CategoryMagic The Gathering

Down and Dirty – A Stroll By The Harbor… Live Free or Nats Hard

Read Kyle Sanchez every Monday... at StarCityGames.com!
I really like Aethermage’s Touch. It won me several game 1s that I couldn’t have possibly won otherwise. That said, a lot of people don’t like it, and I don’t exactly know why. Sure, you will miss somewhere around 10-15% of the time, but it is such a blowout card that can be used to make their Remands much less efficent. There aren’t any instants that actually do something when you don’t have a creature in this deck, and Touch gives you more options to combat the various permission strategies.

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Drafting With Kenji – TPF #1

Richie Hoaen, our resident draft expert for many a month, has decided to hang up his boots… and in his place we’re proud to announce Kenji Tsumura! As before, Kenji will take us through a Time Spiral draft from pick 1 to pick 45, before sharing his draft deck and commenting briefly on the games. Thanks for the great run, Rich, we’ll miss you… and hello Kenji!

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Innovations – U.S. Nationals Tournament Report *19th* Part 1: Preparation

Read Patrick Chapin every Monday... at StarCityGames.com!
After rocking his Regionals with Korlash Control, Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin wanted a similar fish to take him upstream towards U.S. Nationals Top 8 success. After much debate and discussion with some of the top theorists and players in the game, he settled on an interesting control variant that harnessed the power of both Korlash and Tarmogoyf. It served him well, and almost took him to the very top. Today’s article looks at his preparation for the event, and brings us a new Standard control deck for those looking for top tech.

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Feature Article — Paskins on Constructed

Read Feature Articles every Monday and Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Craig “The Professor” Jones recently took the Great British National Championship with an aggressive base-Red deck. Behind the scenes of this success sits Dan Paskins, who helped Prof along the way. Today he shares his wisdom with us all. For your entertainment and delectation, here are ten short snippets of strategy or stories, from fire magic, to summoning Elves, to the strongest deck in Standard, to a new (and banned) deck for Legacy.

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Not Magical Hack — An Eye on Constructed

Read Sean McKeown every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Sean is taking a brief vacation from writing Magical Hack. We’ve got a few interesting submissions lined up for the next few weeks: a few old faces you’ll be glad to see stop in and say hello, and a few new faces you’ll be meeting for the first time. Today is one such new face – Ryan Paprocki. He takes a look at both Standard and Block Constructed, and raises a few questions about their various metagames.

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The Magic Show #55 — Issues vol. 2

Watch Evan Erwin every Friday... on StarCityGames.com!
Hello everybody, and welcome to another Issues article. Today sees Evan rant long and hard about the quietness of August, the shoddiness of the Magic Online Version 3 Beta, the ridiculousness of the cult of Magic celebrity, and the awesomeness of Kenji Tsumura. Enjoy!

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Levelling Up – Opening the Draft Box

Read Tiago Chan every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Tiago turns his back on Constructed for this week’s Levelling Up… instead, taking advantage of the Nix Tix events on Magic Online, the Portuguese maestro powers through sixteen 8-4 TPF Drafts, and shares his thoughs on the color combinations and the format as a whole. This is an excellent overview article for those of us who find themselves floudering in the forty-card format… Enjoy!

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Flores Friday – Two Formats, Three Decks

Read Mike Flores every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
It’s the weekend, so that means one thing: Flores Friday. Today’s offering from Mike showcases a plethora of practical information on the relevant formats, from the front lines. He shares his U.S. Grinders decklist, and Osyp’s Nationals deck, before bringing us what he claims to be the best deck in Time Spiral Block Constructed by far… and he didn’t design it! Intrigued? Then read on…

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The Kitchen Table #192 — The Finale of the Bad Rare Decks

Read Abe Sargent every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
I normally keep a box of bad rares… er…. “low value” rares by my computer. I already took them out of the box so I could use it for something else. Now I have this stack of rares ready to be sent off to be sold or given away. Since I am about to take this stack down and divide up the pieces, I thought I should get one last chance to pull out a few rares and give them a little sunlight. Today may be my very last bad rare article.

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Unlocking Legacy – Scepter Chant

Read Legacy articles every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Kevin presents the deck he believes is the best choice for the upcoming Legacy championships. He’s been tuning a combo-control deck for over five months, and he’s finally ready to share the results…

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From Right Field – Staples from Kjeldor and Beyond

Read Chris Romeo every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Today’s From Right Field sees Chris return to familiar ground: he updates his Staple Rare list to include both Coldsnap and Tenth Edition. As both sets have a huge number of possible Constructed powerhouses, and both sets will be around for many moths to come, should you be saving for those Sunscours and hoarding for those Haakons? Let Chris lead the way!

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Deep Analysis — U/B Teachings Play-by-Play

Read Richard Feldman every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Today’s Deep Analysis sees Richard “U/B Control” Feldman continues in his rich vein of form as he tackles one of the more intriguing matchups in Time Spiral Block Constructed: U/B Teachings versus Adrian Sullivan’s Baron Harkonnen deck. With aggressive decks slowly fading into the metagame background, Control on Control is the one match you need to crack in order to capture the blue envelope. Let Richard show you how!

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Feature Article – Sullivan Library: Reach, and Explaining the Demise of White/Green

Read Feature Articles every Monday and Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
The Time Spiral Block Constructed metagame is constantly evolving. Early in the season, it seemed that White/Green Tarmogoyf would conquer all — it certainly relegated Mono-Red to the “Where Are They Now” pile. However, the control decks reacted to the beatdown threat and ascended to the top of then heap once more. So why did the beatdown die? Adrian examines the necessity of reach in an Aggro deck, and offers some solutions to those determined to swing for the win.

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You Lika The Juice? – How I Won U.S. Nationals *1st*

Read Bennie Smith every week... at StarCityGames.com!
I’ve been playing Magic for nearly 14 years now, and I’ve always dreamed of going to Nationals. Since I haven’t ever qualified, I could really justify the expense of flying to Florida or California just to hang out, since what are the odds of actually qualifying through the Grinders? This year though, Nationals was in Baltimore, a short three-hour drive from Richmond, Virginia, so I knew I had to go…

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Chatter of the Squirrel — Lessons From Nationals

Read Zac Hill every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Everyone does a “Lessons From…” piece on a tournament, especially when they don’t do all that well, and the tendency is for these to be quite sparse in the way of actual lessons. I aim to avoid that pitfall, but nothing I’m going to say will be succinct. I haven’t written the article yet, but I’m imagining that it’ll be quite long, quite drifting, and altogether broad in its scope.

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