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Over the past few weeks, my columns have included additional sections that tended to be about the laws of randomness and probability, what laymen (“Heh, he said ‘lay’ and ‘men.'”) call the law of averages. A lot of people seem to be confused about these topics. Others just wanted to know more. I’ve typically not gotten involved in these types of detailed columns about complicated theories that seem to exist in the Magic universe. However, it was suggested by one of my readers that given my background, I might, you know, get involved and write something that was both informative and enteratining on the subject…

Did you read Becker’s piece yet? Good. Now we can move on.

I asked Jon to talk about his different play style from Derek Rank’s in those ancient days of the Frenetic Efreet, back when Invested cards like Browse were good, for a reason. Though I will stand by the fact that there is One Right Play on any stack (or any of those non-stack moments when you can play or tap land or whatever), that is not to say that there is necessarily one right Plan. Probably you are scratching your head right now. What do you mean one right Plan? What is a Plan?

Magic’s greatest crank succumbs to Flores’s relentless pestering, and finally writes another article! Today, Jon discusses the idea of one correct play, set reviews, pokes fun at Elliot Fertik (again), and goes no holds barred with his opinion of Geordie Tait’s recent theoretical excursions.

This is it, the final installment of Ben’s masterful look at the lowest of the lowlights in the game of Magic. You know you’ve been waiting for it all week, and now it’s here. Ben finally gives you an answer to the question:

What is the worst Magic card of all time?

“If you see a Fangren Hunter in your pack, take it! Put it in your deck, add lands, and shuffle up — It Is Awesome.” — Random Magic Online Quote

Translation: Avoid Green and win!

Ah, Black. The color of Witches, Evil, and Darkness. Ken Ho proved one of my initial thoughts last weekend when he took down GP Oakland with a mono-Black draft deck in Mirrodin Limited. The moment I saw the spoiler for Darksteel, I decided that this deck would finally have enough firepower to exist prominently in the draft metagame.

I was on my worst MODO losing streak ever, and was actually desperate enough to ask Phil Samms for help. Phil, in his infinite wisdom said, “You should draft R/B.” And from those humble beginnings, a strategy was born. I’d ask about stuff like”Pewter Golem or Consume Spirit here?” and Samms would say something like”Neither,” and tell me, in what I imagined to be the tones of a professor lecturing a prize student, that I should be drafting more Nim Lashers and Disciples of the Vault.

At the mention of Nim Lasher in particular, eyes seemed to light up.

First of all, why does this list even exist? Part of me wanted to have a definitive list of bad cards, one that didn’t include mistakes such as Phyrexian Dreadnought or Lion’s Eye Diamond. It took me a long time to do research for this article, and a long time to write all the pieces. While there are a couple of cards which have slipped through the cracks (Divining Witch/Deathlace), for the most part I feel like I’ve done a good job of covering all the bases.

And yet, there are arguments that certain cards are/are not the worst cards of all time…

This is me pretending to be Star City’s sometimes resident curmudgeon, Jonathan Becker (hint, hint). There have been some features, both interesting and just controversial, that have been thought-provoking for me; this article includes my reactions to a bunch of the stuff that has been posted either on the front page or the forums of this site over the past couple of weeks. If it wanders around or seems a little different from the work that you’ve come to know and love (or ignore) from yours truly, blame Jon Becker.

In case this is your first time reading one of my set reviews, allow me to get the ground rules out of the way. One of the most boring things about set reviews is that so many cards which are marginally useful are reviewed. There’s only so many times I can read comments like,”Okay in sealed, bad in Constructed,” or,”Not the worst choice in a theme deck, but poor quality for tournament decks.” I have better things to do with my time than to review a bunch of chaff and filler. That will give me more time to discus the Darksteel goodies.