I’m Gon’ Japan Part 2, Day 1
Today we present to you blisterguy’s very special story of transformation, from beach bum and harmless sheep buggerer to Magic: The Gathering Worlds competitor. Won’t you join us?
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Radiating Luck
Two PTQs, two near misses, four-thousand words of good beats. Wakefield is Magic’s everyman, always striving for the goal and yet rarely grasping it. Thankfully we still get his excellent reports, allowing good and bad alike to live vicariously through the adventures of the King of Fatties.
I’m Gon’ Japan! A blisterguy Odyssey
The one and only blisterguy gives you a tale so great, so brilliant, so riddled with sheep that it might just take three parts to tell, and at the end you will all feel it is worth it. Do not miss this report.
On the Team- English Nationals *3rd*
Nats is one of those nice events for the pros, as we get to play real life MTG in our own countries only about twice a year. Due to this fact, I usually put quite a lot of effort in and this year was no exception. I felt that I would be well prepared enough for the Limited portion of the event because I did so much practice for PT: London, which was the same exact format. This left me with quite a lot of time to only have to concentrate on one thing: Constructed. Now anyone that knows me knows just how much I loathe a game involving sixty-card decks, but I was still prepared to give it a go and see if there was a deck that I liked the look of in the current format.
My First Nationals
I qualified for U.S. Nationals this year from the Pro Players Club. I got my first taste of the Pro Tour a long time ago when Tim Bulger (Tbulge), Nate Siftar, and myself won a team PTQ for Pro Tour: Boston, but I’d never been to Nationals before. Let me just say that this year was an interesting experience that started out quite well.
A Love of Snidds: U/B Spirits in CBS Draft
The way Adam Chambers drafts is not how everyone else drafts. Rumors of his goofy pick orders and fascination for fatties and Snidds have abounded for months, so the man known as “Baby Chamby” felt it was time to step forward and explain why he drafts the way he does, and how it might just work for you too.
Legacy Prep: Mogg Alarm? Huh?
First turn, I played a Goblin Lackey. Second turn, Lackey came across to dump Kiki-Jiki on the table, and EOT of Brandon’s turn, I copied it. I untapped and sent in the Lackey and his clone, using one free Lackey trigger to dump a Goblin Matron on the table. The Matron digs up Mogg Fanatic from my deck and I play it for free using the clone’s trigger. I then played Intruder Alarm, cloned the Fanatic a million times, and sacrificed all of them aimed at Brandon’s dome. Ah, the sweet taste of surprise.
Final Thoughts on CBS
It’s only a month now until Kamigawa Block draft fades away leaving Ravnica in its place, but the format will still be present on Magic Online for considerably longer than that. I figured today would be a perfect time to give you my final thoughts on playing or drawing in the format, and adjust some minor pick orders in the earlier sets to correspond with what Saviors has done to the format.
Tuning the Second Best Deck
By now you have probably read the previous articles I’ve done on Kuroda-style Red and formed your own opinion – good or bad – on the deck that can be swayed neither by fact nor logic, certainly not the numbers. Today I’ll give you an updated decklist, a matchup guide, and explain how we tuned the second best deck in the format to beat pretty much everything else. Well, except the best deck…
The Gifts Ungiven Matchup Guide
Today StarCityGames.com is proud to bring you a first in Magic: the Gathering history – a Japanese writer brought to an English-language website. Masashi Oiso is widely recognized as one of the best players in the game right now and today he provides you a complete sideboard and matchup guide to Gifts Ungiven, a deck he has piloted to back-to-back Grand Prix Top 8s.
The best writers. The best players. The best Magic. Only on StarCityGames.com.
The Best Kamigawa Block Deck You’ve Not Seen
What’s this? A Block deck you haven’t seen before that mashes Gifts Ungiven and White Weenie, while featuring game against the rest of the field? Is that even possible? Craig Stevenson thinks so and he’s got the PTQ Top 8s to prove it. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you The Shinkatron
Crawling Back In
He’s been gone for over a year. He walked away from the game and the writing at the height of his powers. But like the mob, just when he thought he was out, we pulled him right back in. Draft strategy, wicked jokes, hilarious rants and more snark than you can shake a stick at. That’s right kids, Geordie Tait is back in the saddle again and if this first article is any indicator, he’s better than ever.
To Live Forever or Die Trying
I’ll cut to the chase; although some of you were miffed with my last draft article – which is allowed – I decided to continue on this path. While others with more impressive resumes engaged in the debate of what’s hot and what’s not in the CBS format, I felt that I could still serve a more mundane purpose on the ground, showing what pans out in practice rather than arguing theory.
Tips and Tricks with the Top of the Hop
The problem, of course, is that Sensei’s Divining Top
is in all of the best decks! It’s in the fake best
deck (Tooth and Nail), the second best deck
(Kuroda-style Red), and the actual best deck (UrzaTron
Blue). No matter how good the players designing these
decks, they all put the terrible Top in to make sure
they don’t tap their mana efficiently so as to gain to
much of an advantage over their fellows. As near as I
can tell, the difference between horrible Tooth and
Nail and the actually good and successful decks is the
ability to get rid of the useless Sensei’s Divining
Top so that you no longer have to look at it.
Specters, Elves, and Jesters: 9th Edition in Standard
How big of a change will hit us on August 20? Let’s start off looking at each color, covering their gains and losses. Then we’ll look at the biggest changes overall, see how some of the popular archetypes are affected, and maybe even come up with a meaningful answer.