Today’s article is not on Limited Magic. It’s about lying and misdirection, and whether we can apply the lessons from another card game to Magic. And it all came about because I read a classic book on the subject this weekend: Caro’s Book of Poker Tells.
At the Prerelease, I drafted a bad deck. A very bad deck. In fact, I would say that it was the worst Draft deck in the history of mankind. And so I set out to have the universe punish me, as it should, for drafting such a botched atrocity.
The Ferrett attended the prerelease, and opened a card pool that was freakishly abnormal. In fact, it was so utterly lopsided that he
could have gone mono-colored in Sealed. But was he insane enough to take this statistical aberration and go all the way with it… Or did he chicken out? All that, plus a request for help from you, the faithful StarCityGames.com readers!
I could say something clever here. Or I could tell you what I learned about the cards I played with, and against, this weekend. So let’s talk about Crovax, Mirri, the new Akroma, and the effectiveness of Cradle to Grave!
In the rush to become a Pro player a lot of people overlook the intermediate steps involved in getting to just “okay.” And Magic’s a complex enough game that really, just getting to “not sucking completely” is a significant accomplishment. When you’re a mediocre player, you can’t afford to rely on your play skills; you need to hone every edge you have, because the good players will outplay you.
Here are the tricks I’ve learned to improve my game significantly. These are the things that separate me from the truly bad; they’re the reasons I usually finish at the top of my prerelease pool. And if you integrate these into your play, you too can be at least mediocre.
Well, we have just a handful of weeks to go before Planar Chaos wipes the field as we know it, changing Sealed Deck builds everywhere. It’s hard to get people to read about Sealed Decks when there’s that much change in the air, but I know I could get you in here early. How? Well, it might cost me a good gig, but I could do it.
It’s Christmas, and you’re here. Why? Come on. There are presents to be unwrapped, relatives to be hugged, friends to be visited. The world is alive with cheer and good will, and you probably have the day off from work. Go spend it with someone you love. But I do have something I’ve been thinking about, if you want it. It’s not Magic, entirely, but it’s about Christmas — specifically, the flip side of Christmas.
My computer is crashing on a regular basis. I can go up to about twenty minutes before it conks out and gives me the Blue Screen of Death, but until that dizzying moment of pure crashitude I’m living on borrowed time. Normally, I’d write it on my laptop, but my laptop’s hard drive just went kablooey and so I am working in short spurts.
Really short spurts. Because I
I stuck to my guns. And lost matches I shouldn’t have. What should I have done to win?
Today, both Stephen Menendian and Nick Eisel relate their tales of failing horribly, and what they learned in the process. And heck, who am I to leave myself out of the proceedings? Watch with horror as I open a card pool with solid cards, and somehow manage to go 0-5. Why? That, my dear readers, is a mystery I need your help to decipher….
After last week’s disappointing card pool, this week The Ferrett cracks a stellar collection of power – so much so that it’s more trouble figuring out what to leave out! How do you trim a grouping of solid removal, good mana fixing, and decent (if high-end) critters to all fit inside one winning deck?
I am typing this at sixty-five miles as I zoom through the winding mountains of Pennsylvania, headed back home to Ohio after a weekend spent with my family. (No worries, my wife’s driving.) But I’m thinking of a card pool that I could not break, and wondering what lessons I can derive from it…
The Ferrett takes a look from the decks that managed to smash to the top of almost a thousand people at Grand Prix: New Jersey this weekend, analyzing what this might mean when it comes to building your Time Spiral Sealed deck!
In which The Ferrett impersonates the old multiplayer writer at Magicthegathering.com, stealing his very identity in order to do well with a card pool so good he can completely misbuild it and still walk away with a winning record.
Normally, I would leap at the chance to play Time Spiral Sealed with a friend, especially if it cost me no money whatsoever. But this was no normal game of cards — this was a game with my boss, Pete Hoefling, owner and CEO of StarCityGames.com. And the winner would decide the fate of all mankind.
