SCG Daily – Mommy’s Little Monster: The Taste of Ink
Delicious stories from the Magic Invitational. E-mail Osyp and bug him about his own Invitational Report while devour Tim’s goodies.
SCG Daily – Mommy’s Little Monster: Hulluhback Bearl
Dear Tim Hoyt Aten,
You’re officially insane.
Love,
Knut
SCG Daily – Mommy’s Little Monster: Longview
Today, I’ll be casting my votes for the Magic Hall of Fame. Unlike with the Writer’s Ballot for the Invitational, I’m not actually on the panel, so my vote is completely meaningless instead of just 95% meaningless. Before I tell you my four choices, here’s a quote from Brian Kibler about an undisclosed product: “I’m no marketing genius, but I do know teenage and preteen girls.”
SCG Daily – Mommy’s Little Monster: Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja
That’s right kids, Tim Aten has been freed from his Premium shackles and he’ll be here all week, so get him while he’s hot!
Sealed Revealed from the Pros Vol. 3
Today Tim takes a decklist from the Managing Editor involving 17 Tails worth of legend and tells him exactly how he screwed things up.
Sealed Revealed from the Pros – Vol. 2
Tim Aten again tackles Craig Stevenson’s recent Sealed Revealed card pools in order to show how a Limited expert would build these decks. This is required reading for anyone attending one of the PTQs this weekend, particularly if you want to see how to try and make the most of a truly abysmal card pool.
I Blame My Pajamas: 28 Men’s (and 3 Women’s) Opinions on Betrayers White
It’s Pro Tour week for Mr. Aten, so what does he do? That’s right, that lazy sack of meat farmed out the entire article to his friends and made them write the review of Betrayers of Kamigawa White. So why should you still be interested in this article? Because Tim has friends with names you might have heard of like Nassif, Parker, Kibler and Krouner, that’s why!
Sealed Revealed from the Pros
Real Life intruded on Craig Stevenson’s Sealed Revealed run, but we found a ringer to stand in for him. Today Tim takes two of the card pools Craig posted last week and dissects them, explaining which builds he would consider, discarding the chaff and building the best decks from the tools at hand. The Betrayers of Kamigawa prerelease starts on Magic Online today, and Limited PTQs are just around the corner, so if you are looking for some help in figuring out how to build your deck, Tim Aten’s got your back.
Vote for Foghorn Leghorn
Tim Aten is on the Writer’s ballot for the Magic Invitational and today he provides his Top 5 list of players to send to Southern California, where they can oggle Playboy bunnies and see the coolest new computer games at E3.
In Search of the Triple Delicious: Betrayers Black for Limited
I never got to assemble Kaldra, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up my other dreams, including all five Hondens in play, using the Green Myojin to toss out the other four, and to a lesser extent, attacking with an 8/12 trampling land. In addition to the Black review, this article contains a large section focusing on my attempts to pummel people with Genju of the Realms in draft.
Betrayers of Kamigawa Limited Review – Red and Green
Well, I was gonna start off with a nice review of Betrayers White for Limited but “someone” beat me to the punch. Someone always seems to beat me to the punch, although sometimes someone is someone else. Or something. That notwithstanding, I feel that it’s my civic duty to write a Limited set review. It’s my “area of expertise.” I guess I’ll start with Green and work backwards, tragically overlapping with Eisel in one of the weeks. And since you’re paying for this advice now, as a signup bonus, I’ll toss in Red this week at absolutely no extra charge. You’re actually saving money by purchasing a StarCity premium account. If you have any questions about the math on that, allow me to refer you to my business associate Rodman. He’ll explain everything.
The Bell or Hunt Dilemma: Hunt!
When considered in a vacuum, Order of the Sacred Bell is a stronger card than Kami of the Hunt. Unfortunately for us drafters, there are many more factors to consider than raw power; if there weren’t, we’d all be cramming our decks with Kashi-Tribe Warriors. The most important points to consider are synergy and mana curve… And this may not be Onslaught Block, but creature type still matters.
The Champions Laser or Dragon Dilemma: Dragon!
I’m not here to argue that dragons are the panacea to save an otherwise completely wretched deck; that’s simply not true. You can’t just play draw-go for the first five turns and win when you thump down your turn 6 Jugan. In an otherwise healthy deck, though, there are few better cards you could ask for than six-mana 5/5 fliers, and a Shock certainly isn’t one of those.
Understanding in a MODO Crash: Splice World
“As you probably surmised, the premise behind this deck is to run your opponent out of cards by repeatedly splicing Dampen Thought.” Yes, it’s a draft archetype. Yes, it’s actually good. Yep, Tim’s going to go into detail on how to draft this deck and include information on how to beat it as well. Need we say more?
Undersmerling in a Lester Crash: Champions of Kamigawa Blue for Limited
Fifty miserable, lousy Blue cards. This probably goes without saying by now, but this is an approximate pick order. More than anything, it’s meant to give you a jumping-off point on power levels and/or usefulness of the Blue cards in the set. Nonetheless, I’d appreciate seeing any disputes, minor or major, in the forums. It’s nice to have one of these lists out there for each color for posterity, and in a few months we can look back and see how foolish we were.