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Magic: the Gathering - Shadows over Innistrad |OT| Blue's Clues

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JUMP TO ETERNAL MASTERS

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Trailer
Official page
Shadows over Innistrad information
Previous topic: Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Next set: Eldritch Moon

Welcome to the Multiverse! Multiple worlds exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and each plane is as different as night is from the day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, generated from bonds to the land, that can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.

Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a hit, and it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down to 0 life, from a start of 20, wins.

Shadows over Innistrad returns to the world of Innistrad, where the graveyard reigns and gothic horror is the name of the game. This set is also a milestone in Magic as a whole: the first block to start in spring as part of the two-block paradigm, where two different worlds are visited each year. The block's story, themes, and mechanics will be continued by Eldritch Moon in the summer.

This topic will cover the two weeks before all cards in the Shadows over Innistrad set are fully revealed, known as the spoiler weeks, where cards are slowly unveiled every weekday, up through the set release itself. Some cards have already been revealed during events like Pro Tours (or leaks), but this is when they are rolled out at a consistent pace. The main website updates at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST, but Wizards also provides card previews to other sites that will unveil them throughout the day, including non-English sites.

GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.

To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.

To get started, check out the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* For your first deck, you can buy an Intro Pack, a simple prebuilt deck that comes with a few booster packs. For each new set, five Intro Packs are released. There are also Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also has some booster packs and is a good place to store cards. You could also buy a Holiday Gift Box to get an even larger starting collection and better storage.
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Each player chooses a legendary creature to act as commander and then chooses 99 additional cards, one of each card that isn't a basic land (of which you can have any number) and only of the colors of the commander, to make up the deck. In games, each player starts at 40 life and there are typically four or more players. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!

PRERELEASE
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set, and in this set's event, every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.

Prerelease events will be held on April 2-3, 2016. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.

CHANGES
Shadows over Innistrad starting in spring demonstrates a major change to how Magic sets are handled, with an in-depth explanation for why here. In short, the two-set block model means:
* No more core sets.
* Blocks will have two sets instead of three. Yes, that means Shadows over Innistrad block will only have two sets.
* Without any core sets, there will now be two blocks a year. The next set of SOI block, Eldritch Moon, releases in the previous core set slot.
* Standard (a rotating format that only includes the latest sets) rotates with each block, so it will now rotate twice a year. Three blocks will be in Standard at a time. Sets will be in Standard for a max of 18 months. Note that Standard rotation is kind of odd this time. For the final three-set block, Khans of Tarkir, only the first two sets are rotating out. Dragons of Tarkir and the final core set, Magic Origins, will remain in Standard until fall.

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STORY
Trailer
Lore introduction
Guide to Innistrad

Innistrad is a world where humanity beset on all sides by monsters: restless spirits, necromancers and skaab stitchers raising the dead, demons and their worshipers, aristocratic vampire families, and ferocious werewolves, among many more. Long ago, the vampire Planeswalker Sorin Markov realized that if things stayed the course, the humans would go extinct and the vampires would be left without food. Playing the long game, he created the archangel Avacyn to protect the humans, and thus ensure the survival of the vampires into the distant future, even if it meant many of his own would die in the process. Avacyn became the most holy figure on Innistrad, leading the angels in support of humanity, while the rest of the world remained ignorant of her true purpose.

In the present, the heroes of the Gatewatch faced ancient horrors known as the Eldrazi, and have defeated two of the three Eldrazi Titans on the plane of Zendikar. The last and most powerful, Emrakul, is unaccounted for. The telepathic Planeswalker Jace Beleran has come to Innistrad to track down Sorin, since he helped seal away the Eldrazi in the first place, but when he arrives, he discovers that things have gotten weird. Some sort of madness is spreading through the land, and not even the angels are spared. Their wings have become soaked in blood and they are slaughtering humans, forcing the humans to fight both monsters and their former protectors. Meanwhile, the stone-shaping lithomancer Planeswalker who also helped seal away the Eldrazi, Nahiri, has resurfaced with a mysterious vendetta against the Markov family of vampires. Jace must turn detective to understand just what happened, and what this could be a portent of.

Shadows over Innistrad story
Story archive - Scroll to the bottom for chronological order; the layout of this archive is trash.

SET THEMES
Cards (alternate, includes leaks)
Mechanics

Double-faced cards
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Double-faced cards
The most popular mechanic of the original Innistrad is back! These cards don't have the usual card backs, and instead have a face on both sides. You can switch between sides using the transform mechanic. To put these cards in your deck, most players use opaque card sleeves to hide the back, but you can also use checklist cards that have the normal Magic card back and are included in some booster packs. You check off which double-faced card it represents and put the checklist card in your deck, leaving the actual double-faced card hidden somewhere until you cast that spell. A special subset of double-faced cards are the werewolves, which all transform in the same way, keeping track of how many spells were cast to reflect the activity of the day and inactivity of the night. On Innistrad, double-faced cards represent a dark transformation, and this time, not even the greatest of angels are immune.

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The game is afoot
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Investigate
Skulk
Players join in on figuring out what's happening to Innistrad with the investigate mechanic. Whenever you investigate, you get a Clue artifact, which you can pay (2) and sacrifice to draw a card, or keep around for cards that care about having Clues or artifacts in general. And who else to investigate but those sneaky creatures with the skulk mechanic, who can handily slip past creatures larger than them. Though it is unconfirmed, skulk is expected to become an evergreen mechanic for blue and black, meaning you'll potentially see it in every set from now on.

You know, Jace, we really are Odyssey Block 2: Jace in the Hood
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Madness
Delirium
The world is going crazy, and so are the mechanics. Madness returns to make discarding a card not such a bad idea. Instead of going directly to the graveyard, you discard the card to exile, where you have the opportunity to cast it for its madness cost or just send it to the graveyard. Delirium cares about having a lot of cards in your graveyard, similar to the threshold mechanic of yesteryear, but this mechanic only cares about having at least four card types. Once you reach that point, your opponent starts going loopy, letting him or herself get distracted by toppling candles and getting more frightened than appropriate. Suffice it to say, you should more highly value getting cards into your graveyard... and be wary that you may be helping your opponent when you make him or her discard or kill a creature.

RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Uncharted Realms Magic Story, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
SOI official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has an autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search engine for cards, with bigger pictures and more details. But it doesn't have an autocomplete.
Game store locator

PREVIOUS THREADS
Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Battle for Zendikar OT
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1

HIGHLIGHTS
If a card reveal is within the same 50 post range as the previous, no link is given.
Monday
Anguished Unmaking
Mothership - Startled Awake, Descend upon the Sinful, Sinister Concoction, Fiery Temper, promos, intro pack rares, Angel of Deliverance
Nahiri, the Harbinger
Neglected Heirloom
Wolf of Devil's Breach
Falkenrath Gorger
Sage of Ancient Lore
Tuesday
Rattlechains
Mothership - Odric, Lunarch Marshall; To the Slaughter
Arlinn Kord
Macabre Waltz
Descend upon the Fishermen
Wednesday
Breakneck Rider, Groundskeeper (former also discussed a few posts before without picture)
Epiphany at the Drownyard
Mothership - Jace, Unraveler of Secrets; Olivia, Mobilized for War
Sigarda, Heron's Grace
Rise from the Tides
Harness the Storm
Indulgent Aristocrat
Olivia's Bloodsworn, Merciless Resolve, Twins of Maurer Estate
Stromkirk Mentor
Thursday
Westvale Abbey
Traverse the Ulvenwald
Drownyard Temple
Mothership - Sorin, Grim Nemesis; Deathcap Cultivator
Vessel of Volatility
Diregraf Colossus
Silverfur Partisan, Daring Sleuth
Investigate card dump - Ongoing Investigation, Trail of Evidence, Jace's Scrutiny
Briarbridge Patrol
Behold the Beyond
Always Watching
Village Messenger
Friday
Limited Resources - Paranoid Parish-Blade, Manic Scribe, Gibbering Fiend, Obsessive Skinner
Second Harvest
Asylum Visitor
Mothership - Thalia's Lieutenant, Welcome to the Fold
Confirm Suspicions
Weekend
Corrupted Tombstone
Burn from Within
Engulf the Shore
Monday 2
"Handland" dual land cycle
Call the Bloodline
Mothership - Tireless Tracker, Ulvenwald Mysteries
Mothership - Sin Prodder
Invocation of Saint Traft
Nahiri's Machinations, Thraben Gargoyle
Triskaidekaphobia
Tuesday 2
Fevered Visions
Hanweir Militia Captain
Mothership - Avacyn's Judgment, Goldnight Castigator, tokens
Angelic Purge
Howlpack Resurgence
Scourge Wolf
Wednesday 2
Prized Amalgam
Inexorable Mass
Mothership - Vessel of Nascency, Vessel of Malignity, Vessel of Paramnesia
Mothership - The Gitrog Monster, Vessel of Ephemera
Forgotten Creation
Altered Ego
Humble the Brute
Survive the Night
Stitchwing Skaab, Stitched Mangler, Lamplighter of Selhoff
Uninvited Geist
Seasons Past
Thursday 2
Mothership - Ulvenwald Hydra, From Under the Floorboards, Creeping Dread
Hope Against Hope
Ever After
Mad Prophet
Lambholt Pacifist
"Welcome Deck" cards - includes various SOI commons
Duskwatch Recruiter
Full spoiler

Between-set and Eternal Masters highlights

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Haines

Banned
Already have everything proxied thus far.

Can't wait til spoilers to proxy and play test.

So far madness feels amazing in play. Me and my buddy love playing it already.
 

Daedardus

Member
I will be in China during the prerelase so I can't go, otherwise I'd have gone. That said, looking forward to this and hoping they will reveal some good U/R Control cards for my Blue Moon deck.
 

ironmang

Member
Went 4-4 drop in team sealed yesterday but I'm about to top 8 the 9 round super sunday series unless something catastropic happens. I'll upload a picture of my pool later. Definitely thought it was good but not this good.
 
God's Beard!" said:
We can all agree that Clique is the best French commander deck. Average cmc is like 1.8 and it costs about a tenth of what the other good decks do.

Plus it's like the most draw go deck ever. So much fun.

I like Clique a lot but Wydwen the biting gale is so much more fun to play imo (Access to B for disruption/discard as well as an amazing built-in evasion ability.) I'll concede that Clique is a lot harder to deal with though.
 

Matriox

Member
Ah sweet, spoilers officially start tomorrow :). I wanna see some more sweet stuff, but cmon, there's no way Thing in the Ice should be $20 each lol.
 
This thread isn't about politics, mass murders, or your favorite butt sniff... WTF?

edit: I love Magic, but isn't this a gaming thread?
 
This thread isn't about politics, mass murders, or your favorite butt sniff... WTF?

edit: I love Magic, but isn't this a gaming thread?

Eh, tabletop games are a gray area. The previous Magic threads and topics for some other CCGs have been in OT, while mobile card games are in Gaming.
 

G.ZZZ

Member
Jeff Hoogland is playing a Big Red deck.

He has 2 emrakuls in his deck.

He has 8 cards with 2 emrakuls in hand in his at a certain poitn, and he discard one emrakul.

Next turn, he redraw emrakul, he discard it again.

He draw a land and play sneak attack. The turn after, his opponent play platinum emperium. At this point, he's pretty sad because he need 2 emrakuls to destroy all enemy permanents and emperion or he can't win.

The turn after, he draw Emrakul again (3 draws, 2 emrakuls). He play an emrakul, attack and annihilate. The turn after, HE REDRAW EMRAKUL (4 draws, 3 emrakuls), whihc doesn't matter because he already had another one in hand but it was fucking hilarious.
 

Haines

Banned
Spoilers start tomorrow at 11am (East Coast time).

Cool. How does it work exactly? I've never followed the mechanics of it. Is it just a window of time that cards can be shown any where at any moment? Or is there a semblence of structure.
 
Ah man I'm so tempted to jump back in. I loved Innistrad. Not sure I could convince my friends to jump back in with me though....maybe I'll just hit a draft tourney or two
 

Yeef

Member
Cool. How does it work exactly? I've never followed the mechanics of it. Is it just a window of time that cards can be shown any where at any moment? Or is there a semblence of structure.
Articles will go up on the Mothership at 11am tomorrow. Throughout the day other sites will likely get their own, separate previews as well.
 
Jeff Hoogland is playing a Big Red deck.

He has 2 emrakuls in his deck.

He has 8 cards in his at a certain poitn, and he discard emrakul.

Next turn, he redraw emrakul, he discard it again.

He draw a land and play sneak attack. The turn after, his opponent play platinum emperium. At this point, he's pretty sad because he need 2 emrakuls to destroy all enemy permanents and emperion or he can't win.

The turn after, he draw Emrakul again (3 draws, 2 emrakuls). He play an emrakul, attack and annihilate. The turn after, HE REDRAW EMRAKUL (4 draws, 3 emrakuls), whihc doesn't matter but it was fucking hilarious.

That sounds amazing
 
With what we have seen so far, I might build a W/B value deck. Ayli, Drana, Kalitas, and Avacyn seems like a really good curve.
 

ultron87

Member
Yay new thread.

I don't think SoI is going to turn me back into a Standard player, but it does look like there are already some very sweet cards. I really just don't play enough Constructed events to justify keeping up with Standard. Holding onto my Modern deck and just doing that occasionally is far cheaper. Unfortunately, Eldrazi Winter has kept me from Modern events too, even though my deck is a decent match up against them. Otherwise I just go to drafts.

The most Magic I've played over the last few months has been proxy Legacy games with a few friends. That is a super fun format and is a total shame the real thing is so absurdly expensive to play in sanctioned events. Some stores here are allowing proxies in unsanctioned events though, which I might start attending. I currently have a fondness for Death and Taxes and Grixis Delver. Because apparently I don't like my opponents doing things. Storm also has some entertaining lines to figure out/totally screw up and fizzle out. I also like playing Miracles but inflicting that on my friends is no fun. The whole mechanic that deck has of being constantly aware of what is on top of your deck is just an element I really enjoy. So yeah, Legacy is cool.
 
We know that Arlinn will be spoiled on Tuesday and Sorin on Thursday, thanks to LSV. I wonder if they'll spoil Jace first thing tomorrow or save him for later.
Seeing LSV talking to Spooky on Twitter and it kinda blew my mind Wizards has not had Spooky on for a streamer showdown. The guy has more followers than probably every Magic streamer put together including the official Magic Twitch channel. If the point of those things is marketing, they really need to start seeking out streamers that stream non-Magic stuff.
 

.JayZii

Banned
I've been out of the loop for a bit, but that's awesome that they are returning to Innistrad. Definitely my favorite setting.

Min Yum already bringing it with the card art.
 

kirblar

Member
Seeing LSV talking to Spooky on Twitter and it kinda blew my mind Wizards has not had Spooky on for a streamer showdown. The guy has more followers than probably every Magic streamer put together including the official Magic Twitch channel. If the point of those things is marketing, they really need to start seeking out streamers that stream non-Magic stuff.
I'm really shocked they haven't reached out to him.
 

Zoibie

Member
I just missed out on the first Innistrad block when I got into Magic and I was always bummed I never got to see any of that world for myself. I suppose there's nothing stopping me from getting a bunch of the old cards - there isn't an LGS within a reasonable distance so I basically just stick to commander with a few friends. Going to try to head to a prerelease for this one though, I love the look of what's been spoiled so far.
 

bigkrev

Member
I'm really shocked they haven't reached out to him.

If they can't be bothered to do video coverage of their own events or paying the tournament organizer, who has extensive experience with streaming Magic, to do it, I don't think they will grab FGC outsiders for their streaming
 

kirblar

Member
If they can't be bothered to do video coverage of their own events or paying the tournament organizer, who has extensive experience with streaming Magic, to do it, I don't think they will grab FGC outsiders for their streaming
He streams MTGO during downtime.
 

Reick17

Member
I'm getting back into Magic after having not played since Core Set X. I'm so overwhelmed...

I sold off most of my cards, except for my golds and Sliver deck, but was able to recently score a big collection spanning mid-90's through 2010/2011. Is Legacy still around? We just got a new game store here that I like but I'm not sure I can keep up with Standard, financially or otherwise.
 
If you don't wanna buy into standard or modern you can try limited. You can usually make little to no loss by just selling the valuable cards from drafting.

Unless you go 0-2 all the time.
 
I'm getting back into Magic after having not played since Core Set X. I'm so overwhelmed...

I sold off most of my cards, except for my golds and Sliver deck, but was able to recently score a big collection spanning mid-90's through 2010/2011. Is Legacy still around? We just got a new game store here that I like but I'm not sure I can keep up with Standard, financially or otherwise.
What are you overwhelmed about? We can help clear anything up.

Legacy is still around, and there's even a new product coming out in a few months that's partially aimed at it, Eternal Masters. However, the player base is inevitably shrinking due to the price of entry and the really important cards being on the Reserved List of cards that can never be reprinted.
 
Neat! I dont play Magic because I cant begin to afford the hobby, or know many people who play, but these cards always look so interesting.
 
I can't wait. For one because the set looks fantastic so far but also because this rotation is going to be titanic. Khans power level is pretty damn high, even that losing that set alone will have more of an impact that the last rotation when we lost four sets. Should be a lot of fun digging through the wreckage.
 

bigkrev

Member
Whooo decided to join a 9E draft cause why not. Pretty sure my deck sucks but whatever


I'm getting back into Magic after having not played since Core Set X. I'm so overwhelmed...

I sold off most of my cards, except for my golds and Sliver deck, but was able to recently score a big collection spanning mid-90's through 2010/2011. Is Legacy still around? We just got a new game store here that I like but I'm not sure I can keep up with Standard, financially or otherwise.

Legacy still exists, but it's been getting less and less popular after it had a surge in 2011 or so because the prices just keep going up and they aren't reprinting dual lands.

Make sure you read the rules- there have been some BIG changes (damage no longer goes on the stack being the biggest one)
 

jwhit28

Member
Innistrad was the first time that me and my friends really had the extra income to get deep into Magic. Can't wait to return.
 
Seeing LSV talking to Spooky on Twitter and it kinda blew my mind Wizards has not had Spooky on for a streamer showdown. The guy has more followers than probably every Magic streamer put together including the official Magic Twitch channel. If the point of those things is marketing, they really need to start seeking out streamers that stream non-Magic stuff.

The entire reason I play Magic now is that some guy named Ons1aught (a Call of Duty YouTuber) put up a video of him and some other CoD YouTubers playing 4-player DotP on Xbox 360. I watched the whole thing without ever having played Magic before and bought it on 360 because it looked intriguing. So yes - going after different streams is something I would highly encourage.
 
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