Today was a busy day in Magic news!
First, Wizards announced that the Power Nine (plus a few) would be coming to MTGO for the first time, as additions to a special Holiday Cube. These cards have never before been available on MTGO, and all feature stunning new artwork. The Cube will be tuned to accommodate for the increased power level, which should prove exciting, and you can probably expect combo decks to finally be a viable strategy. If you’ve never experienced the fear of dying on turn one because of a Lotus-powered start, now is your chance!
Perhaps more important however was the announcement that we can expect these cards to be released in collectible format by the end of 2013, meaning that Vintage will finally be a playable format online. Vintage is incredibly fun, with a tension that isn’t present in any other constructed format save possibly Legacy, but is severely limited by the fact that power is so rare and expensive. As someone that has recently started playing Vintage, this news is super exciting to me!
Also, lest I be accused of portraying Vintage as a combo-kill format where you can die on turn 1, that is an oversimplification, much like people thought Legacy was all Storm decks before the SCG Open series popularized it. Combo, control, and aggro are all viable, and while the games have the potential to end very quickly, few of them do. But this, along with the fact that the power level of cards played means that one mistake can result in a loss, results in extremely tense games of Magic. If you like nail-biters, this might be the format for you!
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/223b
Moving along, the Return to Ravnica novel was released in eBook form today. Part 1 of “The Secretist” is available on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Google Play for $1.99. It focuses on Jace Beleren, and his quest to crack a secret magical code that lies at the heart of Ravnica’s foundations.
Finally, you might recall Tristan Shaun Gregson, formerly of ChannelFireball fame. A few months back, he was accused of stealing cards from ChannelFireball. As he was a prominent and beloved figure in the Magic community, this shocked and upset many people. He disappeared from the Internet following the incident, but recently returned and spoke out in defense of himself on The Eh Team.
His appearance at the time was criticized by many, who felt he dodged the “Are you guilty?” question. He stated that he was (understandable) very hurt by the affair, and the way in which CF conducted things, but whether for personal or legal reasons, would not explicitly say that he was not guilty.
Today, he posted a statement online declaring his innocence in no uncertain terms.
I did not perpetrate theft from Channel Fireball.
On August 9th 2012 I went to CF in order to film Magic TV. Instead I was confronted and interrogated for 3 hours by local police detectives. I answered all their questions and was immediately driven to my home where I turned over my personal collection including sealed products; they hoped to link bar codes on boxes from my collection to similar boxes believed to have been stolen from CF.
After being up until all hours of the night, I slept in late and awoke to find one text message and one missed call as the only attempted correspondence from CF. Since then I have had no further contact with the company CF.
The detectives told me I would need to wait for them to investigate potential matches between CF inventory holes and my own collection as well as track the origin of bar codes from my boxes. After more than a month of waiting I was informed the police had found zero links between my cards/products and the stolen materials. I was free to pick up my items.
Case closed.
I did not steal from Channel Fireball. I have chosen to remain silent on this whole matter in the hopes that it could be resolved quickly and quietly, also because I was deeply hurt by the post made on CF about this matter. I do not know why CF posted such a thing and can only assume it was posted out of hurt and presumed betrayal. This has been a very public and hurtful experience and I have tried to act with professionalism and dignity. I have no desire to call anyone names or throw out cruel accusations, those who have hurt me know who they are and there is no need to talk about them, they are no longer worth my time.
Link to Reddit discussion
Link to Eh Team episode
With this incident behind him now, hopefully we can expect more entertaining content from TSG in the future!