SCG Daily – From Right Field: Da Man
Chris’s special ode to the man that draws few hotties, but who Chris still feels produces the best Magic art out there.
CategoryMagic The Gathering
Making a Battle Plan
Many of you have enjoyed reading the trials and trevails of one Richard Feldman and his attempts to qualify for the Pro Tour. We’ll spoil this one a bit for you and tell you that he once again made the Top 8, but did he qualify? You’ll have to check inside for details on that and the 4-1-1 on his suggestions for improving your game in future PTQ seasons.
I Hear It’s Great, But Is It GOOD?
Master Flores takes time out of his busy schedule of self-promotion to run a deck that someone else designed this week. Greater Good combo decks are a blast to play and did quite well in a number of states last month, but are they any good in the new metagame?
Rule of Law 12 – “Enchantment – Aura” and Other Oddities of 9th Edition
It is generally accepted that the Core Set is a little less exciting than an expansion. After all, if a mechanic is too complicated for the block it was in, there is no chance to bring it into the Core Set, as that is marketed to newer players. However, Core Sets are often seen as prime opportunities to try out new ideas, such as card faces, or rules adjustments. And in this case, that is exactly what is being done. The most notable change you will find to cards, especially if you’ve perused either the sortable spoiler from Wizards or just happened to be looking at the Oracle recently is the “Enchantment – Aura” type line. What does this mean?
Grim Long: All Your Questions Are Belong To Us
I’ve had a Grim Long list built since early 2004, waiting and ready for the moment that I thought would never arrive. That moment arrived — and although the Vintage metagame has undergone many twists and turns in the intervening years, I knew that I had to play Grim Long. I was pleased to make the top 4 at the most recent StarCityGames.com Power Nine with Grim Long at its first (and hopefully not last) outing. This article will explain the tweaks I made to the deck, how to pilot it correctly, and describe the major matchups.
Ben’s Corner: Sleeves, The Monster, Guildpact, and More!
Holy mother of pearl! I miss one week of Ben’s Corner and suddenly there’s a million new bits of news about StarCityGames.com. Come on in to Ben’s Corner and read about the new line of sleeves we’re carrying, the dozens of new promo cards we’ve added to the system, our buylist, and my 30th Birthday! All this and more in this week’s edition of Ben’s Corner.
Down and Back Again: A Pro Tour LA Report
How’d Noah’s Los Angeles go? Well, he scrubbed out of the Pro Tour, nearly got DQ’d, did some Pro Tour Feature Match coverage, watched Zvi Mowshowitz pick up babes, ate at Fogo De Chao, was assaulted by zombies in downtown LA, and got to ride rollercoasters. If you are a fan of the lost art of tournament reports, you cannot miss this one.
Diary of a Ravnica Drafter – The Rules of Ravnica Draft
Like many of you, Nick has been dreaming about cards games lately, and after a great deal of play with The City of Guilds, he’s come up witha set of rules for Limited play that you would do well to know, even if you don’t follow them. What’s the best card in the set for Limited? The best guild in draft? The answers to these questions and more are but a click away.
SCG Daily: From Right Field — Land, Ho!
So, if Tuesday was all about the best pieces of non-Kev Walker art in Extended-legal sets, why weren’t there any land cards? Because I truly feel that lands need to be looked at separately. Magic is an active game (yes, ever against people playing Blue). A card’s art tends to reflect its mechanic in some way which means the art typically depicts some activity or shows a creature of some sort. Land cards, though, are more like still lifes.
The Unofficial 2005 Worlds Survival Guide
Seasoned Japan veteran Eli Kaplan tells you everything you absolutely need to know about Worlds in Yokohama, except for what to play and how to play it.
SCG Daily – From Right Field: The Best of the Worst and the Worst of the Best
I want to be perfectly clear on one point. I am most certainly not saying that the art on these cards is awful in and of itself. Magic has come a long, long way from the days of Reverse Polarity (“Worst. Magic art. Ever.”) and Reverse Damage. Nearly every card from Tempest on and especially from Invasion on has been a true joy to look at (Cepahlids aside). However, some of the art, well, it didn’t quite work on the card.
The Complete Mind’s Desire Strategy Guide
From a purely strategic point of view, there are a good many reasons to play Desire at your next Extended tournament. The first (and probably best) reason is because the deck is just hard to play against unless your opponent has dedicated a large amount of time to it — which, given that you’re at a PTQ, is doubtful. So let me walk you through the intricacies of the deck that got me all the way to the Top 4 at Los Angeles.
Livin’ The Dream: My Pro Tour: Los Angeles Report, Part I
My testing took place in a relative vacuum — with help from friends back home, but little to no access to pro testing information, I pieced together a fairly accurate picture of the metagame and I built my deck accordingly. I want to make sure that everyone who wants it — the PTQ win, the PT, the gravy train — really understands that it is possible.
SCG Daily: Cream of the Crop, A Number One, Top of the Heap
Yesterday, I took a very biased look at some of the hottest of the recent Magic hotties. Today, I’m running down a list of my favorite art. I’m only going back as far as the current Extended-Legal sets go. Why? Because this is my column. Nyah.