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Official page
Battle for Zendikar information
Second set: Oath of the Gatewatch
Next block: Shadows over Innistrad
Welcome to the Multiverse! There are multiple worlds that exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and each plane is as different as night is from the day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, generated from bonds to the land, that can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a big hit, it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down to 0 life, from a start of 20, wins.
This topic will cover the two weeks before all cards in the Battle for Zendikar set are fully revealed, known as the spoiler weeks, where cards are slowly unveiled every weekday, up through the set release itself. Some cards have already been revealed during events like PAX, but this is when they are rolled out at a consistent pace. The main website updates at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST, but Wizards also provides card previews to other sites that will unveil them throughout the day, including non-English sites.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out this link by TheSeks (somewhat outdated) or the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* For your first deck, you can buy an Intro Pack, a low-power prebuilt deck that comes with a few booster packs. For each new set, five Intro Packs are released. There are also Clash Packs and Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated, the latter more so.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also has some booster packs and is a good place to store cards. You could also buy a Holiday Gift Box to get an even larger starting collection and better storage. You can watch this PAX panel about deckbuilding to learn how to make your own decks.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Each player chooses a legendary creature to act as commander and then chooses 99 additional cards, one of each card that isn't a basic land (of which you can have any number) and only of the colors of the commander, to make up the deck. In games, each player starts at 40 life and there are typically four or more players. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
Battle for Zendikar Prerelease Primer
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set, and in this set's event, every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on September 26-27, 2015. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Battle for Zendikar marks the start of a major change to how Magic sets are handled, with an in-depth explanation for why here. In short, the two-set block model means:
* No more core sets.
* Blocks will have two sets instead of three. Yes, that means Battle for Zendikar block will only have two sets.
* Without any core sets, there will now be two blocks a year.
* Standard (a rotating format that only includes the latest sets) rotates with each block, so it will now rotate twice a year. Three blocks will be in Standard at a time. Sets will be in Standard for a max of 18 months.
With the release of Battle for Zendikar, the legal sets in Standard will be: Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, and Battle for Zendikar.
Starting from the Battle for Zendikar prerelease, mulligan rules are changing. When you mulligan, you shuffle your starting hand into your library and draw that many cards minus 1. Now, after you keep your hand, if you have less than 7 cards in hand, then you can scry 1 (look at the top card of your library, you may put it on the bottom).
STORY
Lore introduction
Guide to Zendikar
Long ago, before mana even developed distinct colors, the Eldrazi were born in the gaps between planes. Like Planeswalkers, they are able to travel between worlds, but they devour every one that they come across. There appear to be swarms of Eldrazi, but in fact, there are only three--Ulamog, Kozilek, and the leader, Emrakul--whose projections into the third dimension appear as distinct beings. Over 6000 years ago, they were sealed inside Zendikar, a wild plane overflowing with mana. When we last visited that plane, they were released thanks to the machinations of an evil dragon Planeswalker named Nicol Bolas. The good Planeswalkers present were forced to flee, but as a clue to defeating them is found in the leylines of Zendikar, and two of the three Planeswalkers who originally sealed the Eldrazi reunite, it becomes clear that now is the time to fight back.
Stories leading up to Battle for Zendikar:
Limits - Gideon fights day and night on both Zendikar and Ravnica, until he discovers a ray of hope in Zendikar's leylines.
Catching Up - Jace is asked for help on Ravnica.
Unkindness of Ravens - As Liliana wonders if she should help on Zendikar, she encounters an old foe.
Offers to the Fire - Chandra tries to find peace at her old monastery.
For Zendikar - Nissa becomes unsure of if she can stop the Eldrazi.
Main story:
Slaughter at the Refuge - Gideon and Jace return to Zendikar.
The Silent Cry - Nissa suddenly loses her connection to the land.
The Believers' Pilgrimage - Jace journeys to the Eye of Ugin.
Story archive - Scroll to the bottom for chronological order; the layout of this archive is trash.
SET THEMES
Cards (alternative)
Battle for Zendikar mechanics
Hero and villain
Leading the side of good is Gideon (how Planeswalker cards work). Leading the side of, well, not evil but hungry, is Ulamog, with the other two Eldrazi Titans apparently having left the plane.
Allies
In the past, the Zendikari formed small bands of adventuring Allies, only helping each other, but in these harsh times, Allies help everyone. Rally is a new term for an existing effect. Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield under your control, each Ally you control with a rally ability reacts and makes something happen.
Land mechanics
Zendikar is a world that flows with magic, and the land itself is coming alive to fight off the infection of the Eldrazi. Landfall returns, describing any effect that happens when a land enters the battlefield under your control, but it has evolved, now also looking at the type of land, among other changes. With awaken spells, you can have a land perform an action for you, and by pumping in some more mana, you can make the land come to life as an Elemental. Converge spells care about having as many colors of mana as possible. Each color you use to cast a converge spell makes it stronger.
Eldrazi
Eldrazi can get big. Really big. Like an 8/9 trample for 8 is just a common big. But to get that guy out, it needs support. Devoid cards require colored mana to cast, but they still count as colorless cards, as shown by a neat frame effect. Many Eldrazi have ingest, an ability where they exile the top card of a player's library when they deal combat damage to him or her, representing their ceaseless eating. This doesn't seem like much, but then you combine it with cards like Eldrazi Processors, which take the exiled cards and, among other effects, turn them into baby Eldrazi Scions, which can be sacrificed for mana to pay for the bigger Eldrazi. So you ingest cards, process them into or otherwise get Scions, then use the Scions to get big guys out.
Lands
While using lands is neat and all, Zendikar is all about the lands themselves. Returning for this set are full-art basic lands.
And we also have a new cycle of dual lands, or lands that tap for two colors of mana. These enter the battlefield tapped unless you control two or more basic lands, thus earning the nickname tangolands ("it takes two to tango"). More importantly, however, they have the basic land types. This means that if you, say, have a land that allows you to sacrifice it to search your library for a Forest or Plains, you could fetch one of these lands with the appropriate type.
And there are many more nonbasic lands to come!
Wallet Sculpting
Zendikar Expeditions is a special set within this set, made up of 25 full-art foil versions of lands: the above tangolands, the Ravnica shocklands, and all 10 fetchlands; an additional 20 will appear in the next set. However, these lands appear at about the same rate as a foil mythic rare card. Meaning to get any one of these lands, not a particular one, each booster pack has a 1:216 chance (getting a mythic rare is a 1:8 chance). So yeah, these will be expensive as hell. However, one great thing for those not interested is this means the other cards in the set should be cheaper. Note that these cards are only Standard legal if they appear in a Standard set normally, so only the tangolands and half of the fetchlands are Standard legal. These cards have their own set symbol to emphasize that they are not really part of the Battle for Zendikar set. If you open a card that is not Standard-legal during the prerelease or other Limited formats, you can use it in your deck, but not otherwise.
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Uncharted Realms, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
BfZ official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has an autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search engine for cards, with bigger pictures and more details. But it doesn't have an autocomplete.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
Credit to WanderingWind for the section header images.
Official page
Battle for Zendikar information
Second set: Oath of the Gatewatch
Next block: Shadows over Innistrad
Welcome to the Multiverse! There are multiple worlds that exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and each plane is as different as night is from the day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, generated from bonds to the land, that can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a big hit, it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down to 0 life, from a start of 20, wins.
This topic will cover the two weeks before all cards in the Battle for Zendikar set are fully revealed, known as the spoiler weeks, where cards are slowly unveiled every weekday, up through the set release itself. Some cards have already been revealed during events like PAX, but this is when they are rolled out at a consistent pace. The main website updates at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST, but Wizards also provides card previews to other sites that will unveil them throughout the day, including non-English sites.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out this link by TheSeks (somewhat outdated) or the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* For your first deck, you can buy an Intro Pack, a low-power prebuilt deck that comes with a few booster packs. For each new set, five Intro Packs are released. There are also Clash Packs and Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated, the latter more so.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also has some booster packs and is a good place to store cards. You could also buy a Holiday Gift Box to get an even larger starting collection and better storage. You can watch this PAX panel about deckbuilding to learn how to make your own decks.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Each player chooses a legendary creature to act as commander and then chooses 99 additional cards, one of each card that isn't a basic land (of which you can have any number) and only of the colors of the commander, to make up the deck. In games, each player starts at 40 life and there are typically four or more players. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
Battle for Zendikar Prerelease Primer
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set, and in this set's event, every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on September 26-27, 2015. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Battle for Zendikar marks the start of a major change to how Magic sets are handled, with an in-depth explanation for why here. In short, the two-set block model means:
* No more core sets.
* Blocks will have two sets instead of three. Yes, that means Battle for Zendikar block will only have two sets.
* Without any core sets, there will now be two blocks a year.
* Standard (a rotating format that only includes the latest sets) rotates with each block, so it will now rotate twice a year. Three blocks will be in Standard at a time. Sets will be in Standard for a max of 18 months.
With the release of Battle for Zendikar, the legal sets in Standard will be: Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, and Battle for Zendikar.
Starting from the Battle for Zendikar prerelease, mulligan rules are changing. When you mulligan, you shuffle your starting hand into your library and draw that many cards minus 1. Now, after you keep your hand, if you have less than 7 cards in hand, then you can scry 1 (look at the top card of your library, you may put it on the bottom).
STORY
Lore introduction
Guide to Zendikar
Long ago, before mana even developed distinct colors, the Eldrazi were born in the gaps between planes. Like Planeswalkers, they are able to travel between worlds, but they devour every one that they come across. There appear to be swarms of Eldrazi, but in fact, there are only three--Ulamog, Kozilek, and the leader, Emrakul--whose projections into the third dimension appear as distinct beings. Over 6000 years ago, they were sealed inside Zendikar, a wild plane overflowing with mana. When we last visited that plane, they were released thanks to the machinations of an evil dragon Planeswalker named Nicol Bolas. The good Planeswalkers present were forced to flee, but as a clue to defeating them is found in the leylines of Zendikar, and two of the three Planeswalkers who originally sealed the Eldrazi reunite, it becomes clear that now is the time to fight back.
Stories leading up to Battle for Zendikar:
Limits - Gideon fights day and night on both Zendikar and Ravnica, until he discovers a ray of hope in Zendikar's leylines.
Catching Up - Jace is asked for help on Ravnica.
Unkindness of Ravens - As Liliana wonders if she should help on Zendikar, she encounters an old foe.
Offers to the Fire - Chandra tries to find peace at her old monastery.
For Zendikar - Nissa becomes unsure of if she can stop the Eldrazi.
Main story:
Slaughter at the Refuge - Gideon and Jace return to Zendikar.
The Silent Cry - Nissa suddenly loses her connection to the land.
The Believers' Pilgrimage - Jace journeys to the Eye of Ugin.
Story archive - Scroll to the bottom for chronological order; the layout of this archive is trash.
SET THEMES
Cards (alternative)
Battle for Zendikar mechanics
Hero and villain
Leading the side of good is Gideon (how Planeswalker cards work). Leading the side of, well, not evil but hungry, is Ulamog, with the other two Eldrazi Titans apparently having left the plane.
Allies
In the past, the Zendikari formed small bands of adventuring Allies, only helping each other, but in these harsh times, Allies help everyone. Rally is a new term for an existing effect. Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield under your control, each Ally you control with a rally ability reacts and makes something happen.
Land mechanics
Zendikar is a world that flows with magic, and the land itself is coming alive to fight off the infection of the Eldrazi. Landfall returns, describing any effect that happens when a land enters the battlefield under your control, but it has evolved, now also looking at the type of land, among other changes. With awaken spells, you can have a land perform an action for you, and by pumping in some more mana, you can make the land come to life as an Elemental. Converge spells care about having as many colors of mana as possible. Each color you use to cast a converge spell makes it stronger.
Eldrazi
Eldrazi can get big. Really big. Like an 8/9 trample for 8 is just a common big. But to get that guy out, it needs support. Devoid cards require colored mana to cast, but they still count as colorless cards, as shown by a neat frame effect. Many Eldrazi have ingest, an ability where they exile the top card of a player's library when they deal combat damage to him or her, representing their ceaseless eating. This doesn't seem like much, but then you combine it with cards like Eldrazi Processors, which take the exiled cards and, among other effects, turn them into baby Eldrazi Scions, which can be sacrificed for mana to pay for the bigger Eldrazi. So you ingest cards, process them into or otherwise get Scions, then use the Scions to get big guys out.
Lands
While using lands is neat and all, Zendikar is all about the lands themselves. Returning for this set are full-art basic lands.
And we also have a new cycle of dual lands, or lands that tap for two colors of mana. These enter the battlefield tapped unless you control two or more basic lands, thus earning the nickname tangolands ("it takes two to tango"). More importantly, however, they have the basic land types. This means that if you, say, have a land that allows you to sacrifice it to search your library for a Forest or Plains, you could fetch one of these lands with the appropriate type.
And there are many more nonbasic lands to come!
Wallet Sculpting
Zendikar Expeditions is a special set within this set, made up of 25 full-art foil versions of lands: the above tangolands, the Ravnica shocklands, and all 10 fetchlands; an additional 20 will appear in the next set. However, these lands appear at about the same rate as a foil mythic rare card. Meaning to get any one of these lands, not a particular one, each booster pack has a 1:216 chance (getting a mythic rare is a 1:8 chance). So yeah, these will be expensive as hell. However, one great thing for those not interested is this means the other cards in the set should be cheaper. Note that these cards are only Standard legal if they appear in a Standard set normally, so only the tangolands and half of the fetchlands are Standard legal. These cards have their own set symbol to emphasize that they are not really part of the Battle for Zendikar set. If you open a card that is not Standard-legal during the prerelease or other Limited formats, you can use it in your deck, but not otherwise.
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Uncharted Realms, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
BfZ official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has an autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search engine for cards, with bigger pictures and more details. But it doesn't have an autocomplete.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
Credit to WanderingWind for the section header images.
