Looking at MTG Lord of the Rings First Look stream, Shut Up & Play plug, Ordering from eBay, MORE in debut!

Black Lotus Journal no.1

I really enjoy Magic and wanted to find a nice way to write about it from time to time. I've landed on this format and am hopeful that it will be an enjoyable ongoing series for some as well as a nice outlet for myself. I'm aware most of this has been covered to death by now, but it was too big not to cover one more time…I had to.

With the announcement of a Lord of the Rings set, noting that Tolkien's work is huge deal in my household, MTG has done well to pull me back in. I admittedly also have been enjoying the cards coming out from the Phyrexia runs, because I love the art and lore there, but this upcomimg release has my full attention. On the edition of Weekly, which you can find above, we're sold the idea that this Middle-earth set is a love letter to the franchise. I hope so.

Frodo is promoted first.

At 1/2 with boost abilities present and lifelink possible, casting at a single white though needing some black to get things interesting, I can honestly see this one being a fun addition to some decks around town. The Showcase Ring design is my personal favorite.

Samwise will take a white and a throw-in to cast, and has flash at 2/1. They really tried to make this one relevant to the character, I'd say. So far, I'm pretty cool with the way they're starting this one.

The Mount Doom and Shire lands were nice touches as were the basic land map style cards. Yes, I am a sucker for cheap gimmicks.

Galdalf the Grey has a solid cost/benefit ratio…

There will be a White version and a Balrog (wings or not?). Also, they have a You Cannot Pass! one white instant that destroys a target creature that blocked or was blocked by a legendary creature. I love that they used that wording, by the way.

Tom Bombadil, notably a “God Bard”, might be a favorite of mine but I have no plans on ever casting the dude as he takes a full pie.

There will be four commander decks full of “flavor”. I believe it, honestly. Sam, Loyal Attendant was showcased but another Frodo was left off to avoid revealing too much of the new mechanics, apparently. Radagast was also shown off and was true hippy in the best way. We’re shown a Riders red/blue/white set, Frodo and Sam’s food focused release is a white/green/black, the elven council is blue/green, and the Mordor dick deck is red/black/blue. Again, no face cards were shown here.

Starter deck sets will see Aragorn and Arwen, sharing a card, taking on Sauron with a green/white taking on a red/black. This is something I already promised my kid I’d be getting and I am rather excited to see how much of this ends up in our real decks.

The One Ring is obviously the big story, though. A game breaker at 4 universal, the 1/1 copy is guaranteed to be the most expensive card in the history of the game since the namesake of this series. The extended and regular copies of The One will sell big as well will the other ring cards, too. The other exclusive Rings of Power cards in fact look rather promising and are far more likely for us normal, less-luck assholes to find.

Good luck to those that do go hunting!

I dig that they ran with multiples of 3, 7, and 9 appropriately for the Elven, Dwarven, and Human cards, by the way. A last statement of these, but you just have to fucking know that the 001/001 isn’t going to get a perfect grade.

Over/under at 7?

The artifacts shown can be utilized nicely depending on deck and play style, especially the Bridge card.

I want this proxy.

Previews and select events are on the horizon and the releases are set for June 20th for Arena and 23rd physical. No Planeswalkers, there will be multiple variants of main characters and it was eventually revealed that Strider would be one such variant as well as Sméagol and BILL!!!. Ents, orcs, etc. all proven real, as expected, too. No fetch-lands. Yeah, I agree that they really showed a lot of respect for the source material while adding nice options for Magic players with this set and I am honestly excited to get some of this shit in a few months.

The Ring tempts you.

I’ve kind of fallen in love with the Shuffle Up & Play series that Tolarian puts out. Some say that MTG isn't a good spectator sport, though I enjoy watching pro tour content if I'm behind honest, but I'd add that I think the chemistry on display in these episodes really breaks that "rule" even if you agree with it typically. Themed episodes alternating between formats with a handful of repeating guests appearing from other channels; the show really just shines a nice light on the product that has been trying hard to piss of fans for years now.

The channel in general does well, actually, to show a very similar stance on MTG that I do. A bit antagonistic while simultaneously showing how damn fun the game can be.

End plug.

I suck on Arena, but you can find me on there if you want. I’m listed as redswrestlingblog.com.

I loved this one, though I’m not as knowledgeable on the story as I am with Tolkien’s work. Doesn’t make the video any less cool. March of the Machine is an arc ender and a 4/4 4 cost white based Planeswalker is showcased heavily here as Elspeth does battle with Elesh Norn.

I’ll likely get some boosters from this one.

A new mechanic got spotlight treatment. Honestly, it’s an interesting idea but it also feels like it could be a bit unnecessary more than not.

Last, for this debut installment, I wanted to review a recent purchase I made on eBay from VVegas.

The purchase I made was labeled Magic the gathering mtg collection lots — 1990s Cards and, to be honest, I just wanted to hold some old babies in my hand again. I haven’t had much in the way of retros for two decades, people!

Brooklyn sent me 50 cards that indeed all featured that classic art style that we all know and love and some of the stuff here wasn’t too bad.

1. Psychic Venom

2. Blue Element Blast

3. Power Leak

4. Erosion

5. Infuse

6. Tidal Visonary

7. Raise Dead

8. Drudge Skeletons

9. Pestilence

10. Bog Imp

11. Burnt Offering

12. Cloak of Confusion

13. Servant of Volrath

14. Syphon Soul

15. Goblin RockSled

16. Orcish Veteran

17. Gray Ogre

18. Hurloon Minotaur

19. Imposing Visage

20. Song of Blood

21. Pyrostatic Pillar

22. Giant Growth

23. Giant Spider

24. Regeneration

25. Venom

26. Tranquility

27. Tarpan

28. Balduvian Bears

29. Pyknite

30. Jolrael’s Centaur

31. Rootwater Alligator

32. Delirium

33. Barbed Sextant

34. Clay Statue

35. Guardian Angel

36. Circle of Protection: Blue

37. Healing Salve

38. Tundra Wolves

39. Amrou Kithkin

40. Blessed Wine

41. Trained Pronghorn (this was had a bent corner, sadly)

42. Regal Unicorn

43. Unstable Mutation

44. 2 Forests

45. 1 Swamp

46. 1 Plains

47. 1 Island

I paid $15 + shipping on these. There was a duplicate, though the forest cards have different artwork so that’s grey area considering the guarantee of no repeats. Other than 41 the rest were in pretty good condition.

2.5/5

To be honest, this was an impulse buy. There are far worse things in Magic to spend this amount of money on to be honest and I was happy to hold some classics in my hand. I am not sure if any of this will end up in my deck either, outside of maybe a throwback land. Reviews are a bit mixed for the seller and I’m not likely to buy again, to be blunt. I think I need to just recognize that I am at that point where I’ll just buy select things, largely random boosters that catch my eye, and singles otherwise. Maybe a proxy or two.

And, with that, I close Black Lotus #1. Thank you to all that joined and I hope you’ll come back for #2 when it drops! Be kind to yourself and others and have a badass day!