I've finally got my junk filter sorted out so I'll see your message fairly quickly.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend!

Scars Previews Day 2! Planeswalker, New and Returning Mechanics

I told ya I'd be back today with more previews. Seriously, you've got to trust me a bit more on getting fast updates done. (hears from the crowd "Yeah right!"...and they'd have a point.)

Today I'm doing the same format as the last update: 1 Common, 1 Uncommon, 1 Rare, and 1 Mythic Rare.

And aren't you all in for a doozy!

But first, some hints to get you to want to read on (not like the promise of spoilers isn't enough, but this makes it just a tad bit more exciting!)

1) A new mechanics that, like Affinity, cares about how many artifacts you control.
2) A Mirrodin mechanic makes its return here...and no, I'm not cheating with using a mechanic that simply originated in Mirrodin.
3) A functional reprint of a favorite Kamigawa block Sorcery.
4) This Planeswalker's been seen in different forms in the storyline...but now our Shaper Savant gets his well-deserved spark.

Find out what these hints mean...after the jump!

Scars of Mirrodin Previews

It's that time again! That time that comes every 3-4 months when a new set comes around.

Time for Scars of Mirrodin spoilers!

The next few days, I'll get one card each at Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare to preview per post.

We've already had a few hints as to what'll come around, so here are a few teasers for you over the next few days to keep you watching:

1) An original Mirrodin mechanic comes back.
2) Of course we have new Planeswalkers! One may even use a recent new templating to allow you to do something Celestial Purge could only do conditionally.
3) A small creature that's never been done before. (HINT: It might involve the word "Free" in one way or another)
4) Of course we have new mechanics, too. One even requires you to keep track of your artifact count.
5) The Pre-Release promo is an upgrade on a recent Magic 2011 new card.

We present you with the first batch of official spoilers...after the jump!

Updated Schedule: Dicehead SOM Pre-Release and Cube Schedule Shuffle

It's a new month, which means we've got a new schedule!

We're still doing our American Pride Day on 9/11. Instead of staying at home and wallowing over the day, do what the terrorists don't want you to do, which is enjoy your freedom and go on with your lives. I know it may sound like an extremist Republican saying, but I feel that's as real as it gets.

So we'll enjoy our freedom with the Magic: The Gathering version of a "Thank You" to those who serve our country.

The basic rules are simple: Bring in a deck that contains only Red, White, and/or Blue cards (determined by mana cost)* and play with that deck to get 1 free pack of Magic 2011!

We're talking about going to the Scars of Mirrodin Pre-Release up at Dicehead in Cleveland. If we do, we're going to re-arrange our schedule to fit with a regular who can only come down once every two weeks. To do this, we're moving the 3rd Cube Draft up to September 18th. I've got the cards I want to add to this Cube, so we're ready from that standpoint. The Cube Draft was scheduled for October 2nd, so this move makes that a free day.

Everything else stays the same, including our normal local post-Release event for Scars of Mirrodin.

So now...The Schedule!

SEPTEMBER
9/11: American Pride Day. Show up and play with a deck consisting of only Red, White, and Blue cards and get a free pack of M11!*
9/18: Cube Draft 3, including a special set of additions for this round.**
9/25: Scars of Mirrodin Pre-Release Event at Dicehead Games & Comics. We'll meet at the church at 10:00 and go straight to Dicehead (those who live closer to Cleveland just go straight on). $25 Entry Fee, which should include 6 packs of Scars of Mirrodin (for Sealed Play) and the Pre-Release foil. Tournament starts at 6:00, though, so be prepared for a long day. (Yes, if we're going for the promo card, it's best we be there extra early to ensure we've got a card.).

OCTOBER
10/2: Casual Day
10/9: Scars of Mirrodin "Release" Draft, details TBD
10/16: Casual Day
10/23: Tournament, Format TBD.
10/30: Casual Day, may do some kind of Halloween special deal but I'm not sure yet.


*Details of this promotion are updated from last week:

1) Colorless artifact cards are okay so long as they A) could produce at least 1 of the 3 colors or B) have activation costs requiring colored costs of at least 1 of the 3 colors.

2) Multi-color cards are okay as long as they are at least 2 of the 3 colors and only those colors. For example, Lightning Helix is okay since it's R/W, but Woolly Thoctar isn't because it has Green in its cost.

3) Lands that provide multiple colors of mana are okay as long as they could produce at least 1 of the 3 colors.

4) *ADDITION* The spirit of this theme day is to allow Red, White, and Blue cards to shine. But by allowing cards that could generate Green and/or Black mana, you could include White cards that have Green abilities and utilize off-color abilites. To close this loophole, any Green or Black mana produced is instead treated as Colorless. For example, Seaside Citadel provides either Green, White, or Blue mana. If you choose "Green", instead it produces 1 Colorless mana.

Scars of Mirrodin "Leak": Mana Myr Cycle Returns

Those who got advanced copies of Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret I don't think noticed this little tidbit.

Well, no one but one of the MTGSalvation posters.

Take a look at part of the deck sheet for Tezzeret's side of the deck. (Picture from this MTGSalvation post):

See it yet?

Look 4 cards down at Silver Myr.

Now look at what sets the sheet says it's from.

Yeah buddy! A Scars of Mirrodin preview!

It looks like we'll be getting the "Myr Moxen" back from Mirrodin.

Say hello to him and his little friends!

Because they're reprints in a new set, they'll probably have new artwork. It'll be fun to see what they do with the Myr in Scars of Mirrodin, AKA "Mirrans vs. Phyrexia".

Cube Poll: Edition Preferences of Older Cards

(NOTE: All pictures come from http://magiccards.info 's database except the From the Vaults Sol Ring, which is from Kelley Reid of QuietSpeculation.com ) 

Good day, everyone!

Today I want to get a feel for how people feel about the Cube Drafting. Specifically, I'm curious how I should be updating the Cube with different versions of cards.

The Cube is interesting because not only does it represent the general best of Magic but also the personalities of the players who build and play it. Does the person building it love broken cards? In go Time Walk, Sol Ring, Winter Orb, Yawgmoth's Will, etc. Does the player base love newer power cards? Grave Titan, Enclave Cryptologist, and others might be fairly plentiful.

But one thing all Cubists agree on is "We want our Cube to be uber-pimp!!!"

So then we go...what's cool enough to be "pimp"?

Let's take, for example, Black Knight.

I think we can all agree that a card as classic as Black Knight shouldn't have its M10/M11 artwork in the Cube unless there's no way around it:

New modernistic art and reminder text? For the Cube...BLECH!

And ever since White Bordered cards were introduced, "1337" players have hated White Bordered cards, so any version in a Core Set after Beta and not a promo is out:

Nice...if it were black bordered. :(

So what is cool enough to make it in? Generally...

A) Killer artwork, even if it's on a newer-framed card.

B) Foils.

C) The oldest version available in Black Borders (when not ridiculously high in price).

For Black Knight, then, that leaves two versions:

1) Alpha/Beta

2) An FNM Foil with this older artwork and no reminder text:

This may be fairly easy. I'd be tempted to go with Alpha as that's the oldest printing. BUT...if I wanted to "bling" the deck out and be super-shiny wherever possible, I'd be tempted to go with the FNM promo (especially since it uses the original artwork and is still old bordered).

Now let's introduce Sol Ring in.

Sol Ring's had 3 versions available:

1) Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised (here, White Border is pretty well a necessity since Alpha/Beta versions are too expensive, but the older the better, even if it's White Bordered):

The oldest White-Bordered (read: "reasonably priced") Sol Ring from Unlimited.

Then, you've got the Judge Promo. Even though it's the newer 8th Edition border/framing, it's the iconic artwork from Alpha with a beautiful foil artifact frame.

Iconic Art + Foil New-Frame Artifact = ZOMG!!!

AND THEN...we've got the new From the Vault: Relics version with new art but still looking sexy as all get out.

DAMN!!! Stop making sexy foil artwork, Wizards!

I think you see the dilemma now among Cube builders. When we go to upgrade the Cube to its absolute best, we go "...so which version is best? Which one will WOW! my players, maybe even influencing if they'll even play it and build around it in order to get it to work?"

So here's the poll:

If I'm looking to update the Cube for you all and I'm battling between different versions of cards, what's your order of preference of what's considered "cool"/"pimp"/"shiny"?

1) Old Cards with Black Borders: The older, the better...especially if the card's older than me!

2) Foil Cards: Ohh, shiny!!!!  *drools* I don't care if it's new art or new border or whatever, just...SHINY!!!

3) Whatever works: The card's function doesn't change just because it's Old or Foil, so it doesn't matter to me.

Just leave a comment or E-mail me directly (cardgamenut@gmail.com) and let your voice be heard! I want to have the most fun Cube experience possible, even down to what versions of the cards you'd love to see.

(PS: Just because you're not in the area or don't come to SMM, don't think your input's less influential. I'd love whatever opinions I can get. :)  )