Hello! I’m Mike, resident Commander guy for The Bag of Loot, and with the brief preview of Phyrexia: All Will Be One and the full slate for Dominaria Remastered, I have a lot to be excited about.
Let’s talk about cards that will be less expensive and therefore perfect to pick up from Three Kings Loot in a few weeks/a month after Dominaria Remastered releases.
The high end of this set vs the absolute bulk hitting the rare slot sometimes (Urza’s Blueprints? The hell are you doing here? And at rare???) means that cracking boxes will either be a huge boon or disappointment. I would recommend making sure you can draft the box with pals or go big with collector boosters because you’ll likely open some big ticket stuff.
But first, that big ticket stuff will find a floor and you will be very pleased to pick some of this stuff up for cheaper. Of course, there are some obvious hits like Force of Will, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Sylvan Library, Sneak Attack, or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, but I want to focus on some non-mythics that might see a real dip in price, making you to feel like a genius when you pick them up for less than you thought.
Let’s go with my top picks.
Yes, my first pick is five cards, deal with it. Commander Legends was two years ago and Vampiric Tutor was a chase card there. It has bounced back to $50 and will continue to do so. Tutoring is one of the most powerful things you can do in Magic and in Commander, you’re effectively circumventing the singleton rule in my opinion.
That said, they’re all one mana tutors that fetch a card from your deck with the drawback of either two life, a random discard, or requiring the card to be of a specific type. Aside from Gamble, they put the card on top of your library, but at instant speed, who cares?
These will come down significantly at first before climbing again. We saw this with Eternal Masters. We’ll see it here, too.
(Also, Vampiric Tutor is the only one in the cycle that’s mythic, so the rest make up for it.)
cEDH decks talk about “the fish” and they mean this card because of its original art. Remora is like Rhystic Study in that if your opponents cast noncreature spells, you get to draw a card unless they pay. It’s one mana and if it comes down in the early turns while players are setting up with your mana rocks, congratulations, you’ve got a card potentially better than Ancestral Recall.
Clifftop Retreat (Red/White), Hinterland Harbor (Blue/Green), Isolated Chapel (White/Black), Sulfur Falls (Blue/Red), and Woodland Cemetery (Black/Green) haven’t been reprinted since Dominaria and are a welcome sight. These lands always usually hit $5-10, and this new set is getting a new batch of foils, even old bordered. This is the time to get them for your decks. These cards are great for your two/three coloured decks in need of a mana base boost. Three colour decks, one triome turns the rest of the check lands into untapped duals. I’m happy to see these here.
Sevinne’s Reclamation is one of white’s best cards. Period. This is the first time it will be in foil and a lot of players will want that. If you open one, hang onto it for a sec, but ultimately, I think this card has been slept on and this might be its awakening. It’s not an expensive card. Pick some up, you won’t regret it.
Birds of Paradise is iconic and for a reason. An absolute home run of a card right out the gate designed in Alpha, BoP has been a staple for 30 years (Happy birthday!) and will continue to be one.
If you have a green deck, Birds of Paradise is often the first card I assume goes in unless there’s a theme I don’t know about. Five colour decks want the chromatic mana dork, mono green decks want the acceleration. A flying blocker is also still very solid when people threaten little pokes in the early stages. Birds is a great pickup from this set.
Maze of Ith is another card that, despite reprints, climbs its way back over $15. It’s one of the most frustrating utility lands to play against and it is very sneaky. I would recommend it in decks that need a little more protection or that run a little more control. If an opponent makes a deal with another opponent for them to trigger something like Bladegriff Prototype, as long as they target something of yours, don’t remind them of the Maze of Ith until it’s time to send that Prototype away from combat.
Mindslicer is a pain in the butt, but for sacrifice decks and reanimation decks, especially decks that like to cherry pick out of everyone’s graveyards, it is a necessity. Mindslicer had not seen any meaningful reprint since Ninth Edition. Most recently, it’s on The List, but with Dominaria Remastered, you can pick up one of these for a couple of bucks instead of the $20 it used to cost.
Speaking of graveyard strategies, any black deck that likes tutors and the yard are pumping their fists at the Entomb reprints. Historically, Entomb goes down to about $15 USD and stays there very briefly before climbing back up to over $30 USD. This set will bring that down thanks to the multiple different kinds and styles of printings it’s getting.
Chainer was $15, will now likely be under $5 at some point thanks to Dominaria Remastered. An incredible commander, an incredible role player, overall beast in many decks. When he comes down, I recommend trying him out anywhere – at the helm of a deck, in the 99 – whatever you want.
Lands decks are everywhere. They all need this. Hands down. Exploration and Burgeoning are two important building blocks of most lands decks. Getting to play more and more lands is extremely powerful in Commander and Exploration is one mana for “go on, play another”. It’s always close to $25-30 and you deserve a little treat. Get yourself a $15 Exploration for that Omnath (which one?) deck you’ve been brewing. Or prepare for the final iteration of Omnath I suspect they’re building toward.
These cards are a couple of bucks each, are always solid, and when Dominaria Remastered releases, you’ll probably pick some up for less thank a Loony or even a couple of quarters. I think Mesa Enchantress has a chance of hitting a low of a single gumball.
That does it for my non-mythic picks for Dominaria Remastered. Make sure you pick up some cards you need and I’ll see you at a draft over at Three Kings Loot!
Happy Holidays!
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Sword & Shield is coming to its mighty conclusion! Crown Zenith is the final booster set in the Pokemon Sword & Shield collection. Gather up the most powerful Pokemon of Galar as we traverse these wild lands one last time!
Some old favourites are making their VSTAR comebacks. Zacian, Zamazenta, and Charizard are channelling their VSTAR powers to destroy your opponents – and they are only the beginning! Gather up all 8 of these new VSTAR warriors to put your enemies to shame.
But that’s not to say that we are only going to be getting the greatest hits of the Sword & Shield collection in this set. We are also getting some brand new Radiant, V, and Colossal VMAX Pokemon! These beasts will be the best of the best, so make sure to ready your decks for some powerful new additions.
For collectors, get your hands on the special Galarian Gallery art series cards! These beautiful art cards will include common and rare Pokemon and Trainers alike. Make sure to get your hands on them early before their gone forever!
This booster set will include over 160 new cards to add to your decks and collections! The full card breakdown is:
Crown Zenith comes out on January 20th, 2023!
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The high seas are calling for adventure! We return to the world of the One Piece TCG in order to tell you all about the first booster set release, Romance Dawn! This booster set will include powerful new leaders, abilities, and brand new multicolour leaders!
Combine the cards from your Starter Decks and this booster set in order to create powerful decks! Utilize every colour combination to find your preferred game strategy. Whether your favourite deck colours are red and blue, green and purple, or anything in-between, tap into their potential and perform powerful combos to claim your victory!
With these multicolour decks come multicolour leaders. Whether you choose a red/green Trafalgar Law to take the helm of your deck, or a blue/purple Kaido, you can expect some fun combinations and abilities to lead the way.
However, multicolour cards aren’t the only addition to this set. New mono-colour Character, Leader, and Event cards will help you dominate the battlefield, granting you special attacks, abilities, and unique deck options!
This booster set will include a total of 121 new cards to add to your collection! The card breakdown is:
Romance Dawn comes out on December 2nd, 2022!
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Hello and welcome to A Seat at the Table, the column where I pick a commander and talk about what I’d include in the 99. This week, a popular little guy from Jumpstart 2022 gets some shine to talk about his 99.
Kibo, Uktabi Prince is a little troublemaker who comes to us directly from the art of Uktabi Orangutan and Uktabi Kong (at least that’s what I believe).
For two and a green, you get a Monkey Noble 2/2 with a stacked textbox. Let’s look at all three sections of it right now.
“{T}: Each player creates a colorless artifact token named Banana with “{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add {R} or {G}. You gain 2 life.”
Whenever an artifact an opponent controls is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control that’s an Ape or Monkey.
Whenever Kibo attacks, defending player sacrifices an artifact.”
Holy Toledo, that’s a lot of words! Let’s do these in reverse order.
“Whenever Kibo attacks, defending player sacrifices an artifact.”
This one is fine, but doesn’t give you the decision. Your opponent can sacrifice an artifact of their own choice, but if you get Kibo out early enough and you swing at the person who only has a Sol Ring as an artifact, that’s pretty great. Just don’t give them a Banana before you do. Not to mention that any artifacts that go to your opponents’ bins gives Kibo and his Ape/ Monkey friends a +1/+1 counter as evidenced by his second ability.
This means that you’ll likely want to have a ton of Monkeys and Apes, and there are a little over 30 eligible Ape and Monkey creatures without Changeling that fall in Gruul colours. They’re not all great, but I’ll go over a few soon.
Finally, that first ability. Tapping Kibo to give everybody a Banana which is like a limited Treasure and a limited Food all in one. This fuels the second ability because for each opponent who cracks a Banana, your Apes and Monkeys get chonky and this will make for some fun political shenanigans in the early game.
Let’s get to some fun cards for the 99.
Probably the best Ape printed in a long time, Silverback Elder does it all. It requires you to really like green, but rewards you with a 5/7 whose triggered abilities are amazingly powerful. When you cast a creature, you can destroy an artifact or enchantment, or you can look at the top five cards of your deck and put any land among them into play tapped, or you can gain four life. One of these options is definitely less useful than the others, but in a deck that I am assuming will be packed with other primates, that first mode will be useful to nuke Bananas or Powerstones or Thran Dynamos or whatever you want.
If Kibo’s in play, this 5/7 doesn’t stay at that stat line long. The ramp option is the graviest of the gravy trains. If every creature spell ramped you and then some (maybe you’ve got a Beast Whisperer in play too), it’d be difficult to get used to playing any other way.
One of the best anti-Treasure cards out there, Viridian Revel, is a card I have been hyping up for some time now. “Whenever an artifact is put into an opponent’s graveyard from the battlefield, you may draw a card.” What a clean textbox that says, “hey, crack all the Treasures you want, I’m about to go off with 17 cards next turn”, or in the case of Kibo’s Bananas, “Hey, I help you, you help me! We’re all friends!”
Viridian Revel deserves a slot in any of your green decks these days. That’s how strong it is. The Treasures alone, not to mention Blood tokens, or Powerstone tokens, or Clues! Sardian Avenger is on track to being one of the sneakiest best cards in The Brothers’ War set, as is Brotherhood’s End, and for good reason – Treasures are out there and they are powerful. Viridian Revel turns each cracked Treasure or Banana across from you into an optional card for you. Isn’t that beautiful?
You give everybody Bananas, but you get more because you did all the work, after all! Parallel Lives and Doubling Season will double up your tokens and give Kibo and friends all the potassium he desires.
But Doubling Season also cares about counters and that means that one artifact hitting the graveyard while Doubling Season and Kibo are in play means that you’ll be getting TWO +1/+1 counters for each of your chest-beating friends.
These are the best of the Changeling creatures for your Kibo deck. Masked Vandal doesn’t destroy artifacts or enchantments, it exiles them, but then benefits from breaking them when Kibo is around. Say bye-bye to your opponent’s Darksteel Forge and start wrecking the rest of the artifacts with your Silverback Elder triggers.
Chameleon Colossus gets huge already with two activations of its ability alone bringing it to 16/16 with protection from black. If you have Kibo out and kill an artifact, those same two activations make this a 20/20 and you can activate at your own discretion! You don’t need to do it before combat, you can do it during! After blockers are declared.
“But the activation is costly!” First of all, you’re in green. Secondly, if you stocked up on Bananas, you can feed this Colossus enough to kill somebody outright. Then FLING at someone else!
Taurean Mauler already gets huge because of your opponents’ spells, but add to that Kibo’s second ability and you’ve got a huge beater that demands attention, drawing removal away from more important pieces.
With Titania’s Song turning all artifacts into creatures with power and toughness equal to their mana value, that means all the Bananas you make go bye-bye, therefore netting four death triggers. And what card really loves death triggers in red? Vicious Shadows.
Every time you tap Kibo with Titania’s Song and Vicious Shadows, you get four instances of damage to an opponent equal to their hand size, three rounds of +1/+1 counters for your Apes and Monkeys, and the satisfaction of knowing that a “gift” just blew up in your enemies faces.
If you feel like getting a little silly, the Darksteel Stations – Blasting Station, Grinding Station, Salvaging Station, and Summoning Station – seem like a fun inclusion. Pairing them with Titania’s Song feels wacky and there seems to be a bunch to be done with the artifact tokens that are created
That does it for this week! Let me know what Commander you want covered on A Seat at the Table! @mikecarrozza on Twitter, Instagram, and Hive.
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It’s time to take to the open sea! The One Piece TCG is just over the horizon, and it’s time to choose which of the starter decks you will want to get your hands on.
Choose one of four starter decks, each with their own colour and abilities! Utilize all of your resources to pack a massive punch with a horde of creatures with The Straw Hat Crew deck; rest your opponents creatures and go heavy aggro with The Worst Generation deck; take control of the entire board and remove target creatures with ease with The Seven Warlords of the Seven Seas deck; or build your DON! to bring hell down on your enemies with the The Animal Kingdom Pirates deck!
Each main deck will also contain its own Leader card, allowing you to trigger special abilities throughout play. The Straw Hat Crew are led by Monkey.D.Luffy, who takes rested DON! cards to absorb into bigger attacks; The Worst Generation is helmed by Eustass”Captain”Kid, who allows you to Trash a card from hand to unrest him once per turn to perform multiple attacks; The Seven Warlords of the Seven Seas are led by Crocodile, who allows you to bounce cards from board to hand; and The Animal Kingdom Pirates are led by Kaido, who allows you to sacrifice DON! to immediately Trash one of your opponents’ life cards.
Each of these starter decks will include a fifty-one card main deck, ten DON! cards, and a player mat.
Still not exactly the deck you’re looking for? Then make sure to keep an eye out for Romance Dawn, the first booster set release coming out for One Piece TCG! It will be filled with Leaders, ability cards, and so much more for you to build around!
One Piece: Starter Decks come out on December 2nd, 2022!
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It’s time to descend into a world of deception and intrigue! The Underworld of Secrets is an upcoming booster set release for the Force of Will TCG. Discover long discarded knowledge and ascend to new heights as you uncover lore of old.
Channel the power of the moon once more. Moonchild cards are here once again in Underworld, as introduced in A New World Emerges…! Unlock new powers and activate destructive effects that will help you take control of the board.
This full booster set includes:
There are a total of 150 cards in this set, with each booster pack including 10 cards. Booster boxes will include 36 packs per box, including one unique promo card per box!
The Underworld of Secrets comes out on November 25th, 2022 and the Ruler Collection Set comes out on December 2nd, 2022!
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It’s time to channel your energy and charge towards battle! Fighter’s Ambition is the newest set coming to the Dragon Ball Super TCG, including brand new characters, cards, and Zenkai powers!
The characters from Dragonball Super: Superhero are here! Power up your new heroes to unlock devastating effects. Activate Gohan’s final Beast form, or have Piccolo enter his ascendant Orange Piccolo state to perform powerful attacks! Gotenks is even around to give a helping hand! Though, the transformation wasn’t perfect…
But Dragonball Super: Superhero isn’t the only movie getting some card representation. There will be cards from over twenty different movies, including Dr. Gero, Lord Slug, Broly, and Blue Gogeta! With all of these new additions to the game, make sure to keep an eye out for the special edition versions of each card. These beautiful art print cards won’t be around for long!
But that’s not all for collectors! In this set, there will be five special SGR cards that chronicle Gohan’s training, from young apprentice to hero of renown! Collect all five of these special rare cards to catalogue this special event!
Fighter’s Ambition comes out on November 18th, 2022!
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The Advanced Crystal Beasts have arrived! Take control of these GX favourites in the upcoming release of Battles of Legend: Crystal Revenge, a booster set release for the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG!
The Advanced Crystal Beasts have come to make their mark. These upgraded versions of the original Crystal Beasts have new abilities, letting you swing for the fences. While Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger lets you boost its’ attack by 400, Advanced Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger will allow you to boost all your Crystal Beast monsters attack at the same time! Strengthen your Crystal Beast deck further by building around The Legends of the Crystal Beasts Structure Deck. Don’t miss out on this powerful collection of crystal monsters to help destroy your opponents life total!
But that is not to say that the Crystal Beasts are not going to have some competition. Also in this set is the Royal Straight Slasher for the 3 Musketeers of Face deck! Add in Yugi’s powerful new card from the Grand Championship arc to activate devastating effects on your opponents.
Still not enough? Then dive back into the Ignis strategy with brand new Link monsters! This new strategy will focus on building a defending wall from Earth Cyberse Link Monsters to protect yourself from incoming attacks. Protect yourself, then swing big for huge amounts of damage!
Battles of Legend: Crystal Revenge comes out on November 17th, 2022!
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