Last weekend saw Magic: the Gathering’s latest expansion set, Worldwake, previewed at local prerelease events worldwide including Malaysia. The mania over Worldwake continues over the weekend, with launch parties happening.It’s a card frenzy as the hype over Worldwake continues over this weekend. The follow-up to the smash hit Zendikar features more cards that interact with lands, and the usual plethora of new creatures, spells and artifacts.

If you’re buying the cards, why not play in a fun tournament with them? Some of you may have done just that, with recently concluded launch parties being held nationwide. Some of you would have even take home a very nice-looking Joraga Warcaller, while stocks lasted! Yes, it’s the shiny and very exclusive version – mmm, foils are always good!

QJ Wong’s Magic Malaysia website has the latest on Worldwake, and where / what and how the action took place in selected local venues for the Launch parties. (Big thanks to QJ for the list! 🙂

So what’s hot, and what’s not? Personally, I thought the card selection is decent, but a little less spot-on and powerful especially in the wake (pun intended) of the awesome-ness that was Zendikar.

Maybe it’s because Worldwake’s predecessor had the “money” factor going for it (fetchlands especially). Or maybe simply because Worldwake just feels so blah.

Still, Worldwake has some good stuff going for it, and many of them, at the easily accessible rarities (common and uncommon). Allied color decks are easily doable & potentially very fast with the likes Loam Lion and Sejiri Merfolk.

Allies get a decent power upgrade – Hada Freeblade and Graypelt Hunter gets my vote as the preferred base of a fast and deadly Green-White Ally rush deck.

Looks like Blue gets the most impressive cards, with the new Jace already becoming the chase card of choice in Worldwake. Calcite Snapper looks mighty fine as the uber-common but very usable creature for all Blue-heavy decks.

You can also replace Divination with Mysteries of the Deep and Treasure Hunt (both common!) though the latter will need some helper to abuse it further. Wait a minute, that’s what the common land Halimar Depths is for!

Speaking of lands, the cycle of rare lands here are the allied color “man lands” – great for the mid-/late-game, when all you need is some spare mana and that extra creature or two to hammer home the final points of damage. MagicTheGathering.com has a great article on the evolution of comes into play tapped sorta lands – it’s a solid, must-read especially for you young uns’.

So what are your favourite cards? Let us know – for a full spoiler of the cards,  check out the Worldwake Visual Spoiler at MagicTheGathering.com.