After two long weeks of Future Sight Limited heartbreak, I’m back on the trail of the elusive Standard Metagame. Reports of the demise of Dragonstorm are greatly exaggerated… or are they? Plus, some new takes on the old Aggro favorites. And a Top 8 deck that… well, I saw a peanut stand, I saw a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye… but I think I’ve seen about everything, now I’ve seen a turn 1 Fly(ing Men).
Last weekend, I had the honor of watching South Texas’s finest compete in Regionals. Sadly, none of the finest made Top 8, and when the dust settled we were left with a new crop of Texas champions. While I was judging, one deck in particular caught my eye: a Mono-Blue Snow deck, featuring a ton of permission spells backed up with Teferi, and Aeon Chronicler as the kill condition.
You all know the drill by now… Rich Hoaen, Canada’s finest and grumpiest draft export, takes us by the hand and drags us through the rollercoaster ride of an 8-4 TPF Draft on Magic Online. From pick 1 to pick 45, Rich shares them all, and his final deck and draft performance are analysed in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!
In the first of his weekly articles, Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin brings us a timely Block Constructed primer, taking us through the runners and riders in the next PTQ format. He also brings us a few new decks, some that feature the newly-popular Korlash as the kill method, and one combo deck that takes us back to the popular Draco Explosion decks. Intrigued? Then read on!
Billy Moreno, one of the candidates for Resident Genius 2007, brings us the ideas and strategies behind a funky new Standard deck designed for Regionals. It’s a storm deck that runs five colors, and is capable of a number of ridiculous nut draws. BDM himself ran it at his Regionals, and it’s great fun to play. If you’re looking for something that’s both fun and competitive to play at your next Standard event, look no further!
This week, The Ferrett takes a break from Sealed discussion to talk about something that not enough Magic novices consider: Controlling information. There are a lot of articles devoted to giving yourself an edge at tournaments; this is a very basic primer on how not to hand your opponent the edge by mistake.
Mike Flores rocked up to Regionals with yet another powerful deck of his own design, this time admirably aided by a host of innovative others. As usual, he marched his way to the top tables, making Top 8 with relative ease. And, as usual, he punted at the final hurdle. Today’s Flores Friday sees Mike take us through the design and theory behind the deck, and gives us a blow-by-blow of the tournament itself.
Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to talk about how I fared at Regionals, the list I brought, and how the metagame shaped up.
Picking the right deck for a tournament is essentially a matter of tactics, and as such can be analyzed carefully to determine what the most effective tactic might be, based upon a set of criteria. Let us leave any impenetrable analogies behind us, and pick up an easily-understood analogy that is quite fitting: military warfare.
That’s right, folks… he’s back! Rich Hoaen, Canada’s finest and grumpiest draft export, takes us by the hand and drags us through the rollercoaster ride of an 8-4 TPF Draft on Magic Online. From pick 1 to pick 45, Rich shares them all, and his final deck and draft performance are examined in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!
With Tarmogoyf fast becoming the Chosen One in the world of aggressive burn-backed beatdown, Craig “The Professor” Jones takes time off his exhaustive and analytical Block Constructed test schedule to bring us the skinny on the true face of modern Aggro — Big Gargs. In a world where two-mana 5/6s and one-mana 9/7s rule the battlefield, Prof brings us a map to safety. Intrigued? Then read on!
In last week’s article, I began the process of building a pair of 250 decks. In the first article we discussed how to start thinking about the deck you want to build. Last week we began building the deck by creating a skeleton. This week we are going to flesh out the skeleton.
In another installment of Dan’s development series of Legacy Threshold, Dan explores the inclusion of Tarmogoyf in the deck, supporting his analysis with many detailed practice games.
There are a lot of articles out there about the testing process, but I hope to cover somewhat different ground. I want to talk about how exactly you determine what cards to cut and add. A lot of people, it seems, do a lot of testing solely to figure out matchup percentages and determine what cards are good (or bad) at what point in time. When it comes to cutting or adding cards, though, I think most people aren’t nearly systematic enough.
I’ve been looking at Prismatic again lately, as right now, all the standard decks I want to play are brutally expensive or just lack room for all the stuff I want. I want to recycle Armageddons and race my Jotun Grunts with my Life From The Loams and my Cycling Lands and I need a win condition so we’ll splash Black for Teneb and now I need some more draw and… anyway. One thing that has happened is that I’ve read some more writers talking about Prismatic… and almost universally, they say something that summarizes as: You’ll need your Green slots for mana fixing. Seriously… where have these people been?
