Somewhere along the way, a couple of Englishmen got hooked on the idea of building sealed decks and discussing the choices with the readers here at StarCityGames.com. Craig Stevenson’s Sealed Revealed series has built a large loyal following, but today Martin Dingler is here to prove he takes a back seat to no man, Scouser or otherwise, and provides this outstanding article as proof.
About once a month we get a submission so good that I (the editor) just have to rave about how good it is on the front page. This is one of those articles, and it’s guaranteed to make you a smarter Magic player.
Today is solely dedicated to beating good players. Tomorrow you learn how to be one, so people who read today can learn to how beat people who read tomorrow. Wednesday will have a great recipe for Pecan Pie.
I am writing to you to inform you that one of your employees, Mr. Daniel Paskins, has recently been placed in my care, and therefore will not be able to write his regular articles for your website in the near future.
There is one form of card advantage that no one talks about and which I suspect very few understand: Reciprocal card advantage. What is Reciprocal card advantage? That’s what I’m here to explain.
About Ben Bleiweiss: Ben Bleiweiss is one of the most popular Magic writers on the internet, if you include everybody. Aside from failing to make Day 2 on the Pro Tour seven times, Ben managed to choke the one time he did make the second day in Mainz, going 0-2-1 the last draft table to finish in 24th place. When he’s not presiding over his duties as janitor of StarCityGames.com, Ben has been known to be a part of the Wizard Pro Tour coverage team, where he is ranked first worldwide in fetching McDonalds for Josh Bennett and the R&D staff.
Today Abe covers bad rares, 5-Color, and various elements of his personal life as they relate to Magic.
Look, if we could tell you what this is actually about, we would, but your guess here is as good as ours.
Today Chris writes about flying cars, super-duper models, and snakes, snakes, snakes.
“So in the spirit of community, we offer you this: A chance to attend the upcoming Magic Invitational! You’ve been entered into the forthcoming Super Secret ‘Magical Ambassadors’ ballot, to be held after R&D make their ill-governed choice. So get canvassing those votes! And hopefully, we’ll see you there!”
So today was the day – I was all set to go Premium with a stunning amount of data and make a big splash in our amazing writers pool. Then I broke the part of the site that makes Premium “Premium” and now all you freeloaders loyal readers get to read the hotness for free. Enjoy it while it lasts…
Flores is on the warpath today and his target is none other than a certain Featured Writer on this very site. What made Mike so mad and what does he have to say about it? Check inside my friends, check inside.
This week’s April Fools’ Challenge started slow, but brought in some great combos as the week progressed. Matthew Lubich’s Leery Fogbeast + Flaring Pain combo was good for a laugh, as was Arjan van Houwelingen’s clever use of Magical Hacker. And then on Friday, we had Andrew Lubich’s amusing Nono-Green Deck, as well as Jon Maske’s attempt to bring cards to life.
But I’m a sucker for Magic history — and not only did Luis Almeida walk us through R&D’s greatest mistakes, but he managed to meld non-erratated cards into a darned fine deck. Thus, Luis wins the $20 prize!
So what’s next week’s Casual Challenge?
Crap Rare Craziness.
If you’ve been paying attention, Abe Sargent’s been picking five crap rares at random and building creative decks around them. We want you to take the most pathetic cards in Magic and turn them into killing machines… or at least funny decks. Remember, as it says in our article guidelines, “I don’t want just decklists.” You have to provide an explanation of how you built the deck and how it plays. Send your crap rare challenge into Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 and try for your chance at the $20 prize!
My last article talked about the basic flaws in aggro decks and why they were historically annihilated. Now I’ll to try to help you out a bit when constructing an aggro control / combo deck for Vintage. We’ll start by breaking down some of the more successful aggro decks of the past and see what can be applied to today’s models.
I won’t ever get to go to the Invitational, so I can only try to fulfil this objective by proxy. But most players at one time or another have thought about designing their own cards (including some people who have designed whole expansions), so humor me while I explain which Red card I would make, if I had the opportunity.
