This Week in Magic: Friday, April 5

Posted on April 5, 2024

Outlaws of Thunder Junction Previews Wrap Up

The full set of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and its subsequent bonus sheets and Commander decks has now been revealed! This set is looking absolutely juiced and has players excited to play with several awesome new cards as well as get their hands on dozens of needed reprints. You can find out more in my Outlaws of Thunder Junction preview recaps right here on CoolStuffInc.com. Check out the CoolStuffInc store page for Outlaws of Thunder Junction or mosey on over to your local game store next weekend to get your hands on these sweet new cards first!

Fallout Secret Lairs Revealed

The Overseer has opened the Vault and found three new @MTGSecretLair sets steeped in Fallout lore. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Points of Interest, and Vault Boy Secret Lair drops will be available on April 8! pic.twitter.com/U5yxFjNYJB
— Fallout (@Fallout) April 4, 2024

After Universes Beyond: Fallout released about a month ago, many fans of both Magic and Fallout were eagerly awaiting the simultaneously announced Secret Lairs. Now the contents of these upcoming Secret Lairs - three in total - have been revealed. One Lair features Vault Boy and several Stax associated cards, another features several spells, each starting with one letter of S.P.E.C.I.A.L., and another still featuring a bunch of popular land cards. Each of these features a Vault Boy art style Fallout fans know and love.

Additionally, in an unusual move, the Fallout Twitter page that showed off the Lairs also revealed the bonus cards of Codex Shredder and a full-art Wastes. They also revealed that some rare Lairs will include a special Mana Vault in place of these, similar to past Lair drops that would include things like Blueprint artifacts or copies of Persistent Petitioners in place of the standard examples of bonus cards.

Each of these Secret Lairs will be available on Monday, April 8th so make sure you check in to get your hands on them then!

Wizards Releases Statement on Fay Dalton Controversy

Following last week's big controversy stemming from the Fay Dalton illustration on Trouble in Pairs, Wizards of the Coast released a statement last Friday. The announcement was short, sweet, and speaks for itself:

"We've heard questions on the integrity of the art on the card Trouble in Pairs from the Murders at Karlov Manor Commander set, and we had questions, too. As we have looked into this further, we're now suspending future work with Fay Dalton."

This comes shortly after additional claims were made calling into question other pieces of Dalton's work including her Ajani Goldmane piece from the Secret Lair Magic: The Baseballing.

A Big Week For Magic Online

Magic Online and Daybreak Games received a lot of attention this week thanks to the opening of their content creator program for the client. Several hundred creators were reported to have applied and applications closed within a few short days. Many well-known creators announced they'd already been approved for the program while others are still waiting for approval or rejection. This quick turnaround and heavy discussion of the program among creators showed an unprecedented level of excitement for Magic Online not seen in many years since the arrival of MTG Arena. For those who didn't get a chance to apply, you can check out the Magic Online Discord server and get on the creator waitlist.

In addition to the addition of the new creator programs, the team at Daybreak announced several new events would be added to the client this week. This includes several Challenge events as well as a trial return of Pauper Preliminaries, which had previously been removed due to low attendance. They also released an article stating their commitment to providing format parity to the best of their ability going forward, particularly in the wake of the announcement that the Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 decks would be going away at the end of this week. By the time you read this article, the decks will no longer be available in the MTGO store.

MTG Arena April Fools Shenanigans

As is tradition, MTG Arena broke out a new gag to help celebrate April Fool's Day this past weekend. This year they did this by offering a pet that was, well, a pet rock. A pet rock named Dwayne, no less (a clear nod to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). The adorable pet was available in the store for 1000 gold or 200 gems and was humorously featured during coverage of the Arena Championship 5 event as a nod to the event happening during April Fool's.

Additionally, MTG Arena featured a special event over the weekend: Gold Pack Sealed! As it sounds, you were given a sealed deck pool made up of nothing but rares and mythics that you might find in a Gold Pack from buying the latest packs in the Arena store. This special event played like a usual Midweek Magic event that would give you up to two rare or mythic cards and one cosmetic by achieving a couple of wins.

Decklist of the Week

Izzet Phoenix | Explorer | Toni Ramis Pascual, 1st Place MTG Arena Championship

Planeswalkers (1)
1 Ashiok, Dream Render

Lands (19)
3 Island
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Stormcarved Coast
2 Hall of Storm Giants
4 Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents

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With Pioneer RCQ season right on our doorstep, it's only fitting that we'd lead into it with a high-profile event related to it. This past weekend was Arena Championship 5, featuring Explorer - the "Pioneer-lite" format with most cards and decks in the paper Pioneer format that's also missing a handful of notable cards. Toni Ramis Pascual took it down in a field absolutely swarmed with Rakdos Vampires lists on the back of good old Arclight Phoenix in a wild finale against Quintorious Kand Combo. Phoenix is highly regarded as one of the top decks to beat in Pioneer right now so if you're looking for something to run, this list is pretty comparable to your typical paper build, sans copies of Temporal Trespass. Congratulations Toni on the epic victory!

Paige Smith

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