Second Week of April 2024

Hello and welcome to your weekly update on the movements and news in the world of Rathe. I'm your guide, Mark Chamberlain. This week:

Just this past weekend, another battle in the flesh and blood was made on the glittering sands and endless shores of Thailand on Phuket Island (pronounced Pooh-ket). Callings are always exciting events, typically playing host to hundreds or even thousands of players. There are side events and typically at least one major main event. At Phuket this year, there was a...

• Calling, which was won by Brodie Spurlock on Azalea, beating Pudding Tam on Katsu
• Battle Hardened, also taken down by an Azalea, this time by Teddy Tai - winning out against Odi Winata's Ser Boltyn in the finals!
• Commoner Event, which Nova Chan took on Iyslander
• an Invitational Alpha draft, which saw CYK Lionel taking home some gorgeous pieces of the history of Rathe
• and even Cosplayers Touran and Mochi, made an appearance in absolutely stunning pieces of kit.

If you haven't made it out to a Calling, I can't help but recommend the experience to you! The next one approaches in Warsaw, with ever more on the horizon: plan out a trip to the Calling today, and thank me later!
After all, if you hear the Call? If you hear the peeling cry of your people, your flesh and blood, Calling out to you? You must go.

Oh! And in the wake of all this? Azalea creeps upwards in Living Legend status, now seated in 7th of the 25 possible heroes, and with 416 points. This puts her ahead of the likes of Dorinthea, and sees her creeping up towards Bravo status - isn't it exciting to see our favorite heroes compete all over the world, moving across the leaderboards and telling a Legend's Story all of their own? You, too, dear reader: you can make this happen. Go to The Calling, bring your friends and your best games, and have a great time chiseling your name in to the history of the game.

In fact, you can sharpen your skills and get the chisel ready by attending Pro Quest events! Yes, Pro Quest Amsterdam is upon us, and local game stores in your area are hosting Classic Constructed events for you to try your hand at. Check out the event finder, and make a road trip plan with your buds - travel is usually cheaper and way more fun when you go with friends!

The rules have even changed slightly from prior seasons of the Pro Quest. Now, if the winner already has a Pro Tour invite from another Pro Quest win, the other finalist will take the invite - but to the victor goes the gold foil, a fitting golden trophy for a hard-fought day. So grab some friends, hit the armories every week, and sharpen those blades together. Then, when it's time to hit the road and bring home the gold, you are ready.

Here's something neat: an event series named "The Road to Tokyo" is just about to commence, and was just announced yesterday. This event series falls in line with something that I've noticed recently coming out of Legend Story Studios: in advance of Pro Tour: Los Angeles, various stores in the City of Angels were given events to host that served the explicit purpose of facilitating great games in the flesh and blood - but also happened to be free blitz events where players could compete for a cold foil Energy Potion, a little taste of the event to come. Likewise, there are Pro Quest Plus Events coming to Sweden, Poland, and Greece in the run-up to Pro Tour: Amsterdam.

For the game's debut in Tokyo, too, there will be all-new Road to Tokyo Events, spanning early weekends in May; including Learn to Play (May 3-6) and Part the Mistveil Blitz Deck (May 10-12) events. So new players can learn the ropes and then get started in the startup format, using all-new cards early and in their own language! I can only be overjoyed that more and more people can see themselves represented in the language of great games.

Players who do participate in the Road to Tokyo event series also have a chance at receiving a staple alternate-art card in the form of Oasis Respite. It's so refreshing, you know? Not only is life-gain actually good in this game, not only is blocking good in this game, but on top of that we see some of the most beautiful promos end up on life gain and blocking cards like the OG Fate Foreseen promo, the Sagrada or Merlion Sigil of Solace, and now also this stunning Oasis Respite. 

Just one more thing before I let you go - have you seen the spoilers?!? OH MY GOODNESS, they are so pretty.

With this latest batch of Marvels, I do believe that we now know all of the regular marvels that are coming to the product... all but one, that is. In an effort to make the release of this set extra special, in an effort to recognize the debut of the game in the Japanese language, there will actually be one additional marvel (and one additional legendary!) in the Japanese set. How exciting is that?! So, perhaps we don't know all of the marvels - my money's on Ira being the bonus Marvel - but for the ones we do know? Holy cow, they sure are stunning. Let's take a look~

Thanks so much for joining us for another recap of the news of Rathe! There's always so much going on in the world, so we appreciate you swinging by here to check in an get updated. If you have any news that you would like to be discussed in a news article, reach out to myself or our editor, Alex, on discord; I'm oggeymoggel#4972.

Now let's go play some great games in the flesh and blood!