MtG Art I-R-L!

I was sorting through some photos recently when I realized that artist Janine Johnson is a time-traveling wizard. I present my evidence:

Jungle Lion, as printed in the 1997 Portal set, is CLEARLY stolen through time from a picture I took at the St. Louis zoo in 2015.

Can't intercept, obv

J'accuse!

Has Magic jumped the proverbial shark?

Brent here. I know, weird, right? It's been a while.

I've become aware that a new set is almost here and with my beta access, I'm going to jump in and play some sealed in just a few minutes.

But is this even the same game I once knew? The sixth color is here and established (and mindbogglingly, it's not even a color at all). There are Vehicles in this set that get Crewed by Pilots?!?

Hmmmmm...

What's next? Riggers and Contraptions and the return of the Tribal supertype? By my count, we should get Return to Return to Ravnica in 2019?

But I kid because I love. I've been elbow deep in Hearthstone every free minute I've had for the past two years (and there have been plenty). But I'm gonna give M:tG another try right now because sometimes you just want to check in on old crushes on the Facebook amirite?

She's engaged again?? Huh.

Play Arena for Free with Unreleased Goblins vs Gnomes Cards

To celebrate (hype) the upcoming release of the new Goblins vs Gnomes Hearthstone expansion, Blizzard has generously gifted all players one free Arena run. And there's the bonus: until the expansion goes live on Monday, December 8th, it will be the only place you can play with the new cards. It's basically a prerelease event, but for Hearthstone! Just log in before the 8th to get your free Arena ticket (value: $.199 or 150 in game gold)

HYPE!

If you haven't played Hearthstone for a while, this is a great time to get back in there and see all the new hotness on the house. The community's understanding is that Arena runs won't pay off in GvG packs until Tuesday, so if you want to wait until then to play your free Arena, that is understandable. Or, you could start the run now, play up to two losses or 11 wins, then wait and finish the run after the official launch next week.

Our Blizzard overlords have also changed a couple existing cards, so dust Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Flare now for full value, especially if you don't think you'll play them for a while.

Not so Magical Results

Your hero moved to Saint Louis earlier this year, so this marks his first limited PTQ season in a new geo-political region. It turns out that there is one (1) PTQ within a 4-hour drive, so today was my only shot this season.

Regarding Cluestones...

I'm not alone:

Cardboard Crack - Halloween (http://cardboard-crack.com/post/101390631864/halloween)

In a couple years, Mr. Cardboard Crack can rerun this comic replacing Cluestones with Banners.

As a side note, is "Ad Cards" what other people call them? I've always said "Tips & Tricks" (but with a heavy dose of irony), because I believe that's what they were labeled the first time they appeared.

Happy Halloween!

Hearthstone: the Gathering

Someone translated all existing Hearthstone cards into MTG frames and rules templates.

Most of these are pretty sweet mashups, although I admit there are also some that are a stretch.

Cone of Cold was my favorite so far.

Constructed Decks of Yore: Blue-Green Aggro-Control (2005)

To prove that I wasn't always a limited snob, I thought I would go back to the past and try to reassemble some of my favorite lists from the time when I actually played constructed Magic.

While not exceptionally powerful, today's deck was one of my favorite archetypes, a hybrid aggro-control blue and green deck from summer of 2005, when Ravnica Bloc, Time Spiral Block and Tenth Edition were legal. Behold:

Click to embiggen

I won't go over all the cards individually, but there was a smattering of everything in this one.

• Birds to ramp and color-fix mana
• Card Selection and advantage with the looter and Call of the Herd or Moldervine Cloak
• Disruption with Remand and Mystic Snake
• Six ways to counter targeted removal with Plaxmanta and Stonewood Invocation
• and of course, blue burn with Psionic Blast

Some of the numbers are strange, such as two Breeding Pool, but that was what I owned at the time. 

The idea behind this deck was to get off to a relatively quick start, then protect your team with countermagic or instant-speed shroud, often while advancing your board using the multi-purpose creatures.

I am thinking of this archetype specifically today because I have been looking at Theros spoilers and have an inkling to bring back the Aggro-control deck, if only in theory since I never play constructed.

Theros spoilers after the jump again.

Draft from the Past - Original Ravnica Bloc

So I had an inkling in the back of my head that there used to be some turnkey tools that would allow for a blow-by blow post of  an MODO draft. Now that I'm a bona fide limited blogger, I figured we should try them out and see what it looks like. 

Behold, an original Ravnica Bloc draft I did online in late 2011. After this test run, I will put a full draft recaps in my limited reports if there is anything interesting to be learned.

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