Hey everyone! Welcome to the last edition of Ben’s Corner for 2005. I’ll be writing the daily column next week, and I’m really excited about my five topics. This week, I have a lot of site news – let’s delve straight into the real deal, shall we?
Card of the week: Ichorid!
Spawned from the mind of John Rizzo and refined through the testing of many Pros, the Ichorid deck dominated Grand Prix: Charlotte. The hottest cards at the event, by far, were Ichorid, Morningtide, Coffin Purge, Stinkweed Imp, and Kataki, War’s Wage. Ichorid and Morningtide were moving at $5 each all weekend, while Kataki hit a high of $12 the day of the event. Overall, all components of the Ichorid deck far outsold the pieces of any other deck, excepting anti-graveyard sideboard cards for other decks. Loxodon Hierarch also was in high demand, following the performance of White/Green decks at Worlds.
Izzet, Gruul and Orzhov – Guildpact Mechanics revealed!
Ravnica contained four guilds: the Green/White Selesnya Guild, the Green/Black Golgari Guild, the Black/Blue Dimir Guild, and the Red/White Boros Guild. Guildpact contains three Guilds: The Red/Blue Izzet Guild, the Red/Green Gruul Guild, and the White/Black Orzhov Guild. Each Guild will have a specific keyworded mechanic. MTGsalvation.com has spoiled the three guild mechanics, though as always, specific wordings are subject to change, so all credit and all blame goes to them.
Izzit (Red/Blue): The Izzet Mechanic is called Replicate, and is a built-in Fork/Twincast effect for that spell. For instance, there is rumored to be a Blue spell which costs U and has a Replicate cost of U. It taps target permanent, so for every U you spend, you get to tap another permanent. One Blue will tap one permanent, two Blue will tap two permanents, five Blue will tap five permanents, and so on and so forth.
Orzhov (White/Black): The Orzhov mechanic is called Haunt, and it functions as a strange type of enchantment. One Orzhov card has been fully spoiled by MTGsalvation.com.
Blind Hunter, WB2
Creature – Bat. 2/2
Flying
Haunt (When this card is put into a graveyard from play, remove it from the game haunting target creature.)
When Blind Hunter comes into play or the creature Blind Hunter haunts is put into a graveyard, target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
Gruul (Red/Green): The Gruul mechanic is Bloodthirst, and though no creatures with this mechanic have been spoiled, the mechanic itself has been. Bloodthirst X (If another player was dealt damage this turn, this creature comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it.)
A new Ben’s Special!
Ben’s Special has been changed! We have acquired a single Mark Tedin-Signed Foil Promo Sol Ring and it is available for sale! We also picked up three non-signed Promo Foil Sol Rings.
In addition, we have a single copy of the newly-released Judge Foil Promo Alternate Art Exalted Angel. These were given out to judges and staff at the Magic World Championships, and have been extremely hard to come by.
Tempest, Stronghold and Exodus prices slashed!
I’ve dropped the prices of singles across the board on Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus.
Get your copy of Cursed Scroll today!
Until next year,
Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com