The UMW Magic: the Gathering Community

Star City Games Prerelease in Richmond:

9/25/2010

All the info can be found here

Forming carpools now!! jwolfe@mail.umw.edu

It has been awhile, but I am finally back to school and that means more Magic blogging in the enchanted land of Fredericksburg!

Wizards’ announcement last week has left many of my circle of mages wondering the future of extended as a format and the future of Magic in general. It seems that extended, once a format with character all its own, has now been relegated to a status of “Super Standard”*. Naya and Jund will undoubtedly play with ‘goyfs, Faeries becomes the premier black/blue deck build with the killing of Thephs and some aggro variants e.g. Boros and RDW translate to the format with little change.

True these decks may exist in one form or another in the upcoming standard season, but will they be as effective as they were in standard? That will be the real test. Recall if you will the Affinity summer of 2003 or ’04, I believe…before the banning of Skullclamp. Everyone, except me , was playing RavAffinity at Regionals and to put it simply it was gross!! It could draw cards, make you lose a ton of life and take a ton of damage faster than you could blink.

A month later Disciple and Skullclamp were banned and the format calmed, then as Mirrodin cycled into extended and now into legacy, the deck never had the power and dominance that it enjoyed for that one summer.

This proves two things: 1, banned and restricted lists exists to ensure parity amongst the deck types within a particular format. If one deck style or build dominates it makes the entire format un-fun to play. The DCI and Wizards aren’t malevolent entities that arbitrarily want to make your collection obsolete, they make decisions in the best interests of the game. To keep challenging deck builders and players skills and to ensure hyper-competitive matches. Not formats in which a question to be asked of a player would be: What 3 or 4 different cards are you playing with? (See World Championships 2000).

2, we as players should welcome new creative opportunities. I know I have asked myself this question on many occasions during deck construction “this card would be great in this deck”. The Heartbreaking thing would be that it would be a card that recently cycled out of standard and that would be the type of deck I was building. After Lorwyn cycled out I had the guts of Doran, Faeries and 5cc in the old slush box waiting to be used again. A bigger, but smaller card pool (if that makes any sense at all) allows for deck building creativity and a challenge. the less reliant on older sets we are, the more evolving (and challenging) the format becomes!

That’s why I believe extended was created in the first place: to be a competitive format with a larger card pool, but that still would be evolves, but not as quickly as standard. Four years of cards instead of seven should do exactly that. If people want to call extended “Super Standard” I won’t stop you, but if one thing is sure about Magic each format takes on a character and environment that is its own and, given a chance, the new extended will do just that…

*Coined by a Herr S. @ UMW, used with permission

I was trolling through the Wizards website on Sunday night and found the dates for three PTQ’s in metro area. One in Chantilly and two in Rockville.

One of the dates is GP: Washington, D.C.; the other two in Rockville are just regular PTQ’s. Dates, format, venue and contact information can be found on the DCI website here: PTQ: Amsterdam

Or as James Tiberius Kirk would say, “Sarkhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!”

I was looking through the partial Eldrazi spoiler on mtgsalvation.com and saw this newest planeswalker to hit Magic. Immediately I started foaming at the mouth at the sheer versatility of the card!! It’s three abilities are enough to make anyone utter a Kirk-esque sentiment.

The first ability lets you draw a free card when Sarkhan becomes low on loyalty; the second, when combined with  Master of the Wild Hunt and Siege-gang Commander lets you take dink tokens and make mighty dragons; and the third ability puts you over the top when combined with Broodmate Dragon and Dragon Tokens in a raging salvo of dragon fire. In short: GAME OVER.

My first thought was: as if Jund needs another weapon, but he fits Jund’s color scheme too perfectly to not warrant at least testing. Furthermore, you could drop a couple of Sarkhan the  Mad in a B/R Goblin or a BDW deck and you get valuable, late game finshers at a low price!!

In a month’s time, I predict players will be saying: “Jace who?” and will once and for all solidify Jund as the top choice for Standard this summer.

Eldrazi pre-release at Character Vaults will be on April 17 starting at noon. Travis, one of the owners, said that he has to keep holding side-events until all of the product is gone.

Therefore there is a main event of sealed deck (6 packs) starting at noon. With intro-pack two-headed and booster drafts starting around 2pm until the product is gone!!

The cost is $25 for the main event, side events are at the cost of product. Plenty of promo foils to go around, so clear your calendars!!

If you need to satisfy your Eldrazi urge, a partial spoiler is available here:

http://mtgsalvation.com/rise-of-the-eldrazi-spoiler.html

All images and likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast and its parent company

Grand Prix in D.C., May 22-23 2010

Will be held at the Dulles Expo and Conference Center in Chantilly. Promo is an Umezawa’s Jitte (while supplies Last)!

More information is available on the Wizards website: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/event/grandprix/washingtondc10

According to the Star City Games website, Star City Games Open-Baltimore standard (type 2) portion will be held on Saturday, November 20, 2010 with a Legacy event held on November 21st. A complete listing of all of the events at the Baltimore Open is posted on the Star City Games website.

That information can be found here: http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?t=320999&sid=ca4caa25c55de1e957b8024b22be0084

The next set after “Rise of the Eldrazi” will be legal then, as well as a new base set. Alara block will have cycled out. Therefore, we should organize playtest groups in the fall to get ready.