One of The Ferrett’s old pals showed up in Cleveland last week, and they got together at La Casa McJuddMetz to crack open some packs and critique each other’s plays. What did The Ferrett learn about Time Spiral Sealed this week when facing down not one, but two buddies in the Pit Of Death?
This week, The Ferrett takes a break from Sealed discussion to talk about something that not enough Magic novices consider: Controlling information. There are a lot of articles devoted to giving yourself an edge at tournaments; this is a very basic primer on how not to hand your opponent the edge by mistake.
One of the things I can do is to look at my weak points — and one of them is mulligans. I’m better than many at mulliganing, but in Limited I still have issues of knowing when to mulligan, mainly because the decks and matchups are much more complicated than Constructed. Constructed decks are tightly-focused, but Limited decks can have several basic plans to victory. As such, I think it might be interesting if I took a couple of games and analyzed them from opening hand to finish… So, in fact, that’s precisely what I did.
I cracked some truly massive White legends in my deck for the Future Sight prerelease, including a combo that – if left untended – completely shut down the attack phase. How nice! And since I’m celebrating this absolutely absurd card pool, I figured I might as well discuss some of the legends of Magic past, including an extended talk about the four Hero Scrubs of Magic.
At Grand Prix: Columbus, there was an amazing double-header – I teamed up with artist and fellow Magicthegathering.com writer Matt Cavotta to create a PTQ Team practically guaranteed to embarrass the hell out of Wizards. And so we have a tourney report that talks about Matt’s incredibly twisted casual Magic deck, what famous people the Ferrett has met, incredibly awful plays decided by a botched democracy, and more!
I just returned from Grand Prix: Columbus, after watching it explode past everyone’s expectations with a gigantic 883 people showing up to slap dual lands and crazy old cards down. But what format were those people really playing? Was Hulk Flash actually – *gasp* – good for Legacy? And what in heck should we ban?
What happens with me at every release tournament is that I face The Choice. Do I go with the good build, the one that I know will do well because it’s packed with the 90% of the same damn cards I’ve been running at every event for the past three months…. Or do I go with the new and potentially weaker build that is stuffed with 40% of the new and crazy?
Last week, some of you said that Ferrett should have gone with a Green/White-based build for his card pool… So he decided, in this last gasp before Planar Chaos strategy becomes extinct, to take your build for a spin around the block! How did he do with the deck suggested by the folks in the forum? Click the link and see!
Ferrett opens a very strong card pool in this week’s Sealed Deck exercise… But he has second doubts not about the cards themselves, but the way he sorts them. How should a Sealed Deck writer sort his card pool in order to show what he really thinks of each of the cards? He’s got some ideas, but he needs your help!
This week, my brain arguably melted down. I’m about to tell you that what I built was almost certainly the wrong thing, and by a large margin, and I turned away from a reasonably easy, fattie-based build into something needlessly tricky. But what happened?
I have friends who have been playing for years, and have never improved a whit. They were better than I was when I started, but somehow I’ve surpassed them. The reason why? Because even despite my mediocre skills, I find some improvement in every victory. And I have four hints to help you sift something good from the ashes of defeat. Plus, I want you to show me your tats!
This week’s pool is insane, with multiple dragons and crazy happy legends. But can you work the mana to get it right? And can you have enough mana? All that, plus a rant on Hollywood, and more!
When you open up an Akroma, you want her to show up. Especially when she arrives in the company of a big fatty-fat dragon. But sometimes, the cards just don’t go like you want… Especially when you can’t make up your mind about what kind of player you really are.
This whole “Wait a month” crap isn’t cutting it any more, guys. I mean, I kind of assume you fine folks at Wizards want my money, so I can’t really fathom why you’re waiting so long to translate Planar Chaos cards into the rarified air of Magic Online. And it’s hard to write strategy when your inability to attend real-life tournaments means that you’re three weeks and a Grand Prix or two behind the curve…
The Ferrett is away adventuring on the High Seas, but that doesn’t stop him ponitificating on the Worst Rule in Magic. I must admit that I was sceptical when he outlined his qualms, but the force of his forthright opinion swayed me to his views double-quick. Do you agree with his assertions?
