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AuthorBennie Smith

Bennie Smith began playing Magic in 1994 and started writing about it shortly after. A Virginia State Champion, he enjoys few things better than winning at tournaments with home brews. Commander is one of those things. He loved the format so much he literally wrote the book on it: The Complete Commander.

You Lika The Juice? – My Limited Skills

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Wednesday, March 12th – Last week I detailed how I drove Adrian Sullivan’s beautiful Ferrari right into the ditch, and afterwards jumped into a draft, in which I did pretty well. I don’t talk about Limited much here because a) I don’t do it often, b) I’m not all that good at it, and c) I have a lot more fun building Constructed decks. Still, I do enjoy the occasional Limited games, so I wanted to let you all know how it went and elicit any advice from those of you out there who are much better at the format than I.

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You Lika the Juice? – Piloting a Ferrari at the PTQ

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Wednesday, March 5th – When last we left our hero – me – he was torn between varieties of mid-range G/B/x decks to play at the Richmond PTQ last Saturday. There was the strong allure of his homebrew Doran deck featuring the quick-kill potential of Tireless Tribe. There were also more stock versions floating around that presumably had more testing behind them and were more reliably “correct” in their build. Should he instead play one of those decks?

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You Lika The Juice? – Pivot to Extended

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Tuesday, February 26th – Today I was supposed to tell you all how I did at the big $5K Star City Standard Open down in Charlotte, North Carolina. With any luck, I would have kicked ass and been featured in the Magic Show making my way to the Top 8. At least, that was the plan…

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You Lika The Juice? – Follow-up on States, and Reveillark

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Wednesday, February 20th – I loved Reveillark the minute I saw it; I love recursion, and I especially love the progress Wizards has made in giving fans of creatures a good number of ways to fight the menace of Wrath of God and Damnation. Saffi Eriksdotter, Deadwood Treefolk, flash creatures, Epochrasite… Reveillark was a potent addition to the suite of creatures that give a lot of resistance to mass removal.

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You Lika The Juice? – Nuking Champs from Orbit

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Wednesday, February 13th – When Wizards made adjustments to the Pro Tour, they made sure to provide plenty of explanation for those who were impacted. There’s exponentially more people impacted by the decision to abandon States! States is wildly popular, and poof! It’s gone. They’re nuking the program from orbit without a word to the very large number of players down here on the ground that are impacted by the decision.

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You Lika The Juice? – Toning Down the Mize In Magic

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One of the new cards from Morningtide I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around is Cream of the Crop. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about it because it’s Green, it seems really good, and it’s not a creature. That’s relatively rare in Green.

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You Lika The Juice? – Growing a Treefolk Deck from the Roots Up

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I’ve loved Treefolk since I first read about Treebeard as a teenager entranced with Lord of the Rings. I’m thrilled to see them given lots of attention in Magic finally. There seems to be a critical mass of really good Treefolk cards to warrant investigating whether a competitive tribal deck can be made with them.

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You Lika The Juice? – High on Morningtide!

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It’s amusing the expressions of horror I get from the surprising number of Magic players who view cellophane-wrapped booster box of product as several evenings of draft fodder instead of the wondrous trove of singles treasure that I see. I love cracking those packs, accumulating a small mountain of foil booster wrapping to the side as I stack rares, uncommons, and commons.

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You Lika The Juice? – Morningtide Glory

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I have to admit to finding it difficult to focus on anything other than Morningtide right now, so I thought it would be fun to go ahead and get some discussion going with what we know so far. Today, I’m going to talk about cards we know about for sure from the Wizards preview page…

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You Lika the Juice? – Tireless Siege

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When last I wrote this column, I was undecided what deck to play for the Pro Tour: Hollywood Qualifier I was attending down at the Star City Game Center. I had the “Doran Goodstuff” deck ready to roll; it was already pulled together and awaiting sleeves…

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You Lika The Juice? – Extended Hideaway

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The reasons I love playing original Rogue decks so much are twofold: first, if you create a deck yourself, you’re automatically familiar with the reasons certain cards are in the deck. Second, if you build something off the radar, your opponent won’t know what’s coming; he might not know what you’ve got planned, and might not even have any clue how to counteract it.

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You Lika The Juice? – The Year in Preview

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I’m in awe of people who do “The Year in Review” columns. It takes skill… I don’t even dare contemplate doing a review of what happened in 2007. Instead, I decided to review – preview – what I’m looking forward to in the coming year. Most of this will be Magic-related, but I might sprinkle in some other stuff too. What are you looking forward to in 2008

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You Lika The Juice? – Hideaway Adventures!

Read Bennie Smith every week... at StarCityGames.com! “[Expletive]! I got another crappy Hideaway land!”

How many times have you either heard or uttered this phrase whenever a pack was opened in the time leading up to Worlds? I’m

willing to bet it was at least a fair amount; those Hideaway lands seemed to be the very opposite of hidden when you were

desperately hoping to crack open a big money Garruk Wildspeaker or Thoughtseize.

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You Lika The Juice? – GPM & EDH

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This column will be comprised of two parts. First, I’ll be recounting my FNM run with my latest Galepowder Mage deck, sharing some thoughts on where to go from here; and second, I’ll going over my new Elder Dragon Highlander deck for the big EDH game up at Richmond Comix this Sunday.

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