Pop quiz time – The article begins with a massive list of Magic cards. Over 150 in total. What do they have in common?
“They all have capitalized letters?”
Oh, you are so clever. Here’s a clever little thing you can do with your deckbox. Sideways. For everyone else… well, the title of this article is a clue…
The art of sideboarding is elusive. The metagame evolves at a startling rate, and there are enough different archetypes across all formats to make everyone happy. However, this is not an excuse for us to ignore the sideboard altogether. In the first part of a two-part series, Peter stresses the importance of testing those sideboarded games, and supplies practical examples to prove his point.
In various prior articles, I examined the economics of rare drafting online. Back then, it did not pay. I wondered whether Time Spiral — with two rares per pack — changed that. The trick was getting hard data, without wasting the money actually rare drafting. Fortunately, Richie Hoaen helped me out.
The Extended PTQs are fast approaching. Extended has always been a favorite format of mine. I have written a lot (extensively?) about Extended, more than anything else, and enjoyed Extended events more than practically any other format. Extended season has a certain history and rhythm — and that rhythm will remain, despite the impact of the card pool, the combo decks and Magic Online.
I’m back from Paris. I ate well, lived well and had a blast. Every part of the trip — and of Worlds — was great, except maybe getting stuck at O’Hare airport for hours on the return trip. I won’t talk about that. I will talk about the metagame, judging and assorted memorable moments. Think tournament report, but from the other side of the table.
Last weekend, I did two Coldsnap drafts. In the first, I had five Skreds, four Elves, six Snow Lands and four Auroch Herds into double Rimehorn… And I lost in the first round. I entered another 8-4 queue, and realized I didn’t really want to play about two seconds after the draft started. I rare-drafted like crazy, ended up with a very marginal pile, and split in the finals.
That got me to wondering — how much influence does luck play in drafting? So I performed a wide-scale experiment, taking several old draft decks both losing and winning, to see how much of a difference luck made… And the results were surprising.
Peter brings us the complete rundown of the top decks appearing at the Wisconsin Champs Tournament 2006. There’s the Top 8 decks, of course… that’s a given. Beyond that, however, there’s plenty of innovation to be found. Green/Black beats, Locket of Yesterdays, and infinite turns in Standard? All are represented by decklists here!
Rob McKenzie, a fellow judge, commented that Time Spiral was Fifth Edition all over again. It’s the kind of random discussion judges have while waiting and watching, but the thought kept recurring. We spent the rest of the tournament coming up with similarities. There are a lot. When I got home, I dug up a 5E list and saw even more. Now, I like Time Spiral and I never really liked 5E, but the two sets do feel similar…
Constructed Champs (fka States) is coming. Like the rest of the world, I’m devouring everything I can find, trying to guess the metagame. I watch websites, read the pundits, pros and wannabes, and scour the early tournaments. The result — I have no clue what the real metagame will be.
Let me explain…
Time Spiral has brought back a lot of old cards. Some had a glorious past. Some had flashes of greatness. Some are, well, Squire. We’ll ignore Squire, and look at the tournament history of the other Timeshifted cards instead. The question, of course, is whether any of these are going to make a comeback at States, or in Extended this fall.
Timeshift has brought back a lot of old cards. Some of these are jokes (Squire), some are bombs (does anyone not immediately put Akroma here?) and some are more marginal. I want to look at the Timeshifted cards that have seen play in Tier 1 decks in their day, and look at whether these cards can do it again. Times have changed – but have they changed enough?
Coldsnap draft has been done. Draft walkthroughs, pick orders, archetype articles — you’ve probably seen them all. Still, I have faced some opponents who really don’t understand the mathematics the set, especially ripple and common distribution. I’ll talk about math, odds, archetypes – and then look at the entire card pool from a draft.
Article number 150. A big, round, arbitrarily significant number. It’s time to get a little bit nostalgic, and look at how Magic, this website, and my writing has evolved since January 31, 2001. A lot has changed in five and a half years…
GenCon this year was a blast. I played some, judged some, saw some great Magic, and was attacked by flaming mummies and by a desert tray. GenCon hosted the Vintage and Legacy Champs, and Five-Color Worlds. I also saw Sam Black redefine “having a good weekend.”
Last article, I wrote about the cost of Magic, specifically Standard. In the forums, the debate developed two sidetracks; the “you just hate dual lands” and “play Vintage, it’s cheaper in the long run.” The first sidetrack is just stupid — read the fu- err, fine article, I don’t hate the duals. As for the second sidetrack, well, let’s do the math…
