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!
Bastien Perez made the Top 8 of Pro Tour: Kobe with an innovative Green/Red “swarm” strategy based around suspend, storm, and Strength in Numbers. Since that fateful Sunday, little has been written about this powerful archetype – the major players have instead been scrabbling like truffle-pigs for the Blue cards. Nick attempts to redress the balance with this article, penning a comprehensive primer for those looking to first-pick an Empty the Warrens…
Today’s Flores Friday dives deep into the murky waters of the Extended metagame. Mike shares his theories of deck design and creation – perfect timing for those hoping to blow the format wide open at their next PTQ. The decks he posts here today produce interesting results when battling the Tier 1 builds of the format… but the true value of this excellent piece lies in the description of the process.
The Extended PTQs are fast approaching. Extended has always been a favorite format of mine. I have written a lot (extensively?) about Extended, more than anything else, and enjoyed Extended events more than practically any other format. Extended season has a certain history and rhythm — and that rhythm will remain, despite the impact of the card pool, the combo decks and Magic Online.
I have a stack of bad… er… low value rares sitting here, and what I’ll do is grab one, then build a deck around it. I keep doing this until I have a normal sized article — typically four to six decks.
I grabbed my stack of rares from the bookshelf and I am ready to randomly select a bad rare. Without further ado, here we go…
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!
Last time out, the inestimable Mr Menendian dealt with the ups and downs of the Vintage year from January to June. Today’s article deals with the second half of the year. Stephen breaks down the results from the major tournaments in the latter half of 2006, and shares some of the stronger decklists that appeared along the way. The future for Vintage in 2007 looks very rosy indeed…
Tiago’s run in Worlds was fraught with peril – not from the competition he faced, although that was stiff indeed. An altercation with an insane hotel manager left Portugal’s finest without a bed the night before his Top 8 performance… things were so grim he planned on ditching the tournament at the final hurdle. For that story, and for top-notch match reporting and draft analysis, look no further than this inspired offering from one of the best players in the game!
All in all, Kyle has not had a good Christmas. Battle Royale loss, unwanted gifts, and a car accident on Christmas Eve… not a great way to spend the holidays. Still, the New Year is coming, and things can only get better… or can they?
Stuart took one of his favorite strategies – Mana Denial – and aimed to break down Kyle’s Combo by removing the precious, precious land. On paper, this matchup was a blowout. In reality? Well, it was a blowout. Still, it;s good to read about one-sided matches… they need winning too!
Blisterguy rounds out his Parisian journal with a look at Day 4 and Day 5 of his trip… including an account of the infamous blistermugging. He also brings us the lowdown on the Premier Events in both Standard and (more importantly) Extended…
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!
In his last article, Paul shared the U.S. Team’s preparation for Worlds. Today’s follow-up deals with Day 1 of the main event itself. Paul audibled at the last minute to a new deck, and posted a positive result. Of course, that’s not the whole story… as with all tournament reports, there’s a healthy dose of humor and color to be had.
Naoki Shimizu, the creator of the popular Solar Flare Standard deck, has recently turned his back on his most prized creation. In the first part of this interesting series, he takes us through the design of his current favorite deck: Scryb & Force. It has posted fine results for him, and he believes it has merit in the post-Worlds metagame. Today’s installment deals with the origins of the deck, and its first outing at the Lord of Magic Championships…
It’s the 26th of December… Boxing Day. Chris celebrates this marginal and obtuse holiday by returning to his much-loved Quick Hits article format. He opens the boxes on a number of topics today, including Battle Royale, deck names, Mishra, and College Football (*shudder* – football is played with the feet, damnit!). All this, plus a decklist too! Happy Holidays!
