Announcing the Mind Games Super Secret Sale, and Other Site News

You might recall awhile back we ran a “Thoughtseize” poll asking your opinion on several possible improvements to the site. Over the past three years that we’ve been helping represent Magic’s preconstructed community, we’ve continued to try and refine the Ertai’s Lament experience as we go, both in content as well as layout. Today we’d like to let you in on some of the exciting things that are in development, including some big changes in the works!

Mind Games, Ltd. 

One of the things that got a surprising amount of hits in the poll was the desire for a Magic store. Some of you may know that Jimi’s been working on a webstore for a little while now, and she’s close to launching. In fact, although we’re currently still tinkering about under the hood, her store is now open and fully operational. We’re not running up to the top of Valakut to proclaim this just yet, but we thought it would be nice way to thank you for your continuing support of the site if we unbarred the door for a “pre-opening sale” for Ertai’s Lament readers.

Feel free to poke around, pick up a few cards if you’re so inclined, and I know she’d love some feedback on your experience. Opening a webstore is truly a Heraclean task, and we’re very proud of her for all her hard work. She’s going to continue to update her inventory and the store layout, and an official launch is right around the corner.

Self-Hosting

This is this quarter’s big site-based ambition, because it opens up so many other things. The largest vote-getter on the Thoughtseize poll was the implementation of hover-over card links, the kind you see on most other established Magic sites. To enable this, we have to move from WordPress-hosted to self-hosted, which means leaving the free support of WordPress and buying a real website. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but haven’t been quite ready to do.

Not only will this change-over allow us to change the cardlinking system- a massive upgrade in convenience for our readers- but it will also give us the opportunity to look into developing a forum. As something else you said you’ve wanted through several polls in the last few years, it’s also very high on our list. We’d love to be able to have a reader forum here to discuss preconstructed decks, spoilers, custom builds, meddlings, and everything else. We feel extraordinarily blessed to have the community we have here, and we’d love to help it grow!

That’s all for now, we’ll be back at the reviews for tomorrow as we conclude Gatecrash, then it’s on to Mercadian Masques. Widely derided as a “set without mechanics,” there’s something deeper at work going on under the surface of this set. We’ll also be having another Theme Deck giveaway tied into it, so stay tuned!