CategoryMagic The Gathering

You Lika The Juice? – 2HG Champs Coming Quick!

I don’t know about you, but 2HG Champs kinda snuck up on me – it’s March 3rd, less than a month away! Last year, Josh Adams and I came a whisker away from taking the Championship title but had to settle for second place after walking into a Hex. This year, I hope to go all the way…

So Many Insane Plays — Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks

Stephen recently decided to put his money where his mouth was: he rocked up to a Vintage tournament armed with Mana Ichorid. Today’s “Insane Plays” looks at two tournaments that asked some interesting questions of Stephen’s theoretical analysis of the matchups… and poses some possible workarounds.

Limited Lessons – The Impact of Planar Chaos: Draft

Order Magic: the Gathering Planar Chaos! In the first of a week-long five-part series that investigates Planar Chaos, Nick Eisel examines the new cards in detail. Instead of a “normal” card-by-card set review, we’ll be looking at the impact that Planar Chaos will have across a number of formats. Nick’s agenda? Planar Chaos in TTP draft. Stay tuned this week for more Impact articles!

Insert Column Name Here: Punish Me, Universe, Punish Me!

Read The Ferrett... every Monday at
StarCityGames.com!At the Prerelease, I drafted a bad deck. A very bad deck. In fact, I would say that it was the worst Draft deck in the history of mankind. And so I set out to have the universe punish me, as it should, for drafting such a botched atrocity.

Flores Friday – Oros and Teneb: Initial Extremes

In today’s Flores Friday, Mike takes a break from Extended testing to bring us an exciting deck primed for the fast-approaching Planar Chaos Standard. As the name suggests, the deck contains a pair of 6/6 three-color flying beatsticks. Drawing cards, killing guys, ramping mana, and destroying the world… and who doesn’t enjoy swinging with Dragons?

The Real Deal – Ben Bleiweiss’s Totally Complete Planar Chaos Set Review (Part 1 of 3)

Tired of those traditional set reviews that just give you information that you already know? Hate those one-star to five-star rating systems? In today’s edition of The Real Deal, Ben tackles the cards in Planar Chaos, from every angle — playability, artwork, flavor text, design, and much much more. Don’t forget to check out Ben’s Corner at the end of the column for up-to-the-minute StarCityGames.com site news!

The Magic Show #29 — Back to the Future Sight

Hello everybody and welcome to The Magic Show. In this, our 29th outing — can you believe we’re almost the big 3-0? In today’s episode we look into the future of Magic, beginning with new blocks, new cards, and new strategies.

Magical Hack – Timeshifted Metagames

Read Sean McKeown... every Friday at
StarCityGames.com!
As promised last week, we’ll be having a look at the numbers being put up so far in the starting weeks of the Extended PTQ season, with a key eye specifically for comparing it to the reported MTGO metagame and attempting to establish a relative timeline as to how these two things interact.

Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #41

Rich continues his excellent series of Time Spiral Draft walkthroughs, presenting each pick as it happened and highlighting each card chosen. He shares his final decklist, and gives us a brief overview of his results and processes. As usual, for more detailed draft deconstruction, come visit us in the forums!

From The Lab – Planar Chaos Black in the New Standard

Craig “The Professor” Jones heartily embraces the Dark Side in this article, condemning himself to oblivion by flirting with the Black cards of Planar Chaos. He takes a long look at all the color has to offer – including Damnation, of course – and brings us some interesting decklists that could bear fruit when the new set becomes Standard-legal. Decklists, tech, and the usual Prof humor… all in one tasty package!

Levelling Up – The Role of Luck

Tiago’s mission these past few weeks involved breaking down the factors of a Magic player’s success. So far, he’s isolated the importance of Playskill, and the vital Deck Choice conundrum. Today is the turn of that most ephemeral of factors… Luck. We know that Luck plays a role in Magic, but how can we quantify its involvement? More importantly, how can we court The Lady and increase our success rate?

Unlocking Legacy #1 – The Building Blocks of Legacy

In order to bring you more content, and to expand the host of fine writers we have here at StarCityGames.com, we’re pround to announce that, from today, we’re mirroring our Premium “floating” articles with a free article in the same design! Today’s offering comes from Legacy writer Chris Coppola. Here’s what he has to say on his article:

In this article, I draw on my experience as a Legacy deckbuilder and player and discuss the foundational cards of the format. I also emphasize the importance of creative deckbuilding and suggest some methods for creating new decks.

Tact or Friction – The Problem With Girls…

Continuing their trend of being unable to design a Green/Red creature, Wizards have decided to staple one legacy of crashing failure to another — designing a strong woman. Today, we’re going to talk about women. And we’re going to start… with boobs.

Chatter of the Squirrel – Tenacious Tron Two

On Monday, Richard Feldman brought us Tenacious Tron, a U/W Tron deck both he and Zac took to excellent finishes at a recent PTQ. Richard shared the development and game-plan of the deck. Today, Zac brings us the matchup and sideboarding data. They think they’ve broken the format… do you agree?

The Kitchen Table #165 – The Nexus

Read Abe Sargent... every Thursday at
StarCityGames.com!
This past week I finished the construction of a deck I’ve been building for a while. I played it virtually all night at the multiplayer table, and it worked a lot better than I hoped. At first it looks like a pile of junk, but as you take a look under the hood, you find some really powerful card interactions. Plus, the deck plays differently in every game.