Inside the Dimir courtrooms, justice is twisted and men are manipulated like puppets on strings. The steady trickling from ever present fountains dulls all sound, but fear, not vigor, fills the air. And from the great bench, the robed magistrate rises. Wearing a fox fur hat.
Oscar the Lawyer produces what may be his final set review ever, and has lots to say about the goodies that Ravnica may or may not have provided the Vintage community.
Oscar takes a peek at what Saviors has to offer Vintage players and finds three draw spells that might go overlooked.
After graduating Law School, Oscar Tan is back with his theoretical thoughts on the Theory of Interactivity (or something). In fact, Oscar and Stephen Menendian go head to head on this subject today in dueling theory articles, both designed to answer Master Magic Theorist Mike Flores. Peep both articles for yourselves and tell us who got the better of the debate in the forums!
Trinisphere wasn’t broken, but it was restricted anyway for contributions of “making the game unfun.” Is fun a viable reason to ban or restrict a card? Oscar Tan has his own opinion on this one and he’d like to hear yours: Did Wizards of the coast screw up when they restricted Trinisphere?
As Oscar wraps up his Vintage Betrayers set review today, he begins to despair at the quality of cards in the new set. Is there nothing playable in Vintage coming out of this middle set, ow will the Instants, Sorceries, and Lands provide a hidden gem that we’ll be talking about in the years to come?
Oscar takes a look at Betrayers Artifacts and Enchantments today as well as continuing the replay of “Oscar’s Greatest Misses.” Is there anything in the new set that will make a dent on Vintage, or does the whole set whiff when it comes to playable new cards? Only the Oscar knows…
Oscar returns from the dead to take a look at the best creatures and creature enchantments that Betrayers of Kamigawa has to offer and, for the first time ever, covers some of his own greatest misses in set reviews.
Frankly, I’m surprised that none of the usual suspects commented on Type 1.5 at length here on StarCityGames.com, and it’s been a while since the new Banned list was announced. Or rather, no one aside from Sebastian Smith, who managed to unseat me from my lofty perch as the indefatigable sourpuss of Vintage in just one article. Simply, I don’t understand where all the negative energy about the “new 1.5” came from, but I’d like to examine what the new format provides not only Type 1.5 players, but Type 1 players as well.
When we talk about Kamigawa instants, we just have to start with Splice. On the surface, it’s a card advantage ability that lets you pay an additional cost when you play a spell to sort of Buyback the Splice spell. This could be problematic, however, when you consider the Sneak Attack problem (see “Six Beginner’s Delusions You Meet in Heaven”) since you have to play a bunch of Arcane spells to make use of Splice. Moreover, last week (see “Championing Kamigawa”), we concluded that the Arcane sorceries aren’t very appealing, with only Lava Spike and Eye of Nowhere priced below three mana.
Glimpse of Nature
If Cranial Extraction seems a broad, powerful card and you’re not sure where you’d put it, Glimpse of Nature seems like it was tailor-made for Food Chain Goblins. Is this a new spell that will allow champions of the little Red men to take over the metagame, or is it just more Champions fool’s gold?
After gauging the feedback from the last column, I decided to change the set review order slightly. As I said last time, Champions of Kamigawa was built to focus on its expanded legendary creature mix and gravitates around combat abilities and the like. You can take the hint when Oscar concludes the Lands might be the most titillating thing Champions has to offer…
Oscar is back from his break to tell you that there are never any good new cards printed for Type One, ever. Okay, that’s not true… in fact, recent sets have been unprecedented in delivering strong new cards for Vintage play. Does Champions have any new creatures that will make Vintage players jump for joy? You’ll have to check inside to find out.
All of us had to start somewhere. When you dig up old TheDojo.com files and find the scrub Pro Tour Qualifier reports sent in by randoms named Randy Buehler and Kai Budde, you don’t rock your head back and laugh at how dumb they used to be. Rather, if you set aside the forum flamer complex, you’ll probably find yourself smiling and realizing they used to be like you, not in the sense that they’re no longer ordinary young guys like anyone else, but in the sense that they once had to fumble through the game, too. Really, I think this “advanced scrub stage” is the most fun a player has.
Each June, I’ve taken to taking a step back and just assessing where I am, in column form. The column meter is now at 140, and this annual retreat into a written fortress of solitude has become very valuable. Though perhaps I find myself in the mood for something more mellow in 2004.
