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Deconstructing U/W in Betrayers Limited Part 1

Throughout time two draft archetypes have risen above the rest in terms of power and consistency. Those are mono-Black and Blue/White. If you default to one of these archetypes without knowing exactly what is in the set, you can’t go too wrong. Sure it may cause you to pick a Harsh Deceiver earlier than it should be picked, but by following the guidelines of sets past, you should be able to draft a competitive deck. In this article I am going to discuss the drafting of Blue/White in Champions/Champions/Betrayers (CCB)from the commons right up to the rares, with a pick order for every card on the list.

Wherefore Art Thou Quirion Dryad?

The quest to inherit the title of “sickest ever” dot deck.

Weak Among the Strong: Bluffing, Imperfect Information and the Myth of the Single Correct Play

What can you say about Chad Ellis’s fundamentals articles? That Chad Ellis is a respected Magic theorist capable of taking complex concepts and making them simple to understand. That Chad is respected by the best theorists and players in the game. That every time you read a Chad Ellis article, you will learn something and become a better player. If that’s not enough, check out the guest appearance from “The Donald” in this exceptional article.

Sealed Revealed from the Pros

Real Life intruded on Craig Stevenson’s Sealed Revealed run, but we found a ringer to stand in for him. Today Tim takes two of the card pools Craig posted last week and dissects them, explaining which builds he would consider, discarding the chaff and building the best decks from the tools at hand. The Betrayers of Kamigawa prerelease starts on Magic Online today, and Limited PTQs are just around the corner, so if you are looking for some help in figuring out how to build your deck, Tim Aten’s got your back.

The Anatomy of “The Bluff”

In the quarterfinals of Pro Tour: Nagoya, Terry Soh pulled off one of the more impressive and memorable plays in recent Pro Tour memory, using a stone cold bluff to get Frank Karsten to make a game-losing mistake. In a stunning look at the mental game behind the scenes of the highest levels of Magic, Terry dissects the game situation that led to that awesome play, and shows you both how to set up bluffing situations to exploit your opponents and how to protect yourself against them.

Betrayers of Kamigawa Limited Review – Black

If you’ve read any of Nick’s articles recently, you know that unlike most pros, he hates Black. Well Betrayers of Kamigawa is out now, but were there enough good commons and uncommons to change Nick’s mind, or is Black still so bad that even the totally sweet power of rat ninjas isn’t enough to sway his opinion?

A Closer Look At Slaver in Vintage

Control Slaver is the hottest Vintage deck on the planet, but there’s a huge amount of debate about what the best configuration looks like. Should the deck run the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine? Is it worthwhile to add Black to the deck? What’s the best deck configuration to help you win the mirror match? Does Meandeck really need to use training wheels to win? All of these questions and more are examined inside!

Extended: A Tale of Two Formats

Zvi examines why there are two different Extended formats being played right now, tells you what decks you should and should not be playing, and requests that all of you Rock players out there stop bringing sticks to gun fights. The Mad Scientist also addresses your forum feedback and a variety of community issues all in one fell articulate swoop.

This Fire: Momentum and Inevitability

What does a Darksteel Colossus surrounded by thousands of Agent Smiths have to do with helping you win more at Magic? You’ll have to read the article to find out!

Casual Happy Fun Drafts

Magic’s teenage bad boy checks with some Betrayers strategies he learned after scrubbing out of Pro Tour: Nagoya, details of a no-holds-barred Team Rochester battle between the champions of two continents, and some stories of happy, fun drafts among the pros.

*Warning* Please do not taunt happy, fun draft.

Insider Trading #2

www.digi-cardz.com is one of the world’s largest Magic Online dealers. Earlier this week, I sat down with owners Sonny and Lisa Jones to discuss some of the more common scams used by MTGO rip-off artists and how to avoid them. Protecting yourself is easier than you think, if you know what to watch out for…

Digi-Cardz.com – Every MTGO card in stock!

This One Goes to Nine…

As the Extended Season continues, new decks continue to poor out of the woodwork like unstoppable cockroaches, determined to make the life of metagaming PTQ players utterly impossible. Thankfully Brian David-Marshall is here to shine a light on things and this week he has a doozy of a new crop, including a Red Deck that runs Isochron Scepter, and infinite mana combo with Snap and Eternal Witness, and an Academy Rector deck good enough to win a slot on the Pro Tour. If you are playing Extended this season or even if you just love seeing cool new decks, you must read this article.

Speculations on the New Standard

This week michaelj puts on his fortune teller garb and peers into the future in an attempt to divine what the Standard format will look like come next Tuesday. In addition to showing you not one, but two new decks that may already have broken the upcoming Type Two season, he prognosticates on all the scenarios from the March 1st Banning announcement, and tells you just what each of them will mean to your upcoming Friday Nights, Regionals, and Nationals tournaments.

Red Deck Wins 2005

With the speed that PTQ players are tweaking their combo, beatdown, and control decks these days, it may look like Red Deck Wins has been left in the dust – a relic of the early days of the season when players had yet to properly prepare for the Red menace. Thankfully, notes Dan, Red deck designers are not above a few innovations themselves and today Dan provides a look at a few tweaks you can add to your Red Deck to stay ahead of the combo curve.

Betrayers of Kamigawa Limited Review – Red

Usually when a new set comes out it’s pretty clear which color came out on top with all of the new goodies. This time it didn’t seem so clear at first, but after playing a bit, I think I have the answer to the question: Which color got the biggest boost from Betrayers?
My vote goes to Red, and this week I’ll tell you why.