We’ve had some excellent pieces on how to know when to mulligan, why bad players often don’t mulligan enough, etc. Those were all quality articles. But what I want to figure out, or at least raise for inquiry, is how to balance the impact of losing an extra card against the possibility that another random hand of six cards will actually help you “win more.”
Zac continues his exploration of Team Standard with another deck from his recent PTQ-winning team… this time, it’s G/W Greater Good. It successfully qualified Zac and his pals… now it’s your turn.
For the first in his Daily Series, Zac shares his current Team Standard decklist. It’s proved somewhat successful for him… can it do the same for you?
Recently, I sent a call out to our staff for articles on Two-Headed Giant. Zac leapt to the task… a little too vigorously. There’s tech and tips in here, to be sure… but you’ll not read an article like this too often, I can tell you.
Ah, the last day of a Daily. It feels like Shahrazad at the end of the 1001 Nights, this whole “finishing up” thing, except that instead of being a hot Arabian princess in a palace I am a scruffy college student kicking aside beer cans in a seventy-year-old apartment, and instead of wooing a king in the royal bedchamber I spend most of my time with fat nasty Magic Players sweating it up in a small room trying my hardest not to cry myself to sleep every night.
It might seem like the height of idiocy to do a “better than you think!” for a set that has been out all of two weeks. Being an individual who is rarely averse to high-risk low-payoff stunts, I’m going to try it out. Bear in mind that some of these things might be really obvious to those of you who have played the set more, but seeing as how the current Limited format is still in its infancy, I figure there’s at least some value to what I am fixing to say. Onward!
I’ve already told you who the cool kids are, the ones who (despite their Slipknot shirts and/or greasy hair) deserve to sit with you at the lunch table. Now I’ll let you know about those three or four members of your crew that, though they linger around and try to convince you that they’re cool, really ought to be chilling with the fat kids and science nerds over across the other side of the cafeteria.
Zac examines some of the sleeper cards of Ravnica/Guildpact Sealed Deck construction, with particular reference to cards that have increased in value now the middle set of Ravnica Block has entered the ring spoiling for a fight.
Seeing as how it is the height of fashion to offer up one’s two cents on the rather sensitive issue of Wizards and lawsuits, and I am known for my militant, temperamental insensitiveness to all forms of public opinion, how could I shut my mouth?
As recently as a few weeks ago, my raging anger against American Idol paled in comparison to my absolute, utter loathing of a certain other phrase that got thrown around entirely too often:
Casual Magic Deck. And yet I’ve recently found a way to tweak 5-Color so that it’s fun without being degenerately broken. No, it’s not a series of endless restrictions or complicated balancing rules; all of the cards in the deck (which is singleton, with the exception of one card) have to follow one simple rule.
You didn’t see his name at the top of the standings, but Zac Hill attended Grand Prix: Charlotte with his crew and learned more than a few important lessons along the way.
I am writing this article for two primary reasons: Number one is to namedrop as flagrantly and savagely as is humanly possible. Number two is to help people learn how to play the CAL deck, since it is actually the stone nuts. Here are the lessons I’ve learned over the course of my hundreds of pre-and-post-board games against the Extended gauntlet with my version of the CAL deck, culminating in a second-place finish at a PTQ a week and a half ago.
