Category: mtg

  • Press Release: Target to Stock Phantom Boosters

    In a gaming industry first, Magic: the Gathering will have a line of “phantom” booster packs which do not add cards to their owner’s collection.

    APRIL 1, 2012 (RENTON, Wash.) – Adding excitement for players of the Magic: the Gathering collectible card game, Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS), announced today that it will be publishing “phantom boosters” as a Target exclusive product. Featuring Baneslayer Angel, Flame Wave, and other mighty spells, these boosters will allow players to bring all the fun of Magic Online’s “phantom events” to the gaming table!

    “Phantom events are a long-standing tradition on Magic Online, with a huge player base.” said Magic Online spokesperson Ken Modo. “With the popularity of phantom events, we felt it was time to bring that excitement and challenge into the real world. No longer will these tense, skill-testing events be available only to online players.”

    “Of course,” he added, “Phantom games come at a price.” Ken laughed and pointed a finger at my friend Larry, who vanished into the AEther, never to be seen again.

    The existence of phantom booster packs will enable players and children to gamble their life’s earnings away with less risk and without wasting unnecessary cardboard.

    “Phantoms have a long tradition in Magic: the Gathering.” said Jace Beleren, famed planeswalker. “Phantom creatures introduced in the Magic 2011 and Magic 2012 core sets have the ability, ‘Whenever this creatures becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.’ Keeping with the theme of vanishing under a target, we felt it was fitting to only stock phantom boosters at Target. Get it? Because they vanish? And it’s at a store called Target?”

    Wizards of the Coast is the worldwide market share leader in collectible small pieces of cardboard that you can play games with if you want. Target is a group of several hundred huge boxes scattered across the United States that sells stuff, including these very same small pieces of cardboard.

    Phantom booster packs will have 0 cards in them and will retail for $3.99.

  • Pro MTG Online #246

    Pro MTG Online #246

  • Avacyn: Spoiled

    Now and then, GoodGamery publishes real preview cards. In 2010, Wizards provided us with a preview card, Quag Sickness. In 2011, GoodGamery provided our own joke preview card, the random dual land generator. This year, the world will end. However, before that, we have received a new preview card from Wizards. This card is from Avacyn Restored, set to be released sometime soon. Let the spoiler season begin!



    (This card has, of course, been generated randomly for your convenience by the Magical Avacyn Restored Card Generator. To share this specific card with other people, click here and use the share link at the bottom of the page.)

  • Magic: The Gathering Officially Becomes Card Game

    After nearly two decades of quixotic experimentation as some sort of absurd professional sport, Magic: the Gathering, a fantasy-themed paper product sold at supermarkets and toy stores by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro corporation, has officially announced its return to its roots – a card game that people play for amusement and distraction.

    Magic: The Gathering had previously been positioned in the consumer market as an obsession, a cultural touchstone, a mark of social denigration, a node of social media activity, a nexus for profound misunderstandings between the sexes, and a global international semi-voluntary product marketing fraternity. Starting in 2012, Magic will return where its journey began – printed colors and text drawn in a random order to fill Mountain Dew breaks during Dungeons and Dragons games.

    “What we’ve done here is create a mind-shatteringly awesome experience that players can really get behind,” said Belene Hergeot, Director of Organized Play Programs and Operations, and the suit sent in by Hasbro to finally end the long years of wasteful charade. “People want to play Magic more than ever before, and they are. We have given them everything they wanted in their fantasies – a card game that can be played with cards. And I know without a doubt we have succeeded spectacularly. This is the reason we are all doing this, for the success and the success and the success of Magic. One-of-kind 3D amazing achievement of IMAX spectacularity they’ve been craving. Dreams fulfilled, hope restored – world spins an axis of bliss and justice. A new age, an age of miracles and glory.”

    “Also, we are cutting the Pro Tour,” she added. “Ponies. Joy-inspired suicide. More ponies.”

    Lott Scarabee, Magic Organized Play Program Manager, with nothing else to contribute to the press briefing, was still required to appear in this article, and read his grocery list. “Bananas, wheat germ, 1-qt. freezer bags with sliders, garlic powder, cheese ravioli, mayonnaise, horseradish, chicken sausage,” he said.

    The rumored initial cause for the decision was Wizards simultaneously awarding World Champion and Player of the Year titles to top Magic players, which were somewhat redundant and confusing. According to industry sources, the criteria for each title did not precisely match the impression made by its name. To resolve this problem, Hasbro fired everyone at Wizards and canceled the electric bill.

    Strategic documents acquired by this website show that millions upon millions of Magic: the Gathering cards already exist – more than enough to to pepper kitchen tables in the company’s target market – from the West Coast of the United States, skipping the middle part, all the way to the East Coast of the United States – for the foreseeable future.

    Since the huge glut of surplus product left over from the speculation by now-obsolete “competitive players” will take years to clear the market, Hasbro plans to lease the subsidiary’s Renton, WA offices to Bone Appetit, a luxury pet food boutique with no revenue streams that will close in three months.

    “This is an example Of decisions that aRe necessary for the nexT generation of Uber-magic playeRs. i’m Excited for these changes, Prepared, Loving Every Available minute i Spend with the Engaging leadersHip rEsponsible for Living our commitment to Players to this extent,” wrote Faron Aorsythe, director of Wizards R&D, on a napkin he slid under the door of a darkened conference room.

    According to industry rumors, other Wizards leadership did at some point develop financial calculations on cost savings and expected turnout rates that supported the decision. As of press time, their identities, whereabouts and even the truth of their existence were unknown, much like the mythical Sasquatch.

    Magic will join other big names of the just-a-card-game (JACG) industry, including Uno, Fluxx, and Underage Drinking, all of which trail industry titan Unopened Bicycle Poker Deck Left On Top of Your Bookshelf That You See Every Day but Don’t Bother Using or Putting Away, which holds 85% of the global market.

    “This is a great change that everybody here is totally behind,” said Magic Designer Nenny Kagle. “It will really focus the game on where it needs to be and give our players what they ask from a card-game experience. Also, our new Hasbro media relations associate Louis DeParc, who writes our press releases, is the awesomest. He is totally cooler than me, and I definitely should have let him borrow my Phyrexian costume for Halloween, instead of being a jerkwad about it. Which I am. Jerkwad, jerkwad, jerkwad.”

    Calls to Tina Gaffney, longtime Wizards of the Coast Spokesperson and author of

    The Case of the Missing Jell-O: A Dack Fayden Mystery

    were traced to a cell phone in the employee bathroom of a Toronto-area Tim Horton’s. They returned no comment but the soft sound of adult weeping.

    “You know, we make Candy Land, too,” said Hasbro CEO Ben Goldner. “And nobody gets to be King Shit of Candy Land. They’ll get over it.”

  • Stridin’

    They see me blockin’

    They hatin’

    Controllin’, they tryna catch me stridin’ dirty

    tryna catch me stridin’ dirty

    tryna catch me stridin’ dirty

    tryna catch me stridin’ dirty

    Attackers think they can see me lean

    I’m so tall it’s easy to be seen

    When you see me stride by you can see the gleam

    And I shine in this deck and on the sea

    In triple Scars draft I’m like “hold up”

    Make the poison decks clock slower

    x-4 for 2 man, thought I told ya

    Give a Cystbearer the cold shoulder

  • The Flavor of Innistrad

    It’s no surprise that Hasbro’s recent unveiled publishing deal with General Mills had a big effect on the top-down design of Innistrad. In week two of the Innistrad previews, Mark Rosewater talks about the influence that the five monster cereal tribes had on the set’s development.

    Remember that the set was always going to have a lot of creature types that only showed up in ones and twos. We just had to figure out which one we could blow up into another major race. In the end, I was swung by breakfast cereal. In 1975, General Mills put out five monster-themed cereals: Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy. Obviously, General Mills was trying to go with the most popular monsters. Vampires, zombies, and werewolves were all represented.

    Breakfast cereals have actually had a big impact on M:TG for years – I am sure you all remember Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, and Trix (famous decks), as well as Lucky Charms (a nickname for the Demon’s Horn cycle). For Innistrad it was pretty clear that Wizards of the Coast had decided to invest themselves fully in the breakfast cereal industry, but it ended up not working out for some reason. Normally you wouldn’t be able to see fully-rendered test cards like these, but our expert hackers were able to extract the following 5 tribal Planeswalkers from deep within WotC’s developer databases, along with some juicy developer comments:

    TL: Innistrad’s spirits are blue and white, without any real mechanical identity. This fits in well with what we usually try to do with planeswalkers: Having them make no flavor sense whatsoever. This is a home run in that department.

    TL: The main aspect of Innistrad zombies is that they say “Zombie” a lot on the cards, because market research showed that our most zombie-centric demographics would often forget what kind of card it was by the time they finished reading it. Someone designed this planeswalker, and then we threw that word in each ability and moved it around at random until the sentence made grammatical sense zombie.

    TL: Blah blah blah, something something, here’s a planeswalker that costs six.

    TL: Rawwwrrr! Werewolves! Yeah, I don’t know either, but creative called us like “hey can you make a planeswalker that regenerates werewolves” and we were like “what that’s stupid, regeneration sucks” and they were like “well you suck” and we were like “well no YOU suck” and then they said that if we don’t make one that they’ll stop Catherine from bringing in cake on Fridays and those cakes are really good and sometimes she’ll write a message to us in the frosting like “thanks for all the hard work guys!” and generally she’s just really sweet to us when she comes by with the cake (last week it was chocolate) so we said okay. Regeneration matters now, people! Really!

    TL: Rules change with Innistrad at FNM level and below: If a player targets a creature for the sole purpose of gaining life, no one is allowed to respond to that ability. I mean, come on. That would just be mean. The lil fella’s just trying to gain some life, would y’all chill out a bit? It’s pretty adorable.

    …and that’s the end of it. I wonder if we’ll end up seeing these unique new Planeswalker personalities in any upcoming sets?