Today Chad puts forth yet another seminal piece of Magic theory explaining why winning is obviously good, but “Winning More” is clearly not. If you want to improve your deck construction skills, this is the place to start.
With a new Standard environment on the horizon and Extended season in full bloom, Mark takes a step back from the tournament scene to review the various forms of strategic superiority and where they come from.
What’s a boy to play in a diverse environment rife with aggro-control strategies? At first Terry wasn’t sure, but then he honed in on the idea of playing his favorite card ever in the environment (Eternal Witness), and soon found himself developing a Red Rock deck designed to bash the PTQ field to bits. In this detailed Primer, Terry gives you all the details you need to know in order to take this deck to a PTQ and do well.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how to improve tournament reports and make them more useful for the people reading them, and I’ve decided that what I’m going to try doing is a more interactive style of report. For each of the crucial decisions during the tournament which decided how I got on, I’ll explain the situation and then ask you what you would have done in this situation, before explaining what I did and what I should have done. If there’s anything that you want more information about, then just post in the forums and I’ll do my best to reply.
For months now, Arcane has been a deck whose time had not yet come. It was always interesting, but few could doubt that such decks were outclassed in Standard while Block has yet to become important. Betrayers offered a number of new cards to add to the mix, but it was not until the announcement of The End of Affinity that it became time to look at a possible Standard build of an Arcane deck. The point of playing Arcane is to play two categories of cards – arcane spells and cards that reward you for Arcane spells. Before deciding on a theme, it would be best to meet the components.
Oath is perhaps the only archetype in the format that has been revolutionized by Champions of Kamigawa, thanks to one card: Forbidden Orchard. Despite the short time since its introduction, many individuals on both sides of the Atlantic have tried to use a variety of different cards in the deck. I thought it would be useful to dissect the various levels of success found by different builds in the last couple of months. In comparing the twenty Oath builds that have made Top 8s in major Type One events since October, only twelve cards were in all twenty decks.
If you’re interested in becoming a better player or getting your hands on the latest tech, Insider Trading is not for you. This column is dedicated to the game outside of the game; the one that takes place when you sit down across from another player, flip open your trade binder and get ready to deal.
In his debut column, StarCityGames.com President Pete Hoefling offers a key piece of advice for becoming a more successful trader, taps the StarCityGames.com sales database to reveal which Betrayers of Kamigawa singles are really the most sought after cards of the set and lists twenty-five cards that should be in your trade binder, but probably aren’t.
You are playing in a PTQ this Saturday. It is the first round and you have no idea what anyone is playing. You are playing…let’s say Rock (Swords optional) and your opponent is going first. Your hand has plays for the first three turns of the game and the mana to make them so you keep as did the player across from you. Your opponent leads the game off with a Seat of the Synod and no play.
You draw your card for the turn and contemplate the Cabal Therapy in your hand. What do you name?
One of the things I think is often lacking in Magic articles is honesty. I’m not talking about people giving inferior lists so they can protect their tech, although that certainly happens. I’m talking about people not being honest enough with themselves to be honest with us about what they did and why. Today I will be fully honest about exactly how well my Goblin deck performed at Grand Prix: Boston, the mistakes I made with it, and the modifications I feel are necessary to make it even more competitive in this crazy environment.
I never got to assemble Kaldra, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up my other dreams, including all five Hondens in play, using the Green Myojin to toss out the other four, and to a lesser extent, attacking with an 8/12 trampling land. In addition to the Black review, this article contains a large section focusing on my attempts to pummel people with Genju of the Realms in draft.
Fresh off a Top 4 finish at Pro Tour: Nagoya, Murray Evans is here to give you the skinny on how to draft the deck that carried him to another Sunday finish: Blue/Red. In addition to detailing how to draft it in Champions Limited, Murray also gives you updated information on what will be good for the archetype out of Betrayers and tells you whether or not he thinks the deck will still be viable when the new set rotates in.
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.
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.
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.
