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It is generally accepted that the Core Set is a little less exciting than an expansion. After all, if a mechanic is too complicated for the block it was in, there is no chance to bring it into the Core Set, as that is marketed to newer players. However, Core Sets are often seen as prime opportunities to try out new ideas, such as card faces, or rules adjustments. And in this case, that is exactly what is being done. The most notable change you will find to cards, especially if you’ve perused either the sortable spoiler from Wizards or just happened to be looking at the Oracle recently is the “Enchantment – Aura” type line. What does this mean?

Holy mother of pearl! I miss one week of Ben’s Corner and suddenly there’s a million new bits of news about StarCityGames.com. Come on in to Ben’s Corner and read about the new line of sleeves we’re carrying, the dozens of new promo cards we’ve added to the system, our buylist, and my 30th Birthday! All this and more in this week’s edition of Ben’s Corner.

So, if Tuesday was all about the best pieces of non-Kev Walker art in Extended-legal sets, why weren’t there any land cards? Because I truly feel that lands need to be looked at separately. Magic is an active game (yes, ever against people playing Blue). A card’s art tends to reflect its mechanic in some way which means the art typically depicts some activity or shows a creature of some sort. Land cards, though, are more like still lifes.

Seasoned Japan veteran Eli Kaplan tells you everything you absolutely need to know about Worlds in Yokohama, except for what to play and how to play it.

I want to be perfectly clear on one point. I am most certainly not saying that the art on these cards is awful in and of itself. Magic has come a long, long way from the days of Reverse Polarity (“Worst. Magic art. Ever.”) and Reverse Damage. Nearly every card from Tempest on and especially from Invasion on has been a true joy to look at (Cepahlids aside). However, some of the art, well, it didn’t quite work on the card.

Yesterday, I took a very biased look at some of the hottest of the recent Magic hotties. Today, I’m running down a list of my favorite art. I’m only going back as far as the current Extended-Legal sets go. Why? Because this is my column. Nyah.

From Right Field regular Chris Romeo, on the finest artistic renderings in all of Magicdom. Warning: contains hotties

A follow up on Ultra-rares and ultra-uncommons, and the suprising solid results of Chris’s Precon experimenting.

Adam finishes up a fantastic week of SCG Daily, discussing the folklore behind some of your favorite Magic creatures with a discussion of the Wild Hunt, as well as Brownies. Mmmm, brownies.

When the Portal sets became legal in Vintage, it was like three whole new expansions entered the field at once. Sure, everyone knows about the cards that got insta-restricted… But how about Dong Zhou? Or the unique and powerful effect of Riding the Dilu Horse? Abe breaks open some cards to see what kinds of decks you can build!

So far in this series, we’ve looked at some of Northern European folklore’s intelligent, social beings (elves and goblins) and some monsters (krakens and wurms/worms). Today, we’ll focus on a group of beings that fall somewhere in between: vampires.

Adam has Wurms. Today he shares them with you.