Thursday, July 31st – I have four EDH decks I play regularly, but I want something new. I want something competitive, but not too competitive. I figured I would copy a favorite multiplayer deck: my “Mono-White with one Island” deck.
Thursday, July 24th – I ran a PTQ last weekend. The Top 8 happened – Faeries and Faeries and Merfolk and Faeries and some Elementals and – who cares? That format is dead already. It was pre-Eventide, so everything will change. I’ll talk a bit about it, then I’ll look at some Eventide cards. That’s more interesting.
Thursday, July 17th – Life’s been a little busy lately, and I was not going to write an article this week. The prerelease was – from my perspective – sort of blah. Then I read both Chatter’s article this week, and the responses. Some people are blathering, and I need to comment. I’ll also sprinkle in a few of the dumb plays I saw last weekend.
Thursday, July 10th – The Prerelease is coming. It should be less than two days away as you read this. Go. Prereleases are a blast, and the set looks like fun. Here’s some random advice on what to do, and how to win…
Thursday, July 3rd – We are moving into Nationals season, and Grand Prix: Buenos Aires was last weekend. So was the Richie Proffitt Memorial Tournament. Standard is – will be, shortly – a widely played format online and at FNM (except around Madison, unfortunately), so people care about it. I do, too.
Thursday, June 26th – “It’s the largest Grand Prix ever held in North America, and you are on staff.†That can mean anything from “It was the game where he got the double hat trick, and you were there,†to “It was the largest airplane crash ever, and you were on board.†No matter what, it was going to be a long couple of days and a lot of work…
Thursday, June 19th – I have been playing a little in the online Shadowmoor Release events, and playing some paper Magic. I have also been thinking about what Wizards can do to pull more people into the game – both in paper and online. To figure that out, I want to look at why Magic is not like other games.
Thursday, June 12th – I was going to write about IDs in MTGO last week, but I ran out of time. It’s a bit less topical now, since the Wizards folks have made their announcement, but I can talk a bit about why IDs are allowed in the paper world, why they are problematic, and what changes when they are gone.
Thursday, June 5th – I don’t have any useful Regionals tech. Sorry. Instead, I want to hit a couple of topics. Many of these will be controversial – but Green versus Blue will not be among them. Promise. Instead, I will talk about conclusions from Pro Tour: Hollywood, MTGO’s drafts, chess clocks and lack of intentional draws, and the new Mythic Rarity.
Thursday, May 29th – I spent the weekend at Pro Tour: Hollywood. I was working – and playing – and had a great time. I watched the Top 8 coverage. I watched a Block Constructed PTQ. I stayed up until the very wee hours playing EDH. I watched eight high level judges – including myself – try to draft, and mess it up so badly we abandoned it.
Friday, May 23rd – A few weeks ago, Wizards announced that it was pushing organized play resources farther out. Some of the emphasis was moving from Pro Tours, States and store events to supporting casual play groups. Casual play means more than just non-sanctioned drafts and Two-Headed Giant – I want to give you some idea of just how much more by brainstorming about a bunch of formats, targeted at different numbers of players. Just five players in your group – no problem, I’ve got some formats for you.
Thursday, May 15th – I’m feeling old. I was checking my list of published articles and noticed that my first Magic-related articles were published almost a decade ago. That’s a perfect excuse to talk about where Magic is at, and what it is doing. A lot has changed – and a lot has stayed the same.
Thursday, May 8th – MTGO is either going to get fixed, or it is going to die. I don’t see a company like Hasbro letting a profitable asset like MTGO die – I expect it will be fixed. It will take time, and already involves some suffering, but I expect that the program will work in the end. Eventually, v3.0 will be a going concern. I’m starting to think about what that will be like.
Friday, May 2nd – I love Magic. I love building decks, and banging strange combos and theme decks against other players doing the same thing. I love doing that online, when I have a hour here and there. I just don’t love doing it on MTGO 3.0 at the moment.
Thursday, April 24th – Two things happened since last article. MTGO came back, and we had a prerelease. Neither of these was perfect, but both show some signs of progress. Overall, the weekend was not quite optimal. Only the weather was perfect, but I was inside most of the time…
