The Control Player’s Bible, Table of Contents:
Part I: Overview
Part II: History, 1994-1996
Part III: History, 1996-2000
Part IV: History, 2000-2002
Part V: A sample control mirror match
Part VI: Playing the core cards: Counters and tutors
Part VII: Playing the core cards: Card drawing and removal
Part VIII: Playing the Sapphires
Part IX: Why you should vote Tan in the CCGPrime Writer’s War
Well, well!
CCGPrime.com has launched its second Writer’s War, and you can be sure that we at Star City will pull out all the stops to keep the throne! In the glorious tradition of Sol Malka humor, I’d like to devote some space to convince you why you should vote Tan.
(Aw, c’mon… Laugh, will you? I missed the craziness of the first one and want to make up!)
Style points: Even without you reading a thing, Tan already has the competition beat. In case you were wondering, that hat is made of fox fur and was purchased at the foot of the Great Wall of China. The fan was picked up in Shanghai, and has the first chapter of Sun Tzu’s Ancient Art of War written with a brush on one side.
Guts: That photo was the same one that appeared in Tan’s college yearbook…
Literary mastery: Tan is the only Featured Writer who’s ever won a Magic literary contest. Check out the copy of the runner-up article in Meridian Magic’s Deathmatch contest at the very bottom of this link, and remember that the only thing that beat it was filled with Pro Tour inside jokes. Heck, Tan has even headlined Misetings…
Ancestry: Tan is one of very few Asian writers on the Net. Not only that, he’s the only Filipino writer on the Net. Okay, you can go check your world map now…
Stand on terrorism: Tan is happy with his president, the Asian leader most vocal in her support of America’s strong response against terrorism. In 1995, after a foiled assassination attempt on the Pope, Philippine authorities uncovered the possible use of airliners for terrorism. In 2002, Navy SEALs and Green Berets are helping the Philippine Army go after a terrorist group holding American and Filipino hostages down south. He’s also glad Americans have probably forgotten where the Love Bug came from…
Tan Online: Not only does Tan write for you every week, he also has a complete forum of friends who’ll instantly answer all your questions, even if he’s asleep, being twelve time zones away. And Tan’s online service doesn’t cost you more per week than a month of Everquest, does it?
Casual Player‘s Alliance affiliation: Tan plays Type I because he’s busy with school activities and doesn’t enjoy the pressure of adjusting to weekly metagames. Is it obvious whose side he’s on? Heck, other players raid his house come Extended, but they still haven’t managed to drag him out to play…
Popularity: But, even if he isn’t an avid Type II player, he can walk into any Manila tournament and be assured of getting a Feature Match (Hi, Josh Claytor!). All it’ll take is for the storeowner to shout,”Is that Tan playing TYPE II???”
Rating: Even if Tan isn’t a tourney regular, players with high ratings quake at his approach. It’s nothing if he loses – but how many points can you lose in a 24K event to a guy who’s played since The Dark, but applies for a DCI number right before the tournament, anyway?
Charm: In his sophomore year, Tan received his class’s”Love Triangle of the Year Award.”
Charm: That same photo was flashed on a video wall the night before graduation. This was immediately before he received the El Nino (drought, as in, lovelife drought) award from the same class.
Educational attainment: Many successful Magic players like Zvi and Pikula have impressive applied mathematics degrees. Tan has one, but he’s also a student at the University of the Philippines College of Law. Can you imagine rules lawyering a law student?
Rules knowledge: And if that’s not enough, he can call in his bud Sheldon Menery to shut you up. For example, after reading the last column, Sheldon promptly e-mailed:”My initial answer was wrong. The Teferi’s Response is indeed countered because its target is invalid. Teferi’s Response has a targeting condition (“…that targets a land you control…”). Since you don’t control the land any more, the Response’s target is invalid. I confirmed with some of the big guns over the weekend. Sorry to make us both look bad 🙁 Can you get the column pulled?”
Connections: Okay, okay… Well, at least he came from the same prestigious law school as Ferdinand Marcos. No, wait…
Letters: Because Tan is no pro, he has a little time to reply to mail. For example:
—– Original Message —–
From: (name withheld)
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 11:10 PM
Subject: A strange question…
> First off you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. But it would
> be great if you did since you possess wisdom beyond your years.
>
> So, have you ever been in love? If so, could you give me a few”pointers”?
> Thank you so much!
Okay, okay… Everything stated above is true, but kidding aside, do remember Tan when you vote. He works hard and sets aside time to give you the details on what he writes about each week, and his countrymen would be really happy if a guy from their end of the world hurdled a few rounds.
(And remember, vote Star City, and keep a special eye out for my partner-in-crime, Darren diBattista, a.k.a. Azhrei.)
Now to get back to strategy before Ferrett notices and rewrites my article to sabotage the competition. Again, our core:
The core cards:
Blue (16)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Braingeyser
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Morphling
Black (6)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 The Abyss
1 Diabolic Edict
White (2)
1 Balance
1 Disenchant / Dismantling Blow / Seal of Cleansing
Green (1)
1 Regrowth
Plus: 2 slots for Fire/Ice and/or Swords to Plowshares
The Jets: Secondary color tricks
This installment is probably timely, since next week is the Black Set’s prerelease. Black is one of the more diverse, memorable colors in the history of Magic, something I was glad to recall when I read this excellent article:”The Deck” actually just has a very, very small selection, but it’s the color that spices things up beyond boring mono blue control.
Remember Part III, which showed how white became less and less important in”The Deck” and was eventually replaced by black? If you didn’t pay attention, let me emphasize that it’s pretty important for modern builds.
In our last column, I emphasized how the mana base should support all your tricks, and how all colored mana sources have to produce blue to support the primary color. The same holds for the secondary color, but there’s an additional concern.
If you take another look, the”core” is mainly blue, and black doesn’t even have half the slots it has. But your mana base has to let you play your key black tricks very early – right down to a first-turn Vampiric Tutor for Ancestral Recall – and smart opponents will try to cut you off from black with land destruction in Game 1 (before sideboarding). I advise nine or ten black sources, not counting Black Lotus, though cutting one or two might be tolerable if you aren’t using all six black staples.
Mind Twist
XB
Sorcery
Beta rare
Target player discards X cards at random from his or her hand. (Restricted in August 1994, banned in February 1996, unbanned and restricted in October 2000)
Many of my fun memories revolve around this insane card, from arguments that it wasn’t banned back in 1996 to Channel/Mind Twist (in casual Zoo) annoyance in 2000.
I remember the last time I played Bayani Manansala, Jr., one of our best local players, before the last Nationals. I was using a casual build with no sideboard, and thought he was playing one of countless Fires variants. I interpreted an early Pillage as him having a lot of red along with his Skizzik, and his black sources as sideboarded Tsabo’s Decrees. To my surprise, he didn’t concede when I played Moat, and I lost the drawn-out game after my Zuran Orb was Pillaged along with my land, and many, many Seals of Fire, Earthquakes, and Flays later. He was really happy with his deck, and”Lovely Sunshine” was listed in Type II Ponza reviews that year after Bayani Top 8ed at Nationals.
Game 2 salvaged a little pride. His first spell was a turn 4 Skizzik, and I responded with Mana Drain. His eyebrows went up at the uncommon sight, but his jaw dropped when I tutored and showed him my ancient, and recently-unbanned, Mind Twist. (Remember, baiting counters is done differently in Type I and in Type II.) We had a good laugh when he dropped his hand and revealed the other three Skizziks, though he declined to swap decks and play from the other side.
This is Type I. Broken things happen.
But speaking of brokenness, there’s only one card ever banned because of something it did on its own (instead of being in a combo, an ante card or Chaos Orb). Guess what?
DCI justified its unbanning after changes in the card pool made Type I faster, and made Mind Twist slower than staple discard spells. When it came back, it became a powerful anti-control splash instead of a dedicated discard spell, and”The Deck” had both the mana and the flexibility to abuse it.
Playing against control was never the same again.
Our basic Mind Twist play, as illustrated in Part V, is to build up enough mana, start a counter war in your opponent’s end-of-turn, then tutor for Mind Twist with the opening. To do it early, you can use Lotus or early Mana Drain mana – even a Drained Force of Will snagged in the counter war. This is the single worst thing you can do to a control or combo deck, and it’s as straightforward as the card.
A few notes, though. First, don’t get too greedy. If there’s an opening but you can only Twist away half your opponent’s hand, go for it. You don’t hold Braingeyser till you can go up to seven cards, do you?
Second, since you won’t cast Mind Twist without protection, you can Twist for less than his hand, but still leave him with no hand if he fights a counter war (for example, Twist for four and Force his Force).
Third, be conscious that some decks can tutor for Balance or Timetwister in response and turn the tables on you after you tap out.
Rules note: Twist officially reads”target player” – so yes, it can be Misdirected.
What isn’t straightforward is when not to go for Mind Twist. Mainly, it’s not as effective against more aggressive decks because they’ll have played out their hands unless you have Lotus in the opening hand. And, because they can recover by topdecking threats anyway, you’re better off going for board control with solutions like The Abyss. (You get this dirty feeling if an opponent topdecks Cursed Scroll after you Twist.)
And, even though it’s your strongest early play against control, I won’t tell you to go for it every time. Sure, it’s probably my favorite move – but”The Deck” isn’t built with a script, and you have to go with how the board looks. Remember, the control mirror is decided by card advantage, not silver bullets.
A last subtle point is that Mind Twist is one of the most potent nonblue threats you have. This is important against color hosers, particularly Red Elemental Blast, and some beginners make the mistake of watching only for the powerful blue cards of”The Deck.” You’ll understand when you Twist away a hand of three Red Elemental Blasts against”The Deck” or Sligh after sideboarding.
Yawgmoth’s Will
2B
Sorcery
Urza’s Saga rare
Until end of turn, you may play cards in your graveyard as though they were in your hand. If a card would be put into your graveyard this turn, remove that card from the game instead. (Restricted in October 1999)
I still maintain that the Weatherlight storyline was one good reason to play Legend of the Five Rings, that Gerrard was a wuss (read: Master of Arms after Sixth Ed), and that the ending in Apocalypse was so vague I was turned off just when I was warming to the story. And I still can’t understand why the single most broken block ever printed was named after Urza, when Yawgmoth got the real toys.
(Join black fanatics all over the world in a moment of silence, in the hopes that another”Yawgmoth” card will appear in Torment.)
If Mind Twist gave me a lot of funny memories, Yawgmoth’s Will gave me all my mysterious disconnections playing on #apprentice on Newnet. The most hilarious involved Vaneger of the MTGOnline league. After I knocked him out of a tournament I tried, he dismissed my deck, saying I just netdecked off Star City.
Anyway, note the following:
After finding Gaea’s Blessing and recursion in general a bit too slow and after Alex Shvartsman gave it a thumbs down for the Sydney Invitational, almost every Beyond Dominia player ditched recursion for Yawgmoth’s Will. This completely changed how we played control, and I guess everyone was preoccupied with combating the combo mania to notice it much earlier.
Brian Weissman says he tutors for Ancestral Recall 90% of the time. Most of the other 10% is devoted to Yawgmoth’s Will, when he tutors later in the game.
Zvi Mowshowitz thinks setting up Yawgmoth’s Will is the key strategy of”The Deck” (his Replenish series might explain why he loves the idea).
Check out how this card made it into a variety of deck types from Type II Necrodecks to Extended High Tide – in fact, check Darwin Kastle’s Kuala Lumpur Invitational Necrodeck from the time Will was unrestricted.
Someone on BD once tried nicknaming this”Yawgmoth’s Win.” It didn’t catch on, but it didn’t have to.
Trivia aside, get it straight that this is the most broken card in”The Deck” after Ancestral Recall. It’s almost never used as bait, always protected unless it’s a topdecked gamble, and you play it as your last and strongest threat when unsure.
Many black decks use this along with multiple Dark Rituals to replay a barrage of disruption and cheap threats.”The Deck” has Moxen instead of Dark Ritual, and its cheap threats are on the level of Ancestral Recall. With Tolarian Academy, Yawgmoth’s Will gets downright abusive.
When you cast Will, there are a few”standard” steps I’d like to walk you through:
- Don’t play a land from your hand unless absolutely necessary
- Count mana, especially colored mana
- Sacrifice what you can reuse, like Black Lotus and possibly Strip Mine/Wasteland
- Cast Yawgmoth’s Will
- Return all zero-cost artifacts (Moxen, Black Lotus, Zuran Orb) into play
- Return one land into play, if you haven’t played land
- Almost always, cast Ancestral Recall
- Hold off what you can for your opponent’s upkeep so they don’t get removed from the game, such as Wasteland, Black Lotus, and spells drawn off recycled spells
The main thing to consider when you Will is how much mana you have. Again, don’t get too greedy.
Early in the game, I consider using Will worth it if I can get just Ancestral Recall and a Wasteland back. The boost is amazing, and you can do it early off Moxen or Mana Drains.
As you go beyond four, you get to do more things. At this point, you Will to stabilize if you need to. Add Balance, Fire, Diabolic Edict, Gorilla Shaman or Dismantling Blow, or Sylvan Library against control. If you can add Time Walk, that’s excellent. Otherwise, at this point, I just tutor, or Ice if I have nothing more. If you use Mystical or Vampiric, do it last (after Ancestral Recall) so the card is safely on top of your library in case the opponent retaliates with discard next turn, while you’re tapped out.
Notice that every additional mana can mean an additional spell, so plan your Will.
When you have more mana, be very careful what you tap. For example, you might have Demonic Tutor in the graveyard, but just one Underground Sea in play (and you used it for Yawgmoth’s Will). Or you might have both Regrowth and Gorilla Shaman, but just one City of Brass. When you sacrifice Black Lotus before Will, the color you choose is very important. A smoothing trick, especially if you have no land in the graveyard, is to sacrifice a tapped land to Zuran Orb in response to Will, then return it and tap it for the other color. You can also hold off playing a land in case you draw one of the correct color off a Willed spell.
When you hit eight or more mana, you can add one of the more expensive spells like Abyss, Fact or Fiction, Morphling, Mind Twist and Braingeyser. At this point, you should be ashamed of yourself if you don’t win, especially if you Time Walked.
You’ve heard how abusive Obliterate is with Will, but Obliterate isn’t good. What’s amusing, though, is Balance. With Will, you can have no hand, but be able to replay your graveyard. You can have no land, but you can float your mana and replay the jewelry. Watch for this if you happen to have it set up.
Rules notes: Remember that Will removes itself from the game because it goes to the graveyard after it resolves. Also remember you can replay a land, and always think in advance whether you’re returning Library of Alexandria, Wasteland, Tolarian Academy, or a colored source. For example, you can use Wasteland in response to Will, then replay it, and I’ve had opponents concede with no permanents in play because of this. Finally, remember you can’t use cards in the graveyard to pay for costs, like Force of Will’s (you can use blue cards in your hand for Forces of Will in the grave, in case your opponent only has Red Elemental Blast).
On a personal note, my Yawgmoth’s Will is unique. Eric“Danger” Taylor was my favorite writer in my teenage years. As I was beginning this featured writer stint, he autographed a Yawgmoth’s Will he drafted in Pro Tour LA and mailed it to me. I think its value skyrocketed after he ate his hat.
(Beyond Dominia regulars might know that I have a few other autographed mementos. Darren diBattista, a.k.a. Azhrei, gave me the Stroke of Genius from his original Franchise deck, Alex Shvartsman sent me a Japanese Strip Mine after I placed #2 in the Meridian Deathmatch contest, and Matt Vienneau hand delivered a Fact or Fiction to the Philippine National Team one APAC.)
Amnesia
3UUU
Sorcery
The Dark uncommon
Target player reveals his or her hand. That player discards all nonland cards from it.
Mind Warp
X3B
Sorcery
Ice Age uncommon
Look at target player’s hand and choose X cards from it. That player discards them.
Amnesia was the placeholder for Mind Twist when it was still banned, but it was far more awkward. The expensive cost made it inflexible, and the triple-blue made it tough to use and protect with Mana Drain. Though it was fun, a number of players eventually dropped it back then, and there’s no reason to use it now.
Mind Warp is something that showed up in Necro variants many years ago, but it’s mentioned here in case you were curious about Mike Long’s Sydney deck. He didn’t respond to my e-mails, but Noah Boeken said Mike was looking for Mind Warps before the tournament. He was forced to run Amnesia when he came up one short, and lost a game because the Amnesia that should’ve been a Mind Warp got Pyroblasted.
Duress
B
Sorcery
Urza’s Saga common
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Okay, so maybe it was a bit tough to talk about Mind Twist and Yawgmoth’s Will without just going,”BROKEN! BROKEN! BROKEN!”
The other black options, though, require a bit more deliberation.
Duress is probably on your mind after you read the exhilarating Bleiweiss coverage from Masters San Diego and Part IV.
If you’ve ever been on the wrong side of Suicide Black, you know that Duress is one of the most devastating first-turn plays in the game. It’s basically like using your fifth-pick removal on your opponent’s first-pick bomb rare in a draft – and just as satisfying. Worse, it’s not worth using Force of Will on (or even a normal counter, unless you have something better to protect), and can’t be Misdirected.
The caveat, though, is that this becomes far worse when your opponent’s deck looks like it used its first-picks to rare draft. Imagine using this against Stompy, and you’ll understand that it’s only as good as your opponent’s cards are broken. In fact, this is a useless topdeck against Stompy, Sligh, and other aggro decks. So, the first note is to use this only against a control- and/or combo-heavy field.
The next question, though, is would you?
Duress is devastating first-turn, but you’d rather have other things later on. So, to maximize it, you have to clear at least three slots (like Budde and Mello in San Diego, you usually maindeck three and sideboard the fourth if they want it) for it. But when you get it in your opening hand, you want to cast it Turn 1, so you also have to run far more black than you normally would – about eleven to twelve sources, not counting Lotus.
So not only do you figure out where to get three to four slots, you have the additional headache of making your already shaky mana base take the added strain.
I personally wouldn’t bother. Duress is a proactive counterspell, and it can be compared to maindecking Red Elemental Blasts because the spell is very narrow. Running a couple of extra counters or simply more powerful control cards might be more flexible, and these don’t lose steam after the early game.
Going back to Budde and Mello, I think they’d have to make the same tough mana base decision for Duress if they didn’t have Undermine to make those black sources useful early (and the sideboarded Innocent Blood). Certainly, they didn’t have to worry about cutting better spells for it since the card pool forced them to play Memory Lapse already. In fact, John Ormerod e-mailed,”Kai (Budde) and Patrick (Mello) did add Duress to my version of the Psychatog-control deck and cleared out some removal to fit them in; this was basically a metagame choice.”
Still, it can be fun to play against a control and especially a mono-blue player. If you like it, go ahead. (You might want to try it in something more aggressive, though, because”The Deck” is slower and less able to exploit the opening.)
One strategy note, by the way, is to just hang on to Duress when you topdeck it midgame, unless your opponent has a juicy hand. Your opponent might have nothing or might cast his spell in response, and the Duress will be better timed right before you pick your next counter war.
The peek at your opponent’s hand, by the way, is just icing. Sure, sometimes, you see he has no counters and force a Mind Twist or Yawgmoth’s Will earlier than you normally would – but again, good players should be able to guess at their opponent’s hands and prepare accordingly.
Finally, I have to note that countless beginners try to mix Mana Drains with Hymns to Tourach. I emphasize that mixing counters and discard gives you a deck that’s all disruption and no punch, aside from the impossible mana base headache.
Skeletal Scrying
XB
Instant
Odyssey uncommon
As an additional cost to play Skeletal Scrying, remove X cards in your graveyard from the game. You draw X cards and you lose X life.
This is a very good card, but you have to find the right matchup for it more than you have to find the right deck. It can fill part of a midgame role unrestricted Fact or Fiction held at three to four mana. Later on, you can use it as a Stroke of Genius that can’t be Misdirected, especially if you have Zuran Orb and a couple of excess land.
First of all, I’ll clarify that you can time it to minimize damage to your Yawgmoth’s Will. There are some things that won’t be recycled, like counters, destroyed land, and expensive spells. This is hardly the issue with Scrying, unless you use more than two.
The more important problem is the life loss against beatdown, where just two or three more life can be the difference between losing and stabilizing in time to swing the game. Darren diBattista, a.k.a. Azhrei, said he’d consider it in his Old School Expulsion decks with Mishra’s Factories to help soak up early damage before he’d consider it in”The Deck.” A more minor aspect of this problem is when you’re also using your life to fuel Sylvan Library.
Another problem specifically in”The Deck” is that you might have to wait a bit for your grave to fill up. Consider that”The Deck” plays slowly, and goes land-go before it gets going. Scrying thus improves if you have more early plays like Duress or Impulse.
If you can minimize the above drawbacks, slip one in by all means.
Recoil
1UB
Instant
Invasion common
Return target permanent to its owner’s hand. Then that player discards a card from his or her hand.
This is a card I have to explain, because less experienced players might have noticed it in a few specific Type I builds.
Yes, it’s fun and it’s hilarious when played on a token or when your opponent has no cards in hand… But it’s primarily used in decks without white that need some way to handle enchantments, even a mediocre one.
Aside from that, against decks with no enchantments of note, Recoil can still be used on a land early for a small tempo boost. And of course, if the opponent loses his hand, Recoil becomes an instant Vindicate.
Note that none of these apply to”The Deck” and that it can’t always capitalize on the tempo boost.
Lim-Dul’s Vault
UB
Instant
Alliances uncommon
Look at the top five cards of your library. As many times as you choose, you may pay 1 life, put those cards on the bottom of your library, and look at the next five cards of your library. Then remove the top five cards from your library, shuffle it, and put those cards back in any order.
After the Mirage tutors were restricted, I listed the remaining viable unrestricted tutors on Beyond Dominia, and this came up on top of my list. It’s actually an old staple that saw play in the original Turbo Stasis builds, until it was displaced by the more straightforward Mirage tutors.
Recently, it’s been proposed again on Beyond Dominia by Matt D’Avanzo, in his never-ending search for a better Vampiric Tutor. His argument is that this is blue, so it can be pitched to Force of Will, and is close enough to Vampiric Tutor since you should be able to find something useful in your next ten cards. Plus, instead of getting just one card, you can stack five. The drawback is that you lose card advantage, but so does Vampiric Tutor.
Personally, I think it might work for his metagame or his tastes, but that he’ll drop it once a tutor on the level of Mystical Tutor slips past R&D. In the meantime, I don’t have the same complaints against Vampiric Tutor, and do want to find the specific silver bullet I need without potentially paying half my life.
JP”Polluted” Meyer adds that you can use Merchant Scroll and Lim-Dul’s Vault to go for an alternate tutor chain if you’ve used Mystical Tutor already. That’s true, but I think it’s already remote. You’ll have more mana for your second tutor and can use Merchant Scroll on Fact or Fiction, if you want to press the point.
I did list Sylvan Library in my deck, so Matt will probably let me live if I asked why not just use Impulse…
Shadowmage Infiltrator, a.k.a. Finkel
1UB
Creature-Wizard
Odyssey rare
1/3
Shadowmage Infiltrator can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures. Whenever Shadowmage Infiltrator deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card.
I listed Ophidian in the last column as a possibility for variants, but note that Finkel isn’t the same thing. Even if”The Deck” is primarily U/b, Finkel interacts differently with Mana Drain and you might have to add a black source or two.
Innocent Blood
B
Sorcery
Odyssey common
Each player sacrifices a creature.
This is a note for beginners, since I’ve noticed a number of Innocent Blood listings for Type I control decks after Odyssey came out.
Basically, the only advantage this has is that it kills something first-turn. But would you rather have that – or have Diabolic Edict when both you and your opponent have a Morphling in play?
Now that we’ve gone through the common cards in the primary and secondary color, we go to the tertiary colors. What I’d like you to do in the meantime is to look at any good U/b deck, even the Psychatog decks from Masters San Diego, and try to pinpoint the weaknesses. Basically, ask yourself why you’d add more colors and further complicate the mana base.
“The Deck” usually has two tertiary colors. We have three left, not counting artifacts, so try visualizing which you’d want to use for your personal build.
And remember… Vote smart, vote Tan the next time you log on to CCGPrime.com.
Oscar Tan
[email protected]
rakso on #BDChat on Newnet
Manila, Philippines
Type I, Extended and Casual Maintainer, Beyond Dominia
(http://www.bdominia.com/discus/messages/9/9.shtml)
Featured writer, Star City Games (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/archive.php?Article=Oscar Tan)
Proud member of the Casual Player’s Alliance (http://www.casualplayers.org)
P.S. – Thanks to Brian Weissman, John Ormerod, Darren diBattista, a.k.a. Azhrei, JP”Polluted” Meyer, Matt D’Avanzo and Adam Duke, a.k.a. Meridian for being tough critics of the drafts of this series.
Thanks to Giles Reid from the Star City list and Nate Heiss of The Magic Word (www.mtgword.com) for sending me the original Dojo files, and to Amy English for being my”guinea pig” reader.
And thanks to Alex Shvartsman, Kai Budde, Zvi Mowshowitz, Gary Wise, Chris Pikula, Noah Boeken and Ben Rubin for invaluable insights into the Magic Invitational and Invitational playtesting.