I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is,”Did Bennie defend his title?” The answer is”no,” but I came damn close – I lost in the quarterfinals, one match away from the finals. 4th place is a fine showing, all things considered, and I had an absolutely great time. A fantastic environment, pleasant opponents (by and…
I have done a goodly amount of playtesting, networking, and strategizing in the ten days since my last post, and have come to the conclusion that the deck has real promise. It has evolved past”Annoying Legends.dec” and has earned its other name,”The Borg.” In the process it has undergone numerous shifts on included cards, but…
“Instead of playing cards that aren’t just NOT BAD AGAINST ANYTHING, the Schneider-Ho school of thinking is to play the most powerful cards in the best decks.” -Lan Ho, from ‘ Dojo column”Building Broken Decks Volume IV” Reading this statement by Lan Ho really got me thinking. Rarely have I approached deckbuilding by examining the…
“My plan going into the weekend was to write an article for Star City talking about bringing a rogue-ish, untested Control Green deck to the States, losing a few matches and then presenting an analysis of what worked about the deck, and what didn’t. Well, ten rounds later, my deck showed me there was nothing…
“A mechanic last seen in a goofy but fun artifact in Alliances.” – Top Deck We now know that that goofy but fun artifact was . Who would have thought that artifact would have inspired a whole cycle of cards in one of the most anticipated expansions in years? I’ve never been too fond of…
Ah, Invasion! This marks my favorite time of year. This time last year I looked forward to Mercadian Masques and what cool new cards to add to my green deck. , , … all made it into the deck I eventually won States with. Now, with States right around the corner again, what sweet fruit…
This PTQ season I have been shamefully out of touch with the Magic scene. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to play in any PTQs, it’s just that there have been so many other things to do this summer. It doesn’t help when the nearest PTQ season is three to four hours away; I guess…
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess I must be your favorite writer by now. I want to apologize to you all for the lack of columns lately, and offer up some lame excuses… er, I mean reasons for my time away. The good news is, it’s not Asheron’s Call. In a word,…
Those who know me could probably guess what’s going to be my favorite card from . Yup, I really like . Hey, they don’t call me Squirrel King for nothing! I can’t wait to rustle up swarms of Cradle-boosting, planeswalker-eating mad squirrels. In honor of the coming fun, I’ll put out the call for any…
I was thinking about calling this column "The Arena Debacle, Pt. II" but I suspect that there’s probably a few more people out there playing Friday Night Magic than Arena; heck, there’s probably a lot of folks out there who haven’t even heard of Arena. But anybody who’s played Magic for a couple of years…
Wow. I have to say I have been very pleased with the response to my last article. While a lot of it consisted of things like "Bennie, you’re an idiot– the foils you suggested are horrible," the main thing was that I struck a cord out there. People *do* care about the prize support for…
Apologies to those of you who’ve wondered where I’ve been; it seems life has gotten in the way of fun as usual. I recently started a new job and while I’m loving it, it has been keeping me insanely busy. Way too busy to play Magic. It’s also been mentally draining, which has interfered with…
Most people who know me would probably describe me as a generally happy-go-lucky, optimistic kind of guy. I tend to expect the best from people, and generally count on things working out for the best in the world around me. I wasn’t always like that; my childhood and teenage years weighed heavily on my psyche,…
Before I get into the meat of my article, there’s one more thing I wanted to add to the whole”Bad Cards” debate that’s been sparked recently about broken rares and unplayable rares. The DCI needs to do the right thing and emergency ban . There’s no question that the card is inherently broken, and spawns…
I have to tell you, it’s been great getting the feedback that I’ve gotten in response to my last post. Sometimes when you’re writing, you get disillusioned because you feel like you’re shouting into a great void, and no one listens. Reminds me of the line from the original Alien movie advertisements (gosh is that…
