Upcoming Sets

[ShawnieBoy]

On June 6th Conspiracy will be released. The vast majority of the cards will be reprints (145), with 52 new tournament legal cards, and 13 illegal cards. I'm assuming the illegal cards will be the cards of the new type - Conspiracy (No, not the enchantment). Although I wouldn't be surprised if the cards involving the draft abilities are included as well.

So it would seem that the new keyword ability Dethrone (Whenever this creature attacks the player with the most life or tied for most life, put a +1/+1 counter on it.) and the new ability words Will of the Council — and Parley — will be included. More info about the mechanics can be found here: Mechanics of Conspiracy

Dethrone and Parley look like the easiest of the trio to implement, I've not much idea how best to approach the whole voting mechanic, even with just two players!

I'll update the set codes and the card lists when it's fully revealed - trimming out the non-tournament legal cards. A current list of revealed cards can be found here: Card Image Gallery

[ShawnieBoy]

Next week (23rd June) will be the start of the previews for M15. The main new feature will be the new card frames. Although there's always an expectation of rules revisions along with a bunch of new cards!

Magic 2015 product page

[ShawnieBoy]

Wizards have been fiddling with their website, so here's a link to the previews for M15

[ShawnieBoy]

The first set of the next block release "Khans of Tarkir" will be released on September 26, 2014

It looks as though it will strongly feature Morph as it's returning mechanic - That's 2 months, 2 Magarena releases to see if Morph can be included, hehe

[ShawnieBoy]

The first set of the next block release "Khans of Tarkir" will be released on September 26, 2014

It looks as though it will strongly feature Morph as it's returning mechanic - That's 2 months, 2 Magarena releases to see if Morph can be included, hehe

Well, got Morph done

More abilities have come to light:

Keywords
Outlast <mana cost> (<mana cost>, : Put a +1/+1 counter on SN. Outlast only as a Sorcery.)
Prowess (Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

Ability words
Raid — When SN enters the battlefield, if you attacked with a creature this turn, <effect>.
Ferocious — Whenever SN attacks, if you control a creature with power 4 or greater, <effect>

Ferocious will also appear on spells, modifying what the spell does. "if you control a creature with power 4 or greater..."

Also the 'return' of Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard as you cast this spell pays for .) - Hopefully not used a lot!

Raid doesn't need much extra work as it's an ability word. Just a 'you attacked with a creature this turn' condition.
Even Outlast and Prowess are simple enough. I've included them as separate abilities with their own individual activations and triggers, even though a rule match would work. Knowing Magic, these will probably start having things that trigger 'when a creature Outlasts'. If these never appear during the block these abilities could be replaced with a Rule Match.

Also with a bit of foresight, Outlast has been given a <cost> instead of a <mana cost> as there's bound to be other activation costs (even positive ones, I can see 'Gain 1 life' or even 'Draw a card' as activation costs coming). Always a safer default for adding abilities.

Official previews tomorrow (1st Sept), and only 3wks till official release (26th Sept). With a Magarena 1.54 release around the 30th, would be nice to get a good bundle of them included for the rotation of Standard.

[ShawnieBoy]

Looks like Delve will have a prominent appearance in Khans of Tarkir
Might start having a look at trying to implement it (It's not a cost-reducing ability, thankfully)

[ShawnieBoy]

Khans of Tarkir has been fully revealed: Here

[ShawnieBoy]

Yesterday Commander 2014 was fully revealed.

Unfortunately (for Magarena anyway) the new Ability-word Lieutenant won't currently be available as it is Commander specific (unsurprisingly)

Lieutenant — As long as you control your commander, <effect>

A cycle of 'Offerings' give you and one opponent a same benefit, in a two-player game this isn't quite as useful...

Another favourite of mine which will definintely be going in my commander deck is Dulcet Sirens (Also fairly useless in a two-player game)



Although saying that, there's plently of interesting cards - New Legends, of course, and a cycle of new Planeswalkers that can also be used as a commander...

[ShawnieBoy]

Ok, after my hiatus I can continue with this thread.

We have Magic Origins released on 17th July (next month!).

With the new set - which is also being referenced as a Core Set, a change from the slightly-out-of-synch year namings.
Things we know so far:

Scry is becoming an evergreen keyword action. - Going to be seeing a lot more of it... Bit of a problem with high values.
Prowess is becoming an evergreen keyword ability. - Good, good.
Intimidate will be removed (as in not put on any new cards, it will still work!) and replaced with Menace, a new evergreen keyword ability. Bit of a problem here as well:

This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.

As a bonus if there's some way to get this into Magarena, there will be lots of cards coming with it.

There's also a decision to not produce new cards with Landwalk abilities, and Protection will be being used less often.

As for mechanics, we will have more double-sided cards, though this time from creature -> planeswalker as a one-way transition.

[ShawnieBoy]

Ok, some more abilities revealed:

Keyword Action: Renown N (When this creature deals combat damage to a player, if it isn't renowned, put N +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes renowned) - Similar in style to Monstrosity, but with a different activation, this time combat damage.

Ability Word: Spell Mastery — If there are two or more instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard, <additional/alternate effect> - A condition effect, shoudln't be too difficult to implement.

Already covered Menace, Transform, Prowess and Scry

[ShawnieBoy]

Battle for Zendikar is on the horizon (2nd Oct) and already some abilities have been revealed.

Devoid (This card has no color)
Should be simple enough to implement. Appears on colored cards to make them eldrazi-like.

Ingest (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of his or her library)
Again, this can (and is) already appear as scripted. However this ability works as a set-up for other cards dealing with cards in exile. As seen in Oblivion Sower:

Oblivion Sower
Creature — Eldrazi
5/8
When you cast CARDNAME, target opponent exiles the top four cards of his or her library, then you may put any number of land cards that player owns from exile onto the battlefield under your control.

This isn't targeting cards in exile, which is good, but I wouldn't be surprised if there will be. Exile being a more involved zone looks like an eldrazi theme.

Awaken <amount> — <cost> (If you cast this spell for <cost>, also put <amount> +1/+1 counters on target land you control and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste. It's still a land.)
This alternate cost adds an animate action to a spell. Should be fine to implement.

Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, <effect>
Landfall is obviously going to return, this time showcasing a choice of effects that trigger as a "Choose one — "

[ShawnieBoy]

The official breakdown of the abilities in Battle for Zendikar is here

Looks like cards in exile will be used (although not really 'targeted', just chosen), however there's going to be another ability which varies depending on the color of mana used to cast it (Similarly to Sunburst):

Radiant Flames
Sorcery
Converge — CARDNAME deals X damage to each creature where X is the number of colors of mana spent to cast CARDNAME.

Being able to implement this will open quite a number of cards, Appearing in the old and new Mirrodin blocks, as well as Ravnica (as in "if was spent to cast..." etc). As well was "spend only to cast..." and "for each spent to cast..." type cards when mana spent can be determined and restricted.

[ShawnieBoy]

Commander 2015 is out next week! (That came out of nowhere)
And the next block - Shadows over Innistrad has be revealed.

As for Commander there's a few new additions:

• Experience counters: These are akin to Poison counters, in that they are applied to players instead of permanents, but give a positive benefit to the player, mainly from the new commanders. These shouldn't prove much of an issue, although will probably have an impact on the UI (Sorry lodici)
• Myriad: Creature Ability with a large reminder text:
  Whenever this creature attacks, for each opponent other than defending player, you may put a token that's a copy of this creature onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that player or a planeswalker he or she controls. Exile the tokens at end of combat.
  This will have no effect in Magarena as it's always 1-on-1.
• 'Choose Three' modular effects: Like the previous 'Choose one', 'Choose two'; however these have only three options and each can be chosen multiple times. Each effect occurs in the order printed on the card, and multiple instances are applied separately (ie. 'deal 1 damage to each creature' chosen twice would deal 2 instances of 1 damage, not 2 damage).
  This will be a bit of a problem, essentially serial choices which could prove tricky.

[ShawnieBoy]

With Oath of the Gatewatch due in January, there's already been a couple of card spoilers, which if true, add another mana variant to the game:



Essentially a colorless mana variant, similar in a way to Snow mana. Without further information (Of which there isn't yet), it's difficult to say how much this will affect Magarena.

[ShawnieBoy]

With the release of a reprint, it looks as though the symbol is merely representing colorless mana. So the casting cost for Kozilek is 8 mana of any color (including colorless) and 2 colorless mana.

Here's the reprint


Whether this distinction is only going to be used in this set or will become a standard symbol for colorless mana waits to be seen.