New Dungeons & Dragons Secret Lairs Revealed

As part of the ongoing celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, several upcoming Secret Lairs have been revealed surrounding the franchise. Thus far we have seen four lairs, including one based on iconic art from D&D books, one involving fan favorite character Astarion, and two themed around the popular D&D monster the Beholder. Additionally, during GenCon, the company revealed another upcoming lair titled Karlach's Rage, which we've thus far - at the time of writing - has not been fully previewed. All five will be going on sale August 27th, with the final one likely being revealed soon.

Early Foundations Previews Trickle Through

While we remain a couple months away from the release of Foundations, we got an early look at two of the set's Jumpstart packs. The two shown off featured various cat and vampire cards, with a solid mix of reprints and all-new cards. Revealed over at Gaming Trend, we got to see the return of awesome cards like Savannah Lions and Jazal Goldmane - coming to Pioneer for the first time ever. Additionally, we saw powerful new cards like Vengeful Bloodwitch - an updated take on the classic Blood Artist effect - and a non-enchantment Spirited Companion in the form of Helpful Hunter.

More cards also showed up over on Japanese site 4Gamer.net. Some of the more notable inclusions here are the inclusions of Elspeth's Smite and Hero's Downfall, ensuring classics like these stick around in Standard for some time yet to come. Past Standard classics Moment of Craving and Leonin Vanguard also show up, indicating that they'll likely be strong contenders going forward. You can find all the current Foundations cards - including translations of the Japanese ones - over on Scryfall.com, or check out the Foundations page here on CoolStuffInc.com.

MTG Arena Reveals Preconstructed Decks For Sale

MTG Arena had a pretty newsworthy week with the Weekly MTG stream revealing certain tidbits like Pioneer Masters still being in the works, focus shifting away from Alchemy, and the potential for Vintage Cube to come to the client. However, arguably the biggest news was the reveal that starting this week, players can pick up various preconstructed decks in the Arena client! These include two Standard decks - one more casually leaning and the other a full meta deck - as well as three Brawl decks.

Each of these five decks will be priced accordingly, with pricing being lowered based on cards already in your collection:

• Foundation Deck: Standard Dinosaurs - 5310 gems
• Champion Deck: Standard Toxic - 11280 gems
• Brawl Deck: Zada, Hedron Grinder - 2210 gems
• Brawl Deck: Eriette of the Charmed Apple - 4480 gems
• Brawl Deck: Raiyuu, Storm's Edge - 4320 gems

For full decklists and further details, be sure to check out the Weekly MTG Arena Announcements article from this week.

Decklist of the Week

Golgari Midrange | BLB Standard | unagieel, 2nd Place MTGO Standard Challenge

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Glissa Sunslayer
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 3 Caustic Bronco
• 4 Deep-Cavern Bat
• 4 Mosswood Dreadknight

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 4 Vraska, Betrayal's Sting

• Instants (6)
• 2 Cut Down
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Duress

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Innkeeper's Talent

• Lands (26)
• 4 Forest
• 6 Swamp
• 2 Fabled Passage
• 2 Fountainport
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 4 Restless Cottage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Liliana of the Veil
• 2 Duress
• 2 Gix's Command
• 2 Nissa, Ascended Animist
• 2 Tear Asunder
• 2 Tranquil Frillback
• 4 Choking Miasma

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One of the most talked about decks in Standard this week was the current iteration of the Golgari Midrange archetype. This deck retained the bulk of its core components post-rotation and is proving to be a formidable choice as expected. What wasn't as expected, however, was the interaction between the new Innkeeper's Talent and Vraska, Betrayal's Sting. A fully leveled Innkeeper's Talent causes Vraska to always enter with 10 (or 12 if you don't pay life for the Phyrexian mana) loyalty counters, meaning you can ultimate her immediately for a lethal shot.

This has incited plenty of controversy over the interaction with many players saying it should be banned, while others noted ways it could be shut down. Regardless, the deck is proving to be one of the best things you can be doing right now in the format, making it a great option for any Standard event you may play in.