First of all, my humblest apologies for the suddenly slow state of updates on the Cards & Boards blog.

Anyway I hope to make it up with a series of updates over the coming week! Yes, it’s catch-up time!

Today’s update is more exciting news from the most-played TCG (trading card game) in the country and the world, Magic: the Gathering (MTG).

Actually, there has been quite a fair bit of exciting developments from MTG – in case you missed out completely, below’s the recap.

Firstly, the product website for the next expansion, “Rise of the Eldrazi”, is already out. Wizards will start revealing more on the set, by early April, so keep your browsers locked on Wizards.com.

BUT, the good news is the Visual Spoiler section has full images of the first cards previewed.

The intro packs of the set look delicious, click here for the pictures of how the packaging looks like.

And speaking of spoilers, you should bookmark MTG Realm as they usually provide extremely accurate and good spoilers ahead of the usual official channels. Look out for more Eldrazi goodness there, soon!

If you’re on Twitter, follow @mananation for even more spoiler goodness. It’ll keep you sated with all news and previews, MTG-related.

Say hello to an old friend

Secondly, Wizards also announced last week that Scars of Mirrodin is the name of the next block, which will debut this October.

Now we know why Eldrazi was made the way it was: being a large set filled with artifacts means that it transitions nicely to seamlessly weave into another artifact-laden block.

A return to Mirrodin five years after the first Mirrodin block debuted (followed by Darksteel and Fifth Dawn) will no doubt raise player expectations again.

The original Mirrodin set gave plenty of memorable moments for MTG players (hey remember the broken Ravager decks?), and looks like the ride will continue to be thrilling.

I mean, last year’s Zendikar was positively smashing, so there’s plenty to live up to this year. It’s true that Worldwake proved to be underwhelming (with the exception of Jace) but Eldrazi should kick things up again – here’s to another great year for MTG!