This coming Saturday sees the start of Core Set 2019 Magic League at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. To be fair it’s Magic League at every LGS and FLGS.

For those wondering what Magic League is (apart from an excuse for WotC and the FLGS to get you to buy booster packs) it’s a fun league format aimed at allowing new and returning players to play with experienced players, without having to worry about the experienced players having a much larger card collection.

Basically you buy 3 booster packs from the current set (usually) and build a 30 card deck from the cards you open up from those boosters. You also get when you sign up for the league a collection box (that you need to make – ie fold together, to store your cards in) and a score card to record your game results on.

Then over a period of 4 weeks you play games of MtG using the deck you have just constructed against other players in the league.

But what if my deck is no good? Well during the league period, you have a sideboard of the cards that you got in your initial 3 booster packs, however each week you are allowed to buy another booster pack to help strengthen your deck. Or after every 3 losses you are also allowed to buy a booster pack (see why I said it’s an excuse to sell booster packs?) to once again strengthen your deck.

At the end of the 4 weeks if you have played 10 or more games in the league you get a promo card as your reward.

This time it’s the rather spiffy land Reliquary Tower with alt art.

I actually like this format, it’s my preferred in store way to play MtG. The Prerelease is similar in some respects because it’s building a deck from your Prerelease packs and then playing.

See you at the league.