Community Cup 2010 and My Magic Contest

As many of you remember, last year was Wizard of the Coast’s first Community Cup Challenge. Yours truly was a participant, and, of course, the community won. For those of you that don’t know, the Community Cup Challenge (CCC) is a 2-day tournament between 8 members of the community, which include avid and prominent members of the Magic Online game as well as Magic journalists and writers, and 8 Wizards of the Coast employees. I’d like to wish the best of luck to the 8 participants that will be representing press and community alike. Wizards of the Coast is out for blood (okay, not really) and want revenge for last year, so the community has some big shoes to fill to keep up our tradition! If you want to see the list of all the participants, you can find that information here. I’ll keep you updated as I find out

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A Day at WonderCon 2010

So, I spent just a Saturday at WonderCon 2010 in San Francisco, and I saw many random and interesting things, such as this lovely tribble dispenser. Fortunately, I did not have any quarters, otherwise I fear my room would be filled with shaking, adorable tribbles as I write this. There was something strangely cute about these things, and considering I had hardly seen any of the Star Trek episodes, that’s saying something. Of course, tribbles aren’t the only tempting, adorable thing that graces this convention’s floor. There was the large number of simply cute and adorable cosplayers. Admit it: a 5-year-old dressed up at girl Batman with her daddy is just cute. I don’t have a picture, but take my word on that one. There was also a demo booth of a wii game called Just Dance, and I saw numerous little kids get up there and show us older

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Review: Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver

A welcome addition to the Pokemon family, and a wonderful revamp of the original Gold and Silver versions, HeartGold and SoulSilver bring back memories of older players and draw in newer players all at once. ESRB: E (for Everyone) Genre:RPG Number of Players: One Publisher: Nintendo Release Date: March 14, 2010 BUY First of all, I should say that I grew up playing the first and second generation of Pokemon games, including the original versions of Gold, Silver, and Crystal. I remember being a little kid in middle school talking about what gym I just beat or asking if they wanted to trade their ponyta for my magikarp. Playing HeartGold and SoulSilver brought back a lot of fond memories of playing the original versions as well as gave me some of the nice additions that have been added to the series since then. The menus are amazing. Normally people don’t

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The Art of Cosplay

WonderCon was last weekend, and I had a bit of time to browse the dealer’s hall and artist’s alley in-between the panels I attended. Of course, I have always been in love with cosplay and I’ve even tried a few times to pull off a character myself. I can’t begin to describe how many different cosplays I’ve seen, from extremely good Pyramid Head cosplays, to my friend’s Death (a la Neil Gaiman) cosplay, to some that are less than stellar. I wanted to share with you some of the cosplay I saw this year at WonderCon 2010. For those of you familiar with Neil Gaiman’s works, you should recognize these two lovely ladies as the character Death. The shorter girl is a friend of mine, and the girl on the left is a young lady we met and chatted with at the con. To talk about the art of cosplay,

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Pokemon TCG: Unleased

Starting May 12, 2010, the newest expansion of the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG), Unleased, will be released. This set will feature more than 90 cards including six new Pokemon Prime cards, including Tyranitar and Steelix. Also being released are the legendary dogs, Entei, Raikou, and Suicune, which will appear in pairs on Pokemon Legend cards. The new theme decks will be Chaos Control and Steel Sentinel. The theme decks will sell for about $12 while booster packs are $3.79 per pack. For more information, visit www.pokemon.com.

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WonderCon 2010

Alright everyone, it’s that time of the year where cosplayers, gaming fanatics, comic geeks, and nerds of all ages gather for… convention season! There’s already been a few (like PAX East), but this weekend is San Francisco’s WonderCon. WonderCon is like the sister convention to ComicCon. There will be a ton of vendors and artist’s alley, which is one of my favorite parts of any convention. From April 2nd through April 4th, the Moscone Center in San Francisco will be the home to many big names and companies ready and willing to talk to you congoers. Some of the people of interest that will be there is Max Brooks, author of the popular book World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide. Colleen Doran, who has done art for Neil Gaiman and Anne Rice’s work, among many others, will also be at a booth to sign autographs. For a complete

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Deck-Building 101: EDH and How to Pick your General

Before we get started, I just want to let you know that all the card names will be linked to the card on magiccards.info so you can see them if you want and to prevent a large number of card pictures. Enjoy! Hey everyone, today I’m going to tackle the very fun and exciting format of Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH for short. This format is a 100 card singleton deck. Most players have at least heard off 100 CS and are familiar with the basics of only having one copy of any given card except for basic lands. EDH isn’t much different except in the way that the 100th card is called your “General” and the contents of your deck can only be the colors of your general. What this means is if, say, Ashling, the Pilgrim is your general, then your entire deck must be red and non-land

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Star Wars TCG Gets Update

LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced the release of Threat of the Conqueror, the newest expansion in the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game. Players can now aid the Alliance Renegade Squadron as they gather intelligence and locate the Empire’s modified Star Destroyer that holds the ability to destroy entire planets. If that isn’t the player’s cup of tea, they can side with the Empire’s elite storm commandos as they work to crush the Rebels and ensure the maiden voyage of the deadly weapon. No matter what side is chosen, ten new story scenarios will pull them into the fight between good and evil. The set also brings the ability to boost players’ light or dark side decks with special-forces theme cards as well as new Bith and Duros avatar race cards. The Threat of the Conqueror adds more than 200 new cards, 30 of which are loot cards,

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Review: Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII is the first of three games in the FF13 set featuring a lovely cast of characters, an engaging story, and creative gameplay. Rating: T for Teen Players: 1 Genre: JRPG System: Xbox 360 Publisher: SquareEnix Release Date: March 9, 2010 RENT/BUY Anyone who knows me knows that I am completely obsessed with the Final Fantasy games. Even though X-2 and XII aren’t on the top of my list of favorites (a spot held by IX), I still enjoyed playing through them. So, of course, when I went to pick up this game, I had very high hopes and, admittedly, high expectations. Almost instantly, I’m captivated with the opening cutscenes and find myself squeaking and crying out “Chocobo!” when I get the first glimpse of Sazh’s baby chocobo that lives in his hair. One thing I both liked and disliked were the characters. The cast spanned a wide

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Duelist Pack Kaiba Coming Soon

Now, I’m not much of a Yu-Gi-Oh! player myself, but even as a kid, I remember the rivalry of Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto. I rooted for Kaiba every time the two of them had a duel. Now, some players may not know the name, but Kaiba still remains one of the best known characters in the series. And guess what? Starting April 20th, you can pick up the new Duelist Pack – Kaiba from most hobby and game stores for only $2! This set features his most famous (and infamous) cards for a grand total of 40 to collect. That also makes this the largest Duelist Pack to date. It will feature a new Blue-Eyes White Dragon effect monster as well as five Ultimate Rare versions of his most forbidden cards like Pot of Greed and Cyber Jar. Some of these cards even feature brand-new art, like the XYZ-Dragon

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