On January 16th, we’re going to once more power up the Large Cardboard Collider and smash some faces together as close to the speed of light as we can manage without unintentionally opening a black hole that devours the entire world from inside out.

That’s because once more it’s Pre-Release time! And with Oath of the Gatewatch we’re going to confirm the recent discovery of colorless mana. I say confirm because of course it was always assumed to exist.

The Standard Particle Model of Magic the Gathering is one of my new favorite parts of the game. As the design space fills, Rosewater et al. tread further into the strange and exotic combinations which previously would have been considered ““.

Nothing is impossible! The impossible is merely the the blood on the knife’s edge of Magical Science! We’ve always known about Manlands, but what about basic land type keyed, always on manlands? We’ve got that. Artifact Creatures? What about Enchantment Creatures! Enchantment Everything!

And as we build bigger Cardboard Accelerators, we can look to the future. Enchantment lands, Creature Instants… Instant Sorceries! Redundant you say? Covered by existing keywords? This is merely the mathematical hand waving of a curve fitting quitter! Even the format of our pre-release is predicted by organic carbon chain multiplayer. Two-Headed Giant? Why not Eight?!

You too can join us in our relentless pursuit of collectible card truth. We’ll be hosting three rounds of experiments (scientific method, you know): One at noon on Saturday the 16th, another at 5pm on that same Saturday, and one at noon on Sunday the 17th. Participation in the raw exhilaration of laboratory gameplay is a mere $30.

So remember, when things change in the wide world of Magic and people grumble: the rules aren’t really changing. We just collected more evidence is all.