Knight of the Card Table: Battle for Zendikar Prerelease Primer

Knight of the Card Table: Battle for Zendikar Prerelease Primer

Welcome to my new semi-regular article series I'm calling Knight of the Card Table, covering all things tabletop, card and board games alike! I'm starting off heavy duty with the first in a three part series, all revolving around the release of the first Magic: the Gathering set coming out in the new standard rotation. Battle for Zendikar is set to release in one week; which means tonight is officially the last FNM of the old standard, and that means it's Prerelease Weekend! Let's get started...

Tourism is the prime resource of Zendikar,
just look at these happy visitors!

There's been a veritable hurricane of information surrounding this return to Zendikar ever since its announcement back on March 9, but there's some parts that are more important heading into this weekend's festivities. Sure enough, Wizards has written their own primer, and even treated the fine folks of Ars Technica to a private prerelease earlier this week. As if the change to the standard rotation - which I mentioned last in my Magic Origins article in July - weren't enough, the format of the prerelease is changing as well, if only slightly. Until now the prerelease packs have consisted of five booster packs, one of five dated promo cards and seeded card pack tied to the theme or color grouping of a rather unusable box, along with a spindown counter and literature, or some similar iteration to this load out. The prerelease packs this time around are nixing that seeded pack altogether in favor of a sixth booster pack; there's still a foil promo card, but instead of one of five, it could be any rare or mythic rare from Battle for Zendikar; the spindown stays and the literature's been simplified a bit; and it all comes packed in a reusable deck box! (The last time they did the closest to this, was for the Dragon's Maze prerelease.)

With a box like this, opening one may feel like opening a hedron itself...

Next up, we need to talk briefly on some new and returning mechanics. Stepping up to bat we have Awaken, Converge, and Ingest. And back for another swing are favored abilities like Rally, an ability trigger with its roots in Zendikar's Ally creature class; and Landfall which returns unfettered straight from the first Zendikar block. Both of these returning abilities will require keen eyes for when cards enter or act on the field. Finally, be sure to keep a watchful eye out for Devoid cards, they'll make big plays for being colorless inspire of their casting costs. For more help, I highly recommend Wizards own prerelease primer, their article on the sealed deck format, and this article on the mechanics in Battle for Zendikar.

Last on the slab is of course something everyone's been waiting for since the last time we visited Zendikar, full art basic lands. This will be the first chance everyone will be able to get their hands on some brand new, fresh printed full art lands that haven't been sitting in someone's drawer for the last 6 to 16 years, planswalkers rejoice! So if you've been envious of an opponent's deck full of Zendikar land and unwilling to shell out almost $1.50+ per card, know that we are literally t-minus one week and counting until that playing field is leveled and full art basics are affordable agin. As an added bonus...sort of, WotC has decided to up the ante to another level by adding in an extra chase factor to the BFZ release: the 25 Zendikar Expeditions cards. These full art, foiled, chase versions of the shock and pain lands are being inserted into booster packs at a ratio of nearly 1 card per case of boosters packs. Now, boosters are sold in 36 pack boxes, which then ship to stores in cases of 6 booster boxes. Wizards has said that these cards will be slightly less rare than pulling a premium foil mythic rare, so this places the ratio of these cards at just less than 1:3240 cards or 1:216 boosters. This was definitely a boost in preorder sales for M:tG, indeed my LGS is nearly sold out. It could be possible to see some of these make their debut this weekend as well.

Take a peak at the beautiful chase bounty...
For some, it may be as close as they get...

But have no fear readers! I have a release article planned, complete with product as I have per the Core releases. Until then, have a look-see at Magic's Battle for Zendikar Card Image Gallery, and be sure to head back on Tuesday for my Prerelease Recap and Setup for Release Day! Good luck this weekend everyone; shuffle well, and tap strong! For Zendikar!

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Magic: the Gathering Magic Origins Release Day

Greetings to all my fellow gamers out there! Yes, I've been away for some time (again) and it's long-overdue for my triumphant return from convalescence. So without even further delay, here's my brief coverage of Magic: the Gathering Magic Origins Release Day!

I've been playing for almost 20 years and all I've got is this final Core Set.

I hope everyone had a great PreRelease last weekend and enjoyed their LGS' festivities and getting their hands-on preview before getting to today's actual release. For those of you lucky to have played at Friday Night Magic last night I hope that went just as well, along with the use of the newest addition the multiverse. With all of the cards fully leaked in advance of the PreRelease, we now find ourselves (finally!) at today. In review of the product, overall, the cards themselves of this set seem to have a slightly higher quality than the M15 Core Set in my opinion, from the printing quality to the feel of the cards themselves. Maybe I just had somewhat higher hopes for this set in that arena, as I'm sure Wizards hadn't changed much, if at all. And while the graphic styling and representation of this set left me wanting initially, its grown on me. Especially after seeing the packaging of the boosters themselves, and the details within the Fat Pack, the opposing duality of using white and black is pretty smart for the context of what they aimed to achieve. But most people choose to hold their excitement for the first release of the next block, and don't get too worked up over the Core Sets.

I, however, do get excited...

Magic Origins has quite a lot going on around it. Probably the most interesting thing to note regarding this release is the fact that Origins is the absolute last Core Set to ever be printed by Wizards of the Coast. Can they print another one eventually? Sure, but that isn't the case right now, with all fingers pointing to "not going to happen." So as it stands right now there will not be a Core released in 2016, and likely will not ever be one again. Core Sets (formerly base sets, until circa 2003 (Eighth Edition)) have been around since the game's inception in 1993 with Limited Edition Alpha; these sets were released inconsistently, between a few months apart to as much as 26 months apart through Tenth Edition, then annually every July beginning with Magic 2010. All told, this marks the 18th Core Set to be released, when including both the LE Alpha, LE Beta, Unlimited, and Revised sets individually though they were all released over the span of just 10 months between 1993 and 1994. For the last decade, the Core Set's purpose has been to work by and large in conjunction with the block rotating out of standard play. This sounds a bit weird until you consider that the core's themselves include reprinted cards for the majority of the set, with a very few new cards being introduced for the first time; so certain cards from the soon-to-be rotating block become reprinted in the core so that some of the staple cards can remain in standard for a little longer. There's actually a lot of changes happening in and around this last Core Set, probably due to the finality of this release. For anyone that's been hesitant to get into (or back into, for those former players set in their old-school ways) this seems to me to be the perfect time to be jumping back in, so I'll touch just on a couple of the important ones.

Don't let this confuse you too much,
Donald Duck's nephews eventually got much better names.

First and foremost is that we are right up against the biggest change being made: the release schedule and rotation of sets in standard. To the casual MtG player, this doesn't mean much outside of when and how the sets are going to come out from now on - not including the supplemental releases such as Commander or Modern Masters. But for the standard tournament player and frequent FNM regular, this change is probably the biggest. This set marks the beginning to the change of rotation in standard that MaRo talked about in his Metamorphosis article last August. For those living under a rock for nearly the last year, this means huge HUGE things coming in a very short time now; we were warned a while back and now that the happenings are on the horizon it's time we are all fully braced to accept this change. That article does a great job explaining in vast detail what the rotation is changing to and why but, basically when Battle for Zendikar comes out in October, M15 is out along with the whole Theros block. This has been typical for standard up to this point. Following the next two sets to be released Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged will drop out of standard, then Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins will drop following the next two sets being released. And on it will continue into the foreseeable future. Standard will only have at most 6 sets in rotation (exactly three 2-set blocks) and no set being in standard longer than 18 months; as opposed to the current 8 sets maximum (two 3-set blocks and two cores at most) with a set staying in standard as long as 24 months. And the sets are being released at a more-consistent pacing throughout the year. (October, January, April, July)

Wait a second, what did I just say? "Three 2-set blocks" in standard... Aren't blocks three sets each? Well until now, that has been the case but will not any longer. After some hard realizations from the development team at WotC, they've decided to cut the sizes down on the blocks. Typically the blocks have followed a large-small-large, or large-large-small release pattern, but something somewhere failed and was not well-received. So along with doing out with the reprint-heavy Core Set, Wizards is also losing one set out of each block from here on (mostly) and treating blocks as two-set releases; one large and one small. I personally don't feel this is going to have too large of an effect on gameplay or standard, outside of the shorter lifespan a set has in standard.

Every spark can start a fire...

The last point I want to touch on is that the storytelling is shifting. But this has a more back-end context to gameplay than a full-on effect, and there are far more moving parts and details than what I can summarize in my article; so I'll divert back to Jenna Helland's A New Era article for the full info. As I mentioned, this is the perfect time for a new or returning player to get into the game, especially if they want to follow along with the story just as much as the metagame, or just the game in general. The extra content should be more accessible, and this stronger emphasis on story should better drive the content of the game itself, it's a win-win. And if I had to guess, one should probably get used to seeing these Double-Sided Planeswalkers - I have a feeling they may be around for a while as opposed to a one-off gimmick. Though I have been known to be wrong before in my speculation.

And only you can help prevent-- TOO HOT, OW OW! Stupid bear.

So I think this is a great place to wrap up my slightly long-winded return to posting. I have much more on deck, and fulfilling of past promises as well. I'm off to crack some packs in the meantime. Take care, shuffle well, and tap that mana strong!


=Opaque=

(All Planeswalker and Magic-branded imagery is courtesy of Magic: the Gathering and Wizards of the Coast, New Rotation GIF courtesy of Mark Rosewater and Wizards of the Coast, booster box and fat pack photo taken by William Beckwith)

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