Bloomburrow Fully Releases

As of today, the latest Magic expansion - Bloomburrow - has finally released everywhere! Now you can join in the fun that's sweeping the gaming sphere and play with all the cute and fuzzy animals to your heart's content! Check out your local store to get in on all the action, or else check out the Bloomburrow page here on CoolStuffInc.com to get all the awesome cards you want! If digital is more your speed, the set also just hit MTG Arena and Magic Online in addition to rotation, so get on there and see what all the hype is about!

Secret Lairs Release Aaaand They're Gone!

This week saw the full reveal - and release - of the latest Secret Lair superdrop: the Inside an Elevator Superdrop. This featured all kinds of outstanding releases, including the likes of a Bloomburrow showcase release with animalized planeswalkers and the neat Andrew MacLean. However, the real centerpieces were the collaborations with Monty Python and the Holy Grail as well as Brain Dead. All of this made for one of the most stacked superdrops in some time, and as such players couldn't wait to take part in it.

As a result, many players were met with long wait times in the queue for Secret Lairs, only to be told after about an hour of waiting that their preferred lairs (particularly the Monty Python ones) had sold out. This led to many outraged concerns from players levied at Wizards and Hasbro over the move from print-to-demand to limited offering releases once again. Mark Rosewater noted on his Tumblr blog that many players had been expressing their concerns about this, leading some to hope that the issues faced here may lead to changes down the line or else second print runs of highly sought-after lairs.

Eternal Weekend 2024 Announced

The initial details for Eternal Weekend 2024 were revealed earlier this week, showcasing the premiere events for Legacy and Vintage around the world! It was revealed that the North American event would be held on November 21 - 24, 2024, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as usual. Key promos were revealed with a top finish promo of Crop Rotation for Legacy and Tinker for Vintage. Breaking from the usual tradition, however, it was announced that there would not be the usual Eternal Weekend paintings as prizes this time around. This decision led to a fair amount of blowback from the Eternal Magic communities, with many hoping the choice will be reversed. You can find out all the details on the events here.

July 2024 Commander Format Update Released

The quarterly Commander Format Update was released this week with some unusually interesting news. Most updates tend to be pretty plain and uneventful, however this time the Rules Committee had a few key points to note. The first was the fact that the latest Modern Horizons 3 powerhouse Nadu, Winged Wisdom was posing a number of issues much the same way it is in Modern. Given that, the RC noted they have their eyes on it and may take action in the future if deemed necessary. They also reiterated in an official stance that they were leaving stickers legal in Commander where they were banned in all other competitive formats, and that they were working on finding a way to make silver-bordered cards more legal to play in a Commander setting. You can read the full announcement and see all the details here.

Decklist of the Week

Grixis Midrange | BLB Standard | neb12r, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal // Temple of the Dead
• 1 Preacher of the Schism
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 4 Thundertrap Trainer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Ral, Crackling Wit

• Instants (19)
• 1 Bitter Triumph
• 2 Long Goodbye
• 2 Phantom Interference
• 2 Three Steps Ahead
• 4 Cut Down
• 4 Deduce
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Deadly Cover-Up

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Virtue of Persistence

• Lands (26)
• 1 Mountain0
• 2 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Thundering Falls
• 2 Raucous Theater
• 2 Sulfurous Springs
• 2 Undercity Sewers
• 3 Underground River
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Restless Reef

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Agatha's Soul Cauldron
• 1 Glistening Deluge
• 1 Long Goodbye
• 1 Outrageous Robbery
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Malicious Edge
• 2 Negate
• 2 Preacher of the Schism
• 3 Tishana's Tidebinder

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As noted above, Bloomburrow has officially hit digital clients everywhere! If you're like me, you're probably run into your share of aggressive decks focused on mice, lizards, and bats on the Arena ladder. However, with events hitting Magic Online, we also get our first glimpse into some all-new post-rotation Standard lists! Most so far seem like standard fare holdovers from the pre-rotation period, but one stood out as a little spicy. This new Grixis Midrange list makes great use of new cards Thundertrap Trainer and Ral, Crackling Wit, alongside a number of powerful removal and countermagic spells the format has had access to for some time now. Will it last as bigger tournaments come around? We'll have to see, but for right now it seems like a fun and spicy deck to take to your next Standard event!

Paige Smith

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