Edge of Exile Entertainment (EOE) earlier this week revealed its plans to release its next set for Genesis: Battle of Champions. And that path is taking it back to Kickstarter, this time to hopefully launch its latest set by raising the CA$40,000 needed to get the set printed. The company first teased Metamorphosis last year. EOE’s first attempt to get the set printed through Kickstarter unfortunately came up short and the company took some time to regroup and plan its next move. Whereas last year’s failed campaign tried to raise funds without directly selling booster boxes, this time, the new set is the main attraction.
The Kickstarter campaign is expected to start on Friday, July 25th around 0800 ET. It will offer a number of pledge tiers, all of which will include at least one booster box of the new set. Backers will also get the new cards some six weeks before the set hits stores in early 2026. Let’s take a closer look at the campaign.
The first tier will allow you to buy a Booster Box with 24 packs for CA$95 (plus shipping), a healthy markdown over the $120 MSRP.
The next tier, the Starter Bundle, will include a booster box, a Kickstarter exclusive playmat (your choice of vertical or horizontal orientation) and the five mono-coloured starter decks released last year. It will cost CA$225.
The next tier is geared at local gaming stores who are signed up for the organized play program. It will offer a Booster case (6 booster boxes) for CA$450. Players looking for a booster case will be able to pick one up with the next tier for CA$510 (or CA$85 per box).
The last tier is known as the Mega Bundle. It consists of a case of Metamorphosis as well as a case of Origins, a case of Jaelara: Second Edition, a Kickstarter Exclusive playmat (in the orientation of your choice) and a surprise gift.
Needless to say, the Kickstarter campaign will have some stretch goals. They have so far teased a few of these, starting with one at CA$75,000 and running up to CA$345,022. Why that specific amount for that last tier? Because it is exactly CA$1 more than the first successful Genesis: Battle of Champions Kickstarter campaign back in 2022.
Metamorphosis promises a whole new set of cards along with some new mechanics. So far, we know that there will be a new Equipment card type which will attach itself to champions to give them new or improved capabilities as well as dual-sided transforming cards. With the launch now possibly only a few months away, I expect that we will soon find out more about the set as well.
Quick reminder, the Kickstarter campaign should start around 0800 ET on Friday, July 25th.
Magic’s latest set, Final Fantasy, has now been out for three weeks. As with every other Standard set, let’s take a look and see what new cards I may be able to add to my typal Standard B01 Orzhov Cleric deck in a bid to finally transform it into a first tier deck. The first Universes Beyond set to be Standard legal brings six new Clerics to the table.
As always, a number of them can be immediately skipped over as they don’t fit into the Orzhov colours. That does not mean that they don’t have potential. Yuna, Hope of Spira, in particular, could fit nicely into a Selesnya enchantments deck.
Back to our deck, we have three Clerics that could fit into the deck. Let’s take a closer look at these.
Aerith Gainsborough certainly could be a good fit. Lifelink helps power some of the other Clerics in the deck. Any tokens it gains can be saved when she dies if I have a legendary creature on the board. Without any protection, I have a feeling that Aerith is simply too vulnerable. And the limited number of legendary creatures means that I may not be able to save those counters to make it worthwhile. I may swap out two Annex Sentries to see how she would fare in its place.
Rosa, Resolute White Mage, is another card that seems decent at first glance Giving creatures a +1/+1 counter and lifelink until end of turn fits well into the deck. At a cost of , I’m not sure I want to cut Roaming Throne for this card. Then again, it might be time for some experimentation. Let’s try it!
Finally, here is a card that I have been excited about since I first saw it. Minwu, White Mage, is definitely going into the deck so that I can see if she is as good as she seems to be. Right out of the gate, she comes with vigilance and lifelink. So far, so good but whenever I gain life, she allows me to put a +1/+1 counter on each Cleric I control. That could end some games. The only downside is her cost. At , this is not a cheap card to cast.
Final Fantasy comes with another goodie for Clerics. There are two equipment spells that can turn any creature into a Cleric. While only one fits an Orzhov deck, this is definitely an interesting development. Both White Mage’s Staff and Sage’s Nouliths turn creatures into Clerics while they are equipped. The job select mechanic means that both enter already attached to a Hero Cleric and both have nice upside when they attack.
My first instinct is to not include White Mage’s Staff simply because so many of the other Clerics already have lifelink. But again, this may need to be validated in the lab of gameplay first.
One other change I made to the deck was to remove Fell in favour of Exorcise. Both work at Sorcery speed but the latter gives me more options to target.
One last change: I cut the Krumar Initiates in favour of Authority of the Consuls. It should slow my opponent down a bit and give my Clerics deck a bit more time for the pieces to fall into place and hopefully take control of the game.
Here is the latest version of my Standard B01 Orzhov Cleric deck:
Deck
2 Go for the Throat (BRO) 102
3 Evolved Sleeper (DMU) 93
3 Shadow-Rite Priest (DMU) 106
2 Loran’s Escape (BRO) 14
3 Essence Channeler (BLB) 12
3 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim (DMU) 198
3 Phyrexian Missionary (DMU) 27
2 Authority of the Consuls (FDN) 137
3 Preacher of the Schism (LCI) 113
2 Rosa, Resolute White Mage (FIN) 555
2 Cut Down (DMU) 89
2 Minwu, White Mage (FIN) 26
2 Anointed Peacekeeper (DMU) 2
2 Exorcise (DSK) 8
2 Aerith Gainsborough (FIN) 4
2 Cavern of Souls (LCI) 269
1 The Dross Pits (ONE) 251
1 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244
1 The Fair Basilica (ONE) 252
8 Plains (THB) 250
3 Scoured Barrens (IKO) 254
6 Swamp (THB) 252
2 Valgavoth’s Lair (DSK) 271
Sideboard (or cards I may want to bring back into the deck later)
The Final Fantasy pre-release marked the beginning of a new era in our family. It was the first one where I went alone as Christian was working and Noah decided that he had/has no interest in this set and that it does not exist. “It’s a summer without new Magic sets,” he declared some time back.
I knew from the hype leading to the launch that this would be a huge set. The fact that it was the best-selling set ever even before it officially launched certainly suggested as such. But it really hit home as I listened to players around me talking about playing the video game through all of its different versions. I was definitely in the minority as someone who has never played this game.
And then came the moment to start building!
I cracked my packs and laid out my cards. Three cards immediately stood out for me: Jecht, Reluctant Guardian which flips into a 7/7 creature saga, Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant, my only mythic and another creature saga, and Firion, Wild Rose Warrior. My White was not particularly strong but had some decent removal and had Moogle’s Valor, a card that looked like fun.
I quickly ruled out Blue as it had nothing that called out to me. Green was not much better despite having a few cards, including some saga creatures but none that flipped. I was not convinced that these would be strong enough as they were not long for the board.
I’ve not had much luck in the past with three colours so looked to build a two-colour deck but I had only two spells in that colour and neither was particularly good. Red was strong, particularly with a Suplex as one of the better removal spells in the set. I caved and went three colours to get some white removal and smooth out my curve a little bit. To be honest, I was not exactly feeling my deck. It felt like I was trying to do a lot with it and I wondered how it would all come together.
One card that I had hoped to find was Minwu, White Mage. It was not necessarily for the pre-release but for my Clerics decks. More on that card in an upcoming post.
My first round was against a player who was coming back to Magic because of Final Fantasy. He had stopped playing some years back but the new set drew him back. He played what looked like a Selesnya deck that promised some big creatures.
A few cards came through for me as I won the first game: Mysidian Elder and more importantly, the 0/1 black Wizard token who would ping him for one every time I cast a noncreature spell, Red Mage’s Rapier with the Job select mechanic that would immediately attach the Equipment to a Hero token, and Moogle’s Valor.
The second game went pretty much the same way. It turns out that my opponent was playing three colours but his mana did not cooperate for this first round. I ran into him later and his deck did work better after our games.
For me, it was a first round win – Something that has not happened in a while!
My second round was against an Izzet deck. There was good synergy between the cards of his deck but my deck continued to surprise me. I was able to play Jecht, Reluctant Guardian, but he realized the threat and quickly dealt with it. It did cost him one of his few removal spells, I found out later. The game went long after that but I managed to prevail.
We kicked off the second game and it again went long. The decks were clearly evenly matched and I got to play Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant. Again, my opponent astutely recognized the threat and Clive was quickly removed. Sadly, once more I was not able to transform one of my creature sagas.
This time, it was my opponent who prevailed just as time as called. We had to settle for a draw but I was not unhappy as my deck was fun to play and was continuing to play better than I had expected.
For the third round, I was paired up against someone who had been deckbuilding not far from me. When I saw him sit down across from me, I knew the odds were not going to be in my favour. He had pulled not one but two Vivi Ornitiers, one of the most potent cards in the deck.
In our first round, he mulliganed down to 5 cards. I started feeling a little better about my chances. I held my removal for his Vivi and was able to control the game and chip away slowly again using my 0/1 Wizard tokens. The game went long but I prevailed.
In the second round, it was my turn to mulligan down to five cards. Lands suddenly were scarce and I did not feel like playing with one land hands. This game felt very much like the mirror of the first one. Me starting with five and him consistently inflicting damage in a slow methodical way that I could not answer. At time, we were at one win a piece. A second draw to complete the round.
As usual, our LGS handed out two packs for each match, letting players decide amongst themselves to split the or play for them. We agreed to split them in all three rounds. From them, I pulled the following Rares and Mythics: Lightning, Army of One, a Cecil, Dark Knight, The Darkness Crystal, Triple Triad and Zell Dincht. Some interesting stuff!
I am thinking that I will build a Commander deck around Lightning, Army of One. The Stagger ability could definitely lead to some interesting negotiations at the table.
All in all, I’m pleased with my 1-0-2 record but I do still wish that the boys had been here. Magic is all about the gathering as so many say and I missed our chats during deck building and between games. It is a new era here at Family Magic.
I launched this site in July 2021 with the intention to post about my Magic TCG adventures with my two sons. There was no in-store play in Canada at the time as we were still dealing with Covid but the boys and I continued to play at home. I have a memory like a sieve and this was my way to start (however late) to document our Magic journey, mostly so that I could at any time I wanted, scroll down memory lane. There was no intention for this site to be more than that. Yet, somehow, traffic slowly grew. And more recently, not so slowly!
It suddenly jumped early this year with January seeing the highest traffic to date – A nearly 50% jump over the previous best month back in December 2022. I thought that it was a blip but traffic every month since then has either met or topped that 2022 peak. May in particular marked another major jump, exceeding January’s traffic by more than 50%. The growth has been such that 2025 traffic has already exceeded my former best ever entire year and we are not even half way through the year! Wow!
Much of the traffic driving this growth is coming from the Magic TCG: Set Names and Symbols page. I originally put it together to help me remember all the sets but it’s clear that others are finding it useful as well. I will continue to maintain it and backfill the older information to make it even more useful.
Another popular page has been the one about my building a mustelids deck. Who knew? The page bout all the sets makes sense but this one surprised me. I wrote it while Bloomburrow was still in the preview phase. I saw back then that many of these could go into a promising Izzet Prowess deck. I followed it up with one for an Izzet Otter Typal deck for Arena S01 but that one is not getting as much attention. To be fair, the deck needs more than otters!
It is still pretty cool to see that Izzet Prowess is currently one of the decks dominating Standard despite lack of focus on otters. Maybe an otter deck might work better in a different format. Maybe I should try to build a mustelid Brawl deck!
Not catching on with the world is my ongoing journey to create the ultimate Standard B01 Orzhov Cleric deck. Looks like I may be the only one trying to accomplish this feat! But the spotlight may be about to shine on this deck with Final Fantasy about to come out and featuring what might be the best Cleric card in a long time. Look for my usual post about the clerics in the upcoming set for more information – it’s coming soon.
All this to say hi to everyone dropping in and thank you for making this little site a stop on your Internet journey.
Let me start by saying that I have so far manage to resist the temptation to buy any of the Frank Frazetta Secret Lair cards. It has not always been easy but I have held strong – Probably for no other reason than the one I gave back when the cards were first revealed: I don’t have a deck where these cards would easily go.
So, what do Wizards of the Coast do? You guessed it! They’ve announced another Frazetta Secret Lair of course! It’s part of this year’s Summer Superdrop releasing on June 9th. Five new cards to be tempted by:
Of the five, the two below are my favourites in terms of art. Chained in particular (on the Deadly Dispute card) is another of Frazetta’s signature pieces. If I recall correctly, it graced one of the Conan books that I read as a kid.
Much like last time, definitely some cool art but no cards that immediately scream out to be added into a deck that I currently have. If nothing else, it makes me appreciate the first Frazetta set even more – particularly now that Dark Confidant is Standard Legal. That card might have gone nicely into my Crime Pays deck.
Anyways, as of tonight, I’m holding strong on buying a Frazetta Secret Lair set. I’ll let you know if things change.
And in case you are interested in a mono-black deck focused around crimes, here is my Crime Pays deck:
First, my apologies for that complete click bait title! I doubt that anyone will call the upcoming Final Fantasy set for Magic: The Gathering a failure (or they will be very few and far between). It has already become the best-selling Magic set of all times and it is still not out for another couple of weeks! I expect that this alone will be enough for Wizards of the Coast to call it a success.
For anyone living under a rock, Final Fantasy is the first Universes Beyond set that will be Standard legal. It comes with an army of fans that have followed the video game dynasty that goes all the way back to 1987! That interest alone has shone a new light on this family’s favourite game and brought waves of new players.
Add in Commander sets, the “Through the Ages” bonus consisting of 64 reprints that have been given a Final Fantasy treatment (including the return of Dark Confidant to Standard) and a number of Secret Lair sets, and this is shaping up to be a massive release for the game.
So why that title for this post? Simply put, Final Fantasy is not connecting in this family. First, let me set the stage a bit. It starts with the fact that none of us are Final Fantasy fans (please, no hate mail!). I was not a console gamer in my youth and so missed the early games. I remember the hype and noise each time a new installment came out but never played. Similarly, the boys never got into the game despite they growing up with gaming consoles in the house. I’m not sure why but there it is.
Back to why I’m calling it a dud. It starts with my disappointment that Universes Beyond Magic sets are now becoming Standard-legal. I’m just not keen on seeing cards of this set in upcoming Standard games. The boys are equally unimpressed by the set. Like me, they are not familiar with the lore. The art, what initially got Noah into the game so many years ago, is not connecting with him.
The cost is not helping. A Final Fantasy Play Booster box is going for CA$249.99! The Commander decks are selling for CA$549.99 for the set of four and none of them sell for less than CA$120 individually. A single Collector Booster pack is selling for CA$94.99 – That’s over CA$6 a card before taxes! A Collector Booster box is going for CA$1099.99! Note that all prices are from Face to Face as of the day I published this post; 401 Games is slightly cheaper and has a better stock situation at the moment.
Even the pre-release events are more expensive (no surprise given the set prices) than usual. At CA$67.50 per person, this is a more than 30% increase over the recent pre-releases which had cost CA$50 or so. With the tradition that Papa pays for these, this gets to be pretty pricey!
All right, I still have not said why I’m calling the set a dud. Simply because there is no interest in this set in this household. I think I will be the only one going to a pre-release event – I love these events. Noah is emphatically saying no at the moment and Christian is on the fence due to lack of interest and possible work shift conflicts. When was the last time we missed a pre-release out of a lack of interest? Never ever since we started!
Our disinterest is extending to a communal decision not to buy a Play Booster box of the set. This is a long-standing tradition for us and the fact that we are deliberately skipping it is another Has-not-happened-in-a-long-time kind of moment.
And last of all, these Moogles and Chocobos look like they belong in the Pokemon world rather than Magic! And this is from someone who initially thought Bloomburrow might be too cute for Magic!
It is increasingly looking like there will be very little Magic for us this summer (aside from hopefully our regular games). And this is particularly sad because Noah is headed out of province for university at the end of August. It definitely feels like the end of an era! And while I cannot blame Final Fantasy for this, I can certainly blame it for it wiping out one of my favourite family traditions. At least until Edge of Eternities comes out this fall!
Wizards of the Coast this week announced what many had expected for some time now: Pioneer is coming to Magic: The Gathering Arena later this week. On Saturday, May 10, the Explorer format will bow out and Pioneer will take its place with the introduction of 11 new cards.
We knew that, one day, we would retire Explorer and replace it with Pioneer, a change we would implement once we got all the relevant cards onto MTG Arena. We have closely watching Pioneer and believe that we have achieved this goal. Out of 411 distinct competitive Magic Online decklists played in March, Explorer was only missing seven cards found in those decklists.
Pioneer launched back in late 2019, about a year after MTG Arena launched in beta. Whereas the Modern format includes cards from Eighth Edition onwards, Pioneer limits itself to sets released since Return to Ravnica. Wizards launched Explorer in 2022 as a digital-only format that was very similar to Pioneer but lacked many of the key cards of the latter format. The gap narrowed gradually with new set releases, including the recent Pioneer Masters.
To be accurate, it should be noted that Arena’s Pioneer format does not include all Pioneer-standard cards – There are a number missing (about 2,000 in fact) but none of these appear in more competitive decks. According to WOTC, they did ask their Arena Championship players about any missing cards and were told by most that there were no “major misses.”
The new cards to be launched to turn Explorer into Pioneer are:
Battle at the Bridge
Borborygmos Enraged
Encroaching Wastes
Kazuul’s Toll Collector
Magmatic Insight
Nissa’s Defeat
Rakdos Charm
Roast
Sanctum of Ugin
Triton Shorestalker
Warping Wail
I’m all for this move. It eliminates a digital-only format and improves parity between digital and physical formats. While the absence of some 2,000 cards is bound to upset some deck brewers,
I don’t play a lot of Explorer on MTG Arena but have been steadily playing more and do have a ExplorerPioneer version of my Orzhov Cleric deck in Arena. There are about 40 Cleric cards in those cards still missing in Arena but I’m not sure that they would materially impact my deck.
Say what? Are we really getting two sets in September? Well, yes and no. Here is how Wizards explained it in a short announcement:
“Through the Omenpaths releases will be digital sets that are Universes Within versions of Universes Beyond sets that otherwise wouldn’t be coming to digital Magic platforms.”
So, yes, we will get two completely new sets in September. But they will be mechanically identical. The only difference will be that the Through the Omenpaths sets will feature different card names and art – And it will only be available digitally. Meanwhile, the Spider-Man set will only exist in a paper version.
To be fair, there is already a bit of a precedent for this. Wizards has duplicated cards in at least two scenarios I can think of. Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths came with a set of Godzilla cards that were re-branded versions of existing cards. Here are two examples:
Second, The Secret Lair: The Walking Dead cards received a similar treatment. Wizards released Universes Within equivalents some time after the original cards came out.
What is new here is the distinction between paper and digital sets. Building a deck that spans both will require you to match the paper version of the card to its digital equivalent, a differently named card.
Despite my persistent reservations about Universes Beyond, particularly given that new sets will be Standard-legal, I am excited about the upcoming Marvel sets (I grew up on comics and Spider-Man is still one of my favourite superheroes). I still don’t see myself building a deck that will mix these with Universes Within cards but I do see myself building Marvel-only decks. Now comes the extra wrinkle: Converting such decks to Arena will be a bit of a pain as I will need to match each card to a new set of corresponding cards. As they say, this is a first-world problem.
The reverse is the more frustrating scenario. I can imagine a scenario where I will build a digital deck and find myself wanting to build it in paper for an in-person event. I already know that I will get annoyed when I find a Universes Within card that translates to a Spider-Man card in real life. What then? Knowing myself, I expect that I will not build that paper deck and throw shade at Wizards for what is in my mind a terrible decision. Along with confusing and frustrating players, this is driving a further wedge between paper and digital play (another being Alchemy cards).
There is another wrinkle in this story. Not all Universes Beyond sets will receive a digital-only Through the Omenpaths equivalent. Wizards has confirmed that both Final Fantasy and Avatar: The Last Airbender are coming to MTG Arena and Magic Online.
Wizards provides no explanation as to why the Spider-Man set is so far the only one in getting this treatment. But my guess is that it is related to licensing limitations either imposed by Marvel (to perhaps avoid confusion with its Marvel Snap digital game) or because the two companies could not come to commercial (likely monetary) terms on digital rights.
I fully recognize that not everyone feels the same way I do about Universes Beyond sets. Noah for example has no problem with building decks that mix all these universes together because, in his mind, the game transcends the visual and narrative. But I see an ongoing slippery slope of short-sighted decisions that continue to erode what Magic is and its distinctive voice.
If there is a positive in this news, it is that I will hopefully run into fewer Universes Beyond cards when I’m playing digitally. Too bad it could not be the other way around.
Feel free to drop a comment below and share your own thoughts on this.
A deck of Magic cards is never too far when the family travels. Our latest family trip, minus Christian as his schedule prevented him from joining us, was no exception. It got me to thinking that I should maybe list out where our Magic decks have been.
Our latest vacation took us to the Bahamas. I won’t bore you with all the details but it was a lovely trip. The beach where we stayed was stunning. Unfortunately, strong winds over the ocean meant that we could not go swimming in the sea for two of the days we were there due to the strong undertows.
As happened with another recent trip, bringing Magic cards with you does mean that you should prepare for a little extra scrutiny when going through airport security. I guess that a Commander deck into an Ultimate Guard Boulder looks quite unusual when going through the scanning machine. And so our bags got pulled for a closer look. This also happened on a skiing trip Noah and I did to Whistler a couple of years back. Interestingly, the same did not happen when we left the Bahamas. Maybe the person manning the scanning machine was a Magic player himself and recognized the odd black square on the screen as a Commander deck.
While the opportunities to play were limited, Noah and I did manage to squeeze in one game one evening. His upgraded Warhammer 40K Necrons deck, led by Imotekh the Stormlord, went up against my unmodified Zinnia, Valley’s Voice deck from Bloomburrow.
Noah wisely took out his (there is a story there for another time) Mana Crypt before the trip, recognizing not only that it was a pricy card but also that it was now banned in Commander.
It was a closely fought affair but the Necrons prevailed as they have so often done in the past thanks to the ever-growing wave of Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens. I had started strong but not being able to shut down his token generating engine meant that I soon lost my early advantage. It was at least not the crushing rout Ruhan suffered during our last trip!
Sadly, there was no opportunity for other games as the trip was quite short and there were too many other things to do.
Our decks have travelled with us on a few other trips but I have not really tracked our world Magic experiences in the past. I will try to do a better job of it going forward.
You may recall that Aetherdrift did not impress the boys and I. It was another of those sets where some familiar characters were forced into a tropy setting, one that really did not resonate with us. Fortunately, the following set held more promise. And it has finally arrived: Tarkir: Dragonstorm pre-release season is upon us (if only for a week).
Why the excitement? It is the return to a somewhat familiar plane. When the boys and I first got into Magic during Battle for Zendikar, both boys also purchased packs from some previous sets. And two sets in particular were quite popular. And where were these set? Surprise, surprise, they were the Tarkir sets. When Wizards announced the return to Tarkir, there was much rejoicing in this house. As for me, I like that this is a solid set that, like Foundations or Bloomburrow, plays like a traditional Magic set.
Unfortunately, Noah once again had to miss out on Pre-Release, this time because of his participation in the school musical (Footloose this year!). So, Christian and I headed off Saturday morning, chatting about which clan we would choose. Christian was set on Mardu while I settled on Abzan.
My six packs, including the seeded one, pretty much locked me into Abzan. My promo, Revival of the Ancestors, was also an Abzan card (Christian ended up with a Jeskai promo). My blue was weak except for Taigam, Master Opportunist. My Red pulls left me equally uninspired and I stuck to my original plan.
Deck building felt good. I cut blue and red with no hesitation and set to building my Abzan deck. Along with my promo, I threw in Felothar, Dawn of the Abzan (could I play Abzan without its lord?) and Skirmish Rhino as a tribute to the old Siege Rhino. A few dragons and some good removal and I was ready.
My first match was a fairly evenly matched affair. Good fun!
In the first game, my opponent’s deck started a bit faster but I was able to catch up and we traded damage fairly evenly through the first turns, quickly ending up in single digits. Omens proved quite useful for me, helping with mana ramp and card draw. Removal played an important part in both our decks, keeping the creature count low. A string of three lands in a row late in the game changed the tone of the game, leaving me on the backfoot, unable to either remove his creatures or cast new ones of my own to replace those I was losing to his removal. In the end, that run of lands left me with an empty board and no answers to the damage coming in.
Game 2 started more strongly for me, especially after my opponent milled two of his removals, looking through his library for a threat. Again, the omens helped early in the game. While he started on the backfoot, he was able to catch up. Renew helped turn the tides for him, particularly his Qarsi Revenant, along with a few other Deathtouch creatures. We once again found ourselves in low single digits but it was his game in the end.
For my second match, I found myself relegated to the last table of our LGS where I met my next opponent.
I handily won the first game against a 4-colour deck. My opponent claimed to be playing five colours but I never saw a red land. If her strategy was indeed five colours, this first game would have been very frustrating. We talked as we shuffled up for the next game and it sounds like she just ended up with a pretty janky pool that really did not come together. I hate those kinds of days.
Game 2 was another decisive win but not for me. I went deep into the game without any White mana and a full hand of cards calling for White. With little else to cast, I had to discard cards for several turns, frustrated that I otherwise had a solid hand. On her side, my opponent pinged me for at least 1 from her second turn (and later 2 from each creature as counters entered the game). It was enough to whittle me down to the point that even when White showed up, it was too late. She was definitely pleased to pull a win out with her jank.
Fickle luck decided to smile on me again in the third game and everything lined up nicely for a quick win.
Mardu was a popular choice at our LGS and but it was only in my third match that I faced off against it.
The first game went long and was a very close affair. Removal and lifegain helped me weather the token storm. This was a fun game where my opponent kept attacking as “that is the Mardu way.” Qarsi Revenant (again!) certainly made it an interesting game. Using Renew to give another creature a flying counter, a deathtouch counter, and a lifelink counter when it dies is a pretty nasty little trick. Fortunately, between my own flyers and my removal, I was able to win the first game.
Game 2 started with my opponent taking a mulligan. From there, things did not improve for her. Two removal spells ended up in her graveyard shortly after while my own kept her in check. I was able to establish a solid board presence and was able to hit for damage consistently.
One card that really helped contain her threats was Arashin Sunshield, which can tap enemy creatures. I simply used it on her turn to control her biggest threat until I finally was able to permanently remove it. She never really recovered and I won the match 2-0.
It was nice to end 2-1 after the pretty horrid stretch I’ve had in recent pre-releases.
In general, I was pleasantly surprised by the Omen mechanic. I used them early in the games and was lucky enough to have them pop back into my hand a couple of times afterwards allowing me to then use the more expensive creature side. Definitely more flexible than I thought although they may not be as useful in larger decks where there is a smaller chance that they will reappear.
And one last thought. I wish the MTG Companion app would let you see your match history. It was something you could do back in the DCI number days. I would have liked to be able to see my standing before the event closed out.
, I’m not sure I want to cut Roaming Throne for this card. Then again, it might be time for some experimentation. Let’s try it!
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