Dear Magicians,

Christmas and the New Year are upon us. What about Blood Moon's magic events and tournaments? They're coming up too, of course! Overview and sign-up as always here on the site in Tournaments, info on what exactly and what is coming up follows.

Limited

Tournaments are now listed for most Tuesdays. The vision isn't to draft every Tuesday (we already know that's almost impossible), but in theory it increases the frequency of weeks where a pod gets drafted. The format will probably continue with a current edition draft, interspersed with an older set, maybe some sealed, we'll see how popular things get. Which currently means Foundations draft, March of the Machine flashback draft, and Bloomburrow sealed. The draft, if time permits, will return on Saturday with a higher capacity so that both seasoned players and newbies or those rejoining Magic can come. The plan is for Innistrad Remastered in mid-January and the interplanar Ghirapur Grand Prix - Aetherdrift in early February.

Duels

Duel Commander is still looking great. At the recent French Relic Fest tournament with nearly 1,000 entrants, there were a lot of different decks played and none had more than a 10% share in the overall metagame, a sign of a healthy format where there is no clear best deck. The win, and with it the Black Lotus, went to Ezio, who overpowered UR Malcolm in the finals. We will still have both Saturday duels approximately every other week, and for those interested, weekly duel practices on Tuesdays. The option to use up to 15 proxy cards has worked well and therefore still continues, as does the Blood Moon prizewall points for a good final placing.

Prizewall

As far as prizewall is concerned, most things remain the same. All points are of course still valid and still have the same value. Cards are continuously added to the prizewall boards. A new feature is that if you think you deserve an extra card for your performance in tournaments, but none of the ones currently in PW seem to fit, you can email Matthew on Messenger or Discord and he will look for one for you. However, the selection is nice, as you can see in the Prizewall section - lands are the basis of every deck, so the basis of Prizewall.

Judge's Window

Along with the release of Foundations, there was a rather large, though not that noticeable, change in the rules. Combat damage is now dealt only when it's assessed, and the ordering of blockers when more than one creature is defending has been removed. Practically, this means less thinking for attackers, worsened combat tricks for defenders, and that banding won't be such a good keyword anymore.

More info here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/foundations-release-notes

And we've attached a real-life example, from the Phelia vs Ghyrson duel: A 4/5 Monastery Swiftspear attacks, blocked by two 3/3s, White Plume and Ranger-Captain. The new blockers don't take turns, the combat damage from Swiftspear is split between them as the Ghyrson player chooses. So it's possible to grant a 2 and a 2. In that case, combat both white creatures survive, but the following End the Festivities can give a double kill.

If you have rules or any other questions, let us know on our Blood Moon Discord (link above). We're happy to welcome anyone and discuss anything.

So come play and MTG cheers!

Your Blood Moon