Tuesday, November 18th – A number of pro players who were at Pro Tour: Berlin have expressed feelings that the Elves deck is simply too powerful for current Extended. Others have rallied around the turn 2 kill percentage, which ranges from roughly a quarter to a third depending on whom you ask, citing this is a turn too quick for a ‘healthy’ format.
Tuesday, November 11th – As you know, States was this weekend. I did pretty badly, posting a 2-2 record. What can I say? I won the bad match-ups and lost the good ones on one of those ‘why did I get out of bed this morning’ kind of days. To be fair, part of it was entirely me making bad decisions where I had the statistical right to make the play, but it was overly risky in the grand scheme of things.
Tuesday, November 4th – States is nearly upon us, and it’s time to show off anything and everything resembling sick tech. Today, I’ll be covering the deck I’ll most likely be playing at States, the best decks in the format, and then some of the odder lists I’ve been working on that haven’t yet seen the light of day.
Tuesday, October 28th – Having now played in a Limited PTQ for the season, the first one I’ve played in at least three years, I can safely say Sealed is not just a luck-based pile of garbage. Rather, it’s a format where, if you want to lose with a good deck, your large advantage is something you have to punt away.
Tuesday, October 21st – In the current Standard, the supposed top-dog is Five-Color Control. The optimal build is hardly unanimous, if such a thing even exists right now, and it causes at least four articles a week to be written about its awesome visage. From the limited reports coming in, it seems as if Reflecting Pool Control decks of all shapes and sizes have become the majority of the metagame.
Monday, October 13th – This article will be all about getting ready for the StarCityGames.com $5,000 Standard Open. To start, I want to clear a few misconceptions people seem to have about the format at large. After that, we’ll be taking a look more closely at the popular decks, followed by a few that may be flying under the radar at the moment. Let’s go!
Tuesday, October 7th – Today we look into the futures of some non-Zoo and non-Affinity aggro decks that could still potentially thrive in today’s quick Extended. Much has already been written about both of these decks in their previous iterations, and the metagame hasn’t formed enough to spend page upon page over some tiny changes and the no-brainer Shards additions.
Tuesday, September 30th – Welcome to the first new Extended article in preparation for the next relevant Constructed season. The main subject of the day: Storm combo in Extended. We’ll begin with the Swath Storm Desire take on the combo, as it’s a rather obvious cross-over between the formats.
Tuesday, September 23rd – Although we have some time before Shards becomes relevant for a Standard tournament bigger than an FNM, enough cards have been spoiled that we can take a look at it and get some initial impressions from some of the major abilities and cycles – and a few of the potential impact cards – heading our way.
Tuesday, September 16th – I think it’s a touch too soon to talk about Extended, so this week we’ll be discussing some Vintage ramifications from the Time Vault errata and the upcoming Blue Planeswalker. Time Vault by itself was already a big deal, but with Tezzeret on the horizon, the win conditions of Vintage may be completely supplanted, much like Tendrils of Agony’s impact on the format over time.
Tuesday, September 9th – One of the big questions I always hear at tournaments is “how much did you test?†This is followed with the inevitable “was it was worth it?†Typically the answer is yes, but other times you’ll hear some long-winded admission of general failure, or just general disinterest that resulted from the process
Tuesday, September 2nd – This week will be a bit different to the average week, as there’s no Constructed on the horizon. We don’t flex our muscles for Extended season until January. This column will be temporarily focusing on general issues, Vintage stuff, and maybe even a blurb on Limited now and again.
Tuesday, August 26th – This weekend I rocked my last PTQ in NorCal, and other than a very long and boring drive up and the worst freeway on-ramp I’ve seen in a long time (more on that later), the PTQ was a pleasant experience. I have all the Top 8 lists, and some of them are doozies, including Mono-Green Elves, a Furystoke Giant deck, and a Merfolk Toast hybrid.
Tuesday, August 19th – I played at a PTQ this week, and did pretty poor because I didn’t cave in to the gnawing sensation in the back of my head urging me to audible to Kithkin 45 minutes before the tournament started. Instead, I decided to play Doran, and lost to Mono-Green Elves and MRA.
Tuesday, August 12th – Following up from last week’s commentary on Doran, we now move onto Kithkin, which have posted quite the numbers at both Grand Prix tournaments, Kobe and Denver. Let’s take a look at what actually worked: both Kithkin decks that made Top 8 at their respective Grand Prix, and the two Day 1 undefeated Kithkin builds.
