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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? — X: Reading Tea Leaves, Part 1

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
By the time this goes up, I’m sure my fellow columnists (and likely those on) other sites will have weighed in on the significance of the Tenth (X) Edition rotation. Typically, these columns will talk about specific cards leaving the base set, specific cards being added, and how that will impact various metagames. As someone who spends far too much time musing on Magic, I’ve got my own opinions on this too, but I thought I’d approach it a little differently…

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You Lika The Juice? — Two-Headed Giant Mojo

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Before Regionals, I was fooling around on MTGO, and Rivien Swanson dropped me a message asking if I would be interested in playing Two-Headed Giant Momir/Jhoira Basic. Since my release league wasn’t over, I did not have the Future Sight participation avatar Jhoira, but I did have Momir Vig. I had figured “Jhoira Basic” would naturally spring up, but teaming up with Momir for 2HG goodness? That sounded like too much fun!

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You Lika the Juice? – Regionals Sightseeing, Part I

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
In the wake of Regionals we will be/have already been bombarded by “the best” builds of all the well-known archetypes, and we’re seeing The New Face of Standard’s Tier 1 decks galore. What I’d like to do here is shine the spotlight on some decks that traveled off the beaten path, anything from an interesting variant on to a totally new creation, that performed well enough to make Top 8 and earn a spot on MagictheGathering.com, if not an invite to Nationals.

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You Lika The Juice? – Magic, Morphine, & Meat

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
In today’s edition of You Lika The Juice, Bennie takes us through his Regionals experience. While he didn’t win the event, he had a grand old time gaining infinite life. He also brings us his take on the Dredge strategy, and throws out some entertaining stories to boot.

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You Lika The Juice? — Last Minute Panic

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
In today’s You Lika The Juice, Bennie shares his updated Project X deck — now dubbed Project Z. He also brings us a strong cardpool and deck from a Future Sight Release league, and asks us to bring our builds to the forums. And to cap it all off, he tells the tale of his latest phone conversation with… Mark Rosewater!

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You Lika The Juice? – Skipping Across Three Formats

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Legacy, Block Constructed, and Standard… all three formats fine space in today’s You Lika The Juice! Bennie analyses the Top 8 from Grand Prix: Columbus, brings is some interesting Time Spiral Block Constructed decks, and rounds it all out with some potential decks for his Regionals charge!

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You Lika The Juice? – Weirdness

Read Bennie Smith every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Before I get into the weirdness, I figure I’d toss out some red meat for Spike to feast upon. Last week I got a message from Thomas Leveille, the guy playing in the Virginia Beach City Champs program that was kicking ass on points about halfway through. So, how did it pan out? Thomas pinged me on AIM with this message last week…

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You Lika The Juice? – Cleverness

Now that the entirety of Time Spiral block is released I think it’s starting to sink in just how ridiculous they’ve made Blue… again. People are chatting about it in the forums and such, and I wanted to spend my time this week adding my two cents on the subject before we shift into Regionals high gear. Imagine for a second if Teferi was Green… the cynical answer would be that they’d strip away Flash and add three generic mana to the casting cost.

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You Lika The Juice? – At Least I Won Five Coin Flips in 2HG!

Bennie brings us a potpourri of topics today, including the uselessness of Steamflogger boss, the etiquette behind Internet Messaging, and some Two-Headed Giant decks. He also shows us a draft deck that, quite frankly, made my eyes bleed… one that not even Craig Jones would play.

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You Lika The Juice? – Where’s Bibi?

So what’s everybody think of the new Standard with Future Sight? It’s hard for me to gage the impact of Future Sight because I go nuts whenever a new set is released, making up all sorts of new decks that I’m eager to try. New cards are like bright, new shiny objects, and like a crow I get hypnotized and obsessed. And so I present… Standard decklists!

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You Lika the Juice? – My Future Sight Review, Part XL

Future Sight is here and I see that I’ve been Timeshifted to Wednesdays. Apparently Craig wanted to get the MTGO jump on MagictheGathering.com’s column, so I’ve been moved and now get to go up against the fellow who bumped me from my weekly gig over there. So revenge is mine – I get to challenge Mr. Karsten head on!

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You Lika the Juice? – Mr. Hand, Venser, and Player Rewards Cards

I’d like to start things off by touching on last week’s official Future Sight previews, namely the latest ridiculous Blue wizard Venser, Shaper Savant. The online response seemed mixed, with a majority of people seeming to fall somewhere between “meh” and “ugh.” All I have to say is…

What are you, people? On dope?

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You Lika The Juice? – Gettin’ Wild on MTGO

Bennie faces off in this week’s Battle of the Bens with a few choice words for our own Mr Bleiweiss! He follows them up with a look at one of the new graveyard-acquainted cards from the approaching Future Sight, talks us through some Magic Online games, an jumps on the Wild Pair bandwagon with a few Time Spiral Block Constructed decks of his own…

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You Lika The Juice? – I, Golgari

Bennie Smith, a.k.a. King Dredge, reveals the very moments he fell in love with the graveyard-abusing mechanic, and shares some of the original decks that inspired his allegiance with the Green/Black guild. He also takes a peek at the current Standard metagame, and has a few words of warning for those misguided folk planning on selling their card collections…

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