AuthorGeordie Tait

I knew I had to take a break after the awful experience that was GP: Columbus, so I did. Then I started drafting again. Then I started winning again. And then…after a good while to collect my thoughts on the format, I started writing again. The result will be, hopefully, a series of pick order/card analysis articles about MMD draft. If you think this irrelevant with Fifth Dawn on the horizon, I can only say in my defense that if you play on Magic Online, you won’t be seeing Fifth Dawn in your lifetime. Better make arrangements to freeze your head like Ted Williams.

I’ve always been afraid of change. It’s because of this irrational switch-o-phobia that the release of a new set is so consistently a trying time for me. I don’t deal with it well. I tremble, I break out in hives, I make irrational claims like”I invented the untap phase.” It helps me to cope – a little.

Eventually though, I do come to grips with the terrible truth – the fact that the Limited format that I’ve been enjoying for so many blissful months is now a faint memory, no more than an insufficiently stifled fart in the cosmic wind.

More of the same, including epic battles against Tim Aten and the dinosaur… E.D.T.! Don’t miss it!

So, you’re sick of the theory articles. You want Geordie to go back to writing tournament reports and strategy. You want to hear about him getting stopped at the U.S. Border and slinging spells. You want him to riff on Tim Aten’s DC10 skills and complain about bathroom facilities, while throwing in some toilet humor, the usual grousing, and bite-size tidbits of Mirrodin-Darksteel Limited strategy. Well fine then, here ya go!

The question is, are you man enough to read both parts? Highly doubtful my friends, highly doubtful…

I was on my worst MODO losing streak ever, and was actually desperate enough to ask Phil Samms for help. Phil, in his infinite wisdom said, “You should draft R/B.” And from those humble beginnings, a strategy was born. I’d ask about stuff like”Pewter Golem or Consume Spirit here?” and Samms would say something like”Neither,” and tell me, in what I imagined to be the tones of a professor lecturing a prize student, that I should be drafting more Nim Lashers and Disciples of the Vault.

At the mention of Nim Lasher in particular, eyes seemed to light up.

This week Geordie drastically increases the difficulty, as he hits the meanest of the Green, including”13. Elite Dungheap.” Don’t miss it!

Greetings from Russell’s old room. Some have thought me a fool for remaining silent on this card advantage issue for so long, but now I’m about to open my mouth, as the old saying goes, and remove all doubt. After what seems like an eternity, it’s time to wrap it all up, a package from mama, signed, sealed, and delivered with care. Along the way, I have a lot of things to say about theory in general, alternative card advantage solutions, and why you shouldn’t bite down on a piece of tinfoil.

Hi readers! Just for fun, I’ve decided to do a weekly anagram game here at StarCity! Why? What good will such a contest serve? Well, allow me to answer that question by telling you a story.

I was reading this guy’s article from Tuesday, and the first thing that came to my mind while reading it was the same phrase once uttered by Mr. Simon Phoenix in a San Angeles phone booth. I won’t repeat it here, but if you’re conversant with the universe where all restaurants are Taco Bell and Schwarzenegger is president (as opposed to governor), I’m sure you probably know exactly what I said on that cold Canadian morning when, with the sun just cresting over the frost-ringed horizon, I clicked on”Use Your Head: What’s So Horribly Wrong With The Web”.

Rick, what the hell is your boggle?

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it’s supposedly unacceptable to count card advantage, at its most base level, only when it actually occurs. The existing theories have no room for this idea, and when you put five permanents on the board according to the accepted card advantage theory, you’re five cards up, even if those five cards haven’t actually traded with opposing cards! The existing theory of card advantage is designed so that you can see your board advantage reflected in the numbers you get when you measure it. In other words, more permanents = more card advantage.

In a way, I can understand where the proponents of the system are coming from. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to let me get behind the idea, which is patently ridiculous. Let’s go through some examples to show you what I mean.

There’s an old political joke/philosophical question that puts two notorious world leaders in one room together along with you, the reader. Just for the sake of argument, we’ll say it’s the year 1999 and the two men are Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. You have a gun and one bullet. Who do you shoot? Answers always vary. Some shoot Osama. Some shoot Saddam. Angst-laden teenagers and whiny poets both break the format and shoot themselves. So what does the Magic player do?

“Let ’em stew a while,” he says.”If they line up correctly, I’m pretty sure I can get ’em both.”

And that’s what card advantage is, without all the hullabaloo. It’s the fine art of killing two men with one bullet.

Oblivion Stone
Writing blurbs for the Tier 1 cards can get a little tiresome after a while. Eventually, the cards get so good that the very discussion of just how good they are becomes redundant. No one knows there are cards this good in the world. When I bust this out of a pack, it’s like a team of pixies flew by, dropped their pants, and crapped a rainbow into my brain.

A Tier 1 Anchor card is a card that you will never pass if you open it in Pack 1. Consequently, some of the artifacts in this category are cards that you will never pass…well, ever. These are far and away better than any common, and I would say”any uncommon” as well, but in Mirrodin that is an assertion that is liable to get you into trouble. You will pump the fist when you see one of these in a pack. Throughout Onslaught Block, it was never possible to open two Tier 1 cards in the same pack. Sure, Lightning Rift was good and all, but if you open Visara the Dreadful and Lightning Rift, the Rift is getting shipped like you were Aristotle Onassis.

This has changed. There is a big dumb elephant lurking about. You may be sending Bosh, Iron Golem off to the left. Just a warning.