All the Good News June 14, 2016 WRITTEN BY George Khoury

Hello Fellow Traders!

Quit your scrying, it's time for All the Good News! This past Friday, Eternal Masters was released to the public, but before the official release, an interesting surprise was discovered. On top of the excitement of the weekend release of Eternal Masters, GP Columbus and GP Prague featured premiere level Legacy play. Apart from all the awesome Eternal Masters drafting, pack cracking, puzzle breaking and trading, WotC got a new D&D and Magic-playing CEO. And while many of us, myself included (if you haven't picked up on that yet), will still be mesmerized by Eternal Masters drafting this coming weekend, the World Magic Cup Qualifiers are actually happening all over the world.

Did Someone Say Eternal Masters?

The Surprise Puzzle: Before Eternal Masters was even released to the public, while retailers were opening product for singles, a puzzle was discovered on the backs of the tokens in the set. When assembled, the puzzle tells the story of the upcoming Conspiracy: Take the Crown set. You can take a look at the completed puzzle and read the full Conspiracy story from all the tokens over on reddit.

Just Draft It! When it comes to drafting, while I may not be "talented" or "good" or "know how to pick up on signals," I know fun. I know that when you crack a Karakas in your third pack, you draft it regardless of what you're already on, splash white if necessary and then get to smile every time it hits the battlefield (especially when you top deck it after your opponent drops a Braids, Cabal Minion). The amount of fun inducing cards, along with the absurd power levels at common (looking at you Elite Vanguard) in this set, make it a fantastic set to draft, win lose or Worldgorger-combo draw.

Due to the cost, this is a set you definitely want to prepare for before drafting. First: Review the list of Eternal Masters regular and FOIL cards arranged by VALUE in descending order (which is really easy to do here on PucaTrade). Nothing will burn more than knowing you passed up a single rare or uncommon foil that could have covered the cost of the draft (like a foil Brainstorm or foil Daze). Second: Get familiar with the color pairings and various tribes/strategies. While the Limited Resources podcast is not known for brevity, they kept their Eternal Masters draft primer at a reasonable hour and twenty minutes. Their tip about Coalition Honor Guard helped me out big-time, as it is a limited powerhouse (that I had never heard of) that essentially works like a Spellskite with no activation cost.

As this set is a limited print run, it won't be around for much longer. While prices appear to be dropping on most singles as more packs are opened, it is unclear whether the values will recover when sealed boxes become even more scarce than they are now. If you can, and enjoy drafting, draft it while you still can.

WotC Welcomes Chris Cocks as New Cardboard Executive Officer

This week, Wizards welcomed their new CEO Chris Cocks. Those of us with unsleeved stacks of cardboard serving as load bearing walls in our homes will be pleased to know that Mr. Cocks is no stranger to the games WotC produces. As a longtime D&D and M:tG player, the community is hopeful that Mr. Cocks is the right man to help make Wizards even better. The announcement that former CEO Greg Leeds was stepping down and would be replaced by Mr. Cocks happened back in April of this year, but he did not officially start until last week.

A few months back, thanks to reddit, it was learned that a new digital Magic platform was in the works (whether it's just a new app like Duels or a revamp of MTGO is unclear as the actual announcement isn't clear). It has been speculated that Mr. Cocks, with his strong background in digital gaming while with LeapFrog and Xbox, was selected to help with the MTGO platform.

Grand Prix Columbus – No GP for Old Men

The big story coming out of GP Columbus involves 16 year old Clay Spicklemire piloting his Infect deck to the top of over 1,800 players. The final match against Joe Lossett, an accomplished Miracles pilot, ended in spectacular fashion. By crashing in with a trampling Noble Hierarch with 22 power (courtesy of Invigorate, Become Immense, Berserk and of course the Druid's own Exalted trigger) through the face of Lossett's lonely Snapcaster Mage, Spicklemire won GP Columbus.

The Top 8 in Columbus while being half Miracles, included Reanimator, Grixis Delver, Lands and, of course, Infect. Take a look at all the lists here.

The Top 32 also included a disproportionate amount of Miracles, though the rest of the Top 32, like the Top 8 shows a healthy diversity of archetypes. Take a look here.

Full coverage can be found here.

Getting in for some serious damage in Legacy.

Grand Prix Prague – Storm at the Edge of Death

The finals in Prague, like Columbus, pitted the popular Miracles deck against Storm. Rodrigo Togores was able to storm out for the win with Tendrils of Agony in the critical game three of the finals while he was sitting very uncomfortably at 1 life. Togores emerged triumphant over a field of nearly 1,500 players. You can watch the match on YouTube here (feel free to skip ahead to 55:00 to see the epic last turn and start wondering if a different Surgical Extraction target would have changed the outcome).

The Top 8 in Prague was rather diverse, with the two Grixis Delver decks being the most represented. You can see all the Top 8 lists here.

Not only did WotC's coverage give us lists for the Top 32, they also gave us lists for the Top 64.

Full coverage can be found here.

Storming out.

Reminder: World Magic Cup Qualifiers are THIS Weekend

Have you qualified for the World Magic Cup Qualifier? This weekend on June 18 and 19, the first WMCQs will be taking place all over the world.

U.S. players need to have amassed 500 Planeswalker points to qualify, or be a silver level pro or higher, or have won a "last chance" event. [Non-U.S. players, click here, download the WotC invitation policy, and scroll to Appendix C to see how many PwPs you need to qualify]. The last chance events are usually held on Friday before WMCQ.

This weekend, in Santa Clara, California, the U.S. WMCQ will be a Standard format slugfest to see who gets an invite to the World Magic Cup in November. If you're qualified, but can't make it to Santa Clara, you'll have two more chances: July 9 in Lincoln, Nebraska and September 17 in Nanuet, New York. Both the July and September WMCQs will be Modern.

Check the WotC event page here to find out more information and where/when all the WMCQs are being held.

That's All the Good News! Until next week!

-GK