Innistrad Booster Battle Packs… and a Giveaway!
If running one giveaway wasn’t enough, my latest QS piece has another! Today’s article was inspired by a reader here who remarked how he wished there was a Booster Battle Packs release for Innistrad. For those who missed the last go-round, Booster Battle Packs are a gateway product to Limited play released for Magic 2012. Wizards made a pool of ten different “packets” of five cards- four commons and an uncommon- two for each colour. Each player gets two packets semi-randomly, and they get a booster to pull five more cards out of to make a complete ‘mini-deck.’
Not only does today’s piece update the product for Innistrad, giving you ten similarly-themed packets to play with, but I’m also giving away the finished product!
A Very Merry Kamigawa Christmas Indeed!
Some of you might remember last year when our infant son Liam played Santa for Daddy. Well, a year on he’s grown quite a bit, but he’s just as eager to spread some holiday joy!
Contest: A Very Kamigawa Christmas
How many of you never quite seem to get enough Magic: the Gathering under the tree each year? As some of you know this past week Ertai’s Lament hit a major milestone- half a million views since we began! And so we present our latest giveaway.
Passing the Hat
Some of you might remember awhile ago we announced a raffle/giveaway to help send a friend of the site (Jay ‘Boosh’ Tuharsky of The Eh? Team) to a Magic tournament. It was a win-win all around as the Magic community game together and helped out- and many won some very choice prizes!
We’re excited to see that another member of the community, Luis Acosta (@Auranalchemist), co-founder of Red Site Wins- has put together a similar effort to help get him to GP Montreal. Raffle tickets are dirt cheap- $1 each or 6 for $5- and the prizes are anything but:
Tropical Island (Revised)
Altered Pyroblasts from MJ Scott (@MoxyMtg), writer for Gathering Magic and showcase alterer for Don’s Magic and Sundry
Grand Prix Foil Umezawa’s Jitte
Urzaland alters from Carla Young (@CarlaArtist) in the style of Tron
Custom foil alter from Cyril Wong
AND any donor gets 15% off of on any MTGO dual land thanks to Jonathan Medina (through his bot, @LegitMTG), premium financial writer for Star City Games
Now we know that times are tight for everyone, and not everyone can chip in to help or is interested in doing so- and that’s perfectly fine! We post this here for the same reason as we did before- many folks love a chance to win prizes while supporting a good cause (like us), and we want to raise awareness that this is just one of those times.
If you’re interested, stop on over and show your support. Good luck, Luis!
MBtB: The Best Four Days in Gaming
Abbreviated in the title to ‘MBtB,’ my Quiet Speculation column is Magic Beyond the Box, and on today’s article we go well outside of it! Taking a look at the upcoming Gen Con convention held in in just a few weeks in Indianapolis, Indiana, I muse on the significance it once had to me in my youth. I also mention just a few of the many things to do there, and we announce the winner of the Best Four Days in Gaming Giveaway. Who got the free passes?
MBtB: Our Biggest Giveaway Yet!
After a one-week hiatus (organising this contest), Magic Beyond the Box is back and helping our friends at Quiet Speculation with a massive giveaway. How big? Let’s just say that if you have even the slightest interest in attending the incredbile Gen Con gaming convention this August, you owe it to yourself to take a look!
Because what’s better than going to Gen Con for “the best four days in gaming?”
Going there free, and with an armful of prizes!
Announcing the Winners of the One-Year Anniversary Giveaway!
The One-Year Anniversary celebrations and revelries have come to a close, and we’d like to thank everyone who participated. In particular, the comments section took on something of a yearbook tone, with readers offering kind words on how much they enjoyed the site. Jimi, Sam, and I were very touched, and glad that we continue to produce reviews worth reading.
As much as we’d like to have prizes for everyone, we have but nine to give out. By random drawing, the following winners have been picked:
Aaro
@billy_moreno
@cikesef
Errtu
@JoshEnke
@lansdellicious
@NoUse4AName68
@SoyElReyDelMndo
@TheSundry
Winners will be contacted for their mailing address, and will be randomly sent one of the nine prizes we’re giving away. As always, we’d like to thank Frankfort, KY’s own Moonlite Comics for their generous donation and continued support.
For those that didn’t win, don’t worry- there’s another giveaway right around the corner!
MBtB: Stoneforge Event Deck Giveaway!
When I was growing up, my favourite radio station was the pop-filled Z100 out of New York City, and like any top-level radio station for a major market they had a slew of giveaways. Whenever an ecstatic winner made it through on the phones, the dj’s would always end by asking, “And what’s the phrase that pays?” To which the caller would invariably answer “Z100 means more money!” Twenty-five years later I still can remember that, so I suppose it must have made some impression.
So perhaps I can be forgiven for feeling a bit like Z100 right now with all these giveaways as of late! Between the Time Spiral theme deck, the New Phyrexia Intro Deck, the One-Year Anniversary Giveaway (ending this Saturday), the Commander deck giveaway I’m working on (expect to see it next week), and this week’s offering: the War of Attrition Event Deck from New Phyrexia!
You know, the one with the Stoneforge Mystics in it!
If you’d like a shot at winning it, and/or would like to read about the significance of the deck, head on over to this week’s Magic Beyond the Box, where I talk about the evolution of the Event Decks, and if they have ‘painted themselves into a corner’ design-wise. Come check it out!
Announcing the Winner of the Reality Fracture Giveaway!
With the Time Spiral reviews now in our past (haw!), it’s time to announce the winner of our theme deck giveaway. By glorious random selection, MiniLuv has won a copy of Reality Fracture, the exciting suspend-filled Blue/Red deck. Congratulations to MiniLuv (we’ll be contacting you via the email you use here), and thanks to everyone else for participating!
Ertai’s Lament’s One-Year Anniversary Giveaway Extravaganza
On 03 June, 2010, Ertai’s Lament launched with about as little fanfare as one might imagine for what was a simple labour of love. With the Duels of the Planeswalkers decks just released, we used them as a jumping-off point with a review- quite primitive by today’s site standards- of the Liliana Vess deck, Eyes of Shadow. We pledged then that we would release a new review every 48 hours, and challenged ourselves to maintain that same pace for an entire year. With our analytical review of Time Spiral’s Fun with Fungus, I’m proud to say we succeeded. Though beset by events ranging from my monthlong bout with pneumonia (I don’t recommend it) to the birth of our son Liam (which I do recommend), we’ve managed at the very least to have something new to read every other day. Again, a labour of love.
When we began Lament, we had no idea that there was a ‘Precon Community’ out there looking for a place all their own. To be sure, precon decks had varying degrees of online coverage on the main sites of Magic, but until now it didn’t seem they had a place devoted to them alone. While we’re glad that we were able to create that place, it would be an empty house without the readers and commentators who fill article after article with thoughts, reflects, insights, and, yes… the occasional correction. We are grateful to you all!
Last September as we celebrating Lament’s three-month anniversary, we had a tremendous giveaway sponsored by our outstanding local gaming store, Moonlite Comics of Frankfort, Kentucky. It is a truth that without their enthusiastic support for us and this site, we would have had a much rougher go of things, and for that we are deeply thankful. All the moreso now that they’ve stepped up yet again and sponsored our One-Year Anniversary Giveaway Extravaganza, because extravagant is precisely what this is!
For one thing, we’ll be selecting nine winners, which means that anyone entering has a good chance of winning. And wait until you see our prizes! With Commander season right around the corner, a format well known for an appreciation of foils and promo cards- the timing couldn’t be better!
The Prizes
Ertai's Lament 