Outlaws of Thunder Junction Previews Begin

The next Magic expansion is coming soon with Outlaws of Thunder Junction and preview season kicked off in earnest with a loud "YEEHAW!" The debut stream showed off several exciting new cards and a few extraordinary reprints as well. It already looks to be a fairly strong release with several cards sure to impact multiple formats. If you'd like to read more about these new cards, you can check out my write up covering the previews right here on CoolStuffInc.com.

Additionally, Wizards also announced during this week that a MTG Arena Streamer Event would take place on April 10th! This is the first time one of these early events have taken place in several months and has many excited to see what the set brings to the table. In a similar vein, LoadingReadyRun also announced that their Pre-Prerelease would be a little different this time around. The team wasn't able to finish sorting out their contracts with Wizards for the usual Pre-Prerelease event, but were still given the cards for the set, so are instead opting to do some fun Sealed shenanigans instead. You can find out the preliminary details here.

Another Art Scandal Hits Magic

Earlier this week, a Reddit post on the r/magictcg subreddit noted that the artwork for the Murders at Karlov Manor Commander card Trouble In Pairs looked awfully familiar. The poster showed how it looked very reminiscent of an art piece by another Magic artist, Donato Ginacola, for his work with the Cyberpunk roleplaying game. While not an exact one to one, the figure shown bears strong similarities, as did some of the surrounding scenery. This led to a lot of accusations aimed at artist Fay Dalton by the community and even Donato himself as well, who lambasted Dalton in a post online.

Further sleuthing from the community turned up even more pieces of artwork appearing to be lifted from as well, such as pieces by Boris Vallejo, Will Hulsey, and Morton Kunstler. The Wizards community team noted this was being looked into, and Dalton herself has been noted as having since deactivated her Instagram account following the accusations.

Manual Pairing for WPN Events are Live

Ever since many local game stores were required to switch to Eventlink and players the Companion app, there's been one continual request from everyone: the ability to set up manual pairings. This is to be able to do things like accommodate disabled players, fix issues with pairings presented by improper seating, and so on. Now Wizards has announced that this has been officially implemented for all stores, so everyone should have access to it when the need arises!

Paupergeddon Brings In Over 700 Players

This is the Paupergeddon, the biggest pauper tournament in the world. ?#MagicTheGathering #mtgcommunity pic.twitter.com/t5yVsKf9DD

— soos (@soos_mtg) March 23, 2024

Pauper players the world over have been jealous for years as Italy continues to run massive events for the format of commons every couple of months. This weekend was no exception, with the latest iteration of the tournament series - Paupergeddon Lecco - where the event sold out with a massive 715 players! The event was taken down by Azorius Familiars following a grueling weekend of gameplay. If you're ever looking for the best place to go for high profile Pauper action, Paupergeddon is the place to be!

Josh Lee Kwai and The Professor Talk Content Creation

The Command Zone is setting up an all new studio and invited The Professor of Tolarian Community College over to check it out. When they were visiting, Josh and Prof began a rather candid conversation and realized "hey, we should turn on the microphones and make a thing out of this." So, as a result, it produced a tremendously insightful video for those even remotely interested in content creation and the kinds of things that can go into it behind the scenes. I highly recommend checking it out, and you can find it right here.

A New Rhystic Studies Video Hits The Scene

Few cards have been as visually polarizing as the Faithless Looting card from Strixhaven's Mystical Archive subset. Beloved Youtuber Sam at Rhystic Studies has put out another outstanding video discussing the art, the artist behind it, and the hostile reception that the card received following it being previewed. As always, he brings a high level of quality to where even if you dislike the art in question, it's worth checking out his perspective and listen to his thoughts on the topic and the discussions with the artist Carly Mazur.

Decklist of the Week

Proft Dimir Midrange | Standard | d00mwake, 1st place RCQ Dreamhack Dallas

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 3 Ingenious Prodigy
• 4 Evangel of Synthesis
• 4 Ledger Shredder
• 4 Spyglass Siren
• 4 Steamcore Scholar

• Instants (11)
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 3 Cut Down
• 3 Go for the Throat
• 4 Consider

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Proft's Eidetic Memory

• Lands (23)
• 2 Swamp
• 3 Island
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 3 Restless Reef
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Shipwreck Marsh
• 4 Underground River

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cryptic Coat
• 1 Kaito Shizuki
• 1 Negate
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Duress
• 3 Glistening Deluge
• 3 Unlicensed Hearse

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The Standard RCQ season has come to a close, but not before some spicy new lists have popped up on the scene. This deck showcased by popular streamer d00mwake (who you can currently get a token of if you preorder Outlaws of Thunder Junction on this site) as he himself piloted it to take down a RCQ himself. The deck takes advantage of all the card draw to pump its creatures with the aid of Proft's Eidetic Memory and obliterate your opponents in the process. It's a neat deck that will be interesting to see if it continues to put up results as we enter into the Outlaws of Thunder Junction season.

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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