The latest WoW TCG Expansion, Betrayal of the Guardian, is now here and I just finished sorting through all the goodies after receiving them a couple of weeks ago. The second set from the Timewalkers block, this set continues the theme of bringing back older characters from the past back into the fold.
Just like the prior set, War of the Ancients, each booster box comes with 36 packs, with 15 game cards per pack. The Epic Collection box contains the following goodies:
- 1 Collector’s box
- 6 Booster packs
- 1 Playmat
- 1 Deck box
- 15 Card dividers
- 1 Visual Spoiler
- 5 Foil Hero cards
- 1 Loot card (for this set, it’s the Gusting Grimoire)
Here is a sample of what you will find in the Betrayal of the Guardian set:
Magatha Grimtotem and Zul’jin
Khadgar and General Turalyon
Some familiar faces you’ll see when you visit Karazhan….
Thrall’s Poppa and Momma
Some of the coolest legendaries you’ll find in-game, Atiesh and the Warglavies of Azzinoth
I was kinda bummed that one of my favorite artists, JonBoy Meyers, didn’t have any cards in this set, but I did find some cards from another favorite, Gonzalo Ordonez. He also did the artwork for Atiesh and Magatha Grimtotem.
And the winner of the “Best Flavor Text” in this set goes to Don Carlos’ Famous Hat, lol.
And the Phat Lootz! Cha-Ching!
Gusting Grimoire
The common loot card of the set, the Gusting Grimoire is a Magic-type companion/battle pet that shares a similar model to the Lofty Libram, only with rounded corners and a different cover. The Grimoire shares the same second-line abilities as the Libram, but their first-line abilities are different.
Here are the Grimoire’s abilities:
- Fel Immolate
- Agony
- Meteor Strike
- Shadow Shock
- Amplify Magic
- Curse of Doom
I named my Grimoire, War, and my Libram, Peace, get it? LoL
Dark Portal Hearthstone
The uncommon loot card is the Dark Portal Hearthstone, which is an on-use item that actually doesn’t give you an extra Hearth, but instead replaces your regular hearthing animation with a much cooler one. This is also similar to the Ethereal Portal loot card from the Icecrown expansion.
Here is the Dark Portal Hearthstone being used in front of the real Dark Portal, lol:
Ghastly Charger
And finally the rare loot card from the set, the Ghastly Charger. When I first saw images of this mount, I knew I was going to redeem it if I got one, I really like the look of the spectral mounts. So after I got lucky with my RCG (random card generator) and pulled the loot card out of one of the packs, I headed straight for Landro Longshot to claim my prize.
Here is a shot of the Charger in front of Karazhan:
So what’s better than running around on top of a spectral skeletal horse? Well, I wanted to get a screenshot of the mount on its hind legs and found a nice surprise when I hit my space bar….
….it flies! I didn’t realize that the mount would be similar to the Headless Horseman mount. Woohoo, a new ground/flying mount! =)
Take a look, it’s in a book
So, interested in owning your very own Grimoire? Well, I’m giving away two Grimoires to two lucky readers, all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this post, telling me what your favorite or most memorable book or books are and why. I’ll go first.
One of the most memorable series I remember reading were the Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern books. During middle and high school, I spent a lot of time at the local library after school waiting for my ride home, immersing myself into the fantasy world of dragons. McCaffery’s books immediately got me hooked on these mythical creatures; maybe that’s why it was so easy to pick up WoW, with all of the flying beasts it contains, lol.
So get your comment in by Saturday, March 16th at 12 am US-EST and you will be included in the drawing. I’ll throw all the names into the same Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron I used last time for the Eyes and draw out two random peeps. Good luck!
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone that commented, I know I said that I was going to give away two Grimoires, but I found an extra one to give away, so congrats to Tome, Tyledres and Arioch, you guys are the lucky winners!
The Crimson Hammer 
Growing up I had two series that stood out for me: The Indian in the Cupboard and the Children of the Earth
To this day I would still read a new book in the IitC series. There was just something that touched me about toys coming to life and being real people from history. I only ever found 4 books in the series (if there are more someone please tell me!) and I think my favorite was the fourth one where you find out where the magic came from.
The second series I started reading Freshman year of high school. It starts with the Clan of the Cave Bear. The final book (possibly) just came out in 2011 and ended the series on a sour note for me. The awesomeness that is Ayla and how she survived spurred me on to start reading more survival novels. These books also got me interested even more in pre-historic man and the science around these finds.
Now I want to read these books again! Thanks Arv :-p
Indian in the Cupboard was a great book, I don’t remember reading the four other books in the series, but I know I read at least two of them. The movie wasn’t as good as the book, but really, what movie is better than the book it comes from, right?
As a toy enthusiast, I also enjoyed stories about toys coming to life and interacting with humans. Maybe not like Pinocchio, but in a Small Soldiers kind of way, lol.
Big gratz on your phat loot cards! I got the grimoire the other day in game and its really nice, they are upgrading it to rare quality sometime soon I read on twitter from Cory Stockton, so thats some good news!
Thanks Kaitz! Funny you mentioned about the rare quality, while doing the Beasts of Fable daily quest the other day, I ended up getting a Magic battle stone from the reward bag. Going through my list of Magic type pets, I noticed that the Grimoire was only Uncommon quality and without thinking, I threw the stone on it and upgraded it to Rare. I gave the pet away to a friend and they quickly leveled it to 25. Then I saw on Warcraftpets.com the fix coming to the Grimoires, lol. /facepalm So that person got a head start on everyone else with their Rare Grimoire, while I have another sitting in my pet journal, ready for Blizz’s free upgrade.
I loved the Dragonriders of Pern books too! It’s so hard to pick a favorite, Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy comes to mind and I love the Culture series by Iain Banks but since I reread Stephen King’s The Stand about every 5 years or so that’s probably it. I’m a sucker for any post-apocalyptic story, maybe it’s time to get it out once more.
Speaking of post-apocalyptic stories, the one that comes to my mind is Alas, Babylon. Another middle school book, it was interesting to get a glimpse of what could happen in the event of a nuclear war. And it was set in Florida too, lol.
I read that book!
That was a good one. Another good one is “The Girl who Owned a City”
Never heard of the book, but I just read a brief synopsis of it and it sounds pretty cool.
For me my two favorites are a book and a series of books.
The Book that is my favorite to read is Stranger in a Strange Land. I first obtained a copy of this book when I was 13 as a gift. The family friends who gave it to me did so while telling me that it was one of my Father’s favorite novels. My Father had passed away 6 years prior so as a 13 yr old it was an emotional gift. Because of the emotions of this it took me almost 5 years to finish this novel but that was good since as an 18 year old I better understood the story and the correlations it made. Since that first copy I recieved I have collected Eight or Nine different printings and find it interesting how with each printing the book got longer as societies restrictions on what was politically appropriate loosened.
The Series that I love and have read many times and will read many more times is The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings. Yes I know it’s two distinct series but if I start with book 1 of the Belgariad I find I don’t stop until i have read all 10 novels. Beyond being a awesome series of books it is also one of the few series that both my sisters and I have read. This lead to some frustrations since I read faster then either of my sisters and when i was reading this the lived on the East Coast so instead of us each having a copy we just shipped the books around. What I love about this is now that now many years later and almost all of my Nephews and my Niece have read the series also. Although I think we may have had to replace the books after 20+ years multiple states and at least 5 people having read the copies the are a bit worn.
As I typed my reply I began to think about all the great books I have read and how for me rereading a book is still a new adventure just with some old familiar “friends”
Books have a funny way of sucking you in. I haven’t reread that many, but of the ones I did, It’s interesting how much you pick up or missed the second time through.
I think that’s pretty awesome that you and your family were able to share the same series of books together, I bet that led to many discussions. Thanks for sharing, Tel!
Well, Tel, thanks for stealing my books! (Should have posted earlier…)
Since Stranger, Pern, and the Eddings stuff has already been taken I’ll move down the line to the Elric Saga. Whereas the Belgariad is a great coming of age series, Elric is already in a position of power at the start of his story. Through him we follow the downfall of a civilization and the game played by gods with mortal play pieces. He’s such a tortured hero, not so much reluctant as trying to thwart the fate that befell him, and failing miserably at it. Like Pixel, the Cat who Walks Through Walls (another Heinlein) there is no happy ending. I think books like that are important, the hero doesn’t always save the day or get the girl. Those books are about the characters and the journeys and because failure is an option, in a way they are much more relate-able.
Sounds good, looks like I need to check these books out!
Oh yeah, and I should mention that 3 of my toons can trace their names to the world Elric is from.
Sweet, now I can see where Selwynn and some of his brothers came from….oh and Arioch too =P
Actually, Selwyn came from a book I had laying around form my table top D&D days, “A Treasury of Archaic Names.”
But Arioch and Jhaelen (middle name to one of the incarnations of the Eternal Champion) were taken straight from the multiverse. Cruorem was a modification to Corum, the first name matched with Jhaelen.
Almost everything Moorcock wrote ties in together in at least some small way, so Elric meets people from other stories and their stories impact his own. Separately, each tale is wonderful; but together it becomes a larger tapestry.
ok…the world is ending. Tel and I both like the Belgariad and the Malloreon…..we actually agree on something….wtf
But damn you tel I have to go back and read those again, like now.
Looks like you and Tel had more in common than you thought, lol.
Don’t worry, I read the Belgariad and Mallorean on a regular basis. Maybe it cancels out Tel also liking it? =P
You might also like a trilogy by Tad Williams, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It’s only 3 books (technically 4 in paperback because the last was too big to print in one volume!) but is pretty close to the Belgariad in page count. It starts with The Dragonbone Chair. Similar coming of age in a fantasy realm except the protagonist really gets the shit beaten out of him a few times. A little grittier, lots more war and death.
You … you … you … have a ghostly charger? OMG Arv I hate you. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNT.
LOL! Hi Ho Spectral, giddy up! =)
Reading Rainbow references make me happy, and temper my jealousy over that spectral steed.
Picking a favourite book/series is extremely difficult for me. I love reading and the more I look over my Goodreads shelves the harder it is to decide. So, it’s come down to three.
1. The Dragonlance Chrinicles – Margaret Weis. I first read this series in High school after my mother picked up the first book for me because she had heard something about it on the radio. I was convinced that I wouldn’t like it, I tried it anyway and have since read the whole series multiple times.
2. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley. I actually read this book for Grade 12 English. It introduced me to dystopian fiction and is the benchmark that I measure all other distopians against.
3. The Raw Shark Texts – Steven Hall. I picked this book because it’s different every time I read it – there’s a lot of room for interpretation based on your perception of the main character and that keeps me going back.
I find it interesting that most people here read their favorites back in their high school days. Thanks for sharing!
Wooo! Cards look pretty awesome and so does that mount! I like your book names 🙂
I’d figured you’d appreciate Genzo’s cards, lol.
I have a whole bookshelf of Fantasy novels including the Dragonriders of Pern series. Funnily enough, most of them have elves or dragons in them.
Ooooo, another Pern reader, lol. I guess I can thank McCaffery a little for helping me make my main’s choice as a Blood Elf. =)
Pern! I love the Dragonriders! We read “The Smallest Dragonboy” in my English class and I was hooked. Her other series were good as well but I liked the Dragonriders the best.
One of my favorite authors is Mercedes Lackey and I got started with her Heralds of Valdemar series. I loved the idea of telepathic horses and magic welders defending the kingdom from all kinds of evil. But I also really like her other books as well especially Five Hundred Kingdom ones that are a new spin on old fairy tales.
Anyway she’s the reason I’m obsessed with my toons having white hair and Tyledres is the name of a tribe of people from her Valdemar series.
Another Dragonrider fan! I’m bringing out all the McCaffery fans out of the woodwork on this post, lol. I wish I could say I got the name Arvash from a book, but part of the name actually comes from the anime series Trigun.
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Got my book in the mail last night, thank you!
You are very welcome! =)
That’ll teach me not to read all the blogs all the time, especially my favorite ones! Please indulge me, and even though the contest is long over, I have to add a few of my literary influences – I loved Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh when I was a kid, and then in high school Steinbeck and Dickens, and in college I turned to the humor of Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues). Interesting – not a lot of fantasy genre in the mix, but memorable characters nonetheless! Oh, this inspired a post! Thanks, Crimson!
Lol, it’s never too late to comment on a post, Matty. =) Steinbeck is a good read, Of Mice and Men comes to mind, great book, sad ending. I started The Grapes of Wrath a long time ago and never got around to finishing it, maybe it’s time.
Grapes of Wrath is a long horrible book. East of Eden is MUCH better. Read that one instead.
Lol, no wonder I never finished it.
Wow, this set has a lot of the big names of lore, something I’ve always found the TCG to skim upon, but never truly delve into with a set (until now).
Yeah, this expansion block has brought out a lot of characters, even ones I’ve never seen before in pictures, like Thrall’s parents. And there’s still one more set to go!