Wizards of the Coast is resurrecting Magic: The Gathering Nationals Tournaments as entry points to the World Magic Cup. In its announcement of the move, WOTC explained that the main reason Nationals were dropped in the first place was a shortage of able local organizers. But now with those organizers having 5 years of experience running World Magic Qualifiers, the company feels that the time is right to bring back what were much appreciated events.

Going forward, national teams at the World Magic Cup will consist of three players, not four. The team captain will be the player who’s earned the most pro points that season, while the others will be the top-two finishers at Nationals.

Another change being made, the World Magic Cup and Nationals will all be Standard events.

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Surprising the market, who’s lower expectations for the company were based at least partially on weaker performance by Mattel, Hasbro on Monday reported a 13 percent net revenue growth in 2016. That put the company’s total year revenue over $5 billion for the first time. Following the news, Hasbro’s stock hit a new high and closed up 14 percent.

The company’s performance in the games category was strong. Led by sales of Pie Face and Magic: The Gathering, revenue grew 9 percent year-on-year.

Hasbro’s strongest growth was in its partner brands category, which was up 28 percent on the success of Disney Princess, Disney Frozen, Dreamworks’ Trolls, and Yo-Kai Watch.

On the subject of the company’s largest individual game brand, CEO Brian Goldner reported that 2016 was the 8th straight year of growth for Magic: The Gathering. He also suggested that consumers would start seeing some results from the Magic Digital Next initiative before the end of the year.

Magic Digital Next, which has been an investment for a number of years, and will continue to be a bit of an investment this year because of course late this year you’ll start to see some of the evidence of what the team has been working on as they begin to put that platform out to the market.

Hasbro also revealed an interesting change in its approach to financial reporting:

Beginning with the first quarter, we will no longer report revenue along the boys, games, girls, and preschool categories. Instead, we will provide a revenue breakdown of franchise brands, partner brands, Hasbro Gaming, and emerging brands. We believe this is a more relevant and appropriate view of our business.

Later Monday afternoon, Hasbro announced the appointment of John Frascotti as President of the company—he was previously President of Hasbro Brands. Brian Goldner remains with the company and will serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

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Our initial exposure to Magic Digital Next came a little over a year ago in a presentation by Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner. At that time, we saw it only as a new Magic: The Gathering product, albeit a sophisticated one for a range of players. From a new article posted online by Wizards of the Coast President Chris Cocks, we now learn, though, that Magic Digital Next (though not specifically named in the article) is just one part of a more comprehensive digital strategy update being pursued by WOTC.

Cocks describes “adjustments to and increased investments in our digital teams” as the “biggest move” currently underway at the company. WOTC has created a new Digital Games Studio with significant new outside talent, the existing Magic Online team, and digital art and game design staff.

But these changes don’t pertain just to Magic. Rather, WOTC is looking to apply a digitally integrated experience to all its games (including Dungeons & Dragons), incorporating such elements as augmented-reality games, MMOs, tournament organization, home game management, and other “unexpected settings, genres, and platforms.”

We are reimagining digital versions of Magic and other Wizards games… We will bring our characters and worlds to other games and experiences… We will make your Wizards experiences more efficient, connected, and convenient.

Perhaps we might hear more about this initiative from Hasbro leading in to New York Toy Fair.

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What can you do with your Mythic Rare Magic: the Gathering card that was just banned from tournament play? White Wizard Games recommends you send them that no longer valid card to them in exchange for a free copy of Epic Card Game.

When Wizards of the Coast announced a new list of banned and restricted cards from Standard play on January 9th, Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle of White Wizard Games — both Magic the Gathering Pro Tour Champions and inductees into the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame — decided to offer an exchange deal for two of the rare cards banned from play. Emrakul, the Promised End, a mythic rare card which sold for around $20 was banned for being too “scarily powerful”, facing little resistance and ending games too quickly. “She was the world-ending, all-powerful monster she was in the story, which was too much for Standard,” reads the announcement from Wizards of the Coast. Smuggler’s Copter, a rare card that sold for about $10, was banned because it “shows up in too many decks, diminishing the format’s diversity,” according to WotC.

In an announcement about the promotion, Nathan Davis of White Wizard Games writes, “When your $10 rare gets banned from Standard, that is a bad feeling. When your $20 mythic rare gets banned, that is an even worse feeling.”

Brazilian players who purchased a copy of any of the banned cards between December 10th and January 9th at Bazar de Bagdá, one of Brazil’s largest MtG game stores, may return those cards to the store and be refunded in store credit. Willy Edel, owner of Bazar de Bagdá, is also a Pro Tour Player and in the Magic the Gathering Hall of Fame.

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The 2016 World Chess Championship in New York ended with Magnus Carlsen of Norway still at the top, though as I watched the match proceed, I was starting to wonder if he had it in him. After seven draw games, the first win went to challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. But two games later, Magnus scored a win of his own, and at the end of the 12 regulation games, all was tied. The tie-break rapid games were where Magnus showed his strength. The first two settled on draws but the next two went to the champion. Still, an impressive performance as well by Sergey and a very interesting series of games.

In the women’s Chess circuit, Ju Wenjun of China finished ahead of the Women’s Grand Prix, qualifying her to face Hou Yifan also of China in the 2017 Women’s World Championship.

Chris Cadman of Scotland took home the Silver Perudo Cup trophy of the World Perudo Championship (Liar’s Dice) in London.

The Top Chess Engine Championship was won by Stockfish. The score in the final 100 game match was Stockfish 54.5, Houdini 45.5. In third place was last year’s digital champion, Komodo.

Many Rubik’s Cube world records have fallen recently:

• The standard 3×3 was solved by Mats Valk in 4.74 seconds at the Jawa Timur Open in Indonesia. His record didn’t last long, though. Feliks Zemdegs beat it by one one-hundredths of a second (4.73 seconds total) at the POPS Open in Australia.
• At Melbourne Cube Days, Feliks Zemdegs also solved a 5×5 in 41.27 seconds.
• At the Shanghai Winter, Kaijun Lin broke three blindfold world records, solving a 3×3 in 18.50 seconds; a 4×4 in 2 minutes, 2.49 seconds; and a 5×5 in 4 minutes, 46.74 seconds. Two of those didn’t last long either. Roman Strakhov did a 5×5 blindfolded in 4 minutes, 42.06 seconds at the Finnish Championship. And Kijun Lin bested himself in the 4×4 blindfolded, solving it in 1 minutes, 41.90 seconds at the Bid ‘n Blind in Guangzhou, China.

The team from Greece won the World Magic: The Gathering Cup surpassing other top 8 finalist teams from Finland, Australia, Ukraine, Panama, Belarus, and Belgium.

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Today Hasbro announced HASCON, a massive event which will be held in Providence at the Rhode Island Convention Center and Dunkin Donuts Center from September 8-10, 2017. The convention will be three days packed with everything Hasbro has to offer from all their product lines, characters, and stories. There will be live interactive experiences, exclusive products, special guests, panels, and everything else you’d expect to find at a good convention. Being Hasbro, it’s a fully family-friendly event.

This is one party I’m going to make sure not miss!

For more information, and to get on the mailing list for first-notice ticket sales, visit http://hascon.hasbro.com.

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Neil Scallon of the U.K. claims a world-record collection 2,500 copies of Monopoly but also says he hasn’t played a board game in 20 years.

Sota Fujii, a 14 year-old middle school student from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, has achieved 4th dan status, breaking the record for youngest professional Shogi player ever.

Brett Smitheram of the U.K. took home the trophy, a €7,000 grand prize, and a kiss to the feet at the World Scrabble Championship in Lille, France. His win was secured with 176 points from the play of “braconid” (a species of wasp) for a bingo on a triple word score.

Londoners commemorated the Great Fire of London with the toppling of 23,000 dominoes strung through 4 miles of city streets, markets, pubs, gardens, and a church.

With a win at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis (and its $75,000 prize), Wesley So of the United States is nearly assured of also taking the top prize for the entire Grand Chess Tour. That is, unless maybe Magnus Carlsen decides to step back in for the London Chess Classic in December after finishing the World Chess Championship.

The winner of the 40th World Chess Solving Championship (a tournament of solving Chess puzzles) held in Belgrade, Serbia was Zaur Mammadov of Azerbaijan. The second place winner was also from Azerbaijan.

Draughts also finished a World Championship of Problems recently, with Alexander Moiseyev of the United States in first place.

The winner of the 2016 Magic: The Gathering World Championship, Brian Braun-Duin of Virginia, was described by WOTC as having taken the “everyman’s journey to the top.” “Grinding” through tournament tours, he had set himself a goal of Grand Prix Master for this season but managed to trump that, going home with the big trophy.

At the 2016 World Championship Domino Tournament hosted by the Andalusia (Alabama) Rotary Club, the winner, Jerry Baker, was from nearby Ozark, Alabama. In fact, all the winners were from the Southeast United States.

A world record for the largest circle field of dominoes (76,017 toppled) was set in Westland, Michigan, along with the U.S. record for total dominoes toppled (242,518). A team of 18 spent 10 days setting up the feat.

Three retirees from China finishing on top of the 11th Austrian Mahjong Open was seen as something of a comeback after an embarrassing showing at the Open Mahjong Championship 2 years ago in France, where the highest placed competitor from China came in 30th.

It was an Austrian, Wolfgang Leitner, who won the 2016 FISTF World Cup in Belgium, where 500 competitors gathered to play table football (Subbuteo).

In first place at the 41st Backgammon World Championship was Jörgen Granstedt of Sweden.

At the European Rubik’s Cube Championship, Feliks Zemdegs of Australia set seven world records, including one for solving a 7×7 in 2 minutes, 20.66 seconds. At the PSU Open, August 28th in Novopolotsk, Belarus, Roman Strakhov of Russia set a world record by solving a 5×5 Rubik’s Cube, blindfolded in 5 minutes, 1.40 seconds. Just a few days later, however, at the SPB Championship, September 4th in St. Petersburg, Roman bested himself by finishing the 5×5 blindfolded in just 4 minutes, 55.63 seconds.

And the winner of the Pentamind World Championship was Andres Kuusk—his fourth time! The Pentamind is a meta-event, incorporating multiple games of one Chess variant, Scrabble, Go, Poker, and Backgammon.

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Shadows Over Innistrad is the latest set in Magic’s Arena of the Planeswalker line. It’s a full, base set, so you don’t need the first set to play like you did with Battle for Zendikar. Since I’ve already reviewed Arena of the Planeswalkers, I’ll cut to the chase with this new set.

If you were to only buy one Arena of the Planeswalker products, Shadows Over Innistrad would be the one to get. The box is packed full of great stuff, and even though you only get 4 Planeswalkers (the fifth figure is the werewolf form of another) you get more bang for your buck than with the original base set.

For starters, three of the four Planeswalkers are multicolored: Sorin (black/white), Nahiri (red/white), and Arlinn (red/green). You also get more miniatures overall in the box, including new Hero units. These are basically an in-between. More powerful than regular minions, but not as powerful as Planeswalkers. The Cryptoliths (plastic tree-like things) can be destroyed, unlike terrain in the original set.

Overall Shadows Over Innistrad comes across as more polished that the original base set. It’s also the same price, $30.

So like I said earlier: if you were to only to get one Arena of the Planeswalkers sets, this is the one to get. Realistically? Get one of each. Having all the extra figures, spells, and Planeswalkers only makes the game that much better. While the release schedule of items isn’t as aggressive as Heroscape’s was, that may be the saving grace in the end of Arena of the Planeswalkers. It would be really nice to see them do a base set, small expansion, then repeat the pattern each year.

A copy of Magic: The Gathering – Arena of the Planeswalkers: Shadows Over Innistrad was provided free for review by Hasbro.

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Hasbro’s PR company just sent out a new release with two high-res images of Arena of the Planeswalkers: Shadows Over Innistrad along with the contents of the set:

• 5 Planeswalker figures
• 4 Hero Figures
• 15 Squad Figures
• 4 dual-sided cardboard terrain boards
• 2 Glyphs
• 20 Damage Markers
• 20-sided die
• 8 combat dice
• 13 Army cards
• 48 Spell Cards
• turn marker
• 8 counters
• 6 1-Hex Sand Tiles
• 3 twisted relic terrain pieces
• 2-hex Sand Tiles.

The new base set will hit in Fall 2016 for $29.99 at most major retailers, hobby stores, and on HasbroToyShop.com.

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Hitting shelves on September 2nd with a $19.99 MSRP, the Magic: The Gathering Duel Deck: Nissa vs. Ob Nixilis pits two Planswalkers from the Zendikar block head to head.

Similar to previous Duel Decks, Nissa vs Ob Nixilis contains:

• 2 ready-to-play 60-card decks
• 2 premium cards
• 2 deck boxes
• 1 strategy insert
• 1 learn-to-play guide
• 2 spin-down counters

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