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We're all just here for the deep Urza lore - Talking about Magic: The Gathering!
So, there's two mechanics involved here (apologies if you know this stuff already, I'm not sure how much Magic experience you have!). The first is that Miracle is a keyword from Avacyn Restored that says "You may cast this card for its Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn." Typically you'd see it on very powerful and expensive spells, but the Miracle cost would be extremely cheap (for instance, the extra turn spell Temporal Mastery -- instead of spending seven mana to cast it, if Temporal Mastery was the first card you drew that turn you could cast it for two mana). At one point there was a competitive deck that used the mechanic heavily, alongside cards that could manipulate the top of your deck to ensure you'd hit the Miracle costs.
The other one is snow mana. Starting in Ice Age, they made Snow-Covered lands, which are the same as regular basic lands, but instead of regular mana, they produce snow mana. It wasn't really a thing that mattered for a long time, then it made a bit of a comeback in the last ~4 years or so. The snowflake symbol is used to indicate snow mana of any color.
Putting that all together, this card lets you cast any decorated card in your hand for one snow mana, as long as that card was the first card you drew that turn. (NB "decorated cards" is not a mechanic that exists outside of this singular card.) Probably also worth noting that these employee promo cards aren't actually legal to play anywhere, they're just meant to be fun and thematic.
My Magic experience is mostly mid-90s based (outside stuff I picked up for the recent LotR release) so I actually remember snow-covered lands! Miracle is a mechanic I hadn’t seen. Altogether that sounds like a fun thing to build a (not actually legal) deck around! Well, if you have a bunch of promo cards anyway. My stash is from long before full art of special border cards existed, but I have a couple promos from some of the very early paperback novels!
If you have one of those Mana Crypts, it's worth probably around $250-330 depending on condition. The other HarperPrism promo cards aren't nearly as much (I think the second-most valuable one is Arena, which goes for like $5-10.)
Hmmmmm, guess I should check whether I still have a Mana Crypt, huh....
Insta-edit: Found 'em. I have one of each of those, plus three other novel promos and a DragonCon '94 one. The Crypt isn't in mint condition, but it's not bad. Not sure if I caught that one last time I was pricing rare stuff (which was like a decade ago at this point anyway), thanks for the heads-up!
Lol, I know, the last time I priced stuff was when I sold you a few duals and other things! 
Hopefully I’ll get my shit together for another update some day. Though, man, the rarity of original print Mana Crypt gives me a lot of mixed feelings on whether I’d want to part with it.
Hopefully I’ll get my shit together for another update some day. Though, man, the rarity of original print Mana Crypt gives me a lot of mixed feelings on whether I’d want to part with it.
My girlfriend and I went to our first ever prerelease for Wilds of Eldraine last night, and had a really great time. It was both of our first times playing out of the house since before the pandemic, and her first time playing against people who weren't me. My sealed pool was all over the place and I ended up building Orzhov Rares I Opened, mostly out of necessity. I wasn't even sure the deck would function, but I ended up with three wins and one draw, thanks to some tight play and the raw power of Archon of the Wild Rose, Rankle's Prank, and Expel the Interlopers. My girlfriend opened up an absolutely terrifying R/B deck but unfortunately only went 2-2. She did open a foil Beseech the Mirror though, which should cover a decent chunk of our entry fees. That's pretty nice!
I'd definitely do another prerelease in the future, and I'm pretty excited to draft more of this set once it goes live on Tuesday. Anyone else go/planning to go this weekend?
I'd definitely do another prerelease in the future, and I'm pretty excited to draft more of this set once it goes live on Tuesday. Anyone else go/planning to go this weekend?
Mr Bean
Chief Detective
Damnit WotC, first Lord of the Rings and now this. Stop hitting me in the nostalgia, damnit!
It looks very fun! The first Ixalan sets came out right before I returned to the game, and while I've heard the limited environment wasn't great, I always loved the flavor. My girlfriend and I are going to prerelease on Saturday and we're both hoping for dinosaurs.
My neighbor across the street just out of nowhere dropped that he's ranked 200-ish and regularly plays in big tournaments. He asked for advice about streaming his games, since he apparently regularly gets matched with some pretty big names. Kind of sad I only discovered this when we're in the process of moving out.
Opened the door, got on the floor, my pool did not contain dinosaurs.
Went three wins and one loss with Izzet Tempo Rares. My promo card was Malcom, and I opened Breeches, Inti, two Tishana's Tidebinders (one full art and foil!), and a second Malcolm. Curving Malcolm into Breeches or Inti felt amazing every time, and in one game I notably got to flash in a Tidebinder to counter my opponent crafting their Sunbird Standard. My only match loss was to a sick Gruul dinos deck, and that opponent rightfully went undefeated all night. Every other deck I saw was sweet and everyone seemed to be having a really good time.
I haven't even seen everything in my girlfriend's deck, but her pool was bonkers. She's mostly black/red splashing white for Quintorius and Vito, and she's also got Aclazotz and Poetic Ingenuity in there. During the final round we were sitting next to each other, and at one point I looked over and she had Aclazotz and Quintorius out at the same time. Terrifying.
Just like the last prerelease, we both had a blast. Anyone else go? How'd you do?
Someone anonymously sponsored me, so I've played twice this weekend! My first prerelease I had Intrepid Paleontologist and Huatli, so I played Gruul Dinosaurs and went 3-1. It was so much fun and I love love love playing dinosaurs! My only loss was to mana/color screw.
Second prerelease I played Esper with Abuelo and lots and lots of ETB effects. It was such a freaking blast and I went 3-1 with it as well, losing only to the first place finisher (who's also a judge and I suspect might have been the person to sponsor my entry!) I lost to him fair and square, but I managed to combo off with Abuelo, Roaming Throne, and a bunch of great Soldier recursion like Oltec Cloud Guard and Glorifier of Suffering, for that sweet sweet Throne doubling. Also popped some recurring effects with Chupacabra Echo, Malamet War Scribe, Ironpaw Aspirant, and Runaway Boulder. SO fun!
Second prerelease I played Esper with Abuelo and lots and lots of ETB effects. It was such a freaking blast and I went 3-1 with it as well, losing only to the first place finisher (who's also a judge and I suspect might have been the person to sponsor my entry!) I lost to him fair and square, but I managed to combo off with Abuelo, Roaming Throne, and a bunch of great Soldier recursion like Oltec Cloud Guard and Glorifier of Suffering, for that sweet sweet Throne doubling. Also popped some recurring effects with Chupacabra Echo, Malamet War Scribe, Ironpaw Aspirant, and Runaway Boulder. SO fun!
Sounds rad! We've jokingly contemplated going back on Monday evening (the store we've been going to is doing a final event tomorrow in lieu of any today), but I think we're just gonna play our decks against each other at home some more. We played a match today then and my girlfriend asked me if I had any changes to suggest. I swapped out a few cards to shore up her early game and we'll probably give that another go, maybe even swapping decks. We never ended up playing our WOE prerelease decks against each other either, so that might happen first.
I, uh, would totally go back for another event tomorrow though.
I, uh, would totally go back for another event tomorrow though.
Mr Bean
Chief Detective
I cracked a sealed on Arena and ended up in UR artifacts. It was super fun even if my pool was light on removal. A card that put in a surprising amount of work was Zoetic Glyph. If you have map or treasure tokens just kind of lying around it’s essentially a 3 mana 5/4 that Discovers 3 when it dies. Even if they exile the golum the effect still triggers since it’s tied to the aura. I can totally see drafting 2 or 3 of these and being able to slam in for 5 consistently on turn 3.
I would have definitely have slept on that card! Normally I'd be rather concerned about bounce effects. But with everyone having decided U is terrible again for another set, and with the bounce in this set being rather mid, you're probably pretty safe.
Getting absolutely demolished in drafts. All my opponents are opening gods and dinosaurs and I'm over here opening the Everflowing Well and dual lands that aren't playable in my lane. I might just be drafting poorly (though I don't feel like I am) but it's been a pretty disheartening first day.
I was gonna create a 'help me MTG' thread but I figured I'd just post here, please forgive the noobish intrusion.
I've never played a game of Magic before. I dabbled in other similar games, mainly Hearthstone, but never spent a whole lot of time on any of em. There is, however, a local group that gets together once a month and plays and they welcome people of all skill levels and while I'm not sure if it's my bag I'd like to try it out since I've been jonesin' for that in-person board game night and just can't get that going for the life of me. So after impulse-buying a Starter Kit I'm wondering how to go about it right.
I signed up for MTG Arena and plugged my starter pack's codes into it so I have those decks in my online account now, but for now I've kept those decks as-is as I have no idea how to customize the decks or what would work well with what. I also don't want to just get accustomed to MTG Arena since it offers a lot of easy shortcuts and quality of life features I would not have at the in-person nights. (like what's a common way for tracking your life points and whatnot)
So uh, help?
I've never played a game of Magic before. I dabbled in other similar games, mainly Hearthstone, but never spent a whole lot of time on any of em. There is, however, a local group that gets together once a month and plays and they welcome people of all skill levels and while I'm not sure if it's my bag I'd like to try it out since I've been jonesin' for that in-person board game night and just can't get that going for the life of me. So after impulse-buying a Starter Kit I'm wondering how to go about it right.
I signed up for MTG Arena and plugged my starter pack's codes into it so I have those decks in my online account now, but for now I've kept those decks as-is as I have no idea how to customize the decks or what would work well with what. I also don't want to just get accustomed to MTG Arena since it offers a lot of easy shortcuts and quality of life features I would not have at the in-person nights. (like what's a common way for tracking your life points and whatnot)
So uh, help?