Lord of the Rings

Running a pre-release at a cottage

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

I bought three Lord of the Rings pre-release kits for our cottage vacation. Magic for a rainy day was the plan. But it almost came not to be.

I packed the kits along with two Commander decks and the usual game supplies (playmat, dice, life counter). Christian similarly brought up two Commander decks while Noah only brought one, worried about some more expensive cards in his other decks.

First crisis (I’m being melodramatic – for effect): I realized early in the trip that we did not have sleeves for our new cards. Fortunately, we found a game store during one of our day trips and was able to remedy that oversight quickly.

On a rainy and windy Thursday morning in the second week of our vacation, we decided that this would be the day to hold our Cottage Pre-Release event. It rained in the morning and remained cloudy and cool into the afternoon. We settled around a coffee table that probably has seen its share of board and card games and cracked our kits (nothing earth-shattering in any of them) and set to building. And that’s when it hit the boys (not their father who was still trying to figure out whether he should go Black Green or Black Red). Second crisis:

“Do you know what we forgot?” asked Christian.
“No, what?” I answered, looking up from my pool of cards. “We have the sleeves.”
“But we don’t have lands.”
Some choice words may have escaped me at that point.

Fortunately, the kids are resourceful. We pulled lands from our Commander decks where we could. Unfortunately, there were not enough. So we complemented those with home made proxy lands. We first thought to use regular playing cards but they’re not the same size. Noah, apparently the self-appointed Judge, ruled these as inadequate. Instead, we settled on using some cards that did not go into our decks with home-made labels.

No style points here but they allowed us to go on our mini pre-release. Noah ended up going 2-0 with a White Green deck featuring Rosie Cotton of South Lane and lots of tokens. Christian and I ended up going 1-1 with him playing a Blue Red deck and I going with a Black Red deck.

Crises averted, rainy day dealt with and more Magic memories made.

One-of-one serialized version of The One Ring has been found… In Canada

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

The quest to find the one-of-one serialized version of The One Ring has come to an end. The card grading service PSA today tweeted that the much coveted card sporting a 001/001 serial number has not only been found but also graded (9 out of 10 according to their scale). Wizards of the Coast confirmed the discovery shortly afterwards as well.

The one-of-one serialized card, the first such card printed by Wizards, sparked frenzied searching by not only Magic players but more broadly across the collectible card community with one offer by a Spanish LGS reaching €2 million, just over US$2 million or about CA$2.9 million, earlier this month.

The person who pulled the card has chosen to remain anonymous at this time but appears to be Canadian or at least have a Canadian connection. Maximum Cards and Collectibles in Whitby tweeted that the card was found by “the cousin of a regular customer.” They are apparently entertaining offers over $1 million and “negotiations are currently ongoing.” Should they successfully conclude for such a price, The One Ring will become the most expensive Magic card ever, beating out the famed Black Lotus, of which one reportedly sold for more than US$500,000.

While WOTC first introduced serialized cards back in 2021 as part of a Secret Lair drop, this is the first time that it printed a one-of-one card. They made a more prominent appearance in November 2022 in The Brothers’ War set with serialized artifacts in a retro frame. Along with this single card, there are a number of other serialized cards in this set. And I expect that we will see more of them in upcoming sets as well.

Fortunately for everyone that did not find this version of The One Ring, non-serialized Mythic versions are also available and much easier to find (albeit still pricey in my humble opinion).

Update (07/04): Face to Face has confirmed that it was the LGS where the collector booster box containing that unique The One Ring Card was purchased. Maybe the next time one of us sits down to play a game there, we’ll be playing against that millionaire!

This finally happened!

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

So this finally happened:

I’ve been playing MTG:Arena pretty much since the early days of the beta. As a F2P player, gems are not easy to accumulate but I’ll typically use them for drafts once I’ve accumulated enough. Unfortunately, I’m not a very strong draft player so this normally ends up as a losing proposition (albeit a fun one). I more rarely treat myself to sealed events but decided to do so earlier this week in honour of the new The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth set.

My pool was far better than what I drew at the Pre-Release for the set. I pulled two green Mythics, Radagast the Brown and Last March of the Ents and I immediately knew that I would be playing some kind of Green deck. Throw in Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, Rangers of Ithilien, and The Shire and it was an easy decision to go Simic.

I started playing Monday night. One win, two wins and then three wins without a loss. I was on a run but it was getting late. “One more,” I told myself and this last game also turned into a win. Another “One more”‘” despite knowing that I might have a hard time waking up the next day, turned into a fifth win in a row. While one or two games might have easily gone the other way, this deck just seemed to have answers for everything, particularly thanks to two copies each of Bewitching Leechcraft and Hithlain Knots. Never underestimate the power of removal, I say despite knowing that I will ignore my own advice despite seeing its efficacy in action the next time I’m building a deck under a time limit.

Reason prevailed finally and I called it a night at 5-0. This was already a run I was pretty happy with. I went to bed, hoping that whatever good luck I’d had would prevail for the remainder of my run.

The next night, I resumed. After a small scare where I inadvertently picked a different game and suddenly wondered where my Simic cards had gone. Game 6 picked up where I had left off with an easy win. The next game did not go the same way and I recorded my first loss. Undeterred, I started my next game and my deck once again delivered and I reached the 7 win milestone! I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I have managed this feat. In case I later forget, this post will serve as a reminder!

The one thing I regret is not saving the deck list. I thought it would automatically get saved but it does not appear so. Aside from the cards mentioned above, other strong performers were Chance-Met Elves and Gift of Strands. Two mechanics, Scry and the ring temptation, gave the deck the consistency needed across the games.

I find that Sealed goes one of two ways for me. Either I know immediately what I’m going to build, like in this case (it can still end up being bad though), or I end up second guessing myself and generally end up with something that just does not gel together.

Recent Pre-release curse somewhat broken

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Another set means another pre-release. For the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth pre-release, Noah decided to skip out as he was less than impressed with the cards. With Father’s Day and a weekend upgrade thrown into the mix, it meant that Christian and I headed down to Face to Face for the Friday evening event. We were joined by two of our regular side kicks, Carter and Cooper.

Recent pre-releases have not been kind to me. I headed into this one with an abysmal 0-9 record. I definitely was hoping for a turnaround. I cracked my packs with a bit of anxiety, I’ll admit it.

My card pool yielded no Mythics and nothing jumped out as a bomb to build around. Once I had sorted out my cards, I found that black was strong, particularly in removal. I also liked the Voracious Fell Beast with its built-in removal (and fabulous borderless art). Red was quite weak and was an easy exclude. White looked intriguing but I preferred what Blue and Green offered. In the end, I opted for Green for its bigger creatures and the food tokens that would hopefully keep me alive and serve as something to sacrifice. I went with my usual 16 lands, a somewhat greedy approach, that has been known to sometimes get me in trouble.

Round 1 did not start auspiciously. I drew a one-lander. Fortunately, my opponent had proposed a free mulligan before we drew so I took him up on it. And drew another 1 land hand. Mulligan and draw again. I drew 5 hands in a row with one land. My exasperated opponent kindly said, “Discard one and let’s play,” when I finally decided to keep. Not that it helped as I stalled at two lands and got stomped.

Game 2 went somewhat better but I still lost. 0-1 and the pre-release curse had reared its ugly head once more.

Round 2 was against a very slow player. He won Game 1 but just barely. He was down to 1 life and I at 2. But a great draw gave him just enough to get through my defenses and deal the lethal damage the turn before I would have been able to. A fun game.

We drew on the second game, having run out of time, as he again played very slowly (but I will give him he was very thorough and methodical).

Time for Round 3. My opponent started things off very strongly, using the ring temptation mechanic to do some early damage. But with one creature to work with, I was able to build up my board and start responding, also using the ring temptation mechanic. It was a close affair but I emerged victorious.

Game 2 followed the same pattern but my removal finally came to the fore and I was able to prevent him from dealing much damage as this time, I chipped away at his health as there were no creatures that survived a long time on his side and no potent removal. His luck did not change and I finally, after 14 rounds, posted one in the Win column.

The curse has been broken for now. Now to get back to a winning record for these events.

As for the packs won at the event, they netted a The Watcher in the Water as well as a Shadow of the Enemy. Nothing earth-shattering but I did pull a promo Delighted Halfling in my prerelease pack so not too bad either.

Finally, records for the evening: Me at 1-1-1 and Christian went 2-1.

The One Ring: A unique 1-of-1 Magic card

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Previews for the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set have begun. Rather than focusing on what feels like a never ending season of previews, today is all about a card that will become a much sought after, perhaps the most sought after, Magic card in a very long time.

At the heart of Lord of the Rings is the One Ring, the embodiment of Sauron’s power. Unsurprisingly, the ring will make an appearance in the set but can it really be the One Ring To Rule Them All if we all have one? This conundrum occurred to Wizards of the Coast and they solved it.

As Wizards puts it, “And so, as part of an extraordinarily rare and exciting promotion only for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, we made one such card.” Lurking in a single English-language The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Collector Booster will be a single (yes, just one) serialized version of The One Ring in a traditional foil design printed in the Black Speech of Sauron using Tengwar letterforms.

On the left below, the single serialized One Ring and on the right, the regular version:

The set will also feature the Rings of Power that were crafted for the Elves, Dwarves, and mortal men of Middle-earth. These will be themed versions of the venerable Sol Ring, available again only in Collector Booster packs. These will be written in the language of the High Elves, Quenya, in Tengwar letterforms. Serialized versions will also be available but in more significant quantities:

  • 300 Serialized double rainbow foil Sol Ring (Elven)
  • 700 Serialized double rainbow foil Sol Ring (Dwarven)
  • 900 Serialized double rainbow foil Sol Ring (Human)
  • 3,000 Non-foil Sol Ring (Elven)
  • 7,000 Non-foil Sol Ring (Dwarven)
  • 9,000 Non-foil Sol Ring (Human)

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth will be released this summer with Prerelease events taking place June 16th to 22nd.

So, who wants that ring? And can you resist its power if you find it?