AuthorBennie Smith

Magic has remained fresh and fun for me because the number one appeal of the game is the constant infusion of new cards. This time of year is the very best because there is a large crop of cards leaving the Standard format. I tend to go on a deckbuilding frenzy, whipping out new decklists by the hour. It occurred to me that the method I go about sketching out initial decklists allows me to get a pretty good idea whether an idea has “juice” enough to warrant further exploration. So for those of you interested in the method, here’s how I do it…

Gamers aren’t born, they’re created. I remember as a kid, games were big in my family. I can remember learning Risk at a young age, with my mom and dad and my sister and I battling across the globe some Saturday evenings, quickly realizing that trying to hold Asia was a fool’s errand, and learning the joys of Fortress Australia. Whenever the cousins on my Mom’s side got together at my grandparents’ house, we’d break out various board games. One favorite was Clue, and I was always Mr. Green. Hmm, foreshadowing perhaps?

You’ve got Liliana Vess in the car with you, this hot, demonic babe whom you can fool around with a little bit right off the bat and have some fun. Sadly, you can’t score right away… you’ve got to give Liliana what she wants, whisper sweet nothings (target player discards a card), tell her you love her (target player discards a card), buy her dinner (target player discards a card), get her some jewelry (target player discards a card), tell her that you’ll love her ‘til the end of time (target player discards a card).

If you regularly follow some of the columnists who are also DCI judges, or read the “behind the scenes” coverage of pro tours, you’ve probably heard about Elder Dragon Highlander, a format that is quite popular for judges to run casually after hours on the Pro Tour. Right now I have zero interest in Time Spiral Block Constructed, and little interest in Standard. So I decided to set up a multiplayer game at our local game shop on Sept 1st… and just to make it interesting, I’m making it Elder Dragon Highlander!

I have to say, Aaron Forsythe’s column last Friday put a huge grin on my face. When they first listed the categories for the Magic Invitational this year, the “Storyteller” category certainly raised an eyebrow and got the imagination working. Then, when they pushed back the ballot announcement, that raised expectations further – why the delay? What had changed? What was going on behind the scenes? Let’s dig into what Aaron said and figure out what’s going on…

This is the time of year when I start culling my Type 2 (well, Standard I guess is the correct phrase) card boxes, shifting out the old stuff – Ravnica block, Ninth Edition – adding in Tenth Edition, and anticipating adding in Lorwyn stuff. Truth be told, I’m a bit sick of Ravnica – Standard right now feels a lot like Invasion Standard, where everyone is able to pick three or more colors, select the crème de la crème from each of them, glue it all together with ridiculously easy mana, and have themselves a really good deck.

I’ve been playing Magic for nearly 14 years now, and I’ve always dreamed of going to Nationals. Since I haven’t ever qualified, I could really justify the expense of flying to Florida or California just to hang out, since what are the odds of actually qualifying through the Grinders? This year though, Nationals was in Baltimore, a short three-hour drive from Richmond, Virginia, so I knew I had to go…

It really bums me out that all the work I did in exploring what I call the “classic” Dredge strategy got eclipsed and trumped by the successes of Reanimator Dredge, and later the silly Bridge from Below combo Dredge. Pre-Future Sight, Classic Dredge had gained valuable tools in Damnation, and Fa’adiyah Seer and I were fired up to play that beast at Regionals this year.

In case you missed part one, here’s the overview: I’d like to organize this set review by looking at how certain cards in Ninth have been obviously replaced by a particular card in Tenth, and what those selections might tell us about what R&D might have been thinking about when making those choices.

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…

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!