Murders at Karlov Manor on Magic Online

Posted on Jan 30, 2024

By Tony Mayer

It’s a new year and the guilds are gathering once more – but this time a villainous chill is in the air and mysteries abound. Check your Dossiers for Clues and solve the metagame when Murders at Karlov Manor (set code MKM) debuts on Magic Online next Tuesday, February 6 at 10 a.m. Pacific time (18:00 UTC)!

The downtime to add this set to MTGO will happen tomorrow from 9 a.m. to approximately 12 noon Pacific time (17:00-20:00 UTC). Be sure to follow our social media outlets (Discord, Twitter/X, and more) to keep real-time tabs on this release. As a reminder, our Help site and Forums will also be down during this period.

Taking the Case

Features of the upcoming couple months include a couple set-specific tweaks to foils, the return of the Deck Brewer’s Pass, and a mess of cards pulled out of the Commander Backlog.

The Deck Brewer’s Pass Returns

What if you had over a week to test out your best ideas in all formats – including with the just-released card set on release day – before collecting key cards?

Now you can with Magic Online’s Deck Brewer’s Pass! It’s a take on All-Access that allows usage of the newest cards in service of one goal: figuring out what cards you want to focus on collecting across all of MTGO:

• Calling all Commander players! This is your chance to go wild with your ideas – throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. You can even try variants in our Freeform Commander room.
• Competitive players – this gives you the flexibility in deck choice to earn those last QPs towards entering the Modern and Pioneer Showcase Challenges on February 10-11.
• Everybody else – it’s a perfect opportunity to get your friends together and battle in all sorts of casual games or dip your toes into MTGO Leagues!

The Rare Event Token will serve as the item representing the Deck Brewer’s Pass in the Store starting with the launch of Murders at Karlov Manor next Tuesday morning PT. The Pass will cost $20.00 USD, and All-Access privileges will last until Thursday, February 15^th at 10 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC). That’s right, up to nine days of All-Access from the start of the set!

To use the Pass, simply purchase it in the Store, build any legal deck in your chosen format, and enter a game or event (entry option must still be paid). No cards will be added to your collection, but you'll be able to play even if you don't have all the cards in your collection.

Unlike regular All-Access, we are not offering the option to buy a second Token to spend as a Super Qualifier entry option. So, one Pass is the most any account needs.

We'll remove all Rare Event Tokens from accounts and turn off All-Access on February 15. If you’re still competing in a Constructed League when access ends, you’ll be allowed to complete that course.

Note: Just like previous All-Access periods, certain cards (Secret Lair versions, TRANSFORMERS, Battlebond, and old-frame Power Nine) are unavailable. Additionally, card variants sold in Bundles (Oil Lands, Retro Shocklands, etc.) are unavailable. All-Access doesn’t apply to Limited events.

How to Collect and Play Murders at Karlov Manor

Boosters

Each MKM booster pack will sell for $3.99 USD in the MTGO Store starting on Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT. This is the first instance of the new Play Booster, so the contents of the pack are different than in past expansions. For this set, the composition is:

• 7 regular commons
  • At least 4 of the 5 colors will appear within this group
  • 1 in 8 boosters will have a common replaced with a card from The List – the same version that appears in paper boosters
• 3 regular uncommons
• 1 regular rare or mythic
• 1 regular wildcard – that is, a non-foil of any rarity
• 1 foil wildcard – a foil in every pack!
• 1 basic or Showcase land – either regular or foil

Murders at Karlov Manor Commander

This set has four new decks for you to enjoy (set code MKC) – each deck features ten brand-new cards plus a suite of reprints. The decks will sell for $29.99 USD each in the MTGO Store starting next Tuesday. They are:

• Blame Game (red-white)
• Deadly Disguise (red-white-green)
• Revenant Recon (blue-black)
• Deep Clue Sea (green-white-blue)
  • Note: This deck has Anointed Procession swapped in for Esix, Fractal Bloom due to coding limitations.

Retro Shocklands Bundles

The first-ever retro-frame Shocklands remain available in the MTGO Store for a limited time!

Introduced with Ravnica Remastered a couple weeks ago, each Bundle sells $39.99 USD. Choose either the Allied Guilds or the Enemy Guilds and get one copy each of 5 shocklands added to your Collection.

The Allied Guilds Bundle contains 1 copy each of these 5 lands

The Enemy Guilds Bundle contains 1 copy of each of these 5 lands

These aren’t available in Treasure Chests or via All-Access/Deck Brewer’s Pass, so pick up your copies today!

Booster Fun

Alternate-art treatments of Murders at Karlov Manor will appear in many of the usual places. These include:

• Extended-Art, Dossier, and Magnifying Glass Rares/Mythics (Treasure Chest Curated)
  • Invisible Ink Cards are in this group
• Borderless Scrylands (Curated Slot)
• Bundle, Buy-a-Box, and Prerelease (Treasure Chest TC-Only Slot)
• Commander Extended-Art Cards (TC-Only Slot)
• Special Guests
  • 5 originally printed at rare – Curated Slot
  • 5 originally printed at common/uncommon – TC-Only Slot

MTG x Clue

This unique tabletop play experience that debuts in late February forced us to look at several different methods of getting cards to you. Ultimately, we’ve decided on this approach:

• Cards from the special Clue booster – including all six Commanders (the lead characters of Clue) and the Showcase versions of the rooms and weapons – will be sent out via Magic Online Player Rewards on March 1^st (based on February event play and Store spend).
• Seventeen of the new-to-Magic cards found in the MTG x Clue half-decks will be added to Treasure Chests during the refresh on February 28.
  • The other 13 will be added to the Commander Backlog.
• The Borderless Shocklands that appear in paper as box toppers will also be in Treasure Chests on that date.

Clue® and its characters ™ & © 2024 Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast

Now here’s our Creative Director Ryan Spain to show off our latest piece of in-game bling ...

New Premium Effect – Find the Invisible Clues!

When we introduced custom premium cards to Magic Online with the Cosmium Neon Ink Mana Crypt and Cavern of Souls, we indicated we'd look for other tabletop Booster Fun treatments that could be brought to life on MTGO with our new tech. The Showcase Dossier cards – found on Magic Online in Murders at Karlov Manor booster packs and in Treasure Chests starting next Tuesday – stood out to us as the candidates for the custom premium treatment.

You can go explore these cards in MTGO’s Collection tab after tomorrow’s downtime if you want to discover the treatment yourself (apply the MKM set filter, click the Show Promos checkbox under Versions, and scroll all the way to the end), or read on to learn what we did!

The conceit of the tabletop Showcase Dossier cards is that they have content printed with "invisible" ink, which only shows up when viewed at just the right angle, or under a UV light. The video in this article best displays this effect.

We’ve taken things a step further on Magic Online: The idea of having the player's cursor animate Showcase Dossier cards as though it were a UV flashlight proved fun and fabulous! You can get the hidden clues on any of 14 Showcase Dossier cards by manually mousing over them in any game zone, in the Card Preview window, or in Collection – be sure to explore all four corners of the text box. When left idle, the UV flashlight will appear intermittently on its own for a moment to show off the effect.

Our team is having a blast bringing custom premium cards to MTGO, and we hope you are enjoying the results so far. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye out for the next custom premium treatment!

Commander Corner

We have made further progress against the Commander backlog during this development cycle. As with last time, the cards added this time were basically free to us while coding cards for upcoming sets. These will appear in the TC-Only slot. (* indicates card also added as part of MKC decks)

Additionally, three other cards pre-dating the Commander Backlog have been added to the TC-Only Slot: Twinblade Paladin (M20), Jace’s Projection (WAR), and Grothama, All-Devouring (BBD).

Magic Online Players Rewards (MOPR) Update

Upcoming MOPR rewards are single-month offerings:

Tomorrow’s grant covering January play and spending features all of the retro-frame commons and uncommons from Ravnica Remastered. Highlights include Condemn, Utopia Sprawl, Goblin Electromancer, Light Up the Stage, and more. (#persistantpetitionersallretrosomeonemakethishappen)

Then on March 1, we’ll grant the MTG x Clue cards mentioned above as a MOPR exclusive.

Finally, the April 1 grant will feature foil versions of the Booster Fun commons and uncommons from MKM.

For more information on earning Player Rewards, click here.

Treasure Chest Update

Treasure Chests will update when MKM goes on sale next Tuesday – be sure to watch our Twitter/X (@MagicOnline) and our Discord channel to confirm this before opening Chests.

For full details on the changes to come, check out the Treasure Chest information page.

After next Tuesday, the next Treasure Chest update will occur on Wednesday, February 28.

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Each description mentions whether the Draft is Phantom – cards won’t be added to players’ collections in Phantom events. All transitions take place at 10:00 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC) unless otherwise noted.

• February 6-21 – Murders at Karlov Manor is center stage for these two weeks. As has become our custom, a Best-of-One League will be available for those two weeks.
• February 21-March 6 – The Fast Follow/Polish/Minor Update of Vintage Cube allows two more weeks of play in a slightly-tweaked sandbox. 64-Player single-elimination drafts will return here.(Phantom)
• March 6-20 – We are still considering our options for this pair of weeks ...
• March 20-April 10 – Chris Wolf and Ryan Spain will have the first quarterly refresh of Vintage Cube with packages of cards shuttling in and out. (Phantom)
• April 10-16 – We’ve gathered 18 sets with a medium-to-heavy emphasis on the most universal of card types to create Artifact Chaos Draft! (Phantom)

Avatars

We will grant Prestige avatars from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan shortly after the end of that season on February 6.

Now let’s look ahead to the avatars of this who-dun-it set! First up is the avatar given out in New Account kits and Deck Builder’s Essentials – it's Kylox, Visionary Inventor!

Next, we present the single avatar available in Treasure Chests – it’s Loxodon Eavesdropper!

Finally, we will dole out some Prestige! As usual, you get five points for each Competitive trophy you earn in Leagues and one for each Friendly trophy. At the end of the season (when Outlaws of Thunder Junction releases), you'll earn every avatar for which you qualify:

Earning at least five points gets you the uncommon Aurelia, the Law Above avatar.

Earning at least 20 points nabs you the rare Trostani, Three Whispers avatar.

Earning 40 points or more rewards you with the mythic rare Kaya, Spirits’ Justice Prestige avatar.

Odds and Ends

• Murders at Karlov Manor will be redeemable. Redemption Tokens are planned to go on sale in the Store on Wednesday, March 6. Stay tuned to the Weekly Announcement Blog at MTGO.com for details.
• As usual, Constructed and Limited events will rotate to MKM versions of the same event on release day, so make sure you complete any Leagues before the set launches.
• Reprints in Murders at Karlov Manor that are entering a format won’t become legal until the new Leagues kick off next Tuesday.
• Similarly, New Player products will not feature MKM until the set is on-sale.

We’ll see you on the battlefield!

The Magic Online Team

P.S. We’re Growing – Join Our Team

The game team of Magic Online has been growing over the last several months, and we’re looking to expand some more! Check out Daybreak’s careers page – most jobs are found by filtering location to Washington, though you can apply if you are (or can become) able to legally work from Washington state, California, Texas, New York, or Massachusetts.