Magic Puzzles in Play Vol. 5
Welcome back to the fifth iteration of this Magic puzzles series. With States just behind us, it’s time to test your knowledge of the Kamigawa cards and mechanics that you might encounter. How exactly does Splice work? What about those flip cards? Come on in and test your mettle against the some of the trickier interactions that the Champions of Kamigawa have to offer.
Magic Puzzles in Play, Vol. 4 – The Solutions
The cunning solutions to Jeff’s puzzles, including the very tricky Thieve’s Auction play and a puzzle that will probably occur hundreds of times at the various State tournaments.
Magic Puzzles in Play Vol. 4
Welcome back to the fourth installment of this puzzling series. In addition to the standard question of”what do I need to do in order to win right now”, this article will pose a couple more open-ended challenges. You might find yourself thinking,”What is the mathematically best play at this point?”, and”What do I need to do now in order to win later?” After all, if you do not make good choices up front, you’ll never be in position to win at all.
Maximizing Luck: The Underdog’s Guide To Winning
Magic is without a doubt a game with elements of both luck and skill. I happen to believe that the skill aspect is much larger than the luck part. How else would you explain repeat champions such as legends Kai Budde or Jon Finkel? One can acquire additional skill by reading strategy articles, play testing, and various other means. However, no matter how much you practice, there’s always going to be someone with more innate skill than you. There will always be bad matchups. There will always be bad draws. At some point in your Magic career, you will be the huge underdog, and this guide is for you.
Magic Puzzles in Play, Vol 3 – Knowing Your Outs: The Answers
Well, it looks like this most recent set of puzzles really gave some of you a run for your money. One of the important lessons to be learned from these puzzles is that the most obvious play is not always the correct play. Keep that in mind next time you have two Shrapnel Blasts in hand and an opponent at ten life.
Magic Puzzles in Play, Vol 3 – Knowing Your Outs
Once again it’s time to turn some seemingly impossible board positions into sure wins. A couple of the puzzles this volume focus on a specific aspect of Magic that I know a lot of people (myself included) could use some practice with: knowing your outs. Much like in poker, it is critically important for the competitive Magic player to know exactly which cards in his deck can help him to achieve victory.
Magic Puzzles in Play, Vol 2 Answers
All the answers to yesterdays latest brain teasing set of play scenarios.
Magic Puzzles in Play, Vol 2
Welcome to the next installment of Magic Puzzles in Play. You can see the first set of puzzles here. This time you’ll have the opportunity to test your skills with some of the new Fifth Dawn cards and mechanics. Once again, assume your opponent is playing his best to foil your goals. Good luck! The answers will be posted tomorrow.
Magic Puzzles in Play
Editor’s Note: More and more people have been sending”puzzle columns” to my Inbox lately. Since I think logically working through some actual play situations can be an effective teaching tool as well as being fun or entertaining, I decided to run Jeff’s column here. The question is whether you, the reader, are interested in more of these sorts of articles. Please read through the article and then make your opinions known in the forums, and I’ll go about determining if we will be running more of these.
Testing, Tested… Turbofog!
In my last article, I left off by saying that I was sufficiently confident in my Turbofog deck that I would run it in a sanctioned tournament. Well, this I did, and I have a report that verifies two things that I have recently realized:
1. Turbofog is tournament-viable
2. I am a ninny… Well, I’ve known that for a long time, actually.
Testing, Testing… Turbofog?
The deck did well enough that I decided to bring it to play between rounds during FNM. After beating each U/G deck that crossed my path, and a variety of others, I started seriously considering this deck as a real contender… And since then, I have personally piloted this deck to over 80 wins in 101 games.