Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar and Nissa Revane, join forces in their battle against the Eldrazi in the 2nd, and final, set of the Zendikar block. Releasing on January 22nd of 2016, with a Magic Duels Magic Online release on February 1st, 2016. A release date for Magic Duels has not yet been set. Oath of the Gatewatch will contain 184 cards, and will be available in Booster Packs, Fat Packs, and Intro Decks.

Pre-release dates for the set are January 16–17, 2016.

UPDATE: Corrected release dates for Magic Duels and Magic Online.

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While the next card set out for Magic: The Gathering, Oath of the Gatewatch (the second in the Battle for Zendikar block), will not release until January 22nd, Wizards of the Coast has already begun teasing the set to follow, Shadows Over Innistrad. The announced release date for Shadows Over Innistrad is April 8th, or for Magic Online April 18th.

Preceding the full set, Blessed vs. Cursed Duel Decks will hit retail February 26th, pitting the humans, spirits, and angels of Innistrad against the demons and shambling dead.

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Hasbro reported this week third-quarter net revenues flat compared to last year, though before impact of foreign exchange, the result was actually an increase of 9 percent. The strongest performers were the boys and preschool categories, which grew 24 percent and 17 percent respectively, while games shrunk by 8 percent and girls dropped 28 percent.

Hasbro’s boys category was given a big boost by the launch of Star Wars: The Force Awakens products. NERF and Jurassic World products also supported growth in this category.

Among games, Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering were standout successes, the latter with its biggest summer release ever in the Origins set and best-attended prerelease event with Battle for Zendikar. Magic revenues in the first 9 months of 2015 were up again compared to 2014.

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We knew that we were getting two new Planewalkers, one being multicolored, in January with the Battle for Zendikar expansion for Arena of the Planeswalkers. Now Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have announced that the expansion will come with a new Battlefield scenario that pits the players against a colorless Eldrazi Ruiner controlled by another player.

The miniatures look amazing in this set, and the inclusion of the cooperative scenario is huge. While I was just hoping for more spells and units in this expansion, I’m now even more excited with the news of this inclusion.

You can preorder the Battle for Zendikar Board Game Expansion Pack from Amazon now for $19.99. I’ll have a full review in January when I receive my set.

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Today marks the full release of Battle for Zendikar, the latest expansion set for Magic: The Gathering. The set features a return to the plane of Zendikar, now threatened by an invasion of the Eldrazi. The Eldrazi are led by Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, a 10/10 legendary creature costing 10 mana but which also exiles 20 cards from an opponent’s library every time it attacks.

On the normally staid land side of Magic, Battle for Zendikar features full-art land cards, land cards that awaken in to creatures, and a special premium series of foil-art land cards with unusual abilities, Zendikar Expeditions.

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Wizards of the Coast and Cryptozoic Entertainment have settled a dispute that saw the former sue the latter in federal court with allegations of copyright, patent, and trade dress infringement. WOTC had essentially claimed that Cryptozoic’s digital trading-card game, Hex: Shards of Fate, was a copy of Magic: The Gathering.

Other than to say that “the parties have entered into a settlement agreement and license with undisclosed terms,” no further details of the deal were provided.

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It’s that time of year again. Time for Wizards of the Coast to release a new holiday gift box for all your card-holding needs. This year the theme, of course, is Battle for Zendkiar. The box is beautiful, and like a sucker, I’m going to be picking one up in November when they’re released. The box contains what you’ve come to expect:

• 5 Battle for Zendikar booster packs
• 1 Storage Box for over 2,000 Magic cards
• 20 Battle for Zendikar basic lands
• 6 Illustrated plastic dividers
• 1 Sticker sheet (labels for the dividers)
• 1 Battle for Zendikar alternate art card

Also coming in November are the new Commander Decks. There will be five decks coming out, but suprisingly they will be dual-color instead of tri-color. Commanders will also come with experience counters so they can grow in power each time you play.

Each deck will have 15 new, never-before-seen cards. Once again, the full contents of a Commander deck is as follows:

• 100-card Commander deck
• 1 Oversized Foil Commander card
• 10 Double-sided tokens
• 1 Deck storage box
• 1 Deck strategy insert
• 1 Rules reference card

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Seth Manfield is the latest Magic: The Gathering World Champion. His record at the 2015 Championship was an incredible 15-1. First place in the tournament came with a $50,000 prize.

At the French Draughts Championship, Arnaud Cordier drew just three games and lost none, even with playing high-risk strategies. The performance put him in first place with 19 points, a full 6 points ahead three players tied for second.

Though the 2015 Magic: The Gathering Legacy Championship had great potential for some pretty high-powered card-play, Bob Huang won with a series of 1/1 red elemental tokens.

The real story from the 14th World Xiangqi Championship in Munich, Germany is not that players from China placed first in three out of four sections. In fact, the only section in which they did not is a specifically “Non-China/Vietnam Individual” section (where Shoshi Kazubaru of Japan took the lead). The real story is how well players from other countries performed, for example, Dan Jia of the United States second in the women’s individual and Xue Handi of Germany fourth in the men’s individual.

At the Polish Women’s Draughts Championship, Vice-World Champion Natalia Sadowska outlasted her main challenger to finish in first place, while at the Burkina Faso Draughts Championship, Adama Kone claimed the trophy with an impressive 17 points in 9 games (that’s 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie).

Zach Walker again took the title of Champion at the American Subbuteo Association National, an event that counted as both a World Amateur Subbuteo Players Asssociation regional and a Federation International of Sports Table Football open tournament.

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Announced at PAX Prime, the first expansion to Magic: The Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers will be bringing Zendikar love to the game. Two new Planeswalkers, Kiora and Ob Nixilis, join the battle with new squads and spells. The really cool part? Kiora is multicolor, allowing you to field a force of Blue and Green. Exact details are sparse right now, but I’ll make sure to post what I find as soon as I know more.

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Wizards of the Coast and publisher D3 Go! have just announced Magic: The Gathering Puzzle Quest for iOS and Android devices. Coming out in the fall, this free-to-play game combines the match-three puzzle mechanics of the popular puzzle RPG, Puzzle Quest with the gameplay and lore of Magic: The Gathering.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Puzzle Quest series ever since the first one was released, so having this crossover with Magic is pretty huge. Unfortunately the game will be free-to-play but with in-app purchases. That fact combined with the type of game it is has me dreading how terrible that combination will be. I’d much rather pay $5 for a quality app than have to deal with all the in-app crap.

Here’s hoping it handles it as well as Magic Duels does.

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