I really enjoyed my Carriage deck from yesterday, so I figured that I would continue the theme today. I will select a creature type at random, and then build a theme deck around it. What amazing creature type was selected? Volvers.
As detailed in an article that I won’t link because it’ll depress you, I am now an editor for the Pro Tour coverage team. Although many people think that I got the position because I’m a filthy lucksack, it’s actually based entirely on my merits (i.e., Ted Knutson thinks I’m cool).
Chris returns to his popular “Quick Hits” article format, chewing the fat on all things related to Magic: The Gathering. The Hall of Fame, tiebreakers, Battle Royale, Tenth Edition… Chris discusses it all!
Rich moves from the mean streets of Ravnica to the icy tundra of Coldsnap! Today’s installment of Drafting With Rich sees the Canadian maestro share a full triple-Coldsnap draft, from pick one to pick forty-five, with brief commentary on strong cards and deck performance. For a more detailed analysis, come join the forums!
Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin takes us through a sample day in his life, a day packed with conflict and deck testing. He shares his latest Standard decks – Quiet Jushi, B/U Haakon, and Pitch Necro ’06 – and thrashes them against a number of the top contenders in the modern metagame. With Coldsnap finally in the Standard mix, everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing… has Patrick found it?
Billy Moreno has a mission – an article a week on all things Magical. Today’s first offering covers the last few months of his Magic life, including Pro Tour and Grand Prix stories. He also presents an innovative land-abusing beatdown deck, Summer Boom Boom. Third turn dragons, massive Vinelasher Kudzus, uncounterable card drawing… could this be the deck to break the metagame wide open?
Abe returns with his popular Deck A Day daily series, and today’s offering is genius. You’re in for a wild ride today… literally.
Phyrexian Etchings: it’s good. Really good. Quite frighteningly good. In fact, let’s make this interesting:
Phyrexian Etchings is — situationally – more broken than Necropotence.
Have I got your attention now? Good.
Rich moves from the mean streets of Ravnica to the icy tundra of Coldsnap! Today’s installment of Drafting With Rich sees the Canadian maestro share a full triple-Coldsnap draft, from pick one to pick forty-five, with brief commentary on strong cards and deck performance. For a more detailed analysis, come join the forums!
Richard talks us through his latest incarnation of the B/W Orzhova Maxima deck, with specific reference to his performance – and the performance of team-mates – at the U.S. Nationals (and Grinders). While the results weren’t exactly as planned, the development of the deck was perfect for their proposed metagame… sadly, their opponents didn’t get the memo. This frank and enlightening article highlights the strengths – and weaknesses – of high-level tournament playtesting.
Last week, Stephen shared his preparation and deck choice for the “upcoming” Vintage Championship – Five-Color Pitch Long. Today’s article sees him share his views on the tournament. He discusses the current Vintage metagame, tells us where he thought things went right – and wrong – for him, and speculates on the future of Vintage Magic.
The Ferrett returns from Europe to discuss… death. Dying formats, dying comics, dying relatives, and endless, endless flights on planes. Which is not the standard method of writing “Welcome back” Magic articles, but hey! It has Ravnica cards, and talks about what it’s like to stay with Editor Craig Stevenson! What more do you want?
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.
The release of Coldsnap means many things. It’s going to throw a monkey wrench into the works of Standard. It also means that I’m going to have to redo my set binders yet again. But what really got my thinking cap all a-twitter is that there can finally be an honest-to-goodness Ice Age Block tournaments without the three-Standard-worthy-cards abomination that was Homelands.
Craig “The Professor” Jones originally submitted this article, covering his experiences at the Coldsnap prerelease, some time ago. We present it now, updated with new thoughts on the Coldsnap Limited format, as a fine tool for those entering the MTGO Coldsnap Release Leagues. Prof also shares some Coldsnap Draft stories with his usual humorous style. If you’ve not read any Craig Jones before, you’re in for a treat!
