About the Return to Ravnica Prerelease

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I started going to prereleases when we were first introduced to Mirrodin. Since then, I can count the number of prereleases I’ve missed on one hand:

  • Saviors of Kamigawa (Not interested)
  • Coldsnap (Not interested)
  • Eventide (Married a few weeks before)
  • New Phyrexia (Other obligation)
  • M13 (Out of town)

For those of you counting at home, that’s 28 of 33 prereleases since Mirrodin that I’ve attended. I’ve seen changes such as the introduction of Mythics as promo cards to have them be just Rares again. I used to go to the large prereleases until WotC stopped supporting them and now prereleases are held in local gaming stores (This is not the time to talk about this). Needless to say, I’ve got some experience when it comes to these events. Since I don’t do much competitive play, the prerelease is one of the only times scheduled on my calendar that gets priority over almost everything else (PAX is right there too).

They all had the same basic set up: you get 3 packs of the new set and 3 of the large set in the block (or 6 packs if it was the large set). In the past several years, WotC has pushed the prerelease to be an event, not just an opportunity to get the cards early. You can see this in the three “gimmicks” that have happened in the past three years:

  • Mirrodin Besieged: “Choose Phyrexian vs Mirrian”
  • Avacyn Restored: “Open the Helvault”
  • Return to Ravnica: “Guild Box”

All three are based on the same aspect: the opportunity to experience part of the storyline. With Mirrodin Besieged, there were more players, not just Vorthos’, caring about the storyline than any other point in the game. With the Helvault, people were wondering what was inside for the swag we were going to get.

That was the worst prerelease experience I had ever experienced.

Continue reading “About the Return to Ravnica Prerelease”

The RTR PAX Party

That’s a Breeding Pool. Can you make it out, internet? Believe me!

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Probably the most entertaining portion happened later in the night. The Rakdos dance floor was packed as the DJ was spinning song after song. A larger member of the Gruul guild had climbed up onto the stage and started dancing, exposing the tattooed Gruul symbol on his chest. The Rakdos faithful went wild. The eyes of the Azorius, Boros and Selesnya were watching from their higher ground\ trying to decipher the madness below them. The Orzhov were behind the stage, playing games; Golgari were the gate keepers to who came in an left the party. Meanwhile, the Simic were trying their hand with new drink concoctions, the Izzet were steampunking around and the Dimir, hidden from view, were trying to assassinate everyone.

This was the Return to Ravnica PAX party. And I honestly wish you were there.

I’m not gloating that I got to go and you didn’t. I happen to live in the area that both PAX and WotC make their home so it is shear luck that I’m able to do this. I kept getting requests for a link to a live stream of the party so they could watch on their computer, but there isn’t one. It’s a party, and even though I’m a fan of people watching, staring at a computer screen of people dancing, talking while music pumps in the background isn’t much fun. This isn’t a panel where people speak and there’s a Q&A afterwards, this is a full blown party.

With cage dancers.

We’ll get back to them in a moment.

Continue reading “The RTR PAX Party”

Story Blocks

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Editor’s Note: Sorry for the lack of any new work lately. I’ve been enjoying time with the baby, but time flies fast. I have enough half written columns that I really need to get something up. I’m looking to do an “All new content” week early in September that will include my almost usual PAX write up (as well as a final redo of the way this blog looks). There will also be new content from me on GatheringMagic as well. You don’t want to hear about personal stuff,  you just want Magic. Alright, here we go.

The riskiest block structure that WotC ever printed was the Ravnica Block. So, by revisiting that plane years later we’re going to get something even more out there. WotC hopes that they strike gold again; I have no doubt that they will. But to understand everything going on we need to return not to Ravnica but to Mirage, the first Block set. From there we can put together all of the pieces that has lead to WotC doing something so drastically different that it could cause some trouble. We’ll get to the history in a moment, but if you didn’t see the San Diego Comic Con panel (and you can with that link), here are the important details. The old Ravnica block looked like this: However, this coming block looks like this: Both Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash are large sets, so the drafting experience goes like this: And what we have here is the biggest and most ambitious set and block design that WotC has ever attempted exceeding the most “complex” block ever: Time Spiral. And how did we get here? Let’s take a history lesson. Continue reading “Story Blocks”

Evidence for Actual Dual Lands in Return to Ravnica

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I hate speculation. It’s a waste of time.

So of course, I’m kinda doing it here. Why? Because we all wanted the Ravnica Dual Lands to be reprinted in M13. They weren’t. I argued last year why that was ok, and I’m still sticking to those points. With, sigh, a “Return to Ravnica” around the corner, we know it’s going to be a multi-colored set (Zac Hill even said as much today). It wasn’t a surprise, that’s the plane; it’s like going back to Mirrodin and having us care about the Graveyard. Flavor just doesn’t work that way.

Back to speculation. Sometimes you have no facts to back it up, but just a “gut feeling.” Everywhere people were talking about how Noble Hierarch was “Absolutely” going to be in M13 since they brought back Exalted. “Why not? It fit the name/number crunch and Exalted was in the set.” That was all the evidence that people needed. The evidence against was A) Exalted was only seen in White and Black (The other returning mechanics had splashes), and B) no three colors were ever seen on a card, unless they dealt with Nicol Bolas (Blue/Black/Red). Obviously pushing a Bant card in a set with no “Bant” wasn’t going to happen.

We have evidence though for Dual Lands with Basic Land types for Return to Ravnica. Evidence in this Core Set, M13. We know this because Wizards puts cards in the Core Set that work with the Block printed before, and after (though mostly after). That’s another post in itself, but you get things like Index (helps Miracles) and Disciple of Bolas (Undying and Morbid) that help out the previous block. What “evidence” do we have this time? What could possibly happen that would make me believe that Dual Lands are going to happen in Return to Ravnica.

Because of the increase use of the Basic Land type in M13.

Continue reading “Evidence for Actual Dual Lands in Return to Ravnica”

Ten Lords a Leapin’

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This is more of an info dump, but when I saw the card on the right, I had to do some digging.

Frank Lepore on TCGPlayer.com previewed this little gem today. If you notice, it’s very similar to Lord of Atlantis with the only difference being that it benefits your creatures instead of everyone’s. This is nothing new and something that WotC has been doing for years. But it is a little disheartening to see this guy printed.

Why?

I’m not against “Strictly better” cards; the game will need them as time goes on. I’m sure that none of you care that Elite Vanguard is “strictly better” than Savannah Lions (except the few Cat lovers out there. Wait, what am I saying, this is the internet, of course you’re Cat lovers).

Some of this boils down to Blue getting “good” creatures and, well, Merfolk don’t really need the help.

Continue reading “Ten Lords a Leapin’”