Reading through the MagicTCG subreddit thread has provided me a few Magic news and related topics which I can use for reference for my blog posts. I am trying this time to be more theoretical and explanation of the process than just simply providing my readers with a bland kind of news. One topic that I recently found was that the poster was inquiring on the possible topics of the MTG documentary that he will be making. The usual ones were focused on the competitive side of Magic and so he would want it to be more on the casual side or of the less serious side.

Here is one list of suggestions that garnered most of the reddit votes:
1. How shop owners deal with keeping Magic alive in their shop
2. How Hareruya in Tokyo became one of (or even THE) biggest store in the world
3. Interview with a team/manager from one of the big brands and their Pro Players
4. Maybe some interviews with “historical” figures of the Magic world?

The first one can be related to our local game store Rei’s place wherein we started really small and an alternate play area of our weekly tournaments back then. I think that was the year 2009 when we transferred from our previous shop owned by nang Alma because we did not liked how she handles the tournament prizes and stuff.

Hareruya is already a respected team in the Pro Tour community and the origin store which was founded by the Japanese Pros and is currently managed by Tomoharu Saito. If ever I will be travelling to Japan in the future, I will definitely add a day to visit and play in their store.

As for the interview with the Team Manager or leader in that sense as Teams of Six pro players has been recently formed, a one-on-one interview would be highly recommended for a more impromptu and realistic answers.

Historical figures in our local MtG community can pertain to old school players and sharing the highlights of their time, probably during the 90s in the early years of Magic. They can talk about how the tournaments were executed, on how wacky the decks that time when net-decking was not yet a thing, and the prices of the cards. I think I can make this pseudo-questionnaire interview as sort of a player profile at the same time and share it with the MtG Iloilo Community Facebook page.

Lastly, the documentary as suggested by another user should casually introduce as to why the new players should fall in love with this game. Maybe discuss on the benefits socially and at the same time on the intellectual aspect of playing this hobby.

I am still hoping that we can start a short documentary for the community ourselves, with a help from Muzzy’s gadgets for the video and his skills on editing. We covered a local prerelease a long time ago but was not able to produce a coverage video result out of the taken clips.

For additional and updated discussions, you can check it on the sub-reddit thread here.

While checking some card spoiler from the upcoming Aether Revolt set, I have come up with this decklist for the Jund (Red/Green/Black) version of Energy aggro. I believe on the potential of the new constrictor and Rishkar to be a powerful curve in the deck. Here below is the decklist:

Jund Aggro Energy

4 Greenbelt Rampager
4 Servant of the Conduit
4 Voltaic Brawler
4 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
4 Winding Constrictor
2 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Verdurous Gearhulk

4 Attune with Aether
4 Harnessed Lightning
4 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Smugglers Copter

4 Aether Hub
4 Blooming Marsh
3 Game Trail
2 Foreboding Ruins
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp

Last night’s preview from the mothership website gave us a glimpse of the impending doom or threat to Innistrad. In a video of a chat interview with Mark Rosewater, he discussed about the creation of the set Eldritch Moon and also a preview of the third Eldrazi Titan.

Presenting, Emrakul, the Promised End:

I am foreseeing a Nahiri Harbinger Eldrazi ramp build in Standard with her ultimate ability fetching this card from the library. I have before fetched Dragonlord Atarka using her ability and it’s not that hard getting into 8 loyalty.

We will see more Eldritch Moon card spoilers in the coming weeks and to wrap it up, here is a bonus preview card.

As one way of updating myself on the recent Standard metagame for the upcoming World Magic Cup Qualifiers I, I checked on the recent Grand Prix of the format and that was in New York last May 7-8th. Browsing through the 9th to 32th decklists, I noticed a few archetype updates. One of which was the 4-color Cryptolith which was before was just Black and Green. Here is a list played by Nathaniel Smith which finished in 13th place in the tournament:

Maindeck
4 Loam Dryad
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Catacomb Sifter
4 Reflector Mage
3 Brood Monitor

4 Collected Company
4 Cryptolith Rite

2 Westvale Abbey
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Llanowar Wastes
3 Caves of Koilos
3 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard
1 Enlightened Ascetic
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Transgress the Mind
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Lambholt Pacifist

The recent new set announcement was for the upcoming big set next year which is the return to the plane of Innistrad and thus named as the Shadows over Innistrad. The hype is then again on this upcoming set because of a lot of speculations on what cards will be printed or reprinted. Innistrad was an awesome MtG set, but don’t get your high hopes on this one.

Here are what not to expect in the Shadows over Innistrad:

Snapcaster Mage reprint – the current spotlight is on the Blue’s two-drop dude and they are all hoping for its return in Standard. He was not at his peak during the Innistrad Standard days but he is just too good to have a reprint. You can still get you foil copies though at your nearest RPTQ next year.

A powerful one-drop Human – Humans might be a returning archetype, but with the Allies reprint that looked to be powered down by Wizards, I do think they will have the same fate. Do not expect two-drop lords and Human token-generating spells but I would love a version two of Lingering Souls.

Enemy color land reprint – I am speculating that they will have new sets of duals but it will not likely to be of the enemy colors. We currently have allied color duals and they would fit well with those land-type condition nonbasics. That, together with the fetchlands, will again speed up the Standard format and in effect compromises the midrange decks.

Liliana of the Veil reprint – If the main reason is to lower the card price for Modern peeps, I do not think it is viable enough. I guess Liliana will still be in the set but as a new and less powerful version as compared to LotV.

Another set of tribal Zombie cards – Undying is a decent mechanic and its return will again represent new set of Zombies to carry the ability. Then again, they will either be of huge casting costs or those that etb tapped but has no immediate board impact.

Let us wrap up the list for now, and I am sure there are cards on spotlight right now and are expected to be in this upcoming big set. Huntmaster version two? A decent and playable Tibalt planeswalker? We shall see in the coming months. For now, let us enjoy this set’s teaser trailer video:

The first and huge wave of spoilers for the upcoming Battle for Zendikar set in October is being done right now as of this posting and boy, we are sure to be hyped up by what this big set has to offer. Aside from the return of Full Art Basic Lands in a new batch of artwork, I could not explain by detail all of the cards revealed so far but I am pretty sure we will be enjoying Battle for Zendikar when it is released in the market. Make sure you have already placed your pre-orders on the booster boxes and fat packs.

The first planeswalker of the set that was revealed was Gideon and here is his recent version:

Also, here is the new version of Ulamog:

You can check the rest of the cards here in the Battle for Zendikar Card spoilers album.

Lastly, here is the trailer video of the Battle for Zendikar:

Standard, Modern and Standard Pauper will be the featured formats for this week’s schedule of tournaments in the Magic: the Gathering Iloilo local community. Here are the details of the events after the cut.

***MTG Iloilo Tournaments this Week***
May 27, 2015
Wednesday Night Pauper
Standard Pauper
50php entry fee, DTK Booster pack prizes
6:00pm, Rei’s Place

May 28, 2015
Thursday Night Modern
50php entry, DTK Booster pack prizes
6:00pm, Rei’s Place

May 29, 2015
Friday Night Magic
Standard
80php entry fee, FNM Promo foils & DTK Booster pack prizes
6:00pm, Rei’s Place

May 30, 2015
Saturday Standard
80php entry fee, DTK Booster pack prizes
3:00pm, Rei’s Place

The upcoming Modern Masters 2 set, scheduled to be released May 22, 2015 has some good news announced and sort of a tribute for today’s celebration of Earth Day. The WOTC showed a video of the set’s booster packs that are 100% recyclable.

Wizards posted pics on their official Facebook page and also a short video clip on their Instagram on opening a Modern Masters 2 booster pack.

Here is the link to the FB page and the video clip below.

It is Friday once again and tonight will be another of the scheduled Friday Night Magic tournament here in the MtG Iloilo community. The format will still be Standard constructed, with 80php entry fee. The booster pack prizes will depend on the number of participants but the sure thing is that the Top 4 finishers will receive a foil FNM promo card.

For details and updates, you can check on our MTG Iloilo Community FB page.

It is Sunday and people (mostly Christians) from all over the world are celebrating Easter feast or whatever they call it. As a part of my tribute for this occasion, I am posting below a list of a deck archetype that was popularized before in the Modern format. It is somewhat related to the activity that children and adults do on this day.

Eggs by Stanislav Cifka
Modern

Maindeck
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Conjurer’s Bauble
4 Elsewhere Flask
4 Lotus Bloom
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Faith’s Reward
4 Second Sunrise
2 Silence
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Reshape
4 Serum Visions
3 Sleight of Hand

7 Island
1 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Echoing Truth
2 Silence
1 Grapeshot

To wrap up this special day, here is a picture of a Vizzerdrix. Don’t try to do this experiment on your Easter bunnies.

I would like to apologize for this quite late post because of my hectic schedule preparing for Grand Prix Manila which was the week after the Iloilo Championships 2014. Back to back main events are not really an easy thing to go through, especially if one of them is a Grand Prix. Anyhow to recap the year-ender event of the local MtG Iloilo Community, here are the final top 8 ranks and their respective decks:

1st, Mark Ian (RG Aggro)
2nd, Mark Greggy (Mardu Midrange)
3rd, Herbert (Jeskai Burn)
4th, Cheljohn (RG Aggro)
5th, Eric (Jeskai Tempo)
6th, Franco (RG Aggro)
7th, Ericson (Jeskai Tempo)
8th, Rei (WU Heroics)

A total of 20 participants went to battle Standard last December 28th and 5 preliminary rounds were set to determine the Top 8. I started 1-1 but was able to win two straight to be able to draw in the last round. Fellow M14 teammates Greggy and Ericson also made it through while Oliver missed the top 8 after losing to Cheljohn during the last round.

To recall, the Quarterfinals matchups were as follows: Mark Greggy vs Rei, Mark Ian vs Ericson, Eric vs Cheljohn, Herbert vs Franco.

The Semifinals were: Mark Greggy vs Herbert, Mark Ian vs Cheljohn. Lastly, the Final matchup was between me and Mark Greggy.

Pictures from the event can be found here.

Overall, I would still consider it as a successful event even with the lesser players than that of the previous years. I guess I needed to promote this event more to gain more sponsors, or I could just reschedule it to an earlier date as most of the players are already busy for the holidays given those dates.

As for this year, I am not sure if I will still in-charge of organizing it again so let us see what we’ll come up with.

Thanks for reading and until next post.

*you can also check my blog posts for the previous years of MtG Iloilo Champs by looking through the “Champs” keyword tag.

It is time again for another weekend recap of the Magic the Gathering happenings here in Iloilo City. The community isn’t tired of shuffling cards and slinging spells which is a good relaxation output for a whole weekday of work or school. The scheduled events were Standard FNM and Saturday’s Modern Month-ender. The results for Friday Night Magic tournament was:

FNM (Nov. 28, 2014)
Top 4:
1st, Rei (Black White Midrange)
2nd, Raoul (Red Green Aggro)
3rd, Herbert (Jeskai Tempo)
4th, Franco (Mono Red)

The card pool did some deck shuffling for each member and I ended up playing Esper Control, with the list taken from the second placer deck in the recent SCG Standard Open. It went as expected as it did not performed well in the local meta and I finished with two loses and one draw. Raoul was the only player in our pool to take the highest finish of 3-1 (losing to Rei).

We then stayed overnight at Ghea’s place to build our decks for the Modern tourney. I piloted Temur Delver while Raoul played Treasure Burn. JayR also went to the event and he piloted Blue White Merfolks. Another teammate Justin was also present so we just handed him another Burn deck that we made at the last minute. The total participants were 13 so that means four rounds of gameplay. I went 2-2, losing to Burn and Affinity. The top 4 finishers were as follows:

Modern Month-Ender Tournament (Nov. 29, 2014)
Top 4:
1st, Carlo (Affinity)
2nd, Tonton (Birthing Pod)
3rd, Franco (BW Tokens)
4th, JayR (UW Merfolks)

We should have built the Junk pod deck but we didn’t have enough time. Anyway, with that attendance we are pretty confident that there will be another Modern tournament for this month and we’ll also be including that format in this year’s Iloilo Champs event.

That’s about it for this week. Next week will be the first Stoke the Flames FNM and a GP Manila Trials in Bacolod. I will try to post a tournament report for that event so just stay tuned.

Until next post and thanks for reading.