With the Pro Tour looming large, it seems that all the cool kids are playing Extended. Today, Mike turns his eye to the format as a whole, and dissects the major archetypes that will be making a splash in Valencia. Each deck is laid bare, with both strengths and weaknesses writ large for all to see.
It seems that Nick Eisel’s week off has lasted less than three days! In this late edition of Limited Lessons, Nick returns to his popular Draft Situations article series, and today’s tricky troubles are from the top drawer. Our Limited expert touches on choosing bombs over consistency, how to correctly analyze a draft cardpool, and when to gleefully ignore the cool plays when going for the throat…
Richard is on a mission. For the past few weeks, Mike Flores has been lending his support to the “four and one” school of deckbuilding: this theory explains why having any number of a particular card in your deck other than “four” and “one” is inherently flawed. Richard disagrees. In today’s Deep Analysis, he attempts to set the record straight with what we in England call “fightin’ talk.” Let battle commence!
This week, BPM takes a break from Constructed strategy in order to bring us a dose of Limited goodness. One of his Pro Tour: Charleston team-mates, Steve Nagy, recently took part in an interesting three-on-three team draft, and BPM was there to take notes. He takes us through each pick of the draft, highlighting the juicier decisions, and opens the doors on the intricacies of the Pros’ favorite Limited format…
Last week, Stephen took us through an entire Type Four draft, and highlighted the difficult decisions made in this most frenetic of formats. This week’s follow up article takes us through the entire game, play by play and chat by chat, with some of the most powerful cards in the history of the game being thrown about left, right, and center. If you’re looking for something a little different, then this is the format for you!
We’re all pretty clear on some of our Magic archetype definitions. Aggro? Easy. Control? Slightly woollier, but simple enough. Combo? Obvious. But… Midrange? Aggro-Control? Are the two archetypes the same, or do they have important differences. And while we’re at it, the differences between “archetype” and “role” can also spawn confusion. Today, Adrian takes a machete to this particular linguistic jungle…
Nick Eisel is taking a well-earned vacation, so in his place we have an article by the King of the Blue Mages, Planeshifted Dan Paskins. He brings us his Time Spiral Block Constructed deck of choice — Blue Deck Wins — that he played in the recent Grand Prix: Florence. He also looks at some of the reasons that Tomoharu Saitou is almost certainly a better player than you.
In a format as open as Extended, traditional control decks need something special. The Extended cardpool is deep, the threats are varied, and the metagame is undefined. In order to control the match, one must have more than the power to simply say “no.” Today’s Innovations sees Patrick walk us through the matchups for a control deck that can say “no” over and over and over again: No Stick!
Rizzo does it again! Today’s Feature Article sees J to the F to the R in fine hyperbolic form, kicking ass and taking names through three tournaments with his usual panache and style. As always, his article is full of decklists, frolics, and life… and should not be attempted by anyone with a weak heart. 13000 words of pure love, from the guy who came fifth in the Storyteller ballot!
Time Spiral Draft is dead in the water, pretty much. We’re all keen for Lorwyn, and the excitement of those fresh new-car-smell goodies. Of course, with a little diligence, there are still TPF gems to be mined… one just has to dig a little deeper than usual. Inspired by a Drafting With Kenji aside, and created by Rogier Maaten, Tiago takes us through one of the more peculiar archetypes the field of TPF draft has to offer: the Rogier Special.
Pro Tour: Valencia is just around the corner, and Mike is getting back into the Extended swing. Today’s Flores Friday sees Mike throw out three novel and exciting Extended decks, and run us through some games on Magic Online. While, in their current incarnations, they may not be PT winners, they’re certainly decks to watch. And with Nike’s deckbuilding pedigree, who knows? Maybe one will make a Sunday slot after all…
Pro Tour: Valencia looms large in the schedules, and Extended is the format that all the cool kids love to play. Today’s Deep Analysis begins what promises to be an exciting series — in preparation for the PT, Zac Hill and Richard Feldman promise to share their testing process to a degree never before seen. Richard begins this week with a look at the Aggro decks in the format… and, in particular, the impact on the metagame of a certain Little Lhurgoyf That Could.
Stuart Wright, one of the UK’s premier Deckbuilding minds, brings us an intriguing look into the art, and science, of high-level deckbuilding. He highlights some of the common pitfalls that deckbuilders make when polishing their elite seventy-five, and walks us through his thought processes in the creation of his 6-0 Worlds Extended deck, G/R/B Destructive Flow. If you’re interested in taking your deckbuilding skills to the next level, this is the article for you!
The results from the German and Japanese National Championships are in… and it appears that Black/Green Rack is the current deck to beat. It won the whole thing in Japan, placed in the final in Germany, and propelled others to multiple Top 8 berths. Benjamin Peebles-Mundy looks at the development of the deck from Regionals to Nationals success, and gives us a handy strategic guide for toppling other key players in today’s Standard metagame.
No, you’ve not misread the title… today’s So Many Insane Plays is indeed Drafting With Stephen. However, this is no mere TPF or XXX draft. It’s Type Four, one of the most fun and powerful ways to play Magic ever created! Stephen takes us through each pick from a powerful Type Four stack, alongside the creators of the format itself, and brings us an illicit peek into the strategy behind this wild and popular game variant.
