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Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #36

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!

From The Lab – Prerelease Weekend: First Thoughts on Planar Chaos

Craig “The Professor” Jones takes time out from his twisted experiments to bring us the low-down on Planar Chaos Limited. Not content with a mere one or two Prerelease tournaments, Prof decided to go balls to the wall and submit to a straight 24 hours of Magic! There are thrills! There are spills! There’s also a dose of Planar Chaos card advice, and a bushel or two of quality fun – strategy and humor in perfect harmony.

Flores Friday – Re-positioning Linear Designs and Hybridizing Strategies: Two Ways to Cheat

The Extended metagame rumbles on, and many of us are looking for that elusive edge for our next PTQ tournament. As usual, Mike Flores may have the answers we seek. Today’s Flores Friday examines a fascinating tactic available to us, a tactic that could inform our deck-choices come Tournament Day. Is an exploration of linear card design the key to building a format-warping deck? Mike constantly redefines the metagame… maybe this view of Magic deck-building and design could see us do the same.

Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #35

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!

Planar Chaos Limited: On The Fence

John takes us through some of the tips and tricks picked up at the Planar Chaos prerelease tournaments. Some of the cards he discusses today are thus-far unloved… while some of them are hyped beyond measure. Where does the truth lie? John shares his thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of some of the more interesting sweetmeats that Planar Chaos has to offer…

Levelling Up – The Road to Success

Improvement is a tricky thing to quantify. Sure, success is something we can all work towards, and this translates itself into tournament wins and strong performances… but how exactly do we measure our own development? This thoughtful article sees Tiago wax lyrical on the true definition of “levelling up,” and introduces three types of successful Magic player: The Talented, The Focused, and The Experienced. Which type are you?

8-Post: I Would Qualify If I Had Time To Play

After going 25-0 with a budget build of the Cloudpost/Vesuva deck, Ben began working on the deck for competitive play. After a month of testing and hundreds of playtest matches, he’s come up with a deck that he feels is a winner. Unfortunately, he has no time to attend PTQs. Will you be the one to pilot his deck to a Pro Tour slot?

Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #34

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!

Pro Perspective – The Planar Chaos Prerelease

New cards excite all Magic players, from the Level 6 Mage to the Kitchen Table Acolyte, and Raphael Levy is no exception. Today’s Pro Persepctive sees Raph share his two Planar Chaos Prerelease cardpools and final builds, plus a number of pertinent Sealed deckbuilding tips. Sealed Deck is, apparently, Raphael’s favorite Magic format. If you’re one of the many who think it’s all luck-based… think again.

Ask The Drama – Musings on the Rock in Extended

As everyone knows, Jeroen Remie loves the Rock. It came as a great surprise to many when he walked away from Pernicious Deed and friends at Worlds 2006, choosing instead to play Boros Deck Wins. Today’s edition of “Ask The Drama” brings us a couple of Rock-based questions for those aspiring Green/Black mages among us, and also tackles other points including the cost of being a pro and Remie’s view of TEPS.

Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #33

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!

Deep Analysis – Big Mana Blue

Despite taking on many forms, it’s safe to say that Big Mana Blue – be it U/W Tron or U/W Vesuvapost – is one of the more powerful control options in the current Extended metagame. Today’s “Deep Analysis” examines its position in the Grand Scheme, and looks at how it can be improved to shore up those tricky matchups. Personally, I think this is the best deck in the Extended field, and I hope everyone plays it at my next PTQ. Then again, I play Boros Deck Wins…

The Combat Phase – Mono-Black in Extended

Having abandoned his G/W Extended deck from last week, Jamie faced a quandry. Where now for the archetypal Green mage? Thankfully, there are more strings to Jamie’s MTG bow than meets the eye… Mr Wakefield put down the Forest and embraced the power of the Swamp. Jamie also shares the tale of his Planar Chaos prerelease, and laments the brute power of Mind’s Desire in Extended… something we can all understand.

Barriers and Opportunities – Ten (or so) Standard Challenges and Rediscoveries, Care of Planar Chaos

In the first of this week’s extra Premium articles, Mike Flores takes us through his preliminary thoughts on the impact of Planar Chaos in Constructed. What does the metagame gain from a fresh 165, and how will the dominant strategies compare when the new cards go live in tournament play? The color pie is truly smashed: White has pinpoint removal, Green draws cards, and Black has Wrath of God. This excellent article is the first step towards exploring a Brave New World…

Drafting With Rich – Time Spiral #32

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!