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AuthorMark Young

Mark Young has had a love/hate relationship with the game of Magic ever since the Beta release. He can occasionally be seen in a top 8 in the Mid-Atlantic region, including at the 2005 Virginia State Championships.

The Daffinitive Affinity Guide

My teammate needed someone to be playing Affinity so he could test his decks – and that person was me. Thus, twice a week for approximately a month, I sat down and played some version of Affinity against a whole host of decks, from Mono-green Blasting Station to Mono-Black Control to Tooth and Nail to Red/Green Hate.

So let me use my experience to take you on a tour through the various flavors of Affinity (and give you their strengths and weaknesses), show you how to play the deck for maximum efficiency, and tell you the Mamet Rule.

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Unbreakable: The Darksteel Cards in Constructed

I’m standing around, waiting for my flight to start, when rising voices at one of the other flights attract my attention. From what I could glean of the argument, somebody was not running a card in his deck, and all of his friends were mocking him for it. I moved forward to catch the details, and I saw the card in question: Darksteel Gargoyle. The guy was of the opinion that he could be dead by the time he could get the seven mana to play it.

That story is basically my way of saying this: yeah, I know that the indestructible cards are good in Limited. Really good. Crazy good. But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about Constructed formats, and what we can do with these titanic trinkets on February 20 and thereafter.

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Randy Buehler Lied To Me: How To Scrub Out At Your First Grand Prix, And Other Observations

You may notice that it’s basically the same as Gabriel Nassif’s deck from the Standard portion of Worlds, except I took out the Phyrexian Plaguelord and the two Shambling Swarms for three Nekrataals. This is a classic amateur mistake: Net-deck one of the pro’s decks, then”improve” it. This almost always turns out badly, and my case is no exception. Of course the Swarm is the best anti-creature card in Nassif’s deck; the only time Nekrataal is strictly better is if your opponent has a Roar of the Wurm token out, and Wonder in the graveyard, and he’s not holding Circular Logic. The Swarm makes Wild Mongrel cry, turns Gempalm Incinerator into a badly-costed 2/1, refutes an active Sparksmith, and is a major pain in Siege-Gang Commander’s ass. And that’s before I even get started on the nuttiness of Swarm + Cabal Therapy….

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The Third Level: How To Draft Like A Poker Player

The more you try to outwit your opponents and get in their heads, the more you can forget the obvious. I see players all the time trying to be like Mike McD in”Rounders,” setting their little traps, doing more acting than Robert De Niro, not realizing how obvious it is that they’re full of BS. You don’t want to be so tricky that you trick yourself. Oftentimes, the easiest play is the best play.

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The Coming Storm: Three Cards That Might Be Worthwhile In Standard And Extended

My U/G Threshold deck had all sorts of torturous ways to get cards into the ‘yard, including the card-disadvantageous Breakthrough and the non-threatening Hapless Researcher. Not coincidentally, with all of those cards taking up slots that would rather be used to put giant Wurms into play, the deck went 3-3-drop at Regionals. But now, all you have to do is have 1U open when anyone plays a spell, and bingo! Instant threshold… And a lot of freed slots that can make it similar to other U/G builds. And what’s that about a card that might break Extended Tinker?

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Four Facts That Define Onslaught Block As We Know It

Unless you’re going to Pro Tour Venice, or your local store is having lots of OnBC events, you shouldn’t really care… Or should you? Many of this site’s readers have played in OnBC events – I’m one of them, in fact, as my local Wizards store has already had one OnBC Arena league and will soon have another. Although I took first place in my last Arena league with The Rock, it was a suboptimal decklist… But here’s what I learned along the way.

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