For eons, the realm of Aria has remained untouched by the passage of time. Far removed from the chaos and struggles that enveloped the rest of Rathe, its beautiful flora and fauna are as vibrant and welcoming as the diverse people that live here. Great mountain ranges glitter with ice and snow, as vast forests of green and gold stretch out far into the distance, teeming with life.
The Tales of Aria season kicked off with nine days of previews, and three big reveals, as the elemental heroes Briar, Lexi and Oldhim burst onto the battlefield. Following weeks of speculation and anticipation, the world premiere of Tales of Aria took place at The Calling in Las Vegas, with 820 players joining the fray and leaping on the chance to be among the first in the world to test out the new set.
This last weekend, over 800 stores opened up their pre-release events, with over 11,000 entries into tournaments around the world. Players cracked packs and compared their pulls, carefully sleeving legendary equipment and the new fabled card, Korshem, Crossroad of Elements, which also featured on a prize playmat awarded at pre-release events.
Elandrial Games- Australia
"We had an amazing Tales of Aria Pre-release at Elandrial Games this past Saturday, with a record amount of people attending! A full 16 players battled it out, with many of those players travelling 4 1/2 hours from Perth to come participate and support the store in Albany.
Some amazing cards were pulled, with many majestics, a cold foil Pulse of Volthaven, and even a legendary Rampart of the Ram's Head pulled!
After 3 exciting rounds, we cut to the top 4 to have them battle it out for the top spot.
Eli Overington pulled through from the bottom of the top 4 to secure their victory with Briar, walking home with one of the beautiful Korshem playmats.
Top 4 were the following:
- Eli Overington with Briar
- Jordan Reid with Briar
- James Medland with Briar
- Troy Thompson with Oldhim
In the end, a ton of extra prizes were given out to all the participants so everyone walked away with something nice. A ton of new friendships were formed between the Albany and Perth crew, with many rivalries brewing aswell!
We look forward to the release of Tales of Aria, and for future prereleases where the two crews can battle it out again!
Red Riot Games - Canada
"I wanted to share our stories from this weekend's pre release!
Was nice to see the community come out to support. Everyone had a great time with the new set. Dante and Dimos went undefeated using Briar (Dante) and Oldhim (Dimos) respectively. With many new players showing up and drafting powerful decks we were surprised that people left with big smiles on their faces and already crafting their next decks!
We look forward to the next large event as we plan our own 1k event for October!"
Akiba Underground - United States
"We had 19 people show up for FAB, which we were thrilled about! The player pool was predominantly new players (10 of them had only played one or two games with me and the Ira starters) and almost all were converts from our local community, which I was thrilled about! Notable pulls included a CF Duskblade that I ended up using in my own Briar deck, a Spellbound Creepers opened by our resident Azalea expert Kevin (as I expected he ended up not using them and playing Lexi) and a matched Winter's Wail and Rampart of the Ram's Head opened by the last person to arrive at the event.
Overall everyone had a great time, we gave away Korshem playmats and one of our brand new players rode to an undefeated record with his Briar build. I confess that in my frantic preparation (and also helping many of our new players deckbuild and strategize) I forgot to capture pictures of the event, it was a really crazy day! I still wanted to report in though, as everyone had a blast and I think this event will help us grow the community!"
Tales of Battle
The Uncommon Shop - Switzerland
"Our first local store event was a huge success. We were entirely booked out and a newcomer to the game went 4-0. This was possible because the more experienced players helped our first timers to build the deck, explain strategies and combos and even point out some details during the match. It was really heartwarming to see how welcoming everyone was.
We are looking forward to hosting local events on a regular basis!"
Mythos Games - United States
"We had a full 48 players participate using all of our allocation! 2 of the players were approved by OP to have a "take home pre-release". Our main judge Brooks had a family member get injured and so we emailed OP to see if they could do a take home pre-release and it was approved. So for our in store event we had 46 participants.
It was awesome! We were constrained to 5 rounds due to time but all the players had a riot!"
Streams:
Unison Games Cafe - Sealed pool construction and the top table stream.
Dice Jar Games - Podded Pre-release (stream 1 and stream 2).
Tales of Aria releases worldwide this Friday, September 24th! Check out your local game store for product, Armory Events, and more to come.