Guys, THE WAY OF KINGS comes out tomorrow! Wow. So long spent waiting. Look on Tor.com tomorrow for a cool post about my history working on the book, with pictures of a very early Brandon Sanderson manuscript.

Before we do that, though, I want to do some updates to my Magic with Brandon post. Late last week, I got a package in the mail from Wizards of the Coast including a large bunch of mystery prizes to be given out at Dragon*Con to anyone who can defeat me at Magic. This makes me even more excited to play there, and so, know that I am bringing prizes for you. The rules remain the same: Defeat me as the Archenemy in a game of multiplayer Magic. If you don’t know how to play Archenemy, don’t worry. It’s easy to explain. (Basically, I get a stack of super cards I can use every turn, and you team up with others to try to beat me.)

It’s going to be lots of fun, and is open to players of all skill levels. If you’re new or rusty, I’ll just put you in a larger team to make it more balanced. I also wanted to give two quick notes: first, the Magic draft is on Friday night (instead of Saturday). We changed this quickly on the previous blog post, but some may have missed it. We’ll do it that evening after dinner, but not too late. As soon as the room is open. It looks like Darkfriend games start at 8:30, so that seems a safe bet. Meet in the Kennesaw. There are still three spots left. Email me if you want one.

Also, I wanted to mention. Bring your trade binders. I totally want to do some trading. It feels like forever since I’ve been able to sit down with someone new and trade cards. Note: I will be bringing some of these decks on tour, and might be able to find a time to play at some of my tour stops. We’ll see. It will depend on how my flights pan out.

Anyway, there is something else cool to report. Included in the package from Wizards were two boxes of cards just for me. (I was even told that I was to open them and play with them myself, rather than feeling I needed to give them away as prizes.) One box of Rise of the Eldrazi and some Phyrexia vs. The Coalition Duel Decks. I opened the box of Eldrazi to build my Archenemy deck, and I’ll post pictures below of what I got. I’ll also be bringing the Duel decks to lend to anyone who didn’t bring a deck, but wants to play against me in Archenemy.

Eldrazi really is one of my favorite sets in a long time. I love the level-up mechanic, and the Eldrazi both as cards and as villains. I like how so many of the cards in this set can be put into so many other types of decks from other sets, and work just fine. And I love how much this set seems to be targeted at casual players. (Note, when I say “casual” in Magic terms, I mean people who like to play multiplayer games or screwy, non-tournament decks. People laugh when I say I’m a casual player, but what I mean is that I’m not a tournament player. Decks built by other people online hold no interest for me.)

Big creatures, others that grow cooler the longer you keep them out…yeah, this is a set built right for me. There were two rares from the set I’d wanted, but had never managed to find. Awakening Zone and Training Grounds. Both seemed like great rares for this set, but both also seemed like they could be put to a lot of use in all kinds of random decks. So that’s what I went into cracking open these packs hoping to get. And the results in several pictures…

I ended up getting one of each! Which made me very happy. Also a Lighthouse Chronologist and Linvala, Keeper of Silence, two very awesome cards. The other two mythics were Sarkhan the Mad and Nirkana Revenant. (Which was amusing as I’d just traded my only Nirkana Revenant away a few days before.) All four mythics are solid, though there are only a couple in this set that I don’t care for.

I had to be amused at getting both a foil and non-foil Sphinx-Bone Wand. It seems like every second pack of Eldrazi I open has one of these. Maybe I should make a deck based on them. I’ve seriously got like 50. (Okay, not that many, but at least four.)

Anyway, I’m going to take that Lighthouse Chronologist and Linvala and build a deck with them, maybe the Training Grounds too. Beware my schemes, folks, and I’ll see you at Dragon*Con where you can check out the cards I got, and perhaps die to the decks I built from them. 🙂 A big thanks to Marcella and Wizards of the Coast, who totally didn’t need to do this.