This format, more than any Sealed format in recent memory, is defined by bombs. There are twice as many rare slots to open something ridiculous, so you can be sure that pretty much everyone you’re up against is going to have at least one card that will be a complete blowout if it resolves. It’s a double-edged sword, though, because that means chances are you have a nuts guy yourself. So how do you deal with that?
Why Draining Whelk? What’s with the Circle of Protection against Dragonstorm? Here are a few words on the sideboard from yesterday’s U/R/W Standard deck, since the plan might not be all that clear.
I’ve got another Standard deck to look at today. If you’re not running the crazy storm creation, I would definitely recommend this one to you. It’s a take on Pat Chapin’s “Flag Burner” that Richard Feldman and I developed…. And if you’re going to play Old Glory colors, this is the way to go.
Zac continues his examination of a new and intriguing deck in Standard. Looking for a break from the norm? Then try this out for size…
I’ve wanted to write about this deck for so long. Part of it’s the devious fun of slinging cards that barely make the cut in draft. Part of it’s the fact that when you lose to this deck you actually want to chug bleach by the gallon. Part of it is playing four copies of cards that are restricted in Vintage (well, sorta).
Let’s go ahead and take a look at the implicit assumptions that go into the “Split Second is Bad” argument. In order for that stance to be sound, it has to be true that the chance to respond immediately to a spell will, over the course of a large number of games, enable a more skilled player to win substantially more often than a less skilled player.
The initial intent of this article was that it would be composed absent flagrant namedropping and savage barning. This proved impossible, so be forewarned.
My plan is to talk about “playskill:” what it is, how it manifests itself throughout the course of the game, and how different aspects of skill (or lack thereof) can impact a person’s ability to do well at competitive Magic.
Zac has something he needs to get off his chest… why are some players such idiots? Today, he points out some of the fatal social flaws displayed by a segment of the Magic populous. Are you guilty of these sins?
There is more to winning than winning. I played in my first Pro Tour almost five years ago. At the time I was one of the best players in my area. But I had no business at all playing in that tournament, and (though I didn’t know it) had absolutely no shot of making any money whatsoever. This article is about trying, with more or less varying degrees of success, to get rid of the extraneous baggage that keeps a good player from becoming great.
Picture the scene: everybody at the local store hates Coldsnap, seeing it (erroneously) as a shameless moneymaking scheme from Wizards despite their releasing a summer set for three consecutive years now, and as a consequence you just can’t ever get drafts in. Worse, you’re staring at the pack and seven first-pick quality cards are looking you right back in the eyes. What on earth do you do?
I’m going to take two Dailies to do this. The first – today’s, for those of you that need it spelled out real clear – is going to cover several of the archetypes in trips CS that you may or may not know about, since the format is an awful lot like Constructed and there is an actual metagame you’ll need to learn how to deal with.
We’re all going to make play mistakes, we’re all going to get out-topdecked, we’re all going to want to beleaguer our friends with some horribly tedious bad-beat story that makes them fantasize about how nice it would be to bore a corkscrew into our brains and shut us up. Despite all that, though, research has shown that retroactively winning the game in our heads by drawing one of our 43650345621 outs instead of that pesky basic land does not actually count as a win to the DCI.
After four months’ absence, this is all I can muster. I’m really slipping. Must be all that time hanging around Tim Aten and bathing in a fountain of pure unadulterated apathy. I’ve already learnt better than to try and berate myself in the presence of The Master Himself, and without an avalanche of self-loathing I realized that my writing is completely bereft of content. But I’m assigned to a daily, so I have to try.
For the final article in this Daily Series, I’m going to respond to something my roommate wanted to see awhile back. He mentioned that he noticed the little things people will do in a game that aren’t necessarily related to the game state itself, but nevertheless can generate match wins out of thin air. In other words, he wanted to know what he could do to win a game in real life that couldn’t be done on Magic Online.
“When you play out a match, you should have some idea within the first few turns of what you want the end of the game to look like. Then you need to do everything you can to ensure that the game ends up that way.” – Matt Schmaltz
I find this quote from Schmaltz particularly insightful because, in my mind, it’s what separates the good players from the great ones. MS is a great player, and most of us are not, because he thinks of these types of things. I want to figure out how to do that.
