Magic in the coming months - 2009

This year is building up to be an exciting one for Magic players new and old. With 2 new major sets coming out later this year, as well as several smaller ones, we are in for lots and lots of fresh deck-building goodness. Here are some of the releases I'm looking forward to:

Alara Reborn: This is the third and final set in the Shards of Alara block, set for release on April 30th. I can't wait to see what crazy goodies are in this one, since it's pretty much confirmed that it will be an all-gold set. For plenty of yummy spoilers, drop by MTG Realm!

Magic 2010: This is the next core set (11th edition) due out this summer. According to the MTG website, this set is expected to bring back some much needed classic Magic flavor. Classic cards like Black Knight are coming back, but they are also doing something new with this one. This will be the first core set to include brand new cards unique to the core set. I'm also anticipating those new "dual lands" everyone is talking about.

Zendikar: Not much is known about the October set beyond the release date (Oct. 2nd) and some early speculation. However, along with the official announcement, they gave us a slogan to begin fueling the rumor mills: Deadly Perils, Priceless Treasures. This has caused people to think everything from dinosaurs to pirates. Personally, the name and slogan invoke images of jungles, temples, and booby traps (MISTA JONES!). I guess we'll just have to wait till the fall.

Duel Decks: Divine vs. Demonic: It's about time Wizards released a set of "good vs. evil"-themed decks. This type of theme has been a staple of Magic flavor since the beginning, when Lord of the Pit first hit the table. Should be interesting to see what cards they include in this one.

From the Vault: Exiled: According to the official announcement, this set is going to include 15 of Magic's most powerful cards that were once banned, but are now playable again. 8 cards are gonna have new art, and the set will come with a unique spindown life counter. It looks like Balance is going to be part of this set.

Seems like the spoiler hounds have a lot of their plates! I too will try to keep up to date on any news from upcoming sets.

Happy Planeswalking!

A new beginning for this blog...

To date, there has only been one post on this blog...that was almost a year ago. I haven't really had much to blog about, but it's a new year and I'm going to start anew with this blog.

So this is the start of my new blog: The Life and Times of a Planeswalker...

Ajani Vengeant - Wayne Reynolds

For anyone not familiar with the concept of a Planeswalker, it is pretty much just a person in the Magic: the Gathering Universe that has the ability to travel between an infinite amount of worlds at will. This "gift" is called the Planeswalker's "spark".

Although purely fantasy, I do find the idea of a Planeswalker to be an appropriate metaphor for the way my life is going at the moment. I'm currently a sophmore at the Savannah College of Art and Design, majoring in Animation (minoring in Sound Design), and at times I do feel very much like I'm traveling between an infinite amount of creative worlds. As an artist, I too have my own "spark" that I need to learn to control and focus.

So the basic premise of this blog is going to be a discussion about my various interests and hobbies, mainly focusing on the Magic: the Gathering trading card game. I'm still a fairly new Magic player, say maybe 6 months now since I bought my first booster. Since then, I have become extremely obsessed with getting to know every facet of the game. That is partly why I decided to reinvigorate this blog; to share my Magic experiences with everyone. I also want to be able to document my deck/combo ideas, talk about upcoming sets/spoilers, that kinda stuff.

Some of my other interests include music (I play guitar), art, linguistics, and a lot of other nerdy things, so there are bound to be posts about those things as well.

I can't wait to see how this all goes! I look forward to open discussion with all my fellow magic players out there.

Stay tuned! Feel free to leave comments!