Welcome back to Ben’s Corner! Wednesday was my 30th Birthday (I’m an old man) and I’m currently in New York City celebrating! I have a lot of site news this week, so let’s dive straight into my pile o’ business.
Ultra Pro Sleeves
StarCityGames.com is now proud to be carrying a full line of tournament-legal Ultra Pro Sleeves! KMC seems to have fallen off the face of the earth and so we’ve been searching for the highest quality replacement sleeves to carry on the website. After a couple months of looking, we were more than satisfied with the current line of Ultra Pros. They are durable, come in a great variety of colors, and are the sleeves that we now use when protecting our decks. The colors currently available are:
Brazen Gold
Canary Yellow
Candy Orange
Island Green
Lava Red
Matrix Green
Passion Purple
Powder White
Raven Black
Stone Gray
Summer Blue
Sunset Pink
Tsunami Blue
My personal favorite colors are the Yellow and the Orange – both are extremely bright and stand out well compared to the more “serious” colored sleeves.
Card of the week: Life From The Loam
The breakout card of Pro Tour: Los Angeles was Life from the Loam, the hottest card in all of Magic. Life from the Loam pushed several Psychatog (now Dredge-a-Tog) decks over the top, combined marvelously with the cycling lands from Onslaught, and made an appearance in many, many day two decks. I’ve been pushing Life from the Loam heavily over the past couple of months, both in my columns and in the forums of my articles. Since the Pro Tour, the price of this card has doubled, and sales have not slowed down in the least. Life from the Loam will be an Extended staple for years to come, so grab yours now because they’ll be played in that format for nearly a decade!
Guildpact
Guildpact sealed product is now available for preorder! Ravnica: City of Guilds was one of (if not) the best selling Magic set in history – and we sold through completely on our initial wave of Ravnica product through preorders! Guildpact preorders will be shipped in the order received – and while we shipped a vast majority of the Ravnica preorders on the day of release, it’s best to order early and assure early shipping. Guildpact will feature three more guilds – The Gruul Clans (Green/Red), the Orzhov Syndicate (White/Black) and The Izzet
(Red/Blue). According to MTGSalvation.com, the keyword for the Gruul Clan will be Bloodthirst! From MTGsalvation.com:
“The Gruul Keyword has been confirmed as “Bloodthirst” and will look like this on cards:
Bloodthirst 2 (If another player was dealt damage this turn, this creature comes into play with 2 +1/+1 counters on it.)
Buylist Updated
The Buylist has been updated and our buy prices are higher than ever! Prices were raised across the board, with a concentration on hot Standard and Extended cards. Go check out the buylist today.
The Monster Update
With the help of my lovely assistants Adam Bowles and Josh Strickland, we’ve gotten the following sets out of The Monster and into our inventory:
Scourge Singles
Fallen Empires Singles
Homelands Singles (Whee! Even Homelands needs a little love somtimes.)
Anthologies Singles
APAC Lands
Arabian Nights (More on this later in the column!)
New Promos
Several new promotional cards were added to our inventory this past week. They include the following:
Hypnotic Specter (Player Rewards Foil)
Booster Tutor (Arena League Promo)
Circle of Protection: Art (Arena League Promo)
Goblin Mime (Arena League Promo)
Granny’s Payback (Arena League Promo)
Mise (Arena League Promo)
Dimir Guildmage (Release Tournament Foil)
Ghost-Lit Stalker (Release Tournament Foil)
Hinder (Textless)
Duress (FNM Foil)
Kird Ape (FNM Foil)
Okina Nightwatch (Arena Promo)
Island (2004 Arena Promo)
Forest (2005 Arena Promo)
Arabian Nights Repriced
Arabian Nights Singles have been completely repriced! I’ve dropped the prices on cards across the board, sometimes by as much as 50%! This was thanks to The Monster – I was able to add over 2,500 Arabian Nights singles to the system that were being held over in our to-be-entered pile! In addition, I put together four Arabian Nights Complete Sets in Slightly Played condition. These sets include all variations of the light/dark cards (a total of 92 cards per set).
That’s all I have time for this week. For those who have been following Chris Romeo recent articles, he’s bemoaned that certain rares seem more rare than others. I can say for a fact that this is not the case – all rares are created equal, at least on the print sheet. Stay tuned for next week when I examine, in depth, the meaning of rarity in Magic.
Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com
Ben@StarCityGames.com
One last note: There are only five copies left of Ben’s Special – The 100 Most Essential Extended Commons. Once these five copies have been sold, no more will be offered.