Here we go again. It’s another season here on the PTQC and the grinding begins this weekend at the TCGPlayer 5k in Boston followed by a Sunday Funday PTQ. Right now, public enemy #1 is UW Tapout; a deck that you can barely damage in the early game and is nigh untouchable in the mid-late [...]

Bloodbraid Elf, Anathemancer, Zealous Persecution, Soul Manipulation along with old favorites Kitchen Finks and Boggart Ram-Gang make this a regionals that is filled with either aggro or anti-aggro. Either you are going to be playing those cards or you are not going to be enjoying how the field is looking for you. The Regional championships [...]

Well, it’s been just over a week since the official launch of Alara Reborn, and this new expansion is already starting to make waves in the Standard environment. Old favourites like Terminate and Meddling Mage are joined by newcomers like Zealous Persecution and Qasali Pridemage to make for a Standard format where more decks are [...]

Hi everyone! I’m Sean and this is my first blog here for Power 9 Pro. Before I get on with today’s article I just wanted to briefly thank everyone at Power 9 Pro for this amazing opportunity and fellow Albertan and team member Zak for the warm welcome. Now let’s get started! As I’m sure [...]

I know it’s a week late, but I’m sure you all had fun at last week’s Alara Reborn Prerelease. I got to my sealed pool and was amazed by all the juicy Naya goodness that awaited me. I had both Spell and Spearbreaker Behemoths, as well as a total of eight removal spells. Needless to [...]

They’re all in, boys, so let’s have some first impressions!  Here’s the remaining cards along with my knee-jerks.  Berate me in the comments section for evaluations you deem piss poor. Anathemancer – 1BR Creature – Zombie Wizard (Uncommon) When Anathemancer comes into play, it deals damage to target player equal to the number of nonbasic [...]

I love taking lunch and seeing 40 or so new cards to check out.  Here’s my first impression of the cards.  Think I’m nuts?  Leave me a comment! Bant Sureblade – {gu}W Creature – Human Knight? (Common) As long as you control another multicolored permanent, Bant Sureblade gets +1/+1 and has first strike. 2/1 Okay, so worst [...]

Ardent Plea – 1WU Enchantment (Uncommon) Exalted Cascade Illus. Chippy #1/145 Well, on Friday Tom LaPille revealed here that 3cc will be the lowest casting cost for a card with Cascade.  I also like the “vanilla” feel of this exalted card.  Will this see play flipping knight of the white orchid, or wizened cenn, etc.?  [...]

When I was first approached by James to get onboard with Power 9 Pro I had only seen the logo from memory, and he was just a fella contacting me about chatting it up on the topic of Magic. I couldn’t refuse. It later turned to a team member discussion and here I am slinging [...]

Here’s the next 15 cards, along with my initial thoughts within ~15 seconds of seeing the card. Filigree Angel – 5WWU Artifact Creature – Angel (Rare) Flying When Filigree Angel comes into play, you gain 3 life for each artifact you control. 4/4 Illus. Richard Whitters #6/145 My first thought here is that this is [...]

top 8 magic (brian david-marshall) had the opportunity to preview Glory of Warfare, a rare from Alara Reborn. it was great that he spent quite a bit of time thinking about where the card might fit in the meta, pointing out its utility confined to standard and potentially block.  his main focus for placing WoG [...]

The elephant in the room is the gold theme, and love it or hate it, it’s what they’re running with in this very Legions-esque end to “Invasion, III”.  Some people have been talking about logistical problems like sorting the cards or describing the hybrid-and-third-colored type gold cards, but I think things will work out just [...]