Wizards in Hot Water Over AI Usage

To help promote the upcoming Ravnica Remastered set, Wizards of the Coast put out an advertisement showcasing some of the cool retro frame treatments. Several Twitter users noticed that the background imagery looked weird and off, and began to do some investigating into the art. Upon doing so, several telltale signs of AI art were noticed such as odd details on the pressure gauge and on the window in the back. This drew the ire and concern of many due to the company's recent hard stance against AI art usage.

The social media count quickly rebuffed these claims, stating that the image was created by humans and not AI. This angered people further, with more and more people pointing out flaws and even noting that there were multiple other advertisements appearing to use similar AI artwork as well. Numerous artists came out to take a stand against this usage and the follow up response, ranging from protest and pausing of work to severing ties with Wizards completely.

This further fervor prompted Wizards to put out a further statement later - along with deleting the problematic post - stating that they had made a mistake. It turns out that the critics were correct and there did appear to be AI art that was used, though this art was provided by an external vendor contracted by Wizards for their marketing purposes. The company has noted they will re-evaluate how they work with external vendors going forward and reiterated their intent on avoiding use of AI artwork as much as possible.

StarCityGames Announces Regional Championships Amid Low Attendance Discussion

Longtime Magic tournament organizer StarCityGames announced yesterday that they would be hosting all US Regional Championship events for the 2024-2025 and the 2025-2026 seasons. These events will take place as part of their regular SCGCon events and will begin in Washington DC on October 4-6, 2024. Regional Championship events taking place prior to this in the US have been reaffirmed to be hosted via Dreamhack until this time.

This announcement comes days after numerous discussions were held over social media pertaining to low turnout at the past weekend's SCGCon event. The event was noted at first for having just over 200 players for a large 20k event, though this number turned out to be 298 by the final tally. Many came out to discuss the hows and the whys, noting how this seemed rather alarming and seemed a far cry from the glory days of the SCG Tour that existed prior to the pandemic.

Cedric Phillips, formerly a large part of SCG's coverage team, released a longform Twitter thread explaining the likely reasoning behind this and how a lack of star power and prestige has severely hindered current competitive events. Luis Scott-Vargas - a driving force behind ChannelFireball - seconded a lot of Cedric's points as a TO himself.

Mark Rosewater's Murders at Karlov Manor Teaser Goes Live

Over the past few years, longtime Magic head designer Mark Rosewater has been releasing his teasers for upcoming sets. He first released these during his time writing for the original MTG magazine The Duelist and brought them back after a several year hiatus.

This week he released his teaser for Murders at Karlov Manor, featuring several clues of card names, creature types, and tidbits of card text. As usual, this got the internet community for Magic excited and talking. Some things regularly brought up include:

• A new enchantment subtype Case
• A Green sorcery that you can have any number of in your deck (a la Relentless Rats and Persistent Petitioners)
• Murder is in the set
• Creature - Elf Crocodile Detective
• Legendary Creature - Mole God
• Artifact Creature - Clue Fish (suspected to be a Red Herring)

The set's preview season begins in earnest next week, with the initial preview stream taking place on Tuesday, January 16 around 12PM EST/9AM PST. Make sure you check it out there and perhaps preorder some cards here on CoolStuffInc.com as well.

Retro Frame Shock Lands Come to Magic Online

Ravnica Remastered hits store shelves today, and while you can get it at your local shops (or buy here on CoolStuffInc.com) you'll also have the opportunity to draft the set on Magic Online! While the set will be released there and players will have an opportunity to play to their hearts' content, some cards will not be available in boosters there the way they might be in paper. Case in point: the retro frame shock lands.

Rather than releasing these coveted cards through traditional means such as in your boosters or in treasure chests, they will instead be released on their storefront in bundles of five. One will be available featuring the allied lands and the other will feature the enemy ones. Unless you want to pick them up via bots like Cardhoarder at a later time, this will be the only way to acquire them going forward. Each bundle will be available for $40 apiece, so if you'd like to shell out for some stylish shocks, this is your chance to do so!

Decklist of the Week

Mono-Red Aggro | LCI Standard | merses, MTGO Standard Challenge 1st Place

• Creatures (21)
• 2 Goddric, Cloaked Reveler
• 2 Monastery Swiftspear
• 3 Charming Scoundrel
• 3 Feldon, Ronom Excavator
• 3 Squee, Dubious Monarch
• 4 Bloodthirsty Adversary
• 4 Phoenix Chick

• Instants (12)
• 4 Lightning Strike
• 4 Play with Fire
• 4 Witchstalker Frenzy

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano

• Lands (23)
• 19 Mountain
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 3 Mishra's Foundry

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 End the Festivities
• 4 Furnace Punisher
• 4 Lithomantic Barrage
• 4 Urabrask's Forge

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

Yep, it's another Standard deck this week - fittingly continuing to highlight the return of the format as a major competitive format for paper! With several events - primarily RCQs - focusing on Standard once more, prices are jumping up on many cards and availability is drying up, making it difficult for many to get what they need for these upcoming events. Might I interest you, then, in a classic Mono-Red Aggro list? It's about as Standard fare as it gets, utilizing highly aggressive Red creatures to take down opponents hard and fast, and for but a fraction of the format's other top decks. It's cheap, wins games fast, and even leaves you with enough time between rounds to go grab some food at that fast food place up the road for a quick bite. What's not to love about that?!

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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