Gifts Ungiven

This evening saw the first ever Magic panel at the San Diego Comic Con, featuring Mark Rosewater, Aaron Forsythe, Brian Tinsman, Paul Levy, and Christopher Moeller. It was well attended, with some folks needing to be turned away.

Marc Rosewater did a run through of upcoming products, which gave us some spoilerage that has already made the rounds thanks to twitter. Here's a quick runthrough, including one tiny spoiler that I think hasn't made it out yet. Here you go:

They kicked things off with a preview of some cards from From the Vaults: Relics.

Yup, that's Masticore.

...and that's the Mox Diamond, which spurred the recent debate about work-arounds to the Reserve List. Later during the Q&A, Paul Levy indicated that they had, indeed, tightened the policy around the Reserve List so that the loophole allowing this kind of reprint was gone, but Mark Rosewater did say to remember that the members of R&D are gamers.

However, the big one from Relics was, of course:

For more detail on the rules text, here's a zoomed-in pic:

In introducing this card, Mark mentioned that players might notice that this is a blue and green sword, and recall that Mirrodin had a black and white sword as well as a blue and red sword, so if you "completed the pattern" (said with much hand waving) you might be able to figure out another card.

So who's excited about Lightning Helix sword? (Well, just guessing. Boros Blade? Anyway...)

We then moved on to Duel Decks previews (for Elspeth versus Tezzeret)...

Alternate art Elspeth, from Duels.

The same art in the card frame. Note the updated "Emblem" wording on Elspeth's ultimate. Aaron Forsythe discussed the Emblem concept briefly. He noted that it was really designed to allow future cards, but they updated Elspeth's ability to use the Emblem wording since it is appropriate for her as well.

The alternate art Tezzeret from the same Duels set.

The same, in its proper frame.

Alternate art from an unnamed card to be included in the upcoming Duels set.

Another alternate art for yet another unnamed card that will appear in Duels.

From there, we moved on to...

Scars will feature a new Elspeth. The other person in this picture is a second planeswalker named Koth.

Here's the tiny spoiler that I think hasn't made it out so far: When an audience member asked what color Koth was, Mark Rosewater said that Koth would be "one of the colors" in the game. If he meant that literally, then Koth is a mono-colored planeswalker. Make of that what you will.

...and now, enjoy some Scars art that was delivered to us without comment:

Mark introduced the final piece with a discussion about how they've decided that "something" should come back in each set - for example, cycling in Alara and kicker in Zendikar. He said that something was definitely coming back in Scars, and then brought up the final piece of art:

They followed the preview section with an extensive Q&A period, which was nice even as it had the tenor of a "Magic anonymous" meeting as each questioner introduced themself by saying their first name and then when they'd started Magic.

I have some fun quotes from that section, but I'll save them for another time as they are funny, but not particularly spoilerrific.

As a closing note, I had a nice conversation with Randy Buehler after the panel where we talked about Mythics and pricing, and basically came down on the same spot - we like what they do for the game. They make staple rares dramatically cheaper, while making some of the more elective rares (now Mythics) more expensive. Someone came up and asked Mark Rosewater about Mythics after the panel, suggesting that they were making people unhappy, and Mark mentioned that they serve the fundamental purpose of making it more exciting to open packs, and that Magic sales have been up tremendously since the change.

Anyway, you'll probably want to go back up and check out those pictures again. Do feel free to repost them, but do give me appropriate crediting and a link back to this post. Thanks, and enjoy. :)