Abe has a deck with three hundred and fifty of the worst cards in Magic in it. He reaches in, pulls out a card… and no matter how bad the card is, he has to build a deck around it. What five dreadful cards does he draw this time, and what sorts of decks can he assemble when the core is a sucktacular card?
How does it feel for a relative unknown to scrape and claw their way back into contention for a Pro Tour Top 8 only to finish 9th on tiebreakers? Tiago Chan now knows the feeling, and he shares the tale of his entire weekend with you in this report.
Dear Doctor Mox,
I’m terrible at trading. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve handed over my valuable rares for a handful of diabolical tat. Once, I even traded away my packed lunch, my bus-fare and my trousers. I had to walk home hungry with my bits a-floppin’. Help me, Doctor Mox. I’ve Pale Moons in every pocket, Solarions on every surface, and Mudholes coming out of my mudhole!
Zvi begins to apply Betrayers of Kamigawa cards to Standard in order to gauge whether any of them will change both the current metagame and the post-banning one that will be coming in March. He also includes a new Red deck in Standard, weighs in on Aaron Forsythe’s announcement from Friday, and gives his opinion on the current Invitational voting.
Oscar takes a look at Betrayers Artifacts and Enchantments today as well as continuing the replay of “Oscar’s Greatest Misses.” Is there anything in the new set that will make a dent on Vintage, or does the whole set whiff when it comes to playable new cards? Only the Oscar knows…
Though he didn’t post a stellar record at Pro Tour: Nagoya, Ruud managed to bring back some interesting stories and solid strategy from his travels. Whether you are looking for opinions about ninjutsu or salsa dancing with Japanese hotties, this report has a little of everything.
Incensed by reader requests, Doctor Mox once again picks up his pen to tell you exactly what he thinks about Aluren, The Rock, and White Weenie for the current Extended season.
A few days before the prerelease, Ted Knutson asked me if I wanted to play in the StarCityGames Richmond Power 9 event. My only experience playing Vintage at that point was one event at GenCon 2004, but I figured I wasn’t doing anything anyway, so why not give it a shot. If I scrubbed out, I could always hop in a prerelease flight, right? Sadly my day went too well to get any action with Betrayers, but I was rewarded with a Mox Pearl for my “inconvenience”.
In my last article, I wrote about the Blue/White Mind’s Desire deck that I plan on playing in the upcoming PTQ season. This article will focus on tournament pointers that I believe will help you play your optimal game at the PTQs. This guide is meant for the beginner to moderate level of Magic player, but most people could probably benefit from perusing the article once or twice as well.
Pip is back with all the latest statistics and trends in the Vintage world including Pip’s watch list, Type One Pro Points, and information about which cards just might be ripe for restriction.
We now return to our continuing saga of Chad Ellis, the young…well, the not old…okay fine, he’s really old, former Pro Tour player. Extended season now beckons – the format that took Chad to his first Pro Tour ever. Will he be able to continue his streak by winning GP: Boston? Will he even make Day 2, or will he have to try his luck at the Day 2 PTQ? Read on, and see things from Chad’s own perspective, as he writes both before and after the event.
I can’t remember a time when Blue wasn’t my favorite color in Magic. I’ve heard a number of top-notch players say it is one of the worst colors in triple Champions draft, and while I believe they have some good arguments to back this statement, I simply cannot agree with it. It could be a matter of personal preference, my extreme dislike for Black, or a number of other things, but I still draft Blue quite often in CCC (on MTGO) and believe it to be one of the top colors in the format. With that in mind, it’s time to look at the impact that Betrayers will have on my beloved color.
What would you put in the ultimate anti-metagame deck? Akroma and Worship against RDW, plus Cabal Therapy, Duress and Cranial Extraction against combo and Scepter-Chant, a fast Planar Void against Reanimator, and Pernicious Deed against weenie and Affinity. Infinite Eternal Witness recursion would be nice, and a turn 3 kill would round it out. So, is there such a deck? Yes, actually, there is.
Dear Doctor Mox,
Why does Wizards make bad cards?
Do Randy and Mark hate me?
Sincerely,
Tiny Tim
P.S. I cry myself to sleep at night when I think about the possibility of opening up another Twist Allegiance.
I remember the first time I saw Skullclamp. I had just shown up to the Darksteel prerelease and a friend of mine had the Clamp in play. I had to read the card three times before I could believe what I was reading, and it was clear that this card could do some serious damage in Constructed formats. Now we have another one-mana artifact warping Constructed environments. This time it didn’t even make me blink when I first read it, and I think most people missed its power until it had been played enough to show itself. Aether Vial is no Skullclamp, but it is still fundamentally broken and is probably hurting Magic, especially Extended. It should go.
