By
Timothy Caldwell
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Roll the Dice,
a local, independently owned hobby gaming store, hosted pre-release events for
the new set of “Magic: the Gathering”
trading cards on April 27 and 28.
“Dragon’s Maze,” Magic’s newest set of 166 collectible trading
cards, will officially be released on May 3, 2013, but the pre-release allowed
players across the nation to experience these new cards before they were
available for consumer purchase. Hobby stores, such as Roll the Dice, located
at 215 Robert Rose Drive in Murfreesboro, Tenn., hosted the event for anyone
willing to pay an entry fee. However, this did not mean that those who do not
pay couldn’t attend the event. They did not receive any of the new products,
but they were more than welcome to watch or perhaps trade with players who did
receive new cards.
The pre-release event began at
midnight on April 27 at which point the participants who paid the $25 entry fee
and selected their guild affiliation were given special guild pre-release
packs. These contained four booster packs of the new “Dragon’s Maze” set and a special edition promotional card known
as “Maze’s End.” Players also
received one guild pack, which only contained cards from their specific guild,
as well as one ally guild pack, which only contained cards from another
semi-randomly selected guild.
From there, players were given 45 minutes to open their packs of cards and construct decks of at least 40
cards that they played with as the night progressed. The special edition Maze’s End card could not be used.
Players were then randomly paired up to play a best-two-out-of-three match in a
Swiss-style tournament.
“It’s the standard tournament scenario,”
said David Siebert, owner of Roll the Dice. “It’s a tournament style that’s
designed to draw people into the store. It’s more player friendly.”
Throughout the night, players strove
to advance their guild through the “Implicit
Maze”, a poster that represented an in-game maze. The poster was proudly displayed in front of
the register. As players won their games, they reported to Seibert who recorded
their score and awarded their guild one point. He then moved their guild icon
through the “Implicit Maze”. The
members of the first guild to successfully traverse the maze by receiving a
total of 12 points earned a special prize: a card with a unique code that
granted each player a new title on the official “Magic: the Gathering” website. Members of guilds that
completed the guild after that also received a card that granted them a lesser
title.
The event ended after all matches had
been played and the prizes had been distributed. Roll the Dice also held a
similar pre-release event at noon on April 27 and a two-player event at 1 p.m. on
April 28.
After everything was said and done, the players left nearly seven hours
later, tired but smiling. Many considered it a good night. Gary Valentine, a
player at the event said simply, “This was a good pre-release.”
Seibert
later said that the “Dragon’s Maze”
pre-release brought some good things to the game of Magic. “We got a lot of new cards that add a lot of power
to the guilds. Each one got some new toys.”
However,
Seibert also expressed his interest in the future of “Magic: the Gathering.” “I wonder if this set really added
enough to change the meta-game. Is it going to take certain deck types
away? I’m excited to see what’ll
happen.”
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