Thursday, June 25th – The panic and furor over the M10 rules changes have begun to die down. It appears that Magic will survive. That just means that Wizards will have to shoot it again. The next shot – Wizards is changing how tournaments will work. It will – obviously – kill organized play. I’ll provide all the gory details…
Thursday, June 18th – Wizards has announced some rule changes which will go into effect with M10 this summer. Things are changing. Change happens. Some of the changes will impact how the game is played. It’s not the end of the world. It isn’t the end of strategic play. Some cards will be better, some worse, but, overall, things will be fine. Seriously – I’ve been through a lot of rules changes, and this one is, comparatively, pretty insignificant.
Thursday, June 11th – Pro Tour: Hawaii is in the books. It was completely amazing. Hawaii is a great location, and the event ran quite well. The format also proved a lot more varied than people first imagined – or maybe feared…
Thursday, June 4th – Do you ever dream that you have woken up? I had one such dream at Worlds last year. It was Sunday morning, after three 12-hour work days (plus a few hours of drafts and EDH), and I was really beat. I dreamt I woke up, fumbled for my glasses, then staggered into the bathroom. I pulled aside the shower curtain, and… A judge leaped out, shouting “Battlewand Oak with Lignify, Runed Stalactite, and a +1/+1 counter on it – quick, what’s its power and toughness?â€
Tuesday, June 2nd – Online, the Alara Reborn release events are allowing us to draft Shards / Conflux / Reborn, or triple Reborn. Since we have pros looking at the more normal formats, I decided to take a look at drafting pure gold. What works, what doesn’t, and what happens when you draft a whole lot of a small set (besides seeing visions of Reborn cards as you are falling asleep).
Thursday, May 21st – For most of the Magic-playing world, last weekend was all about Regionals. For a few of us unlucky ones who could not attend, we had the Alara Reborn prerelease on MTGO. The player response was surprising. I expected a few events to fire – but my best guess was somewhere between 75 and 150. We blew that out of the water.
Thursday, May 14th – An Online Prerelease. It is, according to the forum trolls, a disaster which no one will attend. It will destroy Constructed Magic, the singles market, and the Championship series. It is a conspiracy, an Epic marketing fail, and the cause of swine flu. It will also destroy this week’s column, because I am going to spend most of it laughing at the forum posts.
Thursday, May 7th – Late this fall, the World Championships will take place in Rome. I so want to be there, but I know the limits of my play skill, and the amount of time I can devote to playtesting. If I make it, it will be as a judge. However, if you want to play in Rome, you can get there either by playing in real life, or online. Let’s look at how the two compare.
Thursday, April 30th – Recently, a lot of the premium writers have been writing articles full of advice on how to win. They have covered skills, attitude, sideboarding, etc. I’m not premium – so I’ll talk about how to throw games. Of course, the secret of advice on how not to lose is to listen to the advice – and then not take it.
Thursday, April 23rd – Some of you may have seen the BBC shows Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, where modern cops were shifted back in time to the seventies and eighties. My week has felt a bit like that. Last weekend, I was playing in Stronghold release events. This weekend, I’ll be attending Alara Reborn Prereleases. It’s like jumping backward and forward a decade at a time.
Thursday, April 16th – It has been an interesting couple of weeks. Magic has had some real ups and positive developments, and a few downers. Let’s review…
Thursday, April 9th – Singleton 100 is a Magic Online-only format. It is singleton, meaning that, with the exception of basic land cards, a player’s deck may not contain more than one of any individual card. The 100 means that decks must contain a minimum of one hundred cards. The format used to forbid sideboards, but that has changed…
Thursday, April 2nd – For the first time in a long time, I know enough about a format to be able to write a serious, tech-laden article. However, by the time you read this, the Nix Tix queues will be gone, and the sealed Swiss probably as well. In other words, I’m going to concentrate on the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open.
Thursday, March 26th – Legion Events ran a $3k event last Saturday. The format was mixed – an Alara Sealed event in the morning, and a Standard event after lunch. I got to head judge the Standard, which means I got the decklists when we were done. I have the Top 8 lists, the complete field breakdown, and some just plain interesting lists.
Wednesday, March 18th – This might not have been the best weekend to play Magic Online, even if I had had the time. The program has problems, again. Since I can’t talk about the decks, looks like I’ll have to talk about that. Lots to talk about – Wizards has made a number of announcements recently. Sets are leaving, sets are coming, and MTGO will have its own big buck championships at Worlds.
