Thats it NEW YEAR! I hope you all have a happy new year and I left this poll open because of last months messup. I though it deserves 3 weeks insted of 2.

Now for the card we had a verry close game. So close actually:

By one vote!

This card wasn’t celebrated for being good until just recently when poeple started figuring out how to use it in some decks.

Eldrazi Monument was about $5

Now it is $7.75

It is obviously great in a token deck but some poeple don’t look to deep into it. If your playing standard you could use Bloodghast in a landfall deck with this.

Eldrazi won over Emeris because the monument  won a couple of tornements increasing its popularity just enough to have in win over shields.

And in my opinion Eldrazi Monument is better than Akroma’s memorial:

Mainly for the fact that Eldrazi makes all your creatures indestructable and costs 2 less. Even though Eldrazi has its obviously bad effect if the deck is built around it or thrown into a good token deck its effect can be negated.

Also if you dont already know Eldrazi is in the name of the Zendikar block’s 3rd set. Rise of Eldrazi and the possible return of merit lage. Look here to read more.

Thanks for ready and remember to vote for this months CoM

Later today, I will post the last pack of the pack per day challenge. I haven’t been able to post much, but I can today.

Rise of the Eldrazi, although it hasn’t been officially announced, is the name of the spring set for 2010. It will be a large (Zendikar size, not Worldwake size) set that will be drafted by itself. (RRR, not ZWR) It will be set in Zendikar, but will be completely different. That means that there probably won’t be allies, traps, landfall, or kicker. (They will exist in Worldwake)

Prerelease: April 17-18, 2010

Release: April 23-25, 2010

Here’s the logo:

And here we see Sorin Markov and Nissa Reveane in front of something huge, which I’m assuming is the eldrazi:

Now on to Marit Lage. Whether or not Dark Depths is in Rise of the Eldrazi (I doubt that because the Eldrazi would have been free by then, and also Marit Lage was trapped in ice on a different plane.) there is a lot of evidence that Marit Lage is an Eldrazi. Let’s start the way we were able to figure out that Nicol Bolas would be in Conflux: We’ll look at a Zendikar card for comparison.

Now, there are a few things to compare this to. First, we’ll look at Dark Depths itself:

Compare this to the eldrazi monument and to the ROTE image. Looks similar, right? Even before looking at it, Eldrazi Monument makes creatures bigger, flying, and indestructible. Marit Lage is big, flying, and indestructible. Look at the Marit Lage token:

Compare that to the eldrazi. If you still aren’t convinced, look at the Ice Age card Wrath of Marit Lage and compare the flavor text to that of the Eldrazi Monument:

Dread Marit Lage lies dreaming, not dead. That’s the flavor text here, while on Eldrazi Monument the flavor text is: Gods don’t die. They Merely Slumber.

Now, the story line evidence. Marit Lage is very old, and isn’t a planewalker. Marit Lage can travel through the planes, in a different way. Here’s a link to the amazon.com book description of the Zendikar book, In the Teeth of Akoum. To quote the review:

For gamers and fantasy fans alike, a fast-paced, stand-alone adventure that brings the popular trading card game Magic: the Gathering® to life.

Lurking in the space between the aether and the physical plane, there is a great evil waiting to emerge.

Zendikar is a land of danger and adventure, a world of deadly risks and priceless rewards. It is also a prison to one of the most deadly species known to the Multiverse: the dreaded Eldrazi.

When our story opens, part of the mystical containment spell that has kept the Eldrazi captive for millennia has been breached. The brood lineage, the Eldrazi minions, have been released and are poring over the plane, devouring everything in their path, but the swath they cut across the land is nothing next to the destruction that the still-imprisoned Eldrazi Titans will wreck once released.

Nissa Revane, a planeswalker and proud elf warrior of the Jorga Nation, is witness to what the brood lineage can do. She sees that they pose a bigger problem than most suppose. Sorin, an ancient vampire planeswalker, knows this as well as anyone because he was among the original jailers of the ancient scourge. He has returned to Zendikar to make sure the Titans do not escape. They both want the Eldarzi threat extinguished but each has their own agenda. Nissa wants the Eldrazi off her plane entirely. Sorin wants to put the lock back on their cell. And there are still others who want the Titans to escape.

Together they set out across the land on search of the Eye of Ugin, the source of the Eldrazi uprising, where they will face what could be their final challenge. Will the Eldrazi escape to menace the Multiverse once again?

While we’re at it, look at Ghostfire, from Futuresight, and look at the flavor text:

Back to Marit Lage. The text shows that Marit Lage has the same characteristics that the Eldrazi do. They were ancient, hugely powerful beings that were trapped on Zendikar. Is it possible that one was trapped in ice on a different plane instead? I think the answer is yes.

I also want to make one more point. Because of Vampire Hexmage, Dark Depths has been thrown into actual use in tournaments. Was that intentional? (Actually, I don’t think that was intentional. But I think the rest was.)

It is past midnight, so it this will be shown as 10/18. If I post day sixteen, it will have the same date as this. This was the best pack I’ve opened so far from this set. (Actually, I can only think of one pack with as much value inside as this pack. And not even a treasure card!)

And FOIL:

Hello. I didn’t have time to post my pack yesterday, so I’ll post it today.

Day Seven

Day Eight

Foil:

Hello. Still no foils, mythics, fetchlands, or treasures.

Day 4, pack 4, 32 to go. So far no mythics, no foils, no fetchlands, and no treasures…

Hello. Today, I am going to pose a challenge to all of you. When you buy your Zendikar booster packs, instead of opening them all at once, open them one pack per day. Each day, open one pack and post your results in a comment. I am taking the challenge, with somewhere between 18 and 36 packs to open (Or more if I win prizes at the release party). I will post the contents on the blog when I open them. Now, if you open 200 booster boxes (and you know who you are), you can still take the challenge. You are the store owners or über collectors. Open the packs you would usually open, but leave one for each day until Worldwake comes out to open one per day.

<Zach edit> Hi this is Zach I am also taking this challenge  with packs between 18-36. Also what will be a nice addition is if you send to the email adress czmtgblog@gmail.com the results of you opening you pack. Once we start with the challange Calvin and I will post them on the blog/page that we made. We would love to add your results too!

Umm…Wow? That was a great prerelease! For all of you that missed the prerelease heres how it went/a few tips. And the Prerelease cards:

6/6 for 6 with trample = good. 6/6 for 6 with trample that makes minime’s = Oponent has to kill this card or else they loose.

Ya…If you can keep this in play this is a great great card. When both players roll choas symbol then the game gets extreamly interesting…Or boring you choose.

Calvin went Green/White. He got a few nice rare cards, I’m not 100% sure of what he got because I was usually stuck playing my own games.

I played (Red/Blue) / (Red/White) -Ill explain this later-

I got six rares from the six packs I opened (duh) and calvin got seven (one foil)

I got 3/1 (1st game lost, rest won)

Calvin got 1/3 (1st, 3rd, 4th game lost, 2nd game by) -Bad Time for Calvin-

The main highlight that I opened were World Queller, Nissa Revin and the red/blue fletched land. The sad part was I only used World Queller and it wasn’t based on World Queller, it was just thrown in thier for the fun of it.

I played Red/Blue for the First game of the First Match. I lost…Utterly…I had no hope of winning whatsoever. I then (thanks to my nice partner allowing me) compleatly redid my deck. Taking out all blue cards and making a nice red/white deck. I based my deck off of well putting all my red and or white cards into the deck. Exept for the white cards that have to do with equippments because I had no equippments.

Also a funny (very funny) thing that happend was… I traded the Flettched land (red/blue) I traded for a pack and $3.  I opened the pack… Went through it slowly the guy was watching over my shoulder. The rare I got was…………..The fletched Land the Red/Blue! We both had a great laugh calvin was there laugh his head off as well. The guy said it was totally worth it just for the laughs. After that I traded the Fletched land for $1 and another pack, didn’t really get a good rare.

Well now that you are done reading about my “life” here are a few tips and tricks about Zendikar.

Make a RED DECK! Almost all the poeple that got 3/1 and 4/0 used a deck with red in them. The basis of the set is just like the basics of magic. Get cards out and kill. Its basic compared to Alara Reborn with trying to make a Multicolored deck or the Morningtide/ Shadowmoor set with trying to make tribal.

Another great tip is use Landfall, No dont just use it Spam it! It is such a great abilitiy it makes life so much easier.

Kicker is also another great thing to use. It is alot better than when it was first intoduced.

Trap cards are nice but they arereally good when you play them for there trap ability you say “My god you have made me use my trap card!”. Yes my opponent did say that…And yes it did lighten the mood.

A few Great cards to use are…: (Sorry I dont rememember names)

1/3  scorpion with deathtouch, It is a great card I went agenst an opponent with 2 out ouch, that was hard to beat.

2/3 vampire with deathtouh, flying, lifelink. That is a hard card to beat.

1/1 goblin with kicker {2} {R}. The kicker deals 2 damage to target creature. This has helped so much!

Thies are just a few great cards but in this set a few “bad” cards will actually end up being good. Closly examine each card some cards are great and well others are kinda…well….pethetic.

It’s Zach here. Now I’m a decent artist, I can draw some pictures but nothing fancy like well….this:

We were looking for an image to put onto the sidebar/header. We couldn’t find anything anywere to put on and then it hit me… Why not let a fan make make the image? I mean if we let them make it creativly or even better competitivly we will see the true colors of artists and Magic the Gathering fans.

So thus a competitition was born!

To take part all you have to do is draw a picture and scan it! (unless you made it on the computor!) Then send it to:

czmtgblog@gmail.com

Just a couple of rules of course:

1) Remember copyrights!

2)Must be 800 by 800!

3)Must have to do with magic

Optionals:

1)Name it! (or else we will)

2)Dragonguardian or something to do with it might give an edge…

No matter how good you are at drawing sumit a picture! What harm can come out of it?

And remember Calvin and I are not going to look for one and put it up thats for you fans to decide! Were going to put a poll up and you can look at the entries and vote on a poll.

Thanks for enterting and thanks for reading we’ll injoy looking at your entre will evryone alse!

–This contest will end at March 1st–

Swinging into first place this month is lighting bolt.  The lovly spell that leaves your opponent smoking on the ground…(or a summoned creature). Also Lightning bolt is taken out of DnD another game that Wizards of the Coast made.

Lighting bolt= About $1.25

This card should be in all (ok almost all) red decks. It is a card that can change the outcome of a game. Having 4 of thies in your deak means that you can deal 12 damage divided by 3 to any creature or player. Take out a captian of the watch or an annoying plainswalker.

Heres a few decks that you can throw a lightning bolt (it is a common) into:

Burn decks

Tribal decks

Mono red decks

creatureless decks

and a few others.

A few knock off lighting bolts are:

Strafe

Lava Spike

Not as good…ok not nearly as good they have “hidden ties” like Strafe that means you almost need to side board it, and Lava spike is great for just hurting your enemy but if its in your hand when you need to keep a creature (I have had this a few times). You go: *sigh* I need a *** **** lighting bolt. I swear it always seems to be the next card.

Thats all about lighting bolt but its time for you to Vote for the next CoM if you havnt done so already!